THREE

By the time they went back downstairs, all the brujos had dispersed to help search for Miguel. While Lita was back to work in the kitchen, a handful of women remained gathered around Claudia. They were all too happy to look the other way as Maritza and Yadriel bolted out the front door. The brujx cemetery was right in the middle of East Los Angeles, surrounded by a tall wall that concealed it from prying eyes. Yadriel could hear dogs barking in the distance and the thudding bass of reggaeton blaring from a passing car.

They passed by some brujx still looking for Miguel.

“Anything yet?” an older one asked.

“Nothing behind the eastern columbaria,” said another.

“No sign of him near his family’s mausoleums, either,” said the spirit of a young bruja, a worried but determined expression on her faintly transparent face.

“What’s the plan?” Maritza asked, her long legs easily keeping stride with Yadriel. She wove between tombstones, careful to step around flower vases and framed pictures.

“Find Miguel’s portaje, summon his spirit, find out what happened, and release his spirit before Día de Muertos starts,” Yadriel said as they started jogging through rows of brightly painted tombs. “That way, he can come back to celebrate with the rest of the brujx, and I can be in this year’s aquelarre.”

“Uh, there’s a lot of gaps in your plan,” Maritza told him.

“I didn’t say it was a good one.”

“Where are we going to look?”

“His parents’ house.” Clearly the brujx weren’t having any luck finding Miguel in the cemetery, so where he lived was the next logical place to look. The quickest way there was over the abandoned back gate in the oldest part of the cemetery.

The closer they got to the original graveyard, the older the tombs and headstones became. By the time they were in sight of the old church, the cemetery was mostly a collection of simple, cross-shaped tombstones. On most of them, you couldn’t even read the names.

Yadriel and Maritza slowed to a stop. The old church loomed before them.

When the first brujx immigrated to Los Angeles, they had only built a small church and graveyard. But as the community expanded, so did the cemetery, and eventually, the original church was just too small to hold them all. Finally, a couple of decades ago, the new one had been built, along with Yadriel’s home.

In comparison, the old church looked like an ancient ruin. Wild vines had overrun the two brick walls that met behind the church, giving the building a backdrop of dense, shadowy green. There weren’t many street lights nearby, but it was East LA, where the sun never seemed to set. Hazy pollution and city lights washed everything in an orange glow, even in the middle of the night.

The church itself was made of a variety of differently shaped and colored stones, all patched together with clay. There was a small bell tower on the roof, directly above the wooden door, that didn’t seem to house an actual bell anymore. A small wrought iron fence about waist-high surrounded the church. A few headstones lined the inner graveyard.

“Mira, there.” Yadriel nudged Maritza and pointed to the back wall. There was a spot through the veil of ivy where the old entrance to the cemetery was located. Yadriel couldn’t help but grin as he jogged around the edge of the fence to the gate.

“See?” Yadriel shoved a fistful of ivy out of the way. The iron bars towered over them. Two handles met at a very sturdy-looking lock meant to keep non-brujx out, and their secrets safe. “Shortcut!”

Maritza let out a low whistle. “Good thing I’m not in a skirt,” she grumbled to herself before wedging her foot onto a crossbar and hoisting herself up.

Yadriel tightened the strap on his backpack, ready to climb up after her, when he got the feeling someone was behind him. It wasn’t an all-at-once realization, more like a slow creeping on the back of his neck. Yadriel turned, but there was only the old church and graves. The hum of traffic and the far-off sound of a car alarm drifted from the distance.

With a shake of his head, Yadriel turned back to the gate. He needed to focus on the task at hand. He gripped the ornate handle to pull himself up, but as soon as he applied pressure, it turned.

He scrambled out of the way as the gate swung open. Maritza yelped. Yadriel clamped a hand over his mouth, laughter leaping from his throat as Maritza nearly toppled off. When the gate groaned to a stop, she was halfway up and holding on for dear life.

