“He has to know,” she says. “He’s part of this.”
“Wait,” Maks said. I asked you for the truth, Lula. I deserve to know. What does your sister mean that I’m not the exception?”
Rose pushes up her glasses and bites the already-raw cuticles on her thumb. Nova looks away, and Alex, well, I’m going to kill her.
“We weren’t supposed to heal you. No one believed you’d come out of the coma. But I did it anyway because I couldn’t lose you.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t have brought me back,” Maks whispers. For a painfully long couple of minutes, he turns his face to the window, watching the tunnel zoom by. When he finally looks at me, his brows are knit close together, and his eyes search my face. So much pain marks his features, and I hate that I’m the one who put it there. “But I’m glad you did.”
He kisses me hard, and I don’t care that we’re in a train with my sisters and Nova. I kiss him back harder because, when this is all over, I want to remember the feel of his lips.
Destroy the heart and make the sacrifice.
“This is our stop, lovebirds,” Nova says.
• • •
When we get off the train, Alex and Rose walk up front, and Nova brings up the rear.
“Will you stop looking around?” I tell Nova. “You look suspicious.”
“You kidding?” Nova adjusts the bag of weapons and flashes me a smile. Even in the dark, his Caribbean Sea eyes are bright. “This is the safest I’ve ever felt. We got a get-out-of-jail-free card.” He winks and points at Maks.
I laugh, but Maks doesn’t. He’s stares at the red hand at the crossing light.
“Anything in my grandmother’s zombie book about when he spaces out?” Nova whispers at my ear.
The light changes over to white, and we move.
Maks’s milky blue eyes swivel toward Nova, and for all of his bravado, I see a nervous flicker in Nova’s face. Maks’s mouth widens into a smile.
“You okay, bro?” Nova asks him.
“I’m just trying to remember,” Maks says. “Whenever I try, I see splotches. Even before the accident.”
“It’ll take time,” Nova says. “Your mind is probably trying to protect you from the trauma you suffered. That mixed with mad magic, boom! Memory loss.”
“Thanks for the lesson in Nova-science,” I mutter.
Maks and Nova do that thing guys do, when they lift their chins and nod in solidarity. When we reach the high school, we stop. The tall, Gothic spires create long, pointed shadows on the ground. But that isn’t the arresting part.
The entire steps are covered in flowers, candles, and wreathes with pictures of the dead. Ramirez. Kassandra. Maks. Twenty-two faces, smiling and alive. A shrine as big as I’ve ever seen. The ache in my chest strengthens, and Maks squeezes my hand hard. It can’t be easy seeing himself there.
“How long has it been?” Maks asks. “Time is one of the many things I can’t keep track of.”
“Seven years,” Rose says, walking ahead of us. “Welcome to the zombie apocalypse.”
I glare at Rose, but Maks just laughs. There’s something frightening about his laugh, especially here in front of a shrine dedicated to the dead. Or undead, I suppose.
We keep to the side of the building as we walk toward the parking lot. Alex breaks the lock with her magic, and we zigzag between cars until we find Maks’s. His parents have been too busy to pick it up. I want to believe it’s a sign the Universe is in our favor. I want to send a prayer to the sky, but I just keep walking. The Brooklyn lullaby of sirens fills the air. Past the parking lot, behind a row of houses, the red and blue lights whirl where the cops are at the crime scene.
“Anyone bring the keys?” Nova asks, looking over his shoulder. With the sunset, there is only the bright streetlamps that make shadows jump out around us.
“Move over,” Alex says, pushing him out of the way. She presses her hand over the car door. Her eyes darken as she summons her power, and then there’s the click.
“Okay, now does anyone know how to hot-wire a car?” I ask.
“I got this.” Maks cracks his knuckles.
“You do?”
“Yeah, remember my cousin Rome?” Maks pulls a plastic cover from the underside of the front seat. “He works at a garage. The summer I was benched after my surgery, he had me work there so I wouldn’t go nuts in the house.”
