“It’s okay, mi’jita,” my mom says. She turns on her signal and makes the right onto our street. “You don’t have to be embarrassed. He seems like a perfectly nice young brujo.”
There’s no use arguing with them. I lean my head against the cool glass window. It helps the throbbing pain that starts at my temples and travels down my neck.
“Why is it so dark out?” Lula asks. “It’s not even five.”
Then Lula shouts as a dark shape slams into her side of the car. My mom swerves to the left, narrowly missing two cars at the intersection. Rose knocks into me, and I hold her in case it happens again.
“What the hell was that?” I shout.
“I don’t know.” Mom white-knuckles the wheel. She turns back, but the street is empty. We make a hard left into our driveway, crashing into the garbage bins. She shuts off the engine; her keys rattle in her hands. The streetlights down the block explode one by one. Long shadows move across the quiet neighborhood houses.
“Control yourself, Encantrix.” But even as Lula says it, she knows I’m not doing this.
“It isn’t me!”
“Get in the house,” my mom shouts at us. She opens the glove compartment and riffles through the junk until she finds a flashlight.
The street is so quiet all you can hear is our heavy breathing and quick steps. Rose grabs Lula’s hand and I grab Rose’s. We start to run up the narrow driveway to get to the kitchen entrance. I hold out my hand for my mom, but she’s still standing at the car, shining a flashlight at the side where we were hit. I let go of Rose and go back to my mom.
“I said get in the house!” She starts to push me away, but I’ve already seen it. The car is dented. A black substance, like moss, covers the damage.
“What is that?” I ask.
Something lands on top of the car. In the dark, I can’t see its face, but I can hear the scratch of metal and snap of teeth. The smell of a thousand corpses lives in its mouth. It breathes me in, like a hound on a scent.
The outdoor lights turn on. Lula and Rose are banging on the windows, screaming for us to run inside. The creature hisses at the flash of light and jumps back into the shadow before I can see the rest of it. My mom grabs my wrist and pulls me all the way into the house. We slam the door and bolt it shut.
“What’s happening?” Lula shouts, pacing circles in the kitchen.
Rose presses her head against the wall beside the sink, rubbing her temples over and over. “We have to go.”
I turn to my mom. “What is that thing?”
She doesn’t answer me. Her dark eyes are fixed on the door lock as she mumbles a prayer to La Mama.
“Mom!” I’ve never shouted at my mother. Not ever. But I have to so she’ll snap out of it.
“I think it’s a maloscuro. They’re shadow demons.” She squeezes the bridge of her nose, like she’s trying to remember more details but fails. “I need the Book.”
“It’s right here,” Lula says, flipping through the Book of Cantos. “Maloscuro. Once they were brujos who broke the Mortal Laws of the Deos. El Papa broke them until they were nothing but charred skin and bone. Yet he didn’t let them die. They lived, dragging themselves on hunched backs and broken limbs, holding on to shadows. A circle of brujas banished them to Los Lagos, where they could no longer harm the mortal realm. They’re attracted to great power. Light can ward them off but…”
“But?”
Lula look up at me from the page. “It cuts off.”
“These were the things Uncle Julio warned were under our beds?” I ask. “How sweet.”
“That’s not funny,” Lula snaps. She slams the Book shut and points at the door. “That thing is still out there. We have to do something! We can’t just sit around.”
I’ve never seen Lula so afraid.
“My Circle blessed this house,” my mom says, wiping her brow with the back of her trembling hand. “It can’t enter here. We can wait it out till sunrise.”
“Alex, use your power,” Lula tells me.
“I don’t know how!” There’s a tight pain in my belly and a greater pain in my chest.
The house rattles as a force slams into the structure. Picture frames and dishes shatter as they fall to the floor.
“Lula!” my mom shouts. “Get the candles and Papa Philomeno’s finger bone. Alex, bring me the sage. Rose—Rose?”
Rose slides down to the ground. She shuts her eyes and throws her glasses across the floor. A bloody tear runs down her cheek. My mom bends down to brush Rose’s matted hair back. Rose’s hands are spread out at her sides. Her eyes widen and dilate, until there is only black. A strangled cry comes from my little sister.
“Alex, the sage!”
I run into the storage closet and grab a sage stick. Then I remember. I rip open the box with my father’s things. I dig through old clothes and papers until I find it. A mace. The handle is made of wood and steel. The spikes are consecrated silver metal.
When I run back to the kitchen, Rose begins to speak.
“Rosie?” I edge closer to her.
Her eyes settle on me. She trembles with the spirit that’s taken over her body. The lights blow out all around us, and my little sister points to me and says in a stranger’s voice, “It’s you. I’ve found you.”
“What does that mean?” Lula asks my mom.
I start to reach for Rose, but the kitchen window shatters as the maloscuro breaks through, the force of it knocking me on my back. Its sinewy body separates the three of us from Rose. The creature turns its head to me. Tar-black skin that looks hard to the touch covers long limbs that end in claws. It slinks forward on all fours, leaving black marks on the tiles. The face is the worst. Even with its wide mouth distorted by curved teeth and a crooked nose that sniffs for my scent, I can still see where it was human once.
When we were children, they would scare us to sleep with stories of the maloscuros under the bed. But we aren’t like normal families. Our monsters are real. Sometimes we are the monsters.
The creature hisses, a long, curling tongue licks the fear in the air. Lula grabs a plantain mallet from the sink and hurls it. The maloscuro growls as the mallet hits it square in the face.
“Stop! You two, get your sister and get out of here,” Mom says, taking the mace from me. She stands in front of us like a human shield. She whistles, long and slowly. The maloscuro twists its long neck toward my mother. Its gleaming, black eyes are rimmed with diseased-yellow rings. With every sharp whistle, the beast follows my mother’s movement toward the back door.