Silver Nitrate(95)

“You have been summoning your girlfriend.”

Tristán slammed his hands down on the table, making the Hawaiian dancer tremble. “I have not.”

“You don’t realize it, but you do it,” López said. “Now you can be a stubborn coward and live the rest of your life inside my guest room, or maybe you can help me put an end to Ewers’s spell.”

López carefully wiped his mouth with a napkin and then fished out a piece of corn from his bowl and began gnawing at the kernels. Tristán pushed his chair back and stood up, glaring at the old man.

“I don’t summon anything,” Tristán said, wishing to choke the geezer if he as much as said another word about ghosts, but the crusty bastard seemed unfazed.

“You probably have something that belonged to her. That’s useful when summoning ghosts. Anything personal or of significance to the deceased helps form a link. A picture also helps do the trick. Then you think about them, you call them forth, you ask them to speak to you.”

Tristán remembered Karina’s picture, tucked inside his wallet, almost forgotten and yet never out of mind. That little snapshot that was bent at the corner. He swallowed.

“Would he be in any danger?” Montserrat asked.

“Ghosts are not dangerous,” López said. “They’re shadows, immaterial.”

“Ewers chased Montserrat through a building,” Tristán said. “I’m sure she didn’t feel safe.”

“I said he’s not a ghost. He’s caught between life and death. Besides, we won’t be asking him to join us.”

“Why not? I’m a great necromancer. Let’s call my girlfriend, Abel, Ewers, and hey, maybe Napoleon is available. We’ll play poker together, okay?”

“Your sarcasm is not solving anything. Ewers cast one hardy spell, and when you dubbed his film, you released power unlike anything I’ve ever felt,” López said. “For good or ill, you can see and speak to ghosts right now, and we need that skill.”

“Or we could do nothing,” Tristán said stubbornly.

“I told you this is power unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”

“How much have you seen? Are there many sorcerers around the city? Do they all wear dirty raincoats? I don’t think I should be following orders from a guy who can’t figure out how to launder his clothes.”

“That was my father’s raincoat,” López said. “I wear it because it protects me; it’s bewitched, as are my tattoos. And yes, there are sorcerers in this city. Magic requires many elements to work, and most people don’t have all of them at once. Ewers managed to essentially secure all the components to a bomb, and instead of defusing it, you made it tick again.”

“Maybe he’s too powerful to beat. Maybe he’s superhuman. Have you thought about that?”

Montserrat scoffed. “Ewers was no Atlantean, he was a kid who became a good thief. If Ewers had a talent, it was that he was a magpie. In his letter he said he learned from every single person he met, even stealing when he needed to. He was clever and creative. He was also determined. It doesn’t make him infallible.”

“It also doesn’t mean we should be getting more involved in this shit,” Tristán said. “You’re asking me to speak to the dead like I’m making a phone call and chatting with the operator.”

“You are already speaking to the dead,” López said. “You might want to hang up on your dead girlfriend instead of dialing her every day. All I’m asking is that you use whatever power you have to help me and your friend. A bomb, okay? You activated a bomb.”

“Well, I didn’t make that bomb, old man. Thirty-something years ago, you and your friends decided to manufacture a cursed film with an insane Nazi screenwriter, and now you want me to defuse your mistake. Guess what, I’m fed up. The answer is no.”

Rather than reply López spat a kernel out into the palm of his hand and kept on gnawing at his corn. Tristán shook his head and stepped out of the dining room and headed upstairs, back into the bedroom. He paced around, waiting for Montserrat to find him. But she didn’t come. On the night table there was a bowl with mints and candy that could only be found in an old lady’s house. He tossed the candy away and lit a cigarette, collecting the ash in the bowl.

Montserrat finally stood at the doorway, watching him, arms crossed.

“He wants to help us,” she said. “But we also have to help him.”

“Yeah? What’s he doing? What are you doing? I’m the one being asked to play around with ghosts, not you.”

“He’ll draw the runes with his blood. And I’ll make the film burn. We need to work together.”

“Don’t ask this of me. What if I summon her instead of Abel? What then?” he asked, dropping the cigarette into the bowl and placing it back where he’d found it, on the night table with the doily.

Montserrat did not reply, but he could see by the slant of her mouth that she was growing restless and irritated. He considered pushing back, demanding other solutions, but then he reached into his pocket, took out his wallet, and carefully retrieved Karina’s photo. He held it up, offering it to Montserrat.

She stepped into the room and took the snapshot from his hand. Then he lowered his head.