“It was unlocked?” she hissed angrily through the ivy, her face pressed between the bars.

“Guess so?” Barely contained chuckles shook Yadriel’s chest, but his brow furrowed. He examined the lock, jiggling the handle up and down. “Wait, why is it unlocked?”

The brujx went to great lengths to keep outsiders from getting into their cemetery.

Maritza landed next to Yadriel, a little less than graceful. “Some idiot probably forgot to lock it up,” she grumbled, bottom lip jutting into a scowl.

“But why would anyone even use this gate?” Yadriel asked. People were supposed to come in or out of the cemetery only at the main gate by his family’s house.

Maritza turned to him, arms folded across her chest, an expertly lined eyebrow arching. “Uh, you mean aside from sneaking out in the middle of the night?”

Yadriel threw her a withering look. “But—”

A chill dropping down his spine sucked the breath out of Yadriel’s lungs.

He and Maritza spun toward the abandoned church at the same time. Yadriel’s eyes skipped across the windows, half expecting to see someone staring out at him, but they were just black, empty cutouts in the wall of stones.

“Did you feel that?” Maritza asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

Yadriel nodded, unable to pull his eyes away from the church, afraid to blink and miss something. The hair on the back of his neck prickled and goose bumps ran down his arms.

Maritza shifted closer to his side. “Is it a spirit?”

“I don’t know,” he murmured. “It doesn’t seem quite right…”

It was normal to feel spirits: the cemetery was crawling with them, after all. It became background noise, kind of like the hum of Los Angeles traffic; after being around it long enough, you stopped noticing.

But this feeling was something else. It was an odd tingling, one that felt like the presence of a spirit but also pricked at that certain spot in his head, suggesting pain.

“Is it Miguel?” Yadriel wondered, squinting as he tried to latch on to what he was sensing.

“I’m going to go check it out,” he told Maritza, heading for the church. Even if it wasn’t Miguel, whoever it was—a spirit or the living—might be in trouble.

“If I’m a brujo, then it’s my responsibility to help lost spirits cross over, right?” he said over his shoulder as he hoisted himself over the small fence.

Maritza didn’t look so sure, but she followed him anyway.

Yadriel searched the leaning headstones, trying to catch sight of movement, or a clue, or anything as they crept toward the old building. The tingling sensation was now a steady buzzing under his skin, like when he got phantom sensations of his phone going off in his pocket.

“This place kind of gives me the creeps,” Maritza whispered at his side, rubbing her arm. “What if it’s haunted?”

Yadriel huffed a laugh. “Of course it’s haunted, this is literally a cemetery full of spirits,” he said, trying to use sarcasm to calm his own nerves.

Maritza punched his arm. “I mean like a monster or something.”

“There’s no such thing as monsters.” Yadriel went to one of the tall windows, but, even after wiping at it with his sleeve, he still couldn’t see anything but blackness inside.

Maritza stopped and stared at him, wide-eyed. “You didn’t just say that—did you really just say that?” she demanded before throwing her arms in the air. “That’s classic start-of-a-horror-movie dialogue you just threw out into the universe!”

“Oh my God, you are so dramatic,” Yadriel told her. “I’m going to check it out,” he said, more to himself than anything. “You can wait out here alone or go inside with me,” he told Maritza.

He got all the way to the front steps of the church before he heard Maritza cuss under her breath and chase after him.

The wooden door to the church was dark and warped. Yadriel crept up the steps, barely catching himself from stepping on a long, rusty nail. He swept a few more scattered nails to the side with his shoe and noticed some boards in a stack to the left.

He tried the door handle, and it turned easily under his grip. He lifted his eyebrows at Maritza, and she scowled back. With effort, he pulled the door open. The wood groaned as it dragged over stone.

Through the doorway, darkness yawned into the depths of the church. The odors of dust, wet soil, and mildew tickled his nose. Before Yadriel could dig the lantern out of his backpack, Maritza flicked on her flashlight. Yadriel’s fingers brushed against the cool steel of his portaje and he pulled it out. The weight of it in his hand was reassuring. If there was a malevolent spirit haunting the old church, he would need his portaje to release it.

