-----

She didn't care.

Her stomach was growling. She didn't care.

It had rained earlier that day. She was soaked. She didn't care.

Her lips were cracked and stung when the rainwater dripped over them. She didn't care.

Beto was gone six months now. Nobody had heard anything. Nobody knew anything. She didn't care.

She had a tissue, soaked in activo, in her hand and her hand to her nose. The fumes made her eyes water and her head spin, and this she liked. This she cared about.

She heard a voice. There were always voices, always coughs, moans or screams. She ignored it, thinking it was for someone else, and went back to staring up at the hazy brown sky.

She heard it again, so she looked around. She saw a woman with white hair. I have something to give you, she said.

Someone had given Chuy something once. Some soup. He had ended up in an ambulance, and la Placa came around, asked a few questions, and left. Nobody knows what happened to Chuy.

She accepted it. If it wasn't something she could use, she could trade with el Jefe and get something else.

She felt it in her hand, then through her hand. She looked at the ground to her left, then right. She couldn't see anything but the muddy dirt surrounding her.

She thought she must have dropped it. She didn't care. She leaned back against the wall and held her tissue near her face.

-----

There are a great many things to which you do not want to be woken up in the middle of the night. There are a great many things you simply do not wish to see. Michael had seen too many of them already.

Two weeks ago, he had fished two boys out of a flooded basement. In March, a girl overdosed on a park bench. She had been eight months pregnant. In December, a girl came, carrying her 21-day-old child, who had blue lips and blue skin. She was insistent that they do something, but she hadn't cried. Not to mention the daily wounds from knife fights and the ever-present upper respiratory infections caused by a combination of Ciudad de Mexico's air quality and activo.

"Papa Mike!" they call him. He tries to answer. He's been able to sin very fluently in his anger in two languages while dealing with the police and ambulances and the food banks, even if he still stumbles over his words on Sunday. You learn the words you need most, maybe.

Luís was almost in program. He was coming around, and, once he was in program, they could do something for him. Find housing. Find a job. Get him started in the process of getting him off the street. But he still hung out with ratas and he smelled of paint thinner. Tonight -- or was it late enough to be this morning? -- he came in asking for help. Pleading for help. Michael grabbed his blowout kit and they ran.

They found the boy in the Consulado Metro station, in a bathroom. He was bleeding and going into shock. A deep neck wound. His hands and feet were cold. They laid him down on the tile, then Michael left to call for an ambulance, and they waited with the boy, praying over him and talking to him until it arrived, two hours later. "Un perro?" He kept asking? Was it a dog that bit you? The blood loss was way too severe. It had gone on too long. The boy would die in the ambulance, or soon after.

Luís walked with him back to the Mission , asking about the boy. Would he live? When would he be back?

Papa Mike had no answer for him.

-----

She and Béatriz sat on the corner, leaning back and holding their tissues to their face. A few of the younger kids were playing futbol in the street.

They talked about el Jefe and his tattoos and about how warm the weather was. There was so much they wouldn't talk about, so they spent most of the time quietly.

The children were cheering loudly as they kicked their battered ball around. Two cardboard boxes were the goal on one end, and the remains of a desk served as the other. There was one on each end of the block. Sometimes a kid would trip and skin a knee on the cracked asphalt, but the game went on.

She remembered when she used to play before. She had cleats and a uniform and her own ball. She would play with her big sister most afternoons, working on dribbling and blocking. She remembered her sister's smiles.

One child would kick at the ball and another would block, sometimes causing the ball to fly off in a random direction. This time, it rolled toward her. She stood up unsteadily and kicked the ball toward the far goal. The ball flew, knocking over the cardboard goal marker and traveling on down the street, the kids cursing her and running hard after it.

-----

Michael always went to the Embassy on Wednesdays for lunch. It wasn't that he liked being in close proximity to suits clocking their foreign service time before returning to Foggy Bottom. He disliked diplomats. They were so ... diplomatic.

