Magic City

by Paula Guran

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know. Be in before dark.”

  “Have you already forgotten the bandas?” she says.

  “No.”

  But I kind of had. I’d rather pretend none of that is happening because it makes me feel like throwing up.

  “Let’s shoot some hoops,” I say.

  I pass her the ball and she dribbles it like a pro. Once we start playing one-on-one, she cleans up. She might be small, but I’ve never seen anybody so fast, on or off the court.

  If she’s any indication of what the kids are like here, I don’t think I’ll be making the team any time soon.

  Of course, first I have to make it through tonight in one piece.

  Señora Young Deer put together an amazing meal. It’s just a vegetable stew, but it’s like nothing I’m used to. Fiery, but so flavorful. She must have a stash of special spices in that backpack of hers because I’ve never tasted anything like them in Mom’s cooking.

  It’s almost dark by the time we’ve cleaned up and Señora Young Deer says we have to go upstairs.

  “There are no bars on your windows,” she says when I give her a puzzled look. “If we hold the upper level they can only come at us one at a time, by the stairs.”

  “But I thought Reuben was taking care of them.”

  She nods. “My boys will do their best, but there’s no guarantee that they will be successful. We have to be prepared for any circumstance.”

  So, as the night comes washing down the tidy streets of Desert View, we’re camped upstairs in my bedroom. Señora Young Deer and Rita are sitting on the bed, leaning back against the headboard. Rita’s doing some homework while her grandmother is reading a book. I’m in a chair by the window, also doing homework, or at least trying to. I’m worried about what’s on the other side of the glass.

  I keep looking outside, except there’s nothing to see. Not Rita’s uncle and her friends. Not the bandas, either. For now.

  “You know,” I finally say, “there’s so much security in this place that as soon as one of the neighbors sees a bunch of gangbangers skulking about, they’re going to call the police.”

  Señora Young Deer smiles and nods. “We can hope.”

  By which I take it she means, fat chance. But I think she’s underestimating the people who live in Desert View. Okay, so places like this aren’t exactly known for their sense of community, but I’m pretty sure anybody living here would be on the phone in a second if they saw gangbangers creeping around. They’d do it if they saw Reuben’s people, too, for that matter.

  I look out the window again. It’s full dark now, but the streetlights are bright and the street’s well lit. Some of the houses don’t have floods, though, and there are pools of shadow lying up against their walls. I’m studying the skirt of darkness around the house across the street when suddenly all the lights go out. I mean everywhere. Here in the house and outside. Up and down the street, everything’s gone dark.

  Señora Young Deer makes a hissing sound and jumps up from the bed.

  “Aita?” Rita says.

  I turn back to look at their shadow shapes.

  “Brujería,” the older woman says. “Can’t you smell it in the air?”

  “Come again?” I say.

  “Magic,” Rita whispers.

  I don’t know about magic, but this has gone far enough. I take out my phone to call 911, but even my phone’s dead. I don’t mean I’m not getting a signal. The phone won’t even turn on.

  “They’ve laid a veil over us,” Señora Young Deer says. “We’re no longer a part of the world. They’ve pushed us outside it.”

  “But that means . . . ” Rita starts.

  Señora Young Deer nods. “We’re on our own. The boys won’t be able to get to us.”

  “Wait a minute,” I say. “You’re not making any sense. This is just a power failure. The bandas must have cut the power lines coming into Desert View. What we have to do is call the police.”

  “The police can’t reach us any more than Reuben and the boys can,” Señora Young Deer says.

  I decide to ignore her and turn to Rita. My eyes are adjusting to the poor light. She looks as freaked as I’m feeling. Maybe more.

  “My phone’s dead,” I tell her. “Use yours to call out.”

  She shakes her head. “It won’t work any better than yours.”

  I look from Rita to her grandmother.

  “Come on,” I say. “You guys are starting to creep me out.”

