Charlie Hernández & the League of Shadows

by Ryan Calejo

  “Mom!”

  My voice echoed in the dimly lit alley. Nearby, I could hear the fuzzy sound of static as someone flipped through radio stations; it sounded like it was coming from the bodega.

  “Mom!” I ran up behind her. “Mom, it’s me—Charlie!”

  This time she heard me. And this time she turned. But the instant she did, my relief turned to horror.

  She wasn’t my mom.

  She wasn’t even human.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  A monster. That was the only way to describe this thing. From the neck down, it looked human enough (though I now saw that it didn’t look anything like my mom). Its skin was pasty white, its hands withered and ancient. But from the neck up was where things got really bad. It had the face of a horse. And not your average handsome Thoroughbred, either—more like a dead horse . . . a long-dead horse. Its muzzle was broad and bony, covered with lumps, bumps, knobs, and pus-gushing bruises. Its bulging black eyes seemed to look everywhere and nowhere all at once. A steeply slanting forehead stretched down to where there should’ve been a nose but wasn’t. Instead, I could see tufts of ratty black hair growing out of the gaping cavity, as well as everywhere else on this hideous thing’s head—under its chin, along its jaw, behind the pointy cones of its ears. Its lipless mouth formed a permanent scowl. A scowl overrun with jagged, razor-sharp teeth.

  The creature was so ugly, so mind-numbingly repulsive, that the mere sight of it had paralyzed me somehow. I couldn’t look away—couldn’t even close my eyes to block out its hideous face!

  “Charlie!” Violet’s voice blurred in my ears, seeming to come from far away. “Charlie, where’d you go?”

  It took everything in me, every ounce of my willpower, but I managed to blink out of the trance just as the monster lunged for me. She swiped one of her talon-tipped hands at my face with blinding speed. I staggered back, stumbled on a soda bottle. Her nails whizzed by my cheeks, missing by centimeters.

  “Don’t be shhhy now, niño,” the horse-lady said, circling to her left. Her voice was a serpent’s hiss. It echoed off the walls of the alley, making it sound like she was all around me. “Thisss can all be over quickly. You sssimply have to ssstand ssstill!” And she lunged again.

  I dodged, nearly tripping over my own feet, and slammed up against the side of the body shop. A stab of pain went through my ribs, but I hardly felt it. I didn’t have time for pain; all my focus was simply on staying alive!

  “What are you?” I shouted as I scrambled off the wall and away from her. “And what do you want?”

  “Doesssn’t matter,” the horse-lady hissed. “All you need to know isss that mine will be the lassst face you ever sssee.” Her awful smell washed over me then—the stench of rotting meat and zoo exhibits just after feeding time. It rushed up my nostrils like a flood, making my head spin, as footsteps echoed in my ears.

  A second later Violet came into view, panting.

  “Charlie—”

  “Violet, stay back!” I warned. “This thing isn’t human!”

  “What do you mean it’s not human?What is it, then?”

  “No idea!”

  The horse-faced lady sneered in disgust. “Never heard of me . . . ? You shhhould be BOWING before me, for I am the rightful ruler of the Azzztec Empire!” At my confused—and most definitely terrified—expression, she added, “Perhapsss you’ve heard my legend. . . . It’sss been told all over Cccentral America for agesss: the legend of Sssihuehuet.”

  Sihuehuet? It didn’t ring any bells. Which was sort of weird, because I was pretty sure my abuela had taught me nearly every legend ever told across the Spanish-speaking world. Was it possible she’d left this thing’s story out?

  “Or perhapsss you know me by another name,” the monster said, once again reading my face. “Cccigua.”

  Cigua? Hmmm. Still didn’t ring any bells. “Uh . . .”

  The creature’s forehead creased with concern, its ancient pasty skin so flabby that it almost looked like a frowning bulldog. “¿Nada? Nothing?”

  “Not really . . . ,” I admitted.

  “Are you posssitive?”

  “I, uh, think so. . . .” I felt like I was back in school, being pressed by one of my teachers to come up with an answer that I should’ve known but didn’t. Wasn’t much fun in class with teachers I liked, definitely wasn’t any fun with some horse-faced abomination that was trying to rip my face off.

