Shady Lady

The Island Witch

“You’re crazy powerful,” I said as we went deeper into the jungle. The dirty yellow T-shirt on the back of a strange child remained our only tie to civilization. We had long ago left the boat behind, and I could no longer even see the water. “How come you couldn’t just burn the curse away?”

For a while, I thought Kel wouldn’t answer on the grounds of giving away heavenly secrets.

At last he said, “It doesn’t work like that. I have dominion over powers above and below . . . and certain personal gifts allow me to combat heaven’s enemies in this world.” Like inhuman strength and healing, not to mention high pain tolerance. “But magick like that hex belongs to human beings, who have free will.”

“So it makes the spell untouchable for you because it’s like interfering beyond a permissible point.” I thought about that. “But you can kill people.”

“Not just anyone,” he said. “Only if I’m assigned the task.”

“By God.” I tried not to sound skeptical. It didn’t make sense that I still would be, after all I’d seen, and yet I had a hard time imagining an omnipotent being selecting people for execution based on events that might come to pass. That obviated the notion of free will—and made me profoundly uncomfortable.

“I report to an archangel,” he corrected.

That was little better: powerful entities—not God—deciding who got to live, based on suspect criteria. But it worried me that he was being so forthcoming. If I reflected long on the ramifications, I felt sure I wouldn’t like what such confidences portended.

The kid turned then and gave us an impatient look. “Rápido.”

We picked up the pace until we were nearly running. I ducked low-hanging branches and stepped around spiky plants growing up from the ground. Everything was impossibly green, and I didn’t recognize any of the birds or insects. The strangeness made me uneasy.

At last we came to the top, where the ground leveled out. Here, someone had built a small hut out of driftwood and scrap tin. Vines lashed the wood together; the construction looked rickety, but the rust on the metal roof told me the structure had stood for several seasons at least. Instead of a door, a ragged white curtain hung in the opening, frayed strands blowing in the breeze like cobwebs.

In this clearing clay idols shaped into primitive gods peeked out from various bushes, and there was a shallow tray on the ground, full of water. Kel stood beside me, quietly taking everything in. I wondered what he made of this place, which owed so little to his god. Or maybe I didn’t know as much as I thought I did. After all, I’d never heard him refer to any particular religion. So maybe the deity he served didn’t care about such things. I’d always secretly suspected that would be the case in any powerful, selfrespecting divinity.

The boy bowed to statuettes at what I took to be cardinal directions. I glanced askance at Kel, but he lifted his shoulders in a nearly imperceptible shrug. Then the kid went through the curtain, and I heard a rapid-fire exchange in Spanish, too soft and low for me to make out. By his intent expression, the guardian could understand it.

He interpreted my look correctly. “He’s telling her she has clients, and she’s saying she has a bad feeling about helping us.”

Well, that answered any lingering questions about her legitimacy.

The quiet argument continued for a couple more minutes before the kid came back. “Just you,” he said, pointing at me.

Nodding, I held out my hand to Kel, who dug into his pocket for the white case. In exchange, I gave him Butch, who was still cowering at the bottom of my bag. I sympathized with him. The boat trip had not been as scenic or safe as one might hope.

Kel caught my gaze with his. “I’ll be right out here. If you feel frightened or threatened at any time, say my name.”

Why did that sound so suggestive? He was the last male who’d drop a double entendre into a conversation. Maybe I’d just read too many books that used the line with sexual context. Shaking my head, I followed the boy into the hut.

I’m not sure what I expected, but the woman inside, presumably Nalleli, was neither old nor cronelike. She was perhaps ten years older than I. Her hair shone black in the candlelight, and the sun had browned her skin even darker, dark enough that I thought she probably had some Huastec blood. The witch wore a brown-patterned skirt and a simple white blouse, further confounding my expectations. She didn’t look like any bruja I had ever seen.

