dos tequilas

Clayton could tell something was off about Elaine. It was both a combination of new and now missing traits that just made her seem like a different person entirely. Gone were the fake accent, the newly acquired limp, the demented disposition and the blatant disregard for human life; in their place was what seemed to be an entirely new, entirely sane person. Maybe this was what she was really like underneath the bravado. He had to admit that there was something strangely adorable about the way she appeared to be trying to sound like a comicbook vigilante. Clayton wondered if this whole mess was about the drug trade and the men who thrive off it, why she hadn’t she just been upfront about it. Maybe it was some sort of new hipster irony; he could never understand that sort of thing. He raised an eyebrow as the new and improved Elaine questioned the priest. As much as he wanted to believe this was her idea of a joke, she was just acting to strangely to let it slide.

“Hold it!” Clayton interrupted the interrogation, “I don’t know if you have multiple personalities, or what, but just what the hell are you doing? What happened to your accent? When did this bizarre ultraviolent quest to marry a Mexican soap star become about drugs in the city? But most importantly, when did you forget to hold a gun? What’s going on here, Elaine? Wheres the tough guy attitude and complete disregard for human life?”

“Mexican soap star… You only came here to meet the Estaban?” the priest let out a chuckle from underneath the crucifix, “All of this shooting and killing just to meet the Estaban. This is just like you crazy impatient gringos.”

What accent would a Filipina use? This girl seemed like some kind of crazy deity of carnage. "I was just..." She stumbled with a Cajun accent. "...bored killing all of these people..." She faded into a cajun accent. "...perhaps we could go to Los Angeles sometime. I've always wanted to go there..." Finally she ended in a New York accent.

She sighed deeply and scratched her head with one of the pistols. "If I take you to see Estaban can we just forget all of the lead up to this?" Realizing what she scratched her head with, Ileana dropped the gun, unloading the explosive round into the side of the priest's leg.

"Ropes! My only weakness!" Elaine moved her arms to try and shake them loose.

"You know that's not relative to you, right?" The white suited Estaban looked upon the girl with wonder. Light crept in from behind him painting a soft glow onto the room from two dirt stained windows. Only boxes lined the walls of the room, opening up a large space in the middle of the room that hosted Elaine flanked by the two identical men. The lair sat two blocks down from the Cathedral, and shared a connective tunnel that the military used during the Mexican American War.

"You don't need to worry about me leaving; all we have to do is wait for my friend to bring me my dress, and then we can be married." Oblivious to the obviousness around her, Elaine continued to try and court the man who planned her demise.

Estaban looked over to his evil twin with a downcast brow. "Anyways, give her amnesia."

"Por qué?" Elaine shouted out.

"We already told you why." Black stripes held back the arrested rage Estaban felt towards the girl.

"Por qué pero con una mejor razón?" Her comment came back to the man who hovered over her with a syringe with a serum that would erase her short term memory.

He watched the imposter struggle to keep up her charade. That is what Clayton finally figured out she was, an imposter. He raised his rifle up to her with a million thoughts about how she managed to look like Elaine running through his head. “Okay, who are you? You’re obviously not Elaine. You a shapeshifter?” what he said sounded less crazy and stupid in his head than it did out loud. In a world full of all kinds of unusual and unique superpowers, it was a viable possibility. She was at least aware that she was not filling the role correctly and even offered a surrender of sorts saying she would take him to Estaban. “Look, I’m not interested in Estaban, okay? Just get the real Elaine out here and we’ll forget this ever happened.” even the fake Elaine seemed to be unable to go more than a minute without maiming or killing anybody. She dropped Elaine’s gun, and an explosion occurred in the priest’s leg. It was something like a shotgun blast, and Clayton expected the man would need his leg amputated. The priest cried out in pain and cursed loudly and rapidly in Spanish. “Ouch. They’re probably gonna have to amputate that.” he made light of the padre’s misfortune; he might have felt sorry for him if the man hadn’t just tried to kill him. “Anyway, if you could take me to my friend, so we can get out of your hair, that would be great. I’m sure you people have very important drug and human trafficking business to get back to.” Clayton wondered when exactly he began thinking of Elaine as a friend.

"Well, they are one in the same Mr..." She removed her hat and held it around her waist. "I didn't catch your name, and as you can see I am not Elaine. I am Ileana. I came to the orphanage here a long time ago, and have been here ever since." Ileana picked up the pistol, examining the horrific would from the cursing priest. Plans that she overheard while doing dishes came to her mind as where exactly those men took Elaine. "I can take you to where the cowgirl probably is. If they took her to see Estaban Corrazon then we need to hurry." Ilena hurried into the booth and pushed the button that would release the elevator down tot he basement level.

Tunnels crawled out from the humid room into multiple directions; only the most intrepid drug runner would no exactly where they would take them, but she could deduce that these cavernous complex covered most of the city. The vile reaches of the cartel extended into the crevices once thought safe: Mexican Soap Operas.

