Page 147 of Espíritu

He did.

Julian nodded once, yes and thank you and I’m scared all shoved into the same gesture.

“I can anchor him, too,” Maritza said, already flipping to a fresh page. “I’ll lay the wards first, hand them to runners, then park on a corner and bully him into breathing.”

Enrique’s gaze moved around the table, then settled. “I’ll take the fourth while Lita Rosamaria leads the ritual.” He didn’t dress it up. “If Julian calls a soul back from a god, he won’t do it without an elder holding the line.”

Lita nodded once, turning the plan into positions. “Quarters: East—Yadriel. South—Rio. West—Enrique. North—Maritza. You each keep a hand on him. Do not look away.”

Enrique rapped the table softly. “Doña Clara coordinates the outer ring when the circle is live. Ward team moves first and lays the circle. Maritza hands off to runners, then anchors North. Lita calls when the ground is right. We free Angel, then break the portaje on her count. If Bahlam manifests before Lita begins, we fall back to the chapel and reset. If the circle breaks—”

“We pour,” Mateo finished, already pulling out an ancient flip phone to text.

Julian looked around the table and made himself say the names again, anchors against the panic trying to lift him off the floor.

“We’re doing this for Marisol. For Felipe. For the quince girl. For the others we don’t even know yet.” He felt everyone’s attention shift, like the room leaned with him. “If this works, nobody stays in the dark.”

Something moved in Enrique’s expression—grief or pride or both. “Entonces por todos,” he said.

Lita stood. “No secrets. No running alone,” she said with authority. “We move together.”

Chairs scraped. Assignments flew. Maritza tore sheets from her pad and handed them off—wards, healers, trucks. The machine they needed started to turn.

Yadriel edged close enough that their shoulders touched. “You don’t have to be the one,” he said, soft and stubborn at the same time.

“I know,” Julian said. “I want to be.”

Yadriel swallowed, then nodded. “Then we’ll hold.”

The weight in Julian’s chest didn’t lift, it settled. If they failed, he’d be the first one under—but if they got it right, no one would be left behind.

TWENTY-SEVENYADRIEL

The old church loomed like a carcass, its stone bones cracked and overgrown. Yadriel led the way this time, portaje in hand, heart hammering behind his ribs. Every step toward the crypt felt heavier than the last, like the ground itself was trying to push them back.

Behind him came the others—Enrique and Lita at his side, their expressions grim. Maritza stalked just behind and Julian followed in silence. Behind them, the rest of the brujx had arrived—elders with the most experience, portajes ready, rituals memorized. Somewhere above, Mateo’s trucks idled at the gate—rebar and cement waiting on a single word: “collapse.”

This time, they were not walking into the dark alone.

They crossed the ruined nave and slipped into the side chamber. The hidden stairs yawned before them, narrow and steep, twisting down into the earth.

The deeper they went, the colder it became. Glyphs etched into the stone pulsed, casting dim halos of green and blue light. The walls sweated moisture. The air buzzed with a low, resonant hum that crawled up Yadriel’s spine.

The chamber at the base of the stairs opened like a wound in the earth, the cenote pulsing at its heart. Green and blue light oozed from the water’s surface, reflecting off the stone walls in sickly hues. Glyphs carved into the crypt walls pulsed in sync, alive with old, angry magic.

But it wasn’t just the cenote that radiated energy.

A ring of tethers had been laid out around it. Dozens of them were arranged in a wide ritual circle. Each one glowed faintly with spectral light—a tortoiseshell comb, a cracked phone, a child’s shoe, a string of rosary beads.

Yadriel’s stomach turned. The formation wasn’t just decorative. It was functional, deliberate. A conduit.

And at the center, standing just before the edge of the cenote—

Angel.

Bahlam stood in the center, wearing Angel’s body like a prize. Their arms were outstretched, head tipped back.

Angel’s head turned slowly, like it was detaching from her spine. Bahlam moved inside her body like it was something borrowed, stiff and wrong. Her face twisted into a grin that didn’t belong to her. Her portaje was gone, her hands were empty, but she didn’t need a weapon. The magic radiating off her body was enough to make the air vibrate.