DISCLAIMER: If you recognize it, I don't own it.
Looking back on that evening, Maria chided herself for not realizing that something was about to happen. After the quick departure from the church, she had helped her husband home and onto the parlor sofa. As soon as he was sitting, he closed his eyes and fell into a fitful, mumbling sleep.
He hasn't acted like this in years, she thought as she placed a blanket over him and smoothed his hair. What's he so worried about?
When Manolo woke a few hours later, a change had come over him. He said very little to Maria but instead hurried upstairs with the packet from Father Domingo. She found him at his desk in their bedroom, eyes wide as he pored over the papers. He didn't look up when she entered, nor when he answered her plea to come downstairs for lunch.
"I'm fine," he said, hints of annoyance creeping into his voice. "Don't wait for me." He gave Ofelia the same answer hours later, when she hesitantly knocked on his door and asked him to come to dinner.
The girl drew back, then lingered a moment. "Papa? Can we…do some reading later?"
"Not tonight. Another time."
She turned and left him, trudging down the stairs. "I don't think Papa's feeling well," she told her mother as she entered the dining room.
Maria sighed as she looked at the empty table setting beside her. "I know, mija. I know."
They ate in silence and sat quietly in the parlor afterwards. Maria tried to draw, erasing and redoing her lines every few minutes, and Ofelia flipped through a book as one hand rested on the mark beneath her ear.
Next door, a fire was burning merrily in the Mondragons' sitting room. Ixa sewed and smiled as she and Joaquin talked, and the twins raced around batting at each other with wooden swords. The young woman suddenly frowned and squirmed in her chair, rolling her shoulders back and forth. "Hmmm…"
"You okay?" Joaquin asked.
"Yes," she answered, settling back down. "It must have been nothing."
A single candle burned amidst the darkness of the church, casting light on Valeria's determined features as she worked. They seem quite fond of this girl, she thought, holding up a lock of Ixa's hair. Such a shame.
Two more wooden triangles lay in front of her on the desk, tied to strings. Looped and knotted around the side of one were a few strands of curly black hair. This one she set aside, and tied the piece of red hair around the other. Holding it up by the string, she whispered a few words in Latin as she lowered the triangle until it was just above the candle flame. The fire licked at the wood and the hair, catching it and slowly spreading.
"Come now," Valeria muttered. "Burn."
It still wasn't catching the hair. Has she already found the other charm?
The candle suddenly flared up, its fire briefly flashing green. The lock of hair burst into flames, shriveling up and turning to ash. At the same time, miles away, a high-pitched scream of pain echoed through the streets.
Valeria smiled.
Ofelia started and dropped her book, while Maria bolted to her feet. "That's Ixa!"
Manolo ran down the stairs a moment later, nearly tripping. "What's going on?"
She was already at the door, a knife strapped to her side as she put on her coat. "I'm going to find out."
"Maria, don't - "
"Ixa's in danger!" Throwing the door open, she ran off into the night.
Ofelia peered out from the sofa cushion she had buried her face in. "Papa…?"
"Stay here," he snapped, shutting the door behind him as he went to follow his wife.
Casa de Mondragon's front door was locked - Manolo and Maria had to force it open. When they stumbled into the foyer, they saw the twins huddled at the top of the staircase.
"What happened?" Maria demanded, stepping forward.
"It's Mama," Vicente answered. "All of a sudden she just…" He shook his head, trembling.
"Where?"
"The sitting room."
She and Manolo hurried past the children, down the hall and around the corner. The double doors of the sitting room hung open, but when they ran inside, they found themselves frozen with shock in the doorway.
Ixa was screaming at the top of her lungs as she writhed and convulsed on the floor. Her arms were flailing about, and her eyes had rolled back into her head. Joaquin was at her side, desperately trying to hold her down. "Ixa!" he shouted, close to hysterics himself. "Ixa, can you hear me?!"
As she flung him off again, Manolo caught a glimpse of her back. There was a lump beneath the fabric of her dress, a small triangle, and she was clawing at it. Grabbing Maria's knife, he ignored her protests as he ran forward, knelt by his friend and shoved the blade between the stitches. He ripped the back of the dress open, and a small, glowing triangular object tumbled out.
