#brujo!alex

[thiswasinevitable-rwrb]

SANTA MUERTE Tarot

SANTA MUERTE Tarot by ©Fabio Listrani OUT in October 2017 - on © Lo Scarabeo Tarot Based on the Mexican triptych of the Dead: Calavera Catri

THE WAY i just bought this deck so fast lmao

Brujo!Alex is so on the way.

[thiswasinevitable-rwrb]

Sleepy Hollow au where Alex is a brujo but doesn't quite know it (or admit to himself) and his family moves to New England for his parents' work. He's not thrilled since he's going from a very mixed race society (Mexico still owns Texas) to a very conservative one.

At least, he thinks it's conservative, but then he thinks they're bat shit crazy due to their superstitions.

Autumn descends, and t night, wolves sing loudly in the woods. Then it's not just the wolves, but the dogs in the village. Alex hears a horseman riding down the streets and over the nearby bridge. He's used to a noisy neighborhood, but this is something else. The whole town swears they don't hear anything, but they outright threaten him to stay inside at night. Shudder the windows and blow out any flames.

It's Alex, so he doesn't. The horseman comes around like clockwork, probably a delivery person of some kind, bringing the papers from New York or Philadelphia, or doing the late night work of some other business. Goodness knows the silversmith stays up at all hours, so he's probably the one paying the obnoxious rider...

Alex sees the dog first. A smallish hound that sees him right back. It bays up at the moon, and through the shadows, a large horse's silhouette joins the dog's. Alex knows a male rider when he sees one, but the headless horseman legend might not be a legend after all.

The rider and dog run off, but Alex finds them night after night. He even manages to get way too close and learns that the dog is dead - cloudy blue eyes, half its jaw missing, and somehow still walking and running with a compound fracture sticking out of its legs.

It's when the horseman lifts the dog to carry it that Alex sees the glint of a ring on his pinkie.

Another night, push comes to shove, and Alex wrestles that ring off the zombie's hand and flees. All he has to go on is a gold signet ring, the curvaceous H stamped on it, and the almost worn away engraving inside:

act ii, sc iii XXXVI - XLIX

He has no idea what it means. He's assume it's a Bible verse except his sister has been making trips to the nearby cities to see the plays. She collects the scripts and tells him it's a citation from a play. But which one?

Alex runs out of time trying to figure it out, because the next night, an incessant knocking rattles the house door in its frame before being knocked down entirely.

To both Alex's and June's surprise, the horseman holds out his hand. Alex sets the ring on his dead palm, and he...leaves. For having no brain, the body is oddly sentient.

"Did you see his clothes?" June asks.

"What? No, I'm busy looking for his eyes."

"It's a stage costume. He's wearing a stage costume. It's too colorful."

Long story short, June and Alex search through records to find an actor who died with an H last name. Instead they find Arthur, an actor with a son named Henry. They died in the same week.

"Which one is it?"

"Henry. It must be Henry," June insisted.

"A father would wear his son's ring," Alex reasoned. "He's looking for something every night."

Either way, Alex must find out how they died, and why one of them is riding. The real question, is who is the horseman searching for every night? The search is getting more and more invasive. The townspeople aren't able to turn a blind eye anymore, and things are getting violent.

And yet, the horseman never harms Alex.