CHAPTER 1

20 years later.

Life: brief, fragile. A split second is all it takes to end it, as had just been so ruthlessly demonstrated. The echo of the gunshot had faded, and along with it the life of a beautiful young woman.

In his head, Sierra Rico could still picture that smile that made his heart flutter. He could still feel the warmth of her naked body against his own as they slept together for the first time. He could still hear her voice as she had whispered the words ‘I love you’ into his ear. But that was all Sierra had left of her now: memories.

Sierra slumped to his knees right beside her body, a broken shell of a man as the rain pelted down. All around him, the surrounding shelters, shacks and metallic ruins of San Lorenzo’s slum district had been cloaked by the night’s downpour. The rain would not be easing any time soon. But that was the least of his worries now.

The young woman, whose head Sierra cradled in his arms, at first glance appeared unharmed. It was as though she was sleeping. The rain had washed away all the blood. The only trace left of the bullet that had ended her life was a small, scarlet-died upheaval of flesh. A mere blemish, no more than an inch in diameter on the upper-left portion of her forehead. Yet even in death, her face still appeared so perfect to Sierra; her full lips, round jawline, high cheekbones and hazel eyes that could see right through to Sierra’s soul were still there, just as they had been only moments ago while she was still breathing.

“Lana…” he whispered.

Suddenly Sierra could feel something happening that he had not experienced since he was a child; tears were forming in his eyes. Even though he tried to contain them, a small stream broke free and trickled down his face. One single tear was all he shed at first. To anyone who may have been watching the tear would have passed unnoticed, lost in the relentless downpour of rain. But it did not pass unnoticed to Sierra; he could feel its warmth just as surely as a branding iron brushing up against his skin. Time seemed to stand still for him. All noise ceased at once, draining out in the back of Sierra’s mind.

“Lana…” he whispered. “Mi amor.” My love.

The tear trickled down the side of Sierra’s face and then plummeted, splashing delicately onto the cheek of that beautiful face resting in his arms. And just like that, the moment was gone. The rain resumed its unrelenting downpour all around him.

From that moment it was as if the gates of a dam had burst. Welled-up feelings sprang fourth, overwhelming Sierra. His body started to shake, his shoulders heaving as he wept uncontrollably.

...

No more than 20 yards away, a lone figure watched on with his Colt Peacemaker revolver still smoking in his hands. He appeared as little more than a silhouette in the darkness and rain, yet his cruel, unblinking eyes seemed to glow right through the black shroud, like some kind of demon. The man had waited such a long time for this day; the chance to hurt Sierra Rico in the kind of way he had once never thought possible. Now everything had turned out so perfectly, and the final victory was his.

“Angels ir al cielo,” the man muttered, glancing up into the rain-filled sky. Angels go to heaven. Then he looked back down at Sierra Rico and finished, “Diablos quemar en el infierno!” Devils burn in hell!

...

A crack of thunder then a cruel burst of laughter cut through the air, bringing Sierra crashing back to his present predicament.

Sierra swallowed, refusing to look up at the man who had walked to his side; the monster who had, only minutes earlier, ended his lover’s life so coldly.

“She’s dead, Sierra,” the killer said. “Stop embarrassing yourself and get up!”

Sierra looked up as a flash of lightning lit up the street, exposing the killer’s face from the darkness. Mickey Toma.

“How could you do that to her, Mickey?” Sierra whispered. He lowered his head again, his eyes returning to the lifeless body in his arms. “She’s the kindest woman I’ve ever known! She had no part in any of this!”

“Yes, she did; you loved her,” Toma said with disdain. “That’s enough reason for me. Now, enough of this fucking foreplay. You and I have still unfinished business to settle, Calavera!”

Calavera. Sierra cringed upon hearing that name. It was the nickname he had been branded with during his time serving Hector Chilavert as a Guerrero. In Spanish it meant The Grim Reaper. Death. That’s exactly what Sierra had become to those around him; anyone he got close to, friend or foe, always seemed to end up dead.

“Come now,” Toma unbuckled a second Guerrero belt from his waist, which he had taken from Sierra at gunpoint earlier. He tossed it into the mud beside his enemy. “Show me that you’ve still got some balls! Show me this bitch didn’t turn you into a total pussy!”

Holstering his Colt Peacemaker revolver, Toma turned and began to walk away. He stopped after twenty paces, then turned back to face Sierra, his hands dangling at his sides; his right hand by the grip of his holstered Peacemaker, his left close to the sheath of his razor-sharp 12-inch knife.