Her hands were graceful as she gestured for me to take a seat on the second rough-hewn stool. The hut was surprisingly snug, gaps packed with clay. In her shrine, she’d mixed Christian saints and the Virgin Mary, along with ancient gods like Quetzalcoatl, bearing out my guess about her heritage. Herbs burned in censers along the walls, giving the small space a smoky air.

“Bienvenida,” she said. “We will tend to your business, but first . . .”

It was a shock to hear her speak English—accented, but better than most. Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised the witch would be bilingual, though. It was in her best interest to talk with as many clients as possible, and English was a common second language.

She went on, oblivious to my speculation. “You must have a cleansing. All manner of ill luck clings to you. I have never seen anything like it.”

Chance. It had to be: something else for which to thank him. My ex had uncanny luck, but the person closest to him received bad fortune to establish cosmic balance. He wins the lottery, and I fall two stories through the floor in a burning building. To make matters worse, he hadn’t told me about the jinx or that his lover before me died of it. But I’d thought once I got away from him, it would ease off; I felt sure even he hadn’t known the effects could be permanent.

I nodded my assent. If anyone needed a break from bad karma, I did.

While I watched, she prepared a mixture of herbs, oil, and water. She lit a white candle and placed it on the table before me. “Cup your hands over the flame, not close enough to harm, but where you can feel the warmth.”

That was easy. I complied as she painted my pulse points. I recognized mint, lemon verbena, and a hint of vetiver, all woody and green. Once applied, the solution burned like camphor on my skin, though I could detect no trace of it in the actual composition. I took that as a manifestation of her power.

“Rise,” she instructed, “but do not remove your hands from the flame.”

Doing that proved a little trickier than anticipated but I managed, levering myself off the stool while keeping my palms cupped. Nalleli produced an egg, and I remembered Eva telling me how her grandmother had done this on nude people. Aw, come on. This was where I drew the line.

I stood still, waiting for an instruction that never came. The witch rubbed the egg over my exposed skin and only tugged clothing aside to hit a chakra. I guessed Eva’s grandmother just liked making people get naked. Both she and Chuch came from powerful lines; their unborn child would probably carry an incredible gift.

It took a long time, and Nalleli got a fresh egg twice, muttering blessings and incantations in a polyglot of Spanish and Teenek. For a final step, she pulled out a leafy branch and lashed me with it gently, as if brushing away any lingering traces.

At last she gave the signal to sit down. Just as well—my hands were bright pink, not damaged, but tender, as if I’d scoured them with sandpaper. “Did it work?”

In answer, she cracked the first egg. To my horror, the yolk had turned a slimy, viscous black, more ghastly in contrast with the white, which was now bloodred. The shell had been completely intact; this wasn’t trickery. Silently, she showed me the other two. The second was paler, and the third showed barely any trace of corruption. I couldn’t doubt the efficacy of her work and shuddered to think of all that filth sticking to me.

“Now that you are no longer defiling my space . . .” Her smile took some of the sting from the words. “Tell me why you’ve come.”

“A friend in the city referred me to you.”

She studied me for long moments in silence. “Tia.”

My brows went up. “Yes.”

“It is good to know she thrives, even in a world of concrete and steel.”

“She sends her regards.” That wasn’t strictly true, but it might help our cause. I gave Nalleli the condensed version of events, leaving out only the bit about Ernesto and the massacre at Monkey Island. “So I need you to remove the curse from the saltshaker, and, if possible, the tracking spell as well.”

“I can do this.” Her manner remained serene. “But it carries a high price.” Well, I’d been expecting that. I reached down for my purse. She stopped me with a hand on my arm. “Not from you. There is no coin sufficient for me to take this risk.”

“What do you need, then?”

With some trepidation, I remembered that Twila, the voodoo priestess who owned Twilight and San Antonio, had wanted my dog at first, and then time alone with Chance once she realized he was the greater prize. I still didn’t know what they had been doing all that time, and it wasn’t likely my ex would ever tell me, not the way we’d parted.

“Call your companion.”

