CHAPTER FOUR
SURPRISE, SURPRISE

THE WOMAN ON the stage is beautiful. Her perfect figure is covered by minimal clothes like the other dancers here are wearing, a heavy necklace is lying around her neck, along with a live snake that doesn't bother her one bit. The other dancers leave the stage as she starts dancing, calmly letting the snake move over her entire body. Since most of the people in the audience are men, she easily gets their attention, but even I find myself staring at her. The stage and the audience belong to her — Santanico Pandemonium. 

Focus, I scold myself after a few seconds and return my gaze to the man next to me. "I can come with you."

"You're crawling back to me because your little boyfriend let you down," John finally says and it takes me a moment to realize he's talking about Seth. "I'm staying for the show, just like he is."

Sighing, I look away from him as Santanico disappears from the stage. It's like she vanished. Everyone starts looking around, curious about where she went. Then, I notice someone standing next to Richie and it's no other than Santanico. She glances at him before disappearing again and reappearing on stage, her snake gone. The crown that she wore for one moment gets thrown away and she approaches the poll in the center of the stage and starts dancing around it.

"Please, I'll pay you," I lie to John. It could have been a good offer if I had any money on me.

When he looks at me, I think I managed to crack him, until he says, "Do both of us a favor and stop wasting time, sweetheart. You've shown your real skin, now get lost."

My stomach drops as frustration washes over me. John looks at the stage again, our conversation obviously over and leaving me with nothing. The only reason why I stay in my place is that I don't know what to do next. I look at the Fullers and the Geckos, who are all transfixed with Santanico, as she makes her way on the tables and over to them.

For the next minute, I watch with a frown as Santanico lets Richie drink from her foot and then gets down on four to lick him. It's a strange scene to watch and for some reason, her presence gives me a growing uncomfortable feeling. Something about her seems mysterious and dangerous, which is probably why I prefer to be away from her.

Finally, I get away from John and intend to walk out alone. I'm tired; tired of arguing, of following people in hopes they would give a damn about me, tired of my attempts to get out of here. So, I'm not waiting anymore.

A few steps separate me from the stairs that lead out when I see a man standing there and looking around. He looks furious. When he finds what he's looking for, he quickly walks to it. A second later, I see him stab Richie's hand with a knife. Then, he points a gun at him.

"This is for Earl," he says while Richie groans in pain and my feet take me a few steps back.

Seth quickly stands up and points his gun at the man. "He dies, you die."

They stand like that for several seconds with a nervous Richie between them. Suddenly, Santanico runs towards them. She doesn't look like herself anymore, more like some kind of demon or creature. I tell myself that it's just a game of light or my imagination before she tackles the man and throws him across the room. When she turns around, I see the same thing — an inhuman face with sharp, long teeth.

Someone starts shooting at Satanico, yet not a single bullet hits her. She walks over and jumps on the shooter, then she bites into his neck. She easily takes down anyone who approaches her, cutting through some of them and tearing the others' limbs apart.

Chaos quickly erupts as people stand up, scared. I'm about to rush to the exit and run away when I see that it's being blocked by someone. When he turns around, I see he is the same as Santanico.

Richie is somehow back on his feet and I hurry towards him and call his name. "Gun," I order.

To my relief, he doesn't hesitate and gives me back my gun. I hold it tightly with two hands but point it at the ground for now. People are getting attacked by workers of the Titty Twister all around me. Panicked, I look around and see how some people are killed within seconds and others fight the creatures. So, when Richie yells for the Fullers and me to get under the table, I don't hesitate to do so. Criminals I can handle, but this... makes me terrified. The table might not save me, but it will at least give me a temporary shelter.

My heart beats strongly in my chest as I stay crouched next to the table. The sound of Seth and Richie shooting the dancers gone wild fills my ears, and I feel relieved when I see a few falling to the ground, dead. I hear Richie telling Seth that he has seen these creatures in his visions and I scold. I scold myself for staying with the Geckos, scold the universe for getting me in this kind of situation, which feels more like a dream than reality. 

My relief is gone as soon as I see the man that was standing earlier in the entrance and welcomed us when we got here. He stands with a few men next to him, obviously having an advantage over the Gecko brothers.

"Puta," the man addresses Seth. "You miss me, mijo?"

Then, his men attack. Seth and Richie fight them with their fists and as much as I would want to fight for myself, I don't dare to move yet. My panic rises a bit when I see that the man in the hat isn't fighting the brothers, yet I soon spot him drinking the blood of a dead body. Unfortunately, he notices me.

