Chapter Text
"But God is telling you and I that there is death, for all of us
But then we find that the scriptures also tell us
That we have a great promise, that there is a better place
For those who believe in the lord Jesus Christ"
That afternoon ended like any other in the years since Raccoon City. Bloody and cold. There weren't many similarities between Raccoon City and Valdelobos, just as there weren't many similarities between Leon S. Kennedy from that time and the one of today. Even now, bleeding like a pig and reeking of putridness, he felt more hardened than that young self of his — anxious and vulnerable as a lamb.
The ironic laugh that escaped his purplish lips choked as blood rose through his throat. His fingers gripped his neck tightly as his knees buckled onto that dry ground. Beneath his fingerprints, the blackened veins pulsed sickly; Leon no longer knew where they began to branch out and where they disappeared. It had been a few hours since he had been attacked and that thing had been injected into him. As the black branches climbed up his wrist, his vision blurred and his body collapsed.
Perhaps he wasn't as strong as he thought, unable to withstand whatever that was and return. Return. Leon didn't know exactly where he would return to, perhaps that's why his body didn't even consider fighting. He bled onto his fists when he tried to rise from the ground, cursing when everything went blurry, hitting his forehead hard against the floor.
Why couldn't he just die already? Ashley was safe. He no longer needed to be alive.
For a moment, he just wished some damned Ganado would appear and decapitate him. He was so shamefully vulnerable, on his knees, even with the cold pistol in the holster and a few grenades in his bag, everything seemed like a dead end. Leon wanted to laugh, fuck, what kind of shitty death would this be? He had never expected an easy death for himself; growing old and that sentimental crap were never an option, he knew. But damn, if any god existed, he was as much Leon's enemy as anyone else's.
His fists tightened, his hair plastered to his forehead as it scraped miserably on the ground. The thing just grew inside him, pulsating and nervous, killing him from within. That. Killing whatever was even inside him besides all the repulsion. He had never felt anything like this in his entire life, so when his entire body gave way on that dirty, dusty soil of Valdelobos, he wished that the bitch of death wouldn't spare him another second of life.
////
“(...) historias de amor
y sus tormentos, y toda clase de cosas imposibles,
y, como resultado, llegó a creer que todos esos
sucesos ficticios eran ciertos; eran más reales
para él que cualquier otra cosa en el mundo.”
Leon felt submerged in that limbo. Perhaps a purgatory, or some other religious crap that torments the dying for eternal life — although he didn't even believe in it — his body was paralyzed, but every now and then, his ears caught vague sounds and he tried to turn abruptly, but in vain, since his body was plunged into the fog and he didn't remember how to breathe. He was probably already dead.
If he was dead, death, besides being a sarcastic bitch, was unbearably noisy.
Leon had no idea how long he remained in that state of semi-consciousness, but he knew that that voice — which he didn't even understand what it was saying — was always present. They were long and cadenced sentences; Leon always tried to catch where it came from, but it was everywhere in that darkness. Like a lighthouse turned off.
However, there was a time when his entire body went cold, and the warmth of that voice was replaced by a guttural noise and a harsh voice that compressed that darkness into a deep and lonely hole.
"My child, do not resist. Come to me." Unlike the other voice, this one was like a tight squeeze on his temple, and he felt, even anesthetized by pseudo-death, all those pulsating veins burn his skin.
Sinking into that dark hole, Leon believed it was his end.
///
“El destino nos sonríe más de lo que podríamos esperar. Mira allí, Sancho Panza, amigo mío, y contempla esos treinta gigantes salvajes, contra los que pienso luchar y matarlos a todos, para que con el botín robado podamos empezar a enriquecernos. Esta es una guerra noble y justa, pues es maravillosamente útil para Dios que semejante raza malvada sea exterminada de la faz de la tierra.”
“¿Qué gigantes?”, preguntó Sancho Panza.
“Esos que ves allí”, respondió su amo, “con brazos enormes, algunos de casi dos leguas de largo.”
