Page 148 of Espíritu

The death god’s voice crawled from their throat like smoke.

“I have waited so long,” Bahlam rasped, low and hungry. “So long for this body, this altar. This world that forgot me.”

“Stay behind me,” Yadriel whispered to Julian, stepping forward, portaje raised.

His dad stepped forward without hesitation—not reckless, but deliberate—pulling Bahlam’s focus toward him and off the circle forming behind.

“And now that you’ve got it,” Enrique said defiantly, “All you’ve done is defile the dead and torture the living.”

Bahlam’s head lolled toward them, the grin splitting across Angel’s face too wide, too cruel. “Is that not what your kind has always done? Called on the divine, begged for power, and buried the consequences.”

Yadriel flinched. The air in the crypt thickened like clotting blood.

Bahlam’s eyes cut to the line of youths and elders and gleamed, pleased. “You bring your children to die for you?”

“No,” Lita said sharply, stepping into view before Enrique. “We bring them to fight with us.”

“You don’t belong here,” Enrique decreed. “Not anymore.”

The cenote surged in response. Threads of sickly light rose from the tethers, spiraling into the air like smoke. He heard gasps behind him as the brujx took it in—the sheer scale of the energy being pulled through.

Angel’s grin stretched, her spine popping as she straightened further. “You act surprised,” Bahlam said, voice deepening, doubling. “But it was your blood that called me here. The strength your ancestors begged for. I was invited.”

The cenote churned behind him, boiling with unnatural energy.

Yadriel reached for Maritza beside him, nodding once. “Start the circle.”

Maritza crouched with him near the crypt’s edge, her bag already open. Salt, candles, bundles of copal—she moved fast, unrolling the tools for the ritual. Lita knelt with reverent hands, whispering blessings into the circle’s border.

Runners peeled off to the walls, ready to carry wards to the outer ring. Healers took posts by the stairs, hands already slicked with alcohol and prayer.

Rio dropped into position at the south. Enrique took the west, eyes never leaving Bahlam. Maritza set the last candle and slid to the north, hand on Julian’s shoulder for one breath before she anchored in.

Julian was pale, but steady. He met Yadriel’s eyes and gave a small nod. He moved into the center of the forming circle, his jaw set tight.

Yadriel felt the glyphs hum beneath his boots as he took the eastern point. “Don’t look up,” he told Julian quietly. “Focus on what you came here to do.”

Around them, the brujx were taking position. The older men fanned out, eyes scanning the ring of tethers. The women moved behind them, hands raised, ready to shield. But none of them made the first move. Not yet.

Bahlam hadn’t noticed them—not all of them.

Good.

Yadriel began to chant quietly, hands pressed to the stone. A soft golden light bloomed at his fingertips. One by one, the candles lit. The circle took hold—a steady pull tying Yadriel to Julian and the other anchors. If he broke, Julian’s lifeline frayed with him.

Bahlam turned.

He cocked his head, watching them move. “You think you can stop me with prayers and tricks?”

Yadriel stepped forward again, planting himself between Bahlam and the ritual circle. “No,” he said. “We’re going to stop you with everything we’ve got.”

“Foolish boy,” Bahlam hissed. He tilted Angel’s head with an eerie, weightless grace. “I have worn a hundred names across a hundred lifetimes,” he said, voice thick with centuries. “And I will wear a thousand more before this world is dust.”

From the center of the cenote, a ripple passed through the waters.

Then the tendrils came.

Thick, serpentine limbs of shadow burst upward, writhing toward the nearest brujos. Screams echoed through the crypt.