His lunch partner, Cal, was really too young to command an embassy detachment. He was a bit too short, too. The Corps liked embassy Marines to look like wrestlers in uniform. They need to look imposing. Cal was there nonetheless. And he always had good food. "Hey, Doc! Come in."

He was looking over the front page of the Los Angeles Times. Cal wasn't normally a newspaper reader, so this was something.

"So, what's the news?"

"Old billet of mine fell in a hole." He put the paper aside and put a cooler on the desk. He opened it and pulled out two bottles of Coca-Cola and two wrapped sub sandwiches.

"Really? Where?"

"College town in southern California. The Corps decided I'd be more valuable with a degree. Thought I could use some education and culture and shit, so I went."

Michael looked at the front page. "Anybody injured? Killed?"

"Didn't know yet when they wrote this. Most everyone got out beforehand."

"They feel early tremors?"

An unreadable expression went across Cal's face. "Something like that, I'm sure." The look passed. "Nobody I knew was still there, I don't think. No matter. What's on your plate today?"

"I got called in to help a kid last night. By the time I got there, he was almost gone. Blood loss and shock. They took him to the kid hospital at La Villa, but I've heard nothing but runaround over the phone. I'm sure he's dead -- believe me, if you'd seen him last night and then saw him live, I'm sure I'd get you to convert -- but they won't even confirm they have the body. I've arranged a plot in San Isidro, but if we can't find him, then what?"

"Want me to take a few corporals and bust up the place? I think that would count under diplomatic immunity."

"No. Don't want to make an international incident of it. That would be bad. I just want to talk about those fuckheads to someone who won't tsk at me for it." Mike removed the plastic wrap from his sandwich and took a bite. "It's the oddest thing, though. The kid was bitten. I thought maybe it was wild dogs. Maybe somebody's fighting dog. Actually, probably a fighting dog. It went for the kid's throat."

Cal swallowed before he started. "So the missing body kid's throat was torn out by a dog or something?"

"I think so."

"Tough gig, Doc. Are you sure you don't want back in? They're always looking for chaplains. Even when you're out, you're still a Marine."

"I was never a Marine. Just a Navy man stupid enough to want to patch up a Marine." He took a sip of his soda. "Besides, even with this kind of thing, there's still nothing under God's Heaven scarier than a pissed-off Marine."

"Yeah." Another odd look on Cal's face. "Hey, since you're serious about this sky pilot shit, when are you gonna get into uniform?"

"Uniform?"

"Yeah. You can tell a soldier by the uniform. That's the Geneva Convention. When I see you, I know you. I know you were a corpsman, and I will never say a bad thing about you crazy-ass people. But I can't see it by looking at you. Just a guy with an aloha shirt and a civilian haircut."

"So you say I should wear a cross around my neck and this will make all the difference?"

"Couldn't hurt, right?" Cal took another bite. "The red onions were really good today, don't you think?"

-----

It was a long walk to Zona Rosa, but it was usually worth it. The discotheques stayed open late, so she could hear a strong dance beat. She had scavenged what she could from abandoned plates at open-air restaurants and was in the alley behind one, looking for more. After a while, she would meet Béatriz at el Monumento a La Independencia. After that, they had no plan.

The sound of footsteps brought her back to reality. They were coming closer, so she crouched behind some garbage cans. If it was trouble, she was ready to run. She pulled the hood of her dark blue sweatshirt over her head and tried to blend into the shadows. Her tissue sat loosely in one hand. She put the other to the ground for balance and breathed shallow, watching the dark.

A woman was trying to run away in heels. Her skirt swung around her knees and her leather purse bounced back and forth from her elbow. This woman was not prepared for the chase.

She felt him before she saw him, dropping in front of the running woman from the roof of a building. He was on her before she could scream, pushing her back. One of her shoes went flying and her purse crashed to the ground, spilling everything out.