The eye contact makes me stand up behind Seth and Richie and pull out the knife I have been hiding in my shoe. "What do we do?" I ask the brothers.

"You know, if I didn't know better, I'd say these things are vampires," Seth tells us.

He gets to test his theory on a creature that's close by and stakes him in the chest, which makes it die and disappear. 

"Yeah, yeah, definitely vampires," Seth yells.

"So, aim for the heart?" I ask as I look around, searching for any threats that might come my way.

"Exactly," Richie says, before joining Seth in fighting a few more creatures.

With not much left to do, I search for more weapons in case my gun and knife won't be enough. I hurry to where knives were being throws earlier and grab every knife I can find there. I'm not sure if they'll be deadly for the creatures, but they might hold them back a little.

I put them on the table near the brothers and keep an eye out for creatures that might be coming my way. The Fullers are not where I last saw them, which means they're either dead or hiding somewhere else, but I don't want to waste my time on looking for them when we're still in danger. 

When I notice an injured whatever-he-is crawling towards me, I take a hold of a nearby chair and start tugging on its legs. With the adrenaline rushing through my body, I manage to tear two legs off. I use one on the man on the floor, who's gone seconds after I hit him in the chest. Then, I hear someone addressing me.

"Don't worry, chulo," the man in the hat tells Seth. "Once I'm done with you and princesita, you're going to look just as pretty as me."

The odds of two against one gives me a little confidence and I come to stand next to Seth. The man approaches us, but Seth acts much quicker than I do. He takes one of the chair legs that I tore off and uses it to stab him. 

"This is your best face yet," Seth says the body as it disappears. Then, he looks at me and says, "This one's on me."

We look at each other for a moment and I give him a grateful nod. A new voice gets our attention and I turn to see Santanico standing in front of Richie in her human form again.

"—It's me. I have been waiting for you," she tells the young Gecko.

Seth moves to stand next to his brother and shoots Santanico, who immediately turns back into her vampire form and disappears. It doesn't really surprise me when Richie faces his brother to protect Santanico.

"Stop!" he immediately defends her. "Why did you do that?"

"Because she's a goddamn monster!" Seth yells back. To my surprise, he then points his gun at Richie and says, "Now, you answer me this; why has she been waiting for you?"

While I stay alert in case another creature will try to attack us, I'm as interested in Richie's answer as his brother is. Richie stares at the latter for a long moment and I half expect the next words that will come out of his mouth to be a confession that Seth won't like one bit. 

"Answer the question," Seth urges.

Instead of doing as he's told, Richie pushes Seth's gun away and says, "Get that gun out of my face."

The gun is pointed at his face again within seconds. "Says the guy who put a knife to my neck. You know, all this time I thought I was the one who brought us here, that I did the deal with Carlos. Turns out you've been a part of this club before I even knew it existed."

They argue for a few more moments and I almost get tired of it, before I hear Seth mentioning that he ditched Richie's knife in a liquor store, probably before I joined their little adventure. Again, Richie doesn't explain anything. 

"Will you two quit it?" Jacob says as he and his children walk across the stage towards us. It gives me a small comfort to see that they're okay. "We don't have time for you to play Cain and Abel. We just got attacked by the devil's legion. We need to find a way out of here."

After glaring at each other for another moment, Seth lowers his gun. I remember the things Richie told Seth about being mistreated by him. I can relate to that, but there are too many things that I don't understand that have to do with Richie and that prevents me from understanding his side. And so, we spread around the room, looking for a way out.

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Gunshots echo through the bar and I try not to flinch at them. The Titty Twister seems a lot smaller now that the people are gone and the lights are turned on. There hasn't been any luck with finding an exit that isn't blocked or locked, unfortunately. I try to scan the place for anything we might have missed, but it's difficult to focus with Seth's loud attempt of breaking the door's locks.

"You're wasting bullets, Gecko," I tell him loudly as I look at the top floor of the bar.

Richie heads towards his brother and says, "Stop, stop. She's right, it's no use. It looks like they've got tempered steel deadbolts all the way up and down."

Finally, Seth listens to us and stops shooting. With the noise gone, my shoulders relax, but, unfortunately, it doesn't help finding a way out. There just doesn't seem to be a way to get out of this place, or maybe I'm just missing something in my tired state.

