Cece Rios and the King of Fears, page 4
After a second, Little Lion tucked it back into his shirt and huffed at Envidia. “I don’t know what your plan is, but nothing good comes out of that place. You should turn back.”
“Oh no, no, no, no, no. You are not messing this up for me.” I stabbed a finger at him, then at the ground. “Sit. Stay.” I set off toward the haven of brujas.
“I’m a black lion, not a lap dog,” he snapped as he caught up with me easily.
“Could have fooled me.” I gripped the knife hilt at my hip. “If you’re a black lion, why does everyone call you ‘Little Lion?’ Real black lions were, like, six feet tall on all fours. Bigger than a grown man.”
He scowled. “It’s a long story.”
We stopped in front of Envidia’s entrance. Above our heads, a paper banner covered with ancient writing fluttered in the low breeze. Warnings were scratched onto the surrounding walls with charcoal. I gave them all a cursory glance, then scoffed and charged in. I wasn’t scared of brujas anymore.
“I’m telling you . . .” Little Lion tailed me through the narrow pathway. I rolled my eyes. He really wasn’t going to leave me alone, was he? “Working with Grimmer Mother isn’t a good idea. How do you think she’ll help? Offer you another heart? She’ll probably be jealous that yours isn’t beating,” he grumbled.
“She’s an expert on all the disgusting things about brujas and criaturas and Devil’s Alley. If anyone will know what’s happening to me”—I came out of the other side of the entrance—“she will.”
The nine buildings opened around us into a small enclosure, almost like Tierra del Sol’s town square—if it had been ugly and filled with nasty brujas and brujos. The few standing around stared at me like they’d never seen a normal human before.
I scowled back. Lion stopped beside me as I turned to face the house Cece had once described. The one with tendrils of smoke pouring from its front door.
Standing in the doorframe, shrouded in the gray, was Grimmer Mother.
She looked exactly the way Cece had described, with long black hair streaked with iron gray. It must have recently been set free from a braid, since it tumbled down her shoulders in kinky waves. She grinned, and her leathery skin twisted with wrinkles. Moth tattoos painted her hands—mysterious and dark, with glowing streaks and white eyes that moved to watch me.
“Juana Rios,” Grimmer Mother said, like she’d been expecting me. “The girl who returned. Sun-Heart of Tierra del Sol, blood of a bruja, sister of a traitor.”
I gripped my hands into fists. She didn’t seem intimidated. But she would be.
“That’s right,” I said, voice hard and burning at the edges. “You taught my tía, Catrina. You showed Cece how to fight in the Bruja Fights. But now you’re facing me, and I’m not like either of them. I want answers, or else.”
“You want to know why your heartbeat is gone?” she asked.
I stiffened. Her grin widened. So she did know something I didn’t. And she loved holding it just out of reach.
My glare darkened. She was exactly the kind of person I despised.
“This is indeed an interesting chapter in the Rios family story,” she said, taking a single step back toward her doorway. Her gaze cut from me to Little Lion. “It’s nice to see you again, Little Lion. I didn’t think you’d be drawn to another Rios chica so easily after Catrina. I suppose you can’t help yourself, eh?”
Lion stood close enough that I felt his breath catch. I knew a bit about Lion’s story and how he’d been my tía’s criatura in his last life, but I forced myself not to check his face. I didn’t want this bruja to think I cared about him or something.
“Come.” Grimmer Mother swung inside her house and gestured for me to follow.
I glanced back at Little Lion as I entered the building. He stood at the end of the stairs, waiting. A sticky, dark feeling hung around him that reminded me of the sunburn in my chest.
The inside of Grimmer Mother’s house was dense with the smell of charcoal and herbs. But I refused to clear my throat. I sat down in front of her, a small table piled with animal skulls between us.
“Well?” I snapped.
Her nail dug black filth from between one of the skull’s fangs. “Your heart’s not beating because it still belongs to El Sombrerón.”
I straightened with something hot and sharp. “My heart never belonged to him,” I belted.
She just grinned beneath hooded eyes.
“Anyway, El Sombrerón is dead. I watched Cece kill him.”
