Sacrifice (Dylan Hart Odyssey of the Occult) (4 page)

In the now lit room, I could see why he blended so well into
the shadows. His dark hair, still messy from him rubbing over it, fell around a
round brown face. He didn’t stand quite as tall as Cyrus but the energy rolling
off of him equaled two of him. Tattoos I couldn’t make out, trailed up each arm
to his shoulders that his wife-beater left bare. Black shorts stopped at the
knee, revealing more tattoos along his calves.

While not knowing your fate was hard enough to wrap your
head around, knowing said fate might be left up to a guy wearing underwear as
actual clothes, was damn near
im
-fucking-possible to
comprehend. Let alone accept.

Cyrus trailed his fingers along the counter to his right.
“You haven’t seen anything yet,” he said softly, almost innocently, not looking
anywhere in particular. The Mexican guy just stood there like he wasn’t sure
what was happening. “Sal, if I were you, I’d trot my frijole eating brown ass
away from me, before I shove my foot in it,” Cyrus replied without changing his
demeanor.

I’m down with a good racial slur as much as the next guy,
but it was a bit much for the situation. I stood, mouth agape, a bit stunned by
Cyrus’s antics. Where did this asshole come from? Who the hell was he to boss
people around? He was about to dig our asses deeper in trouble than we already
were. Besides, only I was allowed to be offensive and off-putting.

The man glared at Cyrus. His arms bowed out like a pit bull.
I waited, anticipating another blow to Cyrus’s face. He had only just stopped
bleeding thirty minutes prior. Maybe he was auditioning to be a Rock ‘
em
Sock ‘
em
Robot.

Cyrus never so much as acknowledged the man further. He
simply shoved past him with me in tow. I tried not to make eye contact as we
passed. The two of us were through the shop in just a few long strides. Quick
glimpses revealed racks of funky candles – grim reapers, men, women, and I
swear I saw a vagina – a wall of clear plastic baggies full of magical goodies
hanging from hooks; coins, beads, incense, other random items I couldn’t make
out.

We were through a set of heavy purple curtains and in a
small back room before the man had a chance to stop us. The concrete floor
squeaked under my rubber-soled sneakers when I was forced to stop suddenly. A
woman sat in a high-backed chair in a far corner. Fabric draped over the back
of the chair and hung from the ceiling. A short, round table covered in silk
scarves sat to the left of her legs; candles and a small bowl filled with
trinkets were spread over the table. The room was small, no bigger than a
bedroom. Likely, it was intended to act as an office or storage room. Maybe it
was both, in some macabre eerie sort of way.

“Madam,” Cyrus said, bowing his head just a hint.

The woman looked at us and nodded to Cyrus before she
proceeded to look me up and down like a prize pig. It took only a few seconds
before I felt her stare heavily on my skin, like fingers kneading and prodding.
Tentacles more like, prodding and digging deeper into my body. Wiggling their
supernatural tendrils through my insides and into my depths, I fought hard not
to puke.

Another witch woman
– fan-fucking-
tastic
.

The power rolling off the woman dug deep into my gut and
made it hard to breathe. The stump of a gnarled cigar smoldered between two
withered lips. Smoke twirled around the old face and slithered through her
ragged white hair. One intense, glaring eye peered from the squinted, sagging
lid, the other covered with an aging leather eye patch. Bones and dead things
hung from the leather apron tied just below a set of wrinkled old boobs.
Symbols adorned a leather wrap around her neck; symbols I’d seen a few times in
the recent past.

Son of a bitch.

A whoosh of energy flowed up my spine and tickled in my
brain.

“Abuela,” the Mexican guy called to his grandmother in
Spanish from behind me. He shoved his way through the entrance, and passed me
to kneel in front of the old woman. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t catch them.”

The woman flicked her wrist and shooed her grandson away.
The cigar still smoldered, her lips never wavering around the knobby stump.
Without another word, the man stood and left us alone in the back room with the
woman who was supposed to cure me of my curses.

