The clouds, remnants of the early morning drizzle, dissipated, but in their wake emerged a different kind of storm–one of agony. A relentless, pulsating ache gripped her head as if an unseen ice pick plunged into Rosa’s left eye. The dark glasses perched on her nose provided a feeble sanctuary from the cruel brilliance of Hil's radiant light overhead, a light that seemed to sear into the very core of her pain. Grateful for the foresight to pack them, she clung to the shield they offered in the unforgiving aftermath of the rain.
With a determined pull of her hat, she urged her horse forward. The road beneath was slick but meticulously maintained. Beyond the Imperium's gates, where civilization yielded to the ominous embrace of untamed lands, roads devolved into treacherous paths marked only by the wear of countless hooves and wagon wheels. The journey between towns and villages bore the stain of peril, with lurking creatures ready to assail any who dared venture beyond the safety of walls.
The Guild, an entity etched in the land's veins, was responsible for maintaining the main thoroughfares. Their efforts ensured safer passage for those who dared the journey, shielding them from the malevolence that prowled beyond the safety of the Imperium's embrace. The cost was not merely measured in coin but in the blood and sweat of those who toiled outside the walls, battling the unknown.
Under her hat and dark glasses, Rosa pondered the origins of the Guild's seemingly limitless resources. Deep as the abyss itself, their pockets funded the maintenance of roads and the swift passage of their couriers. The questions lingered, gnawing at her thoughts, but she silenced them with a stern internal command.
"Let it go," she scolded herself. "You aren't investigating the Guild."
No, she was investigating a murder. Or several.
Her mind, now unclouded by the lingering effects of the previous evening's mezcal, sifted through the fragments of evidence she had managed to unearth.
A trail of blood stretched across a handful of cities, unfolding over the past six months. Each murder, enacted beneath the shroud of the new moon, would have remained concealed, dismissed as isolated incidents, or attributed to the nefarious dealings of rival gangs. Yet, a common thread wove through the tapestry of death—a gruesome signature.
The heart plucked from the chest of each victim rested atop their lifeless form, bearing the grotesque mark of a bite, a twisted calling card from the perpetrator. The attack in Alhambra was the latest. She had days to figure out where the nightmare would strike next, but her time was up. The letter Torres brought her was crystal clear: come back to Puente and be censured for her negligence, and abandonment of her post, or be denounced altogether, and stripped of her office.
She hadn’t reported in for three months and was out of excuses and favors. Censured would have had her off the job for another six months, but she would have a position to return to afterward. She toyed with the idea of sending a letter back stating she was self-censuring herself and would see them in half a year, but that insubordination would probably get her arrested.
In her gut, she knew it didn’t matter. She had to see this through.
The local law enforcement, quick to invoke the specter of unholy entities lingering in the aftermath of the Corpse Wars, embraced the convenient narrative: El Tenebroso, the Midnight Rider, was responsible. The wandering remnants of the War always made the supernatural the easiest to blame when murders appeared. This same superstitious fear drew the attention of Inquisitor Torres and her companion, Brother Martinez. Hil's Most Faithful pledged to hunt down this walking malevolence and deliver it to Hil's Justice.
Yet, in the twisted tapestry of the natural world, sometimes evil wore a human face. The atrocities committed were not always the work of otherworldly entities but a reflection of the darkness that festered within the hearts of men.
This was Rosa Delgado's belief. This evil was not the work of some otherworldly being that stalked the night. It was the work of a man, and he had to be stopped.
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Javi stared at his hands, looking for blood, but there was none to be seen. They were clean. No blood adorned his fingers, no bruises whispered of unseen battles, and no scratches hinted at desperate struggles. These were average hands—innocent hands—yet their very purity amid his surroundings disquieted him.
….sangre…
Blood…
Blood and destruction were everywhere.
He leaned forward, his breath strained and shallow, as if the air itself were a heavy burden. The oppressive weight of the moment bore down on him, a chilling embrace that seemed to squeeze the very essence from his soul. Each shallow breath echoed in the hollow spaces between reality and nightmare.
The feeble light of dawn clawed its way into the room, a pale and hesitant intruder offering no warmth or solace.
…it was too much!
Dread and revulsion coiled like serpentine shadows around Javi's heart, constricting it with an icy grip that stifled the primal howl rising in his throat. The urge to scream, to release the pent-up horror clawing at the edges of his consciousness, surged through him, but an unseen force held the scream captive, a prisoner in the labyrinth of his fear. Bodies in various states of unbecoming surrounded him.
Yet he appeared untouched. Pristine. The quiet eye in a maelstrom of death.
Several loud slams on the basement door above wrenched him from his fugue. He did not know where he was. He didn’t know who the people upstairs were. He could not tell whose voice there was or how many people were there. There were too many things, and too many were unknown, but there was one clear thing.
