by Manuel Tiger
“Don’t you ever think about those times? Before the other stuff occurred that is.”
“Other stuff?” I repeated. “Alright,” I said shaking my head in disbelief that he could refer to the events that led to the end of our relationship as ‘other stuff’. “And no, I have other more important things to think about.”
“Not even once?”
“Why?” I asked pausing and facing him. “Do you? What do you recall of our time together?”
“How when you got mad? You had the cutest frown line appear between your brows, like now.”
I stared at him, lifted my hands and let out guttural sounds as I could not think of a proper response to that.
“Oh! I remember those sounds too!” He grinned and leaned in toward me, dropping his voice to a low purr. “Make them again, Henry. Please? For old time’s sake?”
I narrowed my eyes at him. “You…you…you are an insufferable, infuriating….infuriating asshole!” I managed to get out. “You know that!”
“One of my very best talents! Well, you know what my true very best talents are, but there are little kids around us at the moment.”
My lips thinned and I pointed a finger at him, trying to say something, anything, but ended up just shaking my finger at him angrily. As very angrily as I could at him.
He leaned in and kissed the tip of my finger. “Come on darlin’,” he said effecting a more pronounced Southern accent. “Let’s catch up with the Hex Patrol before they leave us behind.”
He walked off whistling as I stood there fuming and staring after him.
Please let this mission be over and done within an hour.
III
Metropolitan Cathedral
The air around me was muggy and humid, the gathering storm clouds over the cathedral was starting to spread out over the city promising rain, but not anytime soon. There was just the low rumble of thunder echoing across the late afternoon sky and through the streets of the city.
Around me citizens and tourists flowed in a never ending stream of humanity going about their daily activities. I watched as a group of college students struck poses in front of the cathedral while a vender pushed a cart of religious icons and another that of cold water and fresh fruit.
How normal everything seemed. Life continued to go on that it was nearly possible to believe that we ourselves were like the tourists in this ancient city.
But my life had ceased being normal ten years ago.
When I was in college I had toyed with the idea of coming to Mexico City like any other college student. I couldn’t afford to though. Every dollar I earned from working two jobs went into my education. Once I had secured my degree I had promised that I would come here, like most everyone else that I graduated with had talked about doing. Take a year off before throwing themselves into a job. But I hadn’t. A few days after graduating I interviewed for a job with a small newspaper and was hired promptly and rose up from there till I was working for several major newspapers in Boston.
Now, here I was hoping to find my friends that had been taken by a Spanish witch that had led a full on assault on a museum nearly twenty four hours ago.
Never let it be said that my life is lacking excitement.
I stopped a vender pushing a cart of bottled water and paid for six bottles. I thanked him in my limited Spanish and headed back over to where Daman and the witches stood beneath one of the trees in front of the cathedral. I handed the bottles out and then retreated a few feet away to take in the grandeur of the cathedral.
“Beautiful isn’t it?”
Daman had of course followed me.
“It is,” I said taking a sip of water. “You can feel the passage of time etched onto every brick and statue that adorns it.”
“Reminds me of the old ruins back in Heaven Falls. The ones they found in that last year we were there? By the river?”
I sighed and capped my water bottle. “Just stop, Daman,” I said turning to face him. “Just stop bringing up things connected to Heaven Falls. To us. That is in the past and needs to remain there.”
“It wasn’t all bad, Henry,” he said looking at me. “Even you have to admit to that.”
“If I do? I also have to think about how it ended and I’m not in the mood to go over that, not now, not here when we are on a mission to save my friends!”
“Henry,” he began but I held up a hand.
“When is your contact getting here? I thought they were supposed to be here already?”
He sighed and began looking around. “They should already be here by now.”
“I didn’t want to interrupt what looked like a lover’s tiff going on,” a husky Spanish accented female voice said behind us. We both turned around to see a young woman with sleek onyx hair framing a very pretty heart shaped face set with chocolate brown eyes staring back at us. She was dressed in a light tan tank top, cream colored shorts and sandals. She was toned and looked more than capable of handling herself. “Daman, long time no see. How are you?”
“Sophia!” Daman said going over and embracing her tightly. She hugged him back, laughing softly as she did so. “I didn’t know you would be the contact!”
“When I heard you had reached out to the Guerreros Del Bosque for help? I figured I should be the one to greet you and your group.” She stepped back and looked at me.
“Henry Sullivan,” I said offering a hand which she shook firmly.
“Sophia Del Vargas,” she said then nodded toward Eve and her group that were watching us. “Brujas?”
“From a witch council in San Francisco. They were sent to help us in retrieving the ones that fell into a bit of trouble,” Daman answered, stepping back from her and shoving his hands into the back pocket of his jeans.
“Trouble is lightly putting it,” Sophia said brushing her hair over her shoulder. “You’ve come at a very bad time to Mexico City, at least for the supernatural beings that reside here.”
“What is going on?” he asked.
But instead of answering she looked at me, her eyes narrowing slightly. “You can see spirits, sí?”
