Costumes

Rafael’s blood ran around the arm Eryn kept buried in his chest and down to her elbow. Eryn’s eyes gleamed.

Her favorite moment. The body always understood before the person did. His had already sounded every alarm; it trembled at the edges, trying to flee a threat his mind still could not name.

“W-What…”

Rafael did not scream. He kept staring at Eryn with the delayed expression of a man still searching the party for the girl he had been flirting with, even as life drained out of him.

“Where is it? Think it’s in here?”

Eryn moved her hand inside his chest, concentrating.

“Why… does it burn? Huh… I can’t… move?”

He tried harder. His legs did not respond.

“Shhh… shh… don’t move, you’ll spoil everything. I think I’m about to find it.”

Her fingers pushed a little farther.

“It’s around here. The beating’s getting stronger…”

Rafael’s gaze wandered upward and returned, trembling.

“Ah… the pretty girl… What’s… happening?”

“Found it!”

Eryn closed her fingers.

The pressure surged all at once. Blood vessels burst, and red flooded the whites of Rafael’s eyes from the bottom up until it spilled over.

When Eryn pulled out her arm, she brought his heart with it. Only then did Rafael find the scream his body had been holding back.

And there it was: despair. That was her favorite flavor.

A shrill sound escaped Caio, Rafael’s friend—far too thin for the large body it came from. He turned and ran, tripping over his own legs.

“How unbecoming. You cannot simply abandon a lady like that.”

Lyseth watched everything from beside Eryn. Her voice emerged soft, almost seductive.

“She might think you found her ugly. That is terribly rude.”

She snapped her fingers. His feet stopped four inches above the asphalt, still pedaling. His body rose slowly and turned until it floated back to the two women.

Then Lyseth began to twist him.

His waist turned one way; his shoulders, the other. Both passed the limit a human body should endure and kept going. Bones rose beneath the skin one by one while his floral shirt wound together with his flesh like a wet rag.

Lyseth ran her tongue over her red-painted lips.

“Yes, keep going. The screams, the sound of your entrails being squeezed and your bones breaking—they mingle with this city’s dreadful din.”

She closed her eyes for a moment, like a conductor checking the tuning.

“The terror, the surprise, the unexpected… Those are what compose a marvelous piece. Yes, the perfect overture.”

Each had her own way of playing. Lyseth’s was methodical. Eryn preferred quantity.

“They really thought we were in costume,” Eryn said with a laugh, shaking blood from her hand in droplets through the air. “Sarinta. Sarinta, listen to this! They thought they were costumes.”

“I heard you.”

Sarinta had not stopped walking.

The red-haired demon cut a path through the crowd like an ember across paper: unhurried, never yielding, setting everything she passed alight. Flames rose against the sky. She chased no one. The fire did it for her.

A drunk, still trapped in a party that no longer existed, seized her arm and tried to pull her into a dance. Within seconds, his hand came apart—skin, flesh, and bone running like wax. Sarinta walked on without looking back, granting him no more notice than she would a lamppost.

The crowd remained trapped in the space between spectacle and massacre.

Eryn marveled at the city: for a few seconds, the screams still passed for joy.

That night, Rio had been noise before they ever arrived. Music, laughter, and bodies pressed together filled every gap; the scream of someone dying reached the ear clothed in the same excess as the scream of someone celebrating.

A woman saw Eryn lift a man twice her size by the collar and assumed it was street theater, perhaps a film shoot. She drew her phone.

Spikes of living stone tore through the asphalt and impaled the man in midair. Blood struck the screen, too hot to be a special effect.

The woman lowered the phone to check the scene with her own eyes.

She raised it again and zoomed in.

When she lowered the phone once more, a smile of sharp canines waited half a handspan from her face.

5 minutes earlier

In the meeting room, no one had yet shaken off the chill.

Eterna met Giovanna’s eyes across the table.

“You felt that too?”

“Yes.” Giovanna nodded.

Álvaro gave the silence no time to settle.

“All right, everyone, get ready! It’s showtime!”

There was no apparent fear in his voice. The breezy line did not suit him, but he had chosen it to keep panic from spreading. It was Álvaro’s duty to appear confident before the others.

“Angel Squad, the Unknown Threats are your targets. We detected four signatures, but do not assume they are the only ones. Others may be concealed.”

“Understood,” the Angels answered.

All four voices came at once. Not a trace remained of the commotion from minutes before.