And if it was a criminal on the lam, well, it’d come in handy for that, too.

“After you, fearless brujo,” Maritza said with a grand gesture.

Yadriel cleared his throat and, with lifted chin, went inside.

The lantern doused everything in a cool blue light. The beam of Maritza’s flashlight swept back and forth between several pews that stretched toward the front of the church. When Yadriel closed the door behind them, it became oddly quiet. The heavy stone muffled the constant thrum of noise that came with living in the city.

Yadriel tried to ignore the strange pressure in his chest, like someone had tied a string to his ribs and was pulling him farther into the church.

A carpet ran down the aisle. At one point, it had probably been red, but time had turned it coppery brown. Lancet windows lined the walls, set in intricate molding. Wooden beams arched high into the apex of the ceiling where the light of the lantern couldn’t reach.

“I haven’t been here in ages,” Maritza said, her voice uncharacteristically soft as they moved between the pews.

“Me either.”

Up ahead, several glass prayer candles winked in the blue light from the altar. “Not since your mom caught us playing hide-and-seek and we got grounded for being ‘disrespectful,’” he added.

Maritza laughed fondly. “Oh, yeah, I forgot about that,” she said, her beam of light now focused on a door to the left of the apse. An identical one stood to the right.

“If Bahlam appears and drags us down to Xibalba, I’m going to be pissed,” Maritza hissed.

Yadriel rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I’m sure Bahlam, the jaguar god of the underworld, is hanging out in this old church, waiting for a couple of teenagers to—”

The feeling in Yadriel’s chest tugged more urgently, cutting off his words.

Something dark stood in the middle of the altar, but Yadriel couldn’t quite make it out.

He nudged Maritza. “What’s that?”

“What’s wh—”

The flashlight’s beam swept to the altar. Hollowed eyes stared back at them.

“Santa Muerte,” Maritza gritted through her teeth.

A semicircle of dusty candles in ornate golden holders stood at various heights. In the center stood a figure in a dark shroud. The skeleton was covered in a black robe. The linen material was moth-eaten, and gold thread accented the hems and sleeves in lacy patterns.

Yadriel only realized Maritza was gripping his arm when she let go.

Uneasy relief had Yadriel chuckling as he grinned over at her. “You’re real jumpy tonight.”

That got him two swift punches to the arm.

He leaped out of her reach. “She’s just the original Lady Death from when this place was first built,” Yadriel said, lifting the lantern to cast the lady in bluish light. It was an older representation, one that incorporated the more ancient symbols. A very real scythe was held in one hand, and a clay orb rested in her upturned palm.

The skeleton itself was smooth and yellowing. Her jaw was open wide, and she was missing a few teeth. Yadriel wondered if they were real bones and she was an actual skeleton.

But he was distracted by the headdress she wore. Layers of spotted-owl feathers made up the smaller inner semicircle. These were sewn together and fastened with small plates of gold in the shape of crescent moons, almost like buttons. The feathers layered under the owl’s were the unmistakable plumage of the sacred quetzal bird. They were an iridescent green with hints of blue, like peacock feathers but twice as vibrant.

“Why would they just leave her here?” Maritza asked from somewhere behind him.

“I don’t think she was abandoned.” Yadriel shrugged, gently brushing cobwebs from Lady Death’s shoulder. “I think this church is just her home.”

He found himself smiling. He liked this classic version best.

Yadriel moved in closer, and he could feel energy swarming beneath his feet, like standing on a geyser, water rushing just below ground.

“Do you feel that, too?” Maritza asked.

He nodded. “It’s stronger in here,” he said. Whatever spirit had led them here was close.

Yadriel took a step back, and something crunched under his shoe. Hopping to the side, he found a silver chain with a small pendant lying on the dusty floor.

