Sacrifice (Dylan Hart Odyssey of the Occult) (10 page)

Chapter Eight

In any other part of any other town, dragging a bound and
gagged Mexican witch man through the streets would be frowned upon, but in East
LA, it wasn’t even noticed.

The Day of the Dead celebration was still raging even hours
after it had begun. The party had spanned the time of a trip to
Fres
-hell-no, a visit from a CHP, a fight with some
devil-worship-type folks, the drive back, and a lovely dream of a lion and
death. Some party.

The celebration we left was nothing compared to what filled
the streets. Dusk was quickly approaching and the streets were beginning to be
lit with candles. Lining the streets, carried by men and women dressed as skeletons
and things, wax dripped and flames flickered.

“Dylan,” Cyrus called from the cheap glass door. He held
Zeph
by his long, lovely locks. Smart boy.

Zeph
fought and tried to knock Cyrus over with his body that
easily outweighed Cyrus by a hundred pounds.

“Be still,” he said with the patience of a father.

I followed behind. Still not completely awake and feeling
more rundown than I had before my so-called nap. Life felt a little surreal, like
I wasn’t really in control of my own body. Autopilot I assumed. My heavy legs
made their way to the door and attempted to stay close behind. I failed. The
two men were deep into the building before I even walked through the door.

Cyrus called out for the old woman, but no one answered.
Zeph
fought harder, hardly able to move his legs with his
knees tied together. He yelled from behind his tape, but it was only muffled
sounds.

“Lupe,” Cyrus called out. Nothing.

We waited near the back of the store, past the cash
register. No one came. The lights were on. Shit, even the open sign was flipped
outward inviting innocent pedestrians in to the house of magic and bullshit.
But not a soul seemed to be home.

 
My senses were
beginning to come back to me, and fast. I felt a sudden rush of blood and
adrenaline course through me. My head throbbed instantly and I felt like I was
going to fall over. I got that feeling you get when your fat ass bends over too
long. Head rush. I needed a chair or I was going down.

“Look, you old bat, I don’t have time for this hocus pocus
bullshit,” I said loud enough the people on the street could hear me I was
sure, and I charged into the back room. My head swam as I stomped along. The
room was dark, only a few candles glowed in back corners.

Zeph
wriggled and complained beneath his bondage. Cyrus held him
tighter, but it seemed like he was straining a bit too much. The big guy would
sooner or later bust out, and likely kill us both.
Joy
.

“Lupe!” Cyrus yelled into the darkness.

My vision
strobed
and I blinked it
away. Exhaustion, hunger, and fear were all catching up to me at once. And what
fickle twats they could be.

I continued to tromp along. My soft sneakers weren’t up for
the challenge, so my movements were mostly silent. I was ass deep in shadows
when I hit a wall, not a real wall with plaster and paint, a wall of energy, if
that was such a thing. It tingled my skin; each hair stood on end. My lungs
filled with air that took a solid thirty seconds to come back out. I was frozen.
I couldn’t move a muscle. I heard Cyrus shuffling up behind me, and from the
sound of it, he was dragging a possibly limp
Zeph
along with him. I couldn’t move to investigate.

It’s as if I’m glued
to the spot!

The mystical force that held me in place had no form to
block my view, or lack thereof, of the dark room. In the far back corner, the
faint lines of smoke billowed up and out. A bell jingled and echoed. In the
darkness, the bright red embers of a cigar glowed suddenly. A moment later, the
lines of smoke appeared again.

That bitch.

“Lupe, I can see you, you stupid snatch. What is this shit?”
I yelled from my spot. My breath ragged for no obvious reason other than fear
and frustration.

“Perhaps we shouldn’t refer to her as snatch until after she
helps you? Eh?” Cyrus grunted out from behind me.

With an exaggerated grunt, he shuffled past me and into the
nothingness ahead.

“Wait…” I started to call after him but my breath was stolen
again.

Cyrus moved forward without hesitation. He supported the big
dude against his chest like he was just an annoyingly awkward sack of potatoes
and not a two-hundred and some odd pound man. Who, by the way, was rousing from
his sweet slumber, slung halfway over the shoulders of
Cyrus.

I could see the back of his head raise slightly and attempt
to see in this new environment.

Yeah, good luck,
buddy.

From the darkness, a quick flash of white streaked in the
distance. I blinked my eyes hard and tried to focus, but it was useless.
Whatever magical mumbo jumbo that was floating around in the air held me still
in my place. There was nothing to light the way other than the smoldering tip
of a sickeningly sweet smelling cigar. A cigar I’d shove somewhere very
uncomfortable if the bitch smoking it didn’t pipe up soon.

Again, a flash of white slipped through the room. Cyrus
continued his forward progression regardless of the current lighting situation.
The last flashes of white that had penetrated the darkness came along with a
silly little shoot out with me huddled in my bedroom.

“Cyrus? Dude, some funky shit is going down. I don’t like
it.” Stuck in unseen mystical goo wasn’t the only thing giving me the
heebie
jeebies
.
The flashes of white reminded me of my headless visitors.
It’s all I saw before those
cunts
dragged their dead
asses through my door.

I had no gun, and regardless of my attempts, I wasn’t going
to be kicking any ass any time soon. Fucked was an understatement in this
crowd. Royally screwed? Up shit creek? Nope, that didn’t cover it either.

Another flash of white, closer this time and followed by a
glint of something metal. Tiny flickers of light popped up near the glowing
cigar tip. I tried to force my eyes to see clearly, but with a few lonely
candle flames as the only real light source, it was still pointless.

Cyrus and his oversized package – wait – oh fuck it –
anyway, the guy he was toting along was standing on his own two feet and trying
like hell to use them. His muffles turned to screams when Cyrus suddenly ripped
the tape from his face.

