Chapter 29: A Week of Demons Made Me Miss Being Human

Nikolás came out of the kitchen, his face still pale.

Adrián gave him the bare minimum explanation—there had been a suspicious neighbor, they were gone now, everything was fine—said goodbye with a pat on the shoulder, and took Marina’s three boxes and notebook back to the Alastor building through a teleportation Ishtar activated from the other side.

When he finally made it to his new room that night, with the boxes stacked on the desk, he dropped facedown onto the bed and stayed there without moving for a long time.

Then he fell asleep.

Fully dressed.

With the boxes belonging to a dead woman sitting beside him.

With the very specific feeling of a man who had just discovered that he was officially part of a game much bigger than he had ever imagined.

---

[Seven days later.]

Adrián sat in the restricted section of Kuoh University’s central library with four folders open in front of him, Marina Ríos’s black notebook beside them, and a cup of coffee—his third of the morning—growing cold without him touching it.

It had been a week.

One entire week of splitting his life between two worlds that had absolutely nothing in common.

During the day: university, classes, pretending everything was normal.

At night: training with Rhea, sessions with Silvano in the twenty-ninth-floor library learning demonic history, chaotic dinners with Ishtar, and hours spent cross-referencing information from Nikolás’s boxes with the case files he and Sariel had copied on a night that already felt like it had happened a very, very long time ago.

He hadn’t found anything definitive.

What he had found was a pattern.

One they had already mapped out, but which had become much clearer now.

Five cases.

Five new moons.

Five disappearances within an eight-block radius of Mercier Street over the last five years.

All young women.

All with similar profiles—age, build, hair, something Adrián still couldn’t quite identify but suspected had less to do with anything visible and more to do with something inside them.

Supernatural sensitivity.

A dormant Relic.

Something.

Nikolás’s boxes had provided new details.

Marina had been paranoid for weeks before she disappeared.

She had written in her notebook about the feeling of being watched—the same thing two of the other four victims had apparently reported, according to the private investigators hired by their families.

And in an entry dated December twenty-eighth—three weeks before her disappearance—Marina had written that she had seen a woman in a long black coat standing on the corner outside her coffee shop three nights in a row.

The woman never came inside.

She only watched.

Marina had assumed she was a stalker.

Marina had considered going to the police.

She never did.

Adrián read the entry for the tenth time.

"A woman in a long black coat."

"Sariel wore a long black coat."

He dragged a hand down his face.

Sariel hadn’t been in this city three years ago.

Sariel had arrived—according to the little she herself had revealed—exactly three years ago.

But she had come here "as an exchange student."

An exchange that had conveniently begun at almost the exact moment Marina started feeling like someone was watching her.

Sariel had been hunting from day one.

And Marina Ríos had been one of her targets.

Or one of her sister’s targets.

Or both of theirs.

Adrián closed the notebook.

Ran both hands through his hair.

Then stared at the library ceiling for a long time.

He didn’t know what he was supposed to feel about Sariel anymore.

Anger, yes.

He felt anger.

He felt anger every day.

But he also felt something else—against his will, against every attempt to ignore it.

Something far more uncomfortable.

The certainty that if Sariel walked into this library right now, those yellow eyes filled with tears like they had been on Mercier Street, he would have to decide in that exact moment what to do with his hands.

And he was going to hate either choice.

He closed the folder in front of him.

Put the notebook into his backpack.

And stood.

He had two hours before his next class.

And more than he needed air, he needed to stop thinking for one hundred and twenty minutes.

He needed pool.

---

The pool hall in the basement of the athletics building still smelled exactly the same as it had on the first day.

Fresh felt.

Chalk.

Polished wood.

The light from the hanging lamps still fell in cones over the tables, leaving the rest of the room in shadow.

The same peace.

The same silence.

Adrián pushed open the door and took his first deep breath of the entire week.

"Well, look who finally decided to come back."

The voice came from Table Five, where Coach Ramírez was practicing shots by himself with the same old cue he always used.

Short.

Heavyset.

Bald, with a gray mustache.

University polo shirt.

Adrián hadn’t realized until that moment how much he had missed him.

"Coach."

"A whole week gone, Vega. Beto was already getting ready to give your table to another student."

"I’ve been really busy, Coach."

"Uh-huh."

"Seriously."

"Uh-huh."

Ramírez straightened from his shooting stance.

Rested the cue against the table.

Crossed his arms.

And looked at Adrián with the exact expression of a father who knew his son was lying to him but couldn’t be bothered to argue about it.

"Kid."

"Yeah, Coach?"

"I already know you’re not playing competitively this semester. We talked about it. But at least show up every now and then. Even if it’s just to knock some balls around."

He nodded toward the tables.

"This place is good for you."

"Yeah, Coach."

"You joining the team this year?"

"I can’t, Coach. I don’t have the time."

Ramírez let out a long sigh.

He picked up his cue.

Turned toward the door.

"Fine. Have it your way. Table Four is yours. Stay as long as you want. Just clean up and put everything away before you leave. I’ve got team practice early tomorrow, and I don’t want to come in here and find the place looking like a disaster."

"Yes, Coach. I’ll take care of it."

"Vega."

"Yeah?"

"Whatever it is you’ve got going on..."

Ramírez stopped.

"Don’t let it eat you alive."

Adrián looked at him.

"Life doesn’t just disappear, kid. It gets wasted."

A pause.

"Focus on what matters."

Adrián kept staring at him.

Ramírez knew.

He obviously didn’t know exactly what was happening, but he knew something heavy was weighing on his student.

And he was leaving him alone.

Like he always had.

Like he had ever since the day he fought to keep Adrián’s scholarship after Elena disappeared, when Adrián had been so wrecked he could barely focus on anything.

"Thanks, Coach."

"Uh-huh. Lock up properly when you leave."

Ramírez walked out.

The door closed behind him.

Adrián was alone.