Maritza moved in. “What’s that?”

“I think it’s a necklace,” Yadriel murmured, setting the lantern on the ground.

Carefully, he picked it up. As soon as his fingers made contact, a shiver rolled through his body. He held it up to the light. A medal hung from the chain, barely larger than his thumbnail. The edge of the medal read SAN JUDAS TADEO across the top, and RUEGA POR NOSOTROS along the bottom. In the center stood a man wearing long robes with a book held against his chest and a staff in his hand.

The medal was in bad need of cleaning. The silver was tarnished, but it certainly wasn’t old enough to have been abandoned in the old church all this time. Only the raised form of St. Jude himself was bright silver, as if it had been polished by someone rubbing their thumb against it over and over.

Yadriel reached for the medal, and as soon as his fingers touched the cool silver, electricity flooded through his veins. He sucked in a sharp breath. Something pulsed under his feet in rhythm with the thudding of his heart.

“What’s wrong?” Maritza demanded as Yadriel tried to catch his breath.

“It’s a tether,” he said, and a spike of adrenaline made him feel light-headed.

Once a spirit was attached to a tether, they couldn’t venture very far from it, which was why things like haunted houses existed, but there weren’t many stories about a single ghost who roamed an entire city. It was only when the spirits were free of their earthly bindings that a brujo could release them and help them pass peacefully to their eternal rest.

Yadriel had never actually held a spirit’s tether before. They were incredibly powerful. Some of the brujx claimed mishandling a spirit’s tether would get you cursed.

But Yadriel had never heard of anyone ever actually getting possessed, and he had no intention of disrespecting this tether.

“But it’s not Miguel’s, that’s not his portaje,” Maritza said, reaching out as if to touch it before thinking better.

“It could be Miguel’s,” Yadriel tried to reason, his hope of finding his cousin fighting against logic. He squeezed the medal in his hand. Warmth spread through his palm and up his arm.

He turned to Maritza with a smile. “There’s only one way to find out.”

Maritza gave him a skeptical look.

“I have to try—what if Miguel’s spirit got tethered to this instead of his portaje?” he said, twisting the chain between his fingers.

“It might be attached to someone who’s gone maligno,” Maritza said, casting a pointed look around the dilapidated church.

“Then it’s a good thing I’ve got this, isn’t it?” Yadriel said, pulling out his portaje.

Maritza eyed the dagger but then grinned. “All right, brujo, work your magic.”

The rush of excitement made Yadriel feel giddy as he knelt before Lady Death. Maybe it was the feel of the dagger in his hand or the magic he now knew flowed through his veins, but for someone who usually erred on the side of caution, Yadriel felt recklessly brave.

He dug into his backpack and pulled out the clay bowl. Quickly, he poured in the rest of the small tequila bottle and some chicken blood, then grabbed a box of matches. He stood and tried to take a deep breath, but he was too excited, practically buzzing. His palms were sweaty, making it difficult to light the match, but it finally caught.

He glanced over at Maritza, and she nodded encouragingly.

Yadriel had seen his father summon a spirit. He knew what to do and how to do it. He just needed to say the words.

The flame inched toward Yadriel’s fingers. There was no time left to second-guess.

He held out his arm, the medal hanging from the chain looped around his hand. It glinted in the dim light.

“Te—” Yadriel cleared his throat, trying to breathe around the lump that had formed. “¡Te invoco, espíritu!”

He dropped the match into the bowl. For a second, it sizzled in the blood and alcohol before there was an explosion of heat and golden light. Yadriel sprang back, choking on the smoke.

The fire in the bowl burned calmly, casting orange light over a boy. He was doubled over on his hands and knees before the statue of Lady Death, clutching his chest.

Yadriel could hardly believe his eyes. “It worked!”

The spirit’s face was screwed up tight in a grimace, his fingers knotted into the material of his shirt. He wore a hooded black leather jacket over a white tee, faded jeans, and a pair of Converse.

