Pepe Losanto had not set foot in the Arena Mexico in over three decades. He’d gotten rid of the red and silver luchador outfit long before that, but he kept the mask. It wasn’t that he was nostalgic, or that he missed being Iron Justice—he’d left the ring at a young age and didn’t regret it. It was superstition; the mask had been a part of him, had been him, and one did not just throw away a thumb or a toe into the garbage.

He kept the mask in a box above the old wardrobe, right by the typewriter—the other part of him, the remains of a journalism career—and Tito’s photograph. Superstition had prevented him from opening the box before he tucked it into his carry-on. But now the duffel bag sat on his lap as the taxi made its way out of the international terminal, and he wanted to unzip it and look at the mask.

Because you always put on the mask before the fight.

Not that there was a fight. Yet. But if La Colorada was willing to spring for a round-trip ticket to Vancouver it was because she needed him, and if she needed him it was ‘cause a big fight was in the cards.

She hadn’t needed no-one, La Colorada. Big and strong and tough as hell. Pepe thought it was cute that she’d married The Canadian Wasp, a hairy little marshmallow, a lightweight with a fondness for poetry. He really was Canadian, though he had the uncanny ability to drink more mezcal than the locals and he swore worse than a verdulero from the Merceded. The only person who could outswear him was La Colorada. Maybe that’s why they’d married.

A faint drizzle was beginning to fall by the time the taxi dropped him at La Colorada’s apartment. She looked old, which he’d expected, and frail, which he’d never imagined.

“Come on over here, big man,” she said, hugging him.

“Leti,” he said, smiling.

“How was the flight?”

“Terrible. I still hate airplanes.”

The inside of the apartment was plastered with posters of wrestlers from the seventies. A glass case with Leti’s old mask and newspaper clippings testified to her numerous matches. On top of a little upright piano sat a bunch of photographs of La Colorada and the Canadian Wasp in their youth, and a few in their old age. “That’s you in that one,” Leti, said pointing at a photo.

Pepe squinted and frowned. It was the whole gang. He saw himself standing in the background, looking young as hell. “I don’t think I even have facial hair there,” he muttered.

“Ah, you were the cutie of the bunch. But Jules was the most handsome.”

“How long has it been?”

“Three years since he passed away. Won’t be too long for me now.”

“Leti. . . .”

“Ah, don’t ‘Leti’ me. You can’t challenge cancer to Mask versus Hair. I’ve lost that match.” She lifted the cap she was wearing and patted her bald head. “We can visit Jules later on. Right now I want to talk to you about the investigation.”

“I warned you, I’m not good at that stuff,” Pepe said.

“What are you talking about? You’re a journalist.”

“I was,” Pepe said. “I retired last year. Besides, I worked for the sports section.”

Leti shook her head. “You don’t get to belittle yourself. You’re a damn good writer.”

“I’m a fat writer,” Pepe said, staring at his younger, fitter self. He was hitting 110 kilos, and even at 6’3” that wasn’t exactly lightweight category.

“Give me that.” Leti snatched the photograph and placed it back on the piano. “I didn’t have you come all the way to Vancouver to wallow. We’ve got work to do. Got ourselves a monster to catch.”

“Wait, let me guess,” Pepe said, pressing his index fingers against his forehead. “Vampire? Aztec Mummy? No . . . Inca Mummy!”

“Don’t mock. Those vampire women were a pickle. They managed to seduce The Whip, remember? A little more, and he would have been a goner.”

“I do remember. Deadly, half-naked vampire women. Good thing I’m gay.”

Leti smiled. She grabbed two folders and placed them on a little table. Pepe sat across from her and opened one, looking through the photographs.

“What am I looking at?” he asked.

“Feet.”

“Well, that’s obvious,” Pepe said. “Why am I looking at feet?”

“They’ve been washing up ‘round Vancouver. Just feet. About a dozen of ‘em in the course of a few years. Then a cartload: fifteen feet during the past seven months.”

“Are they matching pairs?”

“Nope.”

“That’s fifteen people walking around missing a foot.”

“Or dead.”

“So who’s your client? I imagine it’s not one of the owners of the feet.”

“The mother of a young missing man. That’s one of his feet in that folder. She wants us to find who did that to him.”

Pepe picked another of the photos and shook his head. “I have no idea what could’ve done this.”

“I’m not sure who goes ‘round cutting feet off. People are saying the Tcho Tcho are responsible, and Little Tamja is going to go up in flames if we don’t figure out who is the culprit.”

“What’s a Tcho Tcho?” Pepe asked, coughing the word out.

“Southeast Asian people. The USA supported them during the Vietnam War. Guerilla fighters who fought the communists in Laos along with Hmong, Tai Dam, Khmu, and other folks. They came here as refugees in the seventies.”

“Do they have a history of cutting people’s feet?”

