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She laughed out loud, tickled. “That is the correct answer. But the truthful, correctest answer is that I am one hundred and forty years old.”
My mouth fell open, my breath frozen in my lungs. How could that be possible? I would have guessed that she was seventy, eighty tops.
“Yes,” she said, nodding gravely. “I see your surprise. But this old corpse has been preserved very well, you see. It runs in my bloodline. Every bruja in my family swears an oath to Mictecacihuatl, the Lady of the Dead.”
My muscles went perfectly still. The Aztec goddess of death, specifically, queen of the underworld. Now, I’d never had a brush with a death deity before, but I’d heard enough about them to know that they were bad news all around. You never messed with the death gods for many, many reasons, chief among them the fact that most could kill with a single touch.
“I see,” I said, somehow managing to get the words out without stammering.
“It is part of our oath, you see, a kind of immortality. While we are bound to her service, we do not die. I was meant to be released long ago. But my granddaughter sees fit to manipulate the sacred pact. She has sold me out to the Lady of the Dead in exchange for more power.” She leaned forward, the bright, cheery abuela long gone, her face only a mask of fury, her knuckles gone white as she twisted her shawl into impossible knots in her hands. “She sold out everyone in my family. That is why I am here, you see. I have no one left. Monica, she has broken my heart, and yet she refuses to kill me.” Leonora’s hand shook as she pointed a finger in my face. “Tell me, Mason. Where is the justice in that? She pays for me to live here, moves me and changes my identity when I outgrow what an old woman’s life should last. Then she pays our goddess in blood to keep me alive, so that I may live here with my dreams and the shattered pieces of my heart, so that I am forever haunted by my solitude.”
Something twisted in my chest, clenching tightly. Quilliam was avoiding my gaze – either that, or he was just as captivated by Leonora’s story.
“This you must do for me, Mason,” Leonora said. “Go to my granddaughter’s house, the same house she has stolen from our family. Go to the gardens, and find the Obsidian Rose growing there. Bring it to me, and I will do the rest. I am tired. I am grown so, so old. This body is no good. I’ve lived too long.” She turned her head slowly, to stare out of the window. “I want to be with my Miguelito once more.”
There, on a dresser just by the window, was a framed picture of Leonora and her husband. I bit down hard on my lip, trying my best to look past the fact that her eyes were gleaming with new wetness.
“Damn it,” I muttered under my breath.
She turned her head towards me, her ears perking up. “What was that, mijo?”
“I’ll do it,” I breathed.
Quill slapped me on the back, the force of it alarmingly strong for his frame. “You see, Tia? I told you I would find someone to help. Mason’s a good boy. He’ll do whatever it takes to help. Won’t you, Mason?”
I sighed, my body deflating as I did. “Within reason,” I said, raising a finger and smiling at the two of them weakly.
Leonora nodded, beaming. “Thank you, Mason. You are doing these old bones a wonderful favor.” She leaned over to Quill, one hand cupped over the side of her mouth. “Quince mil,” I heard her murmur.
Quill’s eyes went huge. “Oh.” He blinked at her, then grinned. “Does that include my finder’s fee?”
Leonora laughed and patted him playfully on the cheek. “That is up to the two of you boys to decide.” She nodded at me. “Did you understand, mijo?”
I shook my head, confused.
“Tia Leonora just stated her price,” Quill said, smiling, a glimmer in the back of his eyes. “She’s happy to pay you fifteen thousand dollars for the head of her granddaughter.”
11
I told them I would think about it, when the truth was that my heart had fallen out of my ass. I trudged up the horrible, paint-peeled staircase leading to my apartment, silent and seething as I bemoaned the state of my finances. In many, many other situations I would have jumped on the chance to make fifteen grand. Hell, point a camera at me and make me do dirty things, I’ll take it. Fallen angel, remember? What the hell did I have to lose?
But collecting Monica Rodriguez’s head? I mean, damn. That meant killing two birds with one stone.
Technically, I didn’t need to decapitate Monica or anything. It was just a dramatic turn of phrase courtesy of Quilliam. Still, removing the Obsidian Rose from the family home and returning its power to Leonora would spell Monica’s doom, shortly before sealing her own. The orderlies over at the assisted living facility would probably walk into Leonora’s room to check on her, only to find a pile of dust waiting in her floral armchair.
Even so, who was I to take the lives of two people in my hands, even if they were death witches with potentially questionable morals? I didn’t even know what I would be up against. Was Monica Rodriguez a bruja or a proper death priestess? Certainly not a necromancer. Those were super rare in the underground, and the only one I knew was my closest friend at the Boneyard. But whatever the case, going up against any kind of mage who was imbued with the power of death amounted to, well, a death sentence. What can swords and shields do against someone w
ho can kill you with their thoughts?
There had to be alternatives for income. There just had to be. I slipped my key into my front door, groaning as I jiggled it loose, then shoved it open and stepped into my apartment. It had been a mostly fruitless day of job hunting, and I was tired, and grumpy, and still penniless.
“Florian,” I called out into the living room. “You home? I’m back.”
I poked my head around the tiny hallway leading to the rest of the apartment and very nearly had a heart attack when Florian jumped out of the bathroom, his arms spread wide.
“Dude!” he yelled.
“Jesus,” I yelled back, clutching my chest. “Don’t scare me like that.” I blinked at him, then looked around the darkness of the apartment. “Wait. Have you been waiting in there to surprise me this whole time?”