Ixa shuddered and fell still, gasping for breath. Her eyes fluttered shut and then open again as her irises and pupils rolled back into view. She sat up, her eyes darted around the room until they saw Joaquin. Darting forward, she wrapped her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder, wordlessly trembling. "Are you alright…?"
"Me? What about you?"
The object from her dress had landed on the floor. It was a wooden triangle, slowly smoldering as though inlaid with embers. Maria reached for it, only to draw her hand away as she felt the white heat radiating from its surface.
Ixa grew pale and recoiled. "Magic," she whispered. "Of the dark kind."
Manolo said nothing. He was looking down at the charm with a stony glare, his hands slowly clenching into fists.
"What's wrong?" Maria asked, placing a hand on his arm.
He merely turned and stormed from the room.
Maria caught up with him in the foyer. "And where do you think you're going?"
"To find Ofelia. We need to leave town. All three of us."
She gaped. "Someone just tried to kill our friend and you don't want to do anything about it?"
"We're not safe here!" he said. "I need to get you two away from Valeria!"
"You think she did this?"
"I know she did! That's what I've been trying to tell you!"
"Why would she try to hurt Ixa?"
"Because she thinks she's some kind of demon hunter. It's all in the papers Father Domingo got for me…"
"You dragged him into this too?" Maria was backing away from him now, shaking her head.
"She didn't come here to study anything. She came here to hurt people because some old book said they weren't people at all. It's all in the letters and newspapers. Every place she's gone, someone's disappeared."
"I don't believe you…"
"You don't know her as well as you think, Maria," he said, trying to come near her. "I'm sorry, but it's true - "
"Stop!" she screamed. She was tense and trembling as she looked up at him, and fire was raging in her eyes. "Just. Stop."
"But - "
"I don't want to hear it."
Manolo looked down at the floor, his expression still dark. "Then I'll make sure you won't have to." He walked away from her, pausing in the doorway to glance back, then stepped out into the night.
Later she would wonder what might have happened had she followed him. At that moment, however, Maria couldn't bring herself to care.
Valeria was watching the door when he reached the top of the staircase. Her assistants' hands went to the knives and guns at their sides, but she shook her head. "Admit him."
"Are you certain, my lady?"
"Quite."
Manolo pounded on the ancient wood. "I know you're in there!"
She motioned for her assistants to back into the shadows. "Indeed I am."
He flung the door open and stormed up to her desk, seeing only her in the dim candlelight. "Perhaps you can fool Maria, but you can't fool me."
Valeria looked at him through half-lidded eyes. "Really."
"I know what you really came here to do," he continued. "And I was there when you tried killing Ixa with whatever that thing was - "
"Kill her? Oh, no, Señor Sanchez. Absolutely not."
He stopped, his tirade suddenly cut off. "What are you talking about?"
She stood, showing him the second triangle dangling from her belt. "There are some who would call me a hypocrite, using the mysterious arts as I do. I call it resourcefulness. In the face of Hell's emissaries, one requires all the power they can muster." Walking towards a nearby pile of boxes, she reached into one and pulled out what looked like an empty wine bottle made of black glass. "What I placed on your friend was an enchantment of purification. A spell to burn away all that is unholy in a soul. I was testing it."
Manolo was beginning to back towards the door, still not seeing the other people in the room. "Testing it for what?"
"The one who needs it most." She took the triangle off her belt and held it over the candle. "I had to speak with the girl before I could deem this charm necessary. I suspect my assistants are placing it beneath her bed as we speak."
The color drained from Manolo's face. "Ofelia…"
Valeria watched as the triangle caught flame. "Perhaps her soul can still be saved."
"No!" He rushed at her, only to be caught and held fast by the men who jumped out of the shadows. "Stay away from my family!"
"What family? That which you have crafted from the lies you told my pupil? Your hold on her shall soon be broken." She walked up to the frantic, struggling man, bottle still in hand. "And once I cure the girl of your demons' blood and purge Maria's mind of your spells…" She pulled out the cork. "…it shall be as though you never were."
Everything went black. It was like a hundred buildings were falling on him all at once, crushing him into a space too small to even think in. He screamed, but there was no one to hear him. Only the nothingness that stretched out in every direction.
Mis amores, he thought, moments before it all enveloped him. Maria…Ofelia…oh, God, no…