  “I’m sorry,” Señora Young Deer says, “but this is not our doing. The bandas must have hired a brujo.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “It means they’re using witchcraft against us,” Rita says.

  “Get real.”

  Except I can see from the way she’s looking at me that she does believe it’s real. I shake my head.

  “Am I being punked?” I say. “I’m being punked, aren’t I? Did this start back in school, when I first saw you in the stairwell?”

  Rita shakes her head. “Brandon—”

  “Because you guys are really good. So where’s the camera crew? Ronnie’s going to never stop ragging me about this once it airs.”

  I’m babbling. I can hear myself doing it, but I can’t seem to stop. Panic is jumping around in my chest.

  Rita leans over and grabs me by the shoulder, her faces inches from my own.

  “Brandon!” she says. Her voice is firm. “This isn’t a game. It’s not a joke or some stupid TV show.”

  “But . . . but . . . ”

  “It’s for real. Think about it. How likely is it for us to lose all electrical power at the same time that both our cell phones stop working?”

  She looks dead serious. I turn toward her grandmother. Señora Young Deer also has a grave expression. She nods.

  “I’m afraid it’s true,” she says.

  Rita steps back and I push my hands against my face, then slide off the chair onto the floor. I don’t know whether I’m kneeling here to pray, or what. I just wish none of this were happening.

  “You’d better pull yourself together,” Señora Young Deer tells me. “Without your help, we won’t survive this attack.”

  That pulls me back. “Me? What are you talking about?”

  “Reuben and the other dog boys can’t get through the enchantment by themselves,” she explains. “But if one of their own is inside, he becomes a means through which they can enter.”

  “One of their own? You mean like another Kikimi?”

  She nods. “But it has to be a male. In our tribe, the men are the dog boys. We women have different strengths.”

  I think I read something about this in some history class.

  “Dog soldiers,” I say. “Isn’t that an Apache thing?”

  “Historically, Cheyenne,” Señora Young Deer says, “but we’re talking about Kikimi dog boys here. They’re as much a warrior society as the dog soldiers were, but when ours run in a pack, it’s more literal.”

  I blink. “What do you mean by ‘literal’?”

  “She means they take animal shapes,” Rita says.

  I look at her. I feel like I’m going crazy, but they’re both so serious.

  “I still don’t see what I can do,” I tell them. “I’m not Kikimi. I don’t have any kind of Native American blood, so far as I know.”

  Señora Young Deer takes a sheathed knife out of her backpack. I stare at the blade when she removes it from the leather casing.

  “There’s an easy ritual that can fix that,” she says. “But we have to do it quickly. The bandas will soon be here.”

  “You’re going to—what? Cut me with that?”

  “We will share blood. The women of our tribe carry the gift of life within us. We make the connections between the newborn, our ancestors and the Great Spirit.”

  I stopped listening at “share blood.” I flash on health class and how we were told that diseases like HIV and hepatitis can be spread throu
gh blood from open wounds or by having sex.

  “It’s perfectly safe,” Señora Young Deer says. “But it will change you and there will be no going back.”

  My mouth is dry. I swallow.

  “Change me how?” I say.

  “You’ll become one of the dog boys,” Rita says.

  I hear an echo of the other thing she said a moment ago.

  They can take animal shapes.

  “You must do this willingly,” Señora Young Deer says, “or it can go bad.”

  “You want me to become some kind of werewolf?”

  “No,” she says. “You will become a shape-changer—they are not remotely the same thing.”

  “And if I don’t do it?”

  “Reuben won’t be able to help us and we’ll probably die.” She hesitates, then adds, “Not right away, but knowing the bandas, we’ll wish that we had died quickly.”

  I swallow again. My mouth is like sandpaper. I feel a little dizzy.

  “Okay,” I say. My gaze goes to Rita and I stand up, hoping I won’t faint or something equally stupid.

  “But if we get out of this,” I tell her, “we’re definitely going out for a coffee.”

  I say it to lighten the mood. But she smiles, steps up close and kisses me. Long and hard.