They wanted through the door, and he could not be here when they arrived.
~~Hours Prior~~
The thunderous blast of the shotgun flung the intruder into a labyrinth of crates, their contents spilling like a chaotic feast for unseen entities. The wreckage signaled lost profits, but such concerns faded into insignificance. Tina's hands trembled as she feverishly attempted to reload, the events unfolding around her obscured by a surreal haze.
Amid the tumult, there had been the cacophony of shouts, swiftly eclipsed by a singular scream. Lolo, a formidable figure, bore the weight of his agony in his unmistakable voice. Turning the corner, Tina witnessed a grim tableau—Lolo, his arm ensnared, a sickening snap of wood signaling a grotesque dislocation. The intruder, despite their size, swung the massive man with brutal efficiency, crashing him into a stone wall. Lolo's skull echoed with a sickening crack, the violence of the assault defying comprehension.
The intruder, a figure draped in malice, leaned over Lolo, their voice a serpent's hiss of condemnation, "Cowardly... negligent... foul..." Standing tall, they poised their boot above Lolo's head, but then, as if drawn by a sinister intuition, turned to face Tina. Crimson eyes aflame with an otherworldly fire pierced through the shadows, and the intruder's voice dissected the air, "Malice... Cruelty... Potential..."
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Fear surged through Tina, a primal force that propelled her forward. The shotgun leveled, she pulled the trigger, unleashing a blast that sent the assailant sprawling into the obscurity of a darkened hallway. Behind her, the others approached—tonight's crew, a motley assembly of shadows and secrets.
"What the fuck was that?" Memo demanded.
Tina, her gaze fixed on the fallen intruder, shook her head, "That thing took out Lolo. You two, drag it back over here."
Memo and Joseph, confronted by the gruesome sight of Lolo's bleeding skull, exchanged silent glances. Joseph, invoking the name of Hil in a futile gesture, received only a cynical retort from Memo. The two turned their attention to the intruder, an emaciated specter with a gaping hole in its chest, an unsettling absence of blood defying the laws of mortality.
As they pondered the enigma before them, a whisper emerged from the intruder's unmoving mouth, "…ser."
"What did he say?" Joseph whispered, kicking the body in vain frustration.
"...ser," the hiss repeated.
Memo, attempting a brazen approach, reached for the intruder's ragged pancho. In that moment of fatal hesitation, the intruder seized Memo's throat with an iron grip, an unseen blade materializing to pierce his chest in rapid succession. A chilling command echoed from the intruder's lips, "Closer..." as their red gaze fixed upon the terror-stricken Joseph.
A few moments slipped away like shadows dancing in the moonlight when Tina called, her voice echoing through the cavernous space, "Take all night, boys! We're all on vacation here."
A deep laugh, dark as the abyss, echoed from down the hall, unsettling everyone. Inez, her nerves on edge, demanded, "What's so fucking funny, Memo?"
Before a response could escape Memo's lips, something hurtled through the air, a malevolent force crashing into Cristos' chest. The impact stole the air from his lungs, and the slender man crumpled to the ground. Yet, despite the brutal assault, Cristos clawed back, terror etched across his face. It was then that Joseph's severed head, eyes wide in terror, stared up from where it lay. Inez stifled a scream, and Victor, gripped by fear, unleashed a barrage of gunfire.
The intruder stood unyielding, bullets finding their mark but failing to mar the phantom's form.
Cristos, driven by instinct and the whispers of campfire tales, bolted toward a hidden sewer drain behind crates on the floor. He knew what this intruder was, but it wasn't the soul trader of legend. El Tenebroso, they said, rode on moonless nights, exchanging souls for gold amid mist-shrouded escapades. Yet, this was something else—an echo of rumors from the distant East, a dark rider indifferent to the guilt or innocence of its victims. The only pattern was its penchant for moonless nights, a harbinger of death that struck without discernment.
Turning momentarily, Cristos witnessed Victor, undeterred, charging the entity with a knife. It was neither man nor monster, transcending the boundaries of known horrors. If the stories held any truth, it mattered little. Mortal weapons could not kill El Tenebroso. Diving past crates, Cristos opened the large drain cover and fled into the underground sewers for escape.
As he sealed the drain, the tips of Cristos' fingers succumbed to an unnatural cold as the area plunged into darkness. An eerie chill permeated the air, driving away any remnants of warmth. Without hesitation, Cristos steeled himself against the cold and started to move forward, away from the nightmare unfurling above. With each step, his hands stung with cold…
In the room above, Tina clutched the shotgun with a vice-like grip. The oppressive darkness, mingling with an icy chill, heightened her fear. The hideout had tapped into the gas from above, allowing the intruder to manipulate the environment. Yet, how did it conjure such bone-chilling cold?