“Latent Squad, with me. We’ll support the evacuation and deal with any lesser demons that appear. Engage only if necessary.”

His gaze traveled across the Latents.

“Listen carefully: our priority is saving lives, not killing demons. Stay away from the Unknown Threats. Dead, you cannot save anyone. Do not even think of approaching them until we know more.”

Álvaro hesitated. That part cost him.

“Before any of you say it: I know you’re frustrated, but throwing yourself into an erupting volcano isn’t courage; it’s stupidity. It hurts to admit it, but right now we would only get in the way.”

He turned to the four women.

“Girls, I’m sorry to send you into the field like this, with no intelligence. But we have no choice.”

Beatriz shrugged. This was the kind of burden she preferred to take off someone else’s shoulders.

“Relax, Chief. It’s our job.”

“Even so, I’m sorry.”

He still had to relay the order from above.

“One more thing. I received an order from above: they want you to limit damage to the city, since Carnival is in full swing. They also demanded that you capture at least one entity alive for study and to update the database.”

A polite silence received the statement—the kind reserved for absurd ideas proposed by people who could not and need not feel their consequences firsthand.

“Judging by what I just felt, that will be very difficult, but…” Giovanna left the sentence hanging in the air.

Álvaro’s face hardened.

“But I’ll tell you this: fuck them. Fight with everything you have, and do not hesitate to kill at the first opportunity.”

That was the part of him they respected: the chief who signed reports with one hand and tore up idiotic orders with the other.

“Those goddamn bureaucrats even had the nerve to call this a great opportunity and say it could make a lot of money. Sitting in air-conditioned offices, handing down opinions… Where are we supposed to put one of those things? In a fucking aquarium?” His voice rose a notch. “Let them complain all they want afterward!”

The team laughed. For a few seconds, the tension gave way. Álvaro was not an excessively stern boss, but he rarely made jokes; when he did, it was the natural way he let them fall that made them funny.

“Understood, Chief,” Giovanna said.

The four left together and proceeded down the dark corridor. Their footsteps were the only sound—four different measures at the same tempo. Behind them, light from the room cut Álvaro’s silhouette into the doorway.

He wanted to spare the Latents the guilt of staying behind, yet sending the Angels ahead weighed on him as well. Not for lack of faith. Faced with the unknown, the protective instinct that small team stirred in him spoke louder. If Álvaro could resolve the situation by taking their place, even at the cost of his life, he would not hesitate.

Mabel noticed that he was still standing in the doorway and looked back.

“What is it?”

“Do not treat this like a game. This time is different…” An honest pause. “Be careful.”

Beatriz did not even need to look to know what Eterna would say.

“Don’t worry, Chief. We’re gonna win.”

Without turning, Eterna stretched out an arm and raised her thumb.

“Before we leave, have someone replace that wretched coffee. It would be nice to have real coffee when we come back to fill out the report,” Giovanna added.

The four continued down the corridor, and the light died behind them until the shadows swallowed them whole.

Far behind them, muffled by distance, Álvaro’s voice arrived with a sigh:

“Did they hear a single word I said?”

They had heard. Every word, including those he had not said.

They climbed the stairs in silence. With every step, they felt their hearts quicken—not with fear, but anticipation. This would surely be the greatest battle they had ever faced.

The metal door opened onto the warm night sky.

Across the city, uncertainty finally gave way to panic.

Eryn noticed the exact instant the entire crowd understood. Not person by person: the movement passed through everyone at once, like a school of fish changing direction. A thousand individuals became one beast with countless legs, willing to trample parts of itself to keep existing.

The side streets clogged first. Those in front could not stop; those behind shoved them inward. In less than a minute, an alley became a bottleneck of people crushed shoulder to shoulder between the walls.

Sarinta reached the far end of that alley and stopped for the first time that night.

She looked sidelong at the mass trapped in its own panic, arms raised above heads like inverted roots. Contempt passed over her face as she lifted a hand. Eryn understood what was coming.

The alley lit up.

The narrow passage became a furnace. In an instant, there was nothing but screams, fire, and soot.

Sarinta resumed her march without looking back.

Flames climbed above the buildings and scorched their facades. The heat wave reached Eryn at the other end like the breath of an open oven. To her, the bonfire was simply part of the celebration.

But her interest did not last. While burning figures tried to escape along the edges, spreading flames in their desperation, she was already searching for the next group.

Lyseth tended to the rear.

