Bruja Born (Brooklyn Brujas #2)(48)

Angela fishes through the tangle of necklaces she wears and finds a silver locket. When she pulls the bottom part off, she reveals a thick needle. From the perfume locket, I can smell something like roots and dirt in oil form.

I hold out my hand nervously.

Angela’s whole face wrinkles as she grimaces at my gesture. “Put your hand away. You think I want to make a deal with someone marked by Lady de la Muerte? It has to be her.”

I wish I could read my sister’s thoughts. She’s in a staring match with Angela Santiago, and I’m afraid that between them, the whole bakery will combust with their magic. But then, Alex turns to me and I can see her make the choice.

“What happens if she fails?” I ask.

“The poison activates and spreads to her heart.”

“No,” I say, and when I stand, Alex’s eyes notice the fresh bruise on my arm that has somehow spread below the hem of my sleeve.

“Lula,” Alex says softly. Her hand guides me back to my seat, and everything about this is wrong because she’s my little sister and I should be the one protecting her.

Alex holds her finger out. “I, Alejandra Mortiz, swear by the Deos to do everything in my power to protect Noveno Santiago. From my blood to the Deos.”

Angela looks pleased and pricks my sister’s finger. A bead of blood bubbles to the surface, and though she remains still, I can see the flash of pain in her eyes.

“Please,” I tell Angela. “I need to know everything about the casimuertos and Lady de la Muerte.”

Angela stands, her chiffon dress billowing around her ankles. “Follow me.”

? ? ?

We walk past the counter and into the back. Baker racks are stacked with pastries, and every surface is finely coated in flour.

Angela stops momentarily with her hand on the next doorknob. “Ah, you might want to hold your breath.”

“What? Why?” Alex asks.

I take a gulp of air, like I’m about to dive into the deep end, as Angela opens another door and leads the way.

It’s a small greenhouse with bright lights hanging from the ceiling. All kinds of plants sprout from bins and pots. Some snake around bamboo shoots all the way to the ceiling, and crystal beans sprout from bright-green blooms. There are rows and rows of exotic flowers I’ve never seen before in the lushest hues: reds as bright as love, the blue of sorrow, and black roses whose velvety petals hold beads of condensation.

I can’t help but wonder what these flowers smell like. I want to open my mouth and gasp in awe, but my nose already itches terribly, and my lungs burn with the need to breathe.

Finally, we reach the end, go through yet another door and into a narrow hallway.

Alex and I suck in air, and I bend over and sneeze ten times in a row.

“Ay, Deos, qué dramáticas,” Angela grumbles.

The light above us flickers, and I can tell Alex is nervous. I hold her hand and give it a gentle squeeze.

Angela unlocks the door with a skeleton key, and the hinges whine as she pushes it open. She reaches into the dark and pulls on a chain. The light takes a few tries to turn on, but when it does, I can’t believe what I’m looking at.

There’s a life-size statue of Lady de la Muerte against the far wall. I don’t want to be the one to tell Angela Santiago that Lady de la Muerte doesn’t exactly look like that. The pale skin and the scrawling black ink on her arms is right, but this statue gives the goddess of death a beautiful, young face and a halo of dark hair. She holds a spear, the metal spike splintering a large stone beneath her feet.

Hundreds of small, white flowers and melting candles are lined on the floor. The entire room is her altar. That’s when I notice something else between the flowers. Skulls. Some human, some animal, all covered in traces of dirt as if fresh from the grave.

I resist the screaming urge in my gut to turn around. Instead, I lick the dryness on my tongue and smile.

“What a lovely room of skulls,” I comment.

Angela chuckles in that gravelly voice of hers and turns to a wall of books. They’re all old and mostly the cloth hardback kind you only get at used bookstores. None of them have names on the spine, but she thumbs her finger along them like she knows their contents by touch. When she finds the one she’s looking for, I’m disappointed. It isn’t a giant tome of a book like The Creation of Brujas or The Book of Deos. It’s a thin, worn thing, barely a pamphlet.

“That’s it?” I say.

Angela gives me a look and flips the book in her hands. “Fortunately for the human race, we haven’t had many recorded cases of casimuertos. Zombies…now that’s a different story.”

“See? I said he wasn’t a zombie,” I tell Alex.

“I never said he was,” she says. “I said ‘zombielike.’”

“You two done?” Angela raises her eyebrows, jingling keys around her finger.

I reach for the book, but Angela holds it back. “This ain’t the library. It’s the only copy.”

“Like, ever?” Alex asks.

Angela glances darkly at my sister. “Read it, don’t touch anything else, and when you’re done, come see me.”

She walks out without another word and back through her poison garden.

“Charming,” Alex says in a huff.

“You’re lucky she hasn’t killed us by now and added our heads to her altar of death.”