The air at Custodio’s manor was weird. It felt heavy, dense, it literally took longer to get into my lungs. I could also smell onions, why onions? I don’t know, but I was almost sure my mind was making it up since I hadn’t found the source of the smell. I was just feeling uneasy.

Custodio, Mortimer, Sebastian and Caruncle were all sitting in Custodio's studio, sitting on big fat sofas, they spent a lot of time not saying a single word at all. The only thing I could hear was the grandfather clock of the studio. Tick tock Tick tock. Elena was dressed very neatly, she looked so pretty that I would usually forget Caruncle was the one inside, not her. Hmm, let me describe the dress. I had almost memorized the description because the maids wrote a description of it from all the ideas they got when they were making it for Elena.

She was wearing a gown of red velvet with a rich fabric. The fitted bodice, adorned with lace at the high neckline, hugged her form. Slightly flared sleeves while the skirt was structured with lightweight pleats. The hem stopped just above her polished boots. Elena’s body looked so pretty that I had decided I would refer to Caruncle as a girl while she used that dress since she wore it well, and the body too.

“So, what is your plan? Just let him in and kill him straight?” Custodio asked.

Caruncle nodded.

“With… an axe?”

She nodded again.

“Right, and why not a gun?”

She shook his head.

“So your plan is to kill him once he enters the house. Do you have any idea what the mess that will make? How long will it take to clean?”

Caruncle raised her hand.

First, she tapped her chest with two fingers, her expression steady. “I.”

Then, her hand extended forward, palm flat, cutting through the air with quiet resolve. “Will.”

She mimicked scrubbing, her fingers curling and twisting as though gripping an invisible cloth. “Clean.”

Finally, her hand paused. She lifted one brow, tilting her head slightly as she raised an index finger. “If,” the gesture implied, before both hands moved outward, palms facing up, as though weighing an invisible decision. “It’s necessary.”

“She says she will clean herself if you need to.” Sebastian said to them, the two other men looked at each other.

“I firmly believe he should be sent to the basement first. At least there the mess will be less noticeable.” Mortimer chipped in.

“Do you have any ideas to convince him to go to the basement?” She wrote in a notebook she kept at her side.

“Lopez won’t come alone.” Custodio ignored the question. “He will have at least one body guard with him.

“You said he trusts you.” She wrote again. Custodio looked annoyed every time

“He trusts me but he’s not stupid, he will figure something is off quickly, he probably already did.”

“Mr. Esparza.” Sebastian said, “might I see the copy of the letter you sent him?”

Custodio took out an envelope he had in the pockets inside his coat and gave it to him. He also started smoking a cigar yet again.

Sebastian opened the letter and read it carefully. I took advantage of the chance and read it too.

“Mr. Lopez

They are coming for you.

Meet me at my residence for more details.”

“Not exactly subtle, is it?” Sebastian handed the letter back.

“Lopez is a man of brevity.”

“Right.”

A few minutes passed with nobody saying anything. I wanted to throw a fart but I didn’t feel any.

Yes, ghosts can throw farts, it’s not that I actually eat anything, I just a thing out of habit.

“I don’t think you should do this, Elena.” Sebastian finally spoke. “I have been thinking about it a lot, and I… I don’t think I can keep up with this… this whole thing.... This is way more than what I thought I could chew. I am done. With all due respect, this is insanity.”

“You could have picked a better time to turn back now.” Custodio said.

“Mr. Esparza, let me ask you this, how is it possible you are allowing all this? I know that… Well, I know you have your reasons, but you have known Lopez for a long time now, and you are just going to let someone murder him? And not anyone, but your own daughter? Is it me or isn’t this a little…I mean, can I at least know what your motives are?”

“You don’t know Lopez at all, do you?”

“No, I do not, I still don’t see how that correlates.”

“Lopez is a vermin.” Custodio smiled, Sebastian looked as if he had just seen a ghost.

“But… to have him killed?”

“Yeah well… he had it coming to him, for a long time already.”

“I just don’t understand how–”

“Sebastian, you are smarter than what you look, think it over a little, and you will see what I am talking about.”

“Excuse me?”

Caruncle stood up.

“What? Where are you going now?” Sebastian asked.

She made a fist with her thumb tucked between her index and middle fingers. She held her hand in front of her torso, and gently shook it side to side. She then left the room.

“She says she is going to the bathroom,” Sebastian said. “Whatever, please don’t take too long, I need to talk about this seriously. Before that man comes.”