Was this a trap? My heart raced. But this woman could hardly do my guardian real harm after all I’d seen him suffer. Hoping I was doing the right thing, I spoke his name. Kel bounded into the hut; he should have looked ridiculous with one arm raised to do battle, the other cradling a Chihuahua, but he didn’t. His skull tats glowed faintly. I’d come to recognize that as a sign of him drawing power.

He assessed the scene at a glance. “You’re fine.”

“She won’t help us without payment from you.”

“Is this true, witch?” The word could’ve been a curse or condemnation, but spoken in that tone, it became an honorific.

Nalleli inclined her head. “It is.”

“I have no monetary wealth.”

Their eyes locked, questions asked and answered in a blink. My gaze ranged between them, sensing hidden currents. I hated being the only one in a room who didn’t get the joke, and this was only a hundred times more serious. Restraining a growl, I plunked the white box on the table in case they decided they could do business—whatever that business might be.

I figured they must be communicating silently, and then Nalleli said, “That’s not the payment I seek, as you well know.”

“Step outside for a moment,” Kel told me.

Dammit, not this again. Chance had done the exact same thing to me in San Antonio and I’d wound up attacked by a shade in a cemetery. If anything bad went down while Kel was otherwise occupied, I’d be a sitting duck. God knew, the kid couldn’t protect me.

“No.”

He didn’t push the matter. “Your choice.” The free-will thing again. I could get used to this. “Very well, I accept your terms,” he told the witch.

Nalleli rose, a silver dagger in hand. It had runes etched into the blade, not that I could read them. She cut a thin slice in his arm and caught the ruby red blood in a bowl. If she drank it, I was so out of here. But no, that wasn’t the master plan. Instead, she painted her fingertips and brow with a minuscule amount. The rest she poured into a glass vial and then capped it with a wax plug. Okay, I didn’t want to know what she planned to do with it; I was a little worried on Kel’s behalf.

“That’s all,” she said to him. “Go now.”

The whole process leaned toward the wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am side of blood donation, but he didn’t seem to mind. Butch whined as they left, and the curtain billowed inward as if warning of a coming storm.

“Why did you want his blood?”

Her brows lofted. “You truly do not know?”

Man, I hated this. I’d never been good at puzzles or guessing games. “Because he’s God’s Hand?”

“If he has not confided in you, then I must respect his privacy. But with such a potent source, I can work miracles.” Her eyes shone with ambition.

Frustration surged. It didn’t seem fair that she knew his origins, but she was right in that Kel should choose what he told me—and when. Accepting that, I muttered, “So we’re square. You’ll remove the curse and the tracking spell.”

“I will,” she said. “I’m protected so long as I wear his blood. They will not be able to scry for me, and by the time it fades, my magickal tell will long since have vanished in the ether.”

Pretty slick, I had to admit. Plus, she got to use his leftover blood—whatever was so special about it—for her extracurricular spells later. I dug into my bag for the sketch Kel had drawn. “I’m not sure if this will help, but Tia gave us an idea what the practitioner looks like.”

Nalleli nodded. “Thank you. Now I need for you to sit quietly. It’s important you don’t touch or attempt to communicate with me from this point.”

“Would you prefer if I left?”

“No,” she said. “Unless you spook easily.”

I didn’t think I did. So I settled on the stool opposite and watched her preparations. First she laid a white cloth across the makeshift table and then she set it with terra-cotta clay dishes. On each plate, she put a different item: corn tortillas, grilled fish, green plantains. Once she’d finished, Nalleli bent, rummaged through the crates stacked against the wall, and straightened with a carafe of red oil. Palm oil, I thought. I knew of no other that carried that precise hue. She drizzled the fluid over the top of the other offerings and then set out red candles in a circle. To some degree, it reminded me of the séance we’d conducted in Laredo, but this was altogether more elaborate.

“Everything is red,” I said as she lit the candles.

I’d forgotten I wasn’t supposed to interfere. She cut me a look, but answered, “Yes, it is the color of sacrifice.”

I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that. “I thought there were two types of magick, white and black.”

