Tabitha looks like she always has, a completely normal Korean woman with long black hair. No sign of the Bony Lady that I can see other than a silk-screened drawing of her on the front of Tabitha’s red t-shirt. I look into her eyes for any trace of Santa Muerte, but I couldn’t see it before and I can’t see it now.

I don’t know what to say. Hi? How’ve you been? So, are you actually you or are you Santa Muerte wearing a Tabitha suit and should I try to kill you right now?

I settle on, “I got your cards. They were kinda cryptic.”

“They’re open to interpretation. That’s the point,” she says. “Good to know you got them, seeing as I put them into your pockets, on your dashboard, in the bathroom.”

“You could have just shown up,” I say. “Not that I wanted you to. Let’s just get that out of the way right now.”

“I know you didn’t,” she says. “That’s why I didn’t do it. But I figured we should talk eventually. I’m sure you have some questions.” She glances at the ring on my finger. “So do I.”

She’s right, but I’m not going to ask most of them. I can feel myself getting spun up just being in the same room, and I’m not sure why. I feel nervous and confused more than anything else. Who is this person? Why do I even care about her? I’m free and clear, and I know what I need from her, so what the hell is my problem?

I want to get in and out as soon as possible. But before I can ask about Quetzalcoatl, there are a few things I need to know.

“Who are you?” I say. “Tabitha? Santa Muerte?”

“Yes,” she says. “And no.”

“Oh, for fuck sake. Can I just get a straight goddamn answer? Enough with the cryptic bullshit.”

“That is a straight answer, Eric. I’m both Tabitha and Santa Muerte, and I’m neither of them. When you interrupted the ritual and pulled the knife from Santa Muerte and shoved it into Tabitha, you sacrificed them together. The knife did what the knife was supposed to do. It killed them. Like it killed you.”

“It didn’t kill me,” I say, but I’m starting to wonder. She’s right that the obsidian blade was designed to kill anything it cut. So what makes me think I survived? Besides a deep sense of denial and a remarkable facility for rationalization.

“Just because you’re alive now doesn’t mean you didn’t die then,” she says. “You were a sacrifice. It split you from Mictlantecuhtli. It’s a simpler version of what Tabitha and Santa Muerte went through.”

“You’re talking about yourself in the third person,” I say.