“I didn’t know that,” I say.
He pulls at some wires and starts to twist them. “I’m glad after two years of being with me I can still surprise you.”
When he winks, I get butterflies. I haven’t felt this way in so long. I press my hands on my abdomen, like I can feel real wings unfurling.
“Guys,” Rose says, craning her neck around another parked car. “I think we’re being watched.”
“I’ll go check it out,” Alex says.
“I’ll come with you,” Nova says.
“No,” Alex says harshly. “I’m stronger than you. You’ll just get in my way.”
Nova looks like he’s been punched in the gut, but he doesn’t follow my sister as she runs out of the parking lot.
“When did Alex get so mean?” Maks asks. He jumps as something shocks him. He undoes the wires again and mutters something about color schemes.
“She’s not mean,” I say. “She’s stressed.”
“Did my gran say something to her?” Nova asks, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the front of the car.
“Yeah,” I say. “She said to tell you to stop whining.”
Nova kicks the tire and sucks his teeth. “Forget y’all. I’m going to see what I can get from the crime scene.”
“Shouldn’t we stick together?” Maks asks, frustrated.
But Nova’s already gone.
“Do you see anything?” I ask Rose.
“No. All I see and hear is static. Like when we—” She stops abruptly and looks over at Maks. “At the hospital.”
I nod, understanding what she means. The night we tried to heal Maks, she said the same thing. It has to be up to me to sense the casimuertos. But I don’t know how I made the thread appear when I was looking for Maks.
The roar of the engine is followed by the beam of headlights. Maks dusts off his hands and smiles victoriously. He pumps a hand in the air, the way he did when he saved an impossible goal and basked in the uproar of the crowd. Maks will never play again, I think.
He climbs out of the car and grabs me around my waist and lifts me into the air, bringing me back down slowly, so we’re close enough to kiss. His cool breath is on my lips, and I shiver under his cold touch. Maks will never be warm again, I think.
Then, clouds roll in with a gust of wind. Lightning crashes all around and wrenches us apart.
23
La Mama and El Cielo gave birth to
El Viento, Lord of Flight. They didn’t stop there.
Flowers and trees rose across hilltops,
leaning toward their mother’s light and their father’s sky.
—Tales of the Deos, Felipe Thomás San Justinio
I push myself off the ground, and tiny pebbles stick against my palms. I touch my chest, expecting to see the thread of silver, but there’s nothing there besides a deepening ache.
“Rose?” I call out.
There’s a dent on the door where Maks was slammed into the car. But if he feels pain, he shrugs it off and stands.
“You guys okay?”
“That’s Alex.” Rose appears from around the back of another car, a bloody cut on her forearm. “I recognize her power.”
“I’ll go find her,” I say, unzipping the duffel bag of weapons and retrieving a machete. “Stay here, both of you.”
I run in the direction Alex went, ignoring Maks’s and Rose’s protests.
“Alex!” I shout her name. T
he block is completely deserted. When I run around the corner I have to stop. My insides seize with a stabbing sensation, and my legs threaten to give out under my weight. I crawl on the sidewalk toward the lamppost, scraping my knees as I dig in my jacket pocket. I knew it would get worse before it got better. I pull out the glass bottle with the elixir, but my hand cramps, and I look down to see the veins beneath my skin roiling like black snakes. I take a swallow, leaving some for later.
I breathe deep, aware of every inch of my body, every spark of agony. It’s like my guts are threaded with live wires. But I keep breathing, the elixir burning cold in my belly until the pain ebbs to nothing. When I can stand, I look up at the sky to search for Alex’s lightning, but there are only thick rain clouds. I keep running, but this street turns into a dead-end alley.
“Lula! Stay back!”
It’s Alex.
I hear footsteps behind me, but when I glance over my shoulder, the street is empty and pitch black. I run into the alley, follow the sound of fists pummeling flesh and bottles shattering.
