Manos De Sangre

The devil below me had tasted many delights in his journey through the Global South. Regimes had risen and fallen beneath his boots. He had witnessed Fortunes being made and lost in the time it took to pop in a fresh magazine.  They rarely ever tasted as sweet as the blood leaving his mouth.

Diablo Jaguar wiped the blood from his lip with the back of his gloved hand, laughing. A deep, jagged sound. It matched his Hands of Stone.

The crowd roared around them, half-drunk from cheap beer and the thrill of violence. Money stopped filling the void a long time ago.

Los Jaguares Negros didn’t take just anyone. No wayward boys looking for a daddy to please . No rats. No men with shaking hands and loose tongues.

The warehouse was their temple tonight. The spectators were their priests. And If I didn’t crack down fast enough, I  was just another offering.

I wiped sweat from my brow, streaking it with blood that wasn’t mine.  the old warehouse sprawled like a steel graveyard, The first electronic jammer was perched on a steel beam, blinking erratically. Military-grade. Directional. 

every signal in this building stayed buried under noise. They’d find me buried with their secrets. That was the naivety in me, they wouldn’t find anything left, except Maybe my cape, which would fetch a pretty penny.

I needed my eyes. I needed my ears.

The sand in the hourglass dragged on slowly. That’s all I gave myself.

Diablo-Jaguar grinned at the makeshift arena through bloodstained teeth. He was waiting for someone to oppose him.

And for the first time tonight, I wasn’t sure if the move was mine to make.

Lady Justice turned a blind eye tonight. That wasn’t the kind of sentiment I usually entertained, not in my line of work. The District Attorney had called me an obstruction to justice once. Justice. A funny word. This wasn’t some child’s game of badges and bandits. This was  A war between cops and capes.

We didn’t milk overtime chasing ghosts.. Capes, the ones still left didn’t take bribes with one hand and crack skulls with the other.

And yet, the activists still called us fascists.

I didn’t blame them.

Early law enforcement was built on slave patrols. The first men to wear masks weren’t heroes—they were monsters. Symbols of terror, not hope. The difference between a badge and a noose was who got to write the history.

The hairs under my suit stiffened against the plates.

They’d been given the green light.

A blessing. A sanction. A whisper from the shadowy halls of agencies within agencies. The kind of green light that didn’t come with an official memo—just a knowing look between men in dark suits, the understanding that some messes were best left for the right people to clean up.

The invisible trail of metal and oil led me to the crates. 

Guns. Stamped, scratched, passed through a dozen hands.. Uncle Sam’s fingerprints might not have been on them, but his breath still fogged up the mirror.

And the cycle would continue as the sabers rattled.

I raised my camera, the soft click of the shutter barely a whisper in the cavernous space. I had my own tech-web, strung across the ruins of the old information superhighway. Not everyone was for sale. Not every journalist had a sponsor. Someone would tell the truth, they would be the canary in the coal mine. Sadly we knew how it turned out for those birds, and men still walked into the blackness anyway.

I crouched low, planting medium capsules on the crates, setting the timer. The gelatin would expand, swallow the weapons whole. No shootouts. No supply chain. No boogeyman. Just ghosts.

Speaking of ghosts, The triggerman cursed in Spanish. I felt the shift in the air before the bullet left the chamber. Every regret, every road not taken, it all flashes before you in that space between now and the pull of the trigger.

The taser snapped from my gauntlet, he sparked like up like a metal rod during a lighting storm. The piss running down his leg was just a bonus.

I snapped a photo of his tattoos and his modified gun. He’d live. All of them would, until the time came for their deportation. I had a silent thought that as soon as they passed the Rio Grande, I would be signing their death warrants.

The second man stumbled back from his smoke break. Not tobacco. Cali herb. His eyes were glazed over, his body moving like he was wading through molasses. The crowbar in his hands was meant for the crates.

Now it was meant for me.

I activated the taser and missed, but The Billy Jack was faster. It cracked against his nose, red ink blots swirling in the dim light. He staggered, but he didn’t drop. A barrage of Thai boxing jackhammered into the spots under his guard.

These men weren’t monsters. They could be rehabilitated. If the world lets them. It could have been me if the wrong hand had reached out when I was a kid; I could have been the one passing out pain to the wrong people.

My world was bathed in a scarlet hue as the emergency lights flickered to life, casting long, jagged shadows that twitched like dying things.

The devil came to collect, and I was found wanting.

A defiant whisper rippled through the dark, slithering between the crates. It was neither mocking or cruel. Just patient.

"You conduct yourself no differnt than a band-aid on a gunshot wound."

The voice was steady, almost regretful. Heavy footfalls echoed in the cavernous space, careful, deliberate—the pacing of a predator with time to kill.

"Your slyness prevents you from believing otherwise."

