Chapter XXX
XXX
Elías
Alba flung her head back, her spine striking the back of the chair as her eyes rolled back in her head.
She forced herself to standing, but Elías had her by the upper arm.
If he didn’t look at her face, it would be fine.
He focused on her shoulder, the bend of her spine.
The elegant pale curve of one bone stacked on the next.
They were not living bones, wet with blood and sinew. They were sun-bleached and picked clean, by carrion bird or beast.
He swallowed hard.
“May you please sit?” he murmured. “We would like to talk.”
A wet, vicious snarl.
“Rope, Carlos!” Bartolomé snapped.
In the periphery of his vision: her cheekbones, the panes of her face. Skin began to peel away, to dry and disintegrate, revealing more white bone.
“You charlatan.” The voice was not Alba’s. He was becoming accustomed to the demon’s hoarse rumble, the sensation that it drew from deep waters. It set his teeth on edge. “You whore. I can taste your filth and sin. I shall feast on it.”
She struggled to free herself from his grip. No, it was not Alba—it was the demon. It .
“Quick, Carlos!”
Elías held fast, even as white teeth gnashed and a stale smell washed over him. Dead air in a mine. It smelled of suffocating in Almadén, of men rotting in the shafts, of metallic fumes stinging his throat and making him gag—
Carlos was at her other side, his face colorless and drawn. He was stiff with paralysis as Elías took Alba’s arm and slipped rope around it.
The demon whirled, yanking at Elías. Caught off guard, he stumbled; when he found his footing, it was to Carlos’s scream.
The demon had buried its teeth in Carlos’s shoulder. Carlos’s eyes were so wide they looked as if they might pop out of his skull.
Forgive me, Alba , Elías thought and, seizing Alba’s shoulders, yanked her away. Hopefully not hard enough that Alba would suffer, but hard enough that the demon was surprised.
A snap of teeth; a flash of red tongue. The demon turned and pounced on Elías, its hands flying to his throat.
The demon’s grip crushed his windpipe. He gasped, but he was a fish on land. Sparks pocked his vision. He had no air .
“Interfering rat,” it growled. Darkness bored into him. No eyes, no eyes, no eyes —
A cool spray of droplets caught Elías’s cheek. The demon dropped him as suddenly as it had turned on him, flinching and hissing.
Elías pulled in raw, harsh breaths as Bartolomé continued to fling holy water at the demon, then tossed Carlos the rope.
Carlos had not moved. He held one hand to his shoulder, his face slack with horror.
With a frustrated grunt, Elías grabbed the rope instead. The demon was distracted; they might not get another chance to restrain it.
He seized Alba by the waist and flung her down into the chair. Echoes of last night fluttered at the periphery of his vision: the smell of her hair, her skin; how close he had been to the silken well of her throat as his reverent fingertips tied her down.
Promise to touch me .
He would. By God, he swore he would, and it would not be like this. It would be worship. It would be profane.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he murmured.
He thrust his shoulder against her chest to pinion the demon to the chair as he tied down forearms.
The demon tried to bite his ear. Bartolomé made the sign of the cross over their struggle, and it growled. He could feel the rumble of the sound passing through his body; it left his hair standing on end in its wake.
When Elías flung himself back at last, it was with a throbbing head, scratches along his cheeks, and—fortunately—both ears still intact.
The demon writhed, but the rope held fast.
Elías expected Carlos to snap at him for how inappropriately he had touched Alba; that was the whole reason Carlos was there, wasn’t it?
Elías expected a swell of hatred. Carlos was paralyzed, his presence only making this entire undertaking worse.
But Carlos’s expression was grief-stricken. He continued to clutch his shoulder as Bartolomé instructed the men to kneel.
Elías did not welcome the sympathy that seeped into his bones. Why was he putting himself in Carlos’s shoes, thinking, in an agonizing flash, how it must feel to see Alba like this for the first time?
Perhaps it was because his anger was directed elsewhere, at the priest who began the ritual. He knelt as instructed, lowering his head respectfully…but kept his eyes on the legs of the chair and the bare feet before him.
The Litany of the Saints washed over him. Carlos knew every response—whether to say Lord, have mercy on us or Christ, graciously hear us ; Elías stumbled often.
“All ye holy bishops and confessors—”
“Pray for us,” Carlos said, and Elías echoed.
“All ye holy doctors, Saint Anthony, Saint Benedict…”
The sound of struggle against the bonds had lessened. Elías lifted his head as he murmured Christ, have mercy slightly out of rhythm.