"For the life of me, I cannot begin to know how she suspected that we were behind this." The white suited Estaban wondered out loud to his clone.

"Her intelligence and deduction must surpass that of the greatest minds. No one could have discovered us; we were too careful." A key locked the door to the closet, locking Elaine inside with her freshly wiped memory. After the serum took effect she would only vaguely remember details of what took place. Attention came from across the room; it looked as though someone came from the tunnels into the warehouse.

“Yeah. Most people don’t ever catch it. Lead the way, Miss Ileana.” Clayton didn’t feel it was a good idea to drop his name around at that particular point in time, lest this day come back to bite him sometime.

On the way into the confessional’s secret elevator passage way, the priest yelled out to the duo, “Where are you going?! Why won’t you help me? You would leave a poor old man to die? You miserable bastard! God is watching you, Ileana; the Lord sees all!”

“Better pray for a miracle, Padre.” Clayton snapped back , and joined Ileana in the confessional elevator.

The cramped quarters of the elevator created a bit of tension, atleast for Clayton anyway; he didn’t like that Ileana was still carrying Elaine’s guns. If she did want to kill him, now would be the time, since the pistol put her at the advantage over the longer assault rifle in such tight quarters. They made it underground quickly, and without incident. Clayton allowed Ileana to exit the elevator first, and followed behind her to the underground smuggling tunnel network. He was careful to keep behind her with a good grip on his weapon the whole time as he was still weary that she was leading him into a trap, even though he was sure that if she wanted to kill him she would have tried something in the elevator. “Hey, hand that gun over here. It’s not that I don’t trust that you’ve had a sudden change of heart, but I just don’t trust that you’ve had a sudden change of heart.” He held his rifle in his right hand, pointing straight up in the air, and reached out to her with the left, “Why do you look so exactly like like that cowgirl, anyway? She your evil twin or something?” he flashed the girl a smile as sort of a way to show her that he did not mean her any arm while he waited for her to hand the gun over. Once the gun was in his possession he would keep it in the back of his waist and continue following Ileana through the massive network of tunnels.

He found it kind of funny that the cartel sending Ileana up actually worked in his favor, instead of against him; that probably was not what they expected at all. If they never would have sent her up, he would have been hopelessly lost in the underground maze with no hope of rescuing what sadly might have been the closest thing he had to a friend at that point in his life.

What an odd way to establish their roles. "Shouldn't I be the evil twin in this scenario? She's your friend who's trying to defeat drug cartels run by an evil soap opera star." Clayton holding the pistols probably would garner less damage than her. She already shot a priest. "Shooting that priest..." She rubbed her forearm. "...I don't necessarily believe in karma, but can we say that's what happened?" All she wanted Clayton to say was yes. Noise came from the room ahead of them. Whatever they did up there involved it great deal of speaking, and oddly it sounded like the same man speaking. "Is that an echo from up there?"

"I have an idea." Noise emanating from the tunnel carried over into the cavernous room. "They hear a voice, but it is only one voice." An explanation need not come to show the meaning between the two men. The black suited Estaban walked over to hide behind the crates. Behind his barrier presented him with a clear shot at the middle of the room. As soon as the interloper came into full view and fell for the trap, the clone would strike.

None of the surroundings made any sense to Elaine. How did she get in a closet, and who tied her up? Taking matters into her own feet, since someone tied her hands behind her back, Elaine pounded on the door with her feet. After three attempts to bash the door down proved futile, she pushed her self onto her knees and hopped up on her steel bottom boots. The closet gave her very little room, but she did not need a bountiful amount of room to do what she did best. She hopped towards the door and slammed into the side. Falling back against a mop, Elaine regained her balance and flew towards the door again. Light broke into Elaine's eyes as she flopped onto the floor; she flipped onto her back and threw her legs into the ground so she could balance up.

Clayton laughed at the girl’s question about being the evil twin. “Nah. You’ve clearly never met her. She’s not here to bust up any cartels, you know; she’s here because she thinks Estiban needs rescuing, and wants to marry him. I’m supposed to play that big Mexican guitar thing at their shotgun wedding.” He took the pistol from Ileana and stuffed it into his belt, “Oh that? That was nothing…” he watched her face, and saw that was not quite the reaction she was looking for ”… but karma. Nothing but karma. Yeah, I’d say he had that coming.” she looked relieved at that before she pointed out the echo coming from down the tunnel. If they could hear this man talking to himself, chances were that the man could probably hear them; it was probably a good idea to keep quiet then, so Clayton motioned for Ileana to do so.