Yes, Caruncle wasn’t going to the bathroom.

***

So, right, the man was already arriving, his caleche was entering the manor, I could hear it too. I found it curious that he used such a small caleche, but in any case, he was coming, he was finally coming, oh god, it had been so easy, so easy to bring him over and into his doom. When I saw him through the windows, I noticed that he was wearing all black, it was a normal suit like the penguin suit Mortimer had, but it was shiny and some of the material looked like silk. I only saw him for a couple of seconds, but in the full light of the day, he looked like the most disgusting man I had ever seen, he looked repugnant, another single second looking at him and I would have puked, really.

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Caruncle took the axe that had been left in the corridor and walked down the living room at the entrance of the manor, the big door at the entrance was open.

I could feel Caruncle’s heart hammering against her chest. The axe was heavy, its weight pulling against her trembling arms, every second of holding it felt like an eternity. The heavy wooden door creaked as it swung inward, the sound reverberating faintly in the suffocating stillness. She pressed herself tightly against the wall, just out of sight, tucked into the door’s blind spot. Every shallow breath she took seemed too loud.

Mr. Lopez entered the room with a fast step and then it was over in a second. Caruncle raised her arms and froze for half a second, but, right after that, the weight of the axe disappeared off her shoulders, her heart almost exploded in that moment. The only thing that could be heard was the body falling off the floor.

Caruncle felt as if she had left her body, the pale light of the foggy day crept into the room and now it seemed to be covering everything, it was almost blinding her. She kept commanding her body from outside.

She tried to shake the axe with a lot of effort from Mr. Lopez’s cranium, and after using most of her strength she was able to shake it off. Then she hit the man again with the axe, this time on his back, then she tried to get the axe off again, and again, and again. She wanted to make absolutely and completely sure that the body wouldn’t move, that there would be absolutely no chance on earth that he could recover, or that Custodio could bring him back, for any reason, she kept going and over and over, letting the blood spill on her body and dress.

I am not quite sure what I felt back then. I looked at the clouds outside, but I could barely see, the day was as bright as the pale light of a dying fluorescent bulb. From where I was standing, I could see the very edge of time itself, time ended there, for that man, and I could see how his awareness came to a close, like stepping into a dark room after walking an endless concave hallway. But then I realized, the room wasn’t a room at all. It was a vacuum container, sealing in the corridor inside.

I looked at Caruncle, her eyes were stuck to the man. In her head, she kept repeating a few words over and over. “It is over it is over it is over it is over it is over it is over.” Reaching into her heart, there was something quite queer I didn’t quite understand. It was as if she was rewriting the laws of the universe, she was doing something that she should have not been doing, that broke the balance of reality itself, and the sensation was ecstatic. She was destroying the universe as she knew it, blowing it into little pieces. For a very short while, the sensation was cleansing and purifying.

“Freedom comes from reaching the end.” She thought, but I also saw her trying (and failing) to mouth the words too, several times.

“What in the actual fuck, Caruncle?” I whispered.

After a couple of minutes, she dropped the axe and started at her hands now full of blood and her body froze. She wanted to move but she couldn’t.

I heard someone running towards her, Caruncle was finally able to raise her head, it was Sebastian with a look of horror on his face.

“Move away!”

Caruncle’s head bulged a little, she saw a buff man running towards her with a revolver. Sebastian hurled himself at the guard one with everything he had, his shoulder slamming into the buff man’s midsection. The force caught the larger man off guard, his balance faltering as he stumbled back. With a guttural shout, Sebastian drove forward again, and both men crashed to the ground in a chaotic heap.

The gun clattered to the floor, spinning away as they hit the ground hard. The impact knocked the wind from the buff man, but he recovered quickly, grappling at Sebastian who was smaller.

Sebastian’s advantage was fleeting—his initial momentum fading as the larger man regained his footing in the struggle. The larger man roared in frustration, using brute force to buck and thrash beneath him. They rolled, bodies slamming against the cold floor with dull thuds. The gun glinted a few feet away, just out of reach, its presence a silent and ominous reminder of the stakes. Caruncle, still frozen, could only watch as the two men struggled like wild animals, their movements turning into a blur.

“Elena! Do something!”

Caruncle was still stuck.

“For fuck’s sake! Help me!”

Caruncle finally moved slowly towards the men and after staring for them for a bit she raised the axe once again and struck down the guard in his groin as hard as she could.