“No,” Leti said, standing up and looking for something in her bookcase. She plucked out a book and placed it before Pepe. “Cannibalism.”

“Really?”

“Well, they’re a small group and kept very much to themselves back in Asia. They developed a bit of a reputation. Tales of cannibalism and bizarre cults.”

“Under the Ancient Stars: Oral Histories and Legends of the Tcho Tcho,” Pepe read off the cover of the book. He opened it, landing on a page with a black-and-white photo of a dagger resembling a snake’s head. There was a mask on the next page, curvy lines etched on its surface.

“It’s all in there. Probably nothing more than legends and old wives’ tales, but people are looking for a culprit.”

“And mobs form quickly.”

“It could get pretty bad.”

Pepe remembered that time they had been hunting a soucouyant; everyone thought it was an old bag lady. The hardest part of that adventure was stopping the neighbours from carving the woman a new asshole. Good thing they succeeded: it turned out she wasn’t the witch.

“I’ve got a lot of reading to do,” Pepe said, eyeing the folders and the book wearily.

“You’ve got until tomorrow. We’re meeting with the mom of the kid around noon.”

He pulled a packet of bubblegum from his breast pocket and began chewing.

Bao, the mother of the missing man, lived in Richmond, in a large house that Leti called a “Vancouver special.” Pepe did not know what was special about it. It resembled a shoebox. They sat in the living room of the “special” house and Bao served them ice tea. All around were little framed photographs of the son: standing up in a crib, in a playground, as a lanky teenager, and finally as a young man.

“He was finishing his thesis,” Bao explained as she handed Pepe a glass of tea. “He also had a part-time job. He didn’t have much time to socialize. Any free hours he had, he spent going over his notes or working on the computer.”

“Studying Asian folklore,” Leti added.

“The Tcho Tcho.” Bao made a face and shook her head. “I told him not to. There are stories . . . about demons and such. I am not superstitious, but still . . . why risk it?”

Pepe looked at the ice cubes floating in his tea. He knew enough about things that go bump in the night to agree with the sentiment. “Why was he interested in the Tcho Tcho?” he asked.

“His father, my ex-husband, he is Tcho Tcho. He used to tell Jun stories about his homeland. About his family, his eldest brother, Jaha, who’d brought them to Canada. Jun thought it was a way of getting in touch with his roots. We had not . . . my ex-husband remarried, moved away. It was a way for Jun to find himself and his father’s side of the family.” Bao looked down at her hands, then turned to Leti. “By the way, I found those tapes I was telling you about. Jun left them at his sister’s house. She didn’t even know they were there until she was . . . cleaning up the guest room where Jun stayed. I’ll bring them.”

Bao left the room and returned with a large cardboard box, setting it on the coffee table. Pepe opened the flaps, revealing several dozen cassette tapes and even some old reel-to-reels. He took one reel out and read the label: Session 1: May 13, 1977.

“What are these?” he asked.

“My son found old interviews conducted with Tcho Tcho elders in the university archives when they were moving into a new building and throwing out all kinds of stuff. Jun saw these and kept them.”

“Who did they belong to originally?”

“Some researchers who worked at the university back then. Jun actually spoke to one of them.”

“Ryan Gainseville,” Leti said. “He’s the guy who wrote the book you were looking at yesterday. He was something of a specialist in Tcho Tcho culture. I talked to him a couple of weeks ago, and he asked if we still had the tapes. We would have never found out about them if Ryan hadn’t mentioned them.”

“He wants them back,” Bao added.

“Can I listen to them before we give them to him?” Pepe asked.

“I suppose,” Bao said, staring at the tapes, a hand pressed against the hollow of her throat.

Pepe closed the flaps of the cardboard box.

“What’s that?”

“An e-reader,” Leti said. “I’ve got the boy’s notes and his thesis—whatever he had of it—loaded onto it.”

“Leti, I can barely use e-mail.”

“I’m not printing it out. There’s a lot of notes.”

Pepe sighed and took off his glasses, rubbing the bridge of his nose. He had spent most of the afternoon going through folders and was barely into the second chapter of Under the Ancient Stars. He wasn’t sure he could stomach one more page of myth and folklore. “What did the Ryan guy tell you about Jun?”

“Jun gave him a call a few months back to get some information on Tcho Tcho culture. They were in touch a couple of times. Nothing more.”

“Jun visited the Tcho Tcho in Little Tamja, didn’t he?”

“He went several times,” Leti said. “He seems to have talked to several people there.”

“I should drop by tomorrow morning, see if I can meet some of the people he interviewed.”

“I have therapy at VGH tomorrow.”

“I can go by myself and pick you up when you’re done. I can take the subway,” Pepe said. If he could get around a city of more than twenty million people, he could get around Vancouver.

