Shady Lady (Corine Solomon #3)

Shortly, Ernesto pulled up to a shallow point in the lake, not a dock so much as a sandbar. I gave him fifty pesos, and he leapt lightly down into the water. The boatman waded ashore, leaving Kel and me to watch the old woman doing her laundry nearby. She grinned at us from a nearly toothless mouth—and for a moment I was afraid she was going to come over begging. That was one of my least favorite parts of living in Mexico, because I never knew how much to give. However, with Kel at my side for protection and Butch in my lap to read the nuances of the situation, we’d be fine. Sopping clothes in hand, she came over to make small talk—and she didn’t ask for money.

Maybe she had cataracts, because she didn’t appear afraid of Kel, though she directed her greeting to both of us. “¿Es un buen día, no?”

I gazed up at the blue sky. It was, actually. I hadn’t noticed because of the fear and necessity driving me. The gentle slosh of the water made the lancha rise and fall beside the sandbar, soothing me.

He answered in his precise Castilian Spanish. As it had been with Tia, his manner was gentle and almost courtly. “Sí. ¿Como estáis vos?”

“Muy bien, gracias.”

She chatted with him as she washed. A bag sat beside her on the shore, clothing spilling out upon the sand. She used a bar of soap, but it wasn’t the regular kind; I’d seen it in the cleaning aisles for use in laundry. You could shave it for use in machines or rub it on stains for washing by hand. I couldn’t see that the lake water was doing her delicates any good, but it was doubtless better than nothing. I wondered if she lived nearby.

“Do you know the island witch?” Kel asked eventually.

Ah. Clever.

“Nalleli?” It seemed she did. I suspected she knew most things around here. “Sí.”

“¿Donde vive?”

The old woman turned and gestured, giving complicated directions. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to find the spot, based on what she was saying, but Kel appeared to follow it all. He smiled and thanked her. By the time Ernesto returned with pineapple, papaya, and cantaloupe for the monkeys, the washerwoman was giggling like a young girl.

She stepped back as Ernesto powered the boat in reverse, and then we headed back out onto the lake. Since it was relatively early, we saw a number of fishermen trying their luck—and one man asleep in his boat with a hat drawn across his face. Imagining what his wife would say when he came home empty-handed put a smile on my face.

This reminded me of a trip I’d taken with Chance. We’d crossed the channel by boat, Dover to Calais. To a girl from the Georgia backwoods, he’d seemed so impossibly charming and urbane, and I had to work to make myself worthy of him. I suspect he sensed that insecurity and it gave him leverage. It saddened me, thinking about that girl clutching his hand with each bounce of the waves. He’d wanted to be all things to me, and for a while, I permitted him to be.

After the way he’d left me in Kilmer—and no word from him since—I didn’t love him anymore. But some exes carved out space in your heart that could never be filled.

Oh, Jesse tried. And sometimes I felt like letting him. He represented security and normalcy, all the sweet and wholesome things I’d never known. Trouble was, I had self-destructive inclinations, and I didn’t always heed what was best for me. Sometimes my instincts were purely imperfect.

The increase in speed roused me from reverie. Mountains rose in the distance, shrouded in clouds, as if the lake had been poured from their great heights. The islands appeared densely wooded, small strips of jungle rising from the water. I could see why the locals thought this place was magical—so astonishingly remote and unspoiled—and when the sun hit the water, it shone blue as a tropical ocean. But when the sun slid behind the clouds, it went dark and sullen.

As we went farther from town, we saw more wildlife. A snowy egret perched on a wooden pole rising from the water, the remains of a pier long since fallen into the laguna. Laughing gulls followed the boat, probably hoping for a treat tossed into the wind.

Butch studied everything with great interest, his big eyes shining with what I took to be delight. Kel was harder for me to read, just a wall of heavily muscled silence beside me. Luckily, Ernesto didn’t have a shy bone in his body, and he regaled us with old stories while pointing out everything of interest. En route, we passed Heron Island, an inlet filled with water lilies, and an ecological preserve, which housed native art and a nice restaurant on the water.

“We should go,” Kel said, as if we were tourists.

His attempt to pass as a vacationer amused me. But our guide had clearly seen weirder things than Kel, because he didn’t stare at the tats. Then again, ink sometimes indicated some underworld ties, particularly when done in certain patterns. Ernesto couldn’t know these were written in angelic script.

The boatman nodded. “If you do, try the eggs. Such a lovely sauce! And it is very nice to eat by the dock and watch the birds.”

“Quizá,” I said, which means maybe.

“You must see Eyipantla Falls as well,” Ernesto added. “Sadly, I cannot take you there, but if you have a car, it is not far from your hotel, and the route is well marked.”

“Noted.”

It was getting harder for me to appreciate the scenery and rein in my nerves. Soon I’d find out whether Nalleli could help us, if she could tell anything about the hex or at least remove the curse from my damn saltshaker. The professor from Spain would be arriving in a few weeks.