Both families come to stand around me, looking as desperate and tired as I feel. The fact that six people — including two professional thieves, one ex-cop and two teenagers — can't find an exit or a getaway must mean that we are stuck here, yet I prefer to hold on to the little hope I have left and think that we're all just missing something.

"There's no way out. We checked everything backstage," Jacob declares. "There's no windows, there's no corridors, not even an access to the kitchen."

"I don't think they need one. All the meals they need are right here," I say bitterly and cross my arms over my chest.

By a few reactions that I see, my comment isn't very appreciated, but Jacob ignores it and adds, "This place is sealed up tighter than a drum."

"So, we're stuck here with... whatever they are," Kate concludes.

The tension between the Geckos rises again as Seth points at his brother and says, "Well, why don't you ask Richie? He's seen them before."

"In my mind," he says defensively.

"Bullshit!" Seth calls. "You played me like an 8-track."

There is a headache forming between my temples, fortunately, it's too weak to bother me, but Richie's answer makes it a bit stronger. Seeing them in his mind? It isn't the answer I was hoping for. But then, what was I expecting considering we're dealing with some sort of vampires here?

"You knew about these things? I begged you to let us go," Kate accuses him in a betrayed voice.

Richie wasn't the one I turned to, but I still feel for her. I give Seth a look, which he tries to ignore and I murmur, "At least someone can relate to me now."

"I knew something was coming, but I didn't know what it was," Richie justifies, but it's not enough to convince me. 

"Oh, because weird vampires are always a sign of good things coming, right?" I glare at him.

His calmness almost makes me envy him as he replies, "How could I possibly know everyone in this bar is going to turn into a..."

That leaves the question of what these things are. Kate asks if they're vampires but I'm not sure. Their fangs are slightly different than how vampire fangs are usually described. However, I don't know what they are, so I stay quiet.

"I don't believe in vampires," Richie tells the teenage girl.

Seth speaks up before I can and says, "Neither do I, Richard. However, setting aside the sheer absurdity of this conversation, they have fangs and they die when you stab them in the heart, so I'm going to go out a limb here and say Mexican Dracula."

"Except one of them ate my cross," Jacob points out.

Kate turns to her dad and asks, "Is this judgment day, Daddy?"

The turn that this conversation has taken makes me chuckle but also annoyed. While I'm not entirely sure of how I feel about God, I doubt Jacob's cross would save us. It doesn't surprise me when the two look at me with displeasure, nor do I care about it. After a second, Jacob turns the attention back to Richie.

"He's the one who should know, since he's the one with the gift of sight, apparently."

Scott murmurs something and I take a curious glance at him. Kate immediately says his name like he did something he shouldn't, but we are all looking at him and Seth's curiosity rises.

"Wait a second, what did you say?"

Now that someone is willing to listen, Scott explains. "Given that we're in Mexico and all, it makes sense that these things might be Mayan or Aztec."

"Huh?" the older Gecko asks.

Scott goes on and explains that they always have snakes in their art and that he read about an ancient race of bloodsucking reptiles. These reptiles, allegedly, terrorize people, haunt them in their nightmares and tear their limbs apart with their fangs, scales and wings. All of this information makes me momentarily think that knowing exactly what we're dealing with might not have been such a good idea.

When he mentions frog legs, Kate snaps at him and says, "Oh my god, Scott, this is from your stupid wrestling magazine, isn't it?"

"Really, kid?" Seth asks.

"Actually, the kid's not that far off," a new voice says from the other side of the stage. Instinctively, I point my gun there, along with Jacob and Seth, however, I'm the first one to lower it. None other than Sex Machine stands in front of us. Since only Kate and I came across him before, Seth walks closer to him, probably thinking that he might be a threat. 

"Wow, easy there, Tex. Put down the gun."

Seth does no such things and says, "I could say the same thing for you."

Following his gaze, I notice that Sex Machine's gun, the one he showed Kate above his crotch, is out. He definitely could have chosen a better way to approach us. If I would have been in a better mood, I would have been amused by the fact that out of all of the people that were here we're stuck with Sex Machine.

"No more business to attend?" I ask him. 

Jacob, probably the complete opposite of the man in front of us, looks at me and asks. "Who is this person?"

"Sex Machine," I say and said man closes his eyes for a second with an uncomfortable look. "Don't make that face. It's how you chose to introduce yourself to Kate when you tried to hit on her."

My explanation immediately makes Seth and Jacob step forward. They talk at the same time, causing their words to be unclear, but it's obvious that they're angry. As much as I enjoy the idea of them threatening him or anything of that kind for trying to make a move on a teenage girl, I hold my hands for them to stop.

