"We never found the officers' missing tongues. I'm never taking any meat from you, let alone tongue tacos."
Years later, facing yet another feast of blood and guts, Norbeto Goikoetxea, vice-chairman of Valravn-Zotz, would remember the day his father took him to meet the captive communist. He mustn’t have been more than 15 or 16 years old, roughly Norberto’s age. The Zotz Division’s operatives had done good work with the interrogation: maximizing the pain, minimizing the risk of premature death. "Dirty red scum… lived a useless, wasted life… perhaps there is one last way for him to serve his country," his father spoke while handing Norberto a gun. "This is the enemy. You know what to do with the enemy."
That day, Norberto became a Man. And like all Men, he learned violence is a language. For those who speak it daily, it becomes second nature, as natural as speaking their mother tongue. It doesn't matter if it's a crime scene, a massacre, or a mass grave— it all boils down to a trail of glyphs, a secret text to be deciphered only by those in the know.
Norberto was in the know. He had helped shape the known. And now, he owned it. The Raven walked freely into the crime scene, knowing no soldier or policeman would dare to question him. A grim but not that rare of a sight: two officers, butchered, their fingers cut and stuffed into their mouths. The iconic Sin Nombre signature. At first glance, it seemed like the usual intimidation tactic against the law, but these two were not just random victims. They had targeted specifically those on Norberto's payroll, clearly a message to Valravn.
"But not a declaration of war… yet," Norberto muttered to himself. He removed the fingers from the mouth of the first corpse and confirmed his suspicions—the tongue was missing. The pieces fit. Killing their bribed cops was a discreet way to get the Crow's attention while keeping everyone else out. Norberto sighed, "Fine… let's talk."
When they pulled the sack off his head, Nacho was blinded by a harsh light. The voice of the man in front of him was monotone, dry. His silhouette, outlined against the blinding spotlight, reminded Nacho of a zopilote waiting for its meal to die.
"Nachito… didn't your mother ever warn you about hanging around the wrong crew?"
"I don't… I don't know anything…"
"No point to play dumb, we know."
"The people I work for… You don't want to mess with them! They'll come looking for me…"
"For real?" Norberto was amused by his prey’s attempt to frighten him, "So we have caught a big fish, it seems?" He then grabbed the kid's face and forced him to meet his gaze. "Are you a big fish, Nacho? Show me."
Any attempt at toughness crumbled, and Nacho began to cry, "Please… I was the lookout, I'm just an halcón."
Always a disappointment when they crack so easily, thought Norberto. He put his hand on Nacho's shoulder, "Two good men, two agents of the law are dead because you sang, little bird. They had families. Do you know what this means? Sangre por sangre, Nachito."
"I'm sorry. Please don't kill me."
"I don't want to kill you. I just need you to send a message to your boss."
"Yes! I'll do. I'll say anything!"
Norberto smirked, "Nachito… you are not getting it. I said I don't want to kill you."
"Yes! That's it! You don't want to kill me, and you don't have to. I'll go straight, I'll keep out of trouble… I'll be a goo…"
"You won't be anything. You are nothing already. Your life or death is not deserving of my intention." His voice betrayed neither hatred nor cruelty. Norberto's eyes were devoid of any emotion. The kid remained silent, frozen in fear. "I don't want to kill you, but I need to send a message."
The street was empty—there wasn’t a soul in sight. Norberto sat at the taco stand, lost in thought, when a realization hit him: if no one else was around… who was running the stand?
"Do you want your tacos de lengua con todo?" said a voice-shaped void.
"We never found the officers' missing tongues. I'm never taking any meat from you, let alone tongue tacos."
"Come on, I'm not that vulgar. Also, I thought you Ravens had that 'feasting on the battlefield' thing going on."
"What do you want?"
"Just to talk with an old friend. I've been feeling nostalgic lately." The empty voice blended both sincerity and mockery.
"I find that hard to believe," replied Norberto.
"Do you remember our time at the División Zotz?"
"I don't remember anything about you. Isn't that by your design? That's the whole reason you gave your name to the Black Moon."
"'…for they to name us, we denied ourselves a name…'"
"What?"
"Nobody cared who I was, 'till I became Nobody."
"Bullshit, you were always nobody," Norberto let out a bitter laugh, "Otherwise, you wouldn't have erased yourself."
"Yes! You have not lost it! That's the Norberto I remember! And I've heard you are bringing back Zotz… What is that if not nostalgia?"
"Business," Norberto rolled his eyes. He sighed. "Fine, give me an order."
Only the sound of the knife striking the cutting board broke the deep silence of the night. Silent nights were not common in the city. Surely, Sin Nombre had given the order to keep it that way. It was also rare that the Empty Man showed himself; whatever he wanted to discuss was of the utmost importance, at least for him. And yet he kept dancing around. And the tacos were just… alright. For the last one, Norberto didn't even chew properly; he just swallowed the last of the tongue meat and broke the silence.
"Why?"
"Why what?" inquired the Empty Man.
"We had everything running smoothly. I know you didn't give a shit about that Juárez raid..., so why? Why poke the Eagle? Why start a war with the fucking U.S. government?"
“Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the United States,” the antimemetic drug lord laughed.
"Do you have something to drink?" Norberto could still feel something stuck in his throat.
