Pilar Ramirez and the Curse of San Zenon


 Contents
 
 Title Page
 Copyright Notice
 Chapter One
 Chapter Two
 Chapter Three
 Chapter Four
 Chapter Five
 Chapter Six
 Chapter Seven
 Chapter Eight
 Chapter Nine
 Chapter Ten
 Chapter Eleven
 Chapter Twelve
 Chapter Thirteen
 Chapter Fourteen
 Chapter Fifteen
 Chapter Sixteen
 Chapter Seventeen
 Chapter Eighteen
 Chapter Nineteen
 Chapter Twenty
 Chapter Twenty-One
 Chapter Twenty-Two
 Chapter Twenty-Three
 Chapter Twenty-Four
 Chapter Twenty-Five
 Chapter Twenty-Six
 Chapter Twenty-Seven
 Chapter Twenty-Eight
 Chapter Twenty-Nine
 Chapter Thirty
 Chapter Thirty-One
 Chapter Thirty-Two
 Chapter Thirty-Three
 Chapter Thirty-Four
 Chapter Thirty-Five
 Chapter Thirty-Six
 Chapter Thirty-Seven
 Chapter Thirty-Eight
 Chapter Thirty-Nine
 Chapter Forty
 Chapter Forty-One
 Epilogue
 Also by Julian Randall
 About the Author
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 Copyright
 
 
 
 Guide
 
 Cover
 Title Page
 ONE
 Epilogue
 Contents
 Copyright
 
 
 
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 ONE
 
 I STARTLED AWAKE FROM THE DREAM.
 “Ay, not this tontería again,” I muttered, pulling my hoodie down farther over my curls and shifting in my window seat on the plane.
 Lately, my dreams have been full of teeth. It’s been nearly a year since I came back from my adventure on a magical island called Zafa, pero the island still lives on in my dreams. And my nightmares. I dream of baca dogs, demons running wild over ruined villages, while coconut-shaped Cucitos tear down anything they can get their gross, yellowing nails into. Storm clouds curl around the eerie white towers of El Cuco’s prison fortress, La Blanca, like a ghostly hand. The jaws of a dog-demon snap against its chain, El Baca’s howl swallowed by thunder.
 It’s not like the dreams come every night, but they’re coming more often lately. I think it’s just nerves though—after all, today’s one of the biggest days of my life.
 Pero this time was different—this time the dream took place in my world. A man in a Trujillo-era military outfit had sat in total silence, laying out goat bones in constellation-style shapes, etching symbols and figures into the bones. The man had continued his creepy ritual under the yellow light that hung from a chain in his room. Pues, I hadn’t known who this dude was, pero ever since they’d kidnapped my cousin Natasha fifty years ago, anybody in that uniform spelled trouble—whether it’s El Cuco or just some random member of Trujillo’s secret police, the Servicio de Intelligencia Militar (SIM).
 I had no idea what the dreams meant, but it couldn’t be anything good.
 I was about to try to squeeze out some more sleep, but then I felt a sharp, insistent pain in my right shoulder. I pried one of my eyes open to see what could possibly be attacking me. Pues, I should have known.
 Lorena’s bony little fingers were jittering into my shoulder like a hummingbird.
 “Ay por favor, Lorena, what is it now?”
 “Don’t take that tone with me, baby sister! I’m trying to help you!”
 “By severing my right arm?”
 “No, genius,” Lorena huffed. “For your information, the pilot just said that we’ll be landing in thirty-five minutes.”
 “Lorena,” I growled, “that’s thirty-two more minutes I could have been asleep!”
 “Look, you little malcriada, I put a lot of effort into making you these flash cards and the least you could do is look at them! How are you going to do work on your movie if you can’t understand the language?”
 She had a point, pero you can’t really give Lorena an inch on these kinds of things, so I faked snores until she gave up and tossed the cards in my lap.
 “Desgraciada. I can’t wait until this moody teenager phase is a thing of the past!”
 I tried to get my sleep rhythm back, pero it was a lost cause, and already the dream