Two skeletal guards dropped Miguel and Héctor unceremoniously into the damp darkness.
The bottom of the pit was a natural bowl of smooth stone, and the only sign of outside life was a circle of white light glowing faintly at the top.
With his body trembling, Héctor sat on a small island inside the pool of water.
"It's over..." he murmured with sadness, "... I just wanted to see her... I wanted to see my Coco again..."
"..."
Miguel looked at him with his eyes fixed on nothing, his mind still processing what he had just heard.
"Coco..." he whispered. "My grandma... my grandma's name..."
He took a folded and worn photograph out of his pocket that he had taken from the family altar.
He unfolded it and in the image, a young and serious woman was holding a small girl and next to them, the figure of a man was barely a shadow, as his face had been torn off.
"You... it's you..." He said handing him the photo.
Héctor grabbed the photo with dull eyes, but when he looked clearly at the photo his eyes widened and he quickly looked at Miguel.
"We are..." he said with bated breath.
"...Family," Miguel finished, and tears gathered in his eyes.
They hugged immediately, Miguel's living flesh against Héctor's cold bones, a belated meeting at the bottom of a pit.
But reality intruded with cruelty.
"... I must go back!" said Miguel with urgency, "If I stay, I disappear and I must put your photo on the altar, if not, you..."
Before he could finish, a powerful shout resonated from the opening of the pit. Immediately following, a torrent of golden light spilled into the darkness.
A long bridge of marigold petals fell winding down to the bottom.
"MIGUEL! HÉCTOR!" Imelda's angry voice.
A line of his relatives slid down the bridge, surrounding the two.
Imelda stopped in front of Héctor with furious eyes and without saying a word, she took off her shoe and hit Héctor's skull hard.
"Ouch! Imelda, I didn't do anything!" shouted Héctor, covering his head with a trembling hand.
"Save your excuses," she dismissed him with a snort of disdain. Then she turned to Miguel with a serious expression, "We have to get you out of here before dawn, and we are going to retrieve his photo from De La Cruz."
She paused and her face darkened.
"But the situation got much more complicated. A living person, a hunter hired by Dorothy, wants to capture you."
"He is at De La Cruz's party, who is also the main act of the night. That place is the most dangerous point in the entire City of the Dead. So you will stay here with your aunt and we will think of a plan to send you back safely."
"NO!"
Miguel shook his head with unbreakable obstinacy, "De la Cruz stole everything from my great-great-grandfather and now he wants to make him disappear forever. I have to go! I'm going to get that photo back!"
"..."
Imelda stared at him for a few seconds to finally sigh with resignation.
...
Inside the private box, Lief observed the show with boredom.
On stage, a band of skeletons with mohawks was pounding their instruments, launching distorted rock chords that made the seats vibrate.
Below, the tide of spectators jumped and collided in a frenzy.
"Is this all?" asked Lief, resting his chin on his hand.
Beside him, Dorothy maintained an enigmatic smile.
The band's last chord died in a sharp feedback and the stadium lights went out suddenly, plunging thousands of souls into total darkness.
A presenter in a tuxedo emerged from the shadows, illuminated by a single overhead spotlight.
"Ladies and gentlemen, living and dead!" He shouted, "Prepare your souls! Please receive with the most deafening ovation our Siren of the Abyss, the crown jewel of the Underworld... the unparalleled Miss Dorothy!"
"Wooah—!"
The roar of the crowd hit the glass of the box like a physical shockwave and the entire stadium trembled under the fanatical adoration of the dead.
They really adore her, thought Lief, feeling her disappear beside him.
The stage remained dark for one more second, until a blue spotlight cut the gloom, revealing a vortex of shadows in the center of the platform and from it she emerged, materializing as the most beautiful nightmare.
And with her, the music began.
It wasn't rock, nor pop.
It was an ethereal melody, an aria that mixed classical opera with frequencies that made the soul vibrate.
Dorothy opened her mouth and at the first high note the audience fell into an instant trance.
While Dorothy's voice soared and flooded every corner of the Land of the Dead, Miguel and his family took advantage of the distraction to move through the backstage.
Imelda paused for an instant upon seeing the monitor in a hallway that broadcasted the stage and pointed at the radiant figure on the screen with a trembling finger.
"It's her," she whispered urgently, pushing Miguel to keep moving, "Don't even think about looking at her for too long! She is very dangerous. Keep going, Ernesto's dressing room must be at the end of this corridor!"
...
At the same time, on the opposite end of the stadium, located in the most exclusive and elevated VIP box in the entire venue, another figure watched the performance.
A man was seated on a red velvet throne.
He wore an impeccable black tuxedo, made of a fabric that seemed to absorb all color.
His face was of an immaculate and sharp beauty, pale as marble, but his eyes were not human; literally, they were dark, faceted pits, like those of a giant insect, that reflected Dorothy's image a thousand times.
He held a crystal glass filled with a thick, amber liquid, swirling it with slow movements.
"Dorothy..." he murmured, "... You are still as unattainable as a dead star..."
Without taking his eyes off the stage, he took a sip of his glass.
"Listen to that voice. It's capable of breaking the will of saints. And yet..." His fingers tightened slightly around the glass, "She keeps rejecting my invitations."
Beside him, a lesser demon, hunched over and dressed in a servant's livery, bowed.
"My Lord," the creature said with a hissing voice, "Miss Dorothy is known for her pride. Perhaps she is just playing hard to get to increase her value in your eyes. She knows that no one, neither in Heaven nor the Abyss, can compare to your magnificence... my lord Beelzebub."
"A game?" Beelzebub smiled without smiling, "Perhaps. But even games have a time limit, and my patience... is not infinite."
…
The aria's last note faded in the air, sustained to the limit of possibility and with it the stadium erupted.
The ovation surpassed any previous decibel level.
In the center of the stage, bathed by the overhead spotlight, Dorothy made a slight bow, but remained motionless in her spot.
The presenter again emerged from the side shadows, adjusting his microphone.
"Ladies and gentlemen! Stay in your seats!" he announced with an amused smile, "The magic continues tonight! Our Lady of the Night has prepared an exclusive surprise for all of you! Let's welcome her mystery guest!"
Behind the glass of the VIP box, Lief felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up upon hearing those words.
He recognized this sensation!
He quickly looked down just as the solid floor beneath his boots lost consistency.
The rug turned into that spiral of darkness!
"Fuck!"
The vortex swallowed him in a blink, dissolving the world into an ephemeral blackness that, barely an instant later, shattered violently to return him to reality.
His boots impacted firmly against the hard surface of the stage, passing from the tranquility of the room to a wall of deafening sound that hit him, accompanied by the lights of the spotlights falling upon him.
He blinked several times, struggling to focus his gaze through the intense glare, and upon regaining clarity he felt a presence at his side.
And indeed, he was planted in the center of the stage, shoulder to shoulder with Dorothy, in front of an ocean of skulls and bones that reached as far as the eye could see.
However, the instant the giant screens flanking the stadium captured his image and projected it, the euphoric screams of the spectators were cut off abruptly.
The attention of thousands of eyes shifted from the diva to fixate intensely on the strange figure standing at her side.
Thanks to the sharpness of the screens, the crowd could distinguish what they believed impossible, observing with fascination the soft and pigmented texture of his skin under the bath of lights and, even more shocking, the unmistakable movement of his chest expanding and contracting rhythmically.
The silence of astonishment finally fractured to give way to a new sound, a growing murmur of disbelief that repeated, again and again, "He is alive…"
________
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