She chose those running down the street against the direction of the march—those who, for one brief second, believed they had escaped—and lifted them midstride. Then she folded them inward, once, then again, reducing each body around its own center until it became a ball of flesh.

Then she hurled them into other groups, bars, and structures.

Every body burst on impact and tore fresh screams from the perimeter. Lyseth received them with closed eyes, adding notes to her private symphony.

“The sound of that impact is fascinating.”

Galene did not hunt. Standing in the middle of the street with wings spread and arms crossed, she resembled an imposing statue. A crowd ran toward her. Several steps ahead of the rest came a man with arms outstretched, perhaps asking for help, perhaps too blind to notice there was none to be found.

Before he came too close, Galene moved her tail.

One precise strike separated head from body, which managed two more steps before falling. Not a drop reached the dragon woman. Her tail coiled around her legs again, as clean as before.

When the rest of the group came the same way, Galene did not even trouble herself that much. Blades of wind tore them apart at a safe distance, allowing no trace of them to touch her.

That was how she killed: only when something tried to approach. Contact seemed to offend her; eliminating them, in turn, was an inconvenience unworthy of effort. She spread her wings at once—the air cracked—and rose to the tallest building on the street.

From above, she remained like a noblewoman presiding over slaughter: present, unruffled, as though even the smell could not reach her.

The boredom was no pose. That intrigued Eryn, perched atop a half-melted lamppost while choosing her next target.

Galene had crossed into an entirely new world and still managed to find it uninteresting.

“Are you finished playing, or did we come here merely to keep treading on insects?”

Eryn sprang like a beast at a woman running along the sidewalk and landed on her, crushing her head against the ground. Blood and brains scattered everywhere.

“Quit being such a bore, Galene! We’re having fun down here!” she said, looking up.

Without delay, she went after a man pressing his back against a wall as if trying to pass through it. She drove her claws into his belly and pulled sideways, like opening a cabinet.

“Look how many there are, Galene! We could kill all night and never run out! This place is paradise!”

She spun on her heels and raised her arms to the night. Beneath the moonlight, the blood looked black.

“Hmph. Only the rabble could possess such a preposterous taste for cheap savagery. It does not appeal to me.”

Galene expected no answer and received none; below her, the game went on.

Within minutes, the street once packed with revelers became a field of bodies. Music still arrived from far away, muffled and broken; beneath it remained the crackle of fire and the final moans of those no longer able to flee.

By the time the four reached the rooftop, a column of smoke already stained the horizon. Across Rio’s immensity, the carnage was still confined to a single neighborhood. It was enough to reduce that part of the city to a macabre landscape, unrecognizable beneath the smoke.

Mabel extended her right arm. A cyan-blue glow kindled around her forearm, pulsed twice, and settled with a high metallic tone.

She curved her fingers into a ring before her right eye.

A small sphere of the same light appeared at its center and slowly revolved. Mabel looked through it as though through a spyglass.

“Found ’em.”

“Four. I count exactly four. I know where they are.”

The sphere dissolved into glowing droplets as she lowered her hand. Mabel remained silent for a second, her face more serious than before.

“How bad is it?” Giovanna asked.

“Real bad. We gotta move. Now.”

Eterna was already ready.

Lightning ran beneath her skin; her usual smile had vanished. Giovanna’s eyes pierced the night with a green glow. Beside her, heat climbed Beatriz’s body, steady and controlled.

“Let’s go,” Giovanna said.

Together they stepped beyond the edge and let their bodies fall.

The city opened beneath their feet. For an instant, the four simply fell, hair and clothes whipped upward by the wind.

Then they released their auras at the same time.

Within the radiance, their fall seemed to slow.

Flames enveloped Beatriz in a crimson cocoon. Inside it, a phoenix spread its wings, then folded them over her body. The fire condensed into a white underlayer; red and gold hardened above it, shaping her cuirass and the flames along her forearms. Two long plates descended over her hips, each molded like a phoenix with folded wings, its head thrust forward and plumage spread in relief. The oval gem at her collar lit, and the cocoon broke apart into embers.

Eterna’s lightning exploded outward. Golden arcs curved around her like a mane, and a lion of light plunged alongside her fall before dissolving into sparks. In its wake appeared the white underlayer; gold formed the cuirass and branched across her limbs, while deep pink filled the spaces between, cut by golden veins. Two lion-headed plates took shape over her hips, their eyes glowing sapphire blue. The crystal at her collar blazed, and electricity raced throughout the armor.