The woman laughed with her full body. “That’s right!” she crowed and dropped the skull. “I heard how little Cecelia Rios slayed the second Dark Saint.” Her smile curled wider, despite discussing the death of her ally. “But he will regrow. You, on the other hand?” She pressed a single finger to my chest, right over my heart. “A piece of your soul is missing.”
A piece of my soul? I stared her down.
“Did you think a being as powerful as El Sombrerón would risk losing his bride after he’d taken her?” She picked at her teeth. “When he first takes a girl hostage, El Sombrerón snaps her soul in two. Anytime he leaves El Cucuy’s castle, he takes the larger piece with him and transforms it into a braid. You remember that, hmm?”
My body was shaking. But I felt detached from it. Angry and hot.
“Sí,” I ground out begrudgingly.
“You’ve forgotten the splitting though, ah?” She wiped gunk from her teeth onto her dress. “Maybe you were too frightened. Maybe you fainted. But that first night, he would have broken your soul and shelved the smaller piece in his collection.”
I may not have remembered the splitting of my soul—as I tried, all I could summon was screams and darkness—but I could still picture the collection. It was the thing El Sombrerón was proudest of. An entire wall in his castle suite was dedicated to a polished wooden shelf with individual compartments, each tiny square showcasing a soul stone. I used to stare at it from where I was chained. I knew that after a year, my soul stone would join them. Inanimate, frozen—an object for him to admire. Sometimes, he’d take one out and turn it into a braid, stroking the long hair, before turning it back and replacing it.
That’s all those past brides were now. An amusement for a monster.
I found my nails digging into my palms and mechanically released my grip.
“So you’re saying,” I said carefully, “that part of my soul is still in Devil’s Alley?”
“Exactamente.” She nodded. “That’s why your heartbeat is missing. It’s why you can’t sleep.”
I hadn’t told her that, but her smile widened with surety when I stiffened.
“And the longer you’re separated from your soul, the more things will disappear. Your patience. Your laughter.” She tilted her head, so her half-hooded gaze pinned me. “Your ability to love.”
The heat scratched inside me. I kept my face hard, stony, cold.
“Maybe it’s already gone,” she said. Then she straightened and lit a candle. “But it won’t kill you. Half a soul is enough to live on. Just not enough to thrive.”
So I wasn’t going to die. But I would have to live like this forever, with a burning in my chest that would get worse week by week, without sleep or dreams, and without the ability to feel Cece’s and Mamá’s love. I would just lose—myself.
I uncrossed my legs and stood. “Thanks for your time. I hope you die here in this disgusting hovel.”
The woman only laughed. “Cece may have gotten Catrina’s power, but you have her tongue.”
I strode out of the house. Little Lion was waiting for me just outside the door. One glance, and I knew he’d heard everything. He cocked his eyebrow, almost like he was asking if I was okay. But I didn’t answer; I was busy making a plan.
My soul was broken. Part of it was in my chest, and the other was in Devil’s Alley, probably sitting on that tiny shelf where El Sombrerón could admire it as he regrew. I wondered if he’d turn it into a braid. Would I be able to feel it if he did? Would he get to just sit there in his room, playing with something that didn’t belong to him?
I marched out of Envidia, Little Lion stubbornly at my side. My soul didn’t belong to El Sombrerón. I wasn’t going to let him make me live like this—angry, blistering, with emptiness instead of a heartbeat.
Little Lion eyed me as we crossed the desert. “What are you thinking?”
I glared out at nothing. “I’m going to Devil’s Alley.” He looked at me like I was crazy. “I’m going to raid El Cucuy’s castle. I’m going to steal back my soul. And when El Sombrerón tries to stop me, I’m going to shatter his soul completely, so he never comes back.”
Let him try to own me then. Let anyone try to hurt me again.
I’d show them exactly how brightly Juana Rios could burn.
“So run back to your little bruja, before you get yourself in trouble.” I glanced at Little Lion over my shoulder.
He was staring off into the desert, to the south, where the volcano Iztacpopo—the entrance to Devil’s Alley this year—was just a shadow creasing the horizon. His eyes narrowed.
