LXII
Delavega approached the fallen creature with the caution of a man who had seen too many impossible things. The fog still clung to the cave walls, drifting in slow curls around the scraps of fur and scattered eyes. The hat man's hounds prowled in the mist, growling low, but they did not interfere. They watched.
Delavega knelt beside what remained of the monster.
He didn't recoil at the site, he simply began to search inside the monster.
He pushed aside a heap of stitched‑together pelts, revealing the creature's interior. There was no muscle. No organs. No blood. Just a hollow framework, like a puppet made by something that didn't understand how bodies worked.
Delavega muttered under his breath.
"Dios… it's empty."
He reached deeper, pulling out a handful of eyes. They rolled, human and animal, all glossy, all lifeless. They moved across the stone floor like marbles, clicking softly when thrown.
Paulo gagged.
The chief whispered a prayer.
I felt the mirror pulse against my palm.
Delavega continued.
He found fragments. A jawbone with no teeth. A child's radius. A few vertebrae fused together in unnatural angles. They were brittle, dry, stripped of everything that made them living.
Then he pulled out yards of woven cloth. It looked like a pile of bandages, dry, stiff, painted with crude symbols. Some pieces were dyed with old pigments. Others were stitched with human hair. All of it was wrapped around the creature's inner frame like a macabre tapestry.
He held up a strip of cloth, frowning.
"This is not skin," he said. "Not anymore. It's… transformed. Painted. Hardened. Used to build the body."
He tapped the creature's rib‑like structure—thin lengths of bone fused together with cloth and fur.
"It's a construct," he said. "A body made from scraps of its victims. Old cloth. Bone fragments. Eyes for sight. Nothing more."
The hat man's voice drifted from the fog, amused.
"A clever little puppet. Someone stitched it together with love."
Delavega ignored him.
He lifted the last piece, a long strip of cloth painted with red symbols, stiff as wood.
"This is what held it together," he said. "Death magic. Soul magic. Woven into the fabric."
He looked at me, eyes grim.
"It didn't eat them. Not truly. It used them. It took pieces of them, eyes, bones, hair, and wove them into itself. Their bodies were consumed, yes, but their souls… their souls were trapped inside the cloth."
Gloria's spirit flickered beside the altar, her braids trembling.
The monster had been a vessel, a cage.
A patchwork horror stitched from the remains of stolen lives.
And now that it was destroyed, the cave felt suddenly colder like something deeper had been disturbed.
Delavega stood slowly, and audible click to his knees.
"This was not the true threat," he said. "This was only the shell."
"Whatever it was, it didn't want anyone to go deeper into the cave than this stone altar." I said.
"Bueno, we go deeper," Delavega replied.
The hat‑man's shadow hound padded ahead of us, its form half‑fog, half‑beast, nose lifted as it followed a scent none of us could detect. Its paws made no sound on the stone, but the way it moved was purposeful, muscles tense. It told us everything.
Whatever had made the monster…had done it on purpose, and by hand.
And it had left its smell behind.
We followed the hound deeper into the cave system, past the altar, past the place where the monster had collapsed into scraps. The air grew colder, tighter, as though the mountain itself were holding its breath. The lanterns flickered, their light swallowed by the darkness clinging to the walls.
Then Delavega stopped abruptly.
"Look," he whispered.
The cave walls ahead were covered in writing. There were names painted in long, uneven strokes. The letters were smeared, streaked, but unmistakable.
Dominica de Olivera. Palma del Costa. Rosa Bienvenidez.
The full names of missing women, painted with blood.
Paulo's breath hitched. "Madre de Dios…"
The chief stumbled backward, crossing himself so fast his fingers blurred.
Delavega stepped closer, lantern raised. The light revealed more names, some half‑finished, some repeated, some scratched out as though the painter had changed their mind mid‑stroke.
He touched the wall with gloved fingers.
"This is modern human blood," he said quietly. "Not old. Not ancient. Fresh enough to still hold magic."
I felt the mirror warm against my hip.
The hat man's voice drifted from the fog, low and amused.
"Someone wanted to remember their work."
Delavega's jaw tightened.
"These names… they were painted by the victims themselves."
Paulo's eyes widened. "What? How—?"
Delavega pointed to the shaky, uneven, desperate strokes.
"Look at the height. Look at the pressure. These were made by hands trembling in fear. Someone forced them to write their own names. Forced them to mark themselves."
The lantern light trembled. The cave felt suddenly smaller.
Gloria's spirit flickered beside us, her braids trembling, her red ribbons glowing faintly.
She whispered, voice thin as smoke:
"They made them write… before it took them into the dark…"
The shadow hound growled, low and warning.
The hat man's silhouette sharpened in the fog.
"Pet… whoever stitched that creature together was either very strong or could not have worked alone."
Delavega turned to me, eyes grim.
"This is not the monster's lair," he said. "This is the artist's."
The cave stretched deeper still, the writing growing denser, the air colder.
And somewhere ahead, the one who had painted the names, was waiting.
The hound led us deeper, its fog‑body weaving between stalagmites, nose lifted, growling low. The air changed—no longer just cold, but tainted, thick with the sour smell of rot, old blood, and something chemical. The lantern light trembled as we stepped into a wider chamber.
The lamplight revealed a crouched figure in the corner. It was an emaciated woman, her spine jutting through her thin shirt like broken ridges. Her hair was gray and dry, hanging in brittle ropes around her face. Tear streaks had carved permanent lines into her cheeks, etched there by years of crying.
Her hands were black with dried blood. Long tapered nails were dirty, broken… but sharp.
Her fingers were curled like claws, knuckles like knots in a tree.
Around her lay pieces of bone, strands of hair, scraps of women's clothing. The remains of the missing. A bucket in the corner held something dark and liquid, thick enough to cling to the sides. Blood. Paint. Ritual ink. All three.
The cave looked like it was lived in recently and arranged with sparse furniture.
A rusted lamp, an old cot, a crate used as a table.
Orange peels strewn in one corner, dried and curling.
A blanket stiff with old stains, a cracked cup.
On the floor they had painted a ritual circle, painted with blood and ash, littered with the leftovers of sacrifices. Bones of animals. Bones of people. Feathers. Teeth. Cloth strips painted with symbols.
Delavega inhaled sharply. "She's the one. The maker."
Paulo whispered, "Bruja…"
The chief backed away, trembling.
The woman's head snapped up, awakening suddenly.
Her eyes were sunken, pupils blown wide, whites yellowed. She stared at us with a feral intensity, lips peeling back from cracked teeth.
Then she wailed a deep mourning wail, like something had broken her heart so badly that she was no longer human.
A sound that tore through the cave like a blade. It was shrill, filled with agony and rage. Her hands clawed at the stone, scraping deep grooves. Her bony legs, despite their frailty moved with terrifying speed. She lunged.
Her movements were jerky, animalistic, but fast. She was far faster than her wasted frame should allow. She scuttled across the cave floor like a spider, hands slapping stone, nails clicking.
Delavega raised his knife.
Paulo screamed.
The chief stumbled backward.
The hat man's hound snarled, fog swirling.
Her claws reached for any nearby throat. The cave erupted into chaos.