Black Magic Outlaw: Books 1 - 3 Page 5

  She flashed a triumphant look as if she'd solved all my problems. "He's head of some special task force for the city. He's really high up."

  I raised my eyebrows. "Yeah?" My buddy had never approved of the spellcraft, but he knew about it.

  "For real. You need to tell him what happened. Let me get you his number and address." She dug around in her purse until she plucked out a tiny device with an Apple logo on the back.

  "What the hell is that thing?" I asked as she touched the pane of glass. "No buttons?"

  She arched an eyebrow. "You sound like my abuelo."

  Her grandfather. At twenty-four, she was calling me old. "Give me a break," I protested. "I've been dead for ten years. I have no way of knowing what 'the kids' are into these days." I smiled but she didn't find it funny.

  "I'm not a kid anymore, either."

  "I kinda noticed."

  She flashed long lashes at me. "I'm twenty-six. That's older than you were when you died."

  I was dumbfounded by the realization. No way to look cool after that. I wondered if dead years counted for anything?

  She continued gloating. "You could say I have more life experience than you."

  I rolled my eyes. I'd forgotten how much snark Milena dished. She got it from my sister. "You gonna tell me what you're doing with the tricorder in your hand or what?"

  She laughed. "You're such a geek. I don't know why I always had such a crush on you."

  "Don't blame yourself. You're just a sucker for a nice face."

  Her eyes slid up and down my arms. "Well, I'm not the only one who filled out. Death comes with a gym membership, apparently."

  I shrugged. It was the one thing I couldn't complain about.

  "Anyway," she continued, "I'm checking directions on my cell phone. You need one nowadays, although I'm not sure if the carriers offer recently-deceased plans."

  "Keep it up," I warned, but I couldn't help smiling. It was nice to live in a world that wasn't so heavy, even if only for a few minutes. "Besides," I countered, "Cisco Suarez has a phone." I lugged the Nokia out of my pocket. The thing wasn't cutting edge when I'd been alive. Next to hers it was an absolute dinosaur. Gigantic, blocky; small, monotone LCD screen.

  She laughed hysterically. "Oh my God, Cisco. Why don't you just use tin cans?"

  I frowned. My phone had caller ID and a speaker and a microphone. What else did it need?

  "Where did you get that thing?" she asked. "The dollar store?"

  "It was in my pocket when I woke up," I explained.

  Her cheer evaporated and her voice went low. "You mean it's not yours?"

  I shrugged. "I guess it's mine. Why else would I have it? I don't remember buying it, though."

  "Does it work?"

  "Yeah. Someone called me, but they didn't say anything."

  She snatched the Nokia from my hands, opened the case, pulled the battery, and tossed the mess of parts outside the window.

  "What the hell?" I yelled.

  She ignored me and opened her door, got out, and stomped on the phone a few times. "They could be tracking you," she said, returning to her seat.

  "What, like with satellites and stuff?"

  She shook her head. "It's not paranoid, Cisco. The world has changed a lot in the last ten years. You're gonna get yourself killed if you don't keep up. That's why you need to let people help you."

  "Help how?"

  She brought up a map display on her phone and showed me directions to Evan's field office.

  I nearly drooled on the shiny glass display. "I gotta get me one of those."

  "I can't imagine life without one. All the apps you'll ever need."

  "You mean you can order mozzarella sticks with that thing?"

  Her confused expression turned into boisterous laughter when she realized what I was thinking. "Not appetizers, dummy. Apps. Programs on your phone."

  The possibilities streamed through my mind. Maps, websites, games. "You're saying I can get MySpace on that?"

  Milena rolled her eyes. "You have a lot of catching up to do."

  "Try me," I challenged.

  "Okay," she said, a smile playing across her lips. "Let's see. Since you died, Apple became a leading tech company, geek is cool, and they actually make good superhero and James Bond movies now."

  I licked my lips. "Hmm, okay. Interesting. Unlikely, even, but definitely not mind-blowing."