“I’ll go with you,” he said.
I stopped. “What?”
He faced me with a resolve that could puncture metal. “I’ll go with you to Devil’s Alley.”
I scoffed, but he went on. “You know those fire opal knives aren’t enough to get past the entrance, right? And there are less than two days now before the entrance seals shut. You’ll need my help to get in and out in time.”
I squeezed the hilt of my hunter’s knife. Of course I knew they weren’t enough. But I wanted to believe they were. Knowing they were forged by my ancestors, to protect our familia, to protect me—it made me feel stronger.
“I don’t want a criatura’s help,” I snapped. “I told you, I’m not just getting my soul back. I’m going to burn your home to the ground.”
He lifted his chin. “That’s why I want to help.”
I paused. He stepped closer.
“That place isn’t a home, not with El Cucuy ruling it. If it takes burning the place down to set my siblings free from him, I’ll do it. Let me help, and I’ll make sure you get your soul back from the wreckage.” He stopped in front of me and held out his hand. “Deal?”
I stared at his offering: his open palm, the way the sun streaked over his shoulder and left the rest of him to darkness. A deal with a criatura? To get into Devil’s Alley of all things? I’d been taught better than that.
But I’d had different priorities ever since I’d been taken by El Sombrerón.
I took his hand. “Deal,” I said.
5
Cece Rios and the Coast of Broken Dreams
My friends and I stood at the highest point of Costa de los Sueños. The city descended before us in a long, steep slope stacked with colorful buildings and decorated with thick, leafy palm trees, all the way to the rough cliff and sandy beach edges. But beyond the bright white seashore, I finally, for the first time in my life, saw it—
The ocean.
It took my breath away. For as far as the eye could see, that’s all there was—blue-green stretches of magnificent sea. It rolled out like the most expensive cloth, shimmering in the sun, clear and turquoise and frothy as it stretched onto the shore. The wind flooded up the hill, pushing my short hair back and turning the air salty, sharp, clean.
A massive crowd of people passed my friends and me on either side. Coyote, Kit, and Ocelot were disguised with clothes we’d nabbed from washing lines earlier. Coyote stood close beside me, a straw hat perched on top of his head that was so big it covered his hair and eyes.
“Mother Ocean,” I said, breathless and tingling.
“She’s so much prettier than I thought,” Kit breathed. He was absolutely drowning in his orange poncho and sombrero, but he’d been excited to pretend to be human anyway.
Ocelot tilted her hat down and offered me a real smile. “Do you want to go meet her, Cece?”
My body flooded with cool, joyful certainty. Yes, was the first word that filled me. The sensation spilled over, untamed and raw. I could already imagine what the water would feel like. It would be cold down near the sea floor. But warm at the surface, kissed by the sun, carrying stories and life and happiness.
I didn’t just want to meet the Ocean. I wanted to run to her.
“Sí,” I said out loud, with my whole soul. “But we don’t have time—we need to find the Ocean Sanctuary.”
That had to be my priority. Juana needed me, and I had to stay out of El Silbón’s clutches long enough that I could save her and the rest of my familia. Figuring out what was going on with my powers was key to that. So I tried to turn away. I really did. But my eyes dragged themselves back to the ocean’s endless blue.
For the first time since this morning, Coyote smiled. It was stiff, and distant blues and grays still stained his soul, but he was trying. “How about you and I check the coastline for the sanctuary?”
“Sí, that would be useful.” Ocelot pointed down the long, steep cobblestone road, which ended at the beach. “Kit and I will search the city and meet up with you two later.”
“That does sound like a good plan . . .” I could barely stop myself from grinning.
A flicker of pink pushed into Coyote’s soul as he took off. “Then vamos!”
We flew down the path. I squealed as we went, and the ocean breeze blew my old jacket out behind me, so it filled like a ship’s sail. Coyote held on to his hat with one hand, trying to tilt it down so the wind didn’t blow it off. We careened all the way down the path, giggling as we swerved around various annoyed pedestrians, stumbled all the way across the soft, warm sand—and reached the mighty, rolling waves.
