Cece Rios and the Desert of Souls

by Kaela Rivera

  He turned his back and strode away.

  His criaturas followed with my friends dangling from their backs. Tears filled my eyes, but I couldn’t keep my head up any longer. I dropped my face into the sand. The numbness crawled up my cheeks, just like he said it would, as their footsteps trailed away.

  I had really thought I could do this. I was supposed to be braver, and stronger, and able to get Juana back.

  But I guess I always failed when it mattered most—just like the curanderas before me.

  The numbness burrowed deep into my skin, and my vision went white. Everything was falling away. The desert, my senses, and any hope I’d had of getting my sister back.

  26

  A Soul Like Water

  “Child of Naked Man,” a voice said.

  I wasn’t sure how, but by some miracle, I separated my eyelids. Drops of cold sweat ran down my temples. Everything looked gray and blurry. Something stood over me. It was white and thin, barely catching what light I could still see.

  “Cecelia Rios,” it said.

  Something cold locked around my hands. I wasn’t sure how I could still feel it at all, but the touch was familiar—like fingers made of stone.

  “How have you come so far from your home again, your soul stolen by a Dark Saint?”

  My lips parted. I could barely feel them, but I knew this voice. And if this was my last chance to speak, I had a question I needed to ask.

  “Tzitzimitl?” I said. “Did you curse me to be a curandera?”

  Her other hand fell over my cheek. My vision began swimming with shades of gray.

  “I am . . . weak as water,” I said. Stolen soul or not, feeling surged back into my heart, and tears welled up in my eyes. “It’s my fault Juana and Coyote and Lion and Kit . . . are suffering.”

  There was so much more to say, but I could barely stay awake. I had lost everything. I might as well drain away into the sand.

  Tzitzimitl’s hand stopped over my heart. “Water does not have the same strength as fire, so why should you compare them? Water gives life. Without it, there are no animals, no criaturas, and no Naked Man. How can you say that water is not strong, even if it does not burn?”

  Through the numbness, I felt something push against my chest—Tzitzimitl’s other hand. My chest compressed and then expanded under Tzitzimitl’s guidance. A sharp breath filled my lungs.

  “Water and fire are not enemies. The Ocean goddess and the Sun god are sister and brother. I blessed you to know that, Cece Rios. To know your soul is as strong as water,” she said. “So that you would not lose yourself as the Cager of Souls did.”

  Her hands pumped my chest up and down. I almost told her it was pointless, but the hopeless words fell away because I wanted to believe her.

  “Your soul has been taken, but it is still yours. The Ocean goddess blessed you with her power, but you made it into your strength. Find it now, Cece. Find your strength, and this time, do not doubt it.”

  I dragged in air. I had to breathe. I squinted at the white blur of Tzitzimitl’s face.

  “Because I will tell you the greatest secret of all, Cecelia.”

  My hands finally twitched. I managed to force them up to my eyes and rubbed them hard with my floppy fingers.

  “You already had a soul as strong as water, even before I came to you. You were blessed by the gods from the beginning.”

  When I opened my eyes again, the world was sharp and clear—and Tzitzimitl was gone.

  Sensation rushed back into my body. I knew what I had to do.

  I had to keep fighting.

  Because now I knew who I was. I was Cecelia Rios, Cece, sister of Juana, pretend bruja, best friend of Coyote, ally of Little Lion, protector of Kit Fox, and last of the curanderas. I was the blessed of the Ocean goddess. I was—I was strong as water.

  I slammed my hands into the dirt. My feet slipped in the dust, but I commanded them to hold their ground. Slowly, awkwardly, I stood.

  Because I wasn’t weak. I looked down at myself. My body was bruised, my clothes stained, and tears smeared my cheeks. Whether or not I had just hallucinated Tzitzimitl’s words, she was right.

  My soul was strong.

  So I had to get it back.

  I lifted my feet. I lifted my head. And I started along the trail Brujo Rodrigo had left behind.

  27

  Brujo Rodrigo the Soul Stealer

  The closer I got to Brujo Rodrigo, the more sensation returned to my body. I could feel a distant pulse in my wrists and chest. As the feeling returned, I sped up my pace. I had to close in on him soon, before he returned to Devil’s Alley.