“Yes, why?”
“Have you noticed any spirits walking about since your arrival? Those from the past or even the recently deceased?”
Now that she mentioned it?
I looked around, my eyes roaming over the streets and to the buildings. All I saw was flesh and blood people which was odd. Living in San Francisco I saw the occasional spirit. Sometimes random, sometimes they were standing on the sidewalk looking as flesh and blood as I did. The only way I could tell that they were spirits was by the way they dressed which was usually from the early history of the city. Then again, it was San Francisco. You had Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, and Clark Gable lookalikes walking around on every block half the time and some people that dressed in everything from Victorian garb to medieval attire. It wasn’t until they faded right in front of me or walked through a wall of a building that I knew them to be spirits.
A city as old as Mexico City, even the land for that matter, there should have been spirits out and about in the daylight.
There were none.
“I don’t see any,” I said looking back at her.
“They are in retreat, hiding.” Sophia answered. “Carmen has been trying to contact them but to no avail. She’s even used the strongest summoning spells she knows and nothing.”
“The witch council in San Francisco mentioned something like that occurring as well,” Daman said. “Why? What is going on?”
“Let’s not talk so openly here on the street,” she said. “La Bruja has her spies everywhere.”
“La Bruja?” I said.
“She means Aadya,” Daman said.
“Sí, her,” Sophia said. “Come on. I’ll take you to Carmen and the others. There is much you need to be told about that has been going on for the last several weeks. All bad,” she said leading us toward the cathedral.
“Wait, this group that is helping us is in the chu
rch?” I said.
“No,” Sophia laughed. “Under it.”
IV
The inside of the cathedral was simply breathtaking but we didn’t stick around long enough to do a sightseeing tour of it. Sophia led our group off to a side passage from the main entrance and it was there she revealed a secret entrance located in the wall.
“The cathedral is built atop an ancient religious site of the Aztecs,” she said as she depressed a section of stone while at the same time it appeared she was using sign language with her other hand. “Casting a spell of concealment,” she said seeing my curious look. “No one can see us now or what we’re doing.”
“I thought I sensed magic being used,” Eve said frowning, but she said nothing more. The other witches merely remained stone of face and silent.
“This way,” Sophia said slipping into the newly revealed passageway. “The only other person that knows about this passage or what resides beneath the cathedral is Bishop Miguel. His mother was a healer and could commune with spirits. He has kept the passageway secret from all others.”
“So where does this tunnel lead?” I asked following after Daman who entered behind her. I noticed that there were lit wall sconces placed every few feet along the walls to the right and left. The dim radiance they gave off kept at bay what would otherwise have been a pitch black passageway though I still had to watch my steps as the floor tended to rise and dip suddenly without notice.
“It leads to an old temple beneath the cathedral. There are many other tunnels beneath this old church and spider webbing out beneath the entire city. Some have collapsed, some haven’t ever been fully explored.”
I looked to the moisture drenched stone walls to either side of us. It was either due to the architecture in how they were built or, well, I just hoped that the fact that the walls appeared to bend in toward us was due to architectural design.
“The name of this group that is to help us,” I began while trailing my fingers through a thin trickle of water running down a section of wall.
“Los Guerreros Del Bosque.” She answered as I sensed we were now going deeper for the air around us began to become cooler.
“Yeah, them,” I said. “What does the name mean?”
“Warriors of the Forest,” she replied. “It is a group consisting of shapeshifters, witches and vampires that was formed shortly after The Conquest. It was created to keep the newly arrived settlers and religious authorities ignorant of the supernatural, but it is Mexico. We believe too strongly in the supernatural so we mostly help when supernatural communities come under threat from others or from those like La Bruja.”
“And everyone gets along?” I asked.
“To not do so is to lay the stones to form a path to our extinction,” she replied. “We do have some disagreements at times but nothing that cannot be solved with talking it out or combat in the arena.”
“Sounds familiar,” I said rubbing my chin.
Suddenly a pair of large wooden doors appeared in front of us in the tunnel. They looked to have been placed by giants they were so massive. Carved onto them were scenes from Aztec mythology that seemed to be telling a story but it was so intricate in style that it simply could have been decorative.
Sophia simply walked up to the doors and placed her hand on them while mumbling something beneath her breath. The doors swung open with little more than a small creak to reveal a flight of stairs leading downward into what looked like total darkness. Yet with my vampiric eyes I could make out what looked like a large stone entrance residing at the bottom of the stairs.
Without saying a word she led the way down the stairs and toward the stone entrance. At the far end I could see flickering light like that of torch light but my attention was drawn to the detailed carvings on the walls of the tunnel.
“Does this tell a story?” I asked pausing before one section of wall, able to make out the details in the gloom with my vampiric sight.