“There are three,” she corrected. “White for purity, black for destruction—”

“And red for sacrifice.”

She nodded, fixing me with a steely look. “I need you to be silent now, or you must leave.”

Chastened, I fell quiet, promising myself that no matter what happened, I wouldn’t react. Given the atmosphere rising in the hut, that might prove a bigger challenge than I anticipated. Though it was a warm day, since she started her ritual the air had cooled until I could see my breath. Goose bumps rose on my bare arms, but I didn’t dare rub them.

Once she arranged the table to her satisfaction, Nalleli lit the candles and called, “Pedro, los tambores!”

“¡Sí, mamá!”

Outside the hut, I heard the sound of something being dragged over dry palm leaves and then a simple rhythm commenced. The sound was hypnotic; I could imagine the boy playing with his small, quick hands: three drums, one cadence. Before me, Nalleli swayed, listening to otherworldly whispers. Her eyelids grew heavy, but not, I thought, through any lack of concentration.

She sang out, “YaYa, yayita, büey suelto / Oya viene alumbrando / como es / YaYa, yayita, büey suelto / Oya viene alumbrando / como es.”

Though I didn’t understand all the words, in my bones I recognized a summoning chant when I heard one. My blood sparked and kindled, as if some long-dormant part of me sprang to life in welcome. In anxious reaction, I curled in on myself, wrapping my arms about my knees. Mist rolled in, peculiar and blood tinged; I had never seen anything remotely like it, except, perhaps, for fog burning in the wake of distant taillights.

Nalleli’s movements became a dance as she shuffled, sang, and swayed. The air gained weight, as it had in the boat, but it did not carry the same stench, not sulfur and brimstone. Instead, it smelled of copper and yarrow, a fruitygrassy scent I remembered from my mother’s kitchen, similar to sage. For a moment I could feel her around me, warmth discernible for the way it shielded me from the surrounding chill. Though it was impossible, I actually looked for her and found only that red mist.

Beneath my feet, beneath the spellbinding surge of the drums, the earth rumbled as though something ancient and powerful had awakened. Nalleli moved faster now, her hands trembling as she set the palm oil alight. It should have seared the cloth and begun a blaze inside the hut that we’d be hard-pressed to contain. Instead the flame burned with merry intelligence, devouring the food that had been set forth.

“Bienvenida,” the witch crooned. “Bienvenida, nuestra señora del relámpago.”

Welcome, our lady of the lightning. That, I understood.

“Acepta este sacrificio en tu nombre.”

Accept this sacrifice in your name. The words sent a chill through me. Would I have agreed to this had I known? Animal sacrifice led to darker things. I touched the hard place in my side where the murderer’s weapon had plugged my wound. Perhaps I ought to be asking whether I could have countenanced this before—before Kilmer, before the demon, before I died. I didn’t like where those thoughts led.

Yet I did not protest. I had promised I would not, and I feared the consequences of disrupting her work. Nalleli withdrew a small bird from one of the crates behind her and cut its throat with a slim, wicked knife. The fresh blood spattered atop the offerings already set forth. Somehow, I swallowed my moan, wishing I’d waited outside.

Say nothing. This was surely the reddest magic I’d ever seen. The whole hut swam with the shade—and the bloody mist threatened to choke me. I breathed through my nose, mute witness to what transpired next.

To my utter shock, Nalleli set both palms in the burning oil; she should have been maimed, but the blood on her brow and the backs of her hands exuded a heavenly aroma, a mix of cinnamon and raw brown sugar, and her flesh did not singe. Instead the flames ran up her arms, coiling about her head in snakes of smoke and ash. She screamed then, but it was too late—or maybe it was exactly what she wanted; I didn’t know enough about her rituals to be sure.