Sierra looked down at his fallen lover’s face once more, forcing the anger to subside for one last goodbye. “I love you, Lana, always,” he whispered, his lips brushing softly over hers. “Mi amor.” He closed her eyelids, carefully lying her head down to rest in the mud.

“Hurry the fuck up!” Toma called out to him through the rain. “Draw your piece and let’s play!”

As Sierra rose slowly to his feet, his focus shifted to Toma and a surge of anger took control of him. His body started to burn up as though he had a raging fever, the rain giving off a hazy steam as it came into contact with his flesh. He picked up the gun belt that Toma had returned to him, buckling it tightly around his waist.

Now he was ready. Tonight he would kill again; one last time, for Lana.

“That’s good, Sierra,” Toma grinned. “I knew you still had some fire in you!” His hand made a move for his Peacemaker just a fraction sooner than Sierra’s. In the next instant both of them had their guns out of their holsters, their shots ringing out loudly through the rain.

Sierra saw his foe’s muzzle-flash light up the darkness before him and he dropped sharply to one knee as the bullet hissed just over his head. He fired back, screaming, blazing off two rounds as his adversary ducked away to his right.

Toma dived forward and landed with a roll in the mud, coming up on one knee, and pulling the trigger, but Sierra dropped onto his back as the next bullet whizzed past his ear, missing the flesh by less than an inch. From there on the ground, Sierra rolled to his left as more bullets flashed by, splashing up the muddied street around him. He fired back repeatedly, rolling and shooting, rolling and shooting. Toma dropped quickly down to his belly and the shots sailed just over his head.

A crack of thunder echoed through the sky. For the longest of moments after it had sounded both men just lay there in the mud, their eyes locked, both still pulling their triggers even though their weapons were empty.

Toma holstered his spent sidearm, drawing the 12-inch knife from his sheath. “Okay, let’s make this interesting.”

“I’m going to carve your fucking heart out, Mickey!” Sierra screamed as he drew his knife.

They both got to their feet and charged at each other, roaring out into the night, sparks shooting as their blades connected. They ducked, deflected and countered each other’s blows in movements that could barely be traced in the dark, until at last their knives locked up between them, both men snarling furiously as their blades grinded together.

“Your little whore enjoyed every second of it,” Toma hissed, pushing his blade forward with a powerful surge of aggression. “She was whispering in my ear the whole time, begging me not to stop!”

Sierra’s arm shook with strain and he had to draw upon all its strength just to hold Toma’s blade at bay. But then the momentum slowly began to change as Sierra’s many long nights spent keeping himself in shape began to pay off. He began forcing the two blades back towards his enemy’s throat.

“You think you’re as strong as me?” Toma’s face moulded into a strained smile, then he drove his forehead into Sierra’s face, fracturing his nose with a dull thud. “Maybe on the surface. But banging that whore has made you soft!”

The fiend’s words ignited something inside Sierra and he fought right back, slamming his own forehead into Toma’s. “Monster!” Then, with their blades still gnashing together between them, Sierra angled his weapon downwards, grinding down the length of Toma’s blade and slicing across the tops of his fingers. With a cry of shock, Toma dropped his knife and it fell into the mud.

“Bleed, you bastardo!” Sierra said savagely. “I’m ripping off your fucking head tonight!”

He moved in to deliver the finishing blow — targeting the Guerrero’s carotid artery in the left side of the neck — but Toma saw it coming at the last moment and quickly brought his arm up to shield his vital area; the blade sliced over Toma’s arm, showering the faces of them both with a spray of blood and flesh. Sierra followed up quickly with a jab at the throat, but the fiend instinctively lowered his head to cover his vital areas and Sierra’s blade slashed across his chin instead.

“Bastardo, you’re dead!” Sierra moved in for another attack.

“No, not yet!” Toma suddenly clapped his palms together and caught Sierra’s blade between them. “Got ya!” he panted, then he ripped the knife from Sierra’s grasp with a roll of his wrists; the weapon flipped away through the rain, landing out in the mud.

Stunned and caught off-balance, Sierra left his ribs exposed, and Toma duly obliged him with a vicious barrage of body shot punches. The fiend’s assault concluded with a brutal uppercut to the chin which sent Sierra flailing and slipping backwards across the muddy street on spaghetti legs.

Sierra was still shaking clear the cobwebs from his head as he stumbled away from Toma down the rain-drenched street. He collapsed against the tin wall of a shack, his blurry eyes searching frantically for his foe. He caught sight of Toma again through the veil of darkness and rain just as the fiend bent down and regathered his knife off the muddy ground.

“Do you think she is waiting for you on the other side, Sierra?!” Toma called over to him. “Yes? No? Maybe? Fuck it, why wait? Let’s find out right now!” He flipped his knife over in his hand and hurled it straight at Sierra’s throat.