  “Definitely,” she says a little breathlessly when she breaks it off.

  My heart’s beating so fast I’ve forgotten to be scared.

  “What do we do?” I manage to get out.

  In response, Señora Young Deer takes the knife and slices lightly across her palm. Then she hands the knife to me.

  “Left palm,” she says. “And take care not to cut too deeply. That knife’s sharp.”

  My hand’s trembling as I hold the knife. I feel like I’m going to cut my hand off.

  “Here,” Rita says turning my left palm up and cupping it inside hers. Her hand feels so warm and steady.

  She takes the knife from me and without hesitation cuts across my palm. Her touch is so light I don’t even feel it, but when the knife comes away, blood wells up from the long thin cut.

  “Brandon,” Señora Young Deer says. She takes my left hand in her own and our blood mingles. “Our ancestors welcome you.”

  Beside me, Rita murmurs, “Hey ya, hey ya, yi yi.”

  When Señora Young Deer lets go of my hand, I hold it palm up and so that it won’t drip on the rug. Except there’s no blood. No cut. Just a long, thin white star.

  “Okay,” I say. “That’s weird. But I don’t feel any different. Is that all there it to it?”

  Señora Young Deer smiles. “Some rituals are fueled more by intent than trappings. My focus has always been sharp.”

  “Yeah, but—”

  But then I hear a voice I recognize as Reuben’s.

  Brother? it says. I don’t recognize you, but I know we’re kin. Can you let us in?

  I can’t tell where it’s coming from. It sounds like it’s right in my head.

  I guess I look pretty freaked because Rita grabs my arm.

  “Brandon,” she says. “Are you okay?”

  I shake my head. “I don’t know. Did you hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

  “There was this voice. It sounded like Reuben.”

  Brother?

  “There it is again.”

  “I don’t hear anything,” Rita says.

  “The dog boys are all connected,” Señora Young Deer says. “It’s part of what makes them so formidable in battle. Reuben is using that connection to contact you. What does he say?”

  “He wants me to let him in.”

  Right then there’s a loud bang on the front door below. Somebody else wants in. Not into this magical whatever that Rita’s grandmother is talking about, but into my house. Nobody has to tell me that the bandas are here. It’s like I suddenly have this radar in my head. I can feel them out there in the night—a dozen or so.

  Why won’t you answer me? the voice in my head asks.

  “Then do it,” Señora Young Deer says. “Let him in. We don’t have much time. The bandas are already here and Reuben’s still outside of Desert View.”

  “I don’t know how!”

  There’s more banging on the door downstairs. Then I guess the bandas decide to find an easier way inside because I hear the crash of the front window being smashed in.

  “Of course you don’t,” Señora Young Deer says. “How could you?” She stands in front of me and takes my hands. “Find that connection to Reuben’s voice inside yourself, then follow it back until you can feel him. As soon as you do, you can talk to him the same way he’s talking to you. And you’ll be able to bring him through, despite the spell the bandas have laid upon us.”

  I don’t know how she expects me to do that. All I know is that the bandas are in my living room. I haven’t a clue how to find any connection inside myself. I don’t even know where to start.

  Rita goes over and grabs my baseball bat where it’s leaning in a corner and takes it to the door. She looks scared, but determined.

  I need to be determined, too, but just wanting something doesn’t make it happen.

  Except now Reuben’s in my head again.

  Is this Brandon? he asks. Can you hear me?

  I just latch on to the sound of his voice and think back as hard as I can: Yes, yes! I can hear you! I—um, I’m letting you in.

  Perfect. Hang tight, kid, we’re on our way.

  I guess it worked because now that weird radar in my head is aware of a handful of figures racing through the dark streets of Desert View, heading for my house. The problem is the bandas are already here inside. Coming up the stairs.

  I pull my hands from Rita’s grandmother and move past her to take the bat from Rita.

  “Reuben’s on the way,” I say as I jerk the door open. “Push the bed against the door or something.”