A muffled cry of agony, a symphony of pain and panic, pierced the void, followed by the sickening sound of snapping. Despite the cold, Tina's palms sweated as she held the shotgun, each passing moment marking the relentless advance of this ethereal adversary through her dwindling ranks.
Ignacio had entrusted her with the establishment of this shop for Sombra. She had traversed a path paved with struggle and sacrifice to reach this point. Blood had been spilled, battles waged, lives taken, all to secure her position. Yet, now she felt the firm ground of her achievements slipping away like sand through her fingers.
A sinister cackle echoed through the shadows, reverberating off the walls with mocking glee. With each beat of her heart, the cold tendrils of dread tightened their grip around Tina's senses. The darkness closed in, suffocating her with its oppressive weight, while the incessant pounding in her head drummed a rhythm of panic.
Amidst the encroaching darkness, a fierce scream shattered the silence, punctuated by the thunderous blasts of a shotgun. "DIE YOU SONUVABITCH! DIE!"
It was Inez, her ally in this labyrinth of terror, somewhere to Tina's right, a beacon of defiance in the engulfing gloom. The muzzle flashes offered fleeting glimpses of their surroundings, and Tina seized upon a glimmer of hope—the ropes. A pulley system, a lifeline dangling from above, offered a chance at escape. She needed only to reach it.
Another scream pierced the air, the tone shifting from fury to raw fear.
The unholy voice, dripping with venom, spat, "Tried to shoot me in the back, eh cabróna?"
An indignant retort was lost amidst the splintering of wood. Tina's resolve crumbled under the weight of despair, and she sprinted towards the ropes, ignoring Inez's final cries. But in her frenzied haste, she stumbled over an unseen obstacle, the shotgun slipping from her grasp as darkness consumed it. Pain lanced through her left leg as something tore, but she dared not pause. Survival was paramount.
With trembling hands, she groped in the darkness, her fingers finding purchase on rough hemp. Ignoring the agony that radiated from her injured leg, she secured the ropes to the wall and began her ascent. Fear lent her strength as she climbed, hand over hand, driven by the desperate need to flee the encroaching horror below.
But as she neared the faint glow of street lamps above, a chilling realization gripped her—she was out of rope. The ledge she sought remained elusive, tauntingly out of reach. Panic surged as she felt the world tilt beneath her, the laughter of her pursuer mocking her from the depths below. With desperate resolve, she clung to the rope, willing herself upward even as the darkness threatened to consume her.
A sudden jolt sent her plummeting into free fall, the rush of air a chilling herald of her impending fate. The red eyes, glowing with malevolent intent, loomed closer, casting their baleful gaze upon her as she hurtled toward the abyss. With a desperate gasp, she braced for impact, the darkness swallowing her whole as she plummeted into the unknown depths below.
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The sound of splintering wood reverberated through the air, a chilling reminder of imminent danger. Swallowing down panic, Javi's eyes darted around the room, seeking a means of escape from the encroaching horror. Across the dimly lit space, a gruesome tableau unfolded—a woman sprawled atop a crate, her once-vibrant form now a canvas of carnage. Despite the horror etched upon her blood-streaked visage, Javi recognized her as Tina Mendez, newly anointed Capitana of Sombra.
"Another down, Flaco. She was just the appetizer," whispered a voice within, a voice Javi dared not confront.
A wave of nausea swept over him as he faced the grim reality unfolding before him. Ignoring the specter of dread that loomed over his shoulder, he cast his gaze upon a puddle of shattered liquor bottles, meeting the reflection of Tenebroso staring back at him. Mentally, he engaged in a silent exchange, seeking guidance in the face of impending peril.
"We need to get out of here. Any bright ideas?" he implored.
Sniffing the air with an ethereal presence, Tenebroso turned to his left. "Below... I can smell a dead rat down below. Follow the water."
Javi's gaze followed Tenebroso's direction, alighting upon a metal floor drain partially obscured by debris. With a surge of determination, he pushed himself forward, clearing the obstruction and revealing the yawning darkness below. Above, the symphony of violence crescendoed with the sharp retort of pistol shots, driving home the urgency of their flight. Swallowing his fear, Javi slipped into the abyss, pulling the cover shut behind him just as voices clamored from above.
As he moved cautiously through the subterranean gloom, a chilling encounter awaited him—a frozen figure, suspended in time, his icy countenance frozen in a rictus of shock. Hands shattered, wrists rimmed with frost, the man bore witness to the merciless grip of Tenebroso's icy touch.
"They will find him soon enough. Time to go," Tenebroso's voice echoed in Javi's mind, a sinister reminder of their pact.
"I hate you," Javi murmured, the words heavy with resentment and fear.
In the caverns of his mind, an unsettling chuckle danced, a discordant melody his only reply in the darkness.