The impression I got from the exchange of glances between
the old woman and Cyrus was at some point they’d crossed paths, and Cyrus came
out with an IOU from the wrinkled old thing. Good for him. He was lucky it
wasn’t him who owed the debt. I had a feeling he might’ve been fucked in that
department.

“Lupe,” Cyrus said.

“It’s been a long time,” the old woman spoke around her
cigar in an aged baritone.

“The last time we spoke, Nicolas had just done you a favor.
You must be aware, of course, that he has since ceased to exist, leaving me in
his passing.”

Her eyes crinkled around the edges as she squinted her good
eye in his direction, “Si. Get on with it, boy. What do you want?”

“I need your assistance.”

“I suppose you’re calling in your debt to help the girl and not
yourself. Not even Mr. Cyrus Atossa is so selfish to leave this girl with a
devil on her back.” Her old voice rattled on about me as if I wasn’t even
there, and about things she should be completely unaware of. Her words held
such weight; I fought the urge to literally look over my shoulder and check my
back for a little red devil.

“Can you help her?” Cyrus pushed on without acknowledging
her.

A long silence followed. I stood quietly and waited for her
response. The longer she remained silent, the deeper the doom set into my
heart. Her eye wandered to the center of my chest and lingered there for a full
minute. I felt her mystical tentacles flittering under my skin. The sudden and
desperate urge to vehemently not believe in magic grabbed me by the balls. It’s
not as though I ever fully believed in the first place, but naked headless dead
things crawling through a hole in your front door is hard to ignore.

“Well?” I asked impatiently.

Her one eye blinked slowly and made me wonder what the other
eye did under the ratty, old leather patch. “Ms. Hart,” she said at last.

Without thinking, I looked to my chest to make sure I wasn’t
wearing my press badge. “I wasn’t aware I gave you my name,” I said, looking at
her sideways.

The old woman scoffed, “Ms. Hart, you aren’t aware of many
things.”

I fought the urge to beat psychic granny to a pulp.
Clenching my fists at my sides, I let out a long breath.

“Can you help or not?” Cyrus finally spoke up.

“There is little that can help…but I can help you fight.”

I sighed, “Look, I appreciate your help, but I’ve had enough
cryptic paranormal bullshit to last a lifetime. Five months ago, I decided to
get in the middle of someone draining hooker blood. I spent a week running all
over this state looking for answers. In the end, I hacked off the heads of two
supposed vampires. Then I fought legal battles for a month about it. Three days
ago, I made the brilliant fucking decision to dive back into the scene, with my
only concern being whether I was going to have to accept the fact that vampires
are in fact a reality. Now, here I am standing in a
Botanica
,
in East L.A. waiting to see if some old woman can remove a curse that a New
Orleans voodoo bitch shoved firmly up my ass. If you wouldn’t mind, could you
please just tell me everything I need to know so I can go home and patch bullet
holes in my living room?”

I knew I could be hard to handle. There were times when I
didn’t take things well and there may be casualties. But dammit, I felt I had
handled this situation pretty fucking well considering.

“Aye! With a mouth like that, it’s no surprise you have a
devil on your back.”

Her phrasing reminded me of the night before, and the huffs
of a demon snout on my neck. My shoulders tensed and rolled with the thought of
an actual devil on my back. Not a silly little red one this time. A snarling,
snorting thing, with teeth and claws I’d imagined while I ran. On the other
hand, maybe it was still there.

I closed my eyes and breathed slowly. “Listen, bitch, I
don’t have time for this bullshit. Either you’re going to help me, or I’m the
fuck outta here, because I think I’m soaking up all the mystic mumbo jumbo this
tubby bitch can handle just standing here.” I kept my voice just above a
whisper regardless of the content of my words.

The old woman’s one eye crinkled with a squint. As the milky
iris glared at me under a wrinkled lid, my mind made up fantastical images of
the hidden eye. In my head, the other eye was a swirling pool of nothingness, a
pit of infinite emptiness, ready to swallow me whole.