“That’s not Miguel,” Maritza tried to whisper, but she’d never had a very good inside voice.

Yadriel groaned and dragged a hand over his face. On the bright side, he had actually summoned a real-life spirit.

On the not-so-bright side, he had summoned the wrong one.

“Obviously,” Yadriel hissed back, unable to look away from the boy as he gasped for breath, the muscles in his neck straining. He had that translucent quality around the edges, like all spirits. The boy’s eyes swung to them. He had a handsome but very angry face, his grimace now more of a sneer.

“Well, at least it’s not a maligno spirit?” Maritza offered.

The boy staggered to his feet, upright but unsteady. “Who the hell are you?” he snarled, dark eyes blazing, sharp as obsidian.

“Uhhh” was Yadriel’s unhelpful reply, suddenly unable to form a coherent sentence.

“Where am I?” the boy barked, head tilting back as he took in their surroundings. “Am I in a church?” His attention swung back to Yadriel and Maritza with an accusing glare. “Who let me in a church?”

Familiarity prickled at the back of Yadriel’s mind, racing to place his strong features and booming voice.

“Uh—well—you see,” Yadriel stammered, not really sure how to explain their situation, but he wasn’t given the chance to finish.

The boy’s eyes snagged on the necklace still dangling from Yadriel’s hand. “Hey!”

Yadriel saw the anger swell, hunching his shoulders and propelling him forward. The boy stomped up to him. “That’s mine—”

He reached out to snatch the necklace, but his hand went right through it. He tried again, and when his hand slid through it a second time, he froze, blinked, and waved it back and forth.

The boy’s eyes went wide, and he let out a strangled shout, stumbling back. “Wh-what—” he stammered, looking between his hand and Yadriel and Maritza, “the hell is this?”

“Wow, this is really awkward,” Yadriel said, scratching at the back of his neck.

Maritza seemed less worried. “Well, there’s no denying you’re a brujo now,” she said, circling the boy with keen interest.

He scowled at her. “Who are you, and what are you doing with my necklace?” he demanded, looking to Yadriel for answers.

“Well, uh, I used it to summon you,” Yadriel tried.

The boy arched a thick eyebrow. “Summon me?”

“Yeah, we thought it belonged to Miguel.” What was the gentlest way to tell someone they were dead?

“Our cousin,” Maritza specified.

The boy didn’t seem at all interested in who Miguel was. “It’s mine,” he insisted with a growl. “It’s got my name on it, see?” he said, fingers curling in demand.

Yadriel turned the medal over to find that a name had indeed been engraved on the back. He blinked. “Oh.” The delicate cursive letters read JULIAN DIAZ. Yadriel’s eyes went wide, snapping back to the boy’s face. “Oh.”

Julian Diaz. He knew Julian Diaz, or rather knew of him. They went to high school together. It was a large school, with more than twenty-five hundred students, but Julian had a bit of a reputation. He ditched a lot, but when he was roaming the halls it was hard to not notice him. He had the sort of presence that demanded everyone’s attention without needing to ask. Julian was loud, rarely took things seriously, and was known for getting into trouble. He was hard to miss, attractive in a severe sort of way with that diamond-shaped face. He had a narrow, stubborn chin and a sharp voice that always seemed to cut through every other one in the quad.

“What do you mean by ‘summon’?” Julian asked again. He was staring at his transparent palms, turning them over as if trying to solve a puzzle.

“Do you happen to know how you got here?” Yadriel tried in an attempt at being tactful.

Julian glared. “No!” he snapped. “All I remember was walking down the street with my friends…” He looked around, as if trying to find them in the cold church. “Then something—someone—” He frowned. “Happened? I dunno, I just remember getting knocked over, maybe I got jumped or something.” Julian rubbed absently at the same point on his chest. “Then the next thing I knew, I was in this church with you two.”

Three beats passed before Julian’s eyes suddenly went wide. “I died, didn’t I?” The fierceness was gone, leaving his voice small and weak. “Am I dead?”