The blade spu through the rain like a churning rotor blade, creating a pathway of shattered rain particles. Sierra only saw it coming at the very last moment; he ducked instinctively to one side and the blade sailed past his ear, embedding itself in the wall of the shack.

Sierra drew his spent sidearm, holding it by the barrel like a club as Toma charged towards him, meeting the fiend’s attack head-on.

“Mickey!” Sierra’s feet left the ground, club raised in anticipation of smashing it down on the top of Toma’s skull. But given he was completely lost in the moment, Sierra never noticed his adversary unclipping his gun belt to use as a whip; the fiend’s belt snaked out and wrapped around Sierra’s arm and then, with a tug, Toma pulled the weapon from his grasp.

“Far too eager to finish things!” Toma growled as he twirled around Sierra and wrapped the belt tightly around his throat, using it like a noose to try to crush his windpipe.

Sierra fought desperately to break away, pounding, clawing and gouging at anything he could get his hands on, but Toma simply tightened the noose, cutting short his struggle.

“I was always better than you, Sierra, even when you were at your peak,” Toma whispered. He could feel the fight fading from his victim with each agonizing breath he took. “I’m faster, I’m stronger and my dick is bigger; just ask your whore when you see her again shortly!”

“Bastardo!” Sierra used all the strength in his lower legs to push off the ground, forcing Toma back against the wall of the shack. But still the Guerrero held on.

Come on, Sierra! Sierra willed himself to keep fighting. Don’t let it end this way! His strength was quickly fading, along with his oxygen, but he refused to give up and die just yet. It was in that moment, staring into the face of death, that Sierra looked up and saw Mickey Toma’s knife. The weapon was still embedded in the tin wall above him. He reached up, yanked the knife free and then jammed it hard and fast up through the side of Toma’s bicep.

With a cry of agony, Toma released his grip on the belt and fell back against the wall, clutching at the gushing wound.

Although he was still a little groggy and gasping for air, Sierra was free. He dropped exhaustedly to his knees, sucking in long and hard to refill his lungs.

“Sierra, hombre, you’re going to regret that!” Toma twisted the blade and pulled it out of his arm with a savage growl. “Just you wait until I ram this thing in between your fucking balls!”

But before Toma could strike, Sierra sprang back to his feet and charged at him. He tackled Toma head-on, his shoulder driving up under the ribs and knocking the wind from his lungs. The bone-rattling impact jarred the blade from Toma’s hand and sent the battered warriors crashing through the frail tin wall of the shack together. With a heavy crash, the side of the shack gave way, bringing a hail of timber and scrap metal raining down onto the two lifeless bodies below, burying them within seconds.

A deadly silence followed; the only sound at all was that of the falling rain as it tinkered across the sheets of tin around the wreckage.

At last there was movement from underneath the wreckage, then Sierra’s arm suddenly breached the surface. Slowly, weakly, he pushed away the scraps of tin from his body and crawled back into the driving rain, covered in mud and blood. There, on the muddy street, he found Toma’s knife. He picked it up, then turned around and cleared the wreckage around Toma, kneeling over his lifeless enemy.

He spat into his foe’s face, raising the knife over his head. “This is for Lana, you backstabbing fuck!” But before he could deliver the final blow, Toma suddenly sprang back to life again and caught hold of his arm.

“Thought you had me?” A wide grin flashed across Toma’s face. “What kind of fucked-up dream are you living in, Sierra?!!” He wrenched Sierra’s arm sharply to one side, sending the knife clattering away, then hurled him across the floor into the pile of wood and tin.

The fiendish Guerrero then lunged and mounted Sierra, not giving him a moment to recover. He drove a fist, then an elbow, repeatedly into Sierra’s jaw. Toma did not stop until Sierra was lying there in a bloody daze. Then he stumbled away across the wreckage to retrieve the knife.

Stay with him, Sierra! Come on! Sierra’s mind was still screaming encouragement to his body, even in his groggy condition. He rolled onto his side, forcing himself to vomit out the fluid that had collected around the gag reflex in his throat. Stand up and fight, damn you! At last he found his wits again and struggled onto his feet, using a small plank of timber like a cane to support himself. He glanced over his shoulder just in time to see the shadowy form of Mickey Toma surging towards him, looking to finish him off.

“You’re not done with me yet, Mickey!” Sierra quickly spun around and blocked Toma’s knife with his plank, wedging the blade in the wood. Then, before Toma could pull it free again, Sierra drove the plank into the fiend’s ribs, forcing him to relinguish his grip on the knife.

