La Noche de la Chankla: Two Legs

Chapter 13

Waiting, Luna listened to the sometimes sharp but unintelligible noises coming from the TV in Lila’s room, the commercials invariably being louder than whatever Luisa and Spider were watching, or sleeping to, and in that way almost recreating the juxtaposition of days and nights in the desert. Her thoughts turned to Sergio Harkness and what he must have discovered, and the idea of trying to contact him through the veil came to her.

Giving up on the test, Luna was about to retire to her room and try to sleep when she heard it, a howl, a deep, guttural howl, not close but not far enough away to be ignored. It was not a coyote. She was sure of it, and that was enough for her. Grabbing her chanklas, a shawl, and her moonstone, gripped tightly in her hand, she left the house, out into the night, seeking the canine menace. The moon smiled down upon her, lighting her way down the street in the direction of the sound.

It was not long before she found the origin of the howl. The dogs had come, after all. She could see them in the near distance, eyes aglow in red and bent upon terrorizing the inhabitants of Agape, or, at least, the brujas. But she saw at once that they were not heading toward her or Luz’s houses. They had split up, some heading north, some heading south toward the square. It was then that she realized that they were there for the townspeople who had opposed the Silver Moon Church. It had to be that, as they could do nothing to the brujas.

Following the closest pack, it became clear that they were headed for Enrique’s, and, for a split second, she rued telling him not to attack the church, as it appeared the result was the same either way. But these dogs were not the ancient evil, only its surrogates. The real evil still dwelt under the Silver Moon, the stolen symbol that slandered the brujas’ protector.

Enrique’s house was on the outskirts of the town, surrounded by a few empty lots, and, when the dogs drew closer to the residence, Luna quickened her pace, intent on heading them off or stopping them somehow. The moonstone, la piedra de luna, must have been shielding her from their detection, but she did not want to be shielded and picked up a rock and threw it at the pack. “Psst! Oye, perros! Vengan aquí!”

The group of dogs at the rear of the pack turned back and began to snarl, coming to her and surrounding her, as the rest continued to the house to fulfill their mission. Luna still did not have any words, no spells rose in her mind, but she held her ground as they closed in around her. But they stopped fifteen feet away. The moonstone. They would not come any closer. Luna walked toward them and they shrunk back, retreating to maintain the distance between themselves and the lone bruja. Still no words came to her.

Watching helplessly as the leaders jumped over Enrique’s fence with ease, she imagined that she might become responsible for his death. She should have let him go. Then, at least, he would have had some satisfaction before being torn apart in his own bed. The thought tore at her heart and that is when she spoke, almost involuntarily, “Benedico vobis! In nomine lunae! Dea noctis! Renatus!”

As she spoke the words, words she did not know, the dogs before her, ceased to snarl and laid down on the ground, closing their eyes as if they could not stay awake. They began to convulse, and then they were still. Luna believed she had killed them, but, as her attention was about to be called back to the rest of the pack, the dogs before her awoke and rose … and they were just dogs, no remnant of red glow in their eyes. Still feral but no longer under the control of the Garmr cult, they looked at each other and then at Luna, before whimpering and darting off into the night, back out into the desert.

Having no time for awe, Luna moved to face the rest of the pack. As she unlocked the gate of Enrique’s fence, the others came running, but again, the moonstone halted their approach. Luna repeated the spell, “Renatus!” and the dogs reverted to their natural states before escaping into the night. But there was one more, a large black dog that she could no longer see. It had been at the head of the pack, but she had been too distracted by the others to see where it had gone.

Enrique’s front door was open, the sash splintered. She could not fathom how a dog could have forced the door but it must have, and she entered the house. “Enrique!” she shouted. “Perros!”

Hearing a cry from the back of the house, she ran toward it and found the large black dog standing over Enrique as he lay in bed. She shouted, “Renatus!” … but the dog did not lie down. It did not convulse. Instead it tuned toward her and looked her in the eye. “Renatus!” she cried again, and, again, there was no reaction from the hound. It leapt from the bed and came towards her, closer than it should have been able to, well within the influence of the moonstone.

Luna backed against the wall and began to pray, as the dog began to change, standing upon two legs and growing taller, until it towered over her, growling and drooling. It came closer, and she gripped the moonstone as tightly as she could. As it raised its claw and was abut to slash at her, she averted her eyes before hearing a clap of thunder.

It fell to the floor in pain, grabbing at its heart. Then it was still. Enrique, had shot it with the gun he kept in his nightstand.

Both staring at it, fearing that it would start to move again, they could hear the desert crickets and the frogs chirping away in the night. Slowly, they both moved toward the door, Luna tracing the wall and Enrique sliding out of bed with utmost caution and giving himself a wide birth around the body.

When they had gained the hallway, they felt more secure.