Yadriel winced and gave a small nod. “Yeah…”

Julian stumbled back a step, his body wavering in and out of existence for a moment, like a camera trying to focus. “Oh, Jesus.” He pressed both hands against his face. “My brother is gonna kill me,” he groaned against his palms.

“Looks like someone already beat him to it,” Maritza said, reaching out to poke her finger right through Julian’s elbow.

“Quit it!” he snapped, wrenching his arm away. Julian turned his scowl to Yadriel again. “So, what, I’m a ghost now?”

Yadriel didn’t know what to make of him. Julian didn’t sound angry or dismayed. If anything, he was annoyed, as if this were just an inconvenience.

“Spirit,” Yadriel corrected.

“What’s the difference?” Julian asked, flapping his hand at Maritza as she hovered like a fly.

“Well, I don’t know if there’s a difference,” Yadriel ventured, fidgeting with the necklace in his hands. “I think maybe ‘ghost’ is sort of … derogatory?”

Julian stared at him, his mouth in a hard line, an eyebrow raised.

“We use the word ‘spirit,’” Yadriel supplied.

“Who’s ‘we’?”

“Oh, right. That’s Maritza—” he said, pointing at her.

Maritza wiggled her fingers in a wave.

Julian took another step away from her.

“And I’m Yadriel. And, uh…” Yadriel dug around in his brain for the right words. He’d never had to explain who brujx were and what they did, on account of it being a huge, sacred secret they devoted their lives to keeping.

Whoops.

“We’re brujx—brujos can see spirits, and uh, help them cross over to the afterlife,” Yadriel explained.

“And brujas can heal people,” Maritza added.

“So, you’re witches,” Julian said with a dubious look.

Yadriel shook his head. “No.”

“’Cause you’re dressed like a witch.”

Maritza snorted.

Yadriel looked down at himself. He was wearing black jeans, his favorite combat boots, and an oversize black hoodie. The burning bowl of fire in front of him and discs in his ears probably weren’t helping. His cheeks burned red.

“We’re brujx,” he corrected.

Julian frowned. “That literally means witch—”

“No, ‘witch’ is—”

“Derogatory?” Julian guessed, an amused smirk tugging the corner of his mouth.

Now it was Yadriel’s turn to scowl.

Julian looked over at Maritza. “So, you can heal people?”

“Oh, no, I don’t heal,” she replied casually. “You gotta use animal blood, and I’m vegan.”

“Right.” He turned back to Yadriel. “And you can apparently summon ghosts and send them to the afterlife, whatever that means.”

“Yes—Well, no—” Yadriel fumbled, trying to explain himself. “I haven’t done the releasing part yet—”

“Wooow,” Julian crooned, head bobbing in a nod as he looked between the two of them. “You guys are really shitty witches.”

Annoyance flared in Yadriel. “Look, this is my first time, okay?”

Julian blinked slowly at him, unimpressed.

“Spirits, like you, sometimes get stuck between the land of the living and the land of the dead,” he tried to explain.

Julian rolled his eyes. “Uh-huh.”

“Spirits get attached to a tether”—Yadriel held up the necklace—“which anchors them to the land of the living, so, to help you cross over to the other side, I just need to destroy the—”

“No, no way!” Julian shook his head and waved his arms. “My pops gave me that necklace!” He tried to snatch it from Yadriel, but, again, he was left with a fistful of empty air.

Maritza chuckled.

“No—just listen.” Yadriel brought out his portaje.

Julian scoffed, which was not how Yadriel thought any sane person should react to getting a knife pulled on them.

“What are you going to do, stab me?” Julian’s laugh was sharp as he tapped a finger to his temple. “Already dead, remember?”

“No, I’m not gonna stab you!” Though, to be honest, it was more tempting by the minute. “I use it to destroy the tie keeping you here—”

Julian opened his mouth to argue, but Yadriel pressed on.