I stare at Sex Machine threateningly as I say, "He knows not to even look at Kate the wrong way, right?"

He glares at me, before looking at the men who are still pointing their guns at him and saying, "Now, hold on a second. The name's Aiden Tanner. Professor Aiden Tanner. I'm undercover for Sex Machine."

Kate chuckles. "You? You're a professor?"

"Yes. Department of archeology, Alamo state," he says.

"Well, Professor," I say and cross my arms over my chest. "I think you've taken your part a bit too seriously."

Apart from glaring at me again, he doesn't let me interrupt him and explains that after consulting with a ranger about a series of blood killing among the border, he decided to follow him and ended up here, thinking that said ranger was on a trail of something big. 

"Yeah, okay. What do you mean the kid's not far off?" Seth asks and points at Scott.

Even though I feel a lot of disdain towards the man, Tanner might be the only person who actually knows something about what is going on here. I'm going to give him a chance and hope that he won't make me regret it, mainly for his sake.

"What I mean is..."

"These are Mexican dragons," Richie says from where he's sitting behind us and I raise my eyebrows at him.

"Exactly," Aiden says and continues. "Ladies and gentleman, we are standing in the domain of the Waxaklahun Ubah Kan, or Los Culebras, which, in Spanish means—"

Richie completes his sentence again. "Serpents."

This time, I glare at Richie. I guess that knowing a bit about everything is very calming, because he is the calmest one among us, aside from Tanner. Yet, it's not the only reason why I'm getting annoyed with him — I don't get Richie. One minute he's as clueless and surprised as we are, the next one he knows a lot much more than we do, and I don't know how to treat him because of that.

"Yes. Now, I've been studying this for over ten years. They worship—" Tanner says and gestures at something behind him. It's the big eye statue that I saw earlier. My stomach feels like a rollercoaster again. "—the Vision Serpent. This is their territory. Their glyphs are all over these walls. I mean, I've seen their writings before, but never anything like this."

My gaze travels around the walls, searching for everything he's talking about as he continues. I've noticed the strange decorations earlier when I was looking for a way out, but now I'm looking at them in a whole different light.

"We're standing on sacred ground. This place is a source of immense power for these people."

"People?" Seth questions.

"When they want to be," Tanner replies with a half-smile. 

He decides to show us what he's talking about and lays one culebra on a table. The culebra still looks mostly like a normal person, a man, but a certain change in his face is noticeable and so are the long fangs. It seems a lot less threatening now that it's dead, but when I close my eyes I can remember exactly how scary it is when it's alive.

"A lot of what we hear about vampires comes from Spanish missionary's misconceptions about these culebras. They had most of it right, but these puppies are more snake than bat. Check this out," Tanner tells us and turns the man's head to the side, exposing his neck, which is decorated with his noticeable, dark blood vessels. 

"Venom Glands. And looks at this—" he then opens the culebra's mouth, allowing us to take a better look at its fangs. "See the fangs? Conical in shape. And they fold up against the gums, right? Cause they hinge down like a snake."

Tanner tells us shortly about the culebras being descendants of a young woman who was transformed into a demi-goddess by a snake god. I would have laughed if someone would have told me this on a normal day, but now, it makes some sort of sense and it does sound like Tanner knows what he's talking about.

"But then," he says eventually, "neither she nor these Culebras are supposed to exist."

"Yeah, well, it's been that kind of day," Seth replies.

After thinking about Tanners' last sentence, I ask, "So, the demi-goddess might be still alive as well?"

If the demi-goddess he mentioned is still here, there is a lot of more trouble coming our way. The culebras are a threat that we can barely handle already, so their goddess might be the thing that will seal our fates and make us dead people walking. 

"I can't be sure, but there is definitely a chance," Tanner replies.

Suddenly, the culebra on the table starts moving. I don't hesitate to point my gun at it, but it doesn't do anything besides moving its head, so I stay alert but don't shoot.

"We better make sure these things are dead," Seth says and brings a stake to kill the Culebra. "I mean really, really dead."

He stakes the man in the heart, which makes it growl and blood to splash out of the wound, but after a few seconds it disappears, dead. Tanner makes a comment about the way of killing them making sense to him and as much as I want to comment about the great culebra professor knowing everything aside from how to kill them, I decide to stay focused on killing the other culebras. I want to get out of here alive, after all.

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If only June could melt people with her glare... there wouldn't be many people left around lol

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