“Only two lived long enough to see it. They brought me images and impressions, anything useful. The rest had died long before. I knew where he had broken through, and sensed that something in him had changed, and not for the better. He blamed me for his own betrayal. As you said, I was the last one standing. He believed I would try to kill him the first chance I got, which is what he would have done. There was nothing but rage there. Blind, pointless rage.”

Pieces are falling into place. If I hadn’t known before, I certainly know now. He wants revenge for what he sees as a betrayal. But is it revenge against me, or revenge again Santa Muerte? Both? Neither? What the hell is his game?

“Boy doesn’t give up, does he?”

“No,” she says. “His stubbornness is almost as strong as yours.”

“Ha, funny. See this face? This is the face of funny.”

“You want help defeating him,” she says.

“I just need to know how to do it. What was this vessel he was trapped in?”

“Fired clay,” she says, “ensorcelled by Cortés’s monks. I couldn’t recreate the spells. Their magic was alien to me. But I know it was powerful enough to hold him.”

“Well, I’ll just pop on down to Target and pick one up.” Dammit. I suspect the vessel isn’t the important thing here, but the spells that trapped him. I can think of a few, but none would be powerful enough to hold him. “Any suggestions?”

“Come with me to Mictlan and take your place by my side.”

“Not what I was asking. We’ve already had this conversation. You tried to kill me and stuff your ex-husband’s spirit into my body. What makes you think I’m going to trust you? Even if the you I’m talking to isn’t really the you who tried to murder me.”

“He’s gone. You know this.”

“Let me talk to Tabitha.”

“She’s not—”

“Let me talk to the piece of you that’s more Tabitha than not Tabitha. Jesus. Is this new? I don’t remember either one of you being so pedantic.” The skeleton shifts, muscle and skin and clothes flowing up the bones until it’s Tabitha again. She closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly.

“I’m still getting used to . . . myself,” she says.

“I think I liked you better when you were just her avatar,” I say. She scowls for a moment, but then lets it go. I wonder if maybe she liked herself better that way, too.

“Do you have any suggestions?” I say. She starts to talk and I interrupt with, “That don’t have me becoming the new Mictlantecuhtli.”