Diablo-Jaguar wasn’t just polished brass and primal brawn. He was a green stem that broke through concrete and malnourished soil. His ghosts were woven from old operations.

They were a relic of scars carved by men in suits who never bled for their cause. The wars and rumors of wars spread his cause like ashes after a raid. Those who were on the wrong side of his talons called him a soldier. The ones that no longer feared their daughters walking home safely adorned him as a revolutionary. 

As I listened for his next move, I steadied my breathing. When the heart pounds, the world narrows. Vision tightens, edges blur. All it takes is a single misstep—a shadow in the wrong place, a flicker of movement just outside your focus—and suddenly the tunnel has a light at the end of it.

A bullet. A blade. A quiet end, or not so quiet, even heroes die begging for their mothers.

The triggermen and sentries howled around us. Never turn your back on a man-eater, submission will only trigger the blood-letting.

His body moved like an engine—precise, relentless. He had assessed my patterns. Stone-faced, his men waited for their leader to make the decision to decide my fate after the twelfth round.

Diablo Jaguar circled my fighting stance, rolling his shoulders. . He was here to claim his prize.

This city was full of predators—but only some had the stomach for war.

didn’t take much to see what fueled this gladiatorial display. Bloodlust never goes extinct. It just changes shape.

The old gods of Latin America had their rites—bare-knuckle offerings to the sun, the jaguar, the storm.

Warriors cracked bone against bone to prove themselves worthy, to keep the darkness at bay. Then came Columbus, the cross, the steel, the gun. And now? Now, the gods of capital demanded their sacrifices. 

The warehouse was their temple tonight. The spectators were their acoyltes. And I was just another offering.

A sharp feint. A hook that would have shattered someone else’s jaw. I slipped under it, his laughter cut through the ringing in my ears like a blade.

"You move well, cabrón." His voice was like gravel soaked in mezcal. "I grow tired of mere street fighters." Was this an interview or a death sentence?

"We have no need for another man angry at the world."

He was circling now. Measuring. Testing. Passing Judgement.

This wasn’t just a knuckle-dusting

This was a possible lesser evil.

Would I take the fall and be folded into his war? Or would I stand and be buried under it?

A crest of blood formed from my own mouth as I locked eyes with him.

The devil before me had tasted many delights. But he hadn’t tasted fear. 

arms spread like some street-corner messiah, firelight licking at his edges. Behind him, crates of rifles sit stacked like an altar to the new order. The kind of firepower that topples governments, or worse—keeps them standing.

I step forward, the weight of the billy club heavy in my grip, rainwater running off my cowl in thin, steady streams.

He looks at me, head tilted, eyes burning. Then he laughs.

“Am I a dog, that you come at me with sticks?”

I don’t answer. I just let the club hang at my side, let him see it, let him think whatever he wants to think.

He steps closer, voice thick with something between reverence and hunger.

“Come here, and I’ll feed your body to the birds, we all return to the dust.”

I tighten my grip. I had no words or threats. Just the sound of wet leather creaking before I swing. But I don’t— not yet. Instead, I lob a pellet from my back pocket, a lazy underhand toss, making sure he sees it.

El Jefe intercepted the volley in midair, plucking it like low-hanging fruit.

Easy prey. 

"The ballot is a relic, replaced by the bullet. You think they’d let you play predator in the dark if it made a difference? A cape and a code—just another mask to keep the old world breathing. But this is the age of Kings, and I will carve my throne in stone."

The sticky package expanded. The crates around his miltia go up in a choking blast of polymer and foam, sealing his cache shut, turning his empire into a junkyard. The glue sprays across his arms, his chest, his face—locking his hands in place, turning his sneer into a frozen mask.

Now I swing.

There’s a reason fighting sports have weight divisions—mano a mano only works when the scales are even. When you’re punching up two weight classes, you don’t just take the hit and hope for the best. You stack the odds. You play dirty. You slip a little extra steel past the metal detector. I remember that smile and give him a final laugh. Let him think I brought sticks to a gunfight.

I was a shepard in the desert some coming for the head of the Giant.

El Padrino buckled to his knees, my spanish es que horrible but these hands were universal.

I didn’t just stir the nest—I pissed on it for good measure. And when you kill a hornet, it doesn’t die quiet. It releases a scent, a call to war. A promise that its death won’t go unanswered.

They answered.

Blades slipped from belts, Dracos swung up from slings. Thirty rounds of cape-killer, pre-packaged for my homecoming. Red beams flickered through the rain, shaky hands tightening around triggers.

“If I don’t remove this film from his face, he dies.” My voice cut through the downpour. The barrels didn’t lower, but the fingers behind them hesitated.

“Who wants to be part of that conversation?”