“Mira, su gracia”, dijo Sancho, “lo que ves allí no son gigantes, sino molinos de viento, y lo que parecen brazos son solo sus aspas, que giran con el viento y hacen girar la piedra de molino.”
“Obviamente”, replicó Don Quijote, “no entiendes mucho de aventuras.”
Leon opened his eyes, and even though he felt like they were still closed, since he couldn't see anything, he felt that he had been pulled out of that dark hole. The strange but stupidly warm voice made him stir a little, still frustrated but slightly hopeful — if he even had any hopes left. It was foolish that this voice — speaking what Leon now recognized as Spanish — couldn't guide him, much less inform him of anything, yet still, there was a certain comfort that the American didn't know if he could trust.
Don Quijote. Leon recognized the tale of the madman, and that seemed comical to him. So that was it. Death was an eternal participation in the book club. He just hoped he wouldn't have to quote Dante's Inferno in Italian or something like that.
The awakening came like a dull knife: slow, painful, and deeply irritating.
Leon opened his eyes to an unfamiliar dark wooden ceiling. The beams were rustic, crossed by cobwebs that danced slowly with an air current he couldn't see. The smell was of old dust, damp wood, smoke, alcohol, and something vaguely medicinal that he couldn't name. His entire body ached as if it had been run over by a truck and then dragged for a few kilometers of asphalt.
He stayed still for a moment, letting his senses reorganize themselves. The light coming through a small window was pale, almost gray — dawn or dusk, he couldn't tell. Time had become a slippery concept. The last thing he remembered clearly was the taste of dirt and blood in his mouth, and the pulsating sensation inside him like a second heart, a hungry parasite nestled in his entrails.
With an effort that cost him a silent grimace, he sat up. The movement made the white bandage wrapped around his chest stain with a new spot of blood, vivid red against the already dirty fabric. Leon ignored it. His eyes scanned his own body with the clinical coldness of someone who had done this too many times: the bandage was well done, tight enough to stanch without suffocating, a professional job.
His fingers traced the edge of the bandage, down to his abdomen, where his pants were still the same ones he was wearing — dirty, torn, but still his. It was there he saw: dark branches, like corrupted veins, rising from his waistline and disappearing under the fabric.
The sight made something cold writhe in his stomach, but he forced his breathing to remain calm. Panic was a luxury he couldn't afford.
He ran a hand through his hair and let his eyes sweep the room. None of his briefcase. None of his weapons. No badge, no radio, nothing that connected him to the world he knew. He was naked in essence, reduced to a wounded body.
Beside the bed, a small crooked wooden shelf. On it, a single book. Leon stretched out his arm, ignoring the protest of his muscles, and touched the worn cover with his fingertips.
Don Quijote de la Mancha.
Ha.
With a herculean effort, Leon moved towards the door with a predator's caution. Years of training spoke louder than exhaustion and throbbing pain. His bare feet made the wood creak, but he adjusted his weight with each step with almost feline precision. Cockroach steps, as he liked to think. Silent. Patient. Lethal when necessary.
The door was ajar. He peered through the crack.
The next room was larger, lit by oil lamps whose orange light seemed too aggressive for his still-sensitive eyes. Leon half-closed his eyelids, forcing his vision to adapt. There was a wooden table, some chairs, shelves crammed with books and glass flasks. And on the table, about three meters away, a pistol.
It wasn't his Silver Ghost, but it would do.
And beyond the table, with his back to him, a man.
Tall, slender, his shoulders relaxed in a posture that bordered on carefree. The man was humming something softly — a melodious, irritatingly calm whistle — while handling objects on an improvised workbench. Leon couldn't see what he was doing, but the absence of tension in the stranger's shoulders suggested he wasn't expecting to be interrupted.
Leon didn't hesitate.
He moved silently to the table, his bare feet barely brushing the floorboards. The pistol was loaded — he checked it in a quick, instinctive gesture. The weight of the gun in his hand was familiar, comforting.
He took the final two steps and pressed the barrel of the pistol against the stranger's back.
The whistling stopped.
"Vaya, vaya."
