by Ann Aguirre
I smelled something burning.
Please, oh, please, let that be nothing more menacing than a part we don’t need.
Unfortunately, the sun slid behind a cloud—clouds that hadn’t been so present or so dark a few minutes before—and the wind kicked up, classic signs something hideous was about to happen. To make matters worse, the smolder intensified into the stink of rotten eggs. Nothing good ever came of that stench. For the first time since I’d known him, Butch howled. It was a tiny, despairing sound, which I took to mean: We are all kinds of fucked.
“They’re scrying,” Kel said softly. “Using the water all around us.”
An actual witch would know how to block that. It sucked that I wasn’t one. “But how—Oh, shit. A tracking spell.”
It only made sense. Still, I couldn’t regret keeping the saltshaker. The curse needed to be removed before it decayed and struck somebody else. Only a selfish son of a bitch would discard a hexed item for someone else to trigger, and it wasn’t like discarding an item guaranteed nobody would ever touch it again. Some people made their living picking through the garbage.
The monkeys screamed, showing yellow teeth. There were six animals, so big and heavy that they weighed down the boat. All around us, the air turned thick, heavy as chilled molasses; it had an actual viscosity, as if I could slice it and peer through. I struggled for oxygen, but it was no use. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, and it was the worst thing ever, even worse than the cold life-sucking shades the warlock in Laredo had conjured. Oh, I didn’t want to face worse than Nathan Moon.
Not like I had any choice.
The boatman seized. His whole body went rigid, and then the convulsions started. A bloody froth poured from his mouth, bubbling over his T-shirt. I fought the icy paralysis, but couldn’t break free. Poor Ernesto. He’s dying because of me . . . for four hundred pesos. I wanted desperately to look away, but I owed him that much—to bear witness to his suffering.
“What’s happening?” The words weren’t clear because I couldn’t move my lips, but Kel took my meaning.
“A summoning,” he said. “Passing over takes a lot out of any demon, so they’re feeding on him before they attack us.”
The paralysis was probably insurance, assuring that its prey didn’t scamper off before it was ready to fight. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I watched the boatman writhe in unspeakable agony; it seemed like an eternity before he stilled. Eventually, the air cleared, releasing my locked muscles, but I didn’t see anything we could fight. Kel tensed beside me, and his gaze cut every which way. Regardless of what he sensed, he didn’t leave my side. I could never repay him for that.
His hand tightened on my forearm as the world around our boat went dark. I could still hear the rocking of the lake, but as if from great distance. He flashed, his white light shooting skyward like a beacon, and everything snapped back into focus, the darkness swirling away like windblown smoke.
I’d almost forgotten he could do that. He’d saved us at the airstrip outside Laredo with undead swarming all around, but it appeared his brightness worked best on zombies and shades, not demons. The wrong in the air didn’t dissipate. Black columns of darklight poured into the monkeys’ eyes, and they dropped their chunks of pineapple and papaya. The sweet-smelling pulp smeared all over the seats overlapped the sulfur stink, creating a truly horrific fruit salad. Hairy limbs jerked as the fiends learned how to puppet their new meat suits.
“Lesser demons,” Kel breathed.
Oh, Christ. They must’ve been sent through the tracking spell by the foul practitioner Montoya had hired, and they’d eaten Ernesto’s soul, as Kel had predicted—and they would’ve gotten me too, if he hadn’t driven them back with his divine light. Not long ago, I would’ve felt ridiculous thinking along those lines, but it was nothing more than the truth today. People had been saying the eyes were the windows to the soul for centuries, but that wasn’t strictly true. They were more like doorways, and if you weren’t well protected, anything could get in.
At least they can’t possess me or devour my soul anymore. But we weren’t out of the woods yet. Not by any means.
“What’s the game plan?”
We had no driver, and as soon as these monkey-demons worked out how to use their new bodies, we’d be up to our asses in attempted murder. I’d never seen animal possession before, but these beasts weren’t natural, and they had the size and strength to do serious harm. Much as I hated to see Kel kill creatures in the wrong place at the wrong time, I wanted them to eat my organs even less. And it didn’t seem right to leave a host of demonic monkeys on the island for the next batch of tourists.
