Cemetery Boys(66)

Yadriel rolled his eyes. “Yeah, yeah.”

“I told you, I—”

But Julian never finished his sentence. For a second, he froze.

“Jules?” Yadriel started to sit up.

Julian sucked in a deep, rattling breath. He collapsed back onto the bed.

Purrcaso sprang from the window and darted out of sight.

Yadriel pushed himself up. His heart hammered in his chest. “Hey, what’s happening—?”

Julian’s jaw went slack, his mouth open wide. His eyes rolled back into his head, and his entire body spasmed. No, it wasn’t spasming, it was shaking, vibrating. Julian flickered in and out of existence, like a light shorting out.

“Jules!” Yadriel’s hands hovered above him, not knowing what to do or what was happening. All he could do was watch as Julian’s body flashed in and out of existence.

It took him a moment to see the red stain on the chest of Julian’s white shirt. It started as a dark smudge, but it slowly bloomed larger, appearing in flashes.

More quivering. Just a shadow of Julian.

Then he disappeared and didn’t come back.

Yadriel heart lodged in his throat.

“Jules!”

His eyes frantically searched the bed. Yadriel fumbled, pressing his hands against the mattress as if he could feel him there, that maybe Julian was just invisible, but he was gone. There was nothing. Not even a wash of cold against his fingers.

Just as quickly as he’d vanished, Julian blinked back into existence. A gasp ripped through his throat and his eyes flew open.

Yadriel sprang back, nearly falling off the bed.

Julian sucked in breath, his hand clutching his shirt where the blood seeped. But then he started to fade.

It was like someone had cranked down his saturation and opacity. Julian seemed duller now, his edges slightly more blurred than before. The red stain faded to nothing.

“What—what the hell happened?” Julian heaved, breathless.

Yadriel could only shake his head.

“What was that?” Panic cracked his voice.

Yadriel stared down at his hands. They trembled uncontrollably. “I—I don’t know.”





FOURTEEN


“You—you disappeared!” Yadriel stared at Julian, afraid to blink in case he vanished again. “Where did you go?!”

Julian leaped from the bed. “I—I don’t know!” he stammered. He twisted left and right, patting himself down and inspecting his limbs.

“You were bleeding.” Panic tightened his voice, and Yadriel hated how frightened he sounded, how frightened he felt.

Julian pressed his hand to his chest and winced, like he could still feel it. “But why? What happened?” he demanded.

Yadriel racked his brain, trying to remember everything he knew about spirits, but it was hard to focus. He kept seeing Julian’s contorted face and bleeding chest flash in his mind over and over again.

“When—when spirits have been in the world of the living for too long, when they start going maligno, sometimes they’ll relive their death,” Yadriel said.

“Did someone stab me?” Julian asked, his ghostly face deathly pale. “Did I get shot?”

“But you only died yesterday,” Yadriel reasoned. He pushed his hands through his hair, trying to think. Some spirits turned maligno faster than others, but it had only been a day. “It shouldn’t be happening this quickly.”

Julian sat down heavily on the edge of the bed and winced. “Whatever it is, I don’t want it to ever happen again.”

“This isn’t good.”

Julian’s worried eyes met his. “What does it mean?”

“It means,” Yadriel said, “we’re running out of time.”

Sleep was impossible.

Yadriel lay perched on the edge of his bed, curled up on his side so he could see where Julian lay on the floor. Purrcaso curled up behind his knees. Julian’s back was to him, but there was no way he could be sleeping, either, was there? Every time Yadriel started to drift off, his body would jerk him back awake. He kept seeing Julian lying there, his eyes rolling into the back of his head, the blood seeping from the wound that must’ve killed him.

What the hell was he supposed to do? Yadriel had only heard about spirits reliving their deaths the closer they got to turning maligno; he’d never witnessed it himself. His parents had always shielded him from that. When spirits in their cemetery went maligno, skilled brujos were dispatched to deal with it as quickly and humanely as possible.

Yadriel had hundreds of questions, but no way of finding out. Brujx history relied on oral traditions, so it wasn’t like there was an encyclopedia where he could look up the answers. And he couldn’t ask someone why a spirit would turn so quickly without them getting suspicious.

No, there was no one who he could turn to. They’d just have to get through it.

The thought of forcibly releasing Julian to the other side, like he’d threatened that first night, was unthinkable now. Julian needed to hold on a little longer.

If they could find his body, hopefully they could find Miguel and the others who had gone missing. If Yadriel could prove himself to the brujx, then they would have to let him be part of the aquelarre. Their deadline of Día de Muertos was looming. Halloween was the day after tomorrow, and at midnight, the first day of Día de Muertos would begin.