His voice was exactly as Leon remembered from his delirium: warm, slightly hoarse, with a Spanish accent that rolled the words as if savoring them.
"Sleeping beauty finally woke up."
Leon pressed the barrel a little more.
"After seven days passed out in my bed, I expected at least a 'thank you'." The man slowly raised his hands but didn't seem particularly alarmed. "And after all the trouble I had, amigo, this is a little cold, don't you think?"
"Seven days?" The words escaped in a whisper before Leon could contain them. "You're lying."
"I wish I were, príncipe. Believe me, you were not a quiet guest."
"Who are you?" Leon's voice came out hoarser than he would have liked, cutting through the Spanish. He didn't loosen the pressure of the gun. "Where am I?"
"So many questions."
The man turned his head just enough for Leon to see the profile of an angular face, dark hair falling over his forehead, the ghost of a smile playing on the corner of his lips.
"And here I was thinking you'd start with something simpler. Hola, ¿cómo estás? Me duele todo el cuerpo, gracias por no dejarme morir. That sort of thing."
Leon tightened the pistol barrel harder.
"Don't make me repeat myself."
The man sighed, a theatrical sound, as if dealing with a particularly stubborn child.
"Alright, alright. We are in Valdelobos, Spain; welcome! More precisely in a shack far from all the Ganado sect. And I am the Spaniard who decided to drag your half-dead body for three kilometers before the Ganados made a barbecue out of you." He paused, tilting his head slightly. "You're welcome."
"You work for Saddler?"
This time, the man genuinely laughed. A short laugh, almost bitter.
"Dios mío, no. Definitely not."
He slowly turned his body, his hands still raised, until he was facing Leon. The movement was calculated not to be threatening, but there was something in his eyes that betrayed a sharp intelligence. They were gray eyes, or maybe blue — in the flickering light of the lamps, Leon couldn't tell.
"If I worked for Saddler, you wouldn't have woken up. Or rather, you would have woken up licking the floor and calling him mi señor."
Leon held his gaze for a long moment.
"Who are you, then?"
The smile on the stranger's lips widened, and he lowered his hands with almost ceremonious grace.
"Luis. Encantado." He made a slight bow of his head, as much as his position allowed, the smile never leaving his lips.
"And as for your things, they are safe. Your briefcase is in the cabinet, your weapons too."
Leon didn't loosen the pistol. His eyes scanned the other man's face with the precision of someone assessing a threat — the defined jaw, the stubble, the way his eyes shone with a strange mix of amusement and curiosity.
"Seven days." Leon's voice was still a hoarse thread. "You spent seven days keeping me alive. Why?"
Luis tilted his head, the gesture almost coquettish.
"Maybe I have a weakness for pretty men in desperate situations."
The smile widened in the face of Leon's impassive expression.
"¿Qué? Alright, a more practical one: you are an American armed to the teeth who appeared in the middle of Valdelobos, Mr.Kennedy. Your documents, forgive the intrusion, told me you work for the American government, Yanqui. American government officials are usually the kind of people who are here to blow up something related to Saddler."
He shrugged, an absurdly casual gesture for someone still at gunpoint.
"Enemy of my enemy, and all that cliché."
Leon watched him for a long moment. Then, he lowered the pistol.
"Alright," he said, his voice still coming out like sandpaper. "Enemy of your enemy. Let's go with that."
"Ah, gracias." Luis let his shoulders drop in theatrical exaggeration and turned back to the workbench. "You know, I had a much better idea for a conversation when I imagined you waking up. I thought maybe I'd get a little gratitude. Who knows, a handshake. Maybe even a hug."
"It's not going to happen."
"Of course not."
Luis went back to fiddling with the flasks on the workbench. Leon stood there for another second, his body still rigid, the pistol still in his grip, before finally setting it down on the table.
"Sit down." Luis pointed to a wooden stool by the table, while returning to his flasks. "You look like you're going to pass out again, and I'm not in the mood to carry you again. You're heavier than you look."
Leon considered arguing, but his legs vehemently disagreed. He walked to the stool and sat down with an involuntary sigh of relief. The wood creaked under his weight. He rested his elbows on the table and ran his hands over his face, trying to push away the fog that still insisted on settling behind his eyes.