  Fortunately, I spotted a shortcut across the top of the canyon. It was a difficult path, but I hiked without ceasing, and this higher position would give me the advantage I needed. The whole way up, I looked down on the trail Rodrigo’s party had left behind in the loose dirt.

  Soon enough, I caught up.

  They were near the end of the canyon where the cliff and the land narrowed into each other. I knelt on a stone shelf, just ahead of them. Slowly, Brujo Rodrigo and his criaturas moved closer. It was tempting to dive straight for Ocelot—she carried Coyote’s body over one shoulder, his unconscious head swinging with each step. But then I spotted Brujo Rodrigo heading right beneath my rock shelf.

  He tossed my blue soul stone up and down in his hands pensively. I followed his every movement. He passed under me, and I crawled to match his pace. Just as his hair appeared beneath the ledge—

  I tumbled off.

  I meant to leap more, um, purposefully, but my body was even more clumsy and awkward than usual. So, I belly flopped ten feet down onto his shoulder and sent us both slamming into the ground.

  When we sat up, his purple-black eyes widened as he spotted me.

  I grinned. “Did you miss me?”

  “How are you alive?” He stood and aimed a kick at my ribs.

  I rolled away just in time. “I am the caretaker of my soul,” I said. My arms wobbled as I pushed up and stood to face him. “I am. Only me.” The blue stone in his fist started to buzz, vibrating his hand. He looked down at it in alarm. “Now give it back.”

  He jerked his head toward me, sneering. “I was being merciful when I said I’d leave you to die. But you continue to defy the power of Devil’s Alley.” His face twisted. “Now, I’ll punish you the way I punish my criaturas when they question me.”

  He slammed both hands over my soul stone, and I felt it—a dark, hissing pain worming its way through me.

  “No!” I belted.

  I’d witnessed this before. The pain Grimmer Mother had inflicted on La Chupacabra. The pain she’d wanted me to use against Coyote. But this time, it was directed at me—and it was as powerful as the desert was large.

  Ravenous heat pushed up my throat and reached for my mind. Or, attempted to. I could feel his eagerness to burn me like a bonfire.

  But I was made of water.

  “I. Said. No.” My voice rattled the stones around us.

  At the sound, Brujo Rodrigo stumbled, and his criaturas rocked back and forth, their faces flashing between alertness and the dullness of Rodrigo’s control. I narrowed my eyes when his furious gaze met mine.

  “You want to master my soul?” I cried. Fluctuations of hot and cold battled in my chest. I gathered all of my feelings. Brujo Rodrigo’s forehead wrinkled. “Go ahead and try!”

  I shoved the strength of all those emotions forward.

  My love for Juana. My mourning for Coyote’s pain. My sorrow at Lion’s past. My grief at imagining Kit’s deaths. My love for Mamá. My worry that I’d never live up to her expectations. My fear of Papá. My love for him all the same. I pushed it all forward, into my soul, up Brujo Rodrigo’s veins, careening all the feelings of a lifetime into his chest.

  Let him try to ignore that emotional feedback.

  At first, his face just tensed up. Then one by one, his criaturas fell to their knees. My friends tumbled off their shoulders and flopped to t
he ground. Brujo Rodrigo’s hands shook.

  “What are you doing?” The veins on his face stood out. “Stop!”

  “You wanted my soul, didn’t you?” I asked. “This is what it takes to bear it.”

  I thrust the memory of what had just happened—of going numb, of crying, of being almost nothing—into his heart. He let out a guttural cry and stumbled sideways, falling against the canyon wall. I stopped in front of him, looming over him.

  I paused there, watching him tremble and falter. For the past two weeks, I’d experienced all these feelings. I’d experienced Coyote’s, Lion’s, and Kit’s feelings too. But the same feelings that had made me want to be stronger, to be better—they were tearing this Dark Saint apart.

  “Please,” he heaved out. His left hand opened. My soul slipped from between his fingers.

  I snatched it back and grabbed his criaturas’ souls from around his neck for good measure. They fell free with a sharp, hard tug.

