Cece Rios and the Desert of Souls by Kaela Rivera (online e book reading .txt) 📕

weaker. If killed nine times, a soul stone grows so weak that it turns to sand. It is called the forever-last death.” She paused on her steps and turned back to tap my collarbone. “That scratch in the stone is a sign that Coyote has died. It is one scratch, so you know he has died once. You must keep this in mind. A good bruja must not kill her criatura or get it killed too often, or she will lose a valuable tool. Understand, mija?”

I had to force myself not to look back at Coyote. Nowhere in the legends did it say criaturas could die forever. The fact that they could be reborn and come back for revenge was one of the reasons they were such a torment to Naked Man.

“So, wait. Have any criaturas really died permanently?” I tried not to look horrified.

“Oh, yes. Have you heard of the Desert Grizzly Bear?”

“No.”

“Exactly.” She returned to her doorway. “Now come, I have much to teach you.” She pulled me inside the house and into a side room I hadn’t noticed before. Coyote trailed us, frowning. “We must work quickly to get you ready for tomorrow’s first round. If you are anything like your tía, you won’t need much time to master your criatura.”

She moved around the room—a small, simple square with no windows—and headed to the far end, where a great brass cage sat beneath a ratty cloth. She pulled it off but blocked whatever hid inside it from view.

“Before you can master a criatura, you must see a criatura’s master in action,” she said, and the sound of hinges screeched. “Let me show you how much power the heart of a true bruja can wield over a criatura.”

Grimmer Mother turned around, and a criatura tumbled out of the brass bars.

I immediately recoiled. It was La Chupacabra—the legendary dark criatura.

Like most dark criaturas, there were warning murals of her painted all across the edge of the Ruins. I’d been brought up seeing her balding, scrawny body and large teeth illustrated in books and reading about how she preyed on farmers’ livestock. She’d always looked and sounded monstrous, ravenous—like all dark criaturas.

Now, curled up on the concrete floor, she was small and vulnerable.

Her shape was mainly human, but her legs bent backward like a dog’s and her fingers ended in long claws. She shivered against the stone, and when she snapped her head up to look over her shoulder, her eyes were clouded like a mist had settled over the pupils.

My heart lurched. I coughed and placed a hand to my chest, struggling to breathe. Something hard and gray swelled up in my chest, seeking exit through my throat. Wait—no, that wasn’t me. It was the alien warmth that had started in my chest the moment I placed Coyote’s soul against my skin.

I glanced up at Coyote. His mismatched eyebrows pulled together, like he might be slightly uncomfortable.

But his soul felt like it was withering.

“Meet the goat sucker. My criatura.” Grimmer Mother kicked La Chupacabra forward.

The dark criatura fell on the ground in front of us, and her few spindly strands of black hair fell over her cloudy eyes. She hissed then, showing rows of sharp, spit-covered teeth.

“She is young in this lifetime,” Grimmer Mother said. “I owned her in her last one as well, but she died during a training accident. A shame, but she has at least two lives left. I’m glad she’s finally regrown enough to help me train you.” She stopped beside me and slipped off her soul stone necklace. Seven deep gouges interrupted the flat limestone. The sight made me flinch.

“She looks so skinny,” I said, averting my eyes.

Grimmer Mother clucked her tongue. “It takes a long time for criaturas to die of starvation, so there’s no point in feeding them more than once every couple weeks.” She snapped her fingers, and La Chupacabra winced. “In a fight, you must be ready to force your criatura to dodge, lunge, or strike at a moment’s notice. Let me show you how to gain control over your criatura.” She finally spared Coyote a glance. Her smile widened. “How you make it beg permission for every breath.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. Coyote’s gaze narrowed, and the gray inside my chest shifted into a darker shade. Grimmer Mother closed her hand back over the criatura’s soul stone.

La Chupacabra’s eyes went even duller than before. Both her arms launched into the air. They waved back and forth. Then, she crouched, slashing at nothing. A low, whining howl crawled out of her throat—and then she froze mid-step toward us.

Everything about her movements looked unnatural, more like a puppet’s movements than a living criatura’s. A shiver climbed my spine. Grimmer Mother released the soul stone, and La Chupacabra gasped, finally placing both feet on the ground.

Grimmer Mother turned to me and tapped my chest, near the leather lines of Coyote’s necklace. “Now you,” she said.

I gawked at her. “Now me what?”

“You won’t be able to make Coyote’s body move the way I just made La Chupacabra move, not right away. That takes practice. But pain is the easiest thing to make a criatura feel,” she said. “Start by making your pain his, and make his body cower with it.”

I nearly shouted “No!” but wadded it up in my mouth. If I didn’t do it, she’d know I wasn’t really like Tía Catrina at all. Plus, she was trying to help me win the Bruja Fights—is this really what I had to do to succeed?

My hand wrapped around Coyote’s soul. The stone was so warm, the temperature gentle.

Grimmer Mother’s eyebrows tugged together when I didn’t say anything. “What is it, mija? Is his soul hard to tame?” She reached for the stone. “Let me—”

“No!” I lurched back, clasping his stone to my chest. “No, I—uh—I just don’t understand how to press that feeling into him. Do I need to push into the weird warm feeling in my chest?”

She waved her hands.