The footsteps on the second floor began their restless movement from one side to the other.

In another room, the child, concealed in the shadows and tucked behind the curtains, peered downward, outside the house, where that same person was once again at the door, this time ringing the bell without hesitation.

The bell rang.

The child rushed out of his room and knocked on the old woman's door.

"Go down and open it."

"No!"

The old woman opened the door.

"What do you mean, no?"

The boy didn't respond with words, but she understood everything.

"Oh no. It's that fool again."

Otilio stepped into the house with a victorious yet polite air. He took a sip of hibiscus water and, while observing the boy curling up on the stairs, he shared with the old woman how well things had gone.

"Ma'am, I came to congratulate you. We went to Buenavista de Cuéllar on the specified date, caught them red-handed, seized weapons, and gathered a wealth of information. We took down the arms suppliers—one of them is now an ally and working with us, and the other, well, let's just say she's out of the picture. But everything went great. Honestly, I must admit—though you probably already knew this with your powers—" the old woman widened her eyes in exasperation, "we let two buyers slip away. Idiots, we didn't plan it that way, and they turned out to be precisely the militants from the Liberation Army I had asked you to locate." The old woman laughed. "But we've found them now, and we're about to bring them down."

"Remember, there's always a price to pay."

"That's why I'm here. Since we let the Liberation Army militants go, doesn't that mean I don't have to pay the price?"

"I'm very sorry, Otilio, but no," the old woman said with absolute honesty.

The policeman wanted to argue, but he somehow realized that she didn't make the rules—she probably didn't even understand them fully. Otilio glanced at the boy with a hint of malice, then back at the old woman.

"Your grandson?"

"What do you want, Otilio?"

"Is he your son's child?"

"That is none of your concern. Tell me what you want, or leave my house."

"Oh, Magos, don't get all worked up. Look, I ask because, as I told you before, I investigated you." The old woman feared the worst. "I know you had a son. I assume this is your grandson, so you might understand the following: There's a gang of kidnappers targeting little girls, and we are extremely concerned."

Despite Otilio's words, the old woman sighed calmly, knowing that he didn't understand anything about her situation, nor did he truly know anything about her or, least of all, the boy.

"What do you want from me, Otilio?"

Otilio looked at her and, for the first time, courteously and respectfully, asked:

"Help us, Magos. Please, help us. These lunatics kidnap little girls, between nine and twelve years old, they rape them, torture them, then dismember them and dispose of their mutilated bodies. Forgive me for taking advantage of you, but now that we are about to hunt down these terrorist scum, now that we have seen you are trustworthy, we need you."

The woman stepped out of an unmarked judicial patrol car, a white Stratus, and Inspector Oaxaca and Officer Bobadilla escorted her through each and every checkpoint at the headquarters of the Specialized Public Ministry, where Otilio, having arrived ahead of them, was waiting. The facility was a massive warehouse repurposed into a labyrinth of cubicles, interrogation rooms, strategy halls, and dining areas. As they passed through the eight security points leading to the interior, she moved through without needing to show identification or anything else. Only twice was she required to have her photo taken and fingerprints recorded, and, of course, she passed through metal detectors—but nothing more. At each checkpoint, Oaxaca flashed his badge and stated, "External Advisor, Class A." Some officers saluted immediately, while others frowned in disbelief. Regardless, she was always allowed to pass without issue.

"Welcome, Doña Magos," said Commissioner Otilio proudly, while everyone around his office watched her, measuring her. Assessing her. She merely nodded in response.

Oaxaca and Bobadilla saluted Otilio before stepping away to give them space to talk. He called after them, telling them not to be fools, that they might scare her off.

The woman was taken to a strategy room, where a secretary entered to offer her something to eat or drink.

"Do you have hibiscus water?"

"Of course," the secretary confirmed with a smile, just as Otilio burst into laughter.

"Hibiscus water, huh? Is there a special reason for it, or do you just like it too much?"

"Eh... both, actually."

Otilio grinned and, with a flick of his head, gestured toward the eastern windows.

The office was a glass-walled fishbowl, where everything inside could be seen from the outside and vice versa.

"That's Commissioner Ulises Troyo."

The woman looked in that direction, and her gaze caught his. Upon seeing her, he almost seemed to be on the verge of a smile but instead merely inclined his head in a respectful greeting.

"Look, ma'am, I want to tell you, with absolute transparency, that I regret my behavior toward you. The truth is, I didn't believe in your abilities, and I found it insulting to waste time at your house when we had terrorists to eliminate. But, as I told you before, I am truly astonished by your level of—how do the gringos say it?—accuracy. And my commissioner is also apologetic, grateful, and, like me, requests your assistance."

The woman let out a low grunt.

"He still, as you can understand, has some resistance to this, given the circumstances with his little boy."

"I understand."

"Ma'am, we want to ask for your help because, as I mentioned, we have a terrible problem tracking down a group of kidnappers, and we want to put a definitive stop to them. This is as important as your previous contribution."

