by Nazri Noor
“Tia Leonora,” Quill said, wiping a tear away from the corner of his eye. “It’s always such a pleasure.”
Leonora chuckled some more, patting the back of Quill’s hand. “Ay, mijo, the pleasure is all mine. I’m always so happy when you come to visit. And who is this handsome young man you’ve brought with you?”
I perked up, an invisible string tugging on my spine to straighten it, because I still remembered my manners, but also because I knew that a little investment of warmth and charm could make life go by very smoothly.
“Mason Albrecht, ma’am. I met Quilliam at the Black Market. I needed work, and he was kind enough to connect me to you.” I was aware of how my chest was sticking out a little more than usual, and I pushed a little more glimmer into my eyes. Sell it, I thought. Play the part. “How can I help you, Tia Maria Leonora?”
She covered her mouth with a lace handkerchief, tittering. “No need to use my entire name. I like this one, Quilliam. He is very eager. Very polite.” She looked to either side of her, as if her fellow residents in the other rooms could possibly hear what she’d have to say. “Then I won’t waste your time, Mason. I will make this brief. I want you to kill me.”
I stood bolt upright. “I’m out.”
Quill’s hand darted for mine, locking gently, but firmly around my wrist, like velvet shackles. “Hey, hey now. We came all the way, Mason. It isn’t like that at all. You should hear her out.” He shook his head at Leonora, then looked at me again, offering a weak smile. “She has a flair for the dramatic.”
I heaved a sigh, composing myself again as I sat back down and patiently waited for her to continue. I told Quill my limits up front, damn it. I wasn’t going to kill anyone, especially not this presumably lonely old woman.
“He is right,” Leonora said. “I do very much enjoy theatrics.” She held one hand to her chest, then lifted her chin. “I was a telenovela star once, you know.” She turned one hand up with a flourish. “I was in the small pictures.”
Quill nodded. “She’s telling the truth, you know. I’ve seen a few episodes. It was a show from back in the eighties. Pretty entertaining.”
I allowed my eyes to travel across the room as I waited for someone else to fill the air with words. That explained all the glamor shots of someone who, I finally realized, was simply a younger version of Leonora. It also explained the ancient VHS player in the corner of the room under the boxy television set, along with the little shelf of tapes.
Leonora grinned, noticing my gaze. “Some day, perhaps, you will come and watch a few of my shows with me. But not today. Tell me, Mason. How old do you think I am?”
I shook my head. “I would never try and guess a lady’s age, ma’am.”
She laughed out loud, tickled. “That is the correct answer. But the truthful, correctest answer is that I am one hundred and forty years old.”
My mouth fell open, my breath frozen in my lungs. How could that be possible? I would have guessed that she was seventy, eighty tops.
“Yes,” she said, nodding gravely. “I see your surprise. But this old corpse has been preserved very well, you see. It runs in my bloodline. Every bruja in my family swears an oath to Mictēcacihuātl, the Lady of the Dead.”
My muscles went perfectly still. The Aztec goddess of death, specifically, queen of the underworld. Now, I’d never had a brush with a death deity before, but I’d heard enough about them to know that they were bad news all around. You never messed with the death gods for many, many reasons, chief among them the fact that most could kill with a single touch.
“I see,” I said, somehow managing to get the words out without stammering.
“It is part of our oath, you see, a kind of immortality. While we are bound to her service, we do not die. I was meant to be released long ago. But my granddaughter sees fit to manipulate the sacred pact. She has sold me out to the Lady of the Dead in exchange for more power.” She leaned forward, the bright, cheery abuela long gone, her face only a mask of fury, her knuckles gone white as she twisted her shawl into impossible knots in her hands. “She sold out everyone in my family. That is why I am here, you see. I have no one left. Monica, she has broken my heart, and yet she refuses to kill me.” Leonora’s hand shook as she pointed a finger in my face. “Tell me, Mason. Where is the justice in that? She pays for me to live here, moves me and changes my identity when I outgrow what an old woman’s life should last. Then she pays our goddess in blood to keep me alive, so that I may live here with my dreams and the shattered pieces of my heart, so that I am forever haunted by my solitude.”