She heard a growl and some wimpering, so she ducked lower. She held her breath. She was on the balls of her feet, ready to run. Silent tears ran down her face as she willed herself to run, to attack, to do something other than shiver in fear.

The struggling finally stopped and she heard footsteps lead out to the street. She counted to a hundred before she dared come out of her hiding place. She was in a crime scene, she knew, and she had to leave now. Who knew what la Placa would think if they found her here? But still, she moved toward the body. Her legs shook as she stepped over a folded magazine, a cell phone, a compact.

She looked down and saw the victim's wallet. She pulled her sleeves over her hands and picked it up.

-----

They rode the Metro back. Béatriz argued, saying it was better to save money, but in the end, they rode. The red train was lightly populated at this time of night, still Béatriz begged from and was turned away by each rider.

She stayed in her seat and counted what she had taken. Nearly a thousand pesos. More money than she had ever had. She had left the dead lady's wallet, knowing that she could never make use of the identification or credit cards, and she didn't want to sell them to el Jefe. That seemed too much. She had picked up the telephone and compact. She didn't know what to do with the makeup, but thought the mirror would be useful, and she had brought him stolen phones before.

She was still filled with nervous energy and an aching hunger, even though she had eaten. She sat low in the plastic seat, tossing the telephone from one hand to the other. She hadn't stepped up to help the woman. She had hidden like a scared child.

But what had this woman done to deserve her help? What had anyone? And what could she do? The woman had been taller and older than she was, and she'd run in fear. Why should she care?

The telephone rang, playing in electronic beeps the melody from a recent pop song. She fumbled for the power button.

"Hola, Salmita! ¿Qué onda?" The dead woman's friend was looking for her.

She covered the mouthpiece with her hand and looked for the off button, the hang-up button. Anything.

"¿Salma?"

She gripped tighter, and the phone shattered to pieces in her hand.

-----

She bought newspapers for the next three days, looking for reports of a body found in Zona Rosa, of an investigation. Any sign that la Placa would do something other than chase her away from where las turistas could see her. There was no sign of that. On the fourth day after, she went back to the alley, looking for something to prove to her that this hadn't been something she had dreamed. Her first look showed nothing, nor her second, nor her third. She didn't know what that meant. She walked through the alley one more time, at times getting on her hands and knees. She found lipstick, a deep red like her Mama wore. That proved it. The woman was dead. It was real. She wiped the tube with the sleeves of her sweatshirt and dropped it.

She wouldn't discuss this with Béatriz or with Luís. They would not understand. She knew that like she knew about Luís, about him and Carlos and how they would use a knife to get money, and like she knew about Béatriz, how she would ride on the Metro or walk through a crowd of turistas at the Zocalo and come out with money or cameras or telephones. They would say that this woman is dead, that she was alive. Why should she care? It wasn't like she could have done anything.

She started having dreams, something she hadn't experienced in years. There were four dreams she dreamed over and over again: a hummingbird with gleaming blue feathers, floating more than flying across a field, stopping and sipping nectar from a flower, which then wilted and died; a river, filled with fire and ice, flowing to a cold, gray sea, and a man walking out of it, naked and gray but with fire in his eyes; a box, filled with screaming and crying, drawn, by men pulling rough woven rope, into the mouth of a large stone wolf; and Beto. That dream changed each time. Beto in rags. Beto in black silk. Beto, naked and in a bed with a long-haired gringa. Beto pushing an indio boy on his knees. And some even worse. But it was always Beto, and he always had a smile that made him look like he held the deed to the world, even when he wore rags. She did not know what to do with these dreams, what to think of them. Luís told her there was a woman he had met who was a bruja, and that she would interpret the dreams.

The woman was asleep on a cardboard box in front of a convenience store, her head resting on a plastic garbage bag. Duct tape was wrapped around the toe of her right shoe. Her hair was gray, short but uncombed. She emitted a long stream of muttered obscenities until she held the gift Luís had recommended, a bottle of cheap tequila. The bottle was half-empty before the bruja spoke again.