  The thing went quiet for a second, then asked, “How about Cccegua?”

  I bit my lip, trying to think. “Eh . . .”

  “What?” she burst out. “You don’t know that one either?”

  “Sorry?” If I weren’t so terrified, I would’ve felt embarrassed for her. Maybe. Okay, probably not. “Uh, maybe you have, like, one or two more?”

  “¡Cállate!” she snapped. “I’ll lead thisss conversssation!” Then the walking horror show went into deep thought for a second or two before finally saying, “Ah, perhapsss you know me by the oldessst of my namesss . . . Sssihuanaba.”

  La Sihuanaba—of course! “You’re the peasant girl who became a queen but cheated on the king and got cursed!” I couldn’t believe I hadn’t realized it on my own! As if her hideous horse face wasn’t a dead giveaway, the fact that she’d been able to take the form of my mother—even if only from behind—should’ve made it as obvious as a slap in the face.

  “Ah, ssso you have heard of me. . . .” The monster wreathed its muzzle in a brutal-looking grin. “In thisss you are quite fortunate, boy.”

  “Really? And how is that exactly?”

  “Becaussse I will now extend to you the sssame offer I extend to all my victimsss who are wissse enough to recognizzze me,” she said.

  I highly doubted that I was going to like her offer, but at least it was something, right? “Which is?”

  “Tell me where Cipitío isss, and I’ll ssspare your life.”

  Cipitío . . . Cipitío. I’d definitely heard the name, but in my frantic state I couldn’t seem to remember exactly who—

  Oh! It was her son! The child born from one of her extramarital affairs. He’d also been cursed, if I remembered correctly; poor kid had been given backward feet.

  I frowned, confused. “How the heck should I know where your son is?”

  La Sihuanaba sighed. “Alwaysss the sssame boring anssswer . . .”

  “But I don’t know! Honest!”

  “Oh, I believe you,” the monster replied, the flabby curtains of her cheeks pulling back in a ghastly half smirk. “And now you die. . . .” Her mouth opened wide, and she bared her fangs at me. They were long and pointed, dripping yellowish liquid.

  I had a moment to think, Aw, man, nasty! and then she flung herself at me again.

  I ducked and rolled along the wall. La Sihuanaba danced to her left, cornering me between the side of the building and the dumpster. The venom ran down the sides of her muzzle like drool, dripping to the ground around her bare feet. Sizzling into the cement.

  She’s a walking poison factory! I thought with a fresh surge of panic.

  An instant later something small flew through the air, smacking the creature on the back of the head.

  “Yoo-hoooo!” Violet yelled. “Over here!”

  The hideous horse head swiveled in her direction. “Leave usss!” she hissed. “Thisss doesssn’t concccern you!”

  “You’d be sssssurprised what concerns me!” Violet shot back mockingly. She threw another rock. This one hit La Sihuanaba right on the nose, and the monster let out a horrible sound—something between a shriek and a dying horse’s last neigh. “Come get me!” Violet taunted her. “I got a big ol’ sugar cube waitin’ for you in my back pocket!”

  But the horse-lady didn’t go for it. Instead, she spun back around with a murderous look in her eyes. The message was crystal clear: She wanted me.

  “Why are you doing this?” I shouted at her. “What’d I ever do to you?”

  “Jussst sssettling an old ssscore,” the monste
r replied matter-of-factly.

  “But I don’t even know you!”

  “Not with you, boy! With La Cuca. Shhhe took sssomething from me, and now I’m going to take you from her.”

  Was she talking about the evil witch from those old legends? “I don’t even know a Cuca! I swear!”

  Those horrible black eyes fixed on me. “And how well do you know my ssstory . . . ?”

  I shrugged. “Pretty well, I guess.”

  “Do you remember the wretched, two-faced bruja in it?”

  I racked my frantic brain. “The witch . . . oh, sure! She’s the one who gave you the potion so you could trick the king into marrying you. Then she gave you another potion so you could kill him. But I don’t think that one worked out too good. . . .”

