I considered. “Yeah. Likely. So if we find Montoya, we find the sorcerer. We can take them both.”
Kel stared down at our gunman. “And he knows where to find them.”
“We have to break him.” I didn’t like it, but some things had to be done. “If not physical pain, then we move to plan B.”
Time to raise the stakes.
“Check.” Shannon dug into her bag for the radio.
As soon as she clicked it on, the hissing started. This was no ordinary radio. Using it, Shannon could contact the other side and summon the dead to her. Moreover, we could hear what they had to say on the tinny old speakers. Inside this tiny clay hut, the results would be terrifying.
She had never attempted to attune to spirits with whom she hadn’t been personally acquainted before, but this would only work if she called the killer’s victims. Without meaning to, I reached for Kel. He glanced at me, brow furrowed, but his fingers folded around mine—apparently he was permitted to give reassurance.
Shannon closed her eyes while she fiddled with the dial and whispered in Spanish. For a while, the only sounds within came from the eerily crackling radio and her pale, parted lips. In the candlelight, she owned a fearsome, witchy aspect—and the gunman couldn’t look away from her.
“What’s happening?” he demanded. “What are you doing?”
Nobody answered him. That silence built even greater dread.
I knew the moment she made contact. The atmosphere chilled, and shadows grew where there was no light to cast them. They swarmed around the killer’s prone body, crooning to him in Spanish. I understood snippets, and fear went livid in me too.
Traitor. You murdered me. I will eat your heart and build a house of your bones.
As they fed from his terror, the summoned shadows gained form. They went from amorphous clouds of darkness to wraiths with faces twisted into rictuses of hatred and hunger. Shit, what have we done to you, Shan? She did not falter. The cadence of her murmurs took on the aspect of a spell, keeping them in check.
“At any moment,” Kel told Montoya’s assassin, “she can unleash them. They will make good their promises. You will face the dead you wronged.”
Time to play good cop. Doubtless I looked the part more than the other two.
“Pero no necesita ser así. Puedes cambiar tu destino. Solo dime dónde puedo encontrar Montoya.”
I paused, aiming a glance at Shannon, who paused her chant for a few seconds. The angry ghosts surged, nearly reaching the assassin’s skin. She stopped them with a murmur at the last second, and the gunman moaned in abject horror. Nothing like being confronted with your own sins.
“Sí, voy a hablar. No más, por favor. Montoya es—” He broke off, his face purpling.
While we watched, his face withered in the candlelight as if the spirits were, in fact, sucking the life out of him. Shannon shook her head, her denial discernible in the candlelight. His tongue swelled in his mouth, turning black and eventually rotting away in putrid chunks. It was like watching an accelerated film from the Discovery Channel, where they show you how decomposition works.
“Can you contain the ghosts?” I asked her.
But something else was already happening. The candles revealed a darkness rising from the ravaged mound of flesh. A jubilant, wordless cry sounded over the radio, and then, in a roil of black, they all went away. One last scream echoed in the tinny speakers, raising goose bumps on my arms.
And Butch barked twice.
“That’s our cue,” Kel said. “I’ll pack up here and meet you back at the room.”
Shannon and I scrambled for the exit. We couldn’t do anything for the dead man, but here, at least, they could burn the scraps of remaining flesh, although they would have to wonder what the hell had happened. Hopefully they would assume some animal had crawled in to die. That’d be the best possible outcome; maybe it would be a while before the next ritual.
“We’re going walkies,” I told Butch loudly in English. “Aren’t walkies fun?”
He looked none too convinced, but he did trot at my heels as I cut a path toward the lake. Maybe I could convince the security guards we were crazy tourists who didn’t want to waste a moment of our magical vacation sleeping. We crossed paths halfway to the shore. I beamed at the man in uniform.
“Bwa-noes noe-chays,” I offered in my worst American accent, and then added, “Kay bone-eeta!” while pointing toward the lake. I’d found the tourist persona helpful, as Mexican nationals assume you’re too dumb to be up to something if you can’t speak the language properly.
The security guard merely waved as he went by. For appearance’s sake, I let Butch pick our path back to the hotel, which meant we stopped every four feet so he could smell something. No problem, he’d earned it. When we reached the parking lot, I picked him up again.
At a glance, I could tell Shannon needed to eat. Though she was a trooper and not complaining, summoning screwed her sugar levels. Which was weird, because using my gift had a different cost. Still, once we let ourselves back in the room, I dug in my purse for the Snickers bar I kept on hand for just such an occasion.