"Here." Luis extended a glass with a liquid of an undefined color, something between amber and swamp-green. The smell was... honestly, terrible. "Drink."
Leon looked at the glass, then at Luis, then back at the glass.
"If you wanted to kill me, you could have done it while I was sleeping. You didn't need poison."
"It's not poison. It's an anti-inflammatory." Luis swirled the glass, the liquid spinning lazily.
Leon took the glass. The smell did not improve with proximity. He took a sip and immediately regretted having taste buds. The taste was an assault — bitter, earthy, with an aftertaste that was vaguely metallic.
"This is horrible." He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
"But you're going to drink it all." Luis rested his hip against the workbench, crossing his arms. The smile was still there, lazy and irritatingly confident.
Leon looked at the glass, sighed, and downed the rest of the contents. The shiver that ran down his spine was almost theatrical.
"Good boy." Luis winked.
"I'm reconsidering the part about shooting you."
He let his eyes wander over his own body once more, the cold and distanced assessment of a soldier. The bandages on his chest were stained, but the bleeding didn't seem to have increased. His arms, bare, showed scratches and bruises in different stages of healing. And there, climbing from his wrist towards his forearm, the dark branches.
The blackened veins pulsed under his skin like roots of a diseased plant. He turned his arm slowly, watching how they branched out, how they disappeared under the bandage and reappeared further up. The sight was hypnotic and repulsive at the same time.
"It didn't turn out as well as I would have liked."
Luis's voice pulled him out of his trance. The Spaniard was leaning against the workbench, arms crossed, eyes fixed on the black branches.
"I did the best I could to stop the progression, but…" He shrugged, a gesture that tried to be carefree but didn't quite get there. "Unfortunately, I'm without my complete equipment. I had to work with what I had."
Leon held his gaze for a moment, then went back to observing his own veins.
"You know what this is."
"I do." Luis sighed, running a hand through his dark hair. "Las Plagas. It's what Saddler and his Illuminados have been injecting into people around here. A parasite. It lodges in the body, grows, branches out. Eventually, it takes control of the host. Turns people into Ganados."
The word "host" made something writhe in Leon's stomach. He thought of the sensation of that thing growing inside him, pulsating like a second heart. He thought of the black veins spreading under his skin like an infection.
And then he thought of Ashley.
"The girl." His voice came out harsher than he intended. "Ashley Graham. She was injected too."
Luis raised an eyebrow.
"Ashley Graham? The president's daughter?"
"Saddler kidnapped her. That's why I came." Leon closed his hand into a fist, watching how the dark branches contracted with the movement. "I got her out of the church. An American helicopter rescued her. But I…"
"Stayed behind."
"Something like that."
Luis whistled low, a long, descending note.
"So you are the knight in shining armor. The prince charming who invades the dragon's castle to save the princess." The smile returned to his lips, but there was something softer in his eyes now.
"I'm not a prince charming." The answer came dry, automatic. "I'm just the guy who was available on Tuesday."
Luis laughed, the sound echoing through the room.
He focused back on his mortar for a moment, his movements precise and experienced. The sound of the pestle against the stone filled the silence like a steady beat.
"If the missing señorita was rescued, then her infection will be treated. Your government's biomedical researchers are probably already working on it."
He didn't look up from what he was doing, but his voice was firm, almost reassuring.
"They have resources. You… well, you have me."
"Lucky me."
"Indeed." Luis lifted the mortar and poured its contents into a small glass vial. "I'm the best at what I do, you know? Even if that doesn't mean much in the middle of nowhere."
Leon rested his elbows on the table, letting his body weight rest on his arms. The movement made the dark branches on his skin ripple, as if something beneath them writhed in response. He looked away, preferring to focus on the Spaniard who moved with an almost choreographed familiarity among the flasks and improvised chemical instruments.
