Halloween Carnival Volume 1 Read online

  It was probably because they were both drunk that neither of them paid any attention when the two bandidos walked in.

  Javier was two shots ahead of Trick, telling a loud story about a female bullfighter who had shown him a new use for his rejon de muerte, when Trick first became aware of the new arrivals. Out of the corner of his eye, Trick saw the bartender (who was probably Trick’s age but fifty pounds heavier) suddenly tense. Javier didn’t notice until he felt the gun barrel at his back.

  By then Trick was sobering up fast. The two men were probably in their thirties, their clothing stained and threadbare, their faces hidden under stubble and dirt. The one holding the gun leered at Javier as he rattled off something in Spanish; the other, standing behind his friend, frowned and held a knife.

  It didn’t matter that the gun looked like it might explode if actually fired, or that the knife was rusted and nicked; Trick had done enough real-life adventuring to know trouble when he saw it.

  Big trouble. Especially since Javier kept smiling.

  “¡Eh, gente!” Javier exclaimed amiably.

  Señor Leer said something to Javier.

  “What’s he sayin’?” Trick asked.

  “He wants our money, of course,” said Javier. “Especially your Americano dollars, gringo.”

  “So what do we do?”

  Javier uttered an alcohol-fueled guffaw, causing Señor Leer to waggle the gun. “Well, my friend Trick, we do this…”

  Javier suddenly ducked and drove his head into Señor Leer’s midsection. They both fell back as the gun went off above Javier. Trick was dimly aware of the sound of breaking glass somewhere behind him.

  “Dimly aware,” because Trick was already grabbing their bottle of añejo tequila off the bar and swinging it toward the knife holder, whose attention was fortunately centered on his friend and Javier. The bottle crashed across the sullen man’s head. He staggered but didn’t go down.

  Ah, shit, thought Trick, as he tried to sidestep a knife thrust.

  Fortunately, he succeeded, managing to stab the man’s knife hand with the remains of the tequila bottle. The man cried out and Trick dropped the bottle neck, then threw a punch at the man’s jaw. It felt good to connect, to feel his knuckles jar a tooth loose—

  —but it didn’t feel so good when the return punch clipped one of Trick’s ears. His ears rang and the side of his head felt hot.

  Trick took a low swing, catching his man in the gut, doubling him over. As the bandido’s chin came down, Trick’s other hand came up. He was rewarded with an audible clack and the sight of the man flying back to collide with the wall near the door, which he then slid down, unconscious.

  Trick looked up, fists already cocked to help Javier—only to find Javier watching and applauding, one foot planted squarely in the back of the oblivious gunman. “Olé!” Javier called.

  Trick took a small bow before collapsing into a chair, exhausted.

  —

  The barman—who recognized the two robbers as a pair featured prominently on a wanted poster—provided some rope with which to secure the bandidos, and then called the nearest police office, which was an hour away. Meanwhile, he told Javier and Trick that there was a woman in the village who could treat their injuries. She lived just a few houses away.

  As Trick and Javier walked in the indicated direction, Trick nursing his bleeding ear, Javier holding a rag to his bloody nose, Trick asked if the woman was a doctor. He was surprised by Javier’s snort.

  “Not exactly. The bartender said she was a bruja.”

  “A broo-ha? What the heck is that?” Trick asked.

  Just then they reached the house. It was set off from the rest of the village by a large garden of succulents and herbs. The front door stood open, revealing a dark interior.

  “She is a witch,” Javier said softly as he stepped into the house.

  Uncertain whether to laugh or believe Javier, Trick followed him into the house, looked around…

  …and didn’t laugh.

  The walls of the single large room were lined with shelves which held pots and glass jars and canvas bags. Bundles of drying herbs hung from the heavy roof beams, while a large kettle (heck, call it a cauldron, Trick corrected himself) bubbled over the fire in the hearth.