Alex is surrounded by five figures. She’s conjured an orb of light overhead, but she can’t seem to hold it and fight at the same time, so it pulses like a strobe light.
“Sorry about the lightning,” Alex says, looking at me past her attackers, hands up in a fighting stance. “It was supposed to be a little warning thunder clap.”
A guttural growl comes from the shadows that surround my sister. I shake out the cramp in my hand and grip the machete tighter.
Casimuertos.
I pick up a bottle from the pile of garbage and throw it at them. “Hey, over here!”
Two of them turn on me.
“Oh no!” I cover my mouth at the familiar faces staring at me.
Raj and Dale. Or what’s left of them after the accident. The skin around Raj’s jaw is missing, exposing the white bone and bloody mess of his gums. Dale’s sickly gray skin is covered in burns and bruises. There’s a long gash on the side of his head where the stitches are coming undone.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I say, losing my nerve. You already have, a voice growls in my thoughts.
They answer with unintelligible grunts. Raj lunges for my chest, but I kick out and throw him off balance. Dale grabs ahold of my jacket and pulls hard. I swing the machete upward, hitting his side.
But when I pull the blade back, he keeps charging for me and knocks it out of my hand.
“They’re not stopping,” I shout at Alex. “Remember the book—”
“The author of that book never met me.”
Despite the confidence in her voice, she’s panting and clutching what must be a cramp at her side. She shuts her eyes, a hard breeze picking up dirt and garbage around us. Her magic gives me vertigo, and I stumble to the brick wall for support.
She raises her fists into the air and shouts above the whistling wind.
“I call on El Terroz, Lord of the Earth and Its Treasures. Quiebra!” Then she punches the ground with bare fists. The ground trembles and bucks, knocking all of us over, expect for her. One of the brick walls crumbles on top of three casimuertos. Her victorious grin is gone as her eyes fall on something moving behind us.
Dale and Raj are standing back up.
“I can’t knock them out long enough to rip out their hearts,” Alex says. “I’m fading.”
She picks up two bottles from the floor. Shatters the ends and holds them up as weapons. I can’t leave my sister to fend for herself. I push myself off the wall, screaming, and shove Dale down. He slams his head on the corner of a metal Dumpster. I roll on my side and scrape my knees as I stand.
“Raj,” I cry, every breath coming labored.
For a moment, he looks at me. His eyes are unnaturally white, and red veins run from the dark center. But there is no recognition there, and he snaps back to Alex. Beside them, Dale rises again.
Raj lashes out, his fingers curved into claws. Alex leans back to dodge, then kicks him in the solar plexus. He curves forward, holding his middle as he falls to his knees. Before he can stand, she thrusts the glass through the gaping hole in his jaw.
Alex dusts off her shaking hands. “One more.”
“Dale,” I say. “Remember me? I introduced you to Lonnie. Remember?”
“That’s not working!” Alex grunts.
Dale bares his teeth and snarls. There isn’t any recognition in his eyes. Just hunger.
But as he reaches for my chest, Raj sits back up too. Then, bricks tumble where the other three casimuertos rise from the rubble.
“I’m going to summon fire,” Alex says. “Run. Get the others and go. I won’t be hurt.”
“I’m not leaving you alone.”
We’re side by side now, facing five casimuertos that block the alley.
“I know you,” one of them tells me, her voice warped and deep. Her hair is burned off, exposing bubbled skin. One of her eyes is missing, and flesh dangles where the hollow space is. The other is white and red.
“Kassandra?”
“You were next to me.” Her bottom lip is split and green with infection. “You should’ve died.”
“Kassandra, listen to me.” I hold up my hands. But what can I say? What can I offer them except death? “I’ll fix this.”
“Do you know what I saw just before I was going to die?” she asks me. “I saw my family. They were waiting for me. My grandmother. My dad. I was walking toward them. And then, I saw you. Ripping me away and bringing me back here. You ripped me out of Heaven.”
