He sat in the back corner of the dark dusty cantina away from the crowds gathered around the bar, perching on their barstools telling tales of that day in November when all hell broke loose in Culiacan.
His hearing was acute, having compensated for his loss of vision in an eerie way that even he didn't understand. Four shot glasses of tequila were lined up precisely in front of him, just the way he liked them. He emptied the second and cocked his ear toward the crowd to hear the tales.
He was dressed all in black, preferring to simplify his wardrobe rather than try to coordinate it without sight, and besides, he looked ominous in black and the locals avoided him, making his life easier. His oversized sunglasses always perched on his nose, rested against his sharp chiseled cheekbones, his dark brown, almost black, shoulder length hair was pushed behind his ears, a stray strand or two falling in his face. He strummed his black gloved fingers on the table as he sat and listened to the tales.
The crowd hushed when one voice spoke up loudly. He had walked into the cantina just to tell his tale. He was old and wrinkled, a priest from the church that the crowd respected.
"It was El Diablo," he said bluntly. "El Diablo came to Culiacan that day. The Devil himself."
Sands smiled a thin wide smile. He loved this story in particular and he listened, to hear if the telling of it would change this time.
"I was there when El Diablo arrived, out of thin air, he appeared in the smoke, dressed in black and beautiful, his face shone like an angel of light."
The priest remembered back to that day as he spoke. How he had huddled in a dark corner to avoid the gunfire and held his bible and his cross tightly, when he saw El Diablo appear. He opened his bible that day and turned to 2 Corinthians 11:14 and spoke aloud to himself, "Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light," before turning to watch the scene unfold in front of him.
The crowd whispered, and crossed themselves as the priest continued.
"El Diablo wanted the President dead because he was a good man and the devil can't stand for that, so he came himself to do the job. Many men stood between the devil and the President that day and fire shot out from El Diablo's hands and killed the men. But God would not let El Diablo prevail and one of the men, perhaps an angel himself, took El Diablo down. As he fell, El Diablo's eyes were revealed to me and they looked like black pits going straight to hell."
The priests' mind raced back again to that day when he had read in his bible: Ezekiel 28:12 "'You were the model of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. ... Through your widespread trade you were filled with violence, and you sinned. ..Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. So I threw you to the earth; I made a spectacle of you before kings."
The priest had run away then, in fear of God and the devil, he raced back to the church and prayed that he would be a better priest and he promised God that he would tell the tale of El Diablo and how God had prevailed that day.
The whispering became louder as the crowd discussed El Diablo and how God had saved the President that day and took the devil down.
Sands chuckled to himself and adjusted his sunglasses on his face as he rose from his seat and walked past the priest, touching him lightly on the shoulder causing the priest to turn to look at him as he passed by.
"Dios!" the priest paled and dropped to his knees in prayer, his hands shaking uncontrollably, as Sands walked out the door. "Excepto mí del Diablo."
Save me from the devil.
