She slowly rises from the other side of the Porsche. Her skin is ashen. The left side of her face drips like raw hamburger, her eye along with it. A thick white bandage covers where I tore into her with the nails. It’s soaked through with blood.

“Not yet,” she says, smiling. Half her teeth are missing on the left. “But soon. You killed me, necromancer. If it wasn’t for one of Quetzalcoatl’s charms, I’d be dead already. It’s fading. I won’t be here much longer.”

“Excellent. Where do you think you’ll wind up?” If she says Mictlan, I’ll need to get hold of Tabitha and give her a heads up.

She shakes her slowly, wincing. “I’m Catholic. I’ve known where I’m headed for a very long time. Maybe someday you’ll go to hell, too.”

“Probably,” I say, “but it won’t be yours.”

“I followed you in Mexico, you know,” she says. “Hired by three different cartels. Zetas, Sinaloa, Cartel del Golfo. I saw your handiwork. You’re a very bad man.”

“Never said I wasn’t.”

“Do you know what they called you?”

“El Gringo Sin Ojos,” I say. “The Gringo With No Eyes.”

“They said your eyes were like pools of midnight.”

“I got ’em fixed. Why’d you do it?”

“Hunt you? Because they were paying good money for your head.”

“No,” I say. I wave out to the burning city, the thousands of dead. “This. Why did you do this?”

The smile she gives is wide and bright and filled with the wonder of a child. “I like to burn things,” she says. “How could I pass up a chance like this?”

“Did Chu know about it?”

She shakes her head. “No. We knew he was going to betray us. I was going to kill him and burn down his house, like I had the others. This was all for you. Quetzalcoatl wanted you to know the price of betrayal. You were supposed to burn Mictlan, but you saved it. Why? Everyone there is already dead.”

“They’re souls,” I say. “Strip away everything else and that’s what you’ve got left. If I’d done that, it would have just been more murder. I won’t commit genocide.”

Sastre blinks, her eyes unfocused. “I think I’m dying now. I have to tell you something. Something very important. Come closer.”

“I can hear you just fine from here, thanks.”

“Oh. All right. It’s simple. A last request. Can you do that for me? Something simple?”

She’s playing me and I think I know how. I ready a spell in my mind in case I’m right, and tell her, “Sure, I’ll bite. What is it?”