01.090 The Goat

Later that same day (Monday, April 18, 2022)

Santiago, Chile

The gang leader, La Cabra, sat across from them eating a chopped beef pie and drinking a beer. He didn’t offer them any which was rude.

“I wanted to meet the chica who do soundly beat mis huevóns, they said you were small, and I thought I would make you my polola, my girlfriend. But you are too young.” The gang leader was an older fat guy, balding. He looked like anyone, except for his hands which were gnarled and bruised and calloused. Well he was sort of a pig but not, thought Ella as she stood impassively next to the seated Bahu.

“I would like to see her fight again, but I can hardly afford to lose more men. These Carabineros, they have gone insane. Killing them is not good for business, but I may not have much choice.”

He stabbed a piece of meat from his pie and started chewing on it.

“They will not take a bribe, and they have killed several of mine. They keep asking where some Argentino is. Some boy.”

La Cabra pulled out a crumpled piece of paper and threw it on the table. Bahu reached over and smoothed it out. The drawing of the boy was unremarkable. Maybe fifteen or a bit younger. A name was written on the paper, Sebastian Gonzalez. And next to it was another drawing. Of a dagger that looked remarkably like the one Ella had left in New York - a long double sided, symmetric blade and a handle that had brass knuckles built in.

La Cabra stabbed the picture of the dagger with his finger, “And that. They say it is worth forty millón pesos. That is good money.”

Ella kept her face impassive. But now they knew what they were looking for. And who might have it. She looked at the young boy. He was on the run, from a different country.

“Damn sloppy way to operate,” growled Bahu. “Handing out pictures of your target? I thought the drow were supposed to be excellent spies? This is practically giving intel away!”

Zaidu interrupted, “They were good as spies in the time of the Kingdoms. But you work for the US Defense Intelligence Agency, I think these vermin,” and Ella knew he was looking at her, “have become much more sophisticated in deceit.”

Bahu grumbled some more. Ella had to admit that thus far the drow had not been that impressive. Miami had been a complete mess and her novice squad had taken down a drow cell.

But the drow had also only recently been freed from their walled-off realm. Interviewing Ansheth, their imprisoned drow, had been a mix of astonishing ignorance and crammed knowledge in equal measure.

“Forty million pesos. That is what? Fifty thousand US?”

“About. It is enough to get people to look very seriously but not so much that they know how valuable it is.”

Ella had been working on keeping a trickle of magic running through her eyes. Not quite enough to penetrate her contacts, but enough for her to practice her sensory skills as needed. As she stood there behind Bahu at the table of La Cabra, she had found each of their guns. She had been almost able to visualize them. It was slow and tedious going, but Ella needed to be efficient in learning her magic and this was hitting multiple needs at once. Her time was never going to be enough.

And in evenings she would lay in the hotel bed, read physics and model equations in the air using her illusions. It was easier and harder than people. And she kept trying to make sounds but that was even harder than she thought it should be. Until she realized she was thinking of light as particles and sound as waves, but sound was really movement of particles and she needed to percuss the air.

The first time she tried her ears were ringing and everyone came to the door thinking there had been a gunshot. Ella said she had dropped a glass and was fine.

Things went better after that.