The rental is a yellow Kia, covered in ash. Girlie drives. Avon sits in the backseat with his wife’s valise open in front of him. He reassembles the 9mm methodically, tests the slide, loads a clip. He puts two more clips in the patch pockets of his cargo pants. Up front, Girlie listens to religious radio, dedicated FM stations of the California prosperity gospel.
“The Bible is the greatest book in the world in terms of money management,” says a sonorous male voice. “The secrets locked inside will lead you to staggering prosperity. Proverbs 28, Psalm 119, Joshua 1:7. Did you know that the Bible says that God takes pleasure in the prosperity of his servants? He wants you to revel in unfathomable wealth.”
The sky above them is blood red, a low ceiling of filth cutting off the city skyline. Girlie takes the 5 north, switches to the 134. She has the AC on recirculating, but even so the smell of smoke is thick inside the car. At the airport she looked up the address Rose gave her on Google Maps. It’s in a residential neighborhood near the highway. She thinks of the mambabarang and the tropical darkness of her childhood. In her country there has always been a war between good and bad magic, between faith healers and the aswang, shape-shifters. The werebeasts and viscera suckers. Silagan, with its hatred of white clothes, and magtatangal, who wandered the woods without head or entrails. Her grandmother would scold her when she was bad that the magtatangal was coming for her, with its bat-like wings and its endless tongue used to suck the hearts from the fetuses of sleeping women.
When Rose called, she said that a mangkukulam had her. That she had been tricked by the woman’s words and was now her slave. Girlie had never heard fear like that, so thick it was like honey coating her sister’s tongue. They had always been close, but when they got to America they were sent to live with different aunts, Girlie in Florida and Rose in California. They stayed in touch by phone, hugging at family reunions, the words flooding out of them. And then they were adults and the urgency softened. Rose married for a green card, but her husband beat her. She went to school to become a home health aide. Come to Florida, Girlie begged her. You can work in the shop. But Rose never chose the path that was good for her. She chose wife beaters and con men, internet scams and shaggy dog stories.
And now she had been seduced by black magic. Girlie knew that freeing her would not be as simple as walking her out of the building. They would need strong sumbalik to shake this curse.
“For the husband is the head of the wife,” says the radio, “even as Christ is the head of the church; and he is the Savior of the body.”
She thinks of the photo Rose sent, of the reflection in the mirror. Does she know they’re coming, the Witch? Girlie was sure she felt her presence on the plane, black eyes watching her, hot breath on her neck in line for the rental car. She checks the rearview mirror, finds Avon staring out the window.
“If this takes longer than a day,” he says, watching the eastern mountains burn, “there might not be a California left to get out of.”
He asks her to put on some music, and she scans the dial. It’s then they hear the news of a bombing at the US Senate, how a senator from Idaho wore a suicide vest in the hearing room. Girlie wants to know what it means. Avon tells her to shut up. He’s thinking about the Google Doc, how Arnaud wrote that something big was coming. That the boogaloo was finally here. Avon thought it was more zealous posturing. He’d gone through a revolutionary phase as a younger man. It peaked with a traffic stop and two dead state troopers. Now all he wants is to be left alone. But fourteen dead senators and a government building in flames? That’s not the end of a story. It’s the beginning.
“We need to get home,” he tells Girlie, thinking of his bunker, the stand that they could make—insulated, secure.
“We get Rose,” she says, “then home.”
“Turn the car around.”
She ignores him, nudges the gas pedal. She doesn’t care if the entire world blows up. She’s getting her sister back.
*
At first, when they turn onto the 1600 block of Auster, Girlie thinks the smoke is from the mountains, but the mountains are behind them and the smoke is too thick, and then she sees flames. When they pull up to the address, it’s on fire. Not just on fire, but the roof is missing and half the front wall. And there is a teenage boy walking between it and the house next door. Girlie pulls over to the curb. The heat of the fire reaches her through the passenger window. She turns in her seat and sees the boy go up the steps of the neighboring house. And then the front door opens and Rose is there.
Girlie feels a wave of euphoria. Her sister is alive! And then something hits Rose in the back of the head and she falls forward into the front yard. A young woman steps out behind her, tosses the chair. Girlie screams. Avon clicks off the safety on the 9mm and throws open the back door.
“Stay put,” he says, approaching the house, gun at high ready, safety off. The woman crouches next to Rose.
“Don’t touch her,” says Avon firmly. The man and woman turn, startled to see him. He watches their eyes as they register the gun, then realizes that the youngest, the man, is just a kid. They are, we know, Simon Oliver and Story Burr-Nadir.
“Wait,” says Simon. “She was—we’re hostages. Were hostages. She was—the Witch kidnapped us, or not a literal Witch, though maybe. But I’m—I was at an anxiety center in—”
“Stop talking,” says Avon, but Simon can’t.
“—and wait, she’s—”
He points to Story.
“—she’s that judge’s daughter. The one on TV. There’s probably a—there could be a reward.”
Avon looks at Story. “That judge is dead.”
Story goes white. “What?”
“There was an explosion. At the—whatdyoucallit—the Capitol. A bombing. It’s on the news.”
“The—I’m sorry?” says Story, her knees going weak, her mind going cloudy as she slips into shock. “What?”
Then Girlie is there, kneeling next to Rose, shouting in Filipino.
“Shut up, woman,” says Avon, as Rose stirs. He looks at Simon.
“Where’s the other—the Witch?”
Simon points to the building.