"¿Te llamas?"

"Nena."

The witch took another long drink from the bottle. The dreams are not for me to decipher, she said. You are what you have chosen to become, and this is a part of it. The gifts have been given and so have the responsibilities. All that is left, little one, is to take up a weapon and take to battle. The bruja reached into her garbage bag, and pulled out a piece of wood, about 25 centimeters long and carved to a point, and placed it in Nena's hand.

She told parts of the story to Luís and Béatriz back at the crumbling post office they slept in, and they all laughed. Béatriz said this proves that magic is bullshit. Nena laughed, too, but she slept with the wooden gift in her sweatshirt pocket, next to her butterfly knife.

-----

She started taking walks across town during the night. Sometimes she walked near the clubs in the Polanco. Other times she walked through shantytowns built in parks, in graveyards, and next to closed factories. Sometimes she would sit in the Terminal Central del Norte, watching the buses come in from the towns between here and los Estados Unitos, carrying people who, like Béatriz, had come to el Districto Federal looking for a future, and the buses heading north to Matamoros, to Ciudad Juarez and other towns on the border, filled with people either giving up hope and returning to family, or hoping to cross over the border to a better future.

Most of the time, she traveled with her tissue, fogging her thoughts and going where her feet told her. Sometimes she was followed, and she flashed her butterfly knife to scare them off. She didn't know what led her to walk at night, but she did know it kept her from dreaming.

It changed one night, as she crossed over la Avenida Rio Consulado on the footbridge. Everything changed.

She was being followed. This she knew. She was far enough ahead that she would be able to react, one way or the other, should he try to get closer. She was halfway across when a figure walked up, putting himself between her and the ramp down. She was trapped.

She dropped into a fighting stance and flipped open her knife. Her tissue fell to her feet, then was blown in the breeze into the chain-link fence that formed the sides of the bridge.

The figure in front of her laughed. "Niña estupida. ¿Eh, Tonino? Piensa que es la Cazadora."

"¿Podría ella ser la Cazadora?"

"No, la Cazadora es una gringa, puto. Ella esta en la Boca del Infierno." He laughed and pointed at her. "Este sola una comida."

She heard the person approach behind her, and she changed her stance so she could turn and keep both in view. Her legs were unsteady, so she leaned against the fence to disguise her stupor. After a moment she could see them in the headlights of the cars rolling beneath them. The figure behind her was an indio in a black jacket and a white v-neck tee shirt. The one in front of her wore faded tie-dye and torn cargo pants.

The one in tie-dye settled into fighting stance, standing like a Lucha Libre wrestler. He chuckled and smiled wide. "Tu primero, Cazadorita. Attacame."

Nena felt them. Like she'd felt the killer in the alley. This one gave her the first move, so she leaped, plunging her knife deep into his neck. She pulled it out, slicing as she did, leaving a gaping hole in his neck. Blood flew from the blade and splattered against the fence. She stepped back, sure as the blood on her hands that he would fall down in front of her.

He didn't. He staggered, holding a hand to his neck, smiling. She could hear a wet slurp, then bubbling. Her legs felt shaky. He was laughing. His throat was slit and he was laughing at her. His eyes turned yellow and his face grew ridges across the forehead. She turned her head, and the other one was on her, showing teeth like a wild dog and biting at her throat.

She felt herself thrown to the side. The knife clattered across the bridge. "Chingado puta!"the indio spat, her blood running down his chin. "Sabe a una fábrica." The other one, the one without a throat, grabbed her shoulders and flashed his teeth.

She felt a wave of energy, and, riding this wave, she grabbed the throatless one's head. It was almost like someone or something else was controlling her. She turned it, and she felt ripping, cracking, tearing, and then her hands were full of dust. She fell to her knees.

She crawled first, trying to get up speed as she got to her feet. She held her hand to the bite on her neck and began to run.

-----

Sometimes Michael thought he didn't get it. Sometimes he thought he did. Or feared he did.

