This is my fault. I brought this here. I brought this down on all these people not because of something I did, but because of who I am. I’m the guy with the key to an extradimensional room in a dead hotel, the guy with a bottle holding an entity that can crack worlds, the guy with a storage unit filled with the sorts of toys you play with only in nightmares.

“Everything dies, Eric. Everything is covered in blood. Whatever you touch you destroy.” Santa Muerte with Tabitha’s voice walks beside me down the street, a snow of ash falling to cover us both, her wedding dress as red as the embers in the flesh of burning corpses. “This is what it means to be king of the dead.”

“Open the bottle.” Gabriela on my other side. The front of her shirt soaked in blood, her eyes hungry, face feral. “Imagine what you could do if you let Darius loose. A Djinn that powerful, you could remake the world. Or give it to me. I’ll do it.”

“And let’s face it,” Vivian says, leaning over my shoulder from behind, her skin blackened and split like overdone barbecue. “It’s a pretty shitty world.”

—

I bolt up from the dream, sweating, panting. Panic wells up inside me. I can’t tell where I am, what’s real, what isn’t.

I’m in my motel room. I came back here after seeing Werther to try to get some sleep before the festivities start. A few things are hazy. Somewhere in there I remember calling MacFee. He used a teleportation charm to send me what I bought. Did I actually agree to get rid of fifty goats for this guy? I wonder if they like goats in Mictlan.

I’ve gotten about four hours of sleep. That’s more than I’ve had in the last few days and I could sleep for another twenty. The bruises and cuts don’t feel as bad, and my ribs don’t feel like the rotting beams of a house somebody should have torn down years ago.

Then I move and it all goes to shit. Vicodin, a hot shower, I’ll be just fine. But Jesus, the last couple days have taken their toll. I only have a few hours, and I still have a lot to do.

I shower, shave, get cleaned up. Fresh Band-Aids across my road rash knuckles, on various cuts and gashes I hadn’t noticed before. Gotta look professional for the shindig later.

Then I get to work. I pour some Morton’s salt in a circle around me for protection. At the cardinal points I place a bowl filled with dirt, another with water, a dish with a lit candle, and a blown-up balloon. Hey, fuck you. If you can think of a better way to represent air, I’m all ears.