Bruja Born

by Zoraida Cordova

  “They have to,” I say. “Because right now we’re the only hope for this city.”

  • • •

  The surveillance room is full of faces both strange and familiar.

  The High Circle showed up, along with some of the younger brujas and brujos of the community. Pleased is not the first word that comes to mind to describe their attitudes, but at least they’re here.

  Mayi and Emma sit at the edge of the couch, unable to hold back their excitement. When you’re a bruja, it’s rare to be included in grown things, though I wish the circumstances were different. Two young brujos, Adrian and his older brother, stare at the members of the Thorne Hill Alliance and the scale-leather worn by the Knights of Lavant.

  “Why don’t we have hologram screens?” Adrian asks.

  “Do you have hologram-screen money?” Lady Lunes mutters.

  Rhett introduces himself as Garhett Dulac of the Knights of Lavant. He names Frederik Stig Nielsen as the High Vampire of New York, and Marty McKay as the representative to all solitary fey and supernatural creatures without nations. Because it’s an official meeting, one of the THA takes minutes in the corner, her fingers moving at a dizzying speed.

  “This is a live feed of the Brooklyn Bridge,” Frederik says, pointing at a projection map of the city. He’s turned the volume off, but I can imagine the screams of the stampede taking place. Three casimuertos are feasting on fresh kills. The Knights of Lavant descend on the scene, evacuating as many people as they can. The Knights fight fast, but the casimuertos are fast too. They bare their bloodied teeth and fight back. We watch, horrorstruck, as it takes three knights to bring down one casimuerto.

  “Turn it off,” Valeria says. She holds her eyelids shut with her fingertips. “I can’t stand that and the pull of the Veil. Don’t you feel it, Rose?”

  Rose looks down at her feet and gives a gentle nod. I realize we haven’t talked about her new ability, if it’s a new ability, at all. But there will be time for that later.

  Rhett pulls up the hologram map that estimates the spread of the casimuertos and their victims. “This is what the city will look like this time tomorrow. We’ve dispatched a team to work with our branch of the NYPD, but it isn’t enough. We need to work together in this, or the city falls.”

  A chatter starts among the magical beings and swarms into a loud buzzing.

  “Those zombie things attacked my pack in the park two nights ago.”

  “This city will have to burn again, won’t it?”

  “They don’t seem so hard to kill.”

  “I mean, decapitation has never not worked.”

  “Please, listen!” I stand in the middle of the room. A mix of angry and curious faces stare back at me. Frederick’s serum is starting to fade, and a dull pain starts to pulse at the base of my heart, right around my ribs. “I’m Lula Mortiz. I’m the one responsible for raising this undead army, and I called you all here because you are my only hope to stop them.”

  “You went against our word,” Gustavo says, staring at me like he might commit murder himself. His wife, Anna, clutches her amethyst prex, trying to get Adrian to sit back.

  “I know—” I start, but he interrupts.

  “You violated our most sacred laws. Now you seek our help again to clean up your mess, and you put us in the same room as the people who have hunted us for eons.”

  “This concerns us all,” Frederik says coolly. “The Thorne Hill Alliance is a neutral place. The Knights of Lavant are bound by the same laws as the rest of us. No one will harm you here.”

  Gustavo makes a distasteful noise in his throat, but Rhett ignores the outburst and gives me the floor again.

  “What do you propose?” Lady asks me, her head wrap twice as tall as usual, and her neck adorned with polished gems and a tiny clove of garlic that rests in the dip of her clavicle.

  “I don’t understand,” Elisabeth, a witch from the Thorne Hill Alliance, says. “How did you create these zombies?”

  “They’re called casimuertos,” I explain. “It means almost dead. They’re literally straddling the line between living and dead.”

  “What’s keeping them alive?” Elisabeth asks. “I mean, our magics are different, but all magic needs an anchor. Something must be tying them to this realm.”

  There’s a flurry of discussion and suggestions. Beheadings and fire and a quest for a magical spring that cures everything.

