Chapter Ten. Julian #2
Julian’s gaze swept the room. The waitress had a ragged black blotch stretching across her chest. The arguing couple both had tendrils curling from their sternums. Even the old man by the jukebox—just sitting there, still—had something heavy and flickering hanging from his heart.
“They’re everywhere,” Julian murmured, his voice catching. “How did I not see this before?”
“You weren’t tuned in,” Angel said. Her voice was calm, almost clinical. “People think sadness is invisible. It’s not. You just need the right kind of eyes.”
Julian swallowed the lump in his throat. “This is what you see? Every day?”
Angel gave a small shrug. “Most days. Holiday season makes it worse. All that pressure to feel joy—it cracks people open. These things thrive in the cracks.”
He looked back at the shadows. It made his chest ache.
“Okay,” he said, shifting slightly in his seat. “So what now?”
“Now you listen. Not with your ears. With this.” She reached out and tapped two fingers against the center of his chest. The gesture was light but startling.
Julian flinched but nodded. He closed his eyes.
The diner’s clatter and hum blurred into a low haze. He focused on his breath, on the pressure of the tabletop beneath his palms. The air had a bite to it, a chemical chill under the fried smells. A draft whispered against his ankles every time the door opened.
And then—there. A prickle.
“I feel … something,” Julian murmured.
“Stay with it,” Angel said, softer. “If it’s the same thing that’s been after you, you’ll feel it pull.”
The current sharpened, then swerved. Not a voice. A drag. Heavy. Close. Wrong.
Julian’s spine locked. “It’s … not that. Not the same.”
Angel’s eyes narrowed. “Then what?”
The pull yanked, hard enough to tilt him in his seat.
“There,” he said, already sliding out of the booth.
Angel rose with him. “I’m with you.”
Outside, the night air slapped him hard enough to steal his breath. The pull didn’t fade. It hooked deeper, jerking him into motion. Angel kept pace at his shoulder, matching his steps instead of leading.
“You’re doing better than I expected,” she said, low. “Don’t try to control it.”
“I’m not,” Julian said through chattering teeth. “It’s driving.”
The evening breeze carried the scents of grilled corn and car exhaust as Julian and Angel walked up to Mariachi Plaza.
The plaza was a splash of color against the dusk—strings of warm lights zigzagged overhead, casting a soft glow over the cracked pavement. Banners advertising Christmas posadas flapped lazily from lampposts. The usual sound of trumpets and violins was notably absent.
Julian’s sneakers crunched over litter as he followed the pull toward the center of the plaza.
His gaze snagged on the domed bandstand, empty and echoing, then on the statue of Lucha Reyes.
The bronze singer stood tall in a traditional ranchera dress, her hand raised mid-note, her eyes defiant as she stared down the plaza.
His breath came in pale puffs, curling in the air before vanishing. But underneath the chill, something else clung to the space—a slow, creeping wrongness. It settled into his bones.
Julian’s chest tugged—that strange inner gravity, like a thread laced through his ribs was being pulled taut. It pulled him east, across the street, toward—
“There,” Julian murmured, nodding toward a sagging building in the distance.
The sign above the entrance was sun-bleached and cracked. Letters missing. Boarded-up windows. A bent chain-link fence encircled it like a warning.
Angel’s glance flicked to him. “Still pulling?”
He nodded, swallowing hard. “Yeah.”
“Then we follow.”
With that, Angel vaulted the fence like it was nothing, swinging over with feline grace and landing in a crouch.
Julian stared after them. “Seriously?” he muttered, then hoisted himself up—graceless, louder than he meant to be—and tumbled down the other side in a tangle of limbs and shoelaces.
Angel offered a hand without comment. Their face was unreadable in the dim light, but their gold eyes flicked to him briefly. “You good?”
Julian took the hand, nodded. “Totally nailed the landing.”
Angel’s lips twitched.
They moved as one now, steps soft, weaving through debris toward the entrance. The static buzz in Julian’s chest grew louder, more pointed, zeroing in like a tuning fork.
They reached the door. Chains wrapped through the handles, long rusted and crusted with grime. Angel knelt and pulled bolt cutters from their bag.
Julian blinked. “You just carry those around?”
Angel didn’t look up. “Some of us like to be prepared.” A loud snip echoed down the empty street. The chains clattered to the ground, and Angel pushed open the doors.
The building exhaled dust and cold and something worse. Inside, the space was all shadows and ruin. Shelves half-toppled. Mannequin heads turned at unnatural angles. Broken bottles. Graffiti looping like wild thoughts across every wall.
But beneath it all, Julian could feel it—something watching.
