Chapter Twenty-Eight. Julian
TWENTY-EIGHT
JULIAN
The golden light flared behind Julian, blinding and hot. He barely registered the roar, the crack of impact, or Yadriel’s sharp intake of breath.
He didn’t look back.
He trusted Yadriel to hold the line. So he kept his eyes down and breathed on Yadriel’s count.
A current had hooked deep into his chest—something ancient and heavy—threading him to the others. Yadriel, Maritza, Enrique. Their presence burned at the edges of his senses, anchoring him like points on a compass. If he moved, if any of them wavered, the tether could snap.
He knelt in the center of the circle, surrounded by salt, flickering candles, and a haze of sacred smoke. His fingers dug into the stone floor, the chill biting into his skin. But he welcomed the pain. It grounded him.
Julian closed his eyes.
And reached.
“Angel,” he whispered.
Nothing answered. Not at first. Just the distant shriek of spirits, the press of magic thick as wet concrete, the thrum of his own heartbeat.
But he pressed deeper, calling her name again. Louder this time. Not with his voice, but with whatever thread of soul he still had left. He wrapped memory around the name and hurled it into the dark.
“First time we met,” he said into the void, his voice thick, “it was behind that Jack in the Box, remember? You stepped out of the shadows like you owned them. Told me you were a bruje. That you could heal the living and release the dead.”
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “You were bleeding, barely holding it together—and still, you looked like the coolest person I’d ever met.”
A flicker in the dark. A tremor in the thread.
He kept going.
“Later that night,” Julian said, softer now, “you came to Yadriel’s. Lita made us dinner. You didn’t talk much, but you let yourself stay a little while.”
His throat tightened. “When I walked you out, I realized you were living in your car. You weren’t gonna say anything—you never wanted anyone to know. But I saw you. I saw how tired you were. How hurt. So I asked you to come home with me.”
The space around him pulsed—a flash of warmth, quick as a heartbeat.
“And then…” His voice faltered, then steadied. “Then you told me about your family. About what you lost.”
His fingers dug into the stone floor, grounding himself.
“I know what that kind of grief is like, how it fucks you up,” Julian said, his voice cracking. “I know what it’s like to ache so bad it eats you alive. To wish you could bring them back no matter the cost.”
The words scraped out of him like something half healed. Beneath his ribs, his Marca Hueca flared—not just a dull echo but a sharp, searing pulse, a reminder of everything he’d lost and never gotten back.
It burned with his father’s name, with the birthday mornings and quiet rides and crooked smiles that had disappeared in an instant.
“I would’ve done anything to save my dad, too.”
Julian pressed a hand to his chest, like it could dull the pain. But maybe it was better that it didn’t—because it meant he understood. It meant he saw her, really saw her, even through all the wreckage.
The light in the dark wavered.
“But that’s what Bahlam saw, isn’t it?” Julian said, eyes burning. “That grief. That love. That hole in you. And he used it. Twisted it. Made it feel like your pain was your power.”
He leaned forward, his voice breaking with urgency.
“But that was never you. That was him. And he doesn’t get to win. Not now.”
The light sharpened—bright and trembling.
“You’re stronger than him, Angel. You always were. You opened that door. You let someone care. That means you’re still in there.”
He reached toward her with everything he had.
“And I’m not leaving without you.”
At first, silence.
Then, a spark.
Faint and flickering—but real.
“Julian?”
Her voice, soft as ash, wavered in the dark.
He laughed—half sob, half relief. “Yeah. It’s me.”
Her presence shimmered closer, still distant, still fragile, but moving toward him. The shadows writhed like a living thing between them, trying to draw her back.
“Don’t let him take you again,” Julian said. “Not when you fought this hard. Not when we’re still fighting for you.”
The shadows lunged.
The light snapped brighter.
Julian reached for her with everything he had.
“You’re not alone,” he whispered. “We’ve got you. I’ve got you.”
Angel’s presence surged—weak but furious, bright and trembling.
“Help me,” she whispered.
And just like that, the tether tightened.
The darkness around her began to tear.
But Angel’s spirit flickered with growing strength, the light around her intensifying with every second as she slowly materialized as golden light in the darkness.
“Angel!” Julian called out.
With a burst of light, his consciousness slammed back into his body, back into the crypt.
Back to the real world where Angel’s body convulsed and thrashed on the ground.
The two forces collided within Angel’s body. Tendrils of shadow burst outward, clashing with golden bursts of light that radiated from deep within them. Julian’s breath hitched as Angel’s head snapped back, and for a moment, Bahlam’s guttural roar echoed through the crypt, shaking the walls.
Her body spasmed violently, arching back as golden light surged from the circle around Julian, exploding outward in a shockwave that scattered marigolds and shadow alike.
Julian flinched, shielding his eyes.
Angel collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut, limbs limp, head lolling. The golden light around her winked out all at once.
For one awful moment, she didn’t move.
Julian lunged forward, grabbing her shoulders. “Angel—?!”
Her skin was ice-cold, her breath shallow.
A beat of silence.
Then her chest rose, faint but steady. She was still alive.
Relief buckled Julian’s knees. He knelt beside her, gripping her tighter. “She’s back,” he whispered, dizzy. “She’s back.”
But the cenote hadn’t gone still.
It hissed.
The water bubbled and surged, frothing like it was boiling from below. The color changed, deepening into violent black, pulsing with veins of blue and green light. The ritual circle around it flickered—then shattered in a burst of cold air.
Maritza’s voice rang out from behind him. “Incoming!”
The shadows over the cenote twisted and curled, rising like smoke—then solidifying.
A massive shape clawed its way from the surface, shoulder by shoulder, something ancient and buried dragging itself into the world.
A jaguar.
Not flesh, but spirit—enormous and spectral, black as obsidian, ringed with burning green glyphs. His form shimmered like he was stitched from starlight and rage, too big for the chamber that tried to contain him. He crouched at the cenote’s edge, eyes like fingernail-moon daggers, fixed on Julian.
Bahlam. Free.
Julian scrambled to his feet, heart slamming so hard it felt like it would break through his ribs. “He’s out—he’s out—!”
Yadriel was already in motion. He dropped beside Angel, checking her pulse, then shouted, “Where’s the dagger?!”
Julian blinked, his brain struggling to refocus. “The dagger—!”
There.
It still sat in the middle of the broken ritual ring, resting on a flat stone tile. The obsidian blade pulsed darkly, feeding the last flickers of tether energy back into the cenote.
Bahlam’s tether.
The jaguar’s body flexed, smoke trailing from his jaws. He roared—a guttural, echoing blast that rattled the bones of the crypt.
He pounced.
“MOVE!” Yadriel shouted.
Lita threw up a shield just in time—a glowing golden arc flared into place as Bahlam’s spectral form slammed into it. The entire cavern shuddered. Maritza staggered, feet skidding on stone, but the barrier held.
“Julian!” she screamed. “GO!”
Julian didn’t hesitate. He dove for the dagger, sliding across the stone floor as heat and pressure closed in around him. His fingers wrapped around the hilt—searing cold at first touch—and the moment he lifted it, the cenote erupted behind him.
The glyphs on the dagger lit up, burning with green flame. Cold rushed his fingers, copper and cenote-silt flooding his tongue.
Julian’s breath caught. He could feel Bahlam through it—raging, writhing, a god made of pain and hunger and pride. The dagger pulsed in his hand like it had its own heartbeat, like it didn’t want to be let go. A voice slid up the hilt and into his marrow.