Chapter 19 Bloody Afterlife
BLOODY AFTERLIFE
Artur
“Cesar, I think we should get you out of here.” I whispered. Elena stood on my other side. She had gone pale.
“Something isn’t right. She has an aura. The dead don’t have auras. There’s a ring of dark red around her, and patches of grey and orange. But what’s worse is the velvety black.”
“I don’t know what that means,” I stared at the seer.
“Dark red is rage, grey is negativity, orange is impulsiveness, but the black—” Elena shook her head as her face contorted, “—velvety black is a sign of absorption, like she’s feeding.”
Snaky ribbons of writhing black smoke continued to fill the area. Mistress Magdalena twisted as if she was in pain.
Luana’s face appeared before us.
“I believe you have one more thing that belongs to us. Thank you so much for keeping it safe. Although how it ended up in your hands—” Luana smiled again, then shrugged.
The head of the Hurtado clan thrust her arm into Cesar’s robes and deftly dragged out the cracked, black tourmaline crystal I had sold Cesar.
As her clawed fingers wrapped around the stone, she gave us a knowing smile, filled with derision and malice.
She disappeared into the crowd, which now were starting to panic as parents began shuffling their young ones away. Those gathered directly around the oracle though were still frozen in place.
We were getting bumped repeatedly by the unwieldy crowd, which kept my focus keeping Cesar upright and standing, and not toppled over. Elena tapped me on the shoulder and pointed back to the Hurtados.
Luana had climbed up onto the platform where Magdalena had been placed on display. Prying the corpse’s mouth open she stuck the crystal between the rotting teeth, or what remained of them.
The rock glittered in the moonlight, and if I didn’t know any better I would have sworn the cadaver clamped onto the gem as hard as it possibly could.
As Luana stepped away, a column of swirling smoke rose in front of the Magdalena.
It coalesced, turning at first into what looked like a dark, long cloak, covering the shoulders of a tall man.
A rotting, desiccated hand, with bony black digits poked out from the ghostly shroud, reached around, grabbed the loose material, and flung it outward.
As the mantle dropped, Ephraim stood in full black wedding suit regalia, proudly standing before his resurrected bride.
With a snapping maw, he latched onto the second half of the crystal, and as the two undead sets of lips touched, an undulating wave of dread rolled out into the crowd. It looked like rippling energy as it rolled away from the power couple.
Then a second wave dropped, stronger than the first.
Their kiss intensified. Two dead lovers, reunited after decades of being separated.
A third wave.
And then the rock clenched between their teeth snapped.
Ephraim swallowed his half. Magdalena did the same with her own.
A fourth wave of energy erupted out from the couple.
But this time, it was as if a bomb had been set off. Silent, but powerful, filled with malice and death. Shock waves ploughed through the crowds.
As the energy hit each of the catrinas, the recently reanimated went wild. Restraints broke, locks busted open, and chains ruptured.
The dead were loose, and they were angry.
One man who stood near his family’s catrina found himself under attack as the corpse latched onto his neck. Blood spurted violently as his carotid became severed from the vicious bite.
Another festival participant was being ripped apart by two other reanimated.
The mob became frantic as a stampede of people attempted to escape what was certain to be a massacre the likes of which our city had never seen.
I searched the crowds for Tom and his minions, but they had retreated.
He stood across the street elevated by the stairs of City Hall.
Apparently neither him or his crew had been affected by Magdalena and Ephraim’s power burst. He frowned, but waved once, then turned his back and shuffled off into the night.
He wasn’t abandoning us.
He was protecting us.
How he knew to leave before the dead became unhinged was something I would have to ask him at a later time, but for now I was thankful we only had a hundred or so catrinas that had become loose.
And they were running amok, senseless and wicked, deranged and bent on destruction. Reaching out for anything alive, they ripped at exposed skin and attempted to rend the flesh of anyone foolish enough to get close.
“We gotta get out of here.” I screamed at Cesar and Elena.
As we bobbed and dashed our way through the crowd, jostled and turned in every direction, I glanced back to see Ephraim and Magdalena ascending above the crowd, ribbons of black smoke, lace, and tattered shroud dangling like streamers below their feet.
