[Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen] The Harvesters: Cuervo, NM (Part 1/3)

Retold by Door Warden Indra of the Five Horsemen on 27 Dec 2013
Regarding incident of human trafficking in Cuervo, NM in 2008
Comments and transcript by LoreKeeper Casstiel

Indra:

“Oh!” I blink at the unexpected question, my hands pausing with the twig they were fiddling with. “I hadn’t thought about that incident in years! Yeah, I, uh…I don’t mind talking about it. What I remember, anyway. Jeez, that was a long time ago.” I look down at the twig and then toss it into the fire absentmindedly.

I walk back over to the sofa and sit down, pulling my feet up. “Umm…” I look upwards, trying to remember. “I’d gone to New Mexico with a couple of friends to…um...meet someone who was selling a nice laptop. And also, random road trip right after graduating college. So…we made it to this tiny little town in the middle of nowhere, where we were meeting this girl selling the laptop. Oh, and yeah, at the time, I still didn’t have a good grasp on the Proximi stuff… nothing that was ultimately very useful at any rate. And while I’d known supernatural stuff existed, until then, it was really just small stuff that was a part of daily life, nothing really weird or anything.” I pause a moment, trying to put thoughts in order.

“Hey, Cas,” I interrupt myself, “Can I have another mudslide? Pleeease?” I grin hopefully at him. “Don’t want my mouth to get dry with all this talking!”

Casstiel:

When prompted Casstiel will go make Indra another mudslide, taking any other drink orders as he does.  Dark chocolate Syrup, homemade whipped cream, Kickass Mudslide mix and a dash of homemade vanilla ice cream, a shot of Kalona for good measure.  All mixed with enough ice to create an icey of chocolate goodness so sweet it could kill any diabetic if they just looked at it.

Indra:

I continue with my story. “SO. We met this girl, Christie, at some restaurant. But she said she had to go get the laptop from where she left it, and had a few other things to do, so we agreed to meet back up later at night. So we wandered around, bored to death in this small town, until we finally started driving over to the hotel where we were going to meet her. But halfway there, I get this weird text from her – she said she’s in trouble and that the cops and the hotel guy are in on it! I think we tried calling her back, but she didn’t answer. We don’t really know what to think, but she also said to check her car, which we found parked behind the hotel. We ended up breaking into it – which she seemed to indicate was ok in her text – and found a gun and some disposable pre-paid cell phones.

I shift on the couch, slowly becoming much more animate as I get into the story.

“We were really wondering at this point what to do – do we take these weapons? I’d never carried a gun around. I wasn’t too familiar with them – ok, yeah, sure, I got Expert Marksman at field training, but that was careful following of directions. I’d handled guns once in a great while at home, when my dad occasionally did target practice, and I never went hunting, except for one time where I think I might have killed a black bird. And it had been years since I’d handled one. So it felt really weird to carry a gun around, not to mention keep it concealed.

“And the bigger question was what happened to Christie? Could we really not trust the cops? Anyway, I decided to take the revolver, since I was the only one out of the three of us that had had much experience, and then we decided to check out the hotel – that was the only thing we COULD do.

“We questioned the hotel guy – Chinese I think, not really sure how to go about it, and not really sure what to say without letting him know that we knew something was wrong. But somehow we managed to convince him to tell us – the Sheriff was involved, and so were some other ex-cons, and one other man that he vaguely mentioned – someone who scared him.” I pause a little at this, staring into the fire, remembering being frightened myself, of this man. I shake my head. “But, anyway, he also told us what they do to the girls they kidnap – they’ve done this before – they’re beaten, and abused, and… then they send them off somewhere.” I trail off, thinking of the horror they must have been through. Man, how could I have forgotten? I shiver. As I continue, my voice gradually becomes less animate and more subdued as I continue to remember how horrific the events actually were.

“So, uh…this man…the scary guy – D’Angelo, was that his name? Well, anyway, he…he was the one running the operation. Except the Chinese guy didn’t know where to find him, but he did know the location of one of the other ex-cons, off in a trailer in the woods. So that’s where we decided to go next. Now that we knew what was going to happen to Christie, we didn’t have much time.

“Oh, I think somewhere around this time, I’d decided to call you up, Cas, remember? I told you what was going on, that we couldn’t trust the law enforcement in the area. Didn’t you call up the feds or something? I remember you didn’t like what we were planning on doing, but we couldn’t sit and wait for outside help.” I smile apologetically.

Casstiel:

I give her a meaningful look meant to convey security as she recants her first brush with the supernatural (with human traffickers and a powerful ghost).  “I remember calling the feds, that was really scary and weird.  I just Googled their number and was completely honest with them.  I had to do that once when my Mom and Rik went to New York and ran across some familiar terrorists… I am guessing the Anti-terrorist department of Homeland Security knows who I am now… it was Cuervo, New Mexico.  From Google maps it just looks like a highway with a gas station, hotel, and diner and a few shitty trailer homes.  Worst place to stop EVER.”  I chuckle and sit down on the Pod.

“It took forever on this waiting call line or that, most likely talking about me while I was on hold.  It was surreal to just call up ‘the man’ out of the blue and ask for help.  Eventually I convinced them that a few New Mexico state police cars to go check it out.  The NM State Cops didn’t seem to take this all seriously either, they took their sweet time.  Honestly, the must have know this was a problem area where young girls were disappearing or something, otherwise I have no idea why they actually showed up.  You owed me big for all that.  But I think you helping us stop the Denarians the first time they showed up to fuck with the Hell mouth in Beulah settles that score."