The docks at night were a kingdom of ghosts.
The cranes slept in their iron shadows, and the river slid past like a black mirror that never remembered the faces it saw. A damp wind carried the mixed scents of oil, salt, and old sin. In one of the sealed warehouses—one that didn't exist on any manifest—Diego el Lobo stood beneath a single humming light, sleeves rolled up, his once-golden hands now gray with the dust of dried blood.
The crates around him were open, stacked with weapon parts and vials—each vial filled with a faintly glowing crimson liquid. Sangre de Luna. The newest, purest version. His version.
He worked alone tonight. He didn't trust his men with this part. The smell was too rich, the temptation too strong. He poured the last measure into a flask and sealed it with trembling fingers.
"Hermano mío," he whispered, voice thick with memory. "Hago esto por ti; es una mejora a la obra de tu vida. Que descanses en paz."
He could almost hear Juarez laughing in the corner, that rough smoker's laugh, always teasing, always calling him niño even though Diego was older. The sound wasn't there, but he felt it echo in his bones, like the way old homes creak when no one's inside.
He stepped back from the table and admired his creation. The new Sangre de Luna was beautiful in a horrific way—denser, redder, like liquefied garnet. The liquid pulsed faintly in the glass. He had found a way to stretch the Dark Lord's blood, to make more with less. The efficiency would have made William proud, though Diego now despised that smug serpent.
He thought of William giving speeches, standing before cheering crowds, pretending to be savior while sending boys like him to rot in darkness. He used us. He used Juarez. But Diego stayed silent; the brothers still believed in William, and he would not fracture them—yet.
The door behind him creaked open. Salvatore entered first, coat flaring, Rafael behind him, both their faces lit by the ghostly light of the vials.
"Well?" Rafael asked.
Diego held up one of the new batches. "Try it," he said. "Improved yield. The same amount of the Lord's blood—double the potency."
Rafael whistled low. "You're sure it's stable?"
Diego smiled faintly. "For now. If it isn't, we'll find out the way Juarez did."
That silenced them both. Salvatore looked down, muttering a quick prayer in Spanish, crossing himself out of habit more than faith. Diego hated that gesture now.
But when Salvatore finally drank, his eyes widened. "It's clean. Not bitter."
Rafael licked the residue from his thumb and nodded. "Strong. Burns colder."
Diego set the bottle back on the table. "Good. Then the next shipment leaves tomorrow night. The buyers in Berlin will pay double."
The brothers exchanged nods. For them, profit was salvation. For Diego, it was noise—something to fill the space Juarez left behind.
When they left, Diego stayed behind. The light hummed overhead, flickering. He stood still, his hands slick with blood that wasn't his, and realized he couldn't remember the sound of his brother's voice anymore. Only the words. Only the screams.
Side effects, William had warned him after the first ritual. The blood binds, but it takes too.
The Dark Lord's influence was a parasite of memory. The older the bond, the more the mind rotted from within.
Now, when Diego closed his eyes, his thoughts came in pieces: Juarez laughing beside a fire, Juarez slicing a man's throat in Mexico, Juarez dead on the floor, his body torn open, organs gone. Sometimes the images overlapped. Sometimes they traded places.
"Maldito," Diego muttered, and for the first time in months, tears spilled down his cheeks.
He pressed his hand to his mouth to stifle the sound. The Dark Lord didn't like tears. Weakness was a scent that called punishment.
He straightened, wiped his face, and went outside. The night air hit him like a slap, cold and damp.
---
Hours later, he walked the alleys where Moonveil had once patrolled. The city smelled different here—wet concrete and cigarettes, the human stench of hopelessness. He left messages scrawled on walls and crates, carved into bricks with a blade.
The stars are useless.
You can't find me in the dark.
The moon bleeds too.
They were bait and ritual both—words whispered by the Dark Lord into his dreams. The phrases were old incantations, but Diego had twisted them into riddles. Moonveil would understand. He was too smart not to.
He lingered near one of the alleys Moonveil had cleansed last week, the scent of ozone and gunpowder still clinging to the air. He could feel the man's presence even now, a ghost that haunted the haunters.
And yet, under the fury, under the hatred, Diego felt something else—fear.
Juarez's death had been swift. Too swift. The others whispered about it, called it a mistake of timing, but Diego knew better. The moon's champion was methodical. Surgical. He could have killed Juarez differently, but he had made it an execution.
And that terrified Diego.
He turned and left a final message on the wall, written in blood.
The moon can't hide behind clouds forever.
---
By midnight, he found himself standing at the edge of the old tube network, the air thick with mildew and history. The tunnels had once been Juarez's favorite hunting ground.
He stepped inside, boots echoing against the concrete. The quiet was absolute except for the dripping of water somewhere far down the corridor. Then he saw movement.
A homeless man sat huddled against the wall, wrapped in a blanket that was barely cloth anymore. The man looked up, startled. "Who's there? Please, I—I've got nothing worth taking."
Diego's stomach twisted. The hunger came suddenly—sharp, electric, alive. His body stiffened. He felt his veins pulse with the liquid heat of Sangre de Luna.
He took a step forward.
"Please," the man begged, hands up. "Don't—"
The rest was lost to the sound of flesh tearing.
Diego didn't stop until the noise ended.
When he came to, his face was wet and warm, and the world tasted like iron and ash. He had devoured without thinking, the hunger a tide he could not command.
He knelt there for a long time, the man's body broken at his feet. "I'm sorry," he whispered hoarsely. "I didn't mean to."
But the Dark Lord's voice slithered through his thoughts, cold and amused. Don't apologize for what you are becoming. Feed. Become the blade of my dusk.
Diego dragged the body deeper into the tunnel and covered it with trash, trembling. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve, then his eyes. For a long moment, he wanted to scream. But even grief had become a language he'd forgotten how to speak.
---
By dawn, he was back in his safe house—a narrow, concrete-walled bunker above a shuttered pawnshop. Each brother had one; none visited the others. They said it was for safety, but Diego knew the truth. The hunger made them unpredictable. It was better they stayed apart.
He looked in the mirror above the sink and barely recognized himself. His skin had a faint gray sheen, his eyes a dull red ring. The last trace of humanity was fading.
"Hermano…" he murmured, tracing the edge of his reflection. "If you can hear me, forgive me."
Outside, the city began to stir. The morning news carried footage of William Webb's latest rally, his voice ringing out through loudspeakers, promising hope, unity, renewal.
People cheered, blind to the rot beneath his crown.
And in the shadows of the dock, Diego whispered to the darkness, "Soon, William. I'll serve the Lord's will—but I'll never serve you again."
The wind howled through the broken windows, carrying the scent of the river—and the faint echo of a man's laugh that might have been Juarez's, or might have been his own unraveling mind.
---