Luis's clothing caught his attention. It wasn't the kind of thing Leon expected to find in an abandoned shack in the middle of rural Spain. The leather pants, though worn by use and stained with dust, still maintained an elegant cut. The boots, covered by a fine layer of dirt, had the dull shine of something that had once been expensive. And the shirt — half-open, the first few buttons undone — revealed a triangle of tanned skin and dark hair on his chest. The right sleeve was rolled up to the elbow, while the left hung loosely over his wrist.
Luis seemed to feel the weight of the stare. He turned slowly, resting his hip against the wooden workbench, and let his own eyes wander over Leon with disconcerting frankness.
"You know," Luis broke the silence, his voice drawling and lazy, "for a man who spent seven days between life and death, you look strangely well."
Leon let out a short laugh, the rough sound escaping through his teeth. He lifted his arm, showing the dark branches that snaked under the skin like sick tattoos.
"Strangely well is a generous definition."
"I am a generous man." Luis shrugged, the movement making his half-open shirt slide a centimeter over his shoulder. He didn't seem to notice, or if he did, he didn't care. "Generous, modest, incredibly talented. The list goes on."
"And humble."
"That too."
Luis's smile widened, and he brought his hand to the pocket of his leather pants, pulling out a crumpled pack of cigarettes. Long fingers drummed on the paper before extracting a cigarette, which he rolled between his index finger and thumb as if assessing something precious.
"Do you mind?"
Leon looked at the cigarette, then at Luis, then back at the cigarette. Something in his expression must have been particularly eloquent, because Luis raised his eyebrows in a silent invitation.
"That thing will kill you."
Luis stopped. For a second, he just stared at Leon with an unreadable expression. And then, he threw his head back and laughed. It wasn't a polite or restrained laugh, but something genuine, that shook his shoulders and echoed through the wooden walls of the shack.
"The cigarette will kill me?" Luis managed to say between laughs, wiping the corner of his eye with his thumb. "Dios mío, Yanqui. Look at you. Look at yourself."
Leon looked.
He was shirtless, his chest covered with blood-stained bandages, black veins pulsating under his skin like roots of a diseased plant. His hair was dirty, tangled. There was probably dirt and dried blood in places he couldn't see. He was barefoot, bruised, sitting on a crooked wooden stool in a shack in the middle of nowhere, depending on a stranger. A stranger whose ribs he was about to blow out minutes ago.
The corner of his mouth twitched.
And then Leon laughed too.
It was a short, muffled laugh, that seemed to scrape his throat like sandpaper. But it was real. The first genuine laugh he'd had in days — maybe weeks, maybe months. The sound came out strange, as if his body was relearning the mechanism.
"Touché."
Luis smiled, tucking the cigarette back into his pocket. The silver lighter gleamed for a moment before disappearing as well.
"Well then,"
Luis clapped his hands against his thighs and straightened up, moving away from the workbench and walking through the room. He passed by a small wood stove and leaned towards what Leon identified as a pot.
It didn't take long for the Spaniard to turn back to him with a steaming bowl in hand, smiling slyly as he placed it beside Leon's elbow.
"Eat. It's a limited dish, but packed with nutrients."
Leon was no spoiled child with dietary restrictions; he was a soldier in a bio-war. But that bowl full of whatever the hell it was that Luis had prepared made his nose wrinkle. The grayish broth with pieces in random, wrinkled shapes of stir-fry wasn't very presentable. His expression must have said everything that was needed, for Luis clicked his tongue and placed a hand on his hip.
"Oye, don't make that face."
Leon grimaced, but even so, he brought the bowl to his lips, secretly sniffing the odor before pouring the liquid with shapeless vegetables down his throat. The taste was… tolerable. Nothing like the anti-inflammatory, but the gelatinous texture clung to his tongue.
"Tolerable." He grumbled, setting the bowl on the table.
"You say that as if it were an accusation. I said it was edible."
"You said it had nutrients. That's not exactly a culinary endorsement."
"I learned to cook in laboratories, not restaurants." Luis shrugged, leaning back against the workbench. "But hey, if you'd rather go back to eating dirt and blood, be my guest."