  “No, as a matter of fact, it didn’t! Becaussse inssstead of killing the king, the potion turned Yeisssun into a giant sssavage monssster, and he ruined everything! I wasss cursssed and cassst out of the empire—my empire! And it isss for thisss treachery, thisss purpossseful betrayal, that I will now exact my vengeanccce.”

  “Charlie, how do you beat that thing?” I heard Violet shout from the other end of the alley. She was down on her hands and knees now, searching for more rocks.

  “How should I know?” I shouted back.

  “I mean, like, in the myths! How do people survive when they run into her?”

  How did people survive . . . ? I tried to think, but I couldn’t focus on anything past the pounding in my head and La Sihuanaba’s gruesome face staring right at me. My brain was so fuzzy it felt like I was swimming through a bowl of sancocho soup.

  But somehow, like a flash of lightning, my abuela’s words came back to me: The few who have seen La Sihuanaba face-to-face and lived to tell the story claimed that she fled from them when they reached for their crucifix or bit down on a machete.

  A machete. Wouldn’t mind having one of those right about now.

  My eyes desperately scanned the alley. Nope, no machete. But I did spot something—a pair of car antennas sticking out of the half-open dumpster.

  La Sihuanaba must’ve seen a plan forming behind my eyes, because she charged me just as I was about to make my move, forcing me away from the dumpster.

  She slashed. I stumbled. She hissed. I screamed.

  “Charlie!” Violet shouted, flinging another rock. This one bounced harmlessly off La Sihuanaba’s head as her deformed jaws parted in a horrible sideways grin.

  “Ssslippery little one,” she murmured. “But you do realize you have no chance of essscape, don’t you?”

  She was trying to intimidate me. Trying to keep me scared, on the defensive. I wasn’t going to let it work. This time when she charged, I held my ground until the very last moment, then slipped through her arms and dove for the dumpster.

  La Sihuanaba might’ve had the face of an old, dead horse, but she was quick as a viper. She was on me in a blink, her talons slashing at my back, her wild hissing filling the air around me. Had I been half a second slower, her claws would’ve sliced ribbons down my back, carving me up worse than a Thanksgiving turkey. Too bad for her—and so, so good for me—I hadn’t been.

  Antennas in hand, I whipped around just as she closed the distance and raised them in the shape of a cross. Instantly, the horse-faced demon shrank back, shrieking in pain and surprise. I saw the skin along her bony muzzle begin to sizzle like someone had poured hot acid on it. I know it sounds weird or whatever, but that had to be the most beautifully repulsive thing I’d ever seen!

  I lifted the makeshift cross high. The antennas caught the moonlight and reflected the cross shape back at the demon. It was too much for her. She let out another bloodcurdling shriek and began to melt into her dress. Right before my eyes, she dissolved until she was nothing more than a steaming blob of bubbling yellow goop surrounded by about four yards’ worth of cottony fabric.

  For a long moment, I just stood there, stunned, hardly believing my eyes.

  Then Violet rushed over, shouting, “Charlie! Charlie, are you hurt?” She ran right up to me, her eyes huge, her breaths coming in big, heaving gasps. Her fingers closed around my arm like mini vises, and I winced. “Charlie, did she get you? Are you okay?”

  I shook my head. “Nah, she didn’t get me. . . .” But the truth was I didn’t feel too great either. My legs were rubber. My heart was whamming so hard I was sure it would pop like a piñata any second now. “Close but no ciga—”

  Suddenly, the ground shifted underneath me, and my knees unhinged. I would’ve smacked my head on the pavement if Violet hadn’t caught me.

  “Whoa, whoa, careful . . .” She hefted my weight, easing me back against the wall. “What’s wrong?”

  I closed my eyes. I had no clue. “Dizzy,” I whispered.

  Violet took my wrist, checking my pulse. Finally she said, “You’re fine. It’s only shock. Put your head between your knees and breathe.”

  I let myself slide to my butt on the cold alley floor. I wasn’t buying the whole head-between-the-knees thing, but once I tried it, I started feeling better. My muscles loosened up, breathing became a lot easier, and pretty soon the world stopped spinning. Apparently, on top of her many other talents, Violet would also make a pretty good EMT.

