Bruja Born (Brooklyn Brujas #2)(17)

“We have to let go!” Alex hisses.

“Keep going,” I shout, squeezing both of their hands, palms slick with sweat and blood.

“We can’t!” Alex says, breathless. “There’s a block on his body, Lula. I can’t—”

“Then fix it!”

Her hand trembles in mine, but she doesn’t let go.

“I can see their spirits,” Rose says, her breathing rapid and labored. “Maks is there too. They’re wandering in a room with a thousand doors. She circles them. Wait—she’s circling us.”

We’re out of time.

Then I realize—what makes this magic powerful is the desire to want to do good. To value life. To save those who are hurt. Healing is the purest magic there is, and it’s part of my life force. When I look at Maks, I see the parts of me that used to be whole, and maybe it’s desperate, maybe it’s wrong, but I can’t let him go.

“It’s over,” Alex says.

“Did you just read my mind?” I shout at her.

“I can’t help it! The channels are open. I’m picking up thoughts from all over the building, and I can tell you that Maks isn’t in there anymore. I told you we’d try once. Once. Let him go.”

I look down at his unmoving body. He has to be in there. The machines are picking up his vitals. His heart is still beating.

The door behind us blasts open.

Lady de la Muerte walks in.

What I thought was a cloak before is a gathering of shadows that trail behind her, like she wears the dead she collects. Her spear clicks on the scuffed hospital tiles. Names race across her powder-white skin and her lips are the blue of corpses.

“Stand aside, Lula Mortiz.”

Nothing good can happen when the goddess of death knows your name.

“Please.” I look at Alex and beg. “Please, Alex, please.”

Because we’re connected by our magic I can hear Alex’s heart racing. Because we’re sisters, I know she’s going to come through for me, even if she thinks I’m making a mistake.

Alex’s face is pained with indecision, but finally she turns. Her magic ripples around the room. Lady de la Muerte looks up, almost surprised that I’m still standing in her way. She tries to grab to me, to push me out of the way, but Alex has formed a barrier between us.

“I can’t hold her for long,” Alex says, struggling.

And I realize, Lady de la Muerte can’t take Maks if he’s tethered to the living.

I let go of my sisters and press my blood-drenched hand on his chest and recite the Binding Canto. I can hardly hear my own voice over the thundering pulse in my ears, but I shout the words. “These bodies, these spirits, together as one. This union eclipsed like the moon and the sun.”

The air around us crackles and splinters with light. Lady de la Muerte pounds her fists on Alex’s barrier, and it sounds like someone is punching on bulletproof glass.

The red light that ties Maks to me is like a harpoon, digging into my chest. When it finds its mark, it pulls hard. I fall forward on my knees, trying to hold on to the side of the bed, but I slip on my own blood.

The floor tilts, and the room spins, forcing me all the way down. The pain in my bones keeps me from moving. I’m swathed in light, but I can see Maks’s hand dangling over the side of the bed.

Slowly, his finger twitches. He lifts his hand, reaching, reaching. And I’m not there to hold him. I need to be there.

My sisters are shouting. Lady de la Muerte calls my name. I turn to her. She uses her spear to stab at Alex’s shield. The red light fills the room, pulsing to the beat of my heart. Death stares down at her hands. Her spear vanishes in an iron-gray cloud.

Then Death is still.

The shadows that trail at her back disappear. The names that scrolled on her forearms are gone, leaving nothing but translucent white skin.

There’s ringing all around, but I realize it’s not in my head. The machines Maks is hooked up to are emitting a round of sirens, whistles, and rapid beeps.

Maks’s finger twitches again. I try to raise my hand, but it’s like I’m magnetized to the floor, like I’m at the eye of a storm and for the first time in so long, my heart is full. The wound on my arm is starting to sting. But I have to let him know that I’m here, that I saved him. I push and push until I’m there.

When I touch Maks’s hand, hold it in mine, the sound of sirens disappears. Even La Muerte is gone. No one calls my name anymore either. There is just his hand in mine. He squeezes once. Just once.

Then, his hand goes slack, and I hear one more thing—the endless, unforgiving trill of a flat line.





8


La Tristesa lives alone in a river of salt,

filled by all the world’s tears.

—Book of Deos




“What have you done to yourself?” a doctor asks me, her voice full of pity.

I float between waking and unconsciousness as my body is rushed down a hallway. Dark faces surround me, each one is like staring an X-ray, down to the radioactive skeletons beneath their skin.

“You have betrayed me,” La Muerte says. Her voice is inside my head, louder than my own thoughts and memories.

“You betrayed me first!” I shout. “Where did you take him?”

Strong hands pin me down to the bed. Something pricks my arm, then a numbness travels along my skin. I lift my head to look at the hands sewing up my cut, but the fingers that holds the needle are nothing but bone.