Page 95 of Espíritu

But his bravado was slipping. The closer Catriz came into focus, the more real he felt. This was the man who’d killed him. And now … he was trying to talk?

“Listen to me, boy!” Catriz’s voice cracked—not with fury, but strain. Like he was fighting the pull of something stronger. “I don’t have much time—”

Julian faltered.

There was something in Catriz’s voice. Not power. Not cold. Just … panic.

It caught him off guard.

He squinted, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. “You’re struggling to stay here?” he asked, quieter now.

He didn’t know ghosts could be dragged. And if something could pull Catriz away like that, it had to be powerful. Too powerful.

That meant something—or someone—had control over him.

Catriz’s form glitched again—his shape jolting like static, shoulders twitching as if something had grabbed hold of him.

“¡Sí, idiota!” Catriz growled. “It takes everything I have just to—”

“Then stop wasting it!” Julian snapped back. “Spit it out!”

He hated how his voice cracked. Hated that he sounded scared.

Catriz stepped forward. His eyes were glowing now, brighter than before—not dangerous but desperate. There was something almost human in the way his face twisted.

“I need to warn you—”

Julian’s stomach flipped.

“About what?”

Catriz’s head turned sharply—looking past Julian, over his shoulder.

His eyes widened. “He’s coming.”

The words landed like a punch to the chest.

Julian’s breath froze.

“Who?” he asked, but the words felt thin, powerless. His throat had gone dry.

Catriz didn’t answer.

The shadows around him surged, swallowing him whole. Not vanishing—recalled. Like someone yanked the reel and he got ripped backward off the film.

He exploded into smoke, sucked backward into the night like someone had hit Rewind on a horror movie. The last whisper of his voice shuddered through the cemetery like a tremor.

Julian stood there, stone-still.

The silence was loud. Dense. And it felt aware. Like whatever had dragged Catriz away wasn’t gone. It was watching him now.

“Fuck,” Julian hissed.

His mind raced. He’d spent weeks thinking he was being haunted by some evil ghost—or maybe his brain left the door open and all the weird wandered in.

But it was Catriz. The one who betrayed Yadriel. The one who murdered Julian.

And now he was trying to warn them?