“It’s called the Skytrain.” She sat down, frowning. She was wearing a light grey sweater but he could tell she was cold. Leti rubbed her arms and shook her head. “Fine,” she said. “Go see what you can dig up and we’ll meet in the evening.”

Pepe nodded. He wanted to pat Leti’s hand but he knew she would interpret such a gesture as pity. He smiled, instead.

On the Skytrain, Pepe sat with the backpack in his lap, the mask stuffed in a side pocket. He felt like putting it on but knew that wouldn’t go well in Vancouver. It had been different back in Mexico City. The seventies were full of crimefighting luchadores. Their pictures were published in the fanzines, and some of the most famous fighters starred in their own films.

Pepe had never been one of the famous ones, but he’d done all right. By eighteen he was a preliminarista. He worked as a tecnico, a good guy, and toured with wrestlers like La Colorada and Dozen Faces. They fought mummies in Guanajuato, the notorious lesbian vampire women, a group of chaneques. . . . When he wasn’t fighting, Pepe was pounding a typewriter, churning out sports stories for the rag printed by the union of newsboys. Then he’d hurt his shoulder during a match.

He was with Tito by then, and Tito worried he’d be seriously injured if he kept fighting. Wrestling didn’t pay much for a mid-level like himself, and Pepe was pretty sure he was never going to join the big leagues. So he packed the mask and retired. He wasn’t sorry. Bad guys changed. These days it was drug cartels and mercenary killers prowling the streets, not crumbling mummies. Ah, what would Tito say today, if he could see what had become of the luchadores and the villains?

Pepe glanced at his reflection in the window of the Skytrain and saw an old man with thinning hair, and he was glad Tito wasn’t here for that either.

He missed his station and had to go back. He walked around, struggling to find the right street. Sleek buildings of blue-green glass rose on each side, almost identical. A drizzle was falling by the time he stumbled onto Little Tamja, a network of a few streets dotted with squat little brick buildings. It contrasted with the polished, artificial downtown core, appearing darker, dirtier, and more used.

He paused to admire the graffiti in an alley: a large snake, crudely spray-painted in red and black, with a man next to it holding a stick. Something about the configuration made Pepe think of a stained-glass window he’d seen, picturing Saint George and the dragon.

Heroes don’t grow old, Tito whispered in his ear.

Pepe passed a grocery store, a butcher, an apartment building. He didn’t spot any stores for idiot tourists, or any of the Disneyesque banners that adorned some other parts of the city. Little Tamja did not seem like the kind of place you put on the visitor’s guide.

He found the place he was looking for: a herbalist shop. When he opened the door, a bell jingled. He spotted lots of jars on the walls, shelves with neatly labelled boxes, and a glass counter. It reminded him of home, of downtown Mexico City, of a store on Tacuba which sold old-fashioned shaving instruments.

A young woman sat behind the counter, emptying a big bag full of a fine red powder into smaller plastic bags. She nodded at him when he approached. Her gray smock had the name Rhammala embroidered on it.

“Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for Mr. Thoa.”

“That’s my grandfather. What do you need?”

“I’m investigating the disappearance of a student.”

“A lady already came about that,” the young woman said, frowning.

“I’m helping her. I’d like to speak with Mr. Thoa myself, if it’s not an imposition.”

The young woman sighed and pushed back the stool. She motioned Pepe to follow her behind a flowery curtain, to what he imagined was the back of the store. The room they walked into was full of crates and boxes. In a corner was a large couch; an old man sat there, watching television. The young woman said something to the old man, a flurry of consonants with nary a vowel.

The old man tilted his head and looked at Pepe. “You are another private investigator?”

“Yes. I’m Pepe Losanto,” he said, extending his hand.

The old man shook it and lowered the volume of the television. He nodded at the young woman, and she pulled up a chair. Pepe sat.

“What would you like to know?”

“Jun came to speak to you several times. What did you talk about?”

“Legends. Fairy tales. The kind of stories we’d tell around my village when I was a child,” Thoa said with a shrug.

“Like what?”

“Oh, the spirit runner, or the hag that lies upon your chest when you try to sleep at nights. The great serpent at the womb of the world—tales for children.”

“Any tale he liked in particular?”

“I cannot say. I didn’t really pay much attention to what he was studying. Frankly I thought the Tcho Tcho had gone out of fashion, that there’d be some other group for the linguists and ethnographers to study.”

“I have in my notes that you last spoke to him on July 30 over the phone. He disappeared a few days later. Did he say anything odd? Was anyone upset with him?”

“No,” Thoa said. “He said he was going to spend the upcoming long weekend with his sister on the Island.”

“He never made it.”

Pepe asked Mr. Thoa a few more questions, mainly about Jun’s disposition and appearance during the weeks before he disappeared. When he was done, he thanked the old man and Rhammala walked him out. “Were you with your grandfather when Jun interviewed him?” he asked her.

