Ann Aguirre: Devil's Punch

I didn’t even know if I wanted jewelry with such strings attached.

“Are you bored yet?” I asked Chance one night.

He shook his head. “I’m considering my options.”

“Do you want to work in the shop with me?”

“Doing what?”

“Appraising items? Customer service? Inventory? Bookkeeping? Financial—”

“Bookkeeping,” he said at once. “I can handle that for you, and I’ll probably do some online trading. Advise you on good investments.”

I wasn’t averse to increasing my nest egg, and Chance had a knack. “Of course.”

“I won’t be at the store full-time, though. Just as needed to keep the books balanced.”

At some point I needed to replace Señor Alvarez, who perished when the Montoyas firebombed the pawnshop, but that was a raw spot, and I couldn’t bear to consider it yet. There would be time once the workers finished the new building. Assembling the pieces of a broken life couldn’t happen overnight.

“Then I should ask a different question, a more important one. Are you happy here?”

Chance considered, delving into his pocket for his silver coin as he always did when he was thinking. He spun it along his knuckles until he decided what to say. The silence didn’t worry me. I’d rather have the truth than a polite lie.

“I’d be happier with you,” he admitted finally. “ Really with you. Because that would mean you trust me. But I enjoy figuring things out. It’s an adventure, though I do feel a bit Stranger in a Strange Land at times.”

“It took me a year to acclimate. You’d do better if you took some Spanish classes.”

“Can’t you tutor me?” He arched his elegant brows. “The fringe benefits are exceptional.”

“I’ll take a class with you,” I offered.

My Spanish was good, but not perfect. It couldn’t hurt to learn more. Gratification spilled through me when Chance nodded. His willingness to try made me believe, more than anything, that he wasn’t just screwing with me, trying to even the scales or something so he could be the one to leave me this time. Yeah, my ego was fragile enough to wonder, but only a lunatic would uproot his life this way for such a petty revenge. Chance was many things—obsessive among them—but I didn’t believe he was nuts.

“How much longer are you going to live with Tia?” he asked, nuzzling my neck. “It makes sense for you to move in here.”

Mmm. He remembered perfectly what to do with the side of my neck—wandering lips, gentle scrape of teeth. I contemplated his soft bed and tried to recall why I wanted to go slow.

“Does it?” I breathed.

“Mm-hmm. Even after your property’s rebuilt you still have to furnish the upstairs apartment. Whereas mine’s ready for you, and you helped decorate it.” He pressed a trail of kisses down my throat, nuzzled my collarbone. “It’s a smart business decision. You could rent the flat above the shop. That’s more income.”

“So you’re only thinking of my financial future?”

He flashed me a wicked grin. “Well, I didn’t say I had no personal stake in the matter.”

The kisses grew more heated. Chance drew me down on top of him, so I could feel how much he wanted me. I teased him a little, and he groaned.

Eventually I said, “If things are still…this way between us when construction’s complete, I’ll give your proposal serious thought.”

It wouldn’t be as convenient, living here, but it wouldn’t hurt me to walk six blocks to work instead of running downstairs with my hair wet. At the least, the sun and the wind would dry it a little by the time I arrived. And the exercise would be good for me.

“Until then, you’ll go back to Tia’s every night?” His disappointment rang like cathedral bells.

“It seems prudent.”

He muttered something that sounded like Fuck prudent , but I just grinned. “Speaking of which, it’s time for me to head out.”

“I’ll walk you home.”

Dating Chance was turning out to be unexpectedly sweet.

Like berries fermenting on the bush, that sweetness couldn’t last, of course. But it wasn’t Chance’s fault.

With disbelieving eyes, I read the words:

Save the girl or claim your crown. Either way, you’ll come to us .

Whoever had sent this must be talking about Shannon. Visceral fear crackled like lightning in my veins. Please let this be someone’s idea of a joke. But since it was in English, not Spanish, it probably hadn’t been written by one of Tia’s bruja friends. Those witches didn’t like me, but they weren’t pranksters, either.

Shannon had a new life in Laredo. The crown…This was a guess at best, but when I’d defeated the Knight of Hell, Caim, he’d called me my queen. So maybe it had to do with that. Demons. Leaving a note. But they wanted a meeting, or wanted to lure me somewhere. If they had Shannon, this was a damn effective strategy. Even knowing it was a trap, knowing it would be stupid and suicidal, I’d go for her. I’d go.

I read the note a second time and then glanced down the street both ways. There was little through traffic this way; the streets climbed higher and higher, until they just…stopped. I’d discovered that the hard way. After backing down a narrow mountain road for half a mile, I figured my skills behind the wheel were better than average. But today there were no drivers at all, bad or otherwise. The sidewalk, cracked and uneven, stood empty.

A chill wind blew over me, and I fancied it carried a hint of brimstone. Telling myself I was being stupid, I plucked the parchment from Tia’s front gate and studied it. Expensive paper. It had a thick, quality feel, like the posh stationery someone who came from money would use. The ink, too, wasn’t simple ballpoint or even gel tip. From the swoops and curves, it had an old-fashioned look, calligraphy more than simple cursive. I flipped it over and found a set of coordinates. Longitude and latitude? Or maybe GPS. I couldn’t tell where somebody wanted me to go just by looking at the numbers, but it occurred to me I should get off the street. Though I’d taken care of the problems with Montoya, it didn’t mean I had no enemies left. They could find me.

Obviously, someone had.

It unnerved me to think of unseen eyes, watching, but that was a fact of life once you accepted magick was real. I unlocked Tia’s front gate and stepped into her courtyard. Immediately, I felt safer, though it was a psychological response at best. As I knew, magick could get behind walls to strike you if the practitioner was determined. There were ways to undermine the wards. With that in mind, I checked Tia’s protections. I didn’t touch them, as that would weaken the runes, but they yielded a strong, satisfactory glow to my trained eye.

But there were always loopholes. Hell, I could do it with simple spells, given sufficient time and planning. That knowledge unsettled me. Around me, the courtyard shivered with life, wind rippling gently over leaves and petals. Flashes of color—vert and crimson—reassured me. There was still a faint, mossy crack in the clay. Nothing had changed, even if someone had left me an inexplicable note on the door. Though it couldn’t mean anything good, I would deal with whatever new problem was about to level my life.

I let myself in and found Tia in the kitchen, making homemade corn tortillas. She greeted me with a smile and a lift of one gnarled hand. “ ¿Tienes hambre? ”

Well, I had been hungry. Not so much anymore. I had a coiled thing in my stomach that belched and swelled like a toad. Certainly, it was dread. Everything had consequences. To wit, Newton’s Third Law: To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction. So I’d known there would be a cost, but it wasn’t right that Shannon should pay it in my stead.