Leon rolled his eyes. He ran his tongue over his teeth, feeling the residual taste of the broth — still better than blood and dirt, but not by a very generous margin. He held his gaze on Luis for a moment.
Damn it. He wasn't good at this. Gratitude was a muscle he rarely exercised.
But, well, this man had done a lot for him — even though he hadn't asked. And, as frustrating as it was, this man wasn't demanding anything from him, he was just there with that annoying smile on his face.
Leon wasn't naive enough to believe there wouldn't be a debt to be paid. In fact, he preferred that there was, and that he could settle it soon.
"Thank you." The word came out like a stone, hard and unpolished. Leon cleared his throat, averting his gaze to some point on the wall behind Luis. "For not letting me die. And for..." He made a vague gesture towards the bowl, then the bandages, then everything. "This."
"Sorry, can you repeat that? I think my ears are playing tricks on me."
Leon sighed, already regretting it.
"Don't push your luck."
"A little appreciation wouldn't hurt." Luis straightened up, but the smile didn't leave his lips. It was a curious smile. "But I'll take the 'thank you'."
The Spaniard moved once more on his long legs as he spoke; Leon watched him still sitting in the chair. He followed Luis out of the room heading towards another, and wondered how many rooms that shack had. His benefactor returned quickly, throwing a leather jacket over his shoulders.
"Well, as pleasant as your presence is, I need to go out for a bit." He twirled a key between his long fingers. "I need some supplies now that there are two of us."
Leon narrowed his eyes, getting up with slight difficulty.
"I'm going with you."
Luis's eyebrows shot up to his hairline, waving his hands exaggeratedly as he scolded the American with his gaze.
"No, no, no. Te romperé las piernas si intentas irte de aquí así, idiota."
Leon paused for a moment. Obviously, he was not a Spanish speaker, even with his extensive experience with extremely eloquent and insufferable Ganados. Luis sighed heavily, massaging his temples.
"You don't have medical clearance to leave here, Yanqui."
"Now you're my personal doctor?" He actually wanted to laugh now. It wouldn't be the first time he'd disobey a doctor, if you could even call Luis that.
"Ha-ha, listillo." For the first time since they met, Luis looked serious when he said it. "Don't try to kill yourself, Leon. You need rest; I'm not a magician."
Leon pressed his lips together upon hearing him call him by his name. He had snooped through his documents; Leon had almost forgotten about that.
He thought about retorting, but before he knew it, Luis had already disappeared, leaving him behind with only the sound of a lock being turned.
Fuck.
In the end, he really was a prisoner.
////
Leon genuinely tried to listen to his benefactor and stay quiet in that wretched shack.
Actually, no.
He didn't try.
As soon as he gave enough time for Luis's long legs to carry him far away from there, he rose up on his ankles. The pain radiating from his body seemed like a faithful ally of the Spaniard, insisting that his body simply give up fighting.
The room danced for a moment. He blinked, forcing his vision to stabilize.
"You don't have medical clearance to leave here, Yanqui."
The mental imitation of Luis's voice had a thicker accent than the original, and Leon almost smiled. As if he had ever in his life needed permission for anything.
Biting his lip and tasting the metal of blood on his tongue, he wandered through the room searching for his items.
He searched the main room first. The table where he had been sitting minutes before, the shelves crammed with flasks and books, the wood stove that still crackled softly. Nothing. His eyes swept every surface with the precision of someone trained to find needles in haystacks — or biological weapons in condemned cities.
It was in what seemed to be a built-in cabinet, partially hidden behind a dusty curtain, that he finally found what he was looking for. His briefcase was there, intact, as Luis had promised. Next to it, his weapons, meticulously organized: the Silver Ghost, the Striker, the combat knife with the chipped blade. And on a nearby chair, his tactical vest, still stained with blood and dirt, next to his pair of boots.
Leon allowed himself a moment of silent relief. He ran his fingers over the cold surface of the briefcase, feeling the worn leather under his fingertips. He opened it. He checked the contents methodically: ammunition, first-aid herbs, some documents that weren't particularly important but that he preferred to keep close. Everything in its place.