  I bring my fingers to my lips and whistle hard and loud.

  “I am the anchor.” When I speak those words, it silences them. I wonder how many are thinking it would be best to kill me right here and now. “The casimuertos are feeding on my life force. Our magic can’t heal it and potions won’t help. There’s a weapon that can sever the tie and destroy all the casimuertos bound to me. But this is bigger than just the casimuertos. La Muerte is trapped. The balance between the living and dead is broken. Spirits can’t be collected or cross over. Our world can slip into that in-between space.”

  “What do you need to do?” someone asks.

  “I need to call upon the elements to retrieve the Spear of Death.”

  “Even if we gathered every witch on this continent,” Valeria says, “what’s to say we can summon the power of the Deos?”

  “This is a fool’s errand,” Gustavo mutters.

  “You can think that, but it’s the only option we have,” I say. “Lady de la Muerte needs the spear. I trapped her, and I have to free her.”

  “Isn’t that a good thing?” Mayi asks quietly. She shrinks back a bit when all eyes turn on her. “No death, I mean…”

  Lady pulls out a cigar from her long skirt and lights it. Her fingers are trembling. I’ve never seen her scared in all my life. “In a perfect world,” Lady says, her eyes lingering on the vampire for a moment. “Immortality is for the gods. This world needs a balance of life and death. Without it, there is no renewal. There is stagnancy and chaos. Look at all those bodies out there.”

  “You really think you can conjure the elements?” Helena of the High Circle asks. “Conjuring is rare magic in our times.”

  “I’m an encantrix,” Alex says, standing beside me. “I was blessed by the Deos. I can summon all the elements.”

  “No,” my dad shouts. “That’ll kill you before Lula has a chance to see the spear, let alone get to it.”

  “Yeah, you’d die from the recoil, even if you could survive conjuring,” Mayi says.

  “McKay, can you put up the texts on the screen?” I ask.

  The shifter pushes a button and the rezo for Lady de la Muerte appears. I read it out loud.

  “El Fuego extinguished into ash. La Ola crumbled into salt. El Terroz clove the earth in pieces. El Viento fell and kept on falling.”

  Nova steps forward, resolution in his Caribbean-sea eyes, as if daring anyone to challenge him. “I’ll be your light, Ladybird.”

  “No,” Alex says, taking his hand. The magical burn marks work their way up to the knuckles now. “The recoil will literally kill you. You’re not—”

  “That’s for me to decide.” He yanks his hand back.

  “Sit down, son,” my dad tells Nova. “My lightning, it can substitute fire as well. I should be the one.”

  “Dad—” I start to say, but whatever is going to come next gets caught in the cry I silence.

  “I can summon wind,” Adrian shouts excitedly. He runs up to me, pulling out of his mother’s and father’s grips. He stands in front of me. “You remember, right, Lula?”

  “You’re doing no such thing,” Anna tells her son.

  Adrian doesn’t look at his mother, but at me. “My mother asked me to keep my power secret because of what happened with Alex. She thought you guys might be bad influences on me. But I am a Son of El Viento, Lord of Flight, and I can do this.”

  “Thank you,” I say, gripping his hand
in mine as he stands beside my father. He’s half the size of my dad and thin as a lamppost, but there is more bravery in this kid’s eyes than in most of the people in this room.

  McKay holds his hand out. “Okay, so fire and wind. What about one of the mermaids? They might be able to be one of your water witches.”

  My mom speaks up from her seat. “Unless they can command the sea itself, conjure it to move with the others, it wouldn’t work.”

  “I think I can,” a voice comes from the crowd.

  I’m not sure it’s even her until she stands. Rose. Her long, brown hair is a tangle of waves. Her chest rises and falls quickly, a nervous shake in her usually still hands.

  “That is not your power,” Valeria says. “That’s impossible.”

  Rose shakes her head. “It isn’t. I don’t know how or when, but my power has changed.”

  “Rose?” Ma steps forward to touch Rose’s round cheek.

