LXIII
The witch's wail tore through the chamber, sharp enough to make the lantern flame gutter. She lunged—bony legs snapping forward with impossible speed, claws outstretched, teeth bared. But the hat‑man's hounds were already moving. Fog surged.
Two spectral hounds burst from the mist, jaws wide, eyes glowing like embers. They hit her mid‑charge, one clamping onto her arm, the other onto her leg. She shrieked, thrashing, but the hounds were made of shadow and will—they didn't feel pain, didn't bleed, didn't tire.
Her claws scraped uselessly through their fog‑bodies.
Delavega shouted, "¡Ahora!" and sprinted forward, pulling a long syringe from his satchel. The needle glinted in the lantern light—thick, meant for large animals, filled with a tranquilizer strong enough to drop a bull.
The witch twisted, trying to bite him, but the hounds yanked her down, pinning her to the stone floor. Her limbs jerked wildly, strength far beyond her frail frame. She screamed again, a sound that rattled the bones scattered around her.
Delavega didn't hesitate. He drove the needle into her shoulder.
The witch convulsed, shrieking, claws scraping deep grooves into the stone. The tranquilizer hit her bloodstream fast. Her movements slowing, her wail dropping into a ragged moan. Her eyes rolled back, but she didn't collapse.
Her body trembled violently, as though something inside her was fighting the drug.
Delavega cursed. "She's possessed. The spirit is resisting."
He dropped to his knees beside her, pulling out a small pouch of herbs and a carved wooden charm. Paulo hovered behind him, terrified but ready, holding the lantern steady.
The hat‑man's hounds kept the witch pinned, growling low.
Delavega pressed the charm to her forehead and began chanting—rapid Spanish mixed with older words, older magic. The witch's back arched, her mouth opening in a silent scream. A dark shape rippled beneath her skin, moving like a trapped shadow.
Her voice changed—deep, guttural, not human.
"NO—"
Delavega shouted the final phrase, slamming his palm against her sternum.
The witch's body jerked violently.
A burst of cold air exploded from her chest, knocking dust and loose stones across the chamber. The dark shape tore free, an oily shadow that shrieked as it dissolved into the fog, ripped apart by the hat‑man's hounds before it could escape.
The witch collapsed, unconscious. Her breathing slowed, long limbs went limp, eyes closed.
Delavega sagged back, exhausted. "It's done. The spirit is gone."
Paulo and the chief rushed forward. Together, they tied her tightly using a thick rope from Delavega's pack. She didn't stir. The tranquilizer had finally taken full hold now that the spirit was gone.
The cave felt lighter. There was a relief in the silence after the battle, the night grew quieter, and much less hateful.
Paulo wiped sweat from his brow. "We call the policia. Immediately."
Delavega nodded. "She'll live. She'll answer for what she's done."
The chief pulled out his radio, voice shaking as he contacted the local authorities.
The hat‑man's hounds faded back into the fog.
The mirror in my hand grew cold. The 15 minutes were up. The hat man's powers popped like a bubble.
The bruja lay bound on the cave floor, unconscious and powerless at last. She was carried out of the cave on a stretcher, wrists and ankles bound, her frail body twitching occasionally as the tranquilizer held her under. The policia didn't dare put her in a squad car immediately, she was so haggard and lifeless that they took her first to the local hospital in Palma, where she was sedated again, monitored, and kept under guard.
When she left the hospital hands were still black with dried blood. Her nails still curled and sharp. Her limp face was still etched with the permanent tracks of tears. The doctors whispered bruja under their breath as she left.
After twenty‑four hours of observation, she was transferred to the small island prison, a stone‑walled facility meant for smugglers and violent offenders, not witches who stitched monsters out of human remains. But Mallorca had no other place to put her.
She awaited trial there, locked in a reinforced cell, watched constantly.
Outside the cave, Delavega stepped away from the policia and made a call on his satellite phone. His voice was low, urgent, switching between Spanish and the clipped cadence he used when speaking to the Council.
"She will need watching," he said. "Constantly. The spirit was removed, but something like that… it lingers. It may try to return."
He listened, nodding grimly.
"Yes. Additional exorcisms. Possibly a full cleansing ritual. She is dangerous even unconscious."