“Yes,” she said. “For the most part.”

“What do you think was the story he was most interested in?”

Rhammala hesitated, biting her lip. “The One Serpent.”

“What’s it about?”

“In the old days the Tcho Tcho had a protector, a great serpent called Lelukli. They fed it the corpses of their enemies, and the serpent gave them riches and kept them safe. It could grant life and death: mikil and ryahku.”

He looked carefully at the young woman’s face. He’d spent enough years as a reporter to know when someone was holding back. “You don’t like the story?”

“No, not really. My grandfather doesn’t like it either, but he says we carry our stories just like we carry our ghosts: from shore to shore. And so we must tell them.”

Pepe grabbed his notepad and scribbled Leti’s number on it. “If you remember anything else, would you give me a call?”

“All right,” she said.

The little bell jingled as Pepe stepped outside. The drizzle had turned into full-fledged rain. He walked back to the Skytrain with his hands in his pockets and his head bowed.

Leti went to bed early. She didn’t eat anything, even though he’d made a modest picadillo. He watched her from the doorway to her bedroom and felt his heart sinking. He recalled the announcer’s voice booming across the Arena Mexico: . . . and in that corner, the fastest, most intrepid, most disruptive girl in wrestling. Ladies and gentleman, La Coloooooorada!

Pepe closed the door and sat in the dining room, placing a reel-to-reel in the ancient Panasonic recorder. He unwrapped a piece of bubblegum and began chewing. The recorder whirled to life, forgotten voices bouncing around him. He played a couple of reels and was busy making himself a cup of coffee when he heard an interesting thing.

“. . . the One Serpent which lives in the womb of the world,” said a voice on the tape.

Pepe walked from the little kitchen to the adjoining dining room and replayed that bit. Someone said something in Tcho Tcho and then the translator spoke: “In my land there is the One Serpent which lives in the womb of the world, and if you whisper to it the right words it will come to you.”

“What kind of words?”

“Ancient words written in stone.”

Pepe grabbed Under the Ancient Stars and flipped through the black-and-white photographs of Tcho Tcho jewellery until he found the picture he’d noticed before: a traditional, hand-polished Tcho Tcho knife in the shape of a serpent. The caption read, In Tcho Tcho myth, the snake, with its ability to moult, is regarded as immortal.

He looked in the index for snake, serpent, One Serpent, and found nothing. The table of contents classified stories by type, but there was nothing about snakes.

Pepe turned on Leti’s e-reader and located the file he was looking for. He searched for the word snake and found a whole bunch of passages in Jun’s notes for a chapter on the One Serpent. He started reading.

“Are you sure you want to go by yourself?” Leti asked for the third time.

“Yeah, I’ve got the directions,” he said, taking out a napkin from his front pocket and showing it to her.

Leti leaned against the door, frowning. “You could wait a couple more days until I feel up to it. I could drive you. Or you could phone the guy.”

“You know phones are no good. You’ve got to look at people in the eye. Just rest, and I’ll be back later. Anyway, I already spoke to him and he’s expecting me.”

Leti relented, and Pepe rode the bus to Kitsilano with his backpack in his lap. Gainseville lived in a house that was more like a mansion, with tall, ominous gates and everything. He wondered if teaching really was that profitable or if Gainseville had simply been born into wealth. A young man—quite tall, he surpassed Pepe—opened the door. The theme inside seemed to be oriental-Polynesian circa 1965, but on a grand scale. Pepe followed the man down a long hallway and through a set of double doors to Gainseville’s massive studio.

Pepe paused in front of a large glass case with numerous figurines and some jewellery. A golden mask occupied the centre of the display, sinuous lines etched on it, like the trail of a snake.

“I see you are admiring my Tcho Tcho artifacts.”

Pepe raised his head and saw Gainseville walk into the room, leaning on a wooden cane with a gold tip. His hair was all white, and his hands trembled a little. He smiled.

“They look expensive.”

“Perhaps, but their value is really of another nature.” Gainseville lowered himself onto an armchair. “You brought my tapes?”

“I’m sorry. I am not done with the tapes yet. I’ll have to send them over afterwards.”

Gainseville’s displeasure was easy to read. “I fail to see why you’d want to keep them. My old interviews have nothing to do with your investigation.”

“Those interviews, were those the ones you used for this book?” Pepe asked, unzipping his backpack and showing him Under the Ancient Stars.

“Of course. They were a major portion of my research.”

“But you don’t mention the One Serpent.”

The old man leaned back and frowned. “No.”

“Why not? This is probably the only book on Tcho Tcho folklore, and the One Serpent is an important element of the culture. Jun was writing a whole chapter on it.”

“The One Serpent is sacred to the Tcho Tcho. I didn’t think it should be approached lightly.”