Her fingers trembled as she unwrapped it. As promised, Kel sat waiting for us. He’d put the blankets and pillows back on the bed, not that we’d sleep again. It was two hours before dawn; I figured we’d leave at first light.
I asked the unspoken question. “What happened back there?”
Kel shrugged. “My guess? A trigger spell. Powerful sorcerers can set a curse that will be set off only if certain conditions are met.”
“Like a henchman about to betray el jefe,” Shannon said around a mouthful of chocolate, peanuts, and nougat.
“Exactly,” he answered.
“He definitely recognized the caster and he feared him.” I sighed. “Unfortunately, it leaves us back at square one. In Laredo, we had a list of his properties, but he’ll have sold them by now, and most likely plugged the leak Esteban exploited to get the info in the first place.”
Shannon asked, “Who’s Esteban?”
I gave her the short version of how I’d read a necklace for the guy—he worked for a rival cartel—and told him why his sister disappeared years before. Esteban had been so grateful he’d produced the information we needed to go after Montoya in his mountain fortress. That wouldn’t be happening again—and as we’d realized earlier, when we found Montoya, he’d have this new sorcerer at his side. Not. Good.
She nodded, thoughtful. “We need help from somebody higher up the food chain this time.”
Like that was going to happen; I didn’t know any cartel bosses. In Mexico, it was bad news to evince curiosity about doings near the border. Living in the interior in a safe neighborhood was a different world from Juarez, Nuevo Laredo, or Tijuana.
We needed to move. . . . I just didn’t know where to go.
Kel had been quiet. I glanced over and saw his eyes were closed. For all I knew, he was communing with his archangel, and was about to dump us for new orders. I didn’t kid myself he’d care.
Sensing my regard, he sat forward in his chair. “There was a woman who helped you before. In Texas.”
I shook my head. “Oh, no. I’m not dragging Eva into this. She’s got to be eight months along.”
“Not Eva.”
For a moment I couldn’t think of any other woman, and then it hit me. “You mean Twila?”
Right, he’d been shadowing me, so he had probably trailed me to her house. I knew that because he saved my life for the first time in the cemetery. Back then things were simpler, because I thought he wanted to kill me.
“Yes. She may have contacts we can use.”
“To do as Shannon suggested?” Surely he wasn’t endorsing the idea that we join forces with a rival cartel. That was like using a rabid dog to kill a few rats. The whole thing put me in mind of the old lady who swallowed the spider; this idea had a snowball-rolling-downhill feel to it.
“I have been watching the possible outcomes,” he said softly. “And that may be your only hope.”
The words dropped into the room like lead shoes, so when Shannon crumpled her candy wrapper and Butch whined, the sounds seemed extra loud. Even my breathing rasped in my ears. Kel alone appeared unmoved by the pronouncement. My little dog covered his muzzle with his paws and burrowed deeper into my arms.
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
In answer, he clicked on the television; I judged the move wholly out of character until the clicking remote stilled. Kel left it on a news channel. I didn’t understand why, but we watched for five minutes in silence. And then the presenter answered my questions in the worst possible way.
I translated the Spanish mentally and came up with: Firebomb in Mexico City. As yet no terrorist factions have claimed responsibility. Luckily there was only one fatality and the blaze did not spread to adjacent buildings. Police suspect it may have been cartel related. Gang and drug violence on the rise—Kel muted the television before the man could complete the sentence.
“No,” I breathed.
Stop, I mentally commanded the announcer. I don’t want to see—
Oh. Before the images came up on-screen, I knew. It was my shop. Kel had known before the news came on; perhaps he had been receiving a bulletin in his head. From the beginning, he might have even known I’d never see the place again, and I hated him for his distance, his surety, and his calm.
Seeing the truth made it no easier to bear. Burned plaster and chunks of cement littered the street. As the camera swung around, they showed scavengers picking through the rubble. Once again, I was homeless, reduced to what I could carry. Chance had sent my belongings as promised, including my Travis McGee book collection. All gone. Those were my things, treasures Señor Alvarez had—
One fatality. It sunk in at last, above my own misfortune. Oh God. Oh my God. He died because of me. First Ernesto, and now Señor Alvarez. Sick, I wondered how many innocents would die so that I might live. At what point should I stop running and take the bullet?