Skeletons in the Rain

CHAPTER 38 | AROUND 30 MINUTES AGO

The buzzing got louder.

I'm inside a giant beehive, Ismael thought before drifting into darkness once more.

When the priest opened his eyes again, he had no concept of where he was or how much time might have passed. With the brown canvas sack still over his head, it was a struggle to breathe. Where am I? His entire body was sore. Light-headed and confused, he only hoped the people dragging him by his armpits would soon let him rest on the floor.

"Release him."

That unmistakable synthetic voice stopped Ismael's heart. Once his captors brought him to his knees and removed the sack from his head, he found himself surrounded by hooded, skull-masked figures in black. And in the middle of them, sitting on his throne, was the Mime King.

The priest's eyes darted everywhere. He was in a dark, cavernous room with a long procession of columns stretching upward. His whole body, alive with pain, prevented him from making sense of it all.

First, he noticed a cluster of loudspeakers hanging from the ceiling, and then the murals of crude graffiti covering the towering walls on each side: a cacophony of dirty colors, overlapping motifs and curse words; only a gigantic butterfly spray-painted with owl eyes on its wings seemed to have any finesse among that chaos.

I remember this place. Surrounded by at least a dozen powered-down computers stations connected by a web of cables, Ismael noticed that the rusty metal door leading to a set of stairs near an empty elevator shaft that appeared to be the only way in or out. But it can't be.

In the entire chamber, the only light came from the king's throne, built by a score of old TVs of all sizes, on their screens nothing but static. I read the files. This was the first place Abraham raided. At the far end of the cathedral-sized room, a large window, with countless shards of broken glass covering the ground in front of it, looked onto a courtyard dwarfed by the skeleton of a colossal parabolic antenna in the rain.

The abandoned cable company, the priest nodded. No doubt about it. The place that was meant to spearhead a new era of satellite TV and high-speed Internet services in the western central region before the project fell apart because of embezzlement. The single most prominent reminder of the San Isidro that could have been is also where the Skulls are hiding.

On the brink of losing consciousness again, Ismael opened his mouth to speak when a sudden mechanical buzzing distracted him, making him look over his shoulder. Behind him, one of the hooded figures was tattooing the face of... The bishop's deacon? The priest thought nothing would surprise him by this point, but this proved him wrong. Near them, more people waited for their turn to ink their skins as another group of the king's subjects shaved their heads with disposable razors.

They are no longer a gang, he thought. They are a cult, and they are everywhere.

"Yes," said the Skull standing beside him, reading Ismael's expression. "It's the next step."

"The Metamorphosis," others echoed.

Then, Ismael noticed it wasn't them talking. It was the king who was speaking through them. They all held smartphones in their hands as if they were a natural extension of their bodies. To move or do anything, they had to receive an order first.

"A hive mind," the priest whispered to himself before turning to the masked man on the throne. "Quite a sect you have here. Too bad..." He raised his wounded hand, as reluctant tears of pain streamed out of his eyes. "You can't control all of them."

The king tilted his head as if scrutinizing the group behind Ismael.

"It was me, Your Majesty," Luz admitted. "The thing is my brother... Jeremías is dead because of this fucking priest."

After receiving a message on his phone, the tattooer turned off his machine long enough so that the deacon could shout his king's ruling loud enough so that everyone could hear him.

"Take her to the water tank!"

"No, please," Luz begged. "It was Ofelia. It was her fault!"

Two of the tattoo-faced men grabbed her by the arms and dragged her away. Ismael smiled. The pieces continued to fit together. Years ago, during the murder investigation, a reporter found out that Marcelo's stepfather used to lock him for hours in his underground water tank.

Your stepdad's preferred method of punishment after rape. He blamed you four putting impure thoughts in his head. It makes sense you need to inflict that same punishment onto others.

The buzzing stopped; they had finished a tattoo. Another transformation completed. Soon after, the eager needle hummed again, and the black ink found its way under the skin of the next fanatic in line.

With all of them wearing the same robes and making themselves look alike, it was impossible to tell if his goddaughter was among them. Ismael wondered if Ofelia—who, in a way, had let Jeremías die too, who had helped him find the answer—could have also been sentenced to the dirty water tank.

"While our sister is cleansed," said the Skull by the throne as the king typed on his phone. "We can focus on our guest of honor."

"You flatter me." Ismael tried to steady his irregular breathing. "But why talk through them? Don't I deserve to hear your voice? Right. You bit your tongue off. You have no voice."

"Oh, but I do," replied someone from the back of the room.

"We're all his voice," said the Skull wearing gold rings.

"We are all one voice," they all said at once.

"It's time." The king's monotonous text-to-speech software sounded god-like coming from the loudspeakers above. "Answer the question."

"Who?" the Skulls asked in unison.

Fighting his blurred vision, Ismael studied the Mime King's white, inscrutable mask. There was no guarantee they'd keep him alive if he answered the question now. How long has it been since they brought me here? the priest wondered, believing his best option was to wait for the real guest of honor to arrive.

"Why are you in such a rush?" Ismael adjusted his broken glasses. "You've got me here, bleeding, on my knees. Come on! Enjoy this, why don't you? There's nothing in life but savoring the little moments."

The king left his throne to stroke the side of Ismael's jaw with his fingers.

"Vanity is your favorite sin, Father," said the deacon.

"Au contraire. I'm submitting to your will."

"No." The Mime King threw a shattered smartphone by the priest's knees, the same phone that Ofelia had given him, the same one Abraham was supposed to be tracking to this location. "You want to buy time, but you're alone."

Ismael's only hope of getting out of there alive lay crushed before him.