Something twisted in my chest, clenching tightly. Quilliam was avoiding my gaze – either that, or he was just as captivated by Leonora’s story.
“This you must do for me, Mason,” Leonora said. “Go to my granddaughter’s house, the same house she has stolen from our family. Go to the gardens, and find the Obsidian Rose growing there. Bring it to me, and I will do the rest. I am tired. I am grown so, so old. This body is no good. I’ve lived too long.” She turned her head slowly, to stare out of the window. “I want to be with my Miguelito once more.”
There, on a dresser just by the window, was a framed picture of Leonora and her husband. I bit down hard on my lip, trying my best to look past the fact that her eyes were gleaming with new wetness.
“Damn it,” I muttered under my breath.
She turned her head towards me, her ears perking up. “What was that, mijo?”
“I’ll do it,” I breathed.
Quill slapped me on the back, the force of it alarmingly strong for his frame. “You see, Tia? I told you I would find someone to help. Mason’s a good boy. He’ll do whatever it takes to help. Won’t you, Mason?”
I sighed, my body deflating as I did. “Within reason,” I said, raising a finger and smiling at the two of them weakly.
Leonora nodded, beaming. “Thank you, Mason. You are doing these old bones a wonderful favor.” She leaned over to Quill, one hand cupped over the side of her mouth. “Quince mil,” I heard her murmur.
Quill’s eyes went huge. “Oh.” He blinked at her, then grinned. “Does that include my finder’s fee?”
Leonora laughed and patted him playfully on the cheek. “That is up to the two of you boys to decide.” She nodded at me. “Did you understand, mijo?”
I shook my head, confused.
“Tia Leonora just stated her price,” Quill said, smiling, a glimmer in the back of his eyes. “She’s happy to pay you fifteen thousand dollars for the head of her granddaughter.”
11
I told them I would think about it, when the truth was that my heart had fallen out of my ass. I trudged up the horrible, paint-peeled staircase leading to my apartment, silent and seething as I bemoaned the state of my finances. In many, many other situations I would have jumped on the chance to make fifteen grand. Hell, point a camera at me and make me do dirty things, I’ll take it. Fallen angel, remember? What the hell did I have to lose?
But collecting Monica Rodriguez’s head? I mean, damn. That meant killing two birds with one stone.
Technically, I didn’t need to decapitate Monica or anything. It was just a dramatic turn of phrase courtesy of Quilliam. Still, removing the Obsidian Rose from the family home and returning its power to Leonora would spell Monica’s doom, shortly before sealing her own. The orderlies over at the assisted living facility would probably walk into Leonora’s room to check on her, only to find a pile of dust waiting in her floral armchair.
Even so, who was I to take the lives of two people in my hands, even if they were death witches with potentially questionable morals? I didn’t even know what I would be up against. Was Monica Rodriguez a bruja or a proper death priestess? Certainly not a necromancer. Those were super rare in the underground, and the only one I knew was my closest friend at the Boneyard. But whatever the case, going up against any kind of mage who was imbued with the power of death amounted to, well, a death sentence. What can swords and shields do against someone w
ho can kill you with their thoughts?
There had to be alternatives for income. There just had to be. I slipped my key into my front door, groaning as I jiggled it loose, then shoved it open and stepped into my apartment. It had been a mostly fruitless day of job hunting, and I was tired, and grumpy, and still penniless.
“Florian,” I called out into the living room. “You home? I’m back.”
I poked my head around the tiny hallway leading to the rest of the apartment and very nearly had a heart attack when Florian jumped out of the bathroom, his arms spread wide.
“Dude!” he yelled.
“Jesus,” I yelled back, clutching my chest. “Don’t scare me like that.” I blinked at him, then looked around the darkness of the apartment. “Wait. Have you been waiting in there to surprise me this whole time?”
He scratched the back of his neck sheepishly. “Mostly. Yes. But listen, I’ve got the best idea. And before you yell at me, just hear me out for a second.” He lifted his hands up to his face, palms out, then parted them with a flourish. “Homebrewing.”
