Shady Lady

“Bring him around,” I said.

It might seem cruel to start with physical pain, but this man had tried to kill me, and it wasn’t as if he’d go away if I asked him nicely. These men played hardball and I had to prove I understood the rules of the game if I wanted to survive it. Still, I looked away as the guardian produced a knife, made a shallow cut, and then sprinkled salt in it. Incredible: The man could create a torture kit out of items found on a room service tray. In the same motion, he clapped a hand over the gunman’s mouth, anticipating the scream. The assassin gazed up at us, eyes wide.

Kel addressed him in Spanish. “You work for Montoya, yes?”

Not surprisingly, the killer kept quiet. He knew his life was worth less than nothing if he talked. He couldn’t have been more than five-foot-eight, average build. Sweat damped his shoulder-length black hair, and his eyes gleamed like a frightened child’s—probably because Kel’s skull tats glowed faintly.

The guardian played with his knife, letting it hit the candlelight just so. “You jeopardize more than your life,” he said quietly. “If you die unshriven, it also imperils your immortal soul.”

Since Mexico was a predominantly Catholic country, he played that card well. I read soul-deep fear in the gunman’s body. He was thinking about that, dying here without talking to a priest one last time. We could do worse than draw a few cuts, of course. We could unleash the spirits on him, but I was reluctant to go that far if we didn’t have to. At this point, it was impossible to say what Shannon’s ghosts might do, or what could happen if they broke free. I wasn’t eager to relive that terrible night in the woods outside Kilmer.

Shannon added softly, “That wouldn’t be so bad, if you’d led a good life. But you haven’t. We know the things you’ve done for Montoya.”

I was proud of how quick she’d picked up Spanish. Like me, she wasn’t fully fluent, and she thought before she spoke—doing mental translations—but by the way the man whimpered, he took her meaning. Still, he wouldn’t break.

Kel carved a fresh line on him. Blood spilled from the wound, trickling hot over the killer’s forearm. With exquisite, awful artistry, he sprinkled more salt, and this time he added lemon juice and then ground it against the cut. I clapped my hand over the killer’s mouth and tried not to pity him as he ate his own screams. Shannon pinched his nose shut, frightening him with the threat of asphyxiation.

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