  “It happened once last year,” Rose says. “I healed a cut on one of the patients. I thought I imagined it, so I ignored it. But during the healing canto, when we tried to heal Maks, I felt stronger. It was like…this energy coming awake.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” Gustavo says.

  “Of course it does,” I tell him, standing in front of him so he won’t look at Rose with the same disdain he looks at me with. “The other night, when I left headquarters, Rose saved me. She conjured light, just like Nova.”

  “What makes you think that means you can conjure water?” Lady asks, more curiosity than doubt in her sultry voice.

  “Every time, there was one thing in common.” Rose walks to the center of the room and takes Nova’s hand. “I was touching another bruja.”

  An understanding passes from Rose’s eyes to Nova’s. A radiant orb forms in his free hand, dragging across his body like a rope, and down his other arm. Rose raises her arm and a beam of light radiates from each one of her fingers.

  There’s a series of gasps in the room.

  I can’t stop smiling.

  The old brujas and brujos of the High Circle press their thumbs to their lips, then foreheads, and whisper a rezo to the gods. None of them have ever witnessed this kind of magic.

  “Can I try something?” McKay asks Rose.

  “You’re not a brujo,” Rose says.

  “No, but I’m still of the magical variety. I want to see something. May I?” She nods and they hold hands like they’re about to arm wrestle. “Close your eyes and think about the most beautiful person in the world. Think of their face. Then slowly, think about seeing that face when you look in the mirror.”

  Someone tries to protest, but another person shushes them.

  Slowly, Rose’s hair darkens and coils like Christmas ribbon. Her skin darkens to a milky brown, she’s taller by an inch or so, and her waist narrows. But it’s her face that startles me. Rose is wearing my face.

  I let go of a shuddering breath and touch my sister’s face. My face. She’s even wearing my scars.

  “Oh, my Rosie.”

  She lets go of McKay’s hand and shifts back into herself. I hold her as tight as I can, and I wish I didn’t have to let her go.

  “Holy f—” Nova starts to say.

  “How did you do that?” Mayi asks Rose, eyes lit with wonder.

  “The other times, I wasn’t aware of what I was doing. This time, I knew what I wanted. I wanted to use his power.”

  McKay grins widely. “It felt like I was being hijacked. Like something about you was hacking into my being.”

  “Does it hurt?” I ask.

  McKay shrugs. “Tickles actually.”

  “Try me!” Adrian says, and Rose touches his arm. This time, she lets go and uses both hands to create a cyclone. They test out the theory by having her touch a mermaid and a werewolf, but it only seems to work with magic.

  “You’re a magical hacker, Rose,” Nova tells her, slapping her on her back.

  She stares at her hands. “I think I like the sound of that.”

  “All this time,” Ma says, tears in her eyes. When she blinks, they fall long and hard, and there’s something about seeing my mother cry that makes me want to come undone. She brushes her hands along Rose’s blushing cheeks. “I thought you had the gift of the Veil.”

  “Valeria was the first person to ever hold her,” Alex says. “And your power is always stronger after your lessons. I can’t believe this. You know what this means? You could be stronger than me.”

  “I think we can be glad for this,” I say, then repeat what Lady de la Muerte told me. “The Deos are where they’ve always been.”

  “You can tap into my power,” Alex says, cracking her knuckles. “That will help you conjure water and I won’t have to worry about that recoil. That leaves me with earth.”

  “I’m glad you’ve got your circle,” Rhett says. “But where do you suppose you’re going to do this?”

  “The roof?” Nova asks.

  Frederik wags a finger. “We just rebuilt half this building.”

  I scour my thoughts for every word La Muerte spoke to me. She’s in a dark in-between, but her spear is elsewhere. I slap my hands together, recalling my last meeting with her. “Lady de la Muerte told me she was created at the edge of the world. But in our stories, there was one land and then just the sea.”

  “The beach,” Alex says triumphantly.

  “What about the casimuertos that are out there right now?” Emma asks, sitting closer to Mayi.

