A moment, I was convinced. There had been a moment when Langer, Hellmouth, and Silvina had been aligned in a very personal way. Not just one run by the other. Not just one sleeping with the other. Maybe it had been on a Miami beach somewhere, summoned by Hellmouth. Or in Argentina. But it had been the kind of experience that made you bond. Or made you think you were part of something greater. I couldn’t see the anger and the passion in him now as just betrayal. I couldn’t imagine Silvina with him without seeing some sort of understanding with Hellmouth. And then it was gone and they fell out of each other’s orbits and yet they remained … entangled. Couldn’t quite ever become unstuck again.

What I couldn’t tell for certain was Hellmouth’s position within that maze. Or did he exist outside of it entire somehow? The magician. The fool. Who had miscalculated in this sense: that Langer’s entanglement, his engagement, was absolute. That Langer could have been emotionally hurt by Hellmouth’s betrayal. Wide and deep yet claustrophobic and small.

All of them had been involved, in some sense, in wildlife trafficking, even Silvina. Vilcapampa Senior lured back into that or jumping in headfirst? Langer had said it plain, that Contila hardly existed anymore. Almost as if Contila had always been part ghost, and not because of Hellmouth’s localized predations.

What was Hellmouth protecting or obscuring? What did he want? Or did he want nothing, but, like some windup automaton on a track, kept completing the same loop?

Feverish with these thoughts. Going back and forth, round and round, until I realized if I didn’t set it aside, I would descend into a kind of mania.

I almost ran into a herd of elk around a corner, with a steep rock cliff to my left and old-growth redwoods to my right. Came to a gasping, skidding halt on the gravelly emergency lane. I’d been navigating a series of extreme switchbacks, taking a shortcut through mountains. The elk stared placid and yet unyielding at me. They had no panic or indecision to them. In that strange light, that moment of encountering life that didn’t care about my journey, their large, calm eyes seemed like those of all-knowing deities.

I took it as a sign. I called Hellmouth/Jack. Sick of texts. Sick of foreplay.

Hellmouth Jack’s voice was as I remembered from the bar. Sexy. Voice of the Devil.

“Nice to hear your voice, Jill,” he said.

“Not nice to hear yours.” But it was. Why should I be so comfortable with it?

“I understand your complaint.”

“I think I killed Langer,” I said.

“Think?”

“I tried to blow him up.”

Hellmouth Jack guffawed at that. A kind of admiring laugh. Like he admired the audacity.

“Hard to kill, as I’ve said.”