Her expression goes sober. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I know this isn’t easy.”

“I assume you know why I’m here, right?”

“Yes. I think it’s a stupid idea, and it could very well get you killed, with or without my help, but I’ll do it. You know what I want, right?”

“Thirty days,” I say. “All in one chunk or on weekends, or whatever. Like community service.”

“Six months,” she says.

“Fuck you. Even Persephone only got stuck with three.”

She jumps on that. “Three, then,” she says. “Three months of the year you take your place by my side in Mictlan as Mictlantecuhtli and help me fix it. You know how broken it is.”

“I’m a handyman for the underworld,” I say.

“You’re Mictlantecuhtli. Which amounts to the same thing. While you’re there you’ll take on the responsibilities of the role and the abilities to perform them.”

“And those include?”

“We’ll go over that. They’re pretty mundane. Opening paths between sections of Mictlan, getting some of the rowdier souls in line, the occasional blood sacrifice.”

“Oh, goody. I haven’t done one of those in weeks. One more condition. I don’t start for six months. There’s shit I need to figure out here and if I’m down there it’ll be a problem.”

“Counter-offer,” she says. “You start in a month, but you’re not stuck down there. You need to come up here, you come up here. That’s fine. I’m not abducting you, Eric. This isn’t what Santa Muerte had tried to get out of you. That was all just a bullshit ruse, anyway. I’m not her, but I have a responsibility, and I will see it through. And I need your help.”

My skin is crawling. Am I seriously considering this? I spent over two years trying to get out of this very position, and now I’m willing to go back in?

This feels different, but is it really? Last time, Santa Muerte maneuvered me into this position and it was for a very different reason.

I’m having trouble not thinking of the woman, the goddess, in front of me as half Tabitha and half Santa Muerte. I know she isn’t. But I still wonder which side this request is coming from.

“So I click my heels three times and say there’s no place like home?”

“Yes,” she says, smiling. I catch myself smiling back and remember that this isn’t Tabitha. My face goes blank. She looks away and the silence goes on too long.