  “That’s where we come in,” McKay says.

  “While you guys head down to the boardwalk,” Rhett says, “we’ll send more teams to hunt the casimuertos.”

  “If I were an undead army of teenage soccer players, where would I go next?” McKay says, drawing his fingers together like an evil villain. He turns back to the screen on the main wall and pulls up the map of the city again.

  “School,” Rose says. “That’s where we found the first nest in the alley. Most of the bodies found with missing hearts are around there. Plus, the school closed early this year after the accident. It’s empty now.”

  “I think they’ve grown out of high school,” McKay mutters.

  Everyone faces the wall. The red dots of light are less spread out than before.

  “Are they moving?” I ask.

  “They’re migrating,” Frederik says. “Prospect Park?”

  I follow the slow movement of red dots. The lines that connect them seemed random before. But now I see something that I didn’t before. There’s a red dot, fainter than the rest, but right where this building is. I shouldn’t be surprised. It was Rose who told me my soul was detached. How can I be touched by La Muerte and be claimed for anything else but death? That red dot is me.

  “They’re coming here,” I say.

  “Call Camillia and tell her to bring the weapons truck to the THA back entrance,” Rhett says to another hunter. “We leave on my go. We have to clear the beach from all ends to give Lula’s circle time to retrieve the spear. I want groups of three at every street entrance.”

  Lula’s circle. The thought of it makes me smile for a moment. Just one.

  The living room is a flurry of activity. The witches of the Thorne Hill Alliance introduce themselves to Lady and my mother. Frederik becomes a blur as Mayi approaches him. In the maelstrom of it all, Rhett watches me from the other end of the room. Rose and Adrian talk about their newfound powers and Alex and Dad stand together in their usual silence.

  I know I’m not going to get another moment like this, so I take it all in—their faces, their fight, and their hope.

  That all vanishes when Gustavo walks up to me.

  “This won’t work!” He grabs my arm and squeezes. “You. You and your sisters. All you do is bring trouble to our people. You’ve allied with our enemies. You’ve brought shame to your ancest
ors. Chaos kissed the lot of you. I will not be a part of it and neither will my son.”

  The prex I’m wearing—the one my mother made to protect me against bad intentions and curses—breaks apart and falls to the ground.

  “Get your hand off my child, Gustavo,” Mom says. She’s standing so close to him that it takes me a moment to see the blade she’s pressing against his ribs. There’s a deadly stillness to her face, a resolution that frightens me. My mother is a healer. Her hands have saved countless lives and brought so many souls into this world. That same woman is willing to hurt someone for me. And I know I can’t let that happen.

  “Ma, I got it,” I whisper, aware that dozens of eyes are on me.

  “I made the wrong choices,” I tell Gustavo. “But your son has the opportunity to help me make things right.”

  Gustavo takes his wife and son by their hands. “Adrian, we’re going.”

  Adrian shakes his head, feet firmly planted on the floor. “I can’t. I have to do this. You’re the one who taught me that our power is greater than ourselves. Please, Pa.”

  Gustavo takes a long look at his son, then turns to me with fury in his eyes as he holds a finger to my face. “You still have to pay a price, Lula Mortiz. You can’t get out of paying it. And by the Deos, I hope that day comes quickly.”

  I stare right back into the hate in Gustavo’s eyes.

  All I can say to him is, “I know, Gustavo. But that’s between me and Death herself.”

  32

  For eons, the Deos slumbered.

  La Ola in her sea, El Terroz in his mountains,

  El Viento in the skies, and El Fuego at the heart of the world.

  —Tales of the Deos, Felipe Thomás San Justinio

  The Coney Island boardwalk is deserted. The shops are closed up for the night. Neon graffiti on the metal grates is the only color against the gray darkness that takes hold tonight. Thick, black clouds carry the beginnings of a storm toward the shore.

  I take a moment to let the drizzle kiss my face, feel the wind in my hair. The Deos are where they’ve always been and, more than that, are all around me. In this moment, I am ready.