  I came back with four souls—mine, Ocelot’s, Gila Monster’s, and Golden Eagle’s. The moment I touched mine, skin to stone, warmth flooded back into my veins. My chest filled with certainty and peace. I stepped back and couldn’t help smiling. Whole again.

  Brujo Rodrigo’s three criatura souls buzzed lightly and distantly up the leather straps I held them by. I couldn’t feel them the same way I did Coyote, Lion, and Kit, but that was probably because I hadn’t accepted them by placing them around my neck.

  “No!” Brujo Rodrigo’s cry interrupted my reverie.

  Ash suddenly crept over his face, like mold spreading through his skin. I stiffened as his smooth cheeks pitted and sizzled. His body began to crumble into the dirt, and when he opened his mouth, it was only to gargle a few words:

  “Fool,” he gasped. “No human can stand against . . . El Cucuy’s rule.” His hands shivered away into dust. His head slapped against the stone, the skin wearing away. “If El Sombrerón doesn’t end you for this . . . El Cucuy . . . will.”

  In mere seconds, the third Dark Saint was nothing but a pile of dust and bones—a skull whose empty eye sockets still stared at me.

  I backed up a couple of steps. “What . . . ?”

  I’d never heard of this happening to a brujo. I glanced between his criatura’s soul stones and the ash he’d left behind. The wind smeared the soot across the desert stone.

  When I looked up, Ocelot, the closest of Brujo Rodrigo’s criaturas, stood before me.

  I met her yellow stare. Without his influence, she wore a sleek, adult confidence that was at once intimidating and comforting. I glanced from her to Gila Monster and Golden Eagle. The last two, older as well, stared at me without blinking.

  Then I spotted the souls she was carrying—Coyote’s, Lion’s, and Kit’s. Hope made my soul sparkle blue. The color lit up my fingers.

  Ocelot stared down at her old brujo’s remains. “They never warn the apprentice brujas about this before they enter the Bruja Fights. That when your soul learns to feed off the power of others, and it’s suddenly stripped of its sustenance,” she said, kicking his skull to the side, “you’ll find yourself empty, your own soul stone hollowed out.”

  A chill ran through my skin. She was right. No one had mentioned there was a drawback to becoming a bruja, especially not one as bad as Brujo Rodrigo just endured. But it made sense. How could anyone not destroy their own soul in the process of torturing another’s?

  “This monster has feasted on criatura souls for over a hundred years. It’s no wonder his own soul was nothing but dust without us.” Ocelot turned to me. Calmly, she offered my friends’ soul stones to me.

  “I propose a bargain,” she said. Her expression was clear and sharp now without Brujo Rodrigo’s interference. “Let Gila Monster and Golden Eagle free, Cecelia Rios. I offer your allies—and my own soul—in return.” Her face was stoic but not unkind.

  I stared down at her soul stone and the three scratches across its back. She was willing to give it to me to set Gila Monster and Golden Eagle free? That was so—kind. My soul stone gave a sharp spark of blue light, and the three criaturas took a step back.

  I grinned sheepishly and slipped my soul into my pants pocket. I guess I needed to get a necklace for that soon. Pretty inconvenient.

  “Thank you.” I faced Ocelot. “But you don’t have to bargain.” I placed the three souls into her palm. “I just want my friends back.”

  Gila Monster and Golden Eagle surged forward and snatched their stones out of Ocelot’s hands the moment the trade was done. I stumbled as they rushed past me into the night. They left Kit and Lion dozing on the ground behind Ocelot, next to an unconscious Coyote.

  Gila Monster and Golden Eagle vanished down the canyon, while cheering, laughing desperately, and even crying out, “Merciful curandera!”

  I smiled a little and turned back to Ocelot. I reached for Coyote’s, Lion’s, and Kit’s stones. She pushed them and her own into my palm.

  “Keep it,” she said. “Not in exchange for Gila Monster and Golden Eagle’s. But because you destroyed my greatest tormentor. For that, I owe you, young curandera.”

  Her pledge made me think back to the first time I met Coyote. “I don’t want you to do this just because you feel like you have to. I’m going to fight El Sombrerón, and it’s going to be dangerous.”

  Ocelot watched me for a moment. “This is my choice,” she said. “You freed me. And if you are going to fight El Sombrerón, I will stand with you all the more.”

