"My name is Nikolás Ríos. I’m a history teacher. I’m forty-two years old. I live alone at 247 Ferrer Street, third floor. And my daughter has been missing for three years, two months, and eleven days."
Adrián took a slow breath.
"The police closed the case after four months. The private investigators I hired found three minor leads that went nowhere. The psychics I went to out of desperation—yes, I went to psychics, I know how that sounds—told me contradictory things. My wife left the house a year and a half later. She said she couldn’t do it anymore. I don’t blame her. I want to leave the house too. But I can’t. Because if I leave, who’s going to be here waiting when she comes back?"
The voice broke.
Then pulled itself together.
"I don’t believe in demons. I don’t believe in much of anything anymore. I lost my faith in God when Marina disappeared. But one of my colleagues at the school—a strange guy who studies esotericism—told me about an old ritual. He said there are entities that answer requests. That not all of them are evil. That some of them listen when humans scream loudly enough in the right language. And he gave me the instructions for the ritual."
"I performed it tonight."
"I’m sitting in my living room. It’s Monday. It’s late. I’ve been kneeling on the floor for two hours in front of a circle drawn with chalk and salt, feeling like an idiot."
"But please. Please. If anyone is listening to me. If any entity, demon, angel, whatever—if anything is listening to me—find my daughter."
Adrián’s fingers tightened against the altar.
"You don’t have to bring her back if you can’t. I don’t need a miracle. I just need the truth. I need to know what happened to her. I need to know where she is. I need to know if she suffered. I need to know if she’s still suffering. I need to be able to bury her if she’s dead. I need to be able to hold her if she’s alive."
The voice trembled.
"I need to stop waking up every morning not knowing."
A pause.
Then:
"In return, I offer whatever I have. It isn’t much. I have the house. I have my teacher’s salary. I have the three boxes of Marina’s photographs I kept after my wife left. I have my time. I have my life, if that’s worth anything."
Adrián stopped breathing.
"If you need a soul as payment, take mine."
A long silence.
"It isn’t doing me any good anymore."
Silence.
"Please."
"Please."
"Please."
The voice faded.
The parchment on the altar stopped glowing.
The column of black smoke dissolved.
The circle beneath Adrián’s feet continued to hum.
Waiting.
Adrián stood there.
His eyes burned.
He didn’t know exactly when it had started.
He wiped a hand across his face.
His fingers came away wet.
Shit.
I’m not crying.
I’m not crying.
I’m crying.
He wiped his face again.
Breathed.
Looked at the altar.
At the circle.
At the parchment, now completely still.
Nikolás Ríos.
A father.
A father who had lost his daughter three years ago.
A father who, tonight—right now, at this exact moment—was kneeling on the floor of his living room talking to nothing, offering the little he had left in exchange for an answer.
Just an answer.
Not even a rescue.
Not even hope.
Just the truth.
Adrián thought about his own father.
About Mateo Vega’s voice over the phone, distant and polite, sending him more money than he needed, telling him:
Don’t get involved in things that don’t concern you.
He thought maybe his father had built himself a shell to survive the same thing Nikolás Ríos was going through.
He thought Nikolás Ríos had never managed to build one.
He thought about how he, Adrián Vega, was the brother Nikolás Ríos had almost lost without ever knowing it.
Another human among those five cases.
Another human who had spent three years pinning photographs to corkboards and begging nothing for answers.
Adrián lifted his head.
He spoke into the empty room.
"I accept."
The circle answered instantly.
The vibration surged three levels at once.
The silver symbols flared with a much stronger red light, bright enough to nearly blind him.
The air around the circle compressed with a sharp sucking sound.
Adrián felt something seize him at the center of his chest and pull.
It didn’t hurt.
Not exactly.
But it was deeply disorienting.
The basement disappeared.
For half a second, there was nothing.
No floor.
No ceiling.
No light.
Only a black void with no sensation at all.
Then the void collapsed.
And Adrián appeared with both feet planted firmly on a wooden floor inside a modest apartment living room lit by a single table lamp.
In front of him, on the floor, was a crudely drawn circle made of white chalk and salt.
And kneeling at the edge of that circle, elbows resting on his knees and head hanging down, was a man.
Graying hair.
Wrinkled white shirt.
Glasses that had slipped almost to the tip of his nose.
Early forties.
Thin frame.
Trembling hands.
The man slowly raised his head.
He saw Adrián standing in front of him.
His eyes—gray, deeply sunken, surrounded by heavy dark circles—widened in pure shock.
Both hands flew to his mouth.
His entire body started trembling.
"..."
"Nikolás Ríos," Adrián said carefully, trying not to sound threatening. "I came because you called me."