“You’re right about the cards,” she says, breaking eye contact. “They were a message. A lot of the logjam of souls in Mictlan has been eased because of you, but it’s still a broken place. Mictlan still needs a king, now more than ever. And since you killed the other one, you’re the only candidate left. You are El Valiente. I’m offering you La Corona.”

“And La Corazon?”

“I think that’s something we’d have to work out.”

“Is this the hard sell or the soft one? I’m the only candidate? You can’t find a replacement out of how many billions of people on this planet? Five hundred years of planning and you and Mictlantecuhtli never came up with a backup if it all went to shit?”

“It wasn’t my plan,” she says. “It was—”

“Santa Muerte’s, I know. Who you aren’t. If you’re not Tabitha and you’re not Santa Muerte, the fuck do I even call you?”

She pauses, confusion crawling across her face. “I—I need to think about that,” she says.

“Have to think about that? How about Santa Pain-in-My-Ass? La Niña Multiple Personality Disorder? You have their memories and their desires? That’s gotta be a headfuck. Which of them wins out if they don’t agree? Do you flip a coin? Does she get the body on holidays and weekends, or do you alternate during the week?”

“It’s not that simple,” she says, gritting her teeth. She’s getting mad. Good. I’m fucking furious, my anger pouring out of me like a busted water main.

“Oh, it isn’t? You’re supposed to be La Dama Poderosa, La Flaca, the Bony Lady herself. But you’re actually some dead girl necromancer who kicked because she believed somebody else’s bullshit. I didn’t come here to talk to her. I came to talk to a fucking avatar of death, and if she’s not in there, then I’m wasting my time.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Tabitha says, standing and getting in my face. “You killed me, Eric. You stabbed me in the heart.”

“Really? I thought you weren’t Tabitha.”

“I—she. Goddammit. I have her memories. I know what you did. You shoved that knife into my chest . . . her chest, and then you—” She lets out a frustrated noise somewhere between a groan and a scream.

“What did I do?” I say. “Because I sure as hell don’t remember.”

“Nothing,” she says, a little too quickly. “You were just gone. Kicked out by Mictlan. That’s not the point. You murdered me.”

“To save you.”

“Well, it didn’t fucking work, did it?”

“Oh, do not give me that shit. I should have just killed you outright instead of letting you yank my chain thinking—”