The bluff held. Just long enough. I reached out, peeling the gunk from his face, feeling his breath hitch as the polymer loosened its grip. His lips curled as the last of it left his mouth, spitting remnants into the mud.

“Your hesitation reveals how bad this will end for you.” His voice was hoarse but sure. “You don’t have the stomach to drown out the voices when you sleep.”

He wasn’t wrong. The eyes of the damned always got their revenge when we tried to rest. That’s why I let outlaws live to see trial—at least, the ones that could.

The other reason?

Because of who they might’ve been. Even vatos and villains had mothers—that’s the part the pulp novels never revealed. The dead don’t just disappear; they leave ghosts behind, ripples in the pond that rock every boat in their path.

I prayed the damage to the jammers was enough, that the pictures went through. The truth needed to spread faster than the lies. My nightstick was still pressed against his windpipe, his pulse hammering against the cold steel.

There’s always one—a scared boy cosplaying as a man, shaking, eager, trying to carve his name into the city’s bones. That’s fine.

He could get it too. Let the x-ray exams stack up. 

A little storm insurance never hurt. And we were standing just outside the eye.

“You merely bought yourself a few more minutes on earth, if they don’t get you in time our handlers will.” He smiled as I placed the restraints on his. T

he cold steel wrapped around his massive forearms. They’d crush me if I got the chance. “I want the same boring standards inour homeland that you have here.” He explained. “No one gets in shootouts with the police here, You're specially told not too by the bosses back home.” The words penetrated my ears, digging in like a worm.

“The drug wars are merely spectator sports for white america. They don’t care who wins its another excuse to send bombs and bedlam. Its been that way since Columbus and Cortez brought our stone empires to ruins.” 

“You sold us out for silver and lead.” I said. 

The cartel wars weren’t chaos to him. They were controlled burns. Necessary violence to clear the field.

The old guard—the bloated, corrupted families who had gotten comfortable letting their people rot while they built mansions in Madrid and Miami—had to go. The chaos that followed wasn’t an accident. It was a test. A purge. When the weak were gone, when the last bodies had fallen and the last shots had been fired, the survivors wouldn’t just be criminals.

They would be rulers. Lawmakers. Kings.

He didn’t want to tear the system down. He wanted to own it.

“The drug wars?” he had said, that smirk cutting through the rain. “White America doesn’t care who wins. To them, it’s just a spectator sport. Another excuse to send in bombs and bedlam, another reason to keep us in the dirt.”

That’s why he played the long game. Let the DEA do their raids. Let the rival factions gun each other down in the streets. When the dust settled, he wouldn’t just be a survivor. He’d be the last one standing.

As far as the devil was concerned, the world was built on violence. Order was born from it.

Stability wasn’t negotiated. It was taken.

The sword now, the plowshares later.

He wasn’t naive. He knew the blood price. He knew that the people in power would never let his homeland have what the U.S. had—quiet streets, controlled violence, corruption tucked neatly behind closed doors.

That kind of peace didn’t come free. It was paid for in wars, in decades of bodies stacked like sandbags until the ones at the top were the only ones left standing.

That’s what he wanted.

Not power for power’s sake. Not chaos for the sake of destruction. He wanted the war so it could end.

The real question wasn’t whether he could do it.

It was a matter of who was the first to unleash his ire.

The windows burned white with the cold glow flood lights, their glare swallowing the darkness.

Beyond the walls, the city stirred—distant sirens, the low hum of engines, the quiet chaos of men moving with purpose.

The Communion Defense League arrived a little later than I hoped —ex-criminals, reborn as something else, protecting their streets from both the gangs and the ones who hunted them. And they weren’t coming alone.

They brought the cameras. The digital broadcasts and The eyes of the world.

What’s done in the dark will be brought to the light.

Diablo Jaguar lay motionless in the shifting glow, his breath heavy, his restraints biting into his skin. This light wasn’t salvation. It was a cage.

I stepped forward, pulled two cards from my belt, held them out. A simple gesture and fracture in the narrative. “I know you can memorize. These are names. Numbers. People who can make sure your side is told. People who can make deals.”

His gaze locked onto them. There was no hesitation or words. We felt the weight of the moment pressing down between us.

I let the cards slip from my fingers. The rain swallowed them.

I left him with a final truth, one that would linger long they placed him in the segregated units.

“Their hands shaped you, but with help yours can remake you."

The smoke swallowed the room, thick and clinging, curling around the rafters like dead fingers. The moment the pod cracked, I was already moving.

The hook-gun fired with a sharp hiss, the line snapping taut as I shot upward. The ground fell away beneath me, the chaos below fading into shifting shadows and flickering red-and-blue strobes. The light barely touched me. It never did.

I hung there, weightless, just another wraith drifting through the steel bones.

"Every revolution needs a monster. They'd have to settle for a boogyman.”