“Did Jun tell you he was writing about it?”

“He said so, yes. But most of his information came from a man named Thoa, a fellow with a poor reputation within the community.”

“Do you know Mr. Thoa?”

“No, but Jun said he wasn’t well liked . . . he was an outsider of sorts. This would have made them even more likely to voice an objection against his research.”

“Do you know if they objected?”

Gainseville rubbed his chin, nodding slowly. “Not directly, no. I do remember him saying he was being followed, though he couldn’t say by whom.” He glanced at the clock. “If you’ll excuse me, it’s time for my medication.”

“Please call this number if you remember anything else.”

Gainseville nodded. As Pepe leaned to shake the old man’s hand he noticed the thin, sinuous lines on the cane. And the gold tip . . . viewed at the right angle, it might resemble a snake’s head.

The reel-to-reel spooled and voices spoke. A barrage of consonants. Tcho Tcho words, then someone translating.

“The One Snake is not meant to be seen by outsiders. The elders say so.”

“Tell him I don’t care what the elders say. Can he arrange it?”

The interviewer had been growing openly hostile. This didn’t sound like scholarly research. It was an interrogation.

“He doesn’t know.”

“Let’s clarify a few things—”

The reel went silent. The recording had been interrupted. Pepe sat in Leti’s dining room, listening to static.

“Pepe, I found the stuff you needed,” Leti said as she walked into the apartment, taking off the scarf wrapped around her head, sprinkling raindrops onto the linoleum. “It took me longer than I thought, because Gainseville stopped teaching in ‘84; the digital archives only go back a few years, and everything else is on microfiche or stuffed in binders.”

“So what do you have?” he asked.

“Well, I went to the Vancouver Sun and then stopped at the city’s archives. Ryan Gainseville started specializing in the Tcho Tcho in the early seventies. He published his book in 1981. Sometime in 1984 he came into a bunch of money and bought a large house in Kits. He said he was retiring, and planned to dedicate most of his time to restoring it. I also found this photo.” Leti handed him her phone; she’d taken a photo of a newspaper page. “Zoom in and read the caption.”

“‘Ryan Gainseville and translator Nouvak Thoa stand with recent Tcho Tcho refugees outside the Vancouver Public Library,’” Pepe glanced up. “Those two sure as hell aren’t telling us everything.”

“Isn’t that always the case?” Leti placed her hands on her hips. “You think that snake you’re talking about is connected to this?”

“Somehow.” Pepe pressed a finger against his lips. He unwrapped a piece of bubblegum with his free hand.

Rhammala looked up as soon as Pepe walked in, shaking his umbrella. “Lots of rain, huh?” he said.

“Grandpa told you what he knew already,” the young woman said, whip quick.

“I’d still like to talk to him. There’s a bunch of dead people and missing feet floating around Vancouver. We need to find the killer.”

“Cops are on the case.”

“Are the cops going to stop the neighbours from burning down your business? I got off the Skytrain, and somebody had graffitied ‘Tcho Tcho ate the missing men’ across the platform.”

“You’re trying to scare me.”

“I’m a realist,” Pepe said with a shrug.

The woman sighed and took him to the back. Her grandfather was watching a game show. Rhammala leaned down and whispered into his ear. He glanced up at Pepe. “I should have known you’d be back. Heroes always come back.”

“I ain’t a hero anymore.”

Thoa smirked, palming the remote control and lowering the volume. He nodded at Pepe. “You have more questions.”

“You told Jun about the One Snake even though the knowledge is sacred. How come?”

“We talked about a number of things. I told him about Lelukli because he’d already heard stories from other elders. And he had a right to know. This was part of his family’s history.”

“What exactly did you tell him?”

“Jun’s uncle, Jaha, was lahaglelulki. He died in a state of grace. I cannot say more.”

“Whatever you know killed that kid. Make amends and tell the truth, Mr. Thoa.”

The man’s lips quivered and he shook his head. He said something in Tcho Tcho, and Rhammala placed a hand on Pepe’s elbow, gently directing him out of the room. Once they reached the entrance of the store Pepe turned to her. “I’d like to hear more about the lahaglelulki.”

“My grandfather says wishes are like bulls that dream of flying.”

“I’ve seen bulls fly, Rhammala,” he said. “Right across the ring. I’ve read Jun’s notes. In the old days, in times of great need, the Tcho Tcho used to call upon the One Snake for assistance. They’d perform a special ceremony. They’d sacrifice someone and summon the snake that lived in a deep pit. But it took a great toll, and there had to be secondary sacrifices. They’d toss gold and carvings . . . but sometimes they’d also toss enemy captives into the pit.”

