Devotion Calls

by Caridad Piñeiro

  “I’m sorry. I’m just not thinking clearly.”

  Her friend leaned forward on the bench. “There’s more to it than your mom, though, isn’t there?”

  Sara wasn’t normally one for true confessions, but Melissa was her best friend, and because of that, she spilled all her concerns.

  “The santero…Ricardo. I found some stuff on the Internet—”

  “Sometimes not the best source of information,” her friend reminded her.

  “Sí, sometimes not, only none of the accounts of the Santería rituals match up to the way Ricardo works. Not one.”

  “So there’s no room for deviation? Is that what you’re saying?”

  The various sources had said that, in the absence of written texts, everything was passed by oral tradition from one santero to initiate. “Maybe there is….” She paused and shrugged. “It’s just that there’s this power that I felt when he touched me. This tingle and heat—”

  “Girl, am I hearing this right? Just where did he touch you?”

  “It was nothing sexual.” Well, not at first, Sara thought. “Just on the hand,” she explained, and to demonstrate she laid one hand on the other.

  “That was it? Just like that?”

  “Just like that,” she lied, not wanting to admit to the other sensations that had come with his touch.

  “So I guess he’s not attractive,” Melissa said, as she grabbed a jacket from her locker and slipped it on.

  “Maybe a little.”

  Melissa was not about to be dissuaded. “Only a little?”

  At the continued prodding, Sara finally confessed. “Okay, so maybe he’s a lot handsome. Maybe even centerfold material.”

  “And maybe the tingle and heat when you touched—”

  “Don’t go there, Melissa.”

  “Really?” Her friend tossed her arm over Sara’s shoulder as they walked out of the locker room. “I know you swore off men after—”

  “Por favor, don’t bring him up again.” She shrugged off her arm, but Melissa put it right back.

  “You should let go of what happened with dandy Dr. Dan. So what if he—”

  “Screwed me over?” Sara whirled and faced her friend, her hands on her hips. “I should have kicked his lily-white ass—”

  “When you caught him cheating on you? When you realized that you let his pretty face and needy-puppy act con you?”

  Melissa’s words stopped her cold. “If you saw it, why didn’t you warn me?”

  “I tried to. Time and time again. But you, chica, just don’t want to listen sometimes.”

  They stood there, barely half a foot apart, glaring at each other. But when her friend’s eyes softened with understanding, Sara’s anger deflated. They both took that final step forward and embraced.

  “I promise I’ll try to listen more,” she said.

  “And I promise to try and make you listen,” Melissa teased.

  They broke apart, but Sara slipped her arm through her friend’s as they walked through the dojo and to the street outside.

  “Can I tempt you with something hot and sweet?” Sara asked.

  Melissa giggled, an uncharacteristic sound from her normally serious friend. “I must pass, since I have something incredibly hot and sweet waiting for me back home.”

  Sara chuckled. “That’s what you get for marrying a Latino. I’ll see you in the morning, then.”

  “See you,” Melissa said, and peeled off to head toward her apartment in the Sixties.

  Sara watched her go, pleased that her friend was finally happy with a handsome man who could be trusted and relied on. One who wouldn’t mess with Melissa the way dandy Dr. Dan had with her.

  Or, she thought as she headed for the subway uptown, like the way the totally handsome and seemingly baffling Ricardo Fernandez might be playing her.

  Chapter 3

  F rustration and hunger clawed at his innards.

  Frustration because he had been searching for days for the source of the power that had touched the cat he’d feasted on the other night. He had traveled throughout the neighborhood, up above, where the humans lived, trying to identify a trace of the unusual energy. Something that could leave such a potent trace on an animal had to be readily discernable, much like the energies the beast could sense from creatures like his vampire cousins.

  But he had found nothing. Not even another stray with that same lingering power. For that matter, not another stray, period.

  It had been days since his last meal. Few animals remained free in the neighborhood above, and he had already decimated the rat population in this section of the sewer.

  He had to concentrate on getting some food, and then he could resume his search for the special human, he decided, slipping off the manhole cover just enough to slink out and quickly duck into the narrow space between two buildings.

  Garbage day, he thought, wrinkling his long nose at the scents in that cramped alley. There would be food here, food he’d resorted to in the past, but now that wouldn’t be enough to truly satisfy his hunger. His thirst for blood.

  Waiting cautiously, he sniffed the air and, despite the chilly mist, caught the telltale scents from the wind blowing up the block. Flowers. A human, probably female. Wet wool. Fur. Dog fur. Yum, he thought, although cats were his favorite. Small but cunning felines always gave him a good run during his hunt. Like the special one from the other night.

  Craning his neck, he sought out the source of the smell and smiled as the scent grew stronger.