Otilio gestured with his hand, and Oaxaca and Bobadilla entered. It was only now that she observed them properly, noticing that the second man walked with a limp and the first had a glass eye. As if reading her thoughts, Bobadilla said:

"Wounds of war, Mrs. Magos."

"But you, you have nothing to worry about. You won't be leaving these facilities, so you won't be exposed at all," Oaxaca reassured her.

The woman turned toward the windows—all the windows—and, surveying the people who were watching them out of the corners of their eyes, she stifled a sigh of resignation.

"In our pursuit of absolute transparency, we've sacrificed certain moments of privacy," Otilio said in response to her expression. "But don't worry, the restrooms have concrete walls," he added with a grin.

"What am I doing here, Otilio?"

"Before telling you that, I want you to know what we did with the information you provided us."

"It's not necessary."

"Don't be so sure, Magos. It's crucial. Now that you've demonstrated your abilities, I want—we want—the commissioner, the team, and I, for you to know the scope of your assistance."

Bobadilla placed a series of photos on the table—two people, tortured, clad in filthy, shredded underwear.

"We apologize for the graphic content, but we want you to see this," Oaxaca said, while Otilio sipped his cappuccino. "Thanks to the information you provided, we managed to apprehend and extract details about the arms supply of the Armed Insurgent Liberation Army, as well as track several suspects. Without a doubt, we identified two individuals belonging to a cell that has already carried out an attack—the infamous Casablanca nightclub bombing. You must remember it from the news. Now, we're tracking a new attack that we're trying to prevent."

The woman nodded, unsure of what else to do or say. Noticing this, Otilio added:

"Ma'am, with your help, we prevented the terrorists from acquiring more weapons, and we are close to neutralizing them. But now, here in this unit, we are pursuing what we believe to be a human trafficking network, possibly child pornography or something similar. In reality, we don't know much. All we do know is that a certain number of young girls, all under fourteen, have disappeared at a regular frequency and under similar circumstances—just as we discussed at your house."

The woman listened intently but already understood how exhausting and horrifying this was going to be. She had assumed that financial matters would prevent them from forcing her to help; after all, she was now in a workplace where people got paid to "find" missing persons, so to speak, as easily as they did.

"Eight girls are gone. One of them might still be alive."

This statement completely disarmed the woman.

"And the other seven?"

"They're dead."

Oaxaca handed her a folder containing photos of the missing girls—and their discovered remains. They also gave her reports on the bodies, the autopsies, and the families of the victims.

The woman picked up the photo of the eighth girl and, staring at it, requested one of her belongings. Oaxaca left the glass-walled office—what they called "the fishbowl"—and returned minutes later with a yellow beret, which the woman held in her hands, pressing it to her nose to inhale the sweet scent of the child.

"I need a glass that no one has used and more hibiscus water."

They brought her what she asked for.

She gave them a brief look, and knowing she wouldn't have complete privacy, she warned:

"If you interrupt me, you'll lose your sense of self and end up witless."

They laughed, assuming it was a joke, but she didn't laugh, and all three fell into complete silence.

The woman smiled inwardly. She closed her eyes and, while murmuring what Otilio thought must have been a psalm, she took a deep breath over the beret, filling her lungs with its essence. Then, discreetly, she licked the child's garment. Holding the air inside her and the taste on her tongue, she placed the beret on a credenza. Taking the requested glass, she closed her eyes and whispered a few words—Otilio only managed to catch:

"Please, God, let what I seek appear, because I cannot see it."

With enviable determination, in a series of slow but deliberate movements, she turned the glass upside down and slammed it onto the table with such force that all three thought it would shatter in her hand.

At the exact moment the sound rang through the room, the lights in the entire facility went out.

A few seconds later, the emergency generator kicked in, and the lights returned—revealing the woman, collapsed and aged, sprawled across one of the tables, breathing heavily.

Oaxaca looked at her, noticing that she seemed to be losing sight in one eye, and asked if she was all right—just as the sound of hail pounded against the building's roof, making conversation almost impossible.

"Wounds of war, my boy. Wounds of war."

"Did you get it, Magos?"

"I don't know what you expect me to have tried to do, but what I wanted, I did achieve."

"Do you know where the girl is?"

"No. I can't do that here; I need to be at home and with my... with my own things."

"So what did you achieve?"

"First, I know the girl is alive, though she doesn't have much time left. We need to hurry."

"And second?"

"That we're not looking for a human trafficking ring"—and as soon as she said we, she regretted it—"it's a serial killer. A kidnapper, a rapist, and a murderer. But strange... I don't know, I didn't see him in his entirety."

"Do you know who he is or where he is?"

"No, that's why you're going to take me home so I can do it my way."

The woman stood up, staggered over to a corner of the room, and, reaching for the metal trash can, vomited a yellow bile that smelled like roadkill.

