Silver Nitrate(115)

FADE




TO




BLACK





28


“Don’t treat me like an invalid. I can get a refill when I want to,” José said, slapping Tristán’s hand away and sipping his soda with suspicious eyes. Then the old man leaned back against the couch and kept on petting the cat sleeping next to him.

“Are you sure you feel okay, José?” Montserrat asked.

“I’m fine. You both look worse than me.”

Montserrat supposed he was right, although it wasn’t too bad. Montserrat’s ankle was sore and bandaged, Tristán’s hand was wrapped in gauze, and they both sported multiple cuts and bruises. It seemed a small price to pay considering everything that had happened. Forty-eight hours. Ewers had been gone for forty-eight hours.

“Now, hand me that.”

“Oh, yes, here you go,” Tristán said and he passed the photo album to José.

The nitrate print was gone, burned away to a crisp, and so was Ewers’s book. Montserrat had burned all photos of Ewers when she got home, not because any power remained in them but simply because she didn’t wish to remember him. But there were other photos in the album, pictures of Abel that José might want to keep.

José flipped the pages, his hands touching the edge of a photo, and he smiled.

“Thank you for this,” he said, closing the album. “Now, I don’t want to be rude, but I’m feeling tired, and it is the longest night of the year, a dangerous evening. It’s best we head to bed early.”

“But Ewers and his cultists are gone,” Tristán said, frowning. “Right? You said so yourself, his magic has vanished, and they can’t harm us.”

“Of course. You have nothing to fear from them. You feel it, don’t you? The absence of his magic?”

Montserrat wasn’t sure about Tristán, but she did. It was like having a tooth removed, almost painful. She had grown used to Ewers’s power, the spells and runes. She hadn’t realized how enmeshed she was in his web until he had disappeared. The loss of magic, of power, hurt worse than the scrapes on their bodies.

“Okay, then what’s the problem?” Tristán asked.

“Problem? Nothing, maybe. But sometimes, when you’ve been around magic, you tend to attract the attention of other things that lurk in shadows. Monsters, ghosts, and the evil eye. I’ve tattooed myself for a reason,” José said, showing them his wrist, with its circle of ink.

“We should tattoo ourselves against monsters and ghosts?” Tristán asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

“Sure. Top to bottom.” When Tristán stared at him in anguish José laughed and slapped his leg. “Look at you! God, I think you turned purple right there.”

They rose and shook hands. José shuffled after them, walking them to the door. He paused, giving Montserrat a curious look as she took her coat from a hook.

“I have to admit, I wasn’t sure you’d actually destroy him,” he said.

“That was the plan, wasn’t it?” Montserrat said, toying with the collar of her coat.

“Yes. But Alma didn’t do it. She stole a piece of his magic and kept it hidden, used it for herself.”

“Then thirty-two years later he returned. It would have been foolish to attempt to subdue him and play with his toys,” Montserrat said, and then, noticing José’s expression, she cocked her head. “Did you think you might do that?”

“The thought crossed my mind. I was tempted. I thought you might be, too.”

“Ewers offered nothing that was true.”

The cat had not moved from the couch, simply regarding them with one open eye before going back to sleep. By the time they stepped out it was dark. Montserrat buried her hands in her coat pockets. They had come to return José’s car to him, to give him the album, and to make sure he was fine, and now that their tasks had been accomplished, they walked down the street in amicable silence.

She thought of magic, the spells she’d cast and that had now vanished. She told herself it was fine, that she didn’t miss them and wouldn’t seek such power again. The streets around them, with their cars and houses and tiny corner stores, offered a sea of mundanity to her where once before there had stood wonders. The coat she was wearing reached her ankles, and she wrapped it tight around herself.

“You were tempted, weren’t you?” Tristán said as they rounded a corner and walked by a liquor store that had decorated its windows with strings of lights.

“For one millisecond,” she admitted.

“You would have made a powerful sorceress,” he mused. “You’re very brave.”

“You were brave, too. You came back for me.”

“I was self-serving. Can’t live without you,” he said.

Montserrat looked up at him, the weightiness in the tone of his voice surprising her and making her go quiet. She stuffed her hands deeper into her pockets and wiggled her fingers.

“What did you think about what José said? About things that lurk in shadows?” he asked.

“You want to get a tattoo?”

“I’m unsure about that. But, you know, it being the longest night of the year and all, maybe we should be careful.”