He frowned. He rummaged through the briefcase again, then the cabinet, then the surrounding area. Nothing. His radio communicator — the only direct line to Hunnigan, to the outside world, to any possibility of reporting his situation — was nowhere to be found.
"You've got to be kidding me."
Leon ran a hand through his tangled hair, feeling the rough texture of the accumulated dirt. He tried to remember. The last time he had used the radio was... when exactly? Before the church? After? The memories were disconnected fragments, blurred images of violence and despair. He remembered Ashley, the helicopter, the brief and bitter relief of seeing her leave safely.
The radio could have fallen during the attack. It could have been destroyed. It could be in some corner of that damned village, useless and silent.
Or Luis could have confiscated it.
The possibility made something cold settle in his stomach. He didn't trust Luis, not really. The Spaniard had an easy smile and an even easier gift of gab, and Leon had learned the hard way that men like that usually had something to hide. Seven days unconscious was more than enough time for someone to search his belongings, read his documents, maybe even make a copy of his encrypted keys. The idea of being completely isolated, without communication, at the mercy of a stranger who knew too many things about Las Plagas to be just a well-intentioned villager, was not comforting.
But there was no time for paranoia. Ashley was still out there, potentially infected with the same parasite that pulsed in his veins. The mission wasn't complete; Ashley wasn't safe until Lord Saddler was dead.
He put on the vest with economical movements, ignoring how the fabric pressed against the bandages and drew a muffled protest from his wounds. The combat knife was strapped to his thigh holster. The Silver Ghost, checked and loaded, found its familiar place in his chest holster. He was far from being in ideal combat condition, but he was armed. It was enough.
As he passed the table where Luis had worked, his eyes caught a metallic gleam. A knife, a thin and elegant blade, with a dark wooden handle and an inscription in Spanish that he didn't bother to decipher. Leon picked it up, feeling the balanced weight in his palm. It was a tool, not a weapon; probably used to cut herbs or something equally innocent. But a blade was a blade.
I'll owe you this one too mate, he thought, tucking it into his belt.
The next room was surprisingly different from the rest of the shack. Smaller, cozier, with an atmosphere that bordered on domestic.
There was a divan covered by a thick wool blanket, whose faded checkered pattern spoke of decades of use. A low coffee table, made of dark wood with turned legs, occupied the central space. On it, an organized chaos of open books, notebooks, fountain pens, and a pair of metal-framed glasses that gleamed under the light of an oil lamp.
The room's window was sealed with crossed boards, but thin curtains filtered the light from outside, dyeing everything a grayish tone. Leon approached the table, his investigator's instincts immediately alert. The books were open to specific pages, marked with strips of paper or simply with their corners folded. Detailed diagrams covered the yellowed pages: parasitic structures, life cycles, anatomical illustrations of something that vaguely resembled a roundworm, but with appendages that no natural roundworm could have.
Las Plagas.
There was also what appeared to be notes about the Illuminados — the cult that controlled Valdelobos. Leon recognized the symbol drawn in one of the margins. Below it, words in Spanish that he couldn't fully translate, but whose general meaning wasn't hard to infer. Control. Obedience. The Host.
An anatomical image of a body, with the chest cut in the middle showing the internal organs with possible details for "extracción."
And then, on a separate page, almost hidden under a leather-bound notebook, a word that made his heart race:
La Cura.
Leon pulled the notebook aside, revealing the full page. It was dense, full of chemical formulas and notes in the slanted handwriting he already associated with Luis. There were lists of compounds, some crossed out and replaced by others, arrows connecting concepts that Leon didn't have the knowledge to fully understand. But the intention was clear.
Interesting.
He pushed the notebook aside and continued his inspection. There were phone numbers scribbled in the margins of a botany book — area codes Leon didn't recognize. Partial addresses. Names. Some of the notes were in Spanish, others in surprisingly fluent English, and one or two in what seemed to be Swahili. Whoever Luis was, he wasn't a simple villager.