  In a chair near the hearth sat the bruja herself. She fit no image of a witch Trick had ever seen—she was neither wizened crone nor youthful siren, but rather a middle-aged woman with streaks of silver in her thick black hair, the dark skin of the mestizos, and the callused hands of a laborer.

  The witch exchanged a few words with Javier, who kept his tone low and respectful; then she gestured at the injuries he and Trick had sustained in the fight. She must have named a price, because Javier counted out some money before turning to the American.

  “She will treat us,” he said.

  Trick—who was looking at a mason jar full of preserved scorpions—wondered if that was really a good thing.

  But then the witch startled him by speaking broken English. “Please, señor—you sit.”

  Trick lowered his bulk into an ancient wooden chair, which squeaked ominously. The bruja moved to her shelves, where she began to assemble an herbal poultice.

  “You speak English?” Trick asked.

  “A little,” she answered.

  Trick exchanged a look with Javier, then jumped right in. “My friend says you’re a witch. Oh, maybe you don’t know that English—”

  She interrupted. “I know witch. Your friend, he is right.”

  “I’ve never met a real witch before. Do you…you know…fly on a broom and dance with the devil, all that stuff?”

  She laughed, and Trick was surprised at what a pleasant sound it was, nothing of the stereotypical cackle there. “No. I heal. I pray.”

  “Huh.” Trick was slightly disappointed.

  Then the witch added, “Sometimes I have…how you say…I see things.”

  “Visions,” Javier supplied.

  Ahhh, here we go, thought Trick.

  “Visions? Of what?”

  The witch began working on Trick’s ear, cleaning it first. “Different things.”

  There was silence as she began daubing his head with a paste she’d made up. She spoke as she worked. “I had one last night about the hacienda.”

  Again, Trick looked to Javier, but the other man stayed serious.

  “Do you know about our movie?” Trick asked.

  “I have heard,” she answered. “I know last night you had a visit. La Llorona.”

  Javier noticeably stiffened.

  “So news already got out, huh?” Trick laughed. “Guess Armando’s publicity stunt worked.”

  The witch shook her head. “I do not hear ‘news.’ I have a vision of La Llorona at the hacienda. I see a man she take to the river and drown. His body will be found today.”

  Trick had to stifle a sudden urge to pull away from her ministrations. “That’s just…nuts. What do you say down here—loco?”

  She shrugged. “If you do not believe me, return to the hacienda and go through the mirror. You will find more of La Llorona beneath the hacienda.”

  When Trick looked at Javier, he saw the rejoneador’s nose had started to bleed again, but Trick didn’t think that was why he looked so pale.

  —

  Trick and Javier returned to find the hacienda in pandemonium.

  The crew had been set up in one of the outbuildings, which had been converted into the mad scientist’s laboratory; in the last scene shot, the vampire had overpowered Dr. Maceda and attacked Rosita.

  The pandemonium had ensued when César, the actor playing the vampire, had actually assaulted Aurora.

  As Javier and Trick rode up to the building, they heard the shouting before they’d even dismounted. Trick was startled to realize it was the normally suave Armando, shrieking in Spanish that even Trick knew was peppered with expletives.

  Javier had found a cowering crewman and relayed the story back to Trick:


  In the scene, the vampiric Count Rasputin grabs the screaming Rosita, throws her up against a wall, tears her high-necked gown aside, and is about to sink his two-inch long canines into her luscious flesh when Maceda recovers and douses him with holy water, sending him cringing into a corner. The choreography should have been simple and safe, but Rojo had really torn Aurora’s costume and her screaming had required no acting. Armando/Maceda, recognizing real terror, had jumped in to rescue his love while poor Osés had called “cut” and stayed silent thereafter.

  César had claimed that he was trying a new acting style that had become popular in the States, something called “the Method.”

  Armando had threatened to use a method that involved kicking César’s nuts all the way to the States if he ever did anything like that to Aurora again.

  Trick, meanwhile, had the undeniable guilty pleasure of watching Aurora helped out of her shredded blouse by a wardrobe girl. She wore a corset and slip underneath, but the garments still afforded an extra glimpse of cleavage and thigh. For a few seconds Trick could completely empathize with the desire to bite her.

