Tasìa wound her way past the line-up of motorcycles and walked to the edge of the parking lot to get a better line of sight on everyone else nearby out and about in the open air.

Couples danced around one another, the damsels twirled in high heels and the hombres stomped their gaucho boots. An older gent in white suit finery sashayed about with a tall and colorful mixed drink. While smacking at the fretboards, the two mariachis held the necks of their guitars high up in the air.

The bustle of activity placed her paranoia at rest. Legit distracted by their festivities, no one above her saw the Manifested changeling man.

While she wondered what to do next, Tasìa clamped the bandanna down with a bobby pin.

Should she go inside the bar and confront Travis?

Hey man, either you tell me what's going on, or I'm just going to invite myself over to shoot you all in your pretty little spook faces.

She realized then with the tough-talking girl boss quips just on the edge of her lips just how scared she was.

When she started her latest endeavor, she merely wanted to snoop around and gather any information that helped her get closer to rescuing Aunt Tatiana.

She thought she could, and she should at least try to avoid violence altogether until the rescue of her aunt warranted it.

But the sight of a Manifested changeling, so soon after she narrowly avoided transformation herself dredged up the dread instinct of fight or flight.

Tasia's hands got clammy. She just wanted to take her gun and pound the trigger in every direction to make everything feel better.

She had shoved the whole experience of becoming Manifest into the back of her mind since the evening when she was trapped with Alex while hellhounds wandered the hallway outside.

A fucking third eye formed in the middle of my skullfucked forehead! Aieie!

Just touching on those memories made her want to scream.

And shoot the darkness, itself.

Tasia breathed deeply, and let the night-chilled air in and out until her breathing and heart rate returned to normal.

A little reasoning, where she thought out her current predicament, calmed her down.

If that dive bar is a hotbed of Manifest activity he would not have bothered to change back to human before he went inside.

In all probability, you will have an entirely normal experience if you too go inside.

Could she just walk into the bar, blend in with the crowd, and spy on him? With her bangs and scalp hidden beneath the bandanna, he might not recognize her face, at least, right off, but Travis struck her as a normal dude.

Manifested changeling, American spook and mechhead aside, he was still a normal dude.

He had given them the glance.

Tasìa looked down at her boobs and sighed.

It was what it was, c'est la vie, and all that.

He has every inch, shape, and contour of my two wonderful ladies memorized.

That was the one area of her body she never gave into giving even an ounce of self-deprecation about. The flat musclebutt, her gobliny smile, the tiny weak chin, that entangled rats nest of hair covering her beaver that made a total bitch out of every single straight razor that ever confronted it, were all things she liked to joke about.

But the ladies? That was her momma's ever-lasting gift that she passed along to Tasìa. She would be an ingrate of a daughter if she didn't appreciate their fulsome shape on her figure wholeheartedly.

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But, at this peculiar moment, they were in the way. She had no jacket or a tighter sports bra that she could use to better conceal them.

Even so, it may prove counterproductive to minimize their impact. She was gathering intel so she would have to use her charms, her allure.

And sure, she had a pair of pretty lips that filled out lovely, also a pair of suggestively slough eyes that added coolness to her demeanor.

A guy could do much worse.

But appearance aside, she was not looking to get a date in the bar, after all. She just needed to know what kind of impression she would make, and how to use it to her advantage.

So, this was her game plan.

Go in and if Travis spotted her, look like she was just there to have some fun.

Find out everything she could from everyone else before she confronted Travis.

The joint did not disappoint. Thick clouds of smoke rolled under fans.

There was as much dancing going on as she had witnessed on the patio next door. The music was unfamiliar and different. Something almost American, but not quite.

She was familiar with Tex-Mex metal, and she was even something of a fan, but this sounded like a throwback in both the styles of Tejano and Rock.

Cumbia Norte mixed with some Skynard era country-rock, perhaps? That was as best as her virgin ears could discern. She had never heard an accordion sound so ... psychedelic?

All that mattered, the music had a groove she could dance to when it came time to throw down.

Tasìa scanned the crowd. Some of the gents and ladies glanced her way. They appeared in the aggregate of their reactions to be amused by her presence.

To her better fortune, there was no hostility on display.

She looked around once more. Travis wasn't in sight. Perhaps, he was squeezed into one of the booths that sat outside of her current view, or he was in the restroom or a backroom.

A polished wood-beamed corridor with a short flight of steps extended past the restrooms.

She could only speculate what the purpose for which the back rooms passed the steps were used. Were poker games going on?

Then again, Travis was a fiend and not just of the Manifested sort.

They got dens back there where mechheads get lit?

She squinched her nose at the thought. Combat with hellhounds and changelings were not the only memories she pushed far away.

And deep down.

"My, my. Aren't you just the sunshine beaming off the side of a peach?"

Tasìa turned to face her sarcastic accuser. She had unconsciously drifted over to the bar while lost in her thoughts.

The bartender was the one who made demands of her attention.

"What?"

The bartender was a curiosity. Big friendly guy. Unmistakably American. He wore a tux shirt coupled with a pair of jeans kept up by a thick belt with replicas of Conquistador-era medallions welded together to form a buckle.

"I saw you there with a look on your face as sad as any I've ever seen."

Tasìa took a seat in front of the bartender.

"Just thinking of a man. My man."

His forehead wrinkled.

"What happened to your man?"

Tasìa gave a reluctant smile and shrugged.

"He died."

"Well, ain't that some shit?"

"It sure as hell is."

"Sounds like you could use a beer."

Tasìa slapped her debit card down on the bar top.

"Yup. Make it two."

She needed something heavy to settle her stomach.

Always running on empty are you?

She scanned the bottles racked in the airwave cooler and saw two that would do her just fine.

"That German Import right over there? The doppelbock with the twin goats on the label, and also that Guinness Foreign Extra Stout looks mighty tasty, right about now. Open it up, would you, sweety?"

He grabbed the two bottles with rhythmic assurity.

"Well, shee-ut, me lassie, I like you already. Will that be all?"

For the first four words, he spoke in English. She pretended to catch on and make sense of what he said but giggled along with him anyway.

He was doing his best to try and impress her. And really, that was all she ever asked of any man.

"Will that be all," she repeated.

She lifted her shirt and smacked her stomach just under the navel.

"Will that be all? Can't you tell how famished I am by the sunken belly?"

"That's a mighty good-looking abdomen, for sure, but where did you get that scar?"

Tasìa crinkled her nose. It had been many days now since it had either itched or been a source of pain. She nearly forgot it was there.

She squinted her eyes and raised her chin.

"Whose asking?"

"They call me Beauregard. But that ain't my real name. Left the real one back in Missouri."

"They call me Avellana for reasons that I have no doubt you can relate."

Out of the corner of her eye she caught sight of Travis and three other men hustling out from a booth and into the back corridor.

If he had caught sight of her already, he made no effort to glance back in her direction, now.

She still needed to play it cool, and not rush off to give him chase.

"So Beauregard, whatcha got to eat around here?"

"Pack of smoked sausages?"

She eyed the package. A processed meat product from the United States. She was raised on the healthy grain-fed livestock of her people.

A true daughter of Paraguay.

"I don't think so. What about those cashews? Throw me two packs of them."

Beauregard was eager to do so. Almost too eager.

Tasìa checked out the colorful label the cashews came in. They were marked with a flavor profile on the package. Some kind of chipotle.

She looked back toward Beauregard and asked.

"What's a Carolina Reaper?"