“A very ancient one,” Sophia said. “We haven’t been able to decipher it all as it is written in a language that predates any known versions of the Aztec language.” She stopped before one panel on the wall. “We have been able to translate this section of the panel, but it’s fragmentary, our translation that is. We only know that this speaks of three powerful witches that will one day emerge. One from either Mexico or South America that if we have translated correctly is referred to as the Daughter of the Land. She will join with two who will be awakened to their powers to fight a dark force in the world. Although with how things currently are? We wish it was more than a story.”
“You mentioned that earlier,” Daman said. “About some recent trouble going on?”
“In less than a month’s time La Bruja has culled half the supernatural population surrounding Mexico City. Once thriving communities are on life support or have been wiped out altogether. Those that managed to survive her attacks have made their way to us.”
“Why is she doing this?” I asked.
“We do not know, but she has upped her attacks here in recent days.”
“Why here?” Daman asked.
“The elders of the supernatural races reside here, but they are heavily protected by the oldest Aztec magic so we do not worry too much. We believe she may be trying to find them which is why she’s upped the attacks lately with no success. Why? We have been fighting her forces back along with the Elders elite protectors. However, we do wish the elders would give the word for others to join us instead of encouraging them to go into hiding or retreat further south until this blows over as they believe it will.” She sighed heavily. “We have heard it is worse around the area that she has claimed as her kingdom. She has attacked the oldest supernatural groups there and killed their leaders. She’s replaced them with those that are loyal to her. She even encourages them to start skirmishes, to attack those that were once called friends or are even family.
“She’s spreading violence at such a pace we fear that it won’t be long before the attention of the humans and even the government takes notice. For now they think it’s the drug cartels at war with one another, which, sad to say, works well for a narrative. It allows us to go unnoticed for the time being.”
“I wonder if she is in league with whoever or whatever is doing similar in the states,” Daman said. “Many of the older supernatural packs and covens have come under attack as well there.”
“It cannot be a coincidence if what is occurring there is also happening here,” she said looking at us both. “As I said, you have arrived to Mexico at a terrible time but also good timing. Carmen is planning an assault on her compound for tomorrow. When she received word from you that you were arriving here looking for La Bruja? She took it as an omen, a sign that her planned attack may be successful.”
“Are witches being killed here as well?” I asked.
“Yes. They seem to be the main focus of the attacks in recent days. Just recently several covens were wiped out within the span of twenty-four hours,” she said grimily. “And last week one of the oldest covens in Mexico was decimated leaving only one survivor, but they were so badly burned we could get nothing out of them.”
“Was it confirmed it was Aadya who is responsible?” Daman asked.
“We believe it is since she’s all but declared war on all the supernatural races of Mexico,” Sophia replied. “Each attack bares her scorched earth policy in nothing is left standing.” She stretched her arm out and indicated we should keep walking.
“A museum I was at was attacked last night,” I said. “They took my friends and that of an artifact we learned is known as a Witch Stone.”
“Did you say Witch Stone?” Sophia said looking at me.
“Yes, why?” I asked.
“We just received information on something called a witch’s stone. But Carmen will have more information to impart to you.”
“Who is Carmen?” I said feeling like the annoying child who constantly asked too many questions.
“Carmen De los Rios
.”
The voice came from the end of the tunnel. A female stepped into the light offered by two torches burning at the end of the tunnel. She was dressed in a white tank top, khaki pants and combat boots. Her light brown hair was pulled back into a high ponytail that fell forward over her right shoulder.
“Leader of Guerreros Del Bosque.” The woman stepped forward revealing a face of utter beauty with sharp cheekbones and glittering brown eyes. She had an athletic wiry build, her arms corded with muscles. “Señor Salvadori,” she said with a slight incline of her head toward Daman. “I did not expect to see you again for you tend to herald trouble, are caught up in trouble or just trouble in general.”
“What can I say? When you’re popular everyone wants a piece of you,” Daman said grinning as he stepped forward. He took her offered gloved hand and kissed the top of it. “And from what Sophia has said? It seems I’m arriving into more trouble.”
“It would appear that way, yes,” Carmen said as she shifted her gaze toward me. “And you brought your fledging with you?”
I arched a brow. “How…How do you know that?”
“I can see aruras and see that his is around you, that it marks you,” she stepped closer and cupped my face within her hands. She smelled of citrus and sandalwood. “I also see that there is great anger as well within your aura.” She smiled softly. “Which is to be expected of anyone that spends any amount of time with Señor Salvadori,” she said releasing my face. “I nearly decapitated him once.”
I shifted my eyes toward Daman who only grinned. “My Spanish is rusty. I had no intention of insulting you and glad you understood that.” He lifted his hands in supplication and shrugged.
“Mm, yes. You have a nice head Salvadori. It would be wasted adorning a pole,” she said with a smile. “But come meet what remains of our group that will be helping you lead the assault on La Bruja’s compound.” She turned about and beckoned us to follow her.
Daman was suddenly right there beside me. “Did you hear what she said?” he said with a whispered grin. “Marked. With my aura. My aura.” He stressed. “What was it you were saying back at the airport?”