Panicked, he stared at the door of the building, picturing her trapped inside, trying to make her way in the dark. He ought to go back for her, but he had no flashlight to light the way, and dark smoke was streaming from the building.
He could run down the street, raise the alarm, find a pay phone and summon the cops. It would take too long, though, and Momo was inside, alone.
He stood still, one hand resting against the doorway, and peered back into the darkness, trying to glimpse the vaguest of shapes.
“Momo!” he yelled. “Momo!”
No answer. The darkness was warm and thick as tar. He felt sick again, like he might really throw up this time, and he’d never been brave anyway. It was Momo who covered his eyes during the gory scenes in movies, Momo who gripped his hand tight when they jumped together into the grain. It was Momo who forgot to fear, and he who feared everything.
Every atom in his body demanded that he flee. For a second, he considered it. Considered a world without Montserrat, sterile and icy.
Magic is willpower, that’s what Momo said. He didn’t know what that meant, but he knew he needed Momo as much as the flames inside that building needed oxygen to burn.
He took a desperate breath.
He pressed into the darkness of the building, into the clouds of smoke, and held out his hand. “Momo, I’m here!” he yelled.
Even if the darkness never ended and swallowed him whole, he’d still run to her.
* * *
—
The building was boiling Montserrat alive. Sweat drenched her forehead, and she stood in darkness. No answer came to her, no magic; whatever power she’d held now trickling out of her body.
Montserrat was alone. Tristán had gone. She knew it. Her hand rested on a wall, and smoke swirled around her ankles, and the world was darkness. This was how Ewers must have felt when he died and was confined to oblivion; a part of himself trapped in the frames of a film and sealed in a can. This nothingness prickled her skin, suffocated her more than the smoke.
Her bones were leaden, and tears trickled down her cheeks. She bumped into a door, ran her hands down the crumbling plaster of a wall.
She felt a desperate, clawing force.
Stay! it said, wordless, invisible, this something that clung to her, squeezing her tight, making her stumble. Their gaze, their voices, their will, had once revived Ewers, and he desperately yearned for that spark of life they’d granted him. With his gasping, last breaths he pulled at her, begging her to save him, follow him, grant him life…once again…this one time.
Montserrat was tired, and in the darkness of the building, with nothing to anchor her, she thought perhaps she might heed that mournful call.
Everything was dark, motionless.
Then, she heard a couple of stumbling, heavy footsteps and squinted.
“Momo, where are you?!”
“Tristán!” she yelled back. “I don’t know where to go!”
“Find me!”
But where was he? His voice came from nowhere and everywhere at once. She coughed, pressed an arm against her mouth, and without thinking she moved toward him, even though he could be anywhere.
“Tristán!”
She felt his fingers on her arm, the pull of him.
“I’m with you!”
She wasn’t sure he knew where they were headed. In the past it had been Montserrat who guided him, who made him jump into the grain containers. But now it was her turn to follow him, to let herself be dragged, fast.
Their fingers were laced tightly together, and they rushed forward.
She followed him into the night, not Ewers, but Tristán. She shook off the sick pull of rotting magic and pressed onward.
The darkness ruptured like a membrane. Breathless, they emerged into the startling prickle of cool air and an ordinary street, with its dim lampposts and businesses that were shuttered at that late hour. They could hear a siren in the distance and the barking of dogs. Montserrat winced as she walked, and Tristán thrust his arm around her, holding her steady. They headed nowhere, directionless, yet confident in their steps.
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.”