Ann Aguirre - Shady Lady

This man tried to murder you. You will not feel sorry for him. But I did. I also loathed myself for doing this, and loathed Montoya for making it necessary, even as a colder part of me nodded in approval; that aspect felt like a terrifying stranger struggling beneath my skin. The cartel hit man thrashed beneath our hands, but Kel held him still. By the time we let go, he lay writhing on the clay tiles, oxygen deprivation shorting his logic. His breath came in ragged pants.

“Do you know this man?” I asked, producing the sketch. I had worked with Kel to refine the image, based on what I’d seen handling the other assassin’s dagger, and the candlelight was sufficient for our suspect to get a good look.

His eyes widened until the rolling whites shone. Clearly he did, but he turned his face away and bit down on his tongue. I worried that he’d chew through it to keep himself from talking.

“Physical pain alone won’t break him,” Kel whispered. “He smells frightened, but he fears Montoya and his sorcerer more.”

“For good reason,” I muttered. “All we can do is kill him. The sorcerer can summon demons to eat his soul and use his body as a puppet.” I recalled the monkeys, and a shudder worked through me.

Shannon said, “I’ve been thinking. Before, you said the warlock was working on his own, and you took him out. So I suspect Montoya will keep his caster close this time.”

I considered. “Yeah. Likely. So if we find Montoya, we find the sorcerer. We can take them both.”

Kel stared down at our gunman. “And he knows where to find them.”

“We have to break him.” I didn’t like it, but some things had to be done. “If not physical pain, then we move to plan B.”

Time to raise the stakes.

“Check.” Shannon dug into her bag for the radio.

As soon as she clicked it on, the hissing started. This was no ordinary radio. Using it, Shannon could contact the other side and summon the dead to her. Moreover, we could hear what they had to say on the tinny old speakers. Inside this tiny clay hut, the results would be terrifying.

She had never attempted to attune to spirits with whom she hadn’t been personally acquainted before, but this would only work if she called the killer’s victims. Without meaning to, I reached for Kel. He glanced at me, brow furrowed, but his fingers folded around mine—apparently he was permitted to give reassurance.

Shannon closed her eyes while she fiddled with the dial and whispered in Spanish. For a while, the only sounds within came from the eerily crackling radio and her pale, parted lips. In the candlelight, she owned a fearsome, witchy aspect—and the gunman couldn’t look away from her.

“What’s happening?” he demanded. “What are you doing?”

Nobody answered him. That silence built even greater dread.

I knew the moment she made contact. The atmosphere chilled, and shadows grew where there was no light to cast them. They swarmed around the killer’s prone body, crooning to him in Spanish. I understood snippets, and fear went livid in me too.

Traitor. You murdered me. I will eat your heart and build a house of your bones.

As they fed from his terror, the summoned shadows gained form. They went from amorphous clouds of darkness to wraiths with faces twisted into rictuses of hatred and hunger. Shit, what have we done to you, Shan? She did not falter. The cadence of her murmurs took on the aspect of a spell, keeping them in check.

“At any moment,” Kel told Montoya’s assassin, “she can unleash them. They will make good their promises. You will face the dead you wronged.”

Time to play good cop. Doubtless I looked the part more than the other two.

“Pero no necesita ser así. Puedes cambiar tu destino. Solo dime dónde puedo encontrar Montoya . ”

I paused, aiming a glance at Shannon, who paused her chant for a few seconds. The angry ghosts surged, nearly reaching the assassin’s skin. She stopped them with a murmur at the last second, and the gunman moaned in abject horror. Nothing like being confronted with your own sins.

“Sí, voy a hablar. No más, por favor. Montoya es—” He broke off, his face purpling.

While we watched, his face withered in the candlelight as if the spirits were, in fact, sucking the life out of him. Shannon shook her head, her denial discernible in the candlelight. His tongue swelled in his mouth, turning black and eventually rotting away in putrid chunks. It was like watching an accelerated film from the Discovery Channel, where they show you how decomposition works.

“Can you contain the ghosts?” I asked her.

But something else was already happening. The candles revealed a darkness rising from the ravaged mound of flesh. A jubilant, wordless cry sounded over the radio, and then, in a roil of black, they all went away. One last scream echoed in the tinny speakers, raising goose bumps on my arms.

And Butch barked twice.

“That’s our cue,” Kel said. “I’ll pack up here and meet you back at the room.”

Shannon and I scrambled for the exit. We couldn’t do anything for the dead man, but here, at least, they could burn the scraps of remaining flesh, although they would have to wonder what the hell had happened. Hopefully they would assume some animal had crawled in to die. That’d be the best possible outcome; maybe it would be a while before the next ritual.

“We’re going walkies,” I told Butch loudly in English. “Aren’t walkies fun?”

He looked none too convinced, but he did trot at my heels as I cut a path toward the lake. Maybe I could convince the security guards we were crazy tourists who didn’t want to waste a moment of our magical vacation sleeping. We crossed paths halfway to the shore. I beamed at the man in uniform.

“ Bwa-noes noe-chays ,” I offered in my worst American accent, and then added, “ Kay bone-eeta! ” while pointing toward the lake. I’d found the tourist persona helpful, as Mexican nationals assume you’re too dumb to be up to something if you can’t speak the language properly.

The security guard merely waved as he went by. For appearance’s sake, I let Butch pick our path back to the hotel, which meant we stopped every four feet so he could smell something. No problem, he’d earned it. When we reached the parking lot, I picked him up again.

At a glance, I could tell Shannon needed to eat. Though she was a trooper and not complaining, summoning screwed her sugar levels. Which was weird, because using my gift had a different cost. Still, once we let ourselves back in the room, I dug in my purse for the Snickers bar I kept on hand for just such an occasion.

Her fingers trembled as she unwrapped it. As promised, Kel sat waiting for us. He’d put the blankets and pillows back on the bed, not that we’d sleep again. It was two hours before dawn; I figured we’d leave at first light.

I asked the unspoken question. “What happened back there?”

Kel shrugged. “My guess? A trigger spell. Powerful sorcerers can set a curse that will be set off only if certain conditions are met.”

“Like a henchman about to betray el jefe ,” Shannon said around a mouthful of chocolate, peanuts, and nougat.

“Exactly,” he answered.

“He definitely recognized the caster and he feared him.” I sighed. “Unfortunately, it leaves us back at square one. In Laredo, we had a list of his properties, but he’ll have sold them by now, and most likely plugged the leak Esteban exploited to get the info in the first place.”

Shannon asked, “Who’s Esteban?”

I gave her the short version of how I’d read a necklace for the guy—he worked for a rival cartel—and told him why his sister disappeared years before. Esteban had been so grateful he’d produced the information we needed to go after Montoya in his mountain fortress. That wouldn’t be happening again—and as we’d realized earlier, when we found Montoya, he’d have this new sorcerer at his side. Not. Good.