  “Brandon, you can’t—”

  But I’ve already stepped through. I pull the door closed behind me, keeping my gaze on the top of the stairs.

  I know it’s stupid to go out and face the bandas with only my bat. But there’s a need in me to protect Rita and her grandmother. I can’t explain it. It’s burning inside me. I have to protect them. To protect the house.

  A suicide mission—yeah, I know. But this is my territory.

  I have no idea where that’s coming from. I just know it’s true.

  The first of the gangbangers to reach the top of the stairs is Bambino. A couple more that I don’t recognize are right behind him. I hear something growling, but I’m not sure if it’s in the hallway with me, or in my head.

  Bambino grins as he lifts the gun in his hand.

  I don’t even think about it. I raise the bat and charge him. But then the bat falls out of my hand and I feel as if my whole body is being torn apart. Just for a moment, it’s like I’m here and not here at the same time. Bambino’s eyes go big. His gun fires. The boom is like a clap of thunder in the confined space. The bullet whistles by my ear.

  I launch myself toward him with all four paws, my teeth bared and intent on decimating his shocked face.

  What the hell—?

  There’s not even time to think about what’s happening. I land on him and the force of my impact drives him back. He falls onto the other two guys and we all go tumbling down the stairs in a mess of flailing limbs.

  There’s this horrible growling—now I know it’s me. The bandas are screaming. I’m snapping and lunging at their throats, but only get mouthfuls of arm as they try to defend themselves. My jaws break bones. My mouth fills with blood. It’s horrible and wonderful all at the same time.

  They scramble away from me at the bottom of the stairs. One of them knocks a chair in my way and it throws me off long enough for them to go leaping back out through the big picture window they smashed to get in. I recover quickly. I can feel the broken glass cutting the pads of my paws as I cross the living room, but I ignore the pain. I launch myself out the window and take the near
est bandas down by leaping onto his back.

  He falls to the ground and the next second my jaws are around his throat. I’m about to snap his neck when someone pulls me off. I turn to snarl at the stranger, but I can’t move because of the grip he has on me.

  “Easy, brother,” he says. “Easy now.”

  The protest dies in my throat as I’m finally able to turn and look into Reuben’s eyes.

  “We can take it from here,” he tells me.

  Then everything goes black.

  When I come to, I’m lying on my back on something soft. I’m so disoriented that I panic and lunge up off what turns out to be the couch in my own living room. I blink in the bright light at all the people moving around. It takes me a moment to realize that they’re trying to clean up the mess the bandas left.

  “Hey,” a voice says.

  I turn in Reuben’s direction.

  You okay? he asks.

  The voice is in my head now and it all comes back. The bandas attacking our house. Me turning into—what? Some kind of wolf or dog? Chewing on the gangbangers’ arms. The taste of their blood . . .

  “Going . . . to be . . . sick . . . ”

  “Johnny?” Reuben says.

  “On it.”

  A tall Kikimi I don’t know hoists me to my feet and walks me fast down the hall to the bathroom. The bottoms of my feet hurt with every step, but I feel weirdly comforted by his arm around my shoulders. Like I’m safe.

  I lose that stew Rita’s grandmother made for us.

  I hear running water and Johnny hands me a wet washcloth. I clean my mouth. He leaves me to brush my teeth.

  When I limp out of the bathroom, Rita’s leaning against the wall. She pushes away from it.

  “I’m so sorry you got involved in all of this.” she says. “If I’d had any idea . . . ”

  I make a vague wave with my hand.

  “I involved myself,” I say. “You couldn’t have known what would happen.”

  “You’re taking it really well.”

  I give her a weak smile. “Tell me that tomorrow, when it’s all had a chance to sink in.”

  I start to hobble back to the living room. Rita steps up and puts her arm under mine and around my waist to help support me. I get a different kind of comfort from the press of her body against mine. I guess I’m projecting what I feel because Reuben looks up when I come in and grins knowingly.