The Guild coach swayed like a drunkard's confession, its well-oiled springs doing little to mask the rutted road beneath. Rosa pressed her fingers into the velvet cushion, the fabric worn smooth by countless travelers before her. The luxury felt wrong after months of sleeping in ditches and abandoned barns.

Across the narrow cabin, Inquisitor Torres feigned sleep, her breathing too measured to be genuine. Even at rest, she kept one hand near her weapon, ready to act. It was a dance they'd perfected over the past few days: Torres playing sentinel while Rosa played captive, though they both knew the truth was far messier.

The leather folder lay heavy in Rosa's lap. She'd read it cover to cover twice now, each review revealing new details. She had to stop thinking of it all as a fairytale. Monsters were real - the Corpse Wars had proven that with brutal clarity. The walking dead still prowled the borders of the Imperium, necromancers still practiced their dark arts, and horrors lingered in forgotten battlefields. These were tangible enemies that could be fought, if not always understood.

But Tenebroso defied even these grim categories. The Volver - those vengeful spirits that rose to right specific wrongs - at least followed predictable patterns. They were unkillable, yes, but their purpose was finite. Once justice was served, they returned to their graves. Some whispered they were Hil's own instruments of vengeance.

Tenebroso was different. It didn't just possess its hosts - it consumed them completely. And unlike the mindless undead or the single-minded Volver, it seemed to have its own agenda, choosing its targets with a logic that suggested something far more ancient and terrible than a mere spirit of revenge.

Mendez's confession alone raised more questions than answers - a religious zealot turned vessel for an ancient evil, his body left a withered husk by the end.

"You're making that face again," Torres said, not bothering to open her eyes. "The one that says you're trying to force sense into senseless things."

Rosa's fingers tightened on the folder. "His heart gave out?"

"So says the report." Torres finally opened her eyes, fixing Rosa with an unnerving stare. "But you and I both know death certificates can lie as well as any witness."

"He was underweight. They all were." Rosa flipped through the pages. "Every host - emaciated, hollow-eyed, more corpse than living by the end. Like something was eating away at them."

Torres shifted. "And our friend in San Felipe?"

"Skinny as a scarecrow, according to the innkeeper. He looked half-starved but paid in fresh coin. If I'd had more time in Lugo-"

"Time was a luxury we couldn't afford after Martinez's theatrics." Torres's voice hardened. "Speaking of which..."

Rosa caught the shift in tone, noting how Torres's hand moved closer to her weapon. "What aren't you telling me?"

The Inquisitor reached across, drawing the curtains closed. The cabin darkened, leaving only thin slivers of light across Torres's face. "Let me tell you about the Silba of Lune, and why Martinez is now as much a threat as our quarry."

Torres described a ritual gone wrong - ancient water turning to blood, a skeletal hand reaching through reality itself to deliver judgment. But worse than the horror was the implication: Martinez, the zealous Acolyte, carried something dark enough to make a sin-eater hunger.

"You're using him," Rosa said flatly. "Letting him escape, letting him hunt us - you're dangling him like bait."

"I'm using everything I have." Torres leaned forward in the shadows. "Including you, Delgado. The difference is, you I trust to understand what's at stake."

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The admission settled heavily between them. Trust from an Inquisitor was rarer than mercy from a hangman. Rosa turned to the window, watching the countryside blur past.

"There's more," she said finally. It wasn't a question.

Torres was quiet for a long moment. When she spoke, her voice was low. "The creature knows things. About the Order, about Hil - truths buried so deep even most Inquisitors never learn them." She closed her eyes, suddenly looking tired. "Get some sleep, Delgado. We'll need clear heads when we reach Canales."

Sleep came eventually, but Rosa's dreams were filled with dark water and ancient secrets.

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It was nighttime, and once again, Rosa found it hard to sleep. The Inquisitor's steady breathing filled their shared room, the woman finally succumbing to exhaustion after days of constant vigilance. In sleep, Torres's façade cracked - deep shadows under her eyes, cheeks hollow from missed meals, body tense even in rest. She looked drained, used up.

The realization struck Rosa. She'd been thinking about the hosts' emaciation wrong. It wasn't just Tenebroso feeding on them physically - it was the relentless drive, the constant pursuit of vengeance that hollowed them out. How many nights had they lain awake planning their next move? How many meals skipped, how much rest forsaken in their single-minded quest?

She hadn't slept properly since finding Carlos's frozen body, his face locked in that final moment of horror. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw him - not as he was at the end, but as he'd been that morning. Smiling, telling her he had a lead on the Sombra connection. If she'd gone with him instead of nursing her hangover...

Her hands found her gun, fingers tracing the familiar metal. What good would bullets do against something that could reach through water and reality itself? She'd spent months convinced she was hunting a man - a skilled killer, yes, but still flesh and blood. Someone who could be stopped with lead and steel.

But the evidence in Torres's file couldn't be ignored. No human could freeze a man solid, could survive the damage described in those reports. The Volver were bad enough - vengeful spirits that could only be waited out. But Tenebroso was something else entirely.

She thought of Fausto Mendez, his confession a stark warning. The old man had started with a righteous cause - targeting priests who abused their position, who twisted Hil's words for profit. But somewhere along the way, his mission had warped. The targets became less clear, the justifications thinner. Was that Tenebroso's influence, or just what happened to a man given too much power?

And now these latest killings - all connected to Sombra somehow. The two men in Puente, the banker in Alhambra, Tina Mendez in Wolfram. Each death revealed another thread in Sombra's web, but to what end? What was Garcia's connection to it all?

The thought she'd been avoiding surfaced: what if Carlos hadn't just found a lead on Sombra - what if he'd been working with them? The freeze pattern on his body matched the other kills perfectly. Tenebroso targeted the corrupt, the guilty. She'd buried that suspicion deep, refused to examine it too closely. Easier to focus on hunting his killer than to question why he'd been chosen as a target.

But if she was honest with herself, there had been signs. The new clothes he couldn't afford on an Alguacila's salary. The mysterious meetings he wouldn't discuss. The way he'd gone alone that morning, insisted she stay behind...

Torres made a sound in her sleep, hand twitching toward a weapon that wasn't there. The Inquisitor had been hunting this creature for months, maybe years. She must know more than what was in that file. Must have some way to contain it, at least. But given how the Silba encounter had gone...

The clock ticked toward dawn, marking time until they reached Canales. Somewhere ahead, a man who had once been called Garcia was probably lying awake too, being eaten alive by the monster he thought would deliver his justice. And here she was, no closer to understanding how to stop it, how to end this before more lives were consumed.

Rosa knew she should sleep, but her mind kept spinning. Everything she knew about hunting killers, about gathering evidence and building cases - none of it would help against a creature that could reach through reality itself. She needed to start thinking differently if she wanted to survive what was coming. If she wanted to understand why Carlos had to die, and what Sombra's role in all this really was.

She just hoped she'd figure it out before the monster hollowed her out too.