Cameramen just arriving on the scene swarm the devastated tree. I can already see the headlines: “Two Freak Events Occur Within Minutes at Local School.”
My fingers shake as I text Bishop. I tell him the same story about going home for a nap, and then call a cab.
I’ve got powers that most witches can’t even fathom, plus ten hours of free time before Aunt Penny is due home from the shop. The writing is on the wall for another trip to Los Demonios.
14
It’s a miracle we don’t get pulled over on the way to Venice Beach. The cab does twenty over the speed limit on the freeway, but I still feel like it’s not fast enough. If traffic weren’t miraculously sparse for midday, I wouldn’t hesitate to climb out the window and fly the rest of the way. It’s been so long since the spell—my powers could fade any minute.
When I finally reach the boardwalk, I practically sprint across the lot. The same freaks are out in force at the Black Market, but I don’t even look twice at them now. To think, just last week I cowered from the cat-bone vendor and now I nod hello to her like we’re best buds or something.
I slow to a jog in front of the old witch’s booth, panting for air. The black curtains are pulled back, but I don’t see her inside the small shop. That’s when I notice that the bottles and instruments on the worktable have been cleared away. Panic overwhelms me. Maybe the witch isn’t here today. Or worse, maybe she’s left the market for good.
I hang over the counter of the empty booth.
“Hello!” I call out. I want to yell her name but realize I don’t know what it is. “Hello?” I repeat. “Anyone there?”
The back door swings open, and the witch is there. Her hands are white with a powder residue that is also dusted across the front of her tattered apron. I exhale a huge sigh of relief and slump onto the counter.
“Thank God,” I say. “I need your help. Can I come in?” I don’t bother to wait for an answer before letting myself in the side door. The witch’s eyes flash with the first hint of life I’ve seen in them.
“Sorry,” I say. “It’s kind of an emergency.”
She holds eye contact with me for a moment before wordlessly slipping back through the door at the rear of the shop. I follow her into the bowels of the market.
The scent of damp earth becomes stronger with each step I take down the rickety wooden steps, but instead of the darkness that met me last time, the cave is lit up with candles, the crags and cracks of the rock walls cast into deep shadow. The same worktable with bottles and jars strewn across its surface sits in the middle of the cave. The witch gets behind the table and resumes crushing what looks like amethysts into a crystalline gray dust with a mortar and pestle, like I’m not having a crisis.
“I want to go back,” I announce loudly.
She lays the pestle down and uses a funnel to shake the dust into a round purple bottle with a small opening.
At first I think she must not have heard me, but then she wipes her wrinkled hands on her apron and looks up at me with eyes hazy with sadness.
“You have a death wish?”
“No.” I shift my weight from foot to foot.
She shakes her head. “I trust you brought the payment, then?”
The money I stole from the lockbox feels heavy in my pocket. My whole life, I’ve never even considered taking money from my college fund. Mom worked so hard to save that money, put in every extra penny she could scrounge, and now here I am, just burning through it. Guilt hits me hard.
“Isn’t there some way you could give me a deal? You know, since I’m a repeat customer.”
“If you want a better deal you can find someone else to help you.” She turns.
“Wait!”
I sigh, reaching into my back pocket for the wad of cash. I hold it out in front of me, and she snatches it, her mouth moving as she thumbs through the greenbacks.
“It’s double the amount. I need my car back. I saw it in the parking lot, so I know you still have it.”
Her sharp eyes consider me, then the bills, as if she’s trying to figure out how I could be screwing her over, but then she puts the money inside her apron, grabs a lantern, and passes into a tunnel off the main room. I follow.
It doesn’t seem to help that this is my second time going through with the spell. In fact, I’d argue that I’m more scared knowing what’s coming as she leads me through the low-ceilinged tunnels into the back room with the old chair. She leaves me to gather the supplies. I remember the rusty knife, and the goblet to catch my blood, and feel suddenly sick to my stomach.
She’s back too soon.
The items clank against the stone floor as she dumps them out of her apron. I catch the glint of the knife in the dim light of the lantern.
“What’s your name, anyway?” I ask, my voice tremulous with anxiety or fear or both.
“Sit in the chair,” she orders.
I swallow and do as she says, wiping my slick palms on my skirt. She grabs my wounded arm. I gasp.
“Wait, not that one,” I say, pulling it out of her grasp.
She snatches it back. “Must be the right arm.” She hastily pulls off the bandage, revealing a wound bright pink and puffy with scar tissue.
“But it’s not even healed yet!” I complain.
Her wrinkled fingers hold my arm steady. I look away as the blade slices through my skin, sending waves of pain up my arm. I pass out before the cup’s half full.
It’s the pain that wakes me. My arm throbs in time with my heartbeat, barbs of fire flashing up to my shoulder, stinging every nerve along the way. I look down at the wound and then wish I hadn’t. A fresh gouge an inch deep and four wide stretches in a jagged line across the scar tissue in the crook of my elbow, like a toddler made it with a pair of rusty scissors. Which, actually, isn’t that far off from what happened.
Blood oozes from the wound, saturating the golden sand beneath me. A wave of nausea comes over me and I have to look away before I hurl. I guess I can ixnay a career in medicine.