Mistress Magdalena yelled out words that made my blood run cold.
“Family bonds and history ties, the dead cannot exist without sacrifices. Give to me what you need to survive, like blood to a stone, what’s yours is now mine.”
“Oh, my gods, she’s just uttered the death curse.” Elena stood still, slack jawed.
“I don’t understand!”
“Now her aura makes sense. You’re right, we have to get out of here. She’s going to feed on the life energy of those around her. She’s gathering power.”
I started pushing both Cesar and Elena away, but it was hard to take your eyes off the spectacle.
The gathered crowd at the base of the dais nearest the black oracle, and the Hurtado clan amassed at the feet of their long dead matriarch, all suddenly became rigid with their heads thrown back.
Blood poured out from their gaping mouths and swirled around Ephraim and Magdalena.
Little by little, the wight and the witch drained their onlookers and their clan dry of both soul and bodily fluids.
As they consumed one body, it dropped, crumpling in on itself like a house of cards.
The Hurtados were quickly dwindling in number, but Ephraim and Magdalena were becoming whole again.
Flesh became plump, skin tones regained a lively hue, and the twinkle in Ephraim and Magdalena’s eyes returned.
“We have to leave. Now.” I said, fearful I was next. I may have been disowned by the family, but my genetics were still theirs. Maybe we were already too far away? I hoped so. Still, the more separation we could get between them and us, the better.
As I turned to move away, I grabbed Elena by the sleeve and reached out for Cesar.
He was gone.
Frantically, I searched the crowd. Masses of screaming people ran in every direction.
Fear was the only thing I saw in their eyes.
Between the bumps of being run into, and shoves to get out of people’s way, I couldn’t stand still long enough to adequately survey the crowd beyond what was happening directly in front of me.
I couldn’t see Cesar and that made the fear in me rise.
I had to get away from where the Hurtados were rapidly being depleted of life, but I also now was desperate to find Cesar.
Elena pulled me until we were on the edge of the Malecón where there were less people. It was a dangerous position as we were close to the drop off of the sea walk. Waves crashed below us upon large boulders used to quell the sea’s constant battering and coastal erosion.
“There!” Elena pointed.
Cesar was stalking a reanimated corpse, the young woman who had taken a marigold from a child, now had a man clutched between her talon-like fingers and was ripping chunks of flesh off from his exposed arm.
Cesar plunged his hand through her back, reached up into her ribcage then extracted his hand. His fist was full.
Dried burnt herbs spilled out from between his fingers as did a handheld mirror. He dropped it to the ground and then stomped on it, shattering the glass.
The corpse collapsed and ceased all movement.
Then Cesar was off to the next unrestrained reanimated catrina.
“He’s ripping out the memory anchors.” Elena watched in horror.
“How would he know about them?” I asked, knowing that his dementia had wiped the Cesar I knew away along with all his knowledge of being a bone witch.
“He’s not all gone, then. He still remembers some things.” Elena smiled. “We have to help him.”
“We need to get away from Ephraim and Magdalena! And besides, there are at least a hundred Catrinas.” I yelled at her above the cries of the frenzied mob.
“The three of us can’t possibly subdue all of them!
” Once again, my past caught up with me, thinking there was no hope.
No possible way I could make a difference.
“We can’t just let him do it all. Come on.” Elena grabbed me and yanked us toward Cesar.
But before we could get to him one of the catrinas, dripping in fresh blood, tackled into my man sending him sprawling to the ground.
I dashed over to where Cesar lay pinned. But the swarm of people trying to escape was still overwhelming and reaching my man proved to be a chore. As I got closer I could see every jerky movement as he dodged each attempt of the corpse to try and gnaw his face off.
My gut writhed with anxiety, fear, and an impending sense of loss. The resurrected undead was overpowering Cesar.
Elena was still clutching my sleeve, her nails digging into my arm as we watched in horror.
“Cesar!” I yelled out.
My shoulder grew hot.
I could feel the hummingbird skeleton shift, then slither under my skin.