The two walked silently, side by side, down the hall way until they came into what was something like a giant underground warehouse full of boxes. Standing in the middle was a man in an obnoxiously expensive, white designer suit. Clayton looked down at his own dirty, torn, now blood soaked one, and felt a slight embarrassment. “That Estaban?” he whispered to Ileana, but before she could answer he decided it was better to just ask the man himself, since he could hear them anyway, “Hey! Are you Estaban?”

And that was when the real Elaine came crashing through the door.

"Why yes I am Esteban." A smirk came over his face. "I see my little temptress brought you into my trap. Very good Ileana." With the added drama of the newly staged betrayal, the cloned Esteban crawled up from his crevice, gun in hand.

"I've never met this man in my life." Ileana backed away from Clayton, fearing he may believe the man. "He's an actor. He'll say anything to get his way."

The clone slithered like a snake over the crates slowly placing his foot on the ground. Death came swift and unexpected for one member in this room.

"Okay, she's obviously evil, so shoot her in the head. Then untie me and I can marry Esteban. Is everyone okay with that plan?" A balance point established as Elaine arched her feet out into a "V" to keep her balance. From behind her a hand accosted her. Wrapping his arm around chest and grabbing her shoulder evil clone Esteban fired two shots that hit Esteban in his chest. "No!" Elaine shouted from the arms of the only Esteban who retained a pulse. Blood poured over the pin striped suit, raining splotches of ink that wrote the letter of his death in crimson. No encore for his performance now.

"Now I will take my lovely bride, and establish myself as the world's finest actor." This brought an odd disposition to Elaine's brain. Not a good one, but not a sincerely evil one though; this thought rested within the balance point of Elaine's moral compass. "But first I kill you and your witness."

"I gotta admit, I can really go either way with how this turns out." Elaine never lied. Esteban fired two shots at Clayton and one at the poor Ileana. He threw Elaine over his shoulder and looked for an escape route to take. "I kind of hope that you win Janitor-Man."

"Adios amigos. And you my sweet shall be much appreciative of my skills once you clear your mind." Esteban began his descent towards the tunnel.

Clayton Wray had been betrayed! … Had he? Clayton thought about the situation he was in and decided that if this was a trap that Ileana was supposed to lead him into, it would have to be one of the most poorly constructed traps he had ever been in. It was one Mexican soap star without a gun in clothes he probably did not want to dirty. No, Clayton decided this “trap” was the just ramblings of a cornered exactor cartel boss caught with his pants down, and trying to keep control of the situation. He looked to Ileana “You call that acting? This guy sucks.” he turned his attention to Elaine now, just as she was being scooped up by what looked like Esteban’s evil twin. Clayton could tell he was the evil twin because he shot the other Esteban, and announced his evil plan for … soap opera domination?

What a twist! Later, Clayton would understand that was the whole reason people watched those shows, but right then the only thing he was thinking about was not getting shot. He was able to easily avoid both bullets meant for him, though he knew Ileana could not say the same for herself. Moving as quickly as he could, he lunged forward to push her out of the way of instant and certain death. She fell straight down, out of the harm’s way, and Clayton’s momentum carried him straight into it.

The pain of the bullet entering into his arm was intense, and Clayton knew it would only hurt more later. He had a brief flashback of a bullet tearing a hole clean through his hand as he staggered backward. His left arm went useless, and he dropped the assault weapon to the floor. He clutched his wounded arm as blood gushed out from it. On the Brightside, at least Elaine sort of remembered his name; unfortunately, the man who put this bullet into his arm was carrying her away to make her his queen or something like that. Where’s the Black Knight when you need him? he thought, missing that miracle gel from the museum and warehouse incidents. He removed his hand from his wound and reached for Elaine’s pistol. He raised it, one handed and hesitant, and took aim for Esteban’s leg. He reasoned it would be the best place to aim as it put Elaine at the least risk. He squeezed the trigger hoping the explosion from the round would not harm her.

Death shouted her name. From beginnings in a poor orphanage she knew her life would end in tragedy. No good would ever come to save her; the only thing she ever accomplished in her life was looking like a cowgirl who wanted to kill her. She almost willingly accepted the bullet. Almost.

She felt the saving hand push her aside and accept her fate for her. She looked down to see the man pull his gun and fire one of those loud rounds she shot into the priest earlier. She placed her hands under Clayton's shoulder and tried to lift him to his feet. "We need to get your friend." Purposely firing at another human would never come from her actions, but helping Clayton get his friend back could play from her actions just fine.

Sundered. The man felt his leg erupt in pain, but he could see the end goal. The fabulous lifestyle, the accolades, the adoring wife. "You better buy me lots of stuff. And you better never tell anyone you're a clone, because that means you're not even a real person." He could feel the weight of failure crushing him. "You don't have a soul. I wanted a guy with a soul, but you'll do. You're kind of like a doll of Esteban that can talk and make money, so I guess I can put up with you." His spirit barely carried him into a utility storeroom.

"I'm not marrying you." He announced with fervor. "Not now."