  A human and its pet were approaching. Something jangled, lightweight from the sound of it. Probably on the dog’s collar. He heard a zip, like something being pulled, then the metallic sound came a little closer.

  The clack-clack of heels on the cement sidewalk followed the jingle-jangle of the collar. He smiled. Well-heeled meant well-fed.

  “T-tasst-ty,” he said aloud by accident, made careless by his hunger.

  The footsteps paused.

  He held his breath and stilled. Waiting. Hoping.

  He heard a short yip, no doubt the dog protesting its owner’s lack of movement.

  The clack-clack began again, slightly slower at first, but then picking up speed. His prey was unaware that he was now just feet away.

  Seconds later, the tiny ball of white fur came into view, small pink tongue lolling out of its mouth.

  He sprang out, snatched the dog and receded into the alley. But the leash held fast.

  He yanked hard, engaged in a tug-of-war before the leash finally came loose. It had been enough to slow his escape, however.

  The woman peered into the narrow space, and then upward, to where he scaled the walls, his talons digging into the soft brick as he raced for the rooftop.

  But he was too late. Her scream chased him.

  With the dog tucked securely under his arm, the beast leaped onto the roof and then to the next building. He jumped from rooftop to rooftop until he crept down the side of another building and toward the manhole hidden in shadow.

  Prying the top off with one sharp nail, he eased down into the sewer and doubled back to his lair, where he feasted on the little ball of fur.

  Later, after the giddy rush caused by the dog’s blood had waned, he grabbed a dark blue milk crate and packed up what few belongings he possessed, taking care to meticulously wrap the chrome hubcap to keep it from being scratched.

  It was time to move on. Find a new n
eighborhood where there would be more food and maybe a stray with that unique force he was seeking. Or maybe even a few special strays, which could mean only one thing…

  He was closer to the source of that unique and humanity-restoring power.

  As he did every morning, Ricardo prepared the altar, thanked the deities and then headed to the grass mat for his daily meditation.

  Sitting down, he crossed his legs, placed his hands on his knees and began his ritual. He drew slow deep breaths in and out, until they became so regular that they and all other physical aspects of his being faded from his consciousness.

  Then and only then did he reach outward to the particles of energy swirling unfettered around him, like snowflakes adrift in a storm. Each speck was unique. Some of the molecules had been freed from other sources, while others had always been there, part of the universal energy flow in the cosmos that bound everything together.

  He gathered the fragments, brought them within his core, balanced them and got them settled within him until he felt ready to use that force on others.

  He was returning into his physical being when he sensed it. The shadow of something dark. Like an approaching storm cloud, it lurked close by.

  Unnerved by the sensation, Ricardo immediately shut down, wanting to keep the shadow from entering into the space for his own life force. The sudden withdrawal left him with a sensation of incompleteness.

  With a shudder he tried to shake off the feeling, but the lingering vibrations from the other entity he had briefly touched clouded his mind. He went to the door, opened it and perused the street.

  Nothing.

  One lone lady swept the stoop of a brownstone a few buildings down. When she noticed him, she stopped and waved, a bright smile on her face.

  He forced a cheery smile of his own, waved in response and, seeing nothing out of the ordinary, eased back into his store. Closing his eyes, he reached out with his mind, but sensed nothing this time.

  Nothing.

  Had he misread the earlier sensation?

  With an abrupt nod, he reminded himself that he had a client coming soon, and had to be prepared. The older woman had been suffering from crippling arthritis for years before she started coming to him. He had been able to alleviate the stiffness in her joints and the related pain. Knowing that he had improved her condition provided his true reward and reaffirmed his commitment to helping others.

  The older woman had little money and paid him in whatever way she could, often in the form of homemade goodies. He wondered what she would have for him today, and hoped it was some of her wonderful bread pudding.

  He didn’t need much to survive, being used to lean times. When he was a young child, his parents had been migrant workers, following the crops for their employment, working hard just to put some food on the table.

  The phone rang, jolting him from those memories possibly best left in the past.

  The caller ID indicated that it was Samantha. He picked up the phone.

  “Up early, aren’t you?” he teased, although his vampire friend tried to keep human hours whenever she could. A necessary thing when one ran a shelter for abused women and their children.

  “Just getting ready for a nap, only…Would you think me crazy if I told you that I felt something weird just now?”

  “Weird, huh? Would you think I was crazy if I said I felt something, too?”

  A long pause preceded her reply. “So what was it?”

  He took a deep breath and raked back his long hair with one hand. Recalling the shadow, he realized he had never experienced anything like it before. “I wish I knew, amiga. I wish I knew.”

  The creature paused. From above came the telltale signature of one of the undead.

  Not good, he thought, and resumed his trek through the sewer tunnel, the milk crate banging against his leg as he trudged along.