A wooden staircase, narrow and steep, went up to what Leon presumed was an attic. He considered exploring it, but something in his field of vision stopped him. Hanging on the stair railing, as if it had been placed there in a hurry, was his brown leather jacket.
The leather was notably cleaner than he remembered — the blood and dirt stains were still visible, but had been partially removed, as if someone had tried to clean it with whatever was available. He brought the fabric to his nose, instinctively. Besides the familiar smell of leather and sweat, there was a faint scent of herbs and smoke.
Unnecessary. Leon frowned and put on the jacket, appreciating the familiar weight on his shoulders. He didn't know what to do with unsolicited kindness. He didn't know what to do with a man who spent seven days taking care of a stranger, who offered him soup and anti-inflammatories, who cleaned his blood off a jacket that should probably be thrown away. Kindnesses always came with a price. He had learned that the hard way.
The front door was locked — a simple latch, probably as old as the shack. Leon almost smiled. With a kick, the lock gave way satisfactorily.
The outside air hit him like a punch.
It was late afternoon — the sun was already beginning its lazy descent towards the horizon, dyeing the sky with shades of orange and purple that contrasted violently with the desolate landscape. Valdelobos stretched out before him like an open wound on the earth: blackened, anemic trees, whose twisted branches jutted against the sky like skeletal fingers; stony, dusty soil, dotted here and there by dried-up bushes that looked more like vegetable tumors; and in the distance, the dark silhouette of buildings that could be houses, or ruins, or both.
The shack stood on a modest elevation, partially hidden by a rocky formation that protected it from prying eyes. A strategic location, Leon noted with reluctant approval. Luis knew what he was doing when he chose that place.
No Ganados in sight. The silence was almost total, broken only by the occasional rustle of wind among the dead trees and the distant sound of something that could be a crow, or something that had once been a crow. Leon took a deep breath, feeling the cold air penetrate his lungs and awaken the dormant pain in his chest.
He wasn't well. He knew that. Every step was a calculated effort, every deep breath drew a silent protest from his battered body.
The terrain was treacherous. Loose stones rolled under his boots, and dried-up roots jutted from the ground like natural traps. Leon moved carefully, but his body didn't respond with its usual precision. His reflexes were dulled, his muscles protested every movement, and there was an insistent fog in the corners of his vision that he couldn't quite shake. It was like trying to run underwater.
He didn't get far.
Maybe two hundred meters. Maybe three hundred.
The shack was still visible behind him when the first wave of nausea hit, making him stumble and lean against the twisted trunk of a tree. The bark was rough under his palm, and he felt tiny splinters digging into his skin, but the pain was a pale reflection of what was happening inside him.
Leon was fully aware that he was being an idiot. It wasn't an epiphany — it was a practical observation, the kind you make when you're leaning against a dead tree in the middle of Valdelobos, with wobbly legs and your breath hissing like a punctured bellows.
He had spent seven days unconscious, had woken up less than two hours ago, had drunk a dubious-looking broth and an anti-inflammatory that tasted like death, and still, there he was: disobeying the medical orders of a man he barely knew, breaking locks like a rebellious teenager, and marching into the middle of nowhere with the stupid determination of a soldier who didn't know when to stop.
It was an unmistakable sensation — as if something alive and hungry had awakened in his entrails and begun to spread, extending invisible tentacles through his veins, through his nerves, through his spine. Leon gritted his teeth, feeling sweat bead on his forehead despite the cold of the late afternoon. His vision began to waver, the colors of the sky merging into an orange and purple blur that seemed to pulse in rhythm with his accelerating heart.
And then, the voice.
"Mr. Kennedy, why don't you accept this gift?"
The whisper was like rotten silk sliding over his consciousness.
"Why do you reject serenity?"
"Fuck off" Leon whispered through clenched teeth, but the words came out weak, without conviction.
The world spun. The tree under his hand seemed to dissolve, and the ground rose up to meet him with an almost personal voracity. His knees gave way first, then his arms, and finally everything went out in a wave of darkness that smelled of dry earth and something vaguely metallic.
A laugh echoed in his mind, cold, like bones being slowly cracked.
And then everything went dark.