For the first time since being restored to life, Dario felt like his old self again.
Standing in front of his brother's cell and talking to him like he did every day helped push all the negativity to the back of his mind. He even forgot about Catrina's presence until she tapped him on the shoulder. This time, she actually waited for him to turn around instead of pulling her usual disappearing act before reappearing elsewhere.
"We should leave soon." She lowered her voice to elaborate on the reason why. "It is best to keep your visits to the Temple brief in case you have...unwanted visitors." Matanza reluctantly shifted his predatory gaze away from her and grunted in concern for his older brother's welfare.
"Ah. Of course." Winter or another Order member would likely come to investigate after some time had passed without a body being reported. Dario smiled at Matanza and reached through the bars to give his younger sibling's callused fingers a comforting squeeze. "I will be back soon, brother-and with food," he promised, despite failing to seek Catrina's permission first. He was positive she would not allow such a valuable asset to become weakened from a lack of regular meals. "Remember what I said about controlling your hunger." He smirked cruelly at Rey. "I suppose I should bring you something, too, Rey." All he received in return was a resentful glare. Ingrate...For that reason alone, Dario was tempted to serve Rey as breakfast to Matanza.
Catrina linked arms with him. "Are you ready to go now?"
Inspiration struck unexpectedly. "Wait-I need to return to my office once more."
"Make it quick," she huffed.
Once inside his office, Dario headed straight for the liquor cabinet and grabbed a full bottle of whiskey and another, equally full bottle of bourbon. "Hold this," he ordered, shoving the whiskey into a frowning Catrina's arms. Since Dario had insisted she bring the stone along-"Just in case"-she was forced to tuck the alcohol under her arm in order to keep one hand free to travel with him. Meanwhile, he opened the secret compartment in the largest desk drawer to search for a favorite illicit pleasure, only to remember he had used up the last of his supply the other day. It was probably for the best, though: being haunted caused enough suffering without adding cocaine-fueled paranoia to the mix.
A lump formed in Dario's throat as he looked around his office for quite possibly the last time ever. His red rotary phone, that witty I'M KIND OF A BIG DEAL name plate, the writing on the window declaring him the proprietor...He tried to commit every single detail in the room to memory-save for his bullet-riddled chair.
Dario sorted through the disheveled paperwork on his desk once more, but his search was in vain. Winter was probably sharing the list with his colleagues at that very moment...
"I'm done here," he sighed. Taking Catrina's hand felt a bit funny-and not just because of his conflicted feelings towards her. Her skin was always cool to the touch. Not cold in the corpse sense, but she definitely lacked the warmth of the living.
Dario was hungry again by the time they returned to Catrina's place. He fixed himself a second slice of buttered bread and added more orange juice to his cup. It was hardly a gourmet meal, but filling his stomach was more important than a five-star dining experience. It was also a relief to have liquor on hand again, because something told him he would need more than a few drinks to help get him through his time with Catrina.
She watched him from the other end of the kitchen table, impatiently drumming a row of nails painted the color of dried blood against the wooden surface. Her other hand contained the shrouded stone.
"Let's talk business, shall we?" she finally murmured, causing Dario's good mood to evaporate on the spot. But at least she had stopped making that irritating noise.
"Can't it wait until after I finish my breakfast?"
Catrina shrugged. "It could, but I'd rather not."
His forehead wrinkled in irritation. Was it too much to ask for a few minutes to eat in peace and quiet? As it was, just thinking of what Catrina probably wanted from him was starting to ruin his appetite.
"For a start, I want control of the Temple."
Dario knew that was coming, but it was a knife to the heart nonetheless. "Temporarily, you mean?"
She paused to set her magical rock down before answering. "Indefinitely. It is not safe for you to be seen in public right now-not until your killer is in his own grave. Perhaps not even then...After all, your body has disappeared from the crime scene." Dario's face crumbled as he read between the lines. He was cut off from most of the outside world for the foreseeable future. "Are you certain your murderer wasn't following orders when he shot you?"