“Aggh! You fucking bitch!” The man squirmed in the most funny way possible, but then Sebastian took his throat in his hands and started squeezing as hard as he could. Tears were coming out of the guard's face, who was now was trying to grab Sebatian’s neck too desperately, he then tried to grab his arms to set himself free, and then the neck again, but it seemed he couldn’t keep his strength, after a long long while, his body finally stopped moving. Sebastian fell into his side, and the room fell into silence.

Custodio and Mortimer arrived at the room after a few minutes, both with an easy, slow step.

“Are you sure it was okay to let them be, sir?”

“Think about it, if both you and I died, who would have performed the spell to bring any of these people back? The best outcome would be with– what on earth?” He looked at the pile of guts that used to be Mr. Lopez’s body.

“What on earth is wrong with you, woman? Do you have any idea what you have done? Now we won’t be able to use his body to learn more about the spell.” He facepalmed, it was the first time I saw him genuinely upset. “You were right, Mortimer, I am getting too slow nowadays, things could have ended a lot worse.” He then looked at Caruncle, who was frozen in place, but now looking at him. “You got serious issues young lady, we will need to talk about this.”

“I hope that you get to cleaning soon, Ms. Elena, we don’t want to leave all this out in the open for too long.”

…

Caruncle didn’t move.

“Great, look at her. She will probably stay like this the rest of the day. I told you that following along with this little test of hers was a bad idea, Mortimer.”

“I understand sir, I wanted both of you to connect, but I was clearly misguided.”

“Yes, you were.”

Sebastian finally sat down and looked both at Caruncle and Custodio with anger.

“What the fuck is wrong with you people?!”

“Oh, and this guy is still here.” Custodio scratched his head.

“Indeed.”

“Two people have just been brutally murdered! And you guys are talking about dogshit! What? What? What is going on? Don’t you guys have any conscience? Look at this! Look at all this! Ahhh!” He yelled while staring at his palms.

He slowly stood up, and walked slowly at Caruncle, Caruncle moved his eyes towards him, but his head was as still as it had been the last few minutes.

“Look at this.” He lowered his voice. “You made me kill a man. You made me kill a man.” He extended his hands towards her and yelled again, he was all splattered with blood and looked like he was about to cry. Caruncle on the other hand had a static face of shock that didn’t bulge or change.

“Aren’t you going to say anything?”

…

Caruncle didn’t react, if she wasn’t breathing you wouldn’t be able to tell she wasn’t an statue or something.

“I told you, countless times, don’t do this, don’t there are better ways… and you didn’t listen.”

Still no response.

“How could you even….” He looked back at Lopez's body, but that proved to be a mistake, because he started puking a few seconds after that. He fell on his knees and the puke started falling into his clothes. “I never wanted any of this, I never wanted any of this...”

“Should we mention that the guard could probably be revived still?” Mortimer spoke up.

“I doubt it, his brain must have spoiled already.”

“How long does it take for a brain to spoil again?”

“Without putting it in the freezer, around 15 minutes, the time is over. His memories must have already been lost.”

“Wouldn’t it be worth it to try and revive him still without memories?”

“Do you want to take care of a 1.8m man and change his diapers?”

“Uh, no sir.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“Well… I… no, okay. It is a shame then.”

“Besides, that man would be more trouble for what he’s worth.”

“Do you think so, sir?”

“Yes. Now enough chit chat. Get to cleaning, I will take Elena to her room.”

Mortimer sighed. “What should we do with Mr. Lysias?”

“Let me handle that too. Sebastian.”

Sebastian had been staring at Caruncle while the other two talked, the both of them were looking at each other with that face of shock for a long while, it was creepy.

“What?” He turned his head, I wasn’t sure he had blinked the whole time, his eyes were all… red and… veiny.

“You are not leaving this place until you get a bath and new clothes.”

“Hmmph.” He raised his head and let it down, as if he had given up on nodding halfway through or something, his back was arched heavily, and his arms were hanging from his shoulders as if he had just lost control of them.

“Now, come here, young lady, and be careful with that axe, you don’t want to hurt anybody else here with it, right?” Custodio walked to Caruncle and slowly took the axe from her hands. He threw the axe on the floor, and picked up Caruncle in his arms. “Oh, and Sebastian, please close that main door, lock it too. I doubt we will have any other visitors today, but I would rather not take any risks.”

With Caruncle in his arms, he walked up the stairs towards her room. I saw Caruncle let himself be cocooned, she kept her mouth open the whole way. “My poor girl, you should have known, the first time is never easy for anyone.”