Page 50 of Freedom
When they went downstairs and knocked on Alex’s back door, she called for them to come in. She was standing at the stove in her kitchen, stirring a large pot. “We’ve got chicken tortilla soup tonight. Jake, mind setting the table? The silverware drawer’s right beside me and glasses are in the cupboard overheard. Tobias, I’d appreciate it if you can chop these limes into quarters.” She waved him toward a cutting board with a few limes beside it.
Tobias hesitated, looking to Jake with worry in his eyes, and Jake offered a bracing smile. Tobias swallowed and stepped forward, hands clenching once before he reached for the knife.
Jake withdrew a fistful of silverware and three glasses, taking them to Alex’s circular dinner table with cotton place mats. He kept a surreptitious eye on Tobias just to make sure he wasn’t triggered, but Tobias seemed okay, handling the knife and each lime with infinite care and precision. When he was done, Alex waved him toward a bunch of cilantro she’d rinsed in the sink, requesting that he chop them up as well.
Jake’s next task was to go to the fridge to pull out a large jug of sun tea, queso fresco, a jar of salsa that looked homemade, and a couple of avocados.
“Final thing is the bowl of tortilla chips in the pantry, Tobias,” Alex told him. “Our abuelita Carmen makes them every week and brings me some on Sunday. They’re damn good. Here, put them on the counter, we’re going to add them before the soup.”
Then she took out big ceramic bowls with painted flowers inside, handed over a bag of tortilla chips to crumble into the bowls, and invited them to serve themselves ladles of soup.
“Thanks for all this,” Jake said, a little awkward. He wasn’t used to anyone making him meals other than Roger, who never made a big deal of it, like he just happened to be making enough food anyway to share with Jake.
She beamed at them. “De nada. I’ll tell you a secret—this is Carmen’s sopa too. I can throw together decent huevos rancheros, which is what you’ll get if you stick around in the morning, but I don’t even try with sopa. It takes more time than I’ve got, unless I’m working in the church kitchen with all the ladies who really know what they’re doing.” She nodded toward the table. “Go on, have a seat.”
Tobias met Jake’s eyes, silently asking permission, and Jake nodded at him and led by example, pulling out his chair. Toby copied him, letting out a careful breath after he’d sat down.
They both followed Alex’s example of squeezing in lime juice, spooning in the cheese, and sprinkling cilantro. Jake had never had homemade tortilla soup before. He didn’t think of himself as any kind of soup man, but once he’d tried the first spoonful, he was ready to sign up as a convert for la Iglesia de Sopa, if it existed.
“This is really good,” Tobias said, hesitant and quiet, and Alex grinned at him.
“I’ll pass your compliments on to Carmen.”
Dinner conversation proceeded with a strange kind of awkward and normalcy. Alex directed most of her comments and questions at Tobias, asking him how he’d liked Boulder, what his favorite tourist stop had been, if he had a fast food preference yet. Nothing more recent than the last few months since Jake had gotten him out, and gradually Tobias’s shoulders relaxed and he answered more easily without looking to Jake first each time.
Before he’d gotten to the bottom of his first bowl of soup, Jake started to fully appreciate what Alex was doing. As much as Toby hated attention, it was good for him to be included, to be treated normally. That was something Roger hadn’t done, as much as Jake hated to admit it.
“So, how’d you get the church anyway?”
Alex grinned. “Ah, yeah, my last great hunt. I guess it was about five years ago now. I’d just moved to the area from Texas and heard about this church having trouble. Members swearing there were snakes in the walls, hissing and whispering, or they could see them running under the pews, but nothing was ever caught. The old priest did his best with an exorcism, but nothing helped. Then they got the ASC to come out a couple times, though it was a hassle each time. Usual bullshit with them thinking Latinos were crazy and making it up.” She rolled her eyes. “So I came in to see what I could do, and I found an old hex bag stashed behind the drywall in the priest’s office, but it was too late. No one really believed it was gone, and they’d already found a new building to move to. But I asked if I could stay, and a few families heard me speak and decided to stick around too. Then they stayed, and here we still are.”
“Huh.” Jake eyed her. “Why’d you quit hunting?”
She shrugged, spreading out her hands palms up. “I knew it was time. It happens to some of us before we wind up dead. I knew this was where I should be, more than out in the field. So I was at peace with it.”
Jake shared a glance with Tobias. He couldn’t imagine making a call like that: just sit back and stop taking hunts even if they walked right up to him. Maybe if some real heavy shit went down, something that made Toby ask him to stop, or if Jake had to quit hunting to keep him safe, he might give it up. But it wouldn’t be easy, not as long as he had the use of all four limbs and his noggin.
When they emptied their bowls a second time, Jake was almost startled when Tobias spoke up again. “Thank you again—can I help you clean up?”
She gave him another enormous smile. “Sure, you and Jake can lend a hand. Go on and carry these bowls over to the sink, and Jake can help me pack up the leftovers.”
Back in Alex’s garage apartment, Tobias helped Jake figure out the air pump and inflatable mattress. It was a better bed than many he’d had, but when Tobias sat down on the quilt-covered actual bed and gave him a crooked smile with a tilt of his head, Jake immediately plopped down next to him. They leaned back against the wall, their knees knocking together.
Tobias yawned, slipping sideways onto Jake’s shoulder. “Almost as good as Los Bandidos.”
Jake gave an incredulous snort, and Tobias lifted his head to show him an honest-to-God mischievous grin, which nearly made him snort again. He brushed his hand through the back of Toby’s curls, lightly scratching at his scalp. “I won’t tell Carmen you said that.”
Tobias’s shoulders shook in a slight laugh, and Jake smiled against his hair.
Breakfast with Alex the next morning was just as good as dinner had been. The eggs came from a parishioner’s chickens, she told them as she scooped healthy portions of tomatoes, beans, and peppers onto their tortillas. “It’s as good a meal before a hunt as it is before working outside all day.”
As they ate, she peppered Jake with questions about his usual routine for poltergeists, which he almost took offense to but allowed that she was just doing her job before sending two hunters she didn’t know to a case.
An hour outside Sahuarita, they met Jose at his trailer, not unlike one of those Jake had occasionally stayed in as a kid with his dad when they hadn’t had a better rental or short-lease apartment.
Jose was an older man with a shock of white hair, his hands gnarled from age and use. He only spoke a few words of English, but Jake got the full rundown about all his grandkids and the diablo that had the cajones to move in. Alex had called ahead to let him know they were coming, so he didn’t put up much of a fuss before leaving to visit a neighbor’s house the rest of the day. Then, he told Jake, his daughter Angelina would pick him up after she finished work and take him back to her apartment where he’d been staying since the trouble at his trailer started.
Tobias and Jake went through the sparsely decorated trailer, performing a routine search for any suspicious objects, then planted their antihex bags in the corners. It always felt a little too easy to Jake without an actual showdown with a spirit, but as nothing showed itself, they turned back to the Eldorado. Jose had assured them he’d call Alex again if the shrieks and banging started up again.
