“Hey vatos, how were the honey buns?”Christopher Perez asked. The sleeping boys roused and answered, “Awesome man, thanks.”

Spider passed him the autographed magazines. “I even made one out to Louie.”

Perez pointed past the boys to the sleeping cat in the window and said, “Hey, is that the ghost cat from the brujo?”

“What’s that?” George asked Tex.

“Brujo is like a witch doctor,” he answered. Then he turned to Perez, “Yeah, that’s Buddha’s cat.”

The cat stirred from its sleep and said to Buddha, “Just tell them I can talk and you can hear me.”

Buddha shook his head like a dog trying to get water out of its ears. After all of the supernatural occurrences of the summer, a talking cat should have been the least of his worries.

At first it was a wayward shadow or a blurry shape just out of their peripheral vision. Eventually they began to see images; ruffles of a summer dress passing an empty hallway, long black ringlets outside a three story window. Buddha heard sing-song voices telling nursery rhymes. George felt soft fingers on his neck and got goosebumps from unseen eyes. They knew there was definitely something strange going on, so they decided to consult a real expert. They took their problems to the King of all things creepy; Prince Love.

Most days he could be found at a card table playing an eternal game of chess with an old one-eyed gangster everyone called Mr. Curtis. Curtis Shaw was a huge monolith of a man. He had a wide ragged scar that ran from under his fedora down through a white eyeball and past his jaw line to disappear beneath the collar of the old suit he wore. The boys had heard rumors about that scar that ranged from Carlos Marcello slashed him with a machete, to he was the guy who shot Kennedy from the grassy knoll.

The Prince told Tex, “All dees stories are probly true. He done been sent to Hell tree times. Ol’ Scratch say de too much Evil when Mr. Curtis comes to Hell, so dey send him back.” The Prince would laugh, but not because it was a joke, but because the truth was funny.

Tex had told George that favors from the Prince always cost a token of payment. He and Buddha spent all day coming up with something the Prince might want before venturing across the street from the old orphanage to have an audience with the Prince.

George and Buddha stood next to the chess game uncomfortably, waiting for the Prince to acknowledge their presence. Mr. Curtis waived with a huge, heavily scarred arm, signaling that the boys were blocking his view, so they squatted down.

“Well, look here, Mr Curtis, it isn’t every day a King done knee him before a Prince!” He stretched out a long curved fingernail and waived it at a spot behind George that went hazy like heat rising off pavement. “But he bring him monsters.” He tilted his head and eyed Mark Jenkins with a look that gave the boy chills. “And he bring him Buddha.” Then a smile crept across his face and he finished, “And he bring us gifts!”

George took this as a sign to speak and was about to explain their problem when the Prince interrupted, “First gimme de payment, and I’ll tell you how to catch de little one.”
George pictured the two girls from the tree house and blurted, “Will it hurt her?”

The Prince’s face went cold and his words were chilly enough to give Buddha goose bumps. “Ebrytin’ hurts somebody, young king. Doze who promise otter wise, lie.” He pointed behind the boys again. “Ask dem monsters. Dey know where liars go.”

“What about the big one?” George asked.

“Oh, de iz no magic dat can bind her. She what deals wit de Debil herself. You don’t be wanten to cross the Debil boy, King or no King.”

When he said that, Mr. Curtis took the Prince’s queen with a rook and spit a wad of chewing tobacco on the ground. The Prince let out an unsettling laugh, “Unless you be mizta Curtis here. Dat ole debil get scared an’ habem demons kick ‘em out to live wit me. One day that ole girl going to have to pay de rent. Den we got her, pitchfork and all.” He finished his laugh and ordered, “Gimme payment.”

George pulled a gallon pickle jar from his backpack containing an enormous tarantula and set it on the card table near the Prince’s captured pawns. The Prince removed the spider with an eerie hand of skin so black it the made the tattoos covering it appear almost purple. He held the spider so close to his face you could see the hairs on its legs ruffle with his breath. “She iz magnifizent! I hab never see her equal.” Setting the spider down, he whispered, “See you at home, Jasmine.” The spider scurried off.

George was mesmerized. “How did you know her name?”

The Prince snapped out of his awe of Jasmine. “You only pay me for one favor, doe a mighty good payment you make. You don’t want to be wastin’ it asking how Prince’s talk to spiders, do ya?” The boys watched his face grow even more sinister as he addressed his chess partner, “Get him hand.”

Before Buddha could recoil, the one-eyed gangster clinched his wrist in a death grip that could have held Pegasus still. The Prince pulled a gold pin out of his hair causing his dreadlocks to fall around his face like a head of snakes. He babbled words that seemed to put Buddha in a trance and made him relax his hand, exposing his open palm. With blinding speed the old Rasta stabbed the pin into Buddha’s palm. Instead of the boy feeling the pain, he felt a numbing cold creep up his arm like a thousand pins and needles. The old gangster slipped a large silver bracelet, that nowhere near fit, around the boy’s wrist. “Take Mr. Curtis’ hat and when de church chimes eleven, she will be in de hat. Touch her head. Don’t be taken off dat bracelet, airee?”

The boys were still in shock when the Prince leaned back in his chair and contemplated his next move. “Oh yea, bring back him hat.”

They walked back across the street to the sound of eerie laughter.