"Why?" A shocked tone came from Elaine's emotionally damaging mouth.

"You're a terrible person. I don't know how people can say things that hurtful and have no realization of how it affects others." He threw Elaine down and ripped off a large piece of tape, wrapping it around her mouth. "What kind of sociopath are you?" Elaine tried to muster a response, but the man just ran his hand to the side and walked back into the tunnel.

Clayton appreciated Ileana’s help; not just her helping him to his feet now, but the whole risking death to lead him to his friend thing too. “She’s not really my friend, you know; at least not in the conventional sense. She’s kinda just this reckless girl I’ve ended up running into everywhere the last week or two. I don’t even know why I keep risking my life for her, but hey, why not? I have a feeling that if I didn’t, that nobody else would.” he kept talking to the girl as she helped him up to keep his mind off the pain that was singing from his arm through the rest of his body. He walked at as hurried a pace as he could manage. Past all the boxes he caught sight of his target; the jerk was limping away out of a supply closet, alone. Clayton raised the pistol and held the man in his sights, but rather than shoot him on the spot right then and there, Clayton made what was probably his first rational decision that night. He lowered the weapon, and decided to check the closet first before spilling more blood than he needed to.

He faced the closet that Esteban exited; since his left arm was useless and his right arm was holding his weapon, he was forced to kick the door open. Elaine was inside the closet without a hair on her head harmed, but her mouth was covered with duct tape… maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. More importantly, as far as Clayton was concerned, Clonesteban could live for another day. “I can already tell I’m gonna regret this.” he sighed, and placed Elaine’s handcannon on the ground, which freed his right hand to remove the tape from her mouth.

Silence never spoke with such a loud voice. Elaine squirmed and wiggled trying to get her hands loose, but could only manage to stay in her situation. Listening to hear any sounds of victory, or at least companionship, Elaine kept her ear against the wall. When Clayton entered the room to see her, she tried her hardest to give him orders for how to handle her situation. Clayton handled it very abruptly. Leaving behind a red mark across her face Elaine erupted into anger that turned her face a matching color."Ow, that hurt, you moron. Some rescue. I don't even know how I got in here..." Ileana remained under Clayton's arm for support. "Oh, its her." Elaine's eyes narrowed at the sight of her mirror image. "Be sure not to get any blood on my poncho when you shoot her in the head."

"I can't believe what a selfish child you are!" Wanting to come not just to Clayton's defense, but also her own. "This man saved both of us, and here you are invoking senseless death, and mocking him for the bravery he showed." Blood ran onto the black poncho, as Elaine leaned forward to take offense to the stain against her newly acquired garment. Ileana let go of Clayton's arm and walked over to a first aid kit hung on the wall. The wound did not look fatal, but it must hurt intensely. She prepared to clean the wound and wrap it with medical tape. "This man with no name is a true hero." A true hero unlike any other.

Clayton slumped against the wall and slid down to the floor, leaving a streak of blood behind him. He could not help but laugh as Ileana came valiantly to his defense. He wondered if anyone ever talked to Elaine like that before. He looked down at the tape he was still holding, and decided on putting it back where he found it. He reached over to Elaine and pressed the tape back across her mouth. “That’s enough out of you. When you’re ready to be civil we’ll think about taking that back off.” He scolded Elaine. He did not just kill roughly five men and take his second bullet for this girl only to suffer more verbal abuse. It was okay in the warehouse when it helped him keep focus, but there was no way he would put up with it this time. Still, he couldn’t help but feel bad just shutting her up like that for some reason. The girl’s crush did end up being an evil drug lord clone jerk; it didn’t completely excuse her behavior, though.

The sting of Ileana cleaning his wound made Clayton hiss. He was happy to have her around to do this for him, though. If she wasn’t there he would have had to do it himself, and self-applied medical attention was never fun. She seemed to know how to treat a bullet wound fairly well; it must have been the reason the cartel kept her around. He watched her as she worked, and noticed that this sort of kindness made the looks she shared with the other woman in the room somehow more attractive. “I do have a name, and I’m definitely not the hero you’re making me out to be here. My name is Clayton Wray, and today I killed five men, maybe more... What kind of a hero goes around shooting people so a girl can force a wedding on a washed up soap actor?” he was starting to feel pity, but not for the men he killed or their even families. He recognized it as self-pity as soon as he spoke the words outloud, and it only made him more angry at himself over the events of the day that the only one he felt sorry for was himself. “Anyway when you’re done with that, we need to get this crazy cowgirl home. After that I plan on continuing where I left off on trying to drink myself into a coma, and where you go then is entirely up to you. I’d obviously appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone about any of this. I don’t wanna spend the rest of my life in Mexican prison.”


THE END.

( Can't get enough Dos Tequilas? Stay tuned for news on the upcoming live action movie, comicbook adaptation, and univision original animated series!)