garden lamps and torches, but the man cast no shadow. When I … When the priest looked at the suited man, his eyes slid away, as if the place where the man stood was somehow unfit for human sight. The priest no longer believed in God, but he knew enough to recognize His opposite.
“The priest froze, not understanding how the devil could look like a mortal man. Even the girl, who had only begun to understand about God and Satan, seemed to sense the man in black was dangerous. She tried to pull away, but he pulled her close, into a dance.
“Something in their dancing woke the priest. He could sense something terrible had been set in motion.
“He pressed forward, pushing against the bodies of other dancers. It was difficult, because everyone who saw the dance of the girl and the man in black became awed. They crowded in around them, blocking the way. At last, frantic and afraid, the priest bulled through them, calling the girl’s name. But as if God Himself had planned it, a fire pit lay directly in his path. Still calling her, he fell into the flames, scorching his hand. And as he lay writhing in the spilled coals, the man in black began to laugh.
“The priest knew then that he had been right: the man in black was a demon. Even now, his laughter was sucking out the priest’s soul.
“There was nothing the priest could do. Before he could get to his feet, a dark wind rose. When it cleared, the man in black and the girl who carried the priest’s heart were gone.
“Maria…”
I let my voice die and finished my gin. I had never told the story before. I had raved to Father Sanchez of demons. I had given a sermon that frightened the faithful from the pews. But I had never sat as I did now, calmly, with another person, and simply talked.
“At first I thought God was punishing me,” I said, my voice distant to my own ears. “But that thing … God would have been offended by its very existence.”
“I never had much use for God,” Cole said. “What people call God is just love.”
“It has been thirty years, snora,” I said. “I haven’t seen Maria again. Sometimes I don’t know if I want to.”
“You want to,” Cole said. “Even if the worst is true and she and Ash are demons, living in hell, don’t you at least want to save them?”
I laughed. “Me? A faithless priest? If you think to use me as a talisman, I’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong man.”
Though no light shone on her, I could sense her smile.
“I didn’t come looking for you because of your religion,” she said. “I came looking for you because the portenos say you can dance.”
Even now, I don’t know how she figured it out: about the vampires and the tango. At times I still wondered if she were one of them, so preternatural were her instincts.
I hardly paid attention to where she led me the next morning, my head aching with gin. Too much for an old man. Too much. My dreams had been of fire and redheaded women.
The courtyard had been closed for years, hidden behind a wooden gate. Yellow and green paint still clung, stubborn and faded, to the insect-eaten boards. Pale weeds bent with a crackle as Cole pushed it open.
I followed her, my head down. Slowly the worn stones of the courtyard came into focus. My heart throbbed a warning even before I recognized the dilapidated remains of the café sagging on my right.
“No,” I said. Brown leaves skittered across the yard, fetching up against the stone wall that circled the property. Mr. Pepe (he’d refused to let us call him “Señor”) had built the barbeque pit into the wall so he could roast an endless supply of suckling pigs. Long before I fell in love with Maria, I came to Pepe’s to eat and watch the dancing. The pit was full of leaves now. They dropped from a withered banyan, rustling as they fell.
Sweat ran wet fingers down my neck. The trees trapped the heat, coaxed the smell of mildew from the café’s swollen walls. A strand of triangular plastic flags still hung above the courtyard where Mr. Pepe had strung them, their beer advertisements melted by thirty years of rain. They pointed down at the stones like fingers at a ghost.
“Why?” I said, rounding on Cole. My body shook.
Cole lit her second