“I’m not going to destroy the necklace! It’ll sever the tie anchoring you to the necklace, and you can go to the afterlife and be at peace, okay?” he snapped.

“Yeah, nah.” Julian squared his shoulders. “I’m not cool with that.”

Yadriel groaned. Of course the first spirit he summoned wouldn’t just be released willingly. No, he had to get stuck with one who had an attitude problem.

“Ghosts need to take care of unfinished business before they cross over, right? Well, I’ve got unfinished business,” Julian said, brow furrowed. “I wanna check on my friends. They were with me when I died. I wanna make sure they’re okay.”

His face twisted between annoyance and something that could’ve been worry. “And maybe they know who got me,” he added as an afterthought.

“I really need to do this, and, like, now,” Yadriel said. He didn’t feel good about it, but he didn’t have much of a choice, either. “We still need to find Miguel, and, besides, if you stay here like this for too long, you’ll turn all dark and violent and start hurting people.”

He thought that was a perfectly reasonable explanation, but Julian crossed his arms over his chest. “Nope.”

Yadriel looked to Maritza for help, but she just shrugged her shoulders.

“Look, I didn’t want it to come to this,” Yadriel told Julian. Drawing himself up, he gripped his dagger in his hand. “We don’t like releasing spirits by force—”

A thick eyebrow quirked. “I thought you said you’ve never done this before?”

“But you’re leaving me no choice.” Yadriel held the necklace higher in the air.

Julian remained where he stood, defiant and unmoving, but his wide eyes cut back and forth between his necklace and Yadriel’s face.

“¡Muéstrame el enlace!” Yadriel called out. His portaje glowed bright, filling the church with a warm blaze that made all three of them squint. A golden thread sparked to life in the air, starting from the pendant of St. Jude and ending at the center of Julian’s chest. He tried to sidestep it, but the line followed.

Yadriel inhaled a deep breath, ready to say the sacred words. “¡Te libero a la otra vida!”

Julian squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for impact.

Yadriel sliced his portaje through the air, aiming directly for the golden thread. But, instead of severing it, the edge of his blade caught on the line. The dagger vibrated in his hand, and small sparks flew from where they met. The thread didn’t even so much as bend.

Out of the corner of his eye, Yadriel saw Julian’s posture relax. He could sense the obnoxious smirk on his face.

But he wasn’t giving up. Yadriel raised his arm and tried slicing through it again. The force of its sudden stop jolted up his arm, into his shoulder. He tried sawing at it, but all it did was send more sparks flying.

The light of his portaje dimmed until it was back to gray steel. Disappointment dropped heavily into Yadriel’s stomach. “Shit.”

“Man, you really suck at this,” Julian said, looking entirely pleased with himself.

Yadriel turned to Maritza. His heart hammered in his ears, and his throat felt like it was closing up on him.

The sudden aching in his chest threatened to swallow him whole.

“¡Mira!” Maritza was immediately at his side, her voice calm and soothing as she gripped his arms. “Don’t worry about it, this isn’t your fault!” She jerked her head in Julian’s direction. “He’s probably too bull-headed to force to cross over—”

“Hey!”

Maritza ignored Julian. “Just like Tito, remember?”

“Maybe,” Yadriel mumbled, shame hot on his cheeks. Maybe that was the explanation, but what if it wasn’t?

“Look,” Julian called, taking a step forward. “I’m willing to look past this and cut you a deal.”

Yadriel and Maritza turned to him.

He looked much more relaxed now, his attention glued to the golden thread attached to his chest. “If you help me find my friends and make sure they’re okay, I will willingly let you do your witchy thing and send me on my way to the afterlife or whatever.” He plucked curiously at the thread. It was already fading away.

Julian glanced up at Yadriel and splayed his palms out at his sides. “Deal?”

Yadriel looked at Maritza. He was already in way over his head, and something told him this wasn’t going to be as easy as Julian made it sound.