“My turn!” Sierra cried as he swung the timber like a baseball bat, striking Toma on the tip of his nose and dislocating it badly to one side of his face. Then he attacked again with a blistering shot to the right cheek, followed by another to the jaw.

Die, Mickey, die! Sierra’s brain shouted to him as he kept swinging wildly. He was never going to stop now. Not until Toma’s head had been pounded into mush. His lust for the monster’s blood had pushed him over the edge. He had a driving desire to inflict pain and it had seized control of his body, guiding his every move. He was howling out madly now without even realizing it, unable to do anything to stop it, to deny what his entire being craved for most of all: Mickey Toma’s brains splattered all down the muddy street.

Another shot pounded across Toma’s eye, mashing it up real good. Then another cracked him in the mouth and sent several teeth flying. Toma lumbered back in a daze and collapsed against the wall of the shack. It was the only thing keeping him on his feet.

“Now, let’s see what those brains of yours look like, Mickey!” Sierra gasped with sadistic anticipation as he went to crack the top of his skull open.

But rather than surrendering his life, Toma raised his left arm to defend himself and took the would-be headshot right on the ulna bone in his forearm. It was an instant fracture, but one that was necessary to keep himself in the fight. Grimacing as he held the plank at bay with his broken arm, Toma then delivered a forceful palm-strike to the end of the blade that was still stuck in the wood, using the knife as a wedge and his palm as a hammer to break Sierra’s makeshift weapon into pieces.

“Is that the… best you’ve got?” Toma spat out a mouthful of blood. His hand clenched into a fist and he drove it up into Sierra’s gut. “Fucking pathetic!”

Sierra felt his body going weak under Toma’s fist, fumbling what little remained of his wooden club. He doubled over, gasping for air like a fish on dry land.

“I guess… all that’s left for you to do now is die!” Toma gripped Sierra by the hair, glaring deep into his distant eyes. He went to drive his knee right through his face, but Sierra desperately threw himself forward and caught the leg in his arms.

“Let go of me!” Toma hissed.

With the fiend caught off balance, Sierra down to his back and stomped hard against Toma’s support leg, dislocating his ankle.

With the howl of a wounded animal, Toma dropped to his knees beside Sierra, who rammed the top of his skull into the his chin; the cracking impact whipped Toma’s mouth shut, forcing his teeth right through the end of his tongue and filling his mouth with blood.

“Monster,” Sierra cried as he jumped to his feet and unloaded on his dazed opponent. He followed up with his knee, driving it once, twice, three times into the barely recognizable face before him. “You took everything from me!”

His hand reached for Toma’s throat, wrapping around the windpipe and looking to tear it out in one deft move, but somehow Toma still had the wherewithal to reach up and pull Sierra’s hand away. The fiend then took hold of Sierra’s thumb and snapped it in two, twisting it around and around to prolong the agony.

“Nice work, you nearly had me there!” Toma chuckled as he buried his stone-like fist into the nasty bruising around Sierra’s already-fractured ribs, bringing him to his knees. He grabbed Sierra by the throat and squeezed, shutting off his supply of oxygen, looking to choke him out. “But now it’s curtains for you!”

Sierra frantically felt around the floor for something to use as a weapon. His fingers found a jagged shard of timber and he grasped it gratefully.

“Come on, Sierra,” Toma hissed, searching for his eyes. “At least have the balls to look at me as you die, you gutless fucking coward!”

In response, Sierra stabbed the shard of wood up into his chin; the razor-sharp tip cut through Toma’s flesh like paper and erupted out into his mouth. Toma gargled horribly as blood ran down his throat. He dropped to the floor, his shoulders heaving in an effort to clear the thick, sticky fluid from his airways.

Sierra exhaustedly pushed himself back to his feet and trudged away. He was a complete mess, barely even able to stand. His face was puffy and deformed with swelling now and his windpipe had swollen up like a balloon, restricting his breathing to short, agonizing breaths. He staggered out into the pouring rain, and there, out in the middle of the mud street, with his legs unable to carry him any further, he collapsed to his knees.

At that moment a bolt of lightning streaked through the darkness, a deafening crack of thunder sounded.

Sierra tilted his head up, gazing into the sky as the rain pounded down hard on his face, asking the heavens for the will to keep on going.

“Lana…” Sierra’s voice shook, his shoulders heaving as he spoke. “I need your help… your strength...” He looked behind him to find Mickey Toma was starting to come to his senses again, having jerked the shard of timber from his chin, gagging on the blood in his throat.

“Lana…” Sierra continued, his eyes returning to the sky. “I’ve just… got nothing else left. Please… help me… please! I need your love… I need your strength!”