Mabel’s water rose against gravity in a cyan-blue glow. Liquid bands wrapped her body and joined in the form of a diving eagle. As the bird dissolved, it hardened into turquoise and deep-blue armor edged in gold over the white underlayer. Two pieces of layered plumage descended from her hips, each marked with an eagle’s face. The droplets at her collar lit one after another until they reached the central gem, and the remaining water poured into the void.

Giovanna’s aura coiled around her.

A green serpent of light circled her waist, climbed her torso, and dissolved into leaves when it reached her throat. In its wake, violet armor grew over the white underlayer, adorned with crimson curves and dark scales. A rose bloomed at the collar. Two plates shaped like serpent heads formed over her hips; narrow eyes lit, and the leaves vanished into the wind.

When the radiance faded, all four were dressed for battle.

Their auras erupted downward. They angled their bodies, bent their trajectories, and converted the fall into momentum. The plunge became flight.

Four trails crossed the night—Beatriz’s crimson, Eterna’s gold, Mabel’s blue, and the deep green of Giovanna’s aura—cutting through the February sky above neighborhoods still celebrating, unaware of what had begun.

Eterna did not wait until they reached the target.

Beatriz saw her break formation while they were still miles away. Eterna veered upward, gained altitude in a long curve, and aligned her body for a dive at its apex. Then she became a single golden bolt crossing the sky on a diagonal.

There she goes, Beatriz thought with the fond resignation of someone watching her friend run a red light for the hundredth time.

Galene was the first to turn north.

Something was coming toward them—still distant, but fast as meteors tearing through the atmosphere.

Sarinta stopped walking and looked as well.

“Four presences. Closing fast.” She rolled her neck until it cracked, preparing herself. “They seem capable.”

“Finally. I thought I would die of boredom here,” Galene said from above.

“More humans?” Eryn put a hand over her brow and peered at the sky.

“Humans, yes. But not like these,” Lyseth answered. “How delightful. I can hardly wait to dissect them.”

The sky above the rooftops cracked.

It was not the rift. It was not the portal.

A single golden bolt scored the night from end to end and came down upon them, straight as an arrow.

Eterna wasted no time choosing. The most visible one would do.

High on a building, outlined by the glow of the fires, Galene was the most exposed target.

The dragon woman saw Eterna approach and did not uncross her arms. Chin raised, she held her gaze, absolutely certain this represented no threat to her.

Perfect, Eterna thought as the whole world narrowed to that rooftop.

“You just keep standing right there.”

An arc of fire tore through the space between them.

From within the flames, a horned silhouette came to meet Eterna. She held a black sword with fire leaking through its fissures.

“What?”

She had not expected interference, but she did not care. There was still distance. Fifty yards, perhaps thirty. It did not matter who it was; whoever stood in the way would fall first.

Eterna pressed the attack.

Her fist descended with all the force of the height she had gained and the speed accumulated across miles, every bolt in her body compressed into the strike.

The horned woman merely raised her empty hand.

And closed it around the fist.

The shock wave blew out every window on the block like a breath finally released. A blizzard of glass poured onto the streets.

For half a second, the two hung suspended—the golden fist trapped in a flaming palm.

The next instant, Eterna was flying in the opposite direction.

And vanished into the second floor of a building, throwing up concrete and dust.

Galene’s protest reached Sarinta before she touched the asphalt:

“Sarinta! How dare you interfere?!”

Galene had spread her wings atop the building, her voice cracked with indignation.

Sarinta ignored her. She merely shook her hand until the last golden arcs came loose from her fingers like dust being brushed away—remnants of a blow capable of demolishing a building.

Giovanna, Beatriz, and Mabel landed soon afterward.

Beatriz rose from her landing and swept the avenue with a single glance.

Bodies occupied the revelers’ place. The air smelled of burned meat and iron.

“Have you humans no manners? Attacking before introductions.” Sarinta’s voice cut the air, drawing every eye to her.

She brought one hand to her chest, claws spread over dark armor fissured with veins of fire.

“I am Sarinta. Sovereign of Hellfire.”

She introduced herself like a general before enemy troops. Beatriz assessed the firm stance and well-distributed weight. Sarinta showed no opening. That one was truly dangerous. Worse: she had swatted Eterna away with one hand.

Lyseth glided sideways without touching the ground. Gray arms floated behind her, and straight hair black as spilled ink framed a malicious smile.