“I don’t think we’ve got much of a choice,” Maritza told him.

It was either help Julian and do this on his own, or go to his dad and tell him what happened. Yadriel would get into a boatload of trouble for sneaking around, defying the ways of the brujx, and disrespecting their ancient ways.

And, worse, there was no way they’d agree to let Yadriel be part of the aquelarre.

“Fine,” Yadriel agreed begrudgingly.

A satisfied grin pressed dimples into Julian’s cheeks.

“But you have to do what I say,” Yadriel said, shaking his portaje at Julian before stuffing it into his backpack.

“You got it, patrón.”

“I’ll come back for you in the morning—” Yadriel started, moving to place the medal on the altar with Lady Death.

“Wait, what?” Julian’s eyes went wide. “You can’t just ditch me here!”

“I can’t take you home, someone will see you!” Yadriel told him.

“I’m not letting you abandon me in a haunted church—”

“It’s not haunted!”

“If I’m in here, and I’m a ghost, then it’s haunted!” Julian shot back.

Yadriel growled. “That’s not—”

“And it’s creepy!” Julian thrust his hands toward Lady Death.

“She’s not creepy!” Yadriel argued, feeling defensive. “Maritza, help me out here—”

He turned to her, but Maritza stood off to the side, an amused look on her face. “He’s got a point. You did raise him from the dead, so he’s kinda your responsibility now.”

When Yadriel spluttered indignantly, she continued. “I mean, it’s probably safer if you can keep an eye on him, don’t you think?” she suggested in a tone that was supposed to be nonchalant. But Yadriel knew better.

Yadriel glared at her, his cheeks burning. He squeezed the necklace in his hand, trying to come up with a better reason to leave Julian in the old church than not wanting to hide a hot boy in his room.

A hot dead boy.

Yadriel groaned. He couldn’t believe he was going to agree to this. “You have to hide from my family, okay?”

Julian’s face lit with triumph.

Yadriel fastened the necklace around his neck. In order to take Julian with him, he needed to take his tether along, too. “They can’t know I’m sneaking around helping out a spirit.” It would be tricky, but as long as he didn’t linger around the other brujx long enough for them to sense Julian, they could maybe get away with it. And he didn’t much feel like spending quality time with his family anyway.

“Got it.” Julian sounded sure enough, but his eyes snagged on his St. Jude medal around Yadriel’s neck, a deep crease between his brows. “Wait—” He gave a small shake of his head. “How do I hide from them if they can see ghosts?”

Yadriel blinked. “Uh…” He looked to Maritza for an answer.

She threw her arms up in the air. “Don’t look at me! I’m just a shitty witch who can’t heal nobody, remember?” Maritza turned down the aisle and waltzed toward the door.

Yadriel pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes. Typical.

A cold chill suddenly ran up Yadriel’s right side, making him shiver. He opened his eyes to find Julian right next to him. If the spirit were alive, their shoulders would’ve been touching. Julian was taller than him, enough to have to angle his chin down when they were standing so close. He had a very serious look on his face.

Yadriel took a step back, pushing down the fluttering in his stomach. “What?”

“Can ghosts eat?” Julian pressed his hand to his stomach. “’Cause I’m, like, staaarving, man.”

“Oh my God.” Yadriel slung his backpack over his shoulder and stomped after Maritza.

“Hey, I’m seriouuus!” Julian whined.

Julian went on ahead, and Yadriel moved to close the door behind them, but something made him hesitate.

He still had a strange feeling in his gut. A nagging sensation, like he’d forgotten something. The ground below his feet still felt charged. He stared down the aisle to where Lady Death was little more than a black smudge in the dark church once again. Yadriel stood there, listening and searching the shadows, but all he could hear was Julian complaining about wanting a cheeseburger while Maritza pretended to gag.

Yadriel waited a moment longer, but when nothing happened, he closed the door behind himself and jogged through the tombstones back to Julian and Maritza.