“What … is it?” Enrique asked Luna.

“Malvado,” was all she could answer. “There are others. I have to go.”

“Esperate! I’m coming.” Swallowing his fear, he reached back into his bedroom for his jeans and boots, before getting his coat and rifle. Grabbing his keys on the way out, he motioned for Luna to get into the his old, beat up truck, which, unlike modern monstrosities, was barely larger than most cars.

Following Luna’s directions, they headed south, the way the other packs had gone. The majority of the residents who had come to the brujas’ rescue, having witnessed the scene in the square, lived closer to the center of town. And when they got within a few blocks, they saw something that they couldn’t explain. A duck was sitting in the road. At first, they assumed that someone was raising ducks and it had gotten loose. But them they saw a roadrunner, followed by a hawk perched upon a fence, but it did not appear to know how to fly. A desert hare. A tortoise. Xochitl. They arrived just in time to see Xochitl turn an angry dog into a mocking bird.

Jumping from the truck as soon as Enrique stopped, Luna ran to Xochitl. “Animales?” she asked, unsure of what she was seeing.

“I am saying the word that came to me. I do not know what it means,” Xochitl answered, seeming to almost be enjoying herself. “The dogs were trying to get into the houses. I had no choice.”

“Where is Luz?”

Xochitl pointed toward the square, and Luna, following her finger, locating the other bruja. But, unlike the words that Luna and Xochitl had been given, Luna could already tell that Luz’s word was more destructive. Luna told Xochitl to use the word she had been given instead of the one Xochitl had been given. After having seen the dogs awake and knowing that they were not hell hounds nor under their own power, Luna could not justify turning them into animals that they had no idea how to be or destroying them, even if they did pose a risk to the town in their normal state. She wondered why Xochitl had been given that word, or if the words that came to them were borrowed from their individual subconscious thoughts. As she approached Luz and saw that Luz was turning the dogs into sand, she decided upon the latter explanation.

“Luz!”

“Luna! Thank God you’re okay! Los perros messed with the wrong brujas esta noche.”

“Luz,” Luna moved to whisper in her ear.

“Sí? Luz said.

“Sí,” Luna answered.

“Okay. I will try that.”

The three brujas traversed the neighborhood together looking for the remaining dogs and casting their spell, causing the canines to revert to their natural states, including those that Xochitl had turned into others animals. Luna was constantly on the lookout for any that did not react to the incantation. Whatever it was she had encountered back at Enrique’s had scared her, and she would have to tell the others about it once their current chore was completed, even if she did not know how to explain it. She decided that she would just have to show them.

No one came out of their houses as the brujas cleared the streets, and not one face peered from a window. The people were asleep, and it struck the brujas as odd that none of the residents were awake, none of them, with the exception of Enrique whom Luna had awoken just in time. All the lights were out. Luna now thought that it was odd for Luisa and Spider to have retired so early and, Javi hadn’t even come to her room to ask to be tucked in. And when the women could find no more dogs and returned to Enrique’s truck, they found him asleep again as well, having to wake him for the second time.

“There is magic on the town,” Luz surmised.

“Yes, dark magic,” Luna agreed.

Although it was very late, the moon still show upon the women, and they asked Enrique to take them back to his house, which he did without protest, as he wanted the other brujas to see the thing in his room. But, when they arrived and entered the house, they found that it was gone, not a trace, not a spot of blood.

“Pero, it was right here!” Enrique insisted.

“It was,” Luna backed him up. “It was like a dog that could stand on two legs. Enrique shot it.”

“Qué? Like un hombre lobo … a werewolf?” Xochitl asked.

“No, creo more like a nahual,” Luna replied.

Luz was confused by the word. She had not gone to college and studied lore. “A what?”

“Como un brujo … pero not from Mexico,” Luna explained, “a shapeshifter. My spell did nothing to it and it did not fear la piedra de luna. It had magic.”

Luz looked shocked. “But the moonstones … they’re our protection, How?”

“No sé, “Luna replied, “The stones were to stop the attacks from far away. Maybe they are not as powerful against brujos up close.”

That realization was sobering.

Enrique offered to drive the women home, and Luz and Xochitl accepted, Xochitl deciding to stay with Luz longer, since they both lived alone. Luna wanted to walk and think. All present hoped that the residents would wake in the morning, the overpowering urge to sleep assuredly a spell meant to cover the attack by the dogs, and planned to meet at noon the following day at Luz’s.

As Luna wended her way home in the chill, pulling her shawl tightly around her shoulders and letting the magnitude of everything that had happened up until that point weigh upon her, her mind again returned to Sergio Harkness and the secret he must have uncovered. She simply knew that discovering it was needed to defeat the evil of the Silver Moon Church and the Hounds of Garmr. The moon made sure that Luna made it back safely.