The fire winked out and her dark eyes filmed white like heat lightning. In that moment, I knew I was seeing something very old—not Nalleli at all. Whatever she’d summoned studied me with a tilt of the head, and I could clearly see that the spirit used her as a vessel. There was nothing of the island witch left at all. The creature inhabiting her body dismissed me as a nonentity—and I felt grateful. She turned her attention to Eros, raised in the center of the offerings. Energy crackled about its frame, such as would cause burns and lesions without paranormal protection. With no measurable fear or curiosity, the lady of the lightning took Eros into her cupped palms, sniffed it, and then took the item into her mouth. Her head fell back, and I would’ve thought she was choking, except her chest rose and fell in normal breaths. A rumble sounded both overhead and underfoot, thunder to accompany its lightning.

What. The. Hell.

Red thunderclouds formed and a sizzling arc slammed down from the top of the hut; as if that acted as the catalyst, Nalleli hunched forward, vomiting forth the saltshaker, along with a host of other things—dark sludge, what looked like congealed blood roiling with maggots. I just barely kept my breakfast down; in self-defense, I squeezed my eyes shut until her convulsions stopped. Blind, I listened to her blowing out the candles and cleaning the silver saltshaker before I trusted myself to look again. Somehow, I stumbled out of the hut without seeing the bird carcass or the mess left behind in removing the malignant spells.

In my absence, Butch had relaxed enough to venture off on his own, sniffing around to make sure things were safe. As he’d been borderline catatonic after the boat adventure, I took that as a good sign. I was still shaky, rubbing my hands up and down my thighs.

“Don’t go far,” I cautioned him.

Worrying about my pet distracted me from what I’d seen, at least. The dog threw me a look as if to say: Do I look stupid? Yeah, Butch was back.

“Everything all right?”

My gaze went to Kel’s forearm, where the wound he’d inflicted on himself had already sealed into a thin purple line. “Not so much.”

The shit I’d seen in that hut would stay with me. At last Nalleli emerged, but she looked markedly older, as if years had passed instead of minutes. Her hand trembled when she handed me the white box.

“Even shielded as I was”—she indicated the blood on her brow—“this was a nearly impossible task. Never have I seen anything woven with such mal intent.”

“So the guy Montoya hired—he’s good?” That didn’t bode well for us.

“The best I have ever seen. The orisha and your companion’s blood barely shielded me from his darkness. Go now. As it happens, you did not pay me enough.” And Nalleli crumpled, the color draining from her face.

Kel caught her before she hit the ground. At the boy’s instruction, he carried her into the hut and laid her on the pallet. She had, at least, cleaned up the evidence, though the smell lingered. I hovered, unsure of how best to help, and then I checked her vitals. It seemed she’d fallen into a swoon, nothing more serious. Her pulse was good, even if her skin was clammy.

“¡Váyanse!” her son spat.

We had no choice but to comply. Since it didn’t look as if the kid would be guiding us out, I hoped Kel had been watching the route. I sure hadn’t been.

He took point. I paid greater attention this time and saw there was, in fact, a faint path. It led downhill, but the soil was soft and moist, so I slipped as much as I walked, grabbing onto branches and leaves to break my clumsy descent. Green stained my palms by the time we hit the tiny, rocky beach, which wasn’t sand but mud. Three puppies frolicked in the shallows, where the boat was still moored.

Thank God.

I assumed the dogs belonged to the witch and her boy, but the sight of them reassured me. Despite everything I’d been through today, dogs still chased their tails, growled playfully, nipped, and peed on trees. How’d the world know I needed to see something normal right about now?

Kel helped me aboard, untied the rope, and vaulted up himself. I sat down in the rear seats this time while he took Ernesto’s place behind the wheel. The boat engine caught readily, and he reversed at low throttle, churning the water as we left the island behind. From a distance, it looked like any other isle in the lake: densely wooded, impossibly green, and full of mystery.

At length Butch felt safe to pop his head out of the bag and yap at birds. Then he fell to watching the water as if hypnotized. I could relate; the way it rose and fell beneath the boat was oddly compelling.

There was only one thing left to do. I didn’t tell Kel I meant to test her work, but there was no way I could sell the thing without touching it to be sure. I opened the white box, ignored my guardian’s sharp warning, and curled my left hand around Eros.