Soon enough, when the sky was streaked in pink, the hounds became agitated and tugged the unit commander into a run. Reina followed Celeste and the soldiers while her heart ached in anticipation.
A putrid stench infected the air as Reina ascended the rocky path. The hounds circled a large frailejón tree, their barks thunderous in the Páramo stillness, where a mass was blocked from view. As Reina and the others approached, the source of the foul odor fell into view. A severed arm and a leg. Bones jutting out from rotting flesh.
“Ugh!” Celeste covered her nose at the sight.
Dread licked Reina’s spine. “Tinieblas did this?”
But the unit commander instead pointed at a shadow hiding behind more frailejones, to another corpse’s remains. “It was a whistler,” he said, gesturing for his party to carry on.
Hand shielding her nostrils, Reina approached the gore. “A whistler?” she murmured. The thing was dressed in the clothes of a shepherd. Even a straw hat lay discarded not too far from it. But its face was wrong, the irises blanched of color and its mouth a deep gash that cut from ear to ear.
Celeste approached for a peek herself. “Never seen a whistler before?”
“No.”
“These mountains are cursed and dangerous. You know this. Mi papá told me that when shepherds or travelers perish here, if they’re people of bad intentions or people who caused pain to others, the mountain can take them.” Celeste gestured at the corpse to make a point. “They become these whistling creatures that warp the sound around you so you can’t even hear them. Sometimes they come from the Llanos, lured by the iridio.”
Reina stepped away and licked her lips, then immediately regretted it and felt filthy from the decay. “Have you ever seen one alive?”
Celeste shook her head. “According to what the soldiers say, the whistlers can’t coexist with each other. They stay in separate territories, and if they ever cross the path of another one, they usually mutilate each other until all that hatred empties them, and they go back to being just… corpses.”
Reina pretended the chill running through her was from the breeze carrying the scent of moss and earth and had nothing to do with Celeste’s tale. Was seeing a whistler at all like encountering a tiniebla?
“So… what about tinieblas?” Reina said, her gaze on the rocky path to guarantee her sure footing. She shuddered again, for saying their names aloud felt like a curse by itself. “They’re attracted to the iridio mines, right? Like the whistlers. But where do they come from?” She wobbled, and Celeste’s hand shot out to steady her like a solid wall. Reina muttered a thanks.
“You know how the Virgin creates life?”
Reina nodded but instead thought of Ches.
“Mi papá says Rahmagut isn’t a real god. Not like the Virgin or the other old gods who have been forgotten. I don’t know if you believe the same or—”
“He’s a demon,” Reina said quickly, to demonstrate her agreement.
Celeste smiled in relief. She moistened her lips. “Still, from el Vacío, Rahmagut deceives himself into believing he can create life like a god, and he attempts to. He tries to give life to animals because they’re simpler creatures than you and I. Mi papá told me that the animals he gives life to enter the world as corrupted, amalgamated monsters.”
Reina held her breath. She listened to the stillness of the mountain and watched the bare scree. The terrain was covered in burrows and shrubs—perfect hiding places.
“A mountain lion might give birth, and what rips out of her is a monster with the smile of a human and the body of a goat,” Celeste added. “And because Rahmagut is not a real god, he cannot give hearts to his creations.”
“So they hunt for them,” Reina finished for her.
Celeste watched with her big eyes. She had a query at the tip of her tongue, but she lacked the confidence to ask it. The thought warmed Reina’s cheeks, how she could read Celeste’s face.
Reina cleared her throat and said slowly, “When I was in their clutches… they had this humanlike laughter and sense of sentience. Somehow I could tell what they wanted, and I knew they wanted to eat me.” She flexed her right arm, feeling the weakness in the muscle where the tinieblas had taken a bite out of her. She looked down, fidgeting with her gloves, ashamed. “They got what they wanted in the end. They rotted my heart.”
The hounds took off again, and the soldiers followed them up the scree.
Celeste slipped on a loose rock, and it was Reina’s turn to catch her wrist and prop her up. Celeste lifted herself so closely that Reina caught a whiff of her breath. It was sweet and not at all unpleasant. “I think the tinieblas are up ahead.”
Reina’s chest constricted.
“Are you afraid?” Celeste asked.
Maybe it was painted all over her face. Maybe the color had blanched from her as cold perspiration trickled down her temples. She shook her head in a lie, clenching every muscle to stop them from betraying her with tremors. Reina withdrew her grandmother’s badge from her pocket. The medal was imbued with the litio ward that chased away the tinieblas and with a bismuto incantation, Do?a Ursulina later told her. The bismuto spell was what had allowed Reina to see the tinieblas that night, for they were imperceptible to humans and nozariels without the use of geomancia. She ran her thumbs along the inlaid ridges of her family’s crest, for luck. Taking a deep breath, Reina shoved the badge back into her pocket before sprinting after Celeste.
The soldiers disappeared around a rocky elevation skirted by thorny shrubs. An agonized yap erupted from one of the hounds ahead. The soldiers’ swords left their sheaths with a keening whistle. Celeste produced her scythe. Reina ran around the cliff just as blood squirted into the air, followed by another howl. She withdrew her machete as she passed the healer, who was crouched behind a frailejón while his hands articulated galio incantations.
One soldier lay across the scree, with one arm draped over his belly while the other held his hound. A big shadow ran at him, all flexible limbs and jutting horns, and was pursued by two other soldiers. Celeste swung at the second tiniebla that crawled out of a burrow in the ground.
The healer yelled her name, and Reina whipped around as the sounds of crunching twigs muted out the carnage of the battle. Behind her came a tiniebla, pawing at her with caiman claws. Reina raised her machete just before the creature could slice her shoulder. The impact rang down her elbows, shoving her heels against the ground. The tiniebla had the face of a rabid wolf, its mandibles snapping at her and its spittle slapping her across the cheek. Again, she sensed that wicked humanlike laughter that infected the air around her, zeroing in on her and making her taste the metal flavor of fear.
With a grunt, Reina shoved the creature away. Her legs caught on a boulder behind her. She fell out of reach just as the tiniebla pawed at her again. She was lucky or foolish, she couldn’t decide. But now she was off her feet. The tiniebla pounced again. Reina lifted the machete between them, shutting her eyes, bracing herself for the white-hot pain of her flesh ripping open.
Someone yelled above her. Reina opened her eyes only to catch the flash of red as Celeste sliced the tiniebla’s throat. Reina scrambled to her feet as another shadow went for Celeste—her protector. Reina swung down with all her might, cleaving the second attacking tiniebla in two.