The girl glanced over her shoulder, back at the curtain separating the store from the storage area. “That’s kishaha, secret knowledge, only passed on to special people. Jun’s uncle was lahaglelulki, and that made him of the bloodline, but I was never told what that meant because I’m a girl, and women are not instructed in kishaha. But I . . . .overheard bits and pieces when Jun was here.”

“There were priests that participated in the Tcho Tcho ceremonies. Was your grandfather one of those priests?”

“My grandfather was a translator. That’s all he did.”

“How did he meet Ryan Gainseville? Don’t say they don’t know each other.”

Rhammala shook her head. “They worked together, that’s all I’ve heard about it. Will you leave now?”

The little bell jingled, and Pepe stepped out into the rain. He paused to look at the alley with the graffiti of the serpent, his eyes fixing on its red and black contours.

“Mr. Gainseville, it’s Pepe Losanto.”

“Yes, you’ve been calling all day. Are you by any chance thinking of dropping off my tapes?”

Pepe was outside the Skytrain, standing at a payphone. Someone had scrawled: The motherfucking Tcho Tcho did it.

“Mr. Gainseville, what do you know about lahaglelulki?” Pepe asked.

There was a sour silence. He heard Gainseville breathing and waited.

“You’re asking a lot of stupid questions, Mr. Losanto. This is not your city. Perhaps you should leave . . . while you can.”

“I’ve heard that tune before. What happened to Jun?”

“Exactly what are you accusing me of?”

“You ain’t no innocent, mister.”

Gainseville laughed. “Mr. Losanto, you have no idea.”

There was a click, and the line went dead. Pepe hoisted his backpack onto his left shoulder, leaned against the telephone booth, and chewed his bubblegum.

Heroes don’t grow old, Tito had said.

Ah, no. But sometimes lovers don’t grow old either.

“Yeah, there’s something very creepy about those reels,” Leti said, placing a cup of coffee in front of Pepe. The sharp sound of Tcho Tcho words echoed across the dining room. It was grey and cold outside; the rain never stopped in this city.

“There’s something creepy about this whole thing. I think I’m just too old for bad guys,” Pepe admitted. “I can’t believe you’re still doing this stuff. Private investigator. Heroine.”

“What I can say? I’m waiting for it to catch on again.”

He smiled, curving his fingers around the cup of coffee. The phone rang, and Leti picked it up. Pepe thought it might be Gainseville, but it was Rhammala on the line. She wanted to meet them. Leti went to her glass display, pulled out her mask, and stuffed it in the purse.

“Just in case,” she said.

“Leti, it’s not like the old days,” Pepe admonished, though he had his own mask in the bottom of his backpack.

They met at an all-night diner on Main Street. The decor was 1950s: polka dots, Bettie Page pictures. The usual quasi-alternative retro stuff. Pies glistened under glass domes; Pepe ordered a slice of the blueberry.

Rhammala arrived on time. The rain had washed away the colour from her cheeks. She sat across from them in the little booth looking miserable. “My grandfather’s gone to see Gainseville. Grandpa told me the whole story . . . and said I should tell you.”

Water droplets slid down the girl’s fingertips, pooling over a laminated menu. She curled her fingers slowly, into fists, resting them on the edge of the table.

“Gainseville went to Vietnam in the seventies, to research the Tcho Tcho. Grandfather translated for him. It started with stories, but Gainseville wanted to know more . . . he wanted to know the Tcho Tcho secrets. He’d heard about the One Snake and . . . he wanted to see it. Things were bad for the Tcho Tcho in Grandfather’s village, and Gainseville had important contacts. But he wanted to see the serpent, or he wouldn’t help. Grandfather was not a priest. He shouldn’t have, but he sneaked him into the great serpent’s pit. Afterward, Gainseville helped Grandfather immigrate to Canada. Grandfather thought that was the end of it.”

“What happened?” Pepe asked.

“Nothing, at first. Grandfather translated for him. But, over time, Gainseville asked more and more questions. He kept pressuring. He said he could get other families from the village into Canada, if only they’d help him.”

“What did he want?”

“To be a keeper of the One Snake.” Rhammala rubbed a finger along the edge of the table’s formica surface. “The One Snake cannot be summoned without sacrifice. A lahaglelulki was chosen, an acolyte. He shed his mortal skin, and upon his death Gainseville acquired the serpent—the One Snake.”

“Let me guess,” Pepe said. “The snake eats people, but it doesn’t like feet. And it’s very hungry.”

“Lelukli is a manifestation of the divine. It is the darkness that coils around the world. The Tcho Tcho fear and respect it and do not invoke it recklessly. Gainseville respects nothing.”

“What about Jun? How does he fit into this?”

“Jun’s uncle Jaha was lahaglelulki. My grandfather thought Jun might be able to stop Gainseville. He thought Jun would not—could not—be harmed because he was kin. Grandfather gave him a Tcho Tcho ceremonial dagger, and Jun went to face the One Serpent. But he suffered the same fate as the others.”

