By Silvia Moreno-Garcia
In 2015, Silvia Moreno-Garcia’s debut, SIGNAL TO NOISE, jump
started her writing career as one of the best of the year on seven lists
including RT, BookRiot, Buzzfeed, io9, Vice, and Tor.com. The debut was also
was finalist for the 2016 Aurora Awards, Sunburst Award, and the 2016 Locus
Awards. Already highly anticipated, her sophomore book, CERTAIN DARK THINGS
(Thomas Dunne Books; October 25, 2016), adds to this emerging talent’s buzz.
Set in the dark underworld of Mexico City, Moreno-Garcia spins a fast paced
story based on Latin American myth about a dark vampire drug war.
Welcome to Mexico City, an oasis in a sea of vampires. Here
in the city, heavily policed to keep the creatures of the night at bay, Domingo
is another trash-picking street kid, just hoping to make enough to survive.
Then he meets Atl, the descendant of Aztec blood drinkers running from a rival
band of vampires, and is smitten. But Atl’s problems in a deeply rooted family drug
war have come to seek their revenge. When they start to raise the body count in
the city, it attracts the attention of police officers, local crime bosses, and
the vampire community.
As the stakes get higher and the vampires more dangerous,
this unusual story will keep you flipping pages until the sun rises.
Moreno-Garcia gives readers a glance at Mexico City’s history and culture while
making vampires terrifying again.
Excerpt:
Collecting garbage sharpens the senses. It allows us to
notice what others do not see. Where most people would spy a pile of junk, the
rag-and-bone man sees treasure: empty bottles that might be dragged to the
recycling center, computer innards that can be reused, furni- ture in decent
shape. The garbage collector is alert. After all, this is a profession.
Domingo was always looking for garbage and he was always
looking at people. It was his hobby. The people were, not the gar- bage. He
would walk around Mexico City in his long, yellow plastic jacket with its dozen
pockets, head bobbed down, peeking up to stare at a random passerby.
Domingo tossed a bottle into a plastic bag, then paused to
ob- serve the patrons eating at a restaurant. He gazed at the maids as they
rose with the dawn and purchased bread at the bakery. He saw the people with
shiny cars zoom by and the people without any cash jump onto the back of the
bus, hanging with their nails and their grit to the metallic shell of the moving
vehicle.
That day, Domingo spent hours outside, pushing a shopping
cart with his findings, listening to his portable music player. It got dark and
he bought himself dinner at a taco stand. Then it started to rain, so he headed
into the subway station.
He was a big fan of the subway system. He used to sleep in
the subway cars when he first left home. Those days were behind. He had a
proper place to sleep now, and lately he collected junk for an important
rag-and-bone man, focusing on gathering used thermo- plastic clothing. It was a
bit harder to work the streets than it was to work a big landfill or ride the
rumbling garbage trucks, sorting gar- bage as people stepped outside their
houses and handed the collec- tors their plastic bags. A bit harder but not
impossible, because there were small public trash bins downtown, because the
restaurants left their garbage in the alleys behind them, and because people
also littered the streets, not caring to chase the garbage trucks that made the
rounds every other morning. A person with enough brains could make a living
downtown, scavenging.
Domingo didn’t think himself very smart, but
he got by. He
was well fed and he had enough money to buy tokens for the public baths once a
week. He felt like he was really going places, but enter- tainment was still
out of his reach. He had his comic books and graphic novels to keep him
company, but most of the time, when he was bored, he would watch people as they
walked around the sub- way lines.
It was easy because few of them paid attention to the
teenager leaning against the wall, backpack dangling from his left shoulder.
Domingo, on the other hand, paid attention to everything. He con- structed
lives for the passengers who shuffled in front of him as he listened to his
music. This one looked like a man who worked selling life insurance, the kind
of man who opened and closed his briefcase dozens of times during the day,
handing out pamphlets and explana- tions. That one was a secretary, but she was
not with a good firm because her shoes were worn and cheap. Here came a con
artist and there went a lovelorn housewife.