  "Castro's out of the picture. Fidel, I mean."

  I nodded. "I heard something about that."

  "We have a black president now."

  I resisted the urge to raise my eyebrows. "I admit, that one's a little wow, but inevitable."

  She sighed. "Okay Cisco, let me take this down to your level then. They're on the Fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons, Liam Neeson is a huge action star, and Axl finally released Chinese Democracy."

  I threw my hands up to defend against the onslaught. "Okay, okay. I give. You're right. This is a strange new world. I bet everybody's kind and considerate on the internet now."

  She stuck out her bottom lip and shook her head.

  "Great," I said. "Did they get better at all?"

  She thought ruefully for a moment. "People don't say fo shizzle anymore."

  "Thank God for small miracles."

  She giggled and I followed suit. "This is fun," she said. "And a total coincidence. I visit my abuelo twice a week so it's lucky running into you."

  "How is the old man?" I asked.

  "He watches TV all day. Never leaves the house. But he has his mind and wants to stay put, so I don't tell him otherwise."

  I nodded. "What about you? What are you doing?"

  She shrugged. "I'm doing okay. I have a condo in Midtown now."

  "What's Midtown?"

  "You were gone a long time. It's a new neighborhood north of Downtown."

  "They don't call it Overtown anymore?"

  "Further up."

  "Little Haiti?"

  "No, silly. Not that far. There are lots of shops and new developments there. It's nice. Trust me. A lot nicer than this old neighborhood."

  I took a breath. "Whatever you say." But inside I wasn't so indifferent. Milena had managed to get out. I was happy for her.

  "Anyway," she said, "take my number too." She scavenged a scrap of paper from her purse and copied it down. She must have everything in there. "Until you get yourself a phone."

  "I kinda had one."

  She rolled her eyes. "I'll pick up a prepaid for you. Something that doesn't require a contract." She handed me the paper. I now had her Midtown address and cell number along with Evan's office address, all scrawled in glittery pink ink.

  "How manly."

  "Most men could use some glitter."

  I ignored her and focused on the paper. Thinking about the old crew again spun the wheels in my head. My curiosity got the better of me, and I asked a question that was better left alone.

  "What about Emily?"

  Milena's eyes sagged. Em was my girl. She had been, anyway, right before I died. We weren't engaged or anything like that, but we loved each other. My ten-year absence couldn't have turned out well. I dreaded the answer, but Milena's silence was worse.

  "What is it?" I asked frantically. "Did something happen to her too?"

  "No, no," she asserted. "Definitely not. Emily's fine. I totally forgot you two were a thing."

  I relaxed. I didn't know if I could handle any more bad news. Then I realized Milena had probably been jealous of Emily. It was silly to think she still might be, though. Her high school crush would be long gone by now.

  "What aren't you telling me, Milena?"

  She smiled weakly, no trace of mirth on her face. "Well, she's married now. It was a while ago. She probably has kids—I don't know. It's not like we hang out."

  I counted to ten. Deep breaths.

  It didn't bother me. It really didn't. I'd been dead, and faced with the other horrible alternatives, Em getting shacked up and starting her own family was pr
etty good news. Not for me, of course. I still loved her. It felt like I'd only seen her a few days ago—a few weeks at most. The fog in my head blurred things. But Emily still felt like mine, whatever the truth was. How could I be jealous of her happiness?

  I leaned back in the Fiat. With my knees against the dashboard, I wasn't exactly comfortable, but I tried to relax. I tried to see my resurrection as a second chance.

  I was alive, damn it. That had to count for something.

  But all I could think of were the mutilated corpses of my family. I'd been long dead, but their blood was newly burned into my brain. Somehow, I knew, this was all my fault.

  No one else in my family practiced magic. I was the only one. Not just a black sheep, but into black magic. Spellcraft is neutral, but some of the circles I'd rolled in weren't exactly the most upstanding.

  I'd been on to something, I realized. Something that had gotten me and my family killed. Something that could get anyone I knew killed.