  Armando—now the producer, not the actor—called a break and took Aurora out for a walk to settle her nerves. Unfortunately, their romantic stroll by the river’s edge led them to the dead body of the missing extra, a fact announced to the entire crew by Aurora’s shriek.

  Trick and Javier had trotted out to the source of the shrieking along with the rest of the crew. Trick knew what he was seeing as soon as he spotted the flash of white sleeve wedged in among some river rocks.

  “Just as the bruja predicted,” Javier had muttered.

  The sun was a red half-circle on the horizon as the police arrived to take the body away. The general consensus was that the man had panicked last night when the lights went out and had accidentally run into the river, where he’d been captured by the current and drowned.

  Many of the crew, however, whispered to each other that the river had no noticeable current.

  —

  Later that night, Javier and Trick sat together in the courtyard, smoking, not speaking. Armando had chewed both of them out for the injuries they’d incurred in the fight with the bandidos, but Trick could feel the bruja’s herbs working on him. He guessed his ear might look just fine by tomorrow.

  The witch, in fact, had been right about everything so far.

  Finally, Trick broke the silence. “So what the witch said about finding the body…that could’ve been coincidence, right?”

  Javier shrugged, then abruptly dropped his cigarette and stamped it out. “Perhaps—”

  He broke off as a wail sounded in the distance.

  Trick felt the skin on his back crawl so far it threatened to add an extra scalp to his head. It was her.

  La Llorona had come again.

  He glanced over and saw Javier sitting rigidly. “Javier,” he began, “it’s…”

  “I know,” Javier barely breathed out.

  “But everybody’s inside the hacienda tonight. She won’t come in here…right?”

  The wailing grew louder, closer outside.

  “…ninos…¿para es muy ninos?…me ninos…”

  Trick wanted to stand, to run, to fight, to do something, but his knees didn’t seem to be working.

  “Jesus, she’s right outside”

  Trick glanced at the gate to the courtyard, which he saw had been closed and even boarded, with a great horizontal crossbeam holding it sealed in place.

  She won’t get in here, he thought…and then added, unless she can float through walls.

  That notion provided no comfort.

  The horrible voice couldn’t have been more than a hundred feet outside…closer…louder…

  Then there was a new sound: a horse, neighing in frenzy, its hooves pounding a beat into the hard-packed desert earth.

  “Reyo Dorado!” Javier shouted, even as he started running.

  “Javier, no—”

  But Trick saw there was no stopping his friend. As the horse’s sounds became more agonized, Javier singlehandedly hauled aside the huge bar on the gate. Trick saw now that others were running out, crewmen who laid hands on Javier, trying to hold him inside. But at each sound from Reyo Dorado, Javier shouted and threw off his would-be captors until he had wrenched open the gates and run into the night, toward the sounds of the horse and the Wailing Woman.

  —

  Javier returned ten minutes later. The expression of sheer loss on his handsome face told Trick everything he needed to know.

  Reyo Dorado was gone. No trace of the magnificent horse.

  The wailing had vanished as well, but the gates were nonetheless bolted again as Javier staggered forward.

  “I’m sorry, Javier,” Trick said, walking up to clap a reassuring hand on his friend’s shoulder. “That sure was one beautiful animal—”

  Javier cut him off. “What else was it the bruja said?”

  Trick thought for a moment. “Something about a mirror, in the hacienda. Going through a mirror to find more of La Llorona…”

  Javier was already heading for the main room of the hacienda before Trick even finished the sentence.

  Trick followed Javier through a door at the center rear of the courtyard and into a large central chamber, with doors and a staircase all leading away from it. The hacienda’s former owners had left most of the original furnishings intact; Trick and Javier were confronted by wrought-iron candelabras and chandelier, dusty urns, unraveling tapestries, even a dented suit of armor…but no mirrors.