“Lyseth,” she said in a low, gentle voice. “The Abyssal Witch.”

Eryn waved bloodied fingers, cheerful despite the carnage around her.

“I’m Eryn! The Calamity Fairy.”

The last woman barely turned her head. Her tail moved once beneath folded wings; her arms remained crossed.

“Galene,” she said. “Duchess of the Wind.”

Sarinta opened her hands toward the devastated avenue as though presenting her own work.

“Now tell me who you are and what kingdom this is. Bring me its strongest warriors.”

Heat answered before prudence could. Beatriz stepped forward.

“What a coincidence…” Her eyes were already alight, two embers drawing breath. “Sovereign of Fire, huh?” The smile came on its own, sharp, from the days when she still fought to prove her strength. “I’m Beatriz Galdino. Empress of Flames.”

Sparks ran around her body.

“Let’s find out which one of us is the—”

A hand came down on her shoulder.

Beatriz stopped.

Eterna had returned. Concrete dust clung to her hair, and blood marked the corner of her mouth, but the pink-and-gold armor remained intact. She did not look at Beatriz; the moment she emerged from the building, she fixed her gaze on the enemies and never looked away again.

“Names and introductions don’t matter. Soon, every last one of you will be dead.”

Only then did she lower her voice to address her companion.

“This one’s mine, Bia.”

“Fine…”

Beatriz did not argue. The duel had already been decided. Eterna released her friend’s shoulder, planted a foot, and let lightning climb from her heels to her head.

The asphalt detonated beneath her feet.

She vanished in a flash, and Sarinta’s smile widened as she raised her sword—a dark blade leaking fire through its cracks—in time to parry. Even then, Sarinta could not contain the full force: the two shot skyward together, bound to the same streak of gold and red.

A boom lit the sky behind Galene’s building; another answered farther away. Soon, two points of light were tearing through the night, rising, falling, and colliding along the horizon.

No one spoke. There was nothing left to say.

Giovanna’s gaze found Lyseth; the demon’s purple aura ignited around her spectral arms. Mabel locked onto Eryn. The pairs formed at the same instant and launched in opposite directions.

Purple and green vanished one way, cyan and pink the other, until only Beatriz and the dragon woman remained.

Beatriz slowly let out her breath and looked toward the explosions receding across the horizon.

“Well. Off they go. Damn, I wanted the fire one.”

Then she returned her attention to Galene.

“Guess I’ll have to settle for Lady Vampire here. You’ll do.”

The dragon woman’s tail stopped swaying.

“What? You know you look like a vampire, right?” Beatriz tilted her head and examined her again, confirming the diagnosis. “Vampire Lizard.”

Something in Galene hardened—her shoulders, her gaze, the entire line of her body. Beatriz knew at once that she had struck a nerve.

“Vampire? Do not compare me to those filthy parasites. Mere frauds. A pack of vermin.”

She spread her ice-colored wings to their full span.

“I am of the Dragon Clan. The one true royalty of the Underworld.”

Galene’s orange gaze traveled down Beatriz.

“Feel honored to stand in my presence, human.”

Only then did Galene leave the rooftop. She descended without hurry and touched the asphalt a few yards from her opponent, arms still crossed.

Beatriz let the display finish. Politely. Then she pointed a thumb over her shoulder at the ruin behind her.

“Lemme tell you something: you folks made one hell of a mess, huh? Best lawyer in the world couldn’t get you out of this one.”

Galene raised an eyebrow.

“Hmm?”

“All this.” She waved a hand over her shoulder. “You made a fucking mess.”

The dragon woman remained serious.

“Oh, you don’t have courts and trials where you come from. Right.”

“Of course we have courts. We simply do not have so many clowns.”

Beatriz laughed, caught off guard.

“Funny. So you do have a sense of humor.”

The flames Beatriz had kept contained thickened around her body and lifted her curls.

“You asked my name earlier. I’ll say it slowly. Beatriz Galdino, Empress of Flames…”

A rim of red aura appeared around Beatriz’s silhouette.

In response, wind swept down the avenue, currents spiraling upward around Galene.

“I did not ask your name. It is of no concern to me. I only hope you do not die too quickly.”

“What I’m saying…” Beatriz closed her eyes as the flames rose. “…is that tonight, I’ll be your judge, your jury…”

When she opened them again, her eyes glowed scarlet.

“…and your executioner.”