Bystanders are caught in the blaze and I feel a bunch of them go fast, each death a little pinprick in my psyche. Goddammit. I roll down the window and draw my Browning.

“What the hell are you doing?” Letitia says.

“Get closer.”

“You’re not jumping on her car too, are you?”

“No, I’m gonna blow her fuckin’ head off.” I unbuckle my seatbelt and lean out of the car, the Browning tight in one hand.

Miriam said my grandfather left me this little piece of evil because only a necromancer could use it. So far, I’ve only seen it make bigger holes in things than it should. I’ve ignored the feel of it under my skin, the sense sometimes that it wants me to do something. Something more than just pulling the trigger.

“All right, you little bastard, let’s see what you can really do.”

A feeling of satisfaction, of “it’s about time,” floods through me. The gun taps into my magic, into something else I didn’t think I’d ever feel again. Tabitha told me I’d have some of Mictlantecuhtli’s power back. But now I can feel it.

I pull the trigger. The gun goes off like a cannon and my sense of time slows, my vision sharpens, and I can track the bullet. I can see exactly what’s going to happen. It’s going to go through the Porsche’s rear window and punch through the back of Sastre’s head.

And then it doesn’t. The bullet hits a barrier around the car, exploding into flames in midair. I can feel the gun screaming in frustration in my head. I cut it off and holster it. It’s furious. At Sastre, at me, at the whole fucking world. It was made for murder and when it finally gets to bring its power to bear it’s denied.

“Jesus, will you shut up?” I say to it, closing myself off completely and shoving it into my messenger bag. If this is what shooting with its full potential is like, I may have to stick it back in the storage unit. I rub my hand across my pant leg. I can’t get rid of the feeling of cockroaches crawling through my skin.

“I thought she didn’t have any magic?” Letitia says.

“I don’t think she does. Quetzalcoatl gave her a bunch of paper charms. She probably tossed one on the Porsche. Probably gave her something for healing, too. I tagged her pretty hard.”

Behind us there’s a tremendous crash and in the rearview mirror I can see the burning section of the 10 collapse behind us. Great.

“Is there anything we can do to block her off?” If we want any hope of catching her, we need to stop her moving. With her tossing tlepilli out the window like hand grenades, getting too close is a bad idea.