Alba slumped in the chair. Hair that had worked loose from her plait fell into her face.
This was a charade. There was no demon, there was only an injured young woman, bound in a chair. Her breathing was labored; her breast rose and fell against the rope that bound her, leaving irritated red marks on her skin.
He needed to take her away from this. It would only cause her pain. Only cause her suffering. He wanted to kiss her brow and undo her bonds and—
A hand stretched into his vision and caught his attention. Bartolomé did not touch him nor stay him, but the signal was clear. Be still. Stay back.
Elías had not even realized that he had risen to his feet.
He knelt again.
Bartolomé spread his feet in a firm stance that reminded Elías that the priest’s past life had been spent on battlefields.
“I command thee, unclean spirit, whosoever thou art,” Bartolomé began, his voice ringing like bells, “along with all thine associates who have taken possession of this handmaiden of God—”
“You’re all whores.” That rough, foreign voice emerged, though Alba’s head still hung forward and her body remained limp.
Bartolomé did not waver. “That by the mysteries of the Incarnation, Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ—”
“Shut up, you fat possum.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Elías saw Carlos shudder, his face the color of parchment. Evidently, the demon had fully returned in its favored aspect.
“By the descent of the Holy Spirit, by the coming of our Lord unto judgment—”
“You,” the demon purred. “Carlossss. I know you.”
Carlos made as if to stand; without stopping his recitation, Bartolomé put a firm hand on his shoulder.
A dark, hoarse laugh.
“How sweet of him to protect you,” the demon purred. “How sad that that’s the closest you’ll ever come to him fucking you. He never will, and you know it, and still you weep in the dark about it. How pathetic.”
Carlos’s cheeks flushed dark; he inhaled sharply through his nose as if he had been struck.
Everything the demon had flung at Elías hit like a fist to the teeth because it was true. This, too, must be true. He should not be fascinated by this revelation. He should not . Nor should the idea of telling Alba cross his mind.
No—she knew . Of course she did. That was why she wanted to marry him. They would wed and leave each other in peace—once the pieces fell together, it made perfect sense.
“I command thee to obey me to the letter,” Bartolomé snarled at the demon, lifting his hand from Carlos’s shoulder.
“I, who—though unworthy—am a minister of God.” He stepped forward.
One, two—that was all. It was a prowl, a predator’s dangerously soft approach.
“Neither shalt thou be emboldened to harm in any way this handmaiden of God, nor these bystanders, nor any of their possessions.”
The demon flailed and spat. Bartolomé traced the sign of the cross over the gaping darkness where eyes ought to be.
“What is thy name?” he thundered. “How many spirits inhabit this handmaiden of God?”
“They call me…”
It growled.
“ Bartolomé ,” it said at last. It tilted its head back and loosed a wild cackle that sang up to the rafters.
Bartolomé began the Litany of the Saints again. Carlos murmured replies; Elías tried to. But he had made the mistake of looking up. He was spellbound by the sight of the demon facing down Bartolomé, how the shadows of the chapel seemed to writhe and snarl at the scene unfolding before them.
Another application of holy water; the demon hissed like a rattle-snake, its red tongue flicking through teeth.
“What is thy name?” Bartolomé demanded.
“I have none in your tongue,” it rattled.
“When did you enter Alba Díaz de Bolanos, and what is the cause thereof?”
“She is mine,” it growled, and repeated it over, and over, and over, the words overlapping and resonating through one another, filling the chapel, filling Elías’s skull. Mine, mine, mine.
How dare this foul being lay claim to her?
His hands were meant to be folded before him, ever the image of the faithful Catholic supporting Bartolomé. But the priest had betrayed his confidence. Elías balled his hands into fists at his sides as anger festered in his throat.
The next sound that shattered the chapel: a cry, wretched and broken. A girl’s cry.
“Alba!” Carlos lurched forward.
Bartolomé seized him by the arm. The priest’s jaw was set; sweat dripped down his temples. He did not take his eyes off the demon as he snarled, “Stay back.”
It was a snarl. He and the demon were two animals alike in rage, two wolves ready to tear each other’s throats out over their prey.
Bartolomé thrust out his right hand. He announced a gospel reading and made crosses over his forehead, lips, and breast, and then did so over the demon.
Another cry—this one was the demon’s. Elías flinched away from it, hands flying to his ears. Metal over his teeth, back and forth, back and forth. Blood pounded in his ears; it would be pouring down his jaw any moment now.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God,” Bartolomé cried.