“So essentially Gainseville is controlling a supernatural—no wait, a deity—and the Tcho Tcho have let this go on unchecked for a couple of decades,” Pepe said.

“The serpent was young, weak . . . and Gainseville did nothing for many years. It is only now that he has awoken the One Serpent. My grandfather, he was an optimist . . . he thought it might never awaken,” Rhammala muttered. “Besides, my grandfather has gone to confront Gainseville. He said I should tell you that it was his fault. You should not blame the other Tcho Tcho. My grandfather knows that he shouldn’t have sent Jun, and he knows you should have never gotten involved. He said it’s not your fight. These are his ghosts . . . he just tried to pretend they were not. He was a coward.”

Pepe contemplated the remains of his blueberry pie. He unzipped his backpack and took out his mask. Leti opened her purse and did the same.

Rhammala looked at them in confusion. “What are you doing?”

“It’s three fall matches and no time limits,” Pepe said.

“What, you’re just going to . . . punch the One Serpent?” the girl asked.

“We’ll see if it comes to that,” Leti replied.

It felt weird jumping into Leti’s little compact car and zipping through Vancouver with the mask on, but at least when Pepe looked into the rearview mirror he couldn’t see the wrinkles on his face. He flexed his fingers. He thought about the old days, about the Red Hand and Mr. Diabolico. He thought about Tito.

“You’re not going chicken on me, are you?” Leti asked.

“Over a snake?” Pepe scoffed. “Ask me when we face a golem.”

The gates to the mansion stood open. A bunch of cars were parked in front, and all the lights were on. Leti got out of the car and cracked her knuckles. Pepe followed.

The vestibule was empty, but they could hear people chanting, dimly, far away.

“Always with the fucking chanting,” Leti muttered.

“It reminds me of that time we fought against Brain of Destruction.”

“Didn’t you break your ribs?”

“Don’t remind me,” Pepe huffed.

The chanting came from a door that clearly led down into a basement. Pepe wondered why bad guys never committed their evil deeds in a nice, airy space.

The stairs were conveniently lit with torches, like in the cheap luchador films. The basement had been decorated in the same expensive, quasi-tacky pseudo-Asian style as the rest of the mansion, with liberal use of golds and reds. At the bottom of the stairs congregated maybe a dozen people, all dressed in some odd variation of a kimono. Gainseville was sitting in a golden chair, wearing the golden mask with the little marks. Another chair, painted in red, hung from the ceiling, with Mr. Thoa tied onto it smack over a pit. Pepe had met enough villains to imagine what the setup meant.

“Hey, Gainseville, we’re here,” Leti said.

Gainseville turned, his golden mask reflecting the light of the torches. “I’ve been expecting you.”

“Yes, yes,” Leti said, shaking her head and walking toward the centre of the room. “Let’s skip the introduction and go to the part where you explain what you’re up to. Why’d you kill all those people?”

“Mikil and ryahku,” Gainseville said, using his gold-tipped cane to stand up. “You’ve heard that part? Life and death.” The congregation was still chanting. Gainseville slid the mask off, revealing the face of a young man. At least, half of it looked like the face of a young man; the other half was still old and wrinkled . . . and peeling. “The snake sheds its skin, and so I am shedding mine. You are old. You grow ill. What if that could be fixed?”

“And all we’d have to do is kill a few dozen young men?” Pepe asked.

“And one old, stupid man who thought he could interfere,” Gainseville said with a shrug. “But he’s interfered enough. Now he’ll die, just like that nosy student.”

Pepe noticed that the attendants, except for three goons, seemed to be senior citizens. Probably friends of Gainseville who had been promised a demonstration of the power of the snake. Maybe that’s how he’d gotten rich: promising eternal youth for a premium once the snake grew powerful enough.

“Wouldn’t you like to be fighters again?” Gainseville asked.

“We are fighters,” Leti said.

“Let’s see about that.”

The tall man was the first to head toward Pepe. It was different fighting a man without the ropes behind. The lack of a ring was distracting. On top of that, Pepe had not fought anyone in ages. He felt like he was standing on quicksand. When the man threw a punch, the best thing Pepe could do was wince as it hit him square in the jaw.

The man threw a second punch. This time he hit Pepe in the gut.

Man, he hated that. Pepe shook his head.

The young man was readying for a third punch, but Pepe dodged and countered with a sweeping kick, his old signature move, knocking the guy down. A second goon approached. Pepe jumped, dealing a massive dropkick before flipping to land on his feet, leaving his attacker barely twitching on the floor.

Meanwhile, Leti was evading goon number three. Just when he thought he had her cornered she swept around him, dealing a double knee backbreaker and ending with a mounted stranglehold that had the much younger man howling.