He hung up, shoulders tense, he turned to me. "We are nearly done here, the council has booked your flight home tomorrow afternoon at three. Your compensation will be wired to you soon."
The chief read from the police file. From what they had gathered, the woman we captured was a local, a normal woman that turned to darkness.
"She was widowed. Her husband, Santiago Cardinal, died in an accident two years ago. A fall from the cliffs."
Paulo muttered, "Those cliffs don't take good men unless something pushes."
The chief continued.
"She had a stepdaughter. A girl named Gloria."
My breath caught.
Gloria's spirit flickered beside us, her braids trembling, her red ribbons glowing faintly.
The chief's voice broke.
"Gloria went missing, they estimated a year after her father's death."
Delavega closed his eyes.
"She was the first taken," he said softly.
The cave behind us seemed to exhale—a long, cold breath.
Gloria's spirit drifted closer, her voice thin as wind.
"She loved him… she hated me for not being hers…"
Her small form flickered.
"She wanted me back."
The truth settled over us like dust.
Juana Cardinal had not begun as a monster. She had begun as a grieving woman.
And grief had rotted into obsession. Obsession into ritual. Ritual into horror.
The forensics report arrived hours later, delivered in a sealed folder to Delavega while we waited outside the small island prison. He read it once, jaw tightening, then handed it to me.
And the truth inside was worse than anything we had assumed.
According to the forensic timeline, Gloria was not the first to die.
She was the last.
The other women—Dominica, Palma, Rosa—had been killed first. Their remains were found woven into the monster's cloth framework, their bones fused into its structure, their eyes embedded in its patchwork hide along with ritual animal sacrifices.
Gloria's bones were not found at all.
Her body had been consumed entirely.
Her soul was the only thing left.
The chief stood with us, hat in hand waving over his face in the heat, voice low and heavy.
"Juana Cardinal was always… jealous," he said. "Even before her husband died."
Paulo nodded grimly. "She watched him like a hawk. Every woman he spoke to, she hated."
The chief continued.
"Dominica worked at the bakery. Santiago bought bread from her every morning. Palma was a seamstress; she mended his shirts. Rosa was a neighbor who chatted with him at the market."
None of them were romantically involved with Santiago.
They were simply kind to him.
But kindness was enough to ignite Juana's rage.
When Santiago died—falling from the cliffs under circumstances that were never fully explained—her jealousy curdled into something poisonous.
Delavega folded his arms.
"She blamed them," he said. "She blamed every woman who ever smiled at him. And when grief twisted her mind, she turned to ritual."
The chief swallowed hard.
"Gloria was her stepdaughter. Santiago's child from his first marriage."
He looked at the cave entrance, eyes haunted.
"Juana loved Santiago. But she hated that Gloria was not hers."
Paulo added, voice shaking, "When Santiago died, Gloria was all she had left of him. And she resented that."
Delavega nodded.
"She killed the other women first out of jealousy, out of rage. But Gloria… Gloria was different."
He looked at the files, at the little girl's photo with her red ribbons and braids.
"She didn't kill Gloria out of jealousy. She killed her out of obsession."
I felt Gloria's spirit flicker beside us, her voice thin.
"She wanted me back… she wanted him back…"
Juana Cardinal had tried to rebuild her family with ritual, blood, and death magic.
She stitched together a monster from the scraps of women she hated.
She painted their names with their own blood and forced them to mark themselves before killing them.
When that wasn't enough, when the monster wasn't enough,
she sacrificed Gloria, hoping to bind Santiago's spirit to her through the child's soul.
It didn't work, but instead, she created a hollow puppet. A vessel made of cloth, bone, and horror.
Gloria's soul remained trapped, untethered, lingering in the cave until we freed her.Delavega stepped away again, calling his superiors.
"She will need constant supervision," he said. "The spirit may return. The jealousy, the rage—it created a powerful entity. We must be prepared for additional exorcisms."
He listened, nodded. "Yes. I'll stay until the trial."
He hung up, looking at the prison where Juana slept under heavy sedation.
"She is human," he said softly. "But what she did… was not."
And the mountain wind carried Gloria's faint whisper:
"She wasn't always a monster… but she became one."