He slowly shook his head. "I...I cannot say for sure, no." That was one of the questions that ate away at him-along with the nagging suspicion that his own father might been complicit in his death.
"Then there's a possibility other Order members might come after you to finish the job. I do not yet know if there is a limit on the number of times I can resurrect an individual." Catrina pointedly caressed the stone through its burgundy cloth covering. Meanwhile, Dario's heart skipped a beat. Until then, the possibility hadn't occurred to him. "It would be unfortunate for both of us if you were to die too many times and I could no longer bring you back."
Dario glowered at her in silence for a long time before he grudgingly admitted defeat. In the grand scheme of things, surrendering the Temple was a minor concession if he could go on living in return. Still, maybe he could turn up the charm and persuade Catrina to let him help run the Temple from behind the scenes, allowing him to continue playing a role in Lucha Underground...
"I don't want you filling my office with candles again," he said at last. "It took forever to get it aired out." That same waxy odor permeated the apartment, but it was almost tolerable since the candles had remained unlit so far. "And don't steal any of my brilliant ideas, either-like the Dial of Doom." He thought to himself that "Catrina's Dial of Doom" didn't have quite the same ring to it.
She smirked. "This isn't a negotiation, Dario. I will decorate my office however I wish. And you can keep your ideas, because I have better ones."
"I doubt that," he muttered in between bites, although he honestly felt she had done a good job of keeping the dark, violent vibe of the Temple intact during his previous absence. Dario regarded his nemesis suspiciously. "So, what else do you want? Something tells me you won't be content just to rule the Temple-and you could have done that without bringing me back." He mentally cursed himself for adding the last sentence, but he supposed Catrina wouldn't have bothered resurrecting him unless she had a legitimate reason to keep him alive.
"True," she agreed. "What I want-what I need-is your expertise. I revived you because it is easier to talk with a confined human than a ghost who can come and go as he pleases."
"My expertise on what, exactly?" he asked warily, feeling like he had aged ten years since the conversation had begun. Between Catrina's demands, the ghosts, and the dangers still posed by the Order, his new life hardly seemed worth living so far. That didn't mean he was anxious to return to the Other Side, however.
"The Order." Dario gagged on the last of his orange juice and nearly spit it back into the cup. At first, he wondered if he had misheard her, but Catrina's next jaw-dropping announcement confirmed that he heard correctly. She leaned forward, hands clasped, and smiled at him in a conspiratorial manner. "You, Dario Cueto, are going to help me destroy them and prevent a supernatural war."
He hadn't been this shocked since Agent Winter had drawn his gun. For a minute or two, Dario could only gape at Catrina, goldfish-style. It was a real struggle to form a coherent reply.
"You can't be serious...How can you ask me to...Catrina, I..." He took a deep breath and started over, barely able to hear his own voice over his pounding pulse and the occasional ghostly whisper from out of nowhere. Dario tried to ignore the latter and focus on convincing Catrina to reconsider her insane plan. "You said you were familiar with the Order." She nodded. "If that's true, then you know exactly how powerful and dangerous they are. They're everywhere. You're crazy if you think either of us can stop them."
Catrina looked faintly bemused by his lecture. "Do you hear yourself, Dario? You are talking about the Order as if you no longer one of them. That means they have already made an enemy out of you."
"Those guys were never my friends," he conceded with a dismissive wave of the hand, "but we still share a common goal..."
Catrina arched her perfectly plucked brows. "I should think survival would be more important to you than bringing back Aztec gods."
Not just gods, he silently corrected her, and something told him that discussion-the discussion he'd been putting off since she offered to help him search his office-was inevitable.
"I would not ask you to put yourself in physical danger," she clarified. "You merely need to answer my questions." Her dark eyes had developed a faraway look that made her companion more than a little uneasy. "I will be the one with their blood on my hands."
"How do you know so much about the Order, anyway-and why are you so determined to stop them?"