  Many yards away, near the intersection with another shaft, he sensed it. Power like that that had touched the cat. Human power of an amazing kind. Bright and wondrous, it created a spark deep within that he wanted to let grow. A spark of life and humanity he had thought he would never recover. But now…

  The energy seemed to open up a window to another world, bathing him in bright light full of beautiful colors. He reached upward, his dark, gray-green hand inching into the brilliance, but the light withdrew suddenly, thrusting him back into the murkiness of the sewer.

  Craning his long neck, he searched for the light again, but it was gone, replaced now by the push of a force searching for him.

  He had to go, only…he couldn’t move, so strong was his craving for the light.

  He’d sensed its goodness and purity, the humanity that oozed from it, and he imagined that it could fill him with what he had once possessed and ever since had craved. How incredible that he had found its location. And now that he had, he wanted to experience the light again.

  With one sharp talon, he made a mark on the stone wall of the sewer, raking his nail over and over again until the mark became obvious.

  Then he quickly hurried down the tunnel, moving far enough away so that the vampire and the human force he had perceived above would not be able to find him.

  Despite the danger, he intended to return and encounter the force again. He needed to savor humanity as it came alive within him and set him free from this monster body in which he had been trapped for so long.

  When he found a niche in the sewer where the morning light poured in from a grate, he placed the milk crate on the ground and unpacked, joy surging through him. After he put the hubcap back up on the wall, he stood in front of it and smiled.

  Long, slime-covered teeth clicked together noisily as he opened his lipless mouth, and screeched, “Huuuman. I am huuuman.”

  Or he would be again soon, he thought, thinking about how the light had made him feel. Thinking that maybe he had found a way back to what he had been nearly a century earlier.

  “Huuuman,” he repeated once more, before racing off in search of a snack.

  Sara’s feet felt heavy as lead. A difficult night at the hospital had made her beyond eager to get home. She had lost a patient last night, a young mother of three, with breast cancer. It always hurt, but even more now when her own mami—

  She wouldn’t dwell on that. She just needed to get home and get some rest before starting all over again in less than twelve hours.

  Hurrying up the block, she noticed the door to the botaníca was ajar. Barely seven o’clock in the morning was early for the shop to be open, she thought.

  She continued onward, and as she did so, Ricardo stepped out and gave her a hesitant smile that caused an odd flutter in her chest. Instinctively, she raised her hand to quiet the stirring, then chastised herself.

  Get a grip, Sara. A simple smile can’t make a heart flutter, she warned. She could name a dozen medical conditions that could, but to her knowledge she suffered from none of them.

  “Hola, Sara,” Ricardo said as he tucked his hands into the pockets of his jeans. She couldn’t help but notice that the black, sinfully tight denim hugged an amazing length of leg and lean hip. The black T-shirt caressed the strong planes of his wide chest and bared the defined muscles of his arms.

  She shut down that awareness, reminding herself that beautiful things weren’t necessarily good. Still, she needn’t have been as curt with him as she had.

  “Hola, Ricardo. You’re open early.” She paused before
him and, nearly a foot shorter, had to crane her neck to look at him. His shoulder-length, dark brown hair hung loose today, framing the sharp angles of his face. When he smiled, an engaging dimple winked at her.

  She yanked her gaze away to peer into the shop, and asked, “Have a customer already?”

  Before he replied, he worried his full lower lip for a second, and from somewhere deep within her, she recognized a craving to do that for him—and mumbled, “No, just doing inventory, and I noticed you coming up the block.”

  Again his choice of words—“doing inventory”—struck her as odd for a religious sort. But then again, he was also a shopkeeper, and, she figured, her Catholic priests, too, likely had to keep track of candles and other necessities for worship.

  “Oh,” she replied, and grabbed the straps of her knapsack, needing something to do with her hands, since the desire to touch him was suddenly too strong.

  They stood there in an awkward silence for a moment until she said, “I have to go.”

  At the same time, he asked, “Would you like some coffee?”

  “Coffee?” Duh, Sara. You know, that supercharged brew you chug by the gallon?

  Ricardo nodded and rocked back and forth on his heels in an obviously nervous gesture. She wondered if he realized that something had awakened between them the other day, changing the nature of their relationship.

  “Sí. Coffee. Freshly made.” He nodded toward the door. As he spoke, a bit of vapor marked his breath, reminding her of just how chilly it still was, and that while she was bundled up, he wasn’t.

  She walked through his door, if only to keep the poor guy from freezing.

  Ricardo breathed a sigh of relief. He followed her in, but she paused at the front of the store and inhaled deeply.

  “I love the way it smells in here,” she said.

  “It’s a special blend of herbs and incense for easing stress.”

  “I could definitely use that, chico,” she stated, a shy grin on her heart-shaped face. She slid the knapsack from her shoulders, one strap at a time, and let the bag hang from one hand.