My breath caught when I stopped near the water. A single wave reached up toward me, and cool, calm peace filled my chest. I stepped forward, and the water flooded over my feet, warming my skin.
I laughed and stumbled as it pushed and pulled me with each wave. “It’s so strong!” I awkwardly waded deeper, closed my eyes, and spread my arms. The sunshine mingled with the water’s spray, and I was filled with the ocean’s breath.
Suddenly, a huge splash of water crashed over my head. I coughed and rubbed the salt out of my eyes to find Coyote grinning mischievously.
“Taste as good as you thought?” He winked.
“Ugh, you!” I giggled and splashed him back.
For just a moment, the dark colors in Coyote’s soul faded. He grinned, and we screamed and laughed as we poured the ocean over each other. I caught some salt water in my mouth and coughed, but even that briny gulp made me smile.
The sound of distant talking and grown-up laughter broke into ours. I turned, still dripping, to the beach. A group of fishermen walked together, pointing at us and smiling. They’d probably never seen kids so excited to be in the ocean. I was about to turn away, to face a sniggering Coyote—when I noticed someone on the edge of the group.
A jolt ran through my body. He looked exactly like Papá.
I rubbed my eyes and checked again. The man had his back to me now, walking slowly with the others, his hat hiding his face. No, it couldn’t be Papá. I slowly turned back to the ocean. That man was too thin anyway. Right? I tried to calm my newly racing heart. If any of us had to meet Papá again, it would be better if it wasn’t me. Juana could handle it, I was sure. He’d probably even regret not coming home, not picking us, if it was her. But me? I waded further into the waves, so they came up to my hip, to try to distract myself. If he saw me, he’d probably just remember why he hadn’t wanted us. Or more likely . . . me.
“Cece, look out!” Coyote leaped over and yanked me out of the water.
I spluttered as he lifted me—bridal style—in the air. My cheeks flushed. Wow, we were so close. But he frowned at me, all the pink in his soul gone.
“You have to be careful, Cece.” He gestured his head back at the waves. I checked over his shoulder and spotted a silky blue fin sinking away into the froth. A gasp caught in my throat. Coyote frowned. “That thing almost caught you. There are dark criaturas in the ocean too, you know. You can’t let your guard down.”
“Wait, that was a dark criatura?” It really had been too close for comfort.
“Probably La Sirena.” He nodded, scowling. “She’s known for drowning people.”
My heart raced, and my mind darted back to early this morning. “Do you think she’s . . . working with El Silbón?”
“Don’t know,” he said, and let me down on the sand. I wrung out my jacket, and my stomach squeezed itself even tighter. “But you can’t trust any dark criatura, so you should stay out of the ocean for now.” He frowned at the waves.
“Well, that can’t be all true. Tzitzimitl is good. Right?” I said. Coyote’s face stayed hard, scanning the ocean’s surface. “She saved me twice.”
The thought sent me back to this morning, facing El Silbón’s crazed, frightening form and his absolute determination to steal me. I shuddered. He wasn’t at all like Tzitzimitl—except . . . My heart cramped as I remembered the way he’d cried out as the sun’s touch had forced him to return to his original form. As I remembered the way he’d said he wished Coyote had just killed him all those years ago.
I frowned to myself. What had he meant by that, anyway? Coyote had confessed to me months ago that he’d Named the dark criaturas like El Sombrerón, El Cucuy, and El Silbón the same way he’d formed the animal criaturas. Only, instead of dust, he told me he’d made them from nothing, and instead of making them to fill the desert, they were designed specifically to punish Naked Man. So why did El Silbón make it sound like he’d had a life before he’d been Named?
“Coyote, can I ask you something?” I turned to look at him, but he was already walking away, shoulders slumped, toward the cliffs. I started after him. “Wait! Coyote, I had a question about El Silbón—”
“Let’s just search for the sanctuary, okay?” Coyote flashed me the fakest grin I’d ever seen in my life and turned his back. “We need to find answers for Juana and get you somewhere safe before nightfall.”