  “I think I saw one in here,” Trick said, gesturing to a sitting room.

  The hacienda wasn’t wired for electricity, so Javier—his jaw set in a line of grim determination—took a candelabrum and led the way into the indicated room.

  The candlelight immediately bounced off the surface of a mirror; it was floor-length, set against one wall of the room, between a dark wood cabinet and a low table. Javier set the candelabrum down on the table to run his fingers over the glass surface.

  After a few seconds, he drew back his hands in fury. “¡Puta!” he yelled. “How are we supposed to go ‘through’ a mirror?”

  Trick considered. “It’s a big place, Javier. She probably didn’t mean this mirror…”

  Javier laughed bitterly. “Oh, yes, I am sure we’ll find in one of the other rooms a mirror we can step through!”

  As Javier paced, Trick thought about horror movies. Even though he’d never been in one before and hadn’t been tremendously fond of watching them, he’d seen enough to wonder if what the witch had actually been talking about was a secret passage.

  Let’s see now…they usually got some kind’a catch or somethin’, don’t they?

  Trick began running his fingers along the edges of the mirror’s carved frame. Maybe he’d feel a latch, a finger hold in the rear of the frame…

  He didn’t—but there was a plain indentation in the wood at about chest height. He pushed his thumb there. The wood sank in a half-inch or so.

  There was a small click before Trick felt the entire mirror shift in his grip. He pulled slightly; it swung open, revealing a dark tunnel behind.

  Javier looked up from his pacing and gaped. Trick grinned, holding the candelabrum out to his friend.

  “Through the mirror, amigo.”

  “How did you…? No, it doesn’t matter.”

  Javier accepted the light and stepped into the stone passage. As Trick followed, he heard the mirror swing shut behind them. He hoped it would be as easy to find the release from this side.

  The narrow corridor led off to the right. It was lined in huge old stones that were covered in cobwebs and filth. Rats skittered before the candles’ light. Once a bat swooped out of the darkness, its squeal and bright eyes clearly distinguishing it from the silly rubber creature the film’s propmaster had proudly displayed earlier today.

  Finally, they came to a descending stairway. Moving carefully down the slimy steps, they arrived at the bottom to find a
n ancient wooden door, with huge iron hasps and lock.

  Trick experimentally reached past Javier to push on the iron ring near the door’s center. The door didn’t budge.

  “This thing might be locked,” Trick said. “How do you reckon we’ll get in there if it is—”

  He broke off as Javier shot out a booted foot. It connected with the center of the door, which practically dissolved in a cloud of decomposed wood and splinters. Two more kicks and the iron hasps had fallen away, leaving a hole they could easily step through.

  Trick arched his eyebrows at Javier. “Well, that’s one way.”

  “It is very old and rotted,” Javier said, squinting into the darkness past the remains of the door. “I think no one has been down here for a very long time. Centuries, maybe.”

  Javier led the way into the room.

  As Trick followed, his nose wrinkled at the intense musty smell. The air in this subterranean room was old, stale, and caused the candle flames to sputter. Even the rats had not visited this room in some time, nor had the spiders.

  Javier stepped to the side of the room—before gasping, startled, nearly pulling back when he and Trick realized what their light had just revealed:

  It was an iron maiden.

  Ornately carved, with the likeness of a woman on its lid, it was nonetheless clearly a notorious instrument of torture. “Do you know what this is?” Javier said, his voice little more than a whisper.

  “Yep, and it ain’t a nice thing,” Trick responded.

  Then he made the mistake of glancing down.

  The stones around the iron maiden were stained. Even though they were very darkly hued to begin with, they had plainly been discolored by something that had seeped forth from the torture device, in great quantity.

  Trick and Javier exchanged a look, and then Trick reached for the edge of the lid, trying to keep his fingers steady, trying not to let Javier see his unease.

  At first the lid refused to budge. Trick applied more force. The hinges squealed as the lid inched forward…Trick braced himself, pulling harder…another inch…