But maybe I was fooling myself that I could go back to my shop. Since Montoya knew to find me there, it would be the height of stupidity to return. Instead I should keep moving, preventing his pet caster from getting a lock on me. It worried me that we’d paused in Catemaco, but I couldn’t see a way around it. I needed to hear what the island witch had to say.

Lunging, Butch yapped at a bird that dove too close to the boat. I wrapped an arm around him and tucked him beneath it.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” I muttered.

The dog had the grace to look abashed.

I bounced with each wave until I learned to brace myself with my other arm on the green poles that held the awning aloft. The engine slowed as Ernesto downshifted, letting the boat glide close to the island. At first I didn’t see anything, and then big simian faces poked out from the undergrowth. Two of them dangled above the boat, their weight causing the branches to hang so low as to brush the awning. I’m not sure what I expected, but these were not the tiny, adorable animals that perch on people’s shoulders in the movies.

These monkeys were too big to be rightfully called cute—and as Ernesto put the fresh fruit on the yellow seats at the bow, they boarded.

Heaven and Hell

“Don’t worry,” Ernesto said in Spanish, doubtless reading my look. “They’ll eat the fruit and go. I do this all the time.”

Well, sure. Who wouldn’t want to invite enormous feral monkeys onto their boat?

Beside me, Kel tracked their movements as the animals squatted and tore into the pineapple. The two largest ones fought over the last piece, shrieking until I thought they’d come to blows. Eventually the smaller yielded and picked up some melon. They were huge and greedy, their eyes darting back and forth as if they were angry about being forced to live on this island. But I was probably reading too much into the situation. They were animals.

Normal people probably snapped pictures right now, but I didn’t have a camera. Mostly, I wanted to get this over with so we could ask Ernesto to take us to see Nalleli. It didn’t help my nerves that Kel was carrying a hexed saltshaker that could kill me. I’d started to put it in my bag earlier, but he’d extended a hand, wordless. I couldn’t claim I was sorry to turn Eros over to his care.

A thump overhead rocked the whole boat—and I wasn’t a fan of the idea that there were now giant monkeys on top of us. The one that climbed down the pole was bigger than the rest; it had a scarred muzzle and patchy gray fur. It should’ve been funny with its muddy red ass, but instead it looked mean and angry. Without meaning to, I moved a little closer to Kel. He put his hand on my arm—caution or reassurance, I didn’t know which. Either way, it wasn’t working.

I smelled something burning.

Please, oh, please, let that be nothing more menacing than a part we don’t need.

Unfortunately, the sun slid behind a cloud—clouds that hadn’t been so present or so dark a few minutes before—and the wind kicked up, classic signs something hideous was about to happen. To make matters worse, the smolder intensified into the stink of rotten eggs. Nothing good ever came of that stench. For the first time since I’d known him, Butch howled. It was a tiny, despairing sound, which I took to mean: We are all kinds of fucked.

“They’re scrying,” Kel said softly. “Using the water all around us.”

An actual witch would know how to block that. It sucked that I wasn’t one. “But how—Oh, shit. A tracking spell.”

It only made sense. Still, I couldn’t regret keeping the saltshaker. The curse needed to be removed before it decayed and struck somebody else. Only a selfish son of a bitch would discard a hexed item for someone else to trigger, and it wasn’t like discarding an item guaranteed nobody would ever touch it again. Some people made their living picking through the garbage.

The monkeys screamed, showing yellow teeth. There were six animals, so big and heavy that they weighed down the boat. All around us, the air turned thick, heavy as chilled molasses; it had an actual viscosity, as if I could slice it and peer through. I struggled for oxygen, but it was no use. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, and it was the worst thing ever, even worse than the cold life-sucking shades the warlock in Laredo had conjured. Oh, I didn’t want to face worse than Nathan Moon.

Not like I had any choice.

The boatman seized. His whole body went rigid, and then the convulsions started. A bloody froth poured from his mouth, bubbling over his T-shirt. I fought the icy paralysis, but couldn’t break free. Poor Ernesto. He’s dying because of me . . . for four hundred pesos. I wanted desperately to look away, but I owed him that much—to bear witness to his suffering.

“What’s happening?” The words weren’t clear because I couldn’t move my lips, but Kel took my meaning.

“A summoning,” he said. “Passing over takes a lot out of any demon, so they’re feeding on him before they attack us.”

The paralysis was probably insurance, assuring that its prey didn’t scamper off before it was ready to fight. Tears streamed down my cheeks as I watched the boatman writhe in unspeakable agony; it seemed like an eternity before he stilled. Eventually, the air cleared, releasing my locked muscles, but I didn’t see anything we could fight. Kel tensed beside me, and his gaze cut every which way. Regardless of what he sensed, he didn’t leave my side. I could never repay him for that.

His hand tightened on my forearm as the world around our boat went dark. I could still hear the rocking of the lake, but as if from great distance. He flashed, his white light shooting skyward like a beacon, and everything snapped back into focus, the darkness swirling away like windblown smoke.