"You are not the only one with useful connections. As far as stopping the Order...There are very few people in this world I care about, and the Order has already tried to recruit some of them as vessels for the gods. That is a fate infinitely worse than death, and I wish to spare those individuals."
The potential "vessels" she referred to were obviously Mil Muertes and Jeremiah Crane, and Dario guessed that Fenix was the only other individual who truly meant something to Catrina. He could understand why she wanted to protect them.
"But you were eager to get the gauntlet after Mil won." He recalled how she had gleefully yanked the damned thing out of the box he was holding so she could deliver it to Mil personally.
She shrugged. "We have our own reasons for wanting the gauntlet-reasons that have nothing to do with acquiring the power of a god."
Her explanation put him on edge. What reasons might those be? Did she intend to use the gauntlet as a bargaining chip? It was a dangerous risk to take. He couldn't imagine anyone not being seduced by the immense power flowing through the gauntlet from the first moment they touched it-including Cuerno.
"I understand if you need some time to think it over," continued Catrina, "but I cannot allow you to waste too much time. Think about how the Order betrayed you-what they stole from you-and ask yourself if you are still willing to serve them." She waited a beat before adding enticingly, "Serve me instead, and I will protect you."
"And if I refuse? What then?" he asked belligerently, fighting the urge to make a snarky comment related to her last sentence.
"Then I either abandon you to the outside world or send you back to the Other Side." Dario gulped, certain his features reflected the sheer terror her threat had elicited. Either way, he would be confronted by countless enemies determined to torture and kill him-not necessarily in that order. Catrina stood and placed her palms firmly on the table, leaning further over it to glare daggers at him. "I will find a way to take down the Order with or without your help, but cooperating will ensure that you stay alive."
Dario slouched against his chair and folded his arms over his chest. "It sounds like I don't have much of a choice."
"There is always a choice-but I think you will agree that some options are better than others." Catrina's smile was so menacing that he shivered. "Choose wisely, Dario."
Black Lotus was looking for Dario Cueto.
Dario was going to pay with his life for what he had done. His lies had brainwashed Black Lotus into slaying an innocent man-a man who had been her friend and mentor. And those same lies had covered up Matanza's slaughter of her parents and village, denying his victims justice. She planned to strangle him in front of his brother's cell, leaving Matanza's human body to gradually starve to death.
It was the perfect plan: everyone she had lost due to the Cueto family would be avenged, and she could finally move on. But, having spent years fixated on revenge, she had no idea what to do once she fulfilled her life purpose...
Dario's office was dark, but there was just enough light in the Temple at this hour to determine that he wasn't inside. In that case, he was most likely visiting his brother-which meant Black Lotus wouldn't have to use force to bring him to the place where she planned to end his worthless life.
The black-attired Triad leader used her lock picking skills-in order to survive the Temple, one had to be prepared for anything-to let herself into the room where Dario kept Matanza confined. Dario had once bragged to her about keeping Matanza under control with his "magic key," and there was probably an element of truth in what he said, but he failed to take more than the usual precautions with the door in front of the staircase that led to the cells.
Maybe that was because few people would dare to willingly come face to face with the monster.
She became pissed off when she realized that Dario wasn't there, either, and her presence made Matanza just as furious. He immediately rushed towards the bars and rattled them violently, emitting a long, low growl and a series of grunts. Black Lotus's back still throbbed from receiving the Wrath of the Gods on the Aztec seal last night, but she ignored her aches and pains and directed her steely gaze towards the cell where Dario had once imprisoned her. It was a reminder of yet another reason why the siblings deserved to suffer.
Nothing could have shocked her more than seeing Rey Mysterio inside.
"What the hell?" she gasped. "They abducted you?"
He nodded miserably. "You shouldn't be here. Dario just left, and he could come back at any second-"
"If he does, I'll murder him," Black Lotus muttered under her breath. Or maybe she would just lock him in Rey's cell and allow both brothers to die of starvation. As far as she was concerned, Dario Cueto was an accessory to the murders of those she held dear, and the most suitable punishment for him-Matanza, too-was a gruesome and agonizing death.
