“I’m talking about politics. Like it or not, you’re political just by being you. People know about that earthquake a couple years back, about the Bruja’s hotel burning down, about the people who died on the train. Stories are coming out of Mexico. Dead cartel leaders, heroin distribution lines cut. Sounds like you put a dent in the Mexican drug market just by being there. But that’s not the most interesting thing.”

“Oh, what is?” I don’t like this. People are keeping tabs on me. I don’t like being tracked and I don’t like being talked about.

“Bullshit stories about gods and goddesses. Love triangles. Real telenovela stuff. Nice wedding band by the way,” she says. “I can’t wait to see what the kids look like.”

“We haven’t really discussed it,” I say. “You know, newlyweds.” Interesting. She’s digging. There are rumors but nothing that people are believing just yet. Well, some people.

“You’re seriously expecting me to buy that you’re married to a goddess?”

Belief’s a weird thing with people, normals and mages alike. We can accept all sorts of weird shit, but you go just one step too far and they’re all like, “Nope. Don’t buy it. I can believe in amazing cosmic powers that can bend reality to my will, demons, spirits, horrors from the spaces between time. But an invisible man in the sky who grants wishes and judges me based on how many times I’ve masturbated is where I draw the line.”

“Am I? Huh. She told me she was a stripper from Tijuana.”

She gives me this look that I can’t quite decipher. Horror, acceptance, nausea. Then she pulls it back. “I hope they don’t take after their mother.”

“I dunno. You haven’t seen her pole dance.”

“I know it’s bullshit,” she says, but she sounds a little deflated. “A lot of people know it’s bullshit. But there are plenty of gullible assholes out there who believe. They think you’re some kind of king of the dead making zombie armies.”

“Yeah, I heard that one earlier today. But then we necros hear a lot of shit about ourselves. Did you know we eat babies and have sex with the dead? I mean, I don’t, but everybody says we do. There was one guy in New Orleans, though. He was pretty into necrophilia.”

“You joke, but whether they believe it or not doesn’t matter. You’re seen as either a threat or someone they want on their side. The fact that you’ve been in L.A. as long as you have and haven’t aligned yourself with anybody makes you ripe for recruitment.”