  “Better?” she asked when I finally looked up. I smiled—tried to, anyway. “You had me worried there for a sec,” she said. “I was about to give you mouth-to-mouth.”

  I’m not sure what kind of face I made, but it must’ve been pretty funny, because Violet burst out laughing.

  “Relax, Charlie. I’m just messing with you . . . ,” she said.

  I tried another smile. “Yeah, thanks for that.”

  “You’re welcome. Oh, and by the way, was that thing another one of the myths your grandma taught you?”

  I nodded.

  “And the Crying Woman, too, right?”

  “Yep.”

  Violet bit her lip in concentration. “That’s—interesting. . . .”

  It was interesting. In fact, I was starting to wonder exactly how much my abuela had known about these myths and why she’d told me all those stories in the first place. Had she known that these things actually existed? Was there any conceivable way she could have predicted that one day I would run into some of them? Had she been trying to protect me with her stories—maybe even prepare me?

  And if so, then maybe it wasn’t just my manifestations and my parents’ disappearance that were linked—maybe the myths were somehow connected too.

  A moment later, a soft breeze blew through the alley, swirling Violet’s hair as she nodded toward the blob of sizzling yellow goop formerly known as La Sihuanaba. “Caught a whiff of that yet?” she asked.

  I had. The smell sort of reminded me of my third-grade lunch box—and that wasn’t a compliment. “Smells like moldy fish sticks,” I said, pulling my shirt over my nose.

  “Probably time to go.”

  “Yep.” I pushed slowly to my feet, using the wall for support, and Violet hooked an arm through mine to steady me as we started walking.

  Maybe it was just my imagination, but about halfway down the alley, I thought I saw movement out of the corner of my eye—a massive yellowish blur dashing across the rooftop of the little bodega. I turned, squinting against the harsh white glare of a nearby lamppost, but didn’t see anything. No birds. No cats. Nada.

  Great, I thought, shaking my head. I’m on my way to becoming the world’s most paranoid middle schooler.

  And probably for good reason . . .

  Violet put a hand on my shoulder. “What’s up?”

  “Nah, nothing.”

  “You’re looking better already,” she said with a smile.

  I smiled back. “Gracias.” My head was still throbbing, though. I rubbed my aching temples. “So, you wanna head back to your house and try the tears?”

  “Actually, I think we should hold off on that,” she said. “It’s been a long day. We should get some rest first . . . try the tears tomorrow. Reme
mber, the mystery at Lilac Inn wasn’t solved in a day.”

  I didn’t get the reference, but I knew she was probably right.

  She usually was.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  The following morning my alarm clock went off about ten hours earlier than I would’ve liked. Groaning, I reached down to pull the covers over my face and immediately realized two things. One, my feathers had finally, finally come out—I could feel their tickly edges and pointy ends spread all over my pillows and bedsheets. And two, something was very, very wrong with my left arm. From the elbow down, it felt all stiff and cold, and the entire wrist area was throbbing like I’d pulled an all-nighter on Xbox Live. As a lifelong gamer and guitar player, the possibility that I might be developing some form of carpal tunnel had me bugging, but it wasn’t until I blinked the sleep out of my eyes and got a good look at my aching left hand that my anxiety really kicked into high gear.

  My hand looked like a giant lobster claw—er, my hand was a giant lobster claw! Thick and red and narrowing to a pair of sharp pincers.

  I tried flexing it and then almost peed my pants when the thing actually opened and closed at my command!

  How can this be happening to me again? I screamed on the inside. And so soon!

  Next thing I knew I was down the stairs and in the painfully bright kitchen, rummaging through the drawers and cabinets, searching frantically for something—anything!—to cover up this monstrosity. In less than twenty minutes, I’d have to be at school, and Halloween wasn’t anywhere close enough for me to stroll into first period looking like a walking advertisement for Red Lobster.

  Unfortunately, skipping school wasn’t an option. Any unexcused absences or strange behavior (which probably included manifesting bizarre crustacean appendages) and child services would send one of their psychologists to the house to check up on me. And an investigation by a huge, powerful government-run agency was just about the last thing I needed right now.