But it wasn't the only form of punishment, and she would have to take whatever revenge she could get until she figured out how to end Matanza once and for all.
"I'm still going to kill you, Matanza," she promised through gritted teeth, glaring daggers at the monster over her shoulder. "Just not today. But I am going to do something that will hurt you..." She dashed over to Rey's cell, determined that he would be the last person either Matanza or Dario ever harmed.
"Go," she ordered Rey as she unlocked his cell door with the simple tools she had used on the main door earlier. Matanza let out a roar that seemed to shake the walls as Rey took a step towards freedom, but Black Lotus's resolve didn't falter for an instant. "Take your family and get as far away from the Temple as possible-and never look back."
"Thank you." Rey offered her a grateful smile, much to his rescuer's relief. She was not a fan of hugs. His smile faded almost instantly, however. "Be careful, Lotus. Dario is gonna be furious if he finds out you were behind this, and now he's got Catrina on his side, too."
She blinked a few times. The surprises just kept on coming. "Catrina? How did that happen?" As far as she knew, there had been enough bad blood between Dario and Catrina to keep their feud going for decades.
Rey shrugged. "Beats me." They both jumped when Matanza snarled and attempted to pry apart the bars confining him. "Come on. Let's get out of here!"
She nodded and ushered him out, positioning herself between the two men and keeping her eyes locked on Matanza until she had backed out of the room. Only then did she sprint through the Temple behind Rey. One last howl of rage followed them as they raced down the stairs.
There's definitely something special about that key, she thought to herself. No ordinary jail cell could contain a god-not even a god stuck inside a human shell.
The two figures finally exited the building and were greeted with warm sunlight as they arrived at the parking lot. Black Lotus felt the tension drain from her body now that they were on the verge of leaving the property. Rey, on the other hand, looked hopeful at first, then cycled through confusion and dismay.
"Where's your car?" Black Lotus asked, guessing his dilemma.
He groaned. "Not here, that's for sure. Cueto probably paid someone to tow it."
That sounds like him. It wouldn't be the first time he's covered up a crime...
"I'll drive you home," she volunteered, trying to redirect her thoughts away from her anguished past.
"Thanks. You know, Matanza said the strangest thing..." Rey commented as he followed her.
"What?" It was rare for him to say anything at all.
"He said Dario was dead."
"Dead?" Black Lotus stopped walking to stare at him in disbelief. Several seconds passed before her lips curved into a smirk. "Maybe he meant he doesn't have a soul." She already knew that Dario Cueto lacked a heart.
Rey smiled faintly as he shook his head. "No, I think he actually meant dead-or maybe undead. Whatever it was, Dario was pretty upset."
"Huh. That is strange."
Black Lotus got a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach as she slid behind the wheel. If Dario really had died, that could explain why Catrina was somehow involved with him. Both individuals had a history of manipulating others to accomplish their goals.
She was glad that Rey was free, of course, but she was beginning to regret being the one who had helped him escape. While she had gotten out of her previous obligations to Dario Cueto by taking a flight back to Hong Kong, there was no escaping or hiding from a vengeful, teleporting bitch like Catrina.
Her gaze landed on Rey while she started the engine. He was in the passenger seat, buckling his seatbelt. The legend looked so relieved to be out of that horrid cell that Black Lotus couldn't bring herself to inform him that he was in more danger than ever.
Catrina made a solo trip to the room housing Matanza and Rey Mysterio Jr. Dario was acting sulky and withdrawn after Catrina's ultimatum, and he didn't have any verbal objections when she offered to feed both his brother and their prisoner-at least, not after she reminded him how sensitive Matanza was to his moods.
Dario's eyes told a different story, however. They had become round with alarm and silently begged Catrina not to leave him behind. She realized then that he was frightened of being left alone should his mother or some other vengeful ghost from his past-and there were many, she was sure-make an appearance. She had vowed to be gone "but a minute" and disappeared with the food before Dario had a chance to respond.