Sometimes
Domingo saw people
and things that
were a bit scarier. There were gangs roaming the subway
lines, gangs of kids about his age, with their tight jeans and baseball caps,
rowdy and loud and for the most part dedicated to petty crimes. He looked down
when those boys went by, his hair falling over his face, and they didn’t see
him, because nobody saw him. It was just like with the regular passengers;
Domingo melted into the tiles, the grime, the shadows.
After an hour of people watching, Domingo went to look at
the large TV screens in the concourse. There were six of them, display- ing
different shows. He spent fifteen minutes staring at Japanese music videos
before it switched to the news.
Six dismembered bodies found in Ciudad Juárez. Vampire drug
wars rage on.
Domingo read the headline slowly. Images flashed on the
video screen of the subway station. Cops. Long shots of the bodies. The images
dissolved, then showed a beautiful woman holding a can of soda in her hands.
She winked at him.
Domingo leaned against his cart and waited to see if the
news show would expand on the drug war story. He was fond of yellow journalism.
He also liked stories and comic books about vampires; they seemed exotic. There
were no vampires in Mexico City: their kind had been a no-no for the past
thirty years, ever since the old Federal District became a city-state, walling
itself from the rest of the country. He still didn’t understand what a
city-state was exactly, but it sounded important and the vampires stayed out.
The next story was of a pop star, the singing sensation of
the month, and then there was another ad, this one for a shoulder-bag computer.
Domingo sulked and changed the tune on his music player. He looked at another
screen with pictures of blue butterflies flutter- ing around. Domingo took a
chocolate from his pocket and tore the wrapper.
He wondered if he shouldn’t head to Quinto’s party. Quinto
lived nearby, and though his home was a small apartment, they were throwing an
all-night party on the roof, where there was plenty of space. But Quinto was
friends with the Jackal, and Domingo didn’t want to see that guy. Besides, he’d
probably have to contribute to the beer budget. It was the end of the month.
Domingo was short on cash.
A young woman wearing a black vinyl jacket walked by him.
She was holding a leash with a genetically modified Doberman. It had to be
genetically modified because it was too damn large to be a regular dog. The
animal looked mean and had a green biolumines- cent tattoo running down the
left side of its head, the kind of deco- ration that was all the rage among the
hip and young urbanites. Or so the screens in the subway concourse had informed
Domingo, fashion shows and news reels always eager to reveal what was hot and
what was not. That she’d tattooed her dog struck him as cute, although perhaps
it was expected: if you had a genetically modified dog you wanted people to
notice it.
Domingo recognized her. He’d seen her twice before, walking
around the concourse late at night, both times with her dog. The way she moved,
heavy boots upon the white tiles, bob-cut black hair, with a regal stance, it
made him think of water. Like she was gliding on water.
She turned her head a small fraction, glancing at him. It
was only a glance, but the way she did it made Domingo feel like he’d been
doused with a bucket of ice. Domingo stuffed the remaining chocolate back in
his pocket, took off his headphones, and pushed his cart, boarding her subway
car.
He sat across from the girl and was able to get a better
look at her. She was about his age, with dark eyes and a full, stern mouth. She
possessed high cheekbones and sharp features. Overall, her face was imposing
and aquiline. There was a striking quality about her, but her beauty was rather
cutting compared to the faces of the mod- els he’d viewed in the ads. And she
was a beauty, with that black hair and the dark eyes and the way she stood, so
damn graceful.
He noticed her gloves. Black vinyl that matched the jacket.
About the Author:
SILVIA MORENO-GARCIA is the author of the critically-acclaimed novel Signal to Noise and the short story collection This Strange Way of Dying, which was a finalist for the Sunburst Award in Canada. She was a finalist for the Manchester Fiction Prize, and a recipient of the Gloria Vanderbilt/Exile Award for Best Emerging Writer.