  I turned to Milena, her pretty face studying me. I didn't know if she was in danger, but I had to be. I needed to keep hidden until I figured out what was going on.

  "I need to go," I announced, flipping open the tiny door.

  "Wha— Now?" she asked, confused. "Where?"

  "I don't know, Milena, but you're not safe around me. No one is." I closed the door and leaned into the open window.

  "Can I at least drop you off somewhere?" she offered.

  I chewed my lip, wondering at my next destination. "You can do me a favor," I said. "You can not tell anybody else about me."

  "Of course," she answered.

  I smiled at her. It had been nice catching up. Visiting someone from my old life. To see that some things were still normal. But I knew my life would never be.

  "It was good to see you again," I told her, and walked away.

  I followed the road, lost in my head. My life would never be the same now, that much I knew. They say everybody dies alone, and that's true, but everybody's also resurrected alone. And that's what I was now. That's what I had to be. A loner.

  The Fiat started and pulled alongside me on the street. "Cisco," Milena called out, her voice thick with sympathy. "Are you gonna be okay?"

  I kept on trucking. I didn't know what to tell her.

  Chapter 10

  I kept my next course of action from Milena. What she didn't know couldn't hurt her and all that, but it was more. I was paying Martine a visit, and no one liked Martine.

  My sister thought she was spooky. Milena thought the same by proxy. My best friend Evan said I spent too much time with her. Emily especially didn't like Martine. According to Em, it's impossible for a guy and a girl to have a platonic relationship. I guess I could see a girlfriend being jealous, but I never did anything with Martine. Not like that. It was strictly spellcraft. And that's exactly what I needed now.

  Black magic got me into this mess. Black magic was gonna get me out of it.

  I'd taken care of priority number one. Sure, that meant looking out for number one, but it had also meant making a beeline for my family to offer them protection. They didn't need it. They hadn't needed it for a long time.

  Now I meant to turn things around. To stop scrambling. Questions had been building for ten years, starting even before the day of my death. Questions in the fog. It was about damn time I got some answers, and one person came to mind to help me. Martine. The girl who'd gotten me into black magic in the first place.

  So had she been working a tent at a job fair or what? The answer, like life, is more complicated than that (and doesn't involve a résumé). Time for some background.

  I was a normal kid in middle school. A reader more than the playground type. Like all normal kids, I dreamed about being anything but. Still, I didn't decide to be a necromancer just like that. The first step was much more natural and scary. I grew curious about the dead.

  My grandfather on my mom's side was the fun one. He always had magic tricks for me, and I'm talking about the cheesy pick-a-card variety. Every single time I saw him, he pulled a silver dollar from behind his ear and gave it to me.

  Yes, I know he was supposed to pull it from my ear. That's how the trick usually works. But he told me he ate a leprechaun and could pull coins from his ears. What can I say? The story wouldn't work if the money came from me. Between you and me, I was a bright kid; I think he worried I'd figure it out if I got close. But I'm getting sidetracked.

  When I was eleven, the old man died. My family drove up to Tampa for the funeral. I still remember sitting in the back seat playing with Seleste. She was only three so she had no idea what was going on. Me? It was the first real death I experienced. When we saw him, I knelt by the casket and prayed like a good little boy, but that was where the innocent act stopped. Looking back, I know this sounds weird, but everyone deals with death in different ways. I don't know if it was curiosity or denial, but I checked the old man's ear for that coin.

  Honestly, I was shocked it wasn't there.

  Even more shocked were my parents. I created a scene and was scolded the rest of the afternoon. The next day, I got the silent treatment from my parents the entire drive home. But what do you think was waiting for me in first class mail when we arrived at the house?

  Before gramps had kicked it, he'd stuffed a silver dollar in an envelope and mailed it off to me. Except it was post-marked after his death. That part resonated with me. From then on, I've believed in a connection between the world of the living and the dead. I knew spirits existed.