“I’m so sorry.” But I know if I were her, I wouldn’t want an apology. I would want revenge. “I’m going to make this right.”
Another lie. I can’t make this right. I can’t bring them back. My eyes burn hot as I realize there is nothing I can do for her—for all of them—expect sacrifice myself. And that feeling of helplessness is worse than anything else.
“No,” Kassandra says. “You’re going to die.”
She lunges for me. I shut my eyes and put my arms up. I should move, but I can’t.
There’s the whistle of wind. The sound of Kassandra grunting. The gurgle of something wet.
I open my eyes. A long, curved blade splits Kassandra in half, carving her down the middle from head to throat.
I blink, my lashes heavy with sweat and blood splatter. I try to breathe, but my chest feels tight. I follow the sword from the hilt to the black-gloved hands that hold it, all the way up to an unsmiling, half-masked face. Eyes dark as ink look down at me.
“I gave you twenty-four hours,” he growls. “You didn’t listen.”
He grabs my shirt and drags me away from the casimuertos. I trip on a pile of garbage and fall forward. I want to shout, but I’m too stunned, a rag doll in his grasp.
“Lula!” Alex shouts. She sends a blast of energy at the guy holding me, and a few moments later, she’s helping me stand.
She revives the orbs of light overhead. We stand before a group of newcomers, three imposing figures dressed in black, brandishing long swords with curved edges and handles that glisten like obsidian.
Though I’ve never seen them before, I know who they are, and my heart thunders. Hunters. The Knights of Lavant.
The guy who spoke to me recovers from Alex’s attack, but he doesn’t advance on us again. His posture is predatory but rigid, as though he’s holding back. His shoulder-length hair blows around his face, and even though he’s masked, his dark, disapproving stare is unmistakable.
“Finish these,” he tells his companions in a harsh voice. “I’ll get the witches.”
The three of them move fast as the wind. I blink, and the next moment the casimuertos are hacked into pieces, fingers still twitching and eyes still blinking.
“Stand back!” Alex holds up her hand up, and the hunter hesitates.
I pick up a brick and fling it a
s hard as I can. As Alex yanks my hand to retreat, I can’t see it hit the mark, but I hear the hunter grunt.
Headlights beam and a car skids at the alley entrance in front of us.
“Get in!” he shouts. I never thought I’d be so relieved to see Nova. Alex runs around to the front passenger seat.
Maks opens the passenger door and gets out to reach for me, but he freezes at the scene behind us.
“We have to go!” I press my hands on his chest, but he won’t budge.
“Stop right there!” one of the black-clad hunters shouts.
When I turn around, the long-haired hunter is running after us.
“Maks!” I slap my palms on his face and he starts, coming out of his shock and climbing back into the car.
The hunter punches the window on my side, glass fractures, and whatever the hunter shouts is lost in the rev of the engine. Nova hits the gas and doesn’t let up until we’re far out of their reach.
24
When he learned of La Mama’s betrayal,
El Papa cried so long his tears gave birth to
the oceans, drowning La Mama’s other creations.
—Tales of the Deos, Felipe Thomás San Justinio
Nova runs a red light. He hands a metal rectangle to Alex in the front passenger seat.
“Is that my license plate?” Maks asks.
Nova looks up at the rearview mirror with humor in his blue-green eyes. “Yeah, I didn’t want the hunters to get a read on that. Though I’m pretty sure they already know who we are.”
“Hunters?” Maks asks.
“Welcome to our world, little zombie,” Nova says.
“Don’t call me that,” Maks says, voice dripping with disgust.
I could explode right out of my skin right now, but Rose places her hand on mine. She always has a calming way about her that’s hard to understand. But the calm doesn’t last. Nova drives as recklessly as a yellow cab, and I grip the handle above the window as he makes a sharp turn on the highway. Traffic is light, so we coast most of the way south. I keep looking back to see any cars following us, but so far nothing. There is only the river and bridges connecting us with downtown Manhattan, lights sparkling like stars.
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