Why couldn’t I do anything useful in situations like this?
“Stay back. I may be able to perform an exorcism.”
It went without saying that he was going to take some hideous damage in the process. I scrambled, looking for a place to hide, but the best I could do was to crouch down between the seats in the stern of the boat. A flat-bottomed lancha like this didn’t offer much in the way of cover. I shuddered as I squatted next to Ernesto, who was horribly, undoubtedly dead. Grief for his fate and for his family’s loss rippled through me.
The monkeys came at Kel as a unit, a whirl of claws and teeth. He rocked but did not give ground. Blood poured from the wounds they tore in his sides, greedily feasting on his flesh. They were something other now. Not animals. Fiends. I bit down on my thumb to keep from crying out.
His voice rang like a clap of thunder and warmth showered over me. “Deus, in nómine tuo salvum me fac, et virtúte tua age causam meam. Deus, audi oratiónem meam; áuribus pércipe verba oris mei.”
Latin. Of course it would be Latin. The cadence rose and fell, fueled by the strength of his will. But I made some sound—drawing attention to myself—and one of the demons broke away from the rest, bounding down the aisle toward me. I threw out my branded palm, intending to shield my face, and words that were not my own erupted from my mouth:
“In the name of the north, south, east, and west, in the name of the once and future queen, in the name of the smoke and the air, and the wind and the water, I name you the Klothod, who were banished from light of the daystar and may not walk this earth without my leave. I turn and bind you, back from whence you came. Tsurikshikn!”
A flash of light went up; I didn’t know if it came from Kel or me. My eyes blazed white, a sort of crazy snowblindness, and when my vision cleared, I saw the guardian crouched before me. The ash littering the boat blew away in the gentle breeze. Even the smell was dissipating in wind that carried the scents of fish and freshwater.
“How did you know that banishment?” he demanded.
I dropped to my knees, shaken and bewildered. “It just came to me.”
“Like magic.” His tone belied his blank expression.
I had succeeded in upsetting or surprising him; I wasn’t sure which. Considering he didn’t seem bothered by the deep wounds in his torso, it must be major. Reaction set in—the summoning, Ernesto’s death, the demons, and the possessed monkeys. From head to toe, I trembled.
Through chattering teeth, I offered, “Maybe I read it in one of my m-mother’s books?”
“Unlikely,” he said quietly.
“Then how?” With my eyes, I begged for a logical answer.
Using the driver’s seat, I pulled to my feet and stepped away from poor Ernesto. There were other monkeys on the island; we hadn’t killed all of them. More faces peered at us through the bushes, but none of them looked likely to board. Good.
“For those of the proper lineage, the knowledge comes from blood and bone, a dormant part of you until such a time when it is needed.”
Proper lineage? I frowned at him, trying to keep my emotions in check. “That makes no sense. What are you saying?”
“Those words were excised from the Testament of Solomon thousands of years ago. They were deemed too powerful to remain in this world.”
Holy crap. I wasn’t sure I wanted to
know, but I asked anyway: “How come?”
“Because in the right hands, conjoined with a true name, they can be used against any creature, not just demons. Imagine that.” He paused. “I’ll give you a minute.”
My jaw tightened; I wasn’t stupid. If I could use that incantation to banish humans, angels, shades, wraiths, or whatever else I might run across, that was simply too much power. I understood why it had been culled. But what was such knowledge doing in my brain? From Kel’s expression, he had some idea about the answer too. Ordinarily I’d be making some attempt to patch up his wounds, but he seemed in no mood to have me change the subject.
“But you recognized it because—”
“I’m not of this world,” he finished. “At least not entirely.”
What the hell? What are you, then? But I didn’t figure he would answer me, even if I asked. This wasn’t the time to discuss his origins; he wanted to talk about that ancient banishing incantation, and truth be told, so did I.