  Of course, hindsight being twenty-twenty and all that, you and I both know there wasn't anything magical about the envelope. My grandfather hadn't been alive to personally send the coin himself, but it was probably a request to a friend or a lawyer completing the terms of his will. Mundane stuff. A last "got you" from the old man. But I didn't consider that at the time, and that's when it started: my fascination with death and the beyond.

  Black magic, well, that's another level entirely. An innocent infatuation through middle school became enabled when I met Martine in high school. She noticed my curiosities and took me on as a sort of lab partner. She'd learned the basics from an uncle or something, and now was free to experiment on her own. Neither of us really knew what we were doing, but it was just enough to get into trouble. We sold some powders and charms. Bush league stuff. Evan and my other friends didn't like Martine but spellcraft was a passion. Evan went off to college. I didn't.

  I opted for a different kind of education.

  Magic isn't like in the movies. You don't go to school to learn it. Instead, it's pretty much how every culture since the beginning of time portrays it: funneling the power of spirits into action. It takes respect and understanding more than discipline, and some are more naturally gifted than others. Yours truly always thought of himself as a hotshot. And there was a reason for it. I quickly surpassed Martine in ability.

  I don't think it made her jealous, but I felt bad. And as with school, I grew bored easily. I didn't want to commit to anything. So I branched out into other patrons and let Martine be the voodoo expert. She was just as hungry as me and got pretty good, always looking for that edge.

  In the end, I had a feeling we found it. The edge. And whatever it was, it turned my world upside down. If anyone knew the why and how of that, it would be Martine.

  The walk to her place wasn't long. She lived further inland so I moved west on Flagler, taking in the sights. Mostly, the neighborhood hadn't changed. Not really. Some stores had come and gone, the mobile phone companies had different names and logos, but it was the same hood.

  After an hour I found the grass alley that led to Martine's house. A few properties were stuck in the middle of the block and had awkward entrances off the alley. It was weird, but it was private. We had liked that back in the day.

  Martine's place was situated between two umbrella trees, the same off-white unassuming house I remembered. I watched from a distance to make sure everything was normal. No activity in or a
round the house. I headed over the step stones leading to the backyard, skirting the garbage cans on the way.

  If I knew Martine, and I did, she wouldn't be in the house anyway. She'd be in the shed around back. We called it the cookhouse. It was oversized and had various structural improvements, but it was old. The wood foundation was decayed, but the walls were sturdy, the barn door reinforced. It wasn't a bunker by any means, but there were unassuming wards in the area that warned away curiosity. The death mask statue in the lawn, the wrought ironwork above the door, the brick dust lining the threshold. Nothing to see here but your average den of voodoo.

  I paused before the shed. The cookhouse. This was an important place to me and Martine. It was where we practiced. In the middle of a beautiful and sunny Florida day like today? Martine was likely in darkness working on a new powder.

  Before I knocked, I spied the crow sitting on the power line above. Martine already knew I was here. That was okay. I trusted the girl. Maybe trust was a strong word, given my predicament. It was possible Martine had gotten me mixed up in this, but she wouldn't do me intentional harm. That much I knew.

  I busted out our secret knock on the heavy wooden door: a little hand-rapped Doo Doo Brown. What, you don't know Uncle Luke? Maybe it's a Miami thing. "Guess who," I said with forced nonchalance. Was I overcompensating or what?

  I got no answer. A flash of movement drew my eyes to the house. Nothing there, though. The yard was still, the windows empty. I considered the shed for another moment before deciding the house deserved a look. Even voodoo priestesses deserved a break sometimes.

  I carefully moved up the concrete steps. The back door was unlocked. That meant Martine was around, moving between the cookhouse and the house. I entered. The laundry room and adjoining kitchen were quiet. The whole house was.

  "Martine?" I called out.

  I didn't expect an answer this time and didn't get one. A half-full glass of water on the counter caught my notice, though. The contents were still cool. Beside it, a pound of ground meat defrosted in a plastic bag. Nothing disgusting; it was just beef. (Sheesh, necromancers need to eat too.) But it did tell me that someone was around. Today. Now.