“What is this shit?” he hissed in the same Mexican accent
the other grandson had.

“You have disgraced me,” Lupe finally spoke. The red cherry
of her cigar bounced with her words.

“Abuela?”
Zeph
queried, seemingly
confused.

The jingling of bracelets and rings came next, but nothing
else. Everyone was silent.

I could see the backs of Cyrus and
Zeph
,
but if they moved any further into the room, they’d likely disappear in the
shadows. The air in the room grew thick, so thick I could practically taste it
on my tongue.

It felt like something was squeezing me with huge arms right
around my middle. I tried to step back away from the invisible wall but it
wasn’t happening. Whatever held me trapped had a magical GI Joe kung
fu
grip and the son of a bitch was beginning to squeeze the
life out of me.

“Cyrus,” I squeaked out breathlessly.

He didn’t answer. Instead, he snatched
Zeph
up by his long, black hair and held him there with one hand. Another flash of
white and a glint of metal. SWOOSH – a whoosh of magic and movement in the
dark. As quickly as it had appeared, the wall was gone and I was covered in wet
splashes of warm liquid I couldn’t make out in the dark. Never, ever, was that
a good thing.

As soon as my eyes and brain began working together again, I
caught sight of the possible cause of my newfound freedom and wetness.

Cyrus held in his hand the severed head of Lupe’s long lost
grandson, Zephyrinus. At once, more candles lit around the room by an unseen
hand, and the shadow form of Lupe appeared in the farthest corner where I’d
seen her cigar bobbing up and down. In the shadow-drenched space, her face also
appeared to be painted like a skull, though hers seemed to have bright colors
and not the stark black and white like the other in the room.

Standing in front of Cyrus and
Zeph’s
head, was a naked man covered in black and white paint, not a headless broad,
but not exactly a pleasing sight either. He was painted like the skeletons out
front in the parade of death bones white and negative space black. In this
lighting, he looked like a walking skeleton. I might have believed that was
what I was looking at if I hadn’t detected the slight sheen of glossy paint,
oh, and his dangling twig and berries. Most skeletons were free of their nuts
and bolts.

I was free from my confines, but I still remained in my
spot, too scared to move on – maybe, definitely not wanting to be any closer to
that headless body than necessary.

“What. The. Fuck. Just. Happened?” I finally spat out in
short bursts of speech between blinks and headshakes.
Why does everyone lose their fucking head? What is with these people
and their compulsion to behead everything?

Cyrus tossed the head toward Lupe. It landed with a splat at
her feet.

“It’s done,” he said, obviously in full knowledge of things
I’d been left out of.

Them’s
fightin
’
words.

Another jingle of jewelry and something clanked against the
concrete floor, and slid into the toe of my shoe. I didn’t think before I bent
and picked it up. I held it close to my face in an attempt to get a closer
inspection.

“Your debt is paid in full.” Lupe talked to Cyrus, neither
of who seemed to be acknowledging me. I worried I was stuck in a dream, like
the black lion situation. Maybe that would have been better; but I didn’t wake
up. It was real. Or as real as it was going to get.

“What is this?” I asked, dangling the trinket from my
clutched fist.

“Your salvation. Now, go. And don’t come back.” Her voice
was strong, but I could hear a tiny quiver. She’d murdered her grandson, for
whatever fucked-up reason. That couldn’t be an easy thing to do, no matter how
big and powerful you were.

The skeleton guy held a long curved knife still dripping
blood. I was happy to leave as quickly as possible, but I wasn’t going anywhere
until I knew I was safe, and a round piece of metal on a string wasn’t cutting
it.

“Hold on. What do I do with it? I went to hell and back
trying to collect this guy for you, and you up and chop his damn head off. Now,
don’t get me wrong, I’ve beheaded a couple of guys in my day; it’s not that
hard to do, but you just offed your own grandkid and I was the asshole who
dragged him to your doorstep.” Cyrus cleared his throat. “Can it,” I told him
quickly and moved on, “I did this for a reason, for a favor, and you tossing a
trinket at me in the dark doesn’t pay for the dead guy on your floor. I’ll need
more than that.” My heart was beating a mile a minute but I held my ground.

I didn’t know which was scarier – Lupe or Azelie. Lupe
seemed to have an old bitch quality about her. Like she’d shiv you on the yard
or carry razor blades in her cheeks or something. Azelie, she didn’t seem to
play fair. Gun to a knife fight type of twat. Although, skeleton guy with a
knife was not at all discounted in this situation.

“You haven’t seen hell,
mija
,” she
whispered but didn’t say anything else.

I waited patiently for further response. What else was I
going to do? Tap my foot and look at her with an annoyed impatient look on my
face? I was sure that would work. Not!

“There is no
saving
you, only protecting you from what is to come. Do with it what you will. Now
leave me before my patience runs out.” She never looked in my direction, or
anywhere else other than at the head at her feet for that matter. She just
stared at it as if it was going to get up and start talking.

I thought it best to leave before any of that nonsense
occurred.

“So all I earned was protection…from what? Death?”

“You will leave – now!” she screamed and slammed her fists
against her legs.

A jolt of power hit me dead center and knocked me on my ass.
I slid, only a few inches, but enough to get the point across that even my big
hefty ass couldn’t stop her if she wanted something. Cyrus came to my aid and
helped me to my feet.

We didn’t say anything, just walked out. Well, Cyrus pulled
me along by my arm. All the while, I was seething inside. Fear, in all its
glory, was not my friend. In fact, I hated the needy son of a bitch. All these
emotional benders I’d been on in a matter of just a few days, weighed heavy on
my breaking point.

Cyrus shoved the glass door and it swung open. Horns and
accordions blared through the street. The party still raged outside.