Mickey Toma slowly pushed himself up to his knees and began crawling out into the rain after his foe.

“Please!” Sierra repeated.

“Sierra!” Toma roared, blood spewing from his mangled mouth and throat.

Sierra swiveled around on his knees to face the Guerrero once more. “Fuck you, Mickey!” he cried back with equal hatred in his voice.

Without another word, they charged each other on their hands and knees: two train-wrecked bodies fueled only by their hatred. Sierra raised his left fist, Toma raised his right. Crack! There was a sickening collision of knuckles as their fists collided and the force sent a bone-rattling shockwave through the ravaged bodies of both fighters. They collapsed against each other, panting, their faces rubbing nose to nose.

“Looks like… I’ve turned the little pussycat back into a tiger,” Toma whispered. “I knew you still had it in you, Sierra. It’s in your blood. It always has been.”

“Maybe,” Sierra groaned. “But it will bleed out and die, just like you will!”

With their bodies pressed together, keeping each other upright, the two Guerreros turned and noticed the faint gleam of a knife blade. The weapon was resting right there in the mud no more than ten feet away, shining to them like a beacon in the night.

Sierra broke away first, landing on his belly in the mud. Then they both began dragging themselves towards the knife.

“Give it up, Sierra, you’re done!” Toma groaned as he powered ahead, his arm stretching out.

“No!” Sierra caught Toma’s outstretched arm at the last moment and jerked it back, the fiend’s fingers pawing at the mud just a fraction of an inch short of the knife. And then, with an extra slide of his body across the mud, Sierra reached out with his other hand and ensnared the weapon in his grasp.

Got it!

But even though Sierra had won the race to the weapon, his victory was short-lived as Toma suddenly climbed onto his back and hooked an arm tightly around his throat, his knee pressing into the small of Sierra’s back. It was in that moment Sierra realized he had been tricked; he had let his guard down for just a split-second in his haste to be the first to reach the blade, and that was enough for Toma to get the drop on him.

Toma pulled back with all his might, forcing his knee down, looking to snap Sierra’s spine. “Never let your guard down on a wounded tiger, Sierra. The wounded ones… are always the most dangerous.”

Sierra’s body trembled under the strain being put onto his spinal cord. He gagged as nausea brewed in his belly. Even though he was still holding his knife, he could find neither the balance nor the right angle to use it on his foe.

Mickey Toma’s face, now a deformed mess of pulverized flesh and bone, moulded into a depraved smile. His whiff of victory seemed to give him renewed strength. “One final snap of bone,” he whispered, “and it will be all over for you. Let’s listen for it together.”

With his spine in distress and pain overloading his system, Sierra could feel himself shutting down and fading fast. The back of his head was pressed right up against Toma’s chin, the fiend’s warm breath burned his neck.

Fading…

Sierra heard his muscles cracking, the grinding of brittle bone cartilage.

Fading…

He felt the last of his breath being expelled from his lungs.

Fading…

Soon would come a final snap of breaking bone, and then it would all be…

No! Sierra refused to die. Not yet. At least not alone.

Fuck you, Mickey! With both hands gripping tightly around the handle of his knife, Sierra rammed the blade up through his own throat. The razor-sharp tip cut effortlessly up through his flesh, in and out either side of his neck, and then pierced the trachea cavity of Toma’s throat beyond.

Toma’s mouth jarred open, his eyes wide in shock. He tried to speak, but all that came out was a horrible gargle. But nothing he said would have mattered now to Sierra Rico anyway; his body had already blissfully gone numb with shock.

Around them, the unrelenting rain continued to fall and the flashes of lightning faded out into the distance, eventually leaving the three lifeless bodies on the rain-drenched street cloaked entirely in darkness.

***

The six shadowy figures converged on the bloody scene like a pack of game hunters confirming the kill. They stood over the two fallen Guerreros in silence, the rain still pounding down mercilessly.

“They both look pretty fucked to me, Hector,” said the man who was holding an umbrella over his boss. “Do you think they are…?”

“Dead?” Hector Chilavert said with a slight smile. “No. Not yet. They’ve both been through worse.”

“Do you want me to finish off Sierra?”

“No. The kid was still able to hold his own against Toma. We might yet be able find some further use for him.”

“But the little bastardo betrayed you, Hector. I don’t understand…”

“That’s because you’re not paid to understand,” Chilavert hissed, “you’re paid to do whatever the fuck I tell you!”

The man nodded, taking a nervous half-step backwards.

Chilavert’s eyes returned to the two near-death warriors at his feet. “Besides, I wouldn’t worry too much; soon enough this little runt is going to wish he was dead anyway. Why end his suffering quickly?”