Her withered lips squeezed around her cigar. The smoking tip
jutted upward, spilling ash on the woman’s leather vest. Tiny white and grey
pieces flitted over small animal bones tied along her bust. I hoped they were
animals. A bird skull dangled from a strip of leather, or maybe it was some
kind of intestine, at her shoulder. Bits of smoldering tobacco rolled over old
boobs and landed in her lap. The sage green muumuu she wore under her apron,
burned for a second before the fire went out, leaving a blackened hole where
the cherry once was.

“You’re strong.” The cigar bobbed up and down with her
words. “That’ll help.”

Her wrinkled hands reached and grabbed bottles and fistfuls
of herbs without leaving her cloth covered chair. Thick, old fingers twirled
and pinched with surprising strength.

“What’s going on?” There was no need to beat around the
bush.

“
Pssh
.” She waved her hand at me
without looking in my direction. A muddled motion I didn’t really understand.

Cyrus stood a foot from me, quiet as the grave, face still a
little inflamed from his beating, but surprisingly better.

“Hey, I appreciate your trying to help me, but I’m not sure
how seven herbs and spices are going to get my ass out of this kosher pickle,”
I whispered quickly toward Cyrus.

“What other choice do you have?”

He had a point. What other choice? Suicide? Unlikely. Not
really my thing. Homicide? Wouldn’t be my first. Might be better than this
witchy nonsense I was imprisoned in. Covering up magic with more magic, didn’t
seem like the best idea to ward off evil curses and horrendous bitches. Like
mystical
Febreeze
.

“Death won’t stop this,” Lupe responded as if she’d been
listening inside my head. Maybe she had. At this point, it was hard to rule
anything out.

Something was amiss – either magic, in all its glory and
splendor, was just another fucked up part of life, or I was fucked in the head.
Crazy bitches don’t know they’re crazy, so even if it were the case, I wouldn’t
know it anyway. Besides, how many other crazy fucks are out there going along
with my delusions really? That left magic. Believing suddenly in something that
has no physical form, nothing to kill, was hard on the heart. Mine felt like it
was about to burst from my chest and run screaming out the door.

“What will?” I asked.

“Nothing,” Lupe replied, not looking up from her concoction.

Un-fucking-believable

“Then why am I still standing here?” My arms flapped up and
down, slapping my thighs in a frustrated motion.

“You’re going to do me a favor.” She continued to brew her
magic.

Really now?
“Am I?” My retort was less of a question and more of a
challenge.

She nodded slowly and closed the one eye. Maybe both, I
don’t know. “You’re going to fetch my grandson.”

“Is he lost?”
Was he
plunged down a thousand feet below?

“He’s been
lost
for some time. His soul is hidden in his body and it keeps him from returning
to me.”

To the land of the
lost?

“And how in the fuck am I supposed to work that out?”
Like I don’t have enough shit on my plate,
let’s just add a side of diarrhea.

“You’re going to the valley and you’re going to bring him
back to me.” She still wasn’t looking at me.

“Is this some kind of jacked up metaphor I’m missing?” I
dunked my head down, trying to see her face.

“If you want my help, you’ll go to a place you’ve been
before and bring Zephyrinus back to his abuela. I’ll handle his soul.” She
lifted her head finally, leaving me looking like an idiot half bent over in her
face.

“Why can’t you do it yourself? You seem like a powerful
enough person.” Azelie could raise headless broads from the dead and send them
barging through my door from states away, yet this chick couldn’t call her
grandkid home?

Her hand flicked over the arm of her chair revealing an
Atari-
esque
joystick. I fought the urge to challenge
her to a game of Pong. “Strength is what you make of it. Power, eh, power comes
from somewhere else,” she said, using the stick thing to move her wheelchair
toward me.

I had no fucking clue what the hell she was talking about.