He was in the office, ham-handedly working on the monthly status letter, when he got an anonymous call, saying a homeless girl, covered in blood, was sitting on the curb near her apartment building. The caller hadn't called the policía. She hadn't called an ambulancía. Either that said something about his compassion or about the effectiveness of the policía.

The girl was about fifteen years old, with tangled shoulder-length black hair. She sat, leaning against a tree, with blood on her hands as well as running down her neck. She was wearing a black sweatshirt, so he couldn't be sure how much she had bled. Her left hand was covering her neck, so he couldn't get a good look at the wound either.

She also was holding a tent peg like it was a knife.

The more general diagnosis was standard. Too skinny. Sores around the mouth. An occasional cough.

He kept back. He didn't want her to see him as a threat, on general principal and due to her grip on the wooden peg. He put his bag down, told her his name, and asked if he could help her.

"No cuido."

He used to wear rubber gloves doing this sort of work. Señora Paula yelled at him when she found out he went without, but there was meaning to naked hands. I'm not afraid to touch you.

He sat down next to her and took a better look at the neck wound. It was a bite, but not deep. He asked what bit her. Was it a dog?

"No perro. Tonino." She winces as he begins to clean the wound, but doesn't cry out. "El otro lo llamó Tonino."

He can tell she's been huffing. The smell of paint thinner is strong on her breath. So there was two, he says. What happened to the other one?

"Lo van." He's gone.

He checked her hands. No cuts. Some of the blood was hers, but not all of it. Tell me about the other one, he said. Is that his blood?

She looked away, didn't respond.

He cleaned off her neck enough to keep the wound from getting infected and for the adhesive to stick.

She started to speak in halting sentences. She stole from a dead woman, she said. She saw her die and took her money. Maybe, if she had done something, the woman would be alive. Since then, she has had dreams she didn't understand. "Soy un monstruo."

She took a deep breath, trying to hold back emotion. Then she started to speak. She asked a witch, who told her she had made her choice, that what she had to do is take up a weapon and go out and be a monster.

He asked if that was what she wanted, if she wanted to be a monster.

Again, no response.

He started in with the story of Samson. He hadn't been a monster, just a cabrón, befriending the enemies of the people and doing bad things. He was supposed to be a mighty warrior, but he didn't fight like he should have. He was tricked and stripped of his powers and was blinded and set to be killed, but God blessed him and gave him his strength back and he died with honor. Mike chose to tell this story like it was a superhero version of the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Kids like superheroes.

If she was a boy, he could get her into the program, set her up in the dormitory with some food, a shower, and some new clothes. She didn't want to be who she was anymore, which was a big step to getting off the street. But there wasn't yet a girl's dormitory. There were plans, there were ideas, but there wasn't money, a building or staff. Señora Paula says girls have gotten tougher since the Mission started.

Tomorrow, he told her, he would change the dressing and she could get a meal and a shower. All she had to do was come into the Mission . He helped her stand and steadied her as she led him to her squat. It was the least he could do, he thought.

-----

There were seven of them, waiting for the Mission. Nena knew most of them from around. Octavio left Maribel about four months ago, going back to his home village, he said, and now she was beginning to show. They had passed a churro to celebrate her fourteenth birthday last month. Now she's talking with Erika about drugs and la Placa, el Jefe's tattoos and her plans to get out. They both held tissues to their face.

Nena didn't have a tissue. She scratched idly at the bandage on her neck, basically for her hands to do something. She had wanted Béatriz to come, too, but she said she had something to do. She said her cousin wanted to talk to her about a housekeeping job. She had said that before.

She had spent the night without sleep. The dreams would be there, and she was confused enough already. She was feeling nauseous and shaky, hungry and tired. She wasn't sure about Papa Mike and his story. She wasn't decided if the blessing Samson received was much of a blessing, but Papa Mike had shown he cared, and that felt good.

The door to the Mission opened. The guard collected their tissues as they filed in, with Nena at the end of the line.