I raised an eyebrow at him, folding my arms. “Homebrewing. Really.”
Florian scowled. “Yes, really. I’ve done this before, and I’m really, really good at it. I can make ale and wine, as long as I have access to raw materials.” He pointed his finger at me, cocking it like a gun. “And because I’m super good at nature magic and stuff, I can accelerate the process, make sure we only get the finest ingredients. I swear to you, we’ll make a killing. It’ll be the best wine you’ve ever tasted. Ever.”
I shrugged. “Can’t drink. I’m like eighteen, buddy.”
“Even behind closed doors?”
I stiffened. “It’s the principle of it.”
He scratched his forehead, frowning harder. “It was rhetorical, anyway. The point is, people are going to love the stuff I make. We can bottle and sell it. And again: acceleration. If we can find someone who’ll buy it, I can have a couple dozen bottles of the good stuff by the end of the week.”
I chewed the corner of my bottom lip, still unconvinced. “I’m iffy on this, Florian. I like that you clearly – very clearly gave this a lot of thought.”
He stuck his chest out, proud of his long, hard afternoon of mostly sitting in the dark and thinking.
“But we’ll get shut down in no time. You need permits for this kind of thing, to make sure it’s safe to consume. We’d get in so much trouble. You can’t just bootleg alcohol and sell it wherever you want.”
He cocked another finger-gun at me, clicking his tongue and winking. “Or can you?”
I shut my eyes and squeezed the bridge of my nose. “Florian. Please. Can you not?”
The sudden force grabbing me by the shoulders took me by surprise, and my eyes flew open to the sight of Florian’s face just dangerous inches away from mine. My eyes went wide with terror, but at least he smelled nice. Like freshly cut grass. Maybe that was a dryad thing. Sorry, male dryad thing.
“You’re not thinking big enough, Mace,” Florian said, leaning in uncomfortably close, his moss-green eyes manic and darting with excitability. “We don’t live in the real world, remember? This is the arcane underground. You don’t sell to the normals. We find a pretentious hipster gourmet grocer down at the Black Market and sell through them. Who needs permits and licenses and junk when they know this stuff is being brewed by a bonafide, super handsome dryad?”
It all clicked for me then. I grinned, despite my previous misgivings. “Florian. I could kiss you. I think you might secretly be a genius.”
“Maybe I am!” He let go of me, pedaling backwards as a peal of gleeful, boyish laughter escaped his throat. He clasped his hands together, mumbling at top speed. “Imagine the possibilities. We could find clients right in the Black Market. And if we don’t end up killing anyone, which we won’t, because I’m amazing, then word of mouth will kick in and we’ll keep selling more and more of the stuff.”
My eyes went as distant as his, staring at, I could only assume, the same place that he saw. I presumed that it was also a swimming pool full of money. “Enough to make rent,” I said.
“Think bigger. Enough to move out of this crappy apartment. We could be happy someplace we don’t have to sleep with rats, Mason.” He thrust his fists into his hips, his chest swelling with pride. “I’ll finally be pulling my weight.”
I stepped over, shaking my head as I clapped him on the shoulder. “I underestimated you, buddy. Maybe we can make this work, after all. We just need supplies.”
“That we do.”
I pantomimed holding an invisible pen over an invisible clipboard. “I’m all ears.”
“We need lots of vessels. Clay pots, we used in the old days, but jars will do just as well. Mason jars.” He laughed. “Get it?”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re a laugh riot. What else?”
“Fresh water. And raw ingredients. Good fruit. Lots and lots of it. Doesn’t matter what it is, I’ll make it taste amazing.” He rubbed his chin. “But we don’t exactly have money to go buying all that stuff.”
I rubbed my chin as well, unconsciously mirroring his body language. “Wait. So all you really need is access to a bunch of plants, right? Then you can use your magic, maybe call stuff up from beneath the earth, and then it’s like a shopping spree.”
He cocked his head and shrugged. “Well, it’s a little more complicated than that, but you’ve got the idea.”
