Shapeshifted

not improve. I wondered if any public services got down here, excepting the clinic.

There were moments of hidden beauty. Old-school murals with block forms from the end of last century, and huge motifs, intentional rip-offs of traditional Mexican art. And graffiti, surprising in its vitality, bold streaks of color, with letters so distorted I could hardly read them. Olympio told me who worked where, short stories from his life. He began by not sharing too much, but when I started asking questions and seeming appreciative, he morphed into a tour guide. When we reached the end of the next block, he pulled up short.

“You see that?” He pointed at a mural with an elaborate triple cross. “That’s where Three Crosses territory begins. That’s how they mark their space.”

I had seen others behind Santa Muerte on the clinic’s wall online. “Like a warning sign?”

“Like we’d better turn back.”

I stood on the street staring at the mural for a little longer. “Those were the guys from yesterday, right?”

“Yeah. The second ones.”

“What are they fighting for?” I hadn’t seen any gold mines along our way.

“Territory.”

“Really? I heard them mention a tithe.” I thought back to the moment. It was a little blurry, seeing as I’d been afraid I was going to get shot. “Yeah—they asked for a tithe, right before Dr. Tovar told them to fuck off.”

Olympio bounced and laughed at this. “Ha!”

I furrowed my brow, trying to understand all the layers at play here. “But—I thought you didn’t like him?”

“We have different business practices. But I never said I didn’t like him,” Olympio clarified.

“What’s a gang need a tithe for, anyhow?”

“That’s just the fancy term they’re using for the bribes they’re demanding. You give them money, they protect you from themselves, and then they get to build their fancy church to Santa Muerte. Like she needs a church, or even wants one.” Olympio’s bearing was one of extreme disgust.

I tried not to tense up or show any excitement. “Who is she?”

Olympio gave me an odd look. “She’s one of us. She knows our hearts.”

Person? Saint? Spare alien from Star Trek? Whatever. If she was what the Shadows were looking for, and I could trade her in to heal my mom, I needed to see. “Can you take me to her?”

Olympio’s eyebrows rose, and he gave me a mystified look before shrugging one shoulder. “Sure.”

Together we went down a side street, then came back on another block.

Was it really going to be this easy? No way. If it was, the Shadows would have done it themselves. But I couldn’t help hoping as I followed him. I didn’t know how I’d catch her, but I’d think of something. I’d flat-out lie. Anything to save my mom.

Olympio went into a wide alley. Partially hidden by a second-story overhang, one entire wall was covered with a bright mural. A woman stood in rings of primary colors, red, green, yellow on a wall of blue, like she was Venus stepping forward from the ocean inside a rainbow clamshell. She had purple robes down to the ground, which was painted with red roses the size of small cars. The only thing incongruent was that she had a skull for a face, and hands of bone. She held a globe in one hand as though she were weighing it.

There was writing over her head in thick red script, the same color as the roses. REINA DE LA NOCHE.

The rest of the blue wall around her image and the roses was covered in names. Names covering names, as though alternating groups were trying to claim her, and numerous solo names written in not by artists, but in pen and ink, or chipped into the stone of the wall.

Olympio stopped in front of the image, and as I realized what he meant, my stomach fell. “This is her, isn’t it.”

“Yeah. The Three Crosses act like they own her. This is the last of the murals that they haven’t put their crosses on. And if they see you praying to one of the other ones, the ones that they control, they’ll come by and try to collect one of their tithes.”

“Tithe of what?”

“Whatever you’ve got on you. And if you fight them, they’ll take you away and you’re never seen again.”

“Oh.” I’d been a fool to think I could succeed where the Shadows had not. The Santa Muerte legend was just an excuse to shake people down.

He side-eyed me. “You’re disappointed?”

“I sort of assumed she’d be a person.”

Olympio laughed. “She’s better than a person—she’s a saint. She can see everything. She protects us. Life is hard down here. She understands that.” He went up and put his hand on her dress. I could tell from the other stains on the paint that numerous other people had done that too.

“So—” I looked at all her imagery. “She’s death?”

“She protects people who know they’re going to die. Which is pretty much all of us. It happens faster down here than it does wherever you live. Faster to us than all the rich people on TV.” He pointed at a particular scrawl. “That’s my name. From the last time I prayed here. Not to be healed, of course. My grandfather can heal anything,” he explained with pride. “But she can grant wishes, when she wants to.”

“Huh,” I grunted noncommittally.

He narrowed his eyes suspiciously at me. “Why’re you looking for her, if you don’t know who she is?”

“The old lady in the waiting room yesterday morning prayed to her when she saw the guns. I was just wondering,” I said, and he made a face like he was disappointed in me. “She is beautiful, though,” I added, because as artwork, she was.

He nodded in agreement, and I could tell I was slightly redeemed. “Well, now you know who she is. We should get back now. We’re still at the edge of safe territory.”

* * *

Olympio took us back down another street while I tried to think. I wondered what Reina de la Noche meant. I reached back in my mind for comparable Latin words. Reign, nocturnal—ruler of the night? An apt name for Santa Muerte, I guessed.

“How’s your grandfather heal people?”

Olympio squinted at me. “Trade secrets.”

“What—really?”

“Yeah. You don’t have the don. You couldn’t even do it if you tried.”

“So why not explain it to me?”

He sighed exaggeratedly. “It would take up too much time.”

“Can you do what he does—what he claims to do?” I corrected myself.

“Some of it.” He picked up a rock in our path and chucked it across the street. “But I’ll be the best in the world, eventually.”

I looked around at our surroundings, all cement and hot sun. This was an unlikely place for anything to grow, much less a peerless folk healer. Olympio must have guessed what I was thinking. He puffed out his chest like a pigeon and glowered at me.

We were back at the clinic shortly. “So how far could we walk in this direction?” I asked, trying to rescue myself in his eyes.

He resumed his station outside the clinic door, like a dark cloud against its wall. It must be no fun working all day during the summer, all summer long.

“Only place you should be walking is back and forth from the train.” He’d changed from a sensitive kid who liked attention to a proto-adult carrying world-weary exhaustion and heavy pride. I remembered being his age, sitting on the fence of puberty, not sure which way to jump, torn between desperately wanting people to like me and being angry all the time.

“Hey, don’t shut me out like that,” I complained.

“Why not? I hardly know you.”