“So why didn’t you use that instead of doing a regular exorcism?” It would’ve saved him some pain—that was for sure.
His eyes were reflective and cool as a glacier. “Because it only works for one of Solomon’s blood. It was magic granted to his line by the archangel Michael. Your family has long been given dominion over demonic forces.”
Shit. His expression said he believed it, one hundred percent. I sought detachment to process the new information. Allegedly, the words came because I needed them, because I was descended from King Solomon. No way to verify that, not after all these years. According to my mother, my dad, Albie Solomon, had been a traveling salesman, but I’d never dug into the histories on my father’s side, so I had no more knowledge than that, and it was unlikely I could trace it all the way back in any case.
I didn’t know much about the old king, except that he’d threatened to split a baby in half in order to tell who the real mother was. There were other legends as well—that he’d built his famous temple by summoning and binding demons to do the hard labor. Could I believe I was born of his line? Nothing else made sense. Yet I preferred not to come from a special lineage, or be destined for big things, because that would obligate me to all kinds of shit not commensurate with a quiet life. At this point, I might not have a choice.
I cleared my throat, more freaked than I wanted to admit. “Moving on. We still need to talk to the island witch. The sooner we get this saltshaker situation handled, the better off we’ll be.”
“Agreed,” he said. “We covered a lot of territory.” The old woman had given us directions from the shore, not from Monkey Island. “How do you propose we locate her from here?”
“I was thinking I’d handle the wheel. If Ernesto has been running tours a long time, he may have left impressions. He seemed to like his job, and strong happiness soaks in as well as the bad stuff.”
Kel nodded. “Good idea.”
Anyone else would’ve attempted to talk me out of it, like, say, Jesse or Chance. They’d seen me read a whole house in Kilmer and knew how much this would hurt. I rather doubted Kel cared, as long as I lived through it. We needed the information; this was the way to get it.
“Could you move Ernesto?”
I just wasn’t cold enough to hop behind the wheel on top of his body. Christ, I didn’t know what we were going to tell the Mexican police. I didn’t look forward to all the questions. Everywhere I went, it seemed I wound up on the wrong side of the law. Except Mexico City. The place was clearly charmed, and the only spot where I could consistently stay out of trouble.
In answer, he bent and scooped the man into his arms. He whispered a few words—probably a blessing of some kind—and then tossed the body over the side of the boat. There was a splash, and Ernesto sank from sight. I’d forgotten how fucking heartless God’s Hand could be.
“Doesn’t he deserve a service?” I demanded.
His customarily blank face showed a shimmer of emotion. “I have the blood of angels in my veins, Corine Solomon. I defy you to find anyone more worthy to send a soul to his rest.”
Blood of angels? What does that even mean? I hoped it didn’t mean he’d been drinking it. Because . . . gross.
I tried once more to explain why I found this course objectionable. “But what about his family? They’re going to wonder.”
“Explaining the circumstances behind his death would prove impossible. The Mexican police would discover that I have a record and they would attempt to extradite me. Such events, while not catastrophic, would interfere with my ability to protect you.”
“Yes, I understand that, but—ah, never mind.” It wasn’t like I could change anything now. Ernesto had sunk as if he had a pocketful of stones—and for all I knew, maybe that was what Kel had been murmuring, a magickal rock-whispering spell.
I might as well handle and get it over with. But as I sat down, he touched my arm lightly, his fingers patterned gruesomely with blood in the bright sunlight. “His mother is devout, so I can touch her dreams. She will not wonder.”
Small comfort, maybe, but it did help. I acknowledged that concession with a nod, took a deep breath, and curled my hand around the wheel. Pain surged through me, laced with heat, but it wasn’t the I wish I were dead kind. This contained joy at its core, as if I’d held a sparkler too long.
Because Ernesto had gripped this wheel for so many days, it had absorbed a great deal of his memories. They flickered before me in quick succession. I saw that he’d taken us on a standard tour, but he sometimes took people to see the island witch too. With great determination, I fixed the course in my mind and marked which island before the images melted away.
