Chapter 10:
The shadow finally took shape. A man of unnatural beauty carried the limp body of the White Wolf on his shoulder. Beneath the full moon, the dust falling from his hair was not sand but powdered bone, the remains of his followers, glowing with a ghostly light.
A green car pulled up. In the back seat, beside a black dagger engraved with Sanguis Sanathiel Vincit, lay a golden chest. Its reliefs mirrored the markings on Aisha's medallion.
"Turn on the heat, Risas," Arcángel ordered, removing his gloves. The scars on his hands smoked violet in the cold night air.
The ritual began in the desert. Arcángel traced sigils in the sand with a human bone while humming a broken lullaby. He forced the Black Wolf to swallow the pitch-black liquid. Sanathiel tried to spit it out, but his body betrayed him. With every swallow, his memories—Aisha, the Red Moon, his own voice—were torn away like burning pages. His veins flared purple like rivers of lava, then dimmed into silence.
When the chest opened, the woman inside had bitten her lips raw to keep from begging. Risas dragged her into the circle of ash."To open a closed wound," he said, "you must bleed it again."
Arcángel's blade arced downward. Before the victim could scream, Risas drove a needle into her neck, silencing her pain. The crack in Sanathiel's chest split open on its own, a hungry wound.
"And now?" Risas asked, uncertain.Arcángel smiled."Clean it up. Dispose of the bodies."
The night swallowed the last scream.
Then Sanathiel's eyes snapped open. For a heartbeat, the world froze. I'm alive, he thought—until the truth struck. His muscles weren't his. His hands obeyed another. A foreign laughter thundered inside his chest. No… he won't take me… he screamed, but his voice was buried beneath Arceo's.
The usurper had awakened.
At Itzel's mansion
The doorbell rang. She quickly hid the journal where she had copied Luciano's final words: "The blood of the innocent will break your chains." Her fingers clutched the locket with her daughter's portrait as she opened the door.
Sanathiel stood there… but his breath smelled of freshly dug graves."I didn't expect to see you again," she whispered.
Arceo pinned her to the wall. In the struggle, Itzel remembered the green pencil her daughter once gave her: "For fairy poems, Mama." Now she drove it into his chest.
The blood that spilled was thick and black as tar. Arceo studied the wound with clinical amusement."A scratch? Time itself cannot kill me."
The skin closed over the mark."Nothing you do can stop me. But by all means—keep trying. It entertains me."
Itzel's spine froze. The voice was no longer Sanathiel's."Widow," Arceo hissed, venom dripping from the word. "Just as you wished for the death of my only son."
The floor collapsed beneath her."Arceo… inside Sanathiel…"
He tilted his head with a mocking smile."Now you understand. And now—you pay."
The monster was back.
"A daughter with Sanathiel? Secret letters?" he snarled, cornering her.
Itzel's trembling hand found another pencil."Don't you dare touch her!"
She stabbed again, driving the point into his chest. For a second, Arceo looked surprised. Then he laughed."Pain?" he whispered, forcing the pencil deeper before breaking it in two. "This is nothing but amusement."
Blood dripped, heavy and slow. For an instant, Sanathiel clawed from within, screaming wordless resistance. Enough! But his voice never surfaced.
Arceo flung her down. Her back slammed into the table's corner, knocking the air from her lungs. He gripped her face, forcing her mouth open. She bit his wrist, drawing blood—but he only smiled, clamping her nose shut. Black liquid slid past her lips. The spasms came instantly, her body convulsing in vain revolt.
Her eyes widened in horror."When Sanathiel wakes… he'll know what you've done… and you'll pay…" she gasped.
Her body went still. Arceo looked down with cold detachment."A broken doll."
He wiped his wrist clean and turned.
"And the girl?" Arcángel asked at the door.Arceo's eyes narrowed."Where is she?""She vanished before we arrived."
In the garden, Sanathiel's face surfaced for an instant beneath Arceo's skin: golden eyes, clenched teeth, a muffled cry. Aisha… The name slipped like an echo before being drowned again.
With a growl, Arceo drove the black dagger into his palm. The cursed blood seeped into the soil, birthing flowers with razor-sharp petals."The girl is only the beginning," he whispered into the shadows, where three pairs of eyes gleamed back—gold, silver, and electric blue.
The car rolled east, leaving behind a poisoned garden that would bloom over every grave Arceo carved in his path.