Angel’s hand slipped to her portaje, but she didn’t draw it yet. She was scanning. Waiting.
Julian followed her eyes, his skin buzzing as if he’d been plugged into something wrong.
Then—movement.
Angel’s gaze snapped to a dark corner of the shop, where the moonlight couldn’t quite reach. Julian squinted, and at first, it looked like nothing. Just shadow on shadow.
Then the shape moved.
Writhing.
Waiting.
From the edge of the shadows, something began to take shape—not with a dramatic entrance but like smoke slowly thickening into form.
A girl.
She sat hunched in the far corner, trembling.
Her limbs jerked in unnatural, twitchy spasms, like her body couldn’t remember how to move properly.
A tortoiseshell peineta crowned her head, holding up stringy dark hair that clung to her face.
Her shoulders shook as if she were crying, though no sound came out.
She wore a quinceanera gown—or what was left of it.
Layers of white tulle and satin hung from her like fog, torn and soiled, stained with streaks of black sludge.
A single satin glove still clung to one hand, the other bare and twitching.
One foot was bare. The other wore a delicate heel that dangled loosely, like she’d forgotten how to stand in it.
On her wrist, Julian spotted a wilted corsage—its petals shriveled and blackened like they’d been scorched.
His breath caught.
Not just a girl. A maligno.
He could almost see the moment that should’ve been—her spinning beneath papel picado and lights, a mariachi band playing behind her, family gathered, proud and joyful. She should’ve been smiling. She should’ve been surrounded by people who loved her.
Now, she was alone in a room that stank of mildew and rot, collapsed in on herself like a marionette with its strings cut. Her face lifted slightly—and Julian saw that her eyes were gone, swallowed by inky, hollow voids.
“Damn,” he whispered, a lump forming in his throat. “She’s just a girl.”
“Was a girl,” Angel corrected, voice flat, never looking away from the maligno, like they’d already decided that sympathy didn’t get a vote. “Now she’s dangerous.”
They stepped forward, drawing their portaje in a single fluid motion. The blade gleamed cold and sharp in the half-light.
Julian hesitated, startled by the clean efficiency of it all. “That doesn’t bother you?”
Angel’s jaw tightened, but they didn’t answer. Their eyes were locked on the spirit.
“It’s time,” she said, voice ringing low and clear. Power thrummed beneath the words.
The girl-spirit flinched. For one brief, flickering moment, she looked frightened—like a cornered animal. Julian’s stomach twisted.
“Wait—!”
But then she lunged, erupting from the shadows with a guttural sound that scraped across the walls like tearing silk.
Angel was already moving, their reaction seamless—dodging to the left, foot sliding over debris, portaje raised. They didn’t hesitate, didn’t flinch. Every movement was practiced, precise, like a dancer who’d done this a hundred times before.
Julian stood frozen at first, stunned by the transformation. He’d seen Yadriel release spirits before—graceful, yes, but reverent. Angel moved like someone burning something out.
Julian’s fists clenched. He had no portaje. Just fear and the static crawling over his skin.
“Careful!” he called out, his voice cracking.
The maligno’s hollow gaze snapped to him. Cold slammed into him like a wave, and he ducked as a shadow limb lashed past his head. Wood exploded behind him.
“Left flank!” Angel barked.
“I don’t know what that means!” Julian yelled, scrambling to the side anyway. His breath came fast and uneven. His blood vibrated in his veins, his whole body on high alert.
Angel drew the thing’s attention again, sliding to flank it, eyes sharp.
Julian’s instincts screamed to run, but he wouldn’t leave Angel.
The fight unfolded in flashes of motion and bursts of shadow.
The maligno girl shrieked and twisted, lashing out with limbs that stretched and contorted like smoke trying to become solid.
She moved like a puppet with tangled strings—jerky, unstable—but something about her was still …
elegant. Her gown flared with each motion, layers of tulle snapping through the air like ghostly ribbons.
It looked like she was dancing, a waltz remembered by a body no longer her own.
Angel spun through the wreckage with lethal grace, their portaje flashing as they dodged each blow. Their movements had the rhythm of choreography, but none of the beauty. It was violence made efficient. Clean. Cold.
The spirit wailed again—not a scream of rage but a sound that cracked against the walls like a sob made monstrous.
Julian flinched.
He could see it now—a dark spot throbbing in her chest, pulsing with each twist of grief. The peineta in her hair glinted, and something tugged at the edge of his sight.
He wanted to help her.
“Angel, the tether!” he shouted, voice cracking.
Angel hissed in frustration. “?Muéstrame el enlace!”