In this sequel to "A Visit From Saint Michael," a reporter is recruited by Saint Michael to help rescue six young women from sexual slavery. He agrees to do so because his actions will also rescue his girlfriend who was taken by the same slavers as she was trying to investigate the first girls' disappearance.
A few of the references in this sequel will make more sense if you have read "A Visit From Saint Michael," but it does stand totally on its own and can be enjoyed even if you have never read the first story.
This story centers around non-consensual pain, humiliation and slavery. If such a premise disturbs you, then I would advise you to skip this story. Or you can skim past those sections and read a very interesting tale involving one of the "old gods" of Mexico and much of South America.
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WARNING! All of my writing is intended for adults over the age of 18 ONLY. Stories may contain strong or even extreme sexual content. All people and events depicted are fictional and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Actions, situations, and responses are fictional ONLY and should not be attempted in real life.
If you are under the age or 18 or do not understand the difference between fantasy and reality or if you reside in any state, province, nation, or tribal territory that prohibits the reading of acts depicted in these stories, please stop reading immediately and move to somewhere that exists in the twenty-first century.
Archiving and reposting of this story is permitted, but only if acknowledgment of copyright and statement of limitation of use is included with the article. This story is copyright (c) 2016 by The Technician.
Individual readers may archive and/or print single copies of this story for personal, non-commercial use. Production of multiple copies of this story on paper, disk, or other fixed format is expressly forbidden.
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I was sitting at my desk staring at my computer monitor. Everyone else had gone home hours ago. I was supposed to be writing an article for the paper's website, but my mind was blank. All I could think of was Maria. She had been missing now for almost a week. The fact that tomorrow was Halloween and we had planned to go to a major party together downtown didn't help.
Our costumes were delivered last week. We ordered them on-line and had them sent to the office. When they arrived, I hung them on the coat rack against the back wall. I was going to be The Grim Reaper, complete with a fake scythe. She had ordered an angel costume... It wasn't exactly a slutty angel, but I didn't think she would be sending pictures of her costume to her mother.
The paper officially has a policy against "intra-office fraternization." That's actually the wording they use in the employee guidelines we all have to read and sign once a year. But the reality is that as long as it doesn't cause any delays in meeting deadlines, they really don't care who sleeps with whom.
Maria and I are at that stage in our relationship where we aren't really living together, but before either of us decides what we are going to wear for the day, we have to remember whose apartment it's in.
Ultimately I'm the one responsible for Maria being missing. Part of the reason we met was that she was fascinated with my Halloween Story, "A Visit From Saint Michael." When it came out, she asked me how much of it was true. I stalled and made a few jokes, but she persisted. Finally, I broke down and told her, "All of it."
I was afraid she would think I was some kind of nut, but to my surprise, she didn't question Saint Michael or as the Mexican girls had called him, Santa Muerte or Mictlantecuhtli. Instead, what she wanted to know was whether or not it was true that perverts and deviants-- those were her words-- still made it a practice of enticing young girls from the hills of southern Mexico to come to the bigger cities of Mexico or the United States so they could use them as sex slaves.
I told her I didn't know for sure. She exploded at me, "Do you mean you call yourself an investigative reporter and you didn't follow up on what might still be happening today in southern Mexico?' She put her hands on her hips and yelled in my face, "Why the hell not?!?!"
I looked down at the floor. I couldn't face her. I was ashamed of my answer. Finally I sputtered out, "I was afraid. I didn't want to risk meeting up with Santa Muerte again."
The anger and frustration with myself exploded out of me. "I knew I should have. But one meeting with Mictlantecuhtli was enough! I didn't sleep for a month when I first wrote that story. I kept dreaming that he wasn't satisfied with what I wrote and was coming back for me."
At last, I looked her in the eye and said, "I really don't want another visit from Saint Michael."
She looked back at me in shock. Her eyes widened. "My God!" she said. "It
is
all true. Saint Michael, the girls, the mansion, everything. It's all true."
"I told you it was," I replied softly. We decided to talk more about it over dinner. One thing led to another, and we ended up in bed at her place. We've been together ever since.
Then about two months ago, Maria laid a printout on my desk. "Did you see this?" she asked.
"It's in Spanish," I replied. "I'm not Hispanic like you are. The only Spanish words I know are cerveza, frÃo, and baño. That gets me a cold beer and a place to piss."
She ignored my attempt at humor and picked up the printout and held it out for me as though I could actually read it. Then she said, "It's from a website that keeps track of abductions in Mexico-- there are a lot of them. This particular article caught my eye. It says that every year for the past five years, six young women from rural southern Mexican villages have disappeared in the week before Halloween. All of the women were between eighteen and twenty years of age and all had talked about going north to Estados Unidos to get jobs as maids. They were never seen or heard from again."
She slammed the paper back down and said, "My sources say that the girls end up being sold as sex slaves... or worse. It's Marvin Summerfield all over again. I'm going down there, track these bastards down, and expose them for what they are."
That was the last time I saw her.
She texted me regularly when she first arrived in southern Mexico. She also sent in several lead up articles to be published once she had her big story. But six days ago, the texts stopped. I checked with the hotel where she was staying and was told that she had abandoned her room. They informed me that they would keep her belongings in storage for one year before disposing of them.
I contacted the Mexican Federal Police, but as soon as I explained what Maria had been up to, the officer said, "I am sorry, Señor, but if she went down into the hill country, there is nothing we can do." There was a short silence on the phone and then he said softly, "I am very, very sorry, Señor, there really is nothing I can do. If she went up into the hills, she is most likely dead already anyway."
I don't remember if he hung up on me or I hung up on him. I haven't really been able to work since then. Now I was supposed to be writing an article about the strange coalition of folks who have come together to protest the latest police and political corruption scandals in our country.
I sighed one last time as I stared at Maria's empty desk and tried to get back to the story that was due before the weekend. I knew that there was a saying that I had once heard that would make the perfect headline for the story I wanted to write. Strangely, when I am suffering from writer's block, if I can put the right title to a story or the right headline to an article, I find that the words begin to flow.
"What is that saying?" I said aloud to myself.
A soft voice answered me from across the room. "The enemy of my enemy is my friend," the voice said.
"Yes! That's it," I exclaimed. And then I froze-- literally. Fear poured over me like an icy waterfall. My fear was not from the fact that I had thought that I was alone, but obviously someone was in the room with me. My fear did not come from the fact that whoever it was had answered my question without having any way of knowing what it was I was actually asking. What poured deep, soul-freezing fear into the very depths of my being was the fact that I recognized that voice. I knew who was in the room with me. Mictlantecuhtli had found me again.
A very handsome young man stepped up to my desk. "I believe we have met before," he said in that smooth voice that is impossible to forget once you have heard it.
"What do you want?" I asked. I tried to sound sure of myself, but I know that my voice shook with fear.
"We now have a common enemy, my friend," he said softly. "And as you know, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. We friends have the opportunity to do a favor for each other that will result in the destruction of our common enemy."
"What do you mean?" I asked. My fear was starting to ebb... slightly.
"We have always had much in common," he answered in his smooth, reassuring voice-- a voice that continued to scare me senseless whenever I heard it. "For example," he continued, "your first name is also 'Michael.'"
I have always used my initials, "MH" in my byline, but yes, my first name is "Michael."
"Why is that important?" I asked.
He answered with a question of his own. "What was the last thing you told Maria before she left? What were your exact words?"
"I told her," I answered shakily, "that if she should run into trouble down there, just to call on me and I would come down and save her."