"We could have achieved it, right? Pax… americana? Pax corvina? Pax narca? Is that what you wanted, Raven? Peace?" The Empty Man reached down to open a red cooler. Norberto expected to see something like a severed head inside, but instead, it was full of soft drinks. "Coke is out, is Pepsi okay?"
Norberto didn't reply immediately; he just caught the crystal bottle and drank it in one gulp. "Peace is not conducive to my business. Thanks for pointing out the obvious. Three people died for us to arrange this meeting. Can we cut to the chase?"
"Since when do you care about who dies for your business?"
"Every asset lost has to be replaced. It won't be hard for me to get two new cops on my payroll. It won't be hard for you to get another kid to be cannon fodder. But it would still be wasteful if we don't make anything of this meeting, wouldn't it?"
The Empty Man's face could not be discerned, but Norberto felt something like a smile taking shape upon it. "I can assure you, Norberto, we'll both get something from this evening. Just be patient. It is a beautiful, moonless night after all…" His hollow voice suddenly let out a harsh laugh, "But I have to ask: Did you enjoy killing Nachito?"
"Really? Even if I don't remember it, I know you were there with me at Zotz. We have been killing kids since we were kids ourselves. Except that we did not kill them. Communism and radical ideologies did. Fool dreams and hollow promises did. We just gave them mercy. Freedom from that mind virus. The same goes for this Nachito. I didn't kill your little bird; you did it the day you recruited him. I just set him free."
"You didn't answer the question," replied the Empty Man.
"Do you enjoy taking out the trash?"
"You have to learn to enjoy the little things, or this business will kill you."
"I prefer the bigger picture. You kill my people to send me a message. I kill yours to reply. And now we are here, so just tell me what on Earth it is you want."
"What I want is nothing you can give me," the Empty voice explained, "but I can give you what you want."
"So now you know what I want?"
"You are not hard to read, Norberto. You asked why I started a war, and the truth is I didn't. They were on their way to declare all cartels terrorist organizations anyway, they would have started bombing and killing us… eventually. They just wanted an excuse, and I gave them one. Now they are fighting the war I want."
"You must be really insane if you do believe you are in control of this situation."
"No one can control this chaos. I'm just better at navigating it. Look, I'm aware you are preparing your move against me. I wouldn't expect less. I know you are eyeing that Ledesma girl to take over Sin Nombre after me. You are plotting a civil war, but I offer you something more. Total war. The war you really want. The war you need to feed your hunger, Raven."
Norberto didn't reply; he just kept staring at the night.
"The whole country a battlefield, or a massgrave if you prefer…" The empty face appeared to smile again, "You are right, Norberto, I was nobody, and so were you. But we climbed our way up here. The only way to be someone among this madness is to spearhead the chaos. Else you'll be left behind. You'll be nothing."
Valravn was a parasite, leeching on the wars and wounds of others. Its whole business model relied on outsourcing that brutality. On the need for those in power to keep their hands clean while discreetly paying others to do the dirty jobs. But with a full mask-off American Government now embracing and taking pride in cruelty and violence, Valravn risked losing its main selling point. To become obsolete. The Raven could not outblood the Eagle.
Norberto seemed to mull over the empty voice's words for a few moments before answering: "You’re a piece of shit, are you aware?"
"You know I'm right and that I made the right move. You are only salty it didn't occur to you first."
Norberto decided to rein in his pride, for now. Sometimes it was better to deal with the devil you know. But who was the biggest devil in this game? Still, it's not the worst possible deal, given the circumstances, Norberto thought. "And what do you want in return?"
"A silent night. Just like this one, so I can finally listen to it…"
"What? Listen to what?"
"The Black Moon's Howl…" The hollow voice spoke those words slowly, with a strange sense of peace.
"…"
"You'll have your war. You'll sell your war. And you'll win your war. Meanwhile, I'll be doing my own thing. You'll keep the Foundation, CALMECAC, PENTAGRAM, and all the fucking alphabet mafia away from me. Deal?" The empty man extended his hand; a void torn from reality itself, contorted into the shape of fingers and tendons.
Shaking the hand-shaped void should have felt like a return to oblivion and nonexistence: terrifying to some, paradoxically comforting to others. For Norberto, it was just business. "Deal."
"I'm glad we could reach a mutual understanding, Norberto. You know? We are quite similar; we both stared at the abyss. The difference is that when the abyss stared back… I jumped."
The Raven decided to ignore whatever the Empty Man was trying to say and changed the topic to a more practical subject matter, "Keeping the Americans, SEDENA, and the Foundation distracted won't be a problem. But I won't be your bodyguard, or your pest control, especially if some reptile vermin decides to crash your party."
"Las Víboras, you mean? Don't worry about them, they are honored guests at the party."
That last remark sparked Norberto’s curiosity. "Really? What are you planning?"
"Do you really want to know?"
For the first time in the whole night, Norberto hesitated. He had never feared the Empty Man—nor his cheap theatrics or his rants of the Black Moon. But this time, something inside him, his primal instincts perhaps, pleaded that it would be wiser not to pry into this matter.
"Better to keep our next moves to ourselves, right? It had worked for us so far."
"Exactly. But rest assured, the vipers won't be an issue for much longer. You know what to do with the enemy," replied the Empty Man, "but so do I."