“Artur, what are you doing?”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re glowing!”
“I need to save Cesar! Help me get to him. We’re so close.”
With a new-found strength, call it desperation, Elena and I tackled, pushed, and shoved our way toward our bone witch.
It seemed to take forever, but as we got closer, the burn in my shoulder from the embedded skeleton intensified.
We got within a meter as the resurrected catrina who still straddled Cesar. She punched him in the face, then whipped her head down toward his throat, teeth bared.
“No!” Involuntarily I threw my hands out, as if from my position I could have prevented the cadaver from ripping Cesar’s neck out.
That’s when Cesar started to glow as well.
Just like Ephraim and Magdalena, who had hovered above the Hurtados, Cesar and I were lifted, swirled and bathed in radiant lights that shimmered yellow and pink.
Sparks flew – the little blue ones that had danced across my skin the first time Cesar and I had touched.
The catrina corpse fell off of him and plummeted to the ground head first. Despite her skull being caved in, she crawled away.
Magic bound Cesar and I together, and as we spun around each other like the moon circles the earth, we got close enough for me to reach out and grab my man, bring him toward me, and embrace him in a bear hug that allowed all my emotions to rise up, and out.
He was safe. I was with him. That’s all that mattered.
“Cesar, your mind may not remember me, but I cannot let you go. Not now. Not ever.”
“That’s a funny way to say you love me, Artur.” Cesar whispered as his head nuzzled into the crook of my neck. He squeezed me tight.
At that moment, the two hummingbird halves buried in each of our shoulders pulled themselves out from our skin.
As each half married itself back together, the light around us brightened. The little bird rose from between us with its own fiery glow.
The hummingbird darted above our head then exploded into a swarm of the dashing, long-beaked, shimmering iridescent feathered creatures.
Flying together in a murmuration, hundreds of the tiny creatures flew above the heads of the panicked crowd.
They targeted the catrinas.
The entire flock flew to where several corpses where making bloody work of a captured individual.
They flew into each of the cadavers, then back out.
The reanimated dead were collapsing.
The hummingbirds, our symbol, our bond, were removing the memory anchors.
Catrina after catrina fell as onlookers stopped running becoming fascinated by the display of magic. The Nocturnus participants stood in awe as our accidental soul entwinement spell saved the festival goers from a horrible outcome.
For once in my life my magic didn’t have a bad outcome.
Cesar and I slowly descended back to the cement walkway, but we continued to glow, albeit somewhat diminished.
With shining eyes and a beaming smile, Cesar brushed away a wayward lock of my hair. “Artur Beaulieu, I knew you had it in you. Look at what you created. You saved the night.”
“I believe we did that together.”
Cesar nodded, “I suppose we did.”
He kissed me, deeply, and pressed himself as close as he possibly could against my body.
When he pulled away, Cesar reached out and took each of my hands then found ourselves surrounded by a small group of folks, magical and common stock, all clapping, congratulating us, and touching us in thanks.
I leaned into Cesar and gave him a kiss.
“I do love you, Cesar. It’s been a quick few days. Crazy, and scary, but you had faith in me and treated me like no one else has; with kindness and respect. I am forever grateful and will be yours if you’ll have me.”
“You don’t have to ask me twice.”
“So, maybe we’re now past dating?”
Cesar chuckled, “I think that would be safe to say.”
“I can call you my boyfriend?” I asked.
“You’d better.”
Elena came up to us breathing heavy, “You’ve got to see this!”
She guided us over to where the black oracle had been.
Magdalena and Ephraim were nowhere to be seen.
But a circle of dried out bodies lay in a perfect circle around the dais.
It was difficult to make out any distinguishing features, but I could tell one of the husks was Luana Hurtado by the long black nails that still shone like obsidian.
I shivered.
“Where did Magdalena and Ephraim go?” I asked.
Elena shrugged, but all of us glanced around to make sure she wasn’t waiting somewhere nearby.
“Maybe gone forever?” Cesar said.
“Hopefully, but doubtful.” Elena responded with a cocked eyebrow.