She was annoyed that those haunted brown irises-which appeared even darker since dying, almost black in dim lighting-had earned him just a hint of pity from her. One would think that a man who had repeatedly been threatened with bodily harm by the living could handle dead people doing the same...
Matanza seemed...distressed when Catrina arrived. She frowned, wondering if he was upset because she hadn't brought his brother along or if something else was bothering him. He kept growling and shaking the bars.
"Hello, Matanza. Dario needed to get some rest, so he asked me to feed you."
His eyes were smoldering as she approached. She couldn't tell whether he was ready to tear the flesh from her bones or the clothes off her body. Both, perhaps. Catrina proceeded with caution, walking slowly up to the cell and sliding a plate of raw, bloody beef underneath before stepping back. Matanza's gaze remained glued to her face the entire time and he showed little interest in his meal.
There wasn't much he could do to Catrina, but that didn't stop her from heeding Dario's last minute warning to keep her distance. Staring into Matanza's eyes forced her to confront an uncomfortable truth: the two of them had something in common. Both of them had once been fully human and were now partly supernatural.
Still, I suppose it is better to be half ghost than half god...
Fortunately for Catrina, she recalled that Rey needed to eat, too, and was able to forget her troubled thoughts. She turned to provide him with his own plate-Dario had reminded her with a smirk that bread without butter used to be considered prison food-and was astonished to see the door to Rey's cell wide open.
She frowned. If Mysterio could have escaped on his own, then surely he would have run away the first chance he got. The only logical explanation was that someone had freed him. But whom? She went over to Matanza, the only known witness.
"Where is Rey Mysterio?"
Hearing the name of his nemesis caused him to let out a deep, enraged rumble.
Her tone became cajoling and she smiled, hoping to put him at ease. "You can trust me, Matanza. Remember, Dario and I are friends now." Using that term to describe their deal left a bad taste in her mouth, but she needed to win over Matanza.
Catrina considered Mil the closest thing she had to a friend, and she supposed Jeremiah was something along those lines. Fenix had been more than that, and she didn't think she would ever stop mourning what they once had and what could have been. But Dario Cueto was a means to an end and nothing else, although he could also be considered her dependent for the time being...
To his credit, Matanza didn't look entirely convinced by Catrina's speech. He cocked his head slightly and studied his visitor intently.
"If you tell me who let Rey out, I will tell your brother-and he will do something about it." She had almost promised that Dario would bring Rey back and punish his rescuer, but suppose one or both managed to disappear without a trace. Making promises she couldn't keep would not endear her to Matanza. This way, the responsibility would fall squarely on Dario's shoulders.
He hesitated only a moment longer, apparently swayed by the idea of Dario taking action. "Black...Lotus."
Catrina's smile widened and she passed the bread plate underneath the younger Cueto's cell door as a reward. "Dario will be grateful for that information." It wasn't exactly a surprising revelation, since the other woman had attacked both brothers as well as repeatedly called Dario a liar only the night before. "I do hope we can become friends one day, Matanza," she added sweetly before vanishing.
She planned to share the juicy tidbits she had just uncovered with Dario in hopes that it would inspire him to spill the Order's secrets sooner rather than later, since betrayal was inevitable given his phobia of death.
That was prior to coming home to a sight that stunned her into forgetting Rey Mysterio's rescue by Black Lotus.
Dario was standing before the bookcase, his back to Catrina. Dangling from his right hand on a gold chain was her half of the broken Piedra Immortal amulet; the hollowed out book she had created to store the piece was open and balanced across his left palm. When the lights flickered, he yelped and whirled around in a panic. Although the book crashed to the floor, the chain mercifully remained clutched between his fingers. He managed to appear ashamed, but Catrina knew he only felt shame over getting caught. A man like Dario Cueto did not concern himself with morals.
"Find something interesting, Dario?"