The tall man was standing up. If Pepe had been at the Arena Mexico he would have milked the fight for all it was worth. But he wasn’t, and he was old and tired. So he curled his fingers into that famous iron fist of his and dealt the man a massive hit to the face, then another right in the gut, then the final finishing move: an Indian deathlock that left the young man unconscious.

The chanters had grown quiet, looking around nervously. Pepe turned to Gainseville, ready to make him into jell-o. Gainseville yelled something and an odd, deep rumble sounded as the ground began to tremble. Pepe didn’t think this was an earthquake.

Leti rushed to his side, pressing a hand against her chest. Her voice was hoarse when she spoke. “Any brilliant ideas?”

“Sorry, I was never the main act,” he muttered, trying to catch his breath.

A glint of gold attracted his attention; Gainseville was holding the ceremonial dagger. Pepe was about to formulate a brilliant plan when a gigantic red and black snake sprang up into the air, its voluminous body landing a few metres away.

The snake opened its massive jaws and let out an angry cry.

The congregants who had been happily chanting just a few minutes before rushed for the stairs. The snake caught one and slammed him against a wall. Gainseville yelled a command, and the snake turned. It hissed, showing Pepe and Leti several rows of nasty teeth.

Mr. Thoa’s scream cut through the air. He yelled something in Tcho Tcho, then said, “Jaha! Jaha, Gainesville killed your kin!”

Pepe noticed the snake’s eyes. They looked disturbingly human.

He shed his mortal skin.

Jaha, the uncle who’d died . . . only he hadn’t died. No. Sacrifice may have more than one meaning.

“He’s right!” Pepe said. “You killed Jun, Gainseville. You fed Jaha his own nephew!”

The serpent reared back, hissing even louder. It was going to strike, and Pepe thought that the only thing he might be able to do now was scream—

—until the snake turned. It flipped around with the speed of a whip, its tail knocking Leti down. It opened its mouth, hissing at Gainseville.

“You cannot!” Gainseville said, holding up the mask in one hand and the dagger in the other. “You cannot!”

“Yes, he can!” Pepe roared. He jumped over the snake’s tail and delivered a punch straight to Gaisneville’s face, tearing the mask from him.

“No, wait!” Gainseville shrieked, just before the snake ripped out half of his chest.

The golden dagger went flying through the air. Pepe caught it and gripped it tight.

Heroes don’t grow old, Tito said.

Pepe nodded. He jumped, slamming the dagger down on the monster’s head. Iron fist of justice, iron fist of justice, they used to chant, and he could still hit hard. The dagger tore through the snake’s skin and skull and everything. The monster flailed, its tail rising and falling. It coiled on itself and rolled into the hole it had come from, dragging Gainseville’s body with it.

Pepe slid to the floor and closed his eyes, trying to will his heart to slow down a bit. He could hear Mr. Thoa’s sobs and Leti’s soft groans.

The Canadian Wasp’s grave was more modest than Pepe had imagined it would be. He’d pictured a huge mausoleum befitting his antics. Instead, it was a quiet little tombstone that said: Jules Guêpe 1940-2009.

“Nothing about how he saved humankind from aliens in 1969,” Pepe muttered. His arm was in a sling.

“It was a while back,” Leti said. She’d injured her ankle and walked a bit wobbly, but otherwise she was fine. “You did well with this snake business. The whole Tcho Tcho community is grateful, and Rhammala has assured me nothing like this will ever happen again.”

Maybe. Maybe not. The Tcho Tcho wanted peace and quiet, but there were always new evil fiends looking for blood and power.

Leti placed a hand on his arm. “Did you think about what I said? I ain’t going to last too much longer, and the city can always use a hero.”

“Heroes don’t grow old,” Pepe said. “I’m old, Leti. I can’t be your replacement.”

Leti was standing in the shadow of a great maple tree. From Pepe’s angle, with the light filtering the way it was, she resembled La Colorada, the fighter he’d known. Then she moved, the light shifted, and she was an old lady wearing a black tuque.

“Well, maybe you’ll go back to Mexico City and find your hero muscles again.”

“Maybe I’ll just move to Acapulco and tan,” Pepe muttered.

Leti leaned down and placed a framed photograph on the tombstone. It was the one from her living room, showing the old gang together: Iron Justice, La Colorada, The Canadian Wasp, Pandemonium, The Whip, La Venus, and Dozen Faces.

They both stared at the black and white image as a drizzle began to fall. Pepe reached into his pocket and unwrapped a piece of bubblegum.

_________

Silvia Moreno-Garcia was born and raised in Mexico but now lives in Vancouver. Her fiction appears in Imaginarium 2012: The Best Canadian Speculative Writing, The Book of Cthulhu, and other places. The latest anthology she has edited is Fungi. Her first collection is Shedding Her Own Skin.