Bruja Born (Brooklyn Brujas #2)(63)

I both hate and appreciate the sympathy in his eyes as he sighs deeply.

“I’ve seen people come back from worse,” he says. “Frederik was turned into a vampire by his own sister six hundred years ago. Took him three centuries and he nearly lost his soul, but he killed her before she could set the world on fire. Your own sister gave up her magic for her girlfriend and still saved you all plus all of Los Lagos. I went vegan and I’d thought I’d never come back from a steak taco bender. I’m telling you, witchling. You’ll get through this. The THA helps people, just like you and your family do. If there’s another way to save you, we’ll find it.”

“Will he be okay here?” I ask, looking back to where Maks is asleep.

“We have two stars on Yelp. Most of our prisoners don’t really like the cells.” McKay rings his arm around my neck and leads me back to my family. “Come on, Lula. The night is young, and there’s a whole mess of magic to unravel.”





26


La Ola swam across the seas a thousand times,

the oceans too wide and not wide enough.

—Tales of the Deos, Felipe Thomás San Justinio




McKay and Frederik bring out a spread of cold pizza and chips, but I can’t stomach much of it. I guzzle soda because it’s the only thing that doesn’t make me want to retch.

We’re back in the surveillance room with the eye on the door, and the monitors are being closely watched for new movement. For every red casimuerto dot that vanishes, another one pops up somewhere.

Members of the Thorne Hill Alliance walk in and out, seeking orders from McKay and Frederik before heading out to help hunt casimuertos. They steer clear of us. Though I suppose if there were strangers in my house, I’d be wary too.

“Mom and Dad just texted,” Alex says, tucking her phone in her back pocket. “They’ll be home in the morning.”

I’m dreading seeing my parents, especially my mother. But at the same time, I long to see her just to hear her voice, even if she’ll be yelling.

One of the hologram displays has a live feed of the holding cells. Maks is still knocked out. But Derek and the other two casimuertos are banging on the walls, leaving their bloody handprints everywhere. There’s a tray flipped over on the floor in a clear rejection of the cow hearts Frederik procured.

“How can you eat at a time like this?” Alex asks Nova, watching in amazement as he pounds on his chest and belches.

“With my mouth?” he responds.

“I guess the cow hearts aren’t working,” Rose says.

“Neither did the synthetic hearts,” McKay says, pulling up another hologram.

“The hunters gave you a heart before,” Nova says with his mouth full. “Why can’t they do that again?”

The hair on my arms stands up. “I don’t know who it was from.”

“More of a reason to act fast,” McKay says. “We have only one lead on your lady of death.”

He uploads Alex’s files of The Accursed Book onto the screen so we can study it. He keeps rubbing his temples as if the answer will manifest from the friction, but all it does is upset the vampire even more.

“Go over everything again,” McKay tells me.

There’s a collective groan of frustration, but I do it, retracing my steps from the very beginning with Alex’s glamour on my scars and ending with my last visit from La Muerte. I can’t help but trace the length of my scars across the side of my face as I realize this is the first time I’ve thought about them in days.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned,” Frederik says once I’m done, “it’s that gods never say what they mean. They don’t see things the way humans do. Every divine text is a human interpretation of forces they can’t even begin to understand.”

“But ‘find my spear’ is pretty literal,” Rose says dryly.

I think back to the way Lady de la Muerte kept pointing at me. The Deos are where they’ve always been.

“What? What are you thinking?” Alex asks me. “You only make that face when I tutor you in math.”

I rub the spot on my chest. “Every time La Muerte has appeared to me, she points. She tells me that the gods are where they’ve always been.”

Nova cocks his head and looks me up and down. “I don’t think you’re tall enough for the spear to be literally in you.”

I ball my fists and step to him, but Alex holds me back. “Stop. Maybe we’re looking at this the wrong way. Do you remember when I was in Los Lagos and you helped me heal for the first time?”

“Of course I remember,” I say. “The root of healing is love. Our gifts are natural, but magic has always been about belief.” My thoughts spin around that. “The Deos are where they’ve always been,” I say, and I realize that Lady de la Muerte was never accusing me. I turn to my sisters. “Do you guys remember the rezo we found in Tales of the Deos?” I snap my fingers, unable to recall the passage line by line.

“The Deos too learned their limits,” Nova says. When he speaks of the gods, his body becomes haloed by a faint light and his eyes shut in reverence. “El Fuego extinguished into ash. La Ola crumbled into salt. El Terroz clove the earth in pieces. El Viento fell and kept on falling. But from their limits, Lady de la Muerte was born.”