I snapped my fingers. “Then I’ve got just the right place. But it’s late, so we’re not going to be able to just strut in through the front door.” I raced to my bedroom, grabbing my backpack and stuffing it with the darkest clothes I owned. Florian followed me, puzzled, and I tossed an oversized black sweater at his face in answer. “What are your thoughts on breaking and entering?”
12
Well, not just breaking and entering, actually. More like breaking and entering with some good old vandalism on top.
Now, normally, I would never condone any sort of crime, whether mundane or magical. But given the choice between kidnapping some plants from a botanical garden and killing two death witches, I was obviously going to go with the fruit.
Lucky for us, then, that the Nicola Arboretum was so lightly guarded at night. The hurried precautions Florian and I took to dress in anything resembling black seemed to be more than enough, considering the only guy on duty was an older gentleman who wasn’t exactly very vigilant about doing his rounds. From the noises coming off of his phone, it sounded very much like he was a big fan of mobile gaming. At least he was having fun.
Plus, it meant that our job was going to be easier. Sneak in, steal some shit, then sneak out. The Nicola Arboretum was the biggest – scratch that, the only botanical garden in the city of Valero. It was the largest expanse of nature for miles around, too, unless you went beyond city limits, and who had the time for that? Theoretically, Florian and I could have gone all the way to wine country to steal some grapes to use as actual, literal seed capital for starting our illicit liquor business. But we needed fast cash, and this was going to have to do.
Not that it felt like a chore or anything. After we clambered over the gates, it was a mostly relaxed stroll through the gardens to go looking for fruit and flowers. The arboretum was gorgeous by day, but by night the ambient chill of the air gave the vegetation a distinctly dewy sheen. Simple leaves and tendrils shone like shards of glass and metal in the dark, the fruits and flowers we needed glimmering like jewels. It was easy, almost fun work, and it was an opportunity to actually get to know Florian a little better, for once.
“Hey, man,” I said, as we riffled through some bushes. “I really don’t give you enough credit. I’m sorry if I ever said really nasty things to you.”
He wrinkled his forehead, giving me a weird smile as he deposited a single red berry into his rucksack. “You’ve never been mean to me, Mace. I know I can be a bit of a burden. I’m just trying to fix that.”
“Yeah. Thanks for saying that.”
I scratched my forearm, kneeling in the grass to look for more berries. “Belphegor did say that it was the reason he made me take you in,” I said, chuckling. “As if I’d know the first thing about responsibility. I’m just a kid.”
A kid who grew up too fast, I thought, but I didn’t say that out loud. Life’s a little tougher when you don’t have a dad growing up, when your mom dies before you even hit your seventeenth birthday.
Things were rough for me early on, but hey. Now I was rummaging through some bushes with my dryad buddy, looking to make some magical bootleg wine. This was better than skipping from town to town, constantly unsure of where my next meal or my next eight hours in an actual bed would come from.
Florian shrugged. “I’m older than you by a significant factor,” he said, “but you’ve got a better head on your shoulders than I do most of the time. Don’t sell yourself short.”
I scooted down even further, landing on my butt, the wet grass seeping into the underside of my jeans. “You know, that’s the thing. You don’t seem like a bad guy at all. How the hell did you end up with someone like Belphegor?”
He shrugged again, sighing. “Long story, but I’ll give you the gist of it. You know how certain plants can hibernate underground for ages, like a kind of survival tactic to help them survive? They’ll go snooze for the winter, then come back out in the spring. That happened to me. I didn’t know it could happen to my people.”
I watched him intently, my mind swimming with images of him somehow regressing into the size and shape of a tiny little seed and burrowing into the earth. I was pretty sure that wasn’t how it happened, but at least I had a visual to work with.
“And Belphegor found me, brought me to his hell, planted me in his garden like I was just some succulent he picked up at a farmer’s market. I woke up, and that was it. He wanted me to tend his Crimson Gardens – massive place, full of carnivorous plants, just the craziest shit. But I was so groggy and weak from being asleep for so long. I guess he got frustrated, wanted some way to turn me into a better servant.”