My hand was red and sore, but it wasn’t marked; I thanked my mother’s power for that and called this a good reading because I could stand the burn. Sometimes handling left me crippled with pain for days after, if the charge left behind was traumatic enough. When I opened my eyes, I found Kel’s attention split between the remaining monkeys and me. I couldn’t blame him for that. Talk about culling the local primate population.
He brushed his fingertips lightly across my palm. The resultant tingle banished any residual pain, leaving me pleasantly light-headed. “Wow. How come you never did that before?”
“I wasn’t sure you were worthy.” Ouch. “We are taught not to waste our gifts. But you hold heaven in you as well as hell, and you have yet to choose your course.”
Sometimes he sounded utterly crazycakes—and sometimes I feared the world he lived in because it was real, simply layered above and below my own. At a loss, I muttered, “Thanks.”
“How much does your arm hurt, by the way?”
“It’s a constant throb, low like a toothache. Don’t worry; I’m keeping it clean, and I won’t let it slow me down.”
He nodded. “If it becomes too painful, tell me.”
“So, do you know how to drive a boat?”
“I can get us there, if you remember the way.”
As the boat engine fired up, the monkeys shrieked and beat the trees, showering us in falling leaves. They hadn’t gotten anything to eat, but from their size, they would last until more tourists arrived, no problem. I had never been so happy to put a place behind us.
“I do.” I glanced back and was sorry I did when I saw the new alpha male posturing on the shore. “Man, that’s not a happy sound.”
“They’re trapped,” he said, “and like any creature, they protest it.”
No doubt.
“What are we going to do with the boat?”
He considered for a moment, his big hands strong and sure on the wheel. “We’ll leave it where Ernesto paused to buy fruit. Someone will claim it. And we should be able to get a taxi back to the hotel from the zócalo.”
I had to admit—that was very clever.
Kel guided the launch skillfully through the water. With the sun out, Lake Catemaco was beautiful again, pure majesty and shining blue water, but I remembered all too well how easily it could turn dark. Geographic
ally, the island wasn’t far, but there were a number of wooded isles in the lake. Without Ernesto’s specific knowledge added to the old woman’s directions, we would never have found it.
On arrival, there was no dock, just a makeshift pier constructed out of scrap wood and fallen trees. We cut the engine and drifted in. When we reached a safe distance, Kel jumped first, rope in hand, and then he lifted me down by my waist. I was happy not to make the leap.
A young boy melted silently from the shadows and took the line, mooring our boat to a curved mangrove tree. Its roots bowed upward, creating a lagoon within the lagoon. I chose my footing carefully until I could scramble out of the water onto the mossy ground. The trees were heavy and marched up the hillside like resigned soldiers; the air itself carried the scent of decomposition, a soft green scent that somehow did not smell of death, but more like renewal.
“Buenas tardes,” the child said. He was reed-thin and sunbrowned, not more than ten years old. “¿Estás aquí para ver a mi mamá? Nalleli?” he clarified, as if there might be ten other island witches.
“Sí, por favor. Es muy importante.”
White teeth flashed in his thin face. “¿Como siempre, no?”
I felt a flush starting. Doubtless everyone who showed up begging her aid claimed it was a matter of life and death. In our case, it was true.
“Claro,” I muttered.
The boy beckoned for us to follow. Deeper in the undergrowth lay a primitive staircase, no more than planks cut into the soil to help with traction in the climb. I didn’t like how deep into the jungle this path appeared to go, but we needed answers and Nalleli could provide them. Moreover, I needed a curse and a tracking spell removed. I had no other leads in Mexico; nor did I dare let wretched Eros out of my sight. Rock and a hard place, once again.
“Let’s go,” Kel said. “Before we lose track of him.”
The Island Witch
“You’re crazy powerful,” I said as we went deeper into the jungle. The dirty yellow T-shirt on the back of a strange child remained our only tie to civilization. We had long ago left the boat behind, and I could no longer even see the water. “How come you couldn’t just burn the curse away?”