  Well—who was I to argue with that?

  “Thank you,” I said. “I could use all the help I can get.”

  She didn’t smile, not really. But her eyes implied one. “I imagine someone as strong as you could take him down all on your own.”

  I let out a single laugh. “Well, I don’t know about that. But maybe I’m strong enough to know it’s okay not to be strong enough to do it alone.”

  And with that, I placed their soul stone necklaces around my neck.

  They rushed inside my heart like the feeling of coming home. I placed a hand over their stones. Each settled in my chest differently—Coyote like a warm fire, Lion like a hot storm, and Kit like sunshine on a windswept day. And now this new ally, a friend in the making: Ocelot was untilled soil crusted over with winter’s hail. Their souls filled my chest with the intensity of an earthquake and the peace of morning sun in the springtime.

  It was a lot to take in at once. I swayed and fell backward, so my rear hit the ground. The world swirled for just a moment.

  When it settled, Coyote was sitting in front of me.

  “Coyote!” I said. In a rush, I threw both arms around him and laughed. He bent his head down, so his nose touched my crown.

  “You’re okay,” he whispered.

  He squeezed me and hugged me back. I smiled into his shoulder.

  “If you two are . . . done . . .” Ocelot sounded uncomfortable about our open affection. I guess being stuck with a Dark Saint for so long would do that to a person. “We’re on a tight schedule from here on out. El Sombrerón will probably already be looking for Brujo Rodrigo.”

  Coyote’s head whipped around, noticing the older criatura for the first time. He growled. Ocelot’s eyebrows lowered just a tad in response.

  “Hey, it’s okay.” I placed a hand on his shoulder. “Ocelot’s on our side now. You were asleep for a bunch of important stuff.”

  As I struggled to explain, two pairs of footsteps approached. I glanced around Coyote and saw Kit and Lion staring at me.

  “You’re awake!” I said.

  Lion stiffened. “What did Brujo Rodrigo do to you?”

  Kit stepped forward hesitantly. There was a soft pulse from his soul. It rang through my chest and buzzed in my pocket. The three of them—four now, with Ocelot looking distinctly awkward—made a semicircle around me. Oh, could they feel the change in my soul? I plucked it out my pocket and lifted the turquoise tear drop. Lion’s breath caught. Kit took another step forward.

  “That
’s the Dark Saints’ power,” he said. “El Cucuy and El Sombrerón always give their third in command the title Soul Stealer after they give the Third Dark Saint the ability to tear souls from bodies.”

  Ocelot crossed her arms. “He’s trying to say that Brujo Rodrigo stole our curandera’s soul.”

  A small flare shot through Lion’s stone. Coyote’s face fell.

  “But I got it back!” I waved it at them.

  “But are you going to be okay?” Coyote looked me up and down, like he was checking for wounds. “Humans aren’t supposed to have their souls on the outside.”

  He was right. It was strangely vulnerable to have my soul outside of my chest. No wonder criaturas feared brujas. To have someone be able to reach out and snatch at who you are—it was so easily misused.

  I smiled all the same. “My soul is strong as water. I think I’ll be all right.”

  Coyote’s, Kit’s, and Lion’s faces all lifted with surprise, but before I could explain further, Ocelot stepped forward, placing her hand on Coyote’s shoulder.

  “Legend Brother,” she said. “We have a mission to attend to.”

  “Uh—yeah. Right.” He cleared his throat and looked back at me. “Cece, you don’t have the Mark of the Binding, so you can’t go into Devil’s Alley. Maybe if we can force El Sombrerón—”

  “You don’t need to enter Devil’s Alley to get your sister back,” Ocelot interrupted. “El Cucuy and El Sombrerón rule because they have the same power—to transform humans and their souls into whatever shapes they please. It’s why their power is unopposed even by brujas. Whenever El Sombrerón leaves the castle, he turns his brides into braids of hair so he can carry them with him in his pocket. It’s how he controls them. A braid of hair cannot exercise its will even if it tries.”

  Juana. My mind filled with my sister’s smile. If everything Ocelot said was true, and El Sombrerón was still in the human world, then—