Oaxaca and Bobadilla drove her in the Stratus while Otilio followed in his gray Malibu.

"Ma'am, do you want us to turn on the siren?" Bobadilla asked, trying to cheer her up, while Oaxaca, just as mischievous, pulled the red flasher—the little strawberry, as they called it—from the glove compartment, the one they used for chases and emergencies.

"Oh no, absolutely not."

They laughed while the woman rolled her eyes and tried not to think about the countless people who had come to her, looking for their missing loved ones—many of them with faces distorted by sadness, anguish, and the countless fears that wrapped around those disappearances, leading them to her.

How she missed when people used to come asking about inheritances, wills, revolutionary treasures hidden by their ancestors in old haciendas. She even missed the toxic lovers who sought her out to track down runaway partners on new romantic escapades.

But these cases... these cases drained her, defeated her, consumed her in a way that never truly went away. And yet, somehow, it was never enough to make her refuse the next time.

No matter what, she always found a way to pull herself together for whatever came next.

She thought, somberly, about the missing girl's family—because only she knew what they were doing to her. As she inhaled the essence of that yellow beret, she alone understood how little time was left and how slim the chances of success had become.

They arrived at the woman's house, and the child, who had been peering out the window, immediately ran downstairs. By the time he opened the door from inside, Otilio, Oaxaca, and the woman were already at the entrance, while Bobadilla closed the front gate and limped to catch up with them.

As they settled in the dining room, the woman pulled the necessary elements for the ritual from the cabinet. That was when the footsteps upstairs started moving, slowly at first. The child, moving quickly, poured glasses of hibiscus water. When he reached Bobadilla's seat, the officer froze. He recognized the boy from Margarita's file, and a wave of absolute terror washed over him as he recoiled.

"Calm down. Calm down," Otilio reassured him, gripping his shoulder.

Oaxaca had also recognized the boy but couldn't bring himself to believe what he was thinking. Seeing how calm his superior was, he let things unfold while the woman muttered something about throwing them all out if they didn't behave themselves.

"We're ready, Magos. How can we help?"

The woman took a long breath before speaking.

"Give me a piece of the girl's clothing and a photo."

They handed them over.

"It's going to be two hundred thousand pesos, in cash. When the girl appears." She paused, thoughtful, then added, "As long as she's found alive."

Otilio nodded, but he got the impression that even she wasn't sure she could pull it off. The budget was there, and if the girl turned up—assuming Ulises approved—it wouldn't be an issue to pay her. Not after what they had accomplished with the E.L.I.A.

The child sat on the staircase, and Bobadilla couldn't look at him without a latent sense of fear.

Upstairs, the footsteps grew louder.

The woman took the garment and inhaled deeply once more. Holding her breath, she licked the beret again and studied the photo of the girl with intense focus. An uncontrollable cascade of tears began to flow from her eyes. Magos stood up, sobbing, and took an empty glass from the lower drawers of the dining room sideboard. She grew dizzy and lost her step. Oaxaca stood up and caught her, preventing her from collapsing. Regaining her balance, she turned the glass upside down and placed it on the sideboard, whispering:

"Please, Lord, let what I'm searching for appear, because I cannot see it."

Clutching Oaxaca for support, then Bobadilla's shoulder, then the back of a chair, she staggered toward her seat, resembling a fumigated spider escaping an inevitable death. When she finally sat down, one of her eyelids drooped halfway, refusing to move in sync with her gaze. Her long nails blackened, as if caked with soil she had never touched, yet which clung beneath her nails and in the creases of her fingers—like she had been desperately clawing at the earth, trying to dig up a lost girl.

Then, she formed a triangle, a symbolic pyramid with her fingertips—thumb to thumb, index to index, and middle finger to middle finger—over the photograph, murmuring unintelligible words. It seemed as if time itself was consuming her, aging her by the second. The hibiscus water in their glasses shrank, evaporating.

The footsteps upstairs quickened, becoming heavier. The boy rushed down to turn on the living room and dining room lights before retreating, crouching, to watch the woman. Gripping the stair railing, his face pressed between the bars, he murmured something in unison with his mother.

The footsteps stopped. Upstairs, doors creaked open, and three distinct sets of footsteps began to move.

The phone rang.

The lights inside the house flared to a blinding brightness, while outside, an overwhelming darkness swallowed the surroundings. The lights flickered, dimming almost to the point of shutting off completely. The bulbs sputtered. Then, from the upstairs rooms, something unseen rushed down the stairs, dashing behind the paralyzed boy—footsteps without bodies, fleeing the house. No one had noticed that the front door was open until it slammed shut with violent force. A lightning bolt, followed instantly by a deafening clap of thunder, seemed to strike the entrance to the house. A heavy rainstorm turned into hail, pounding relentlessly against every window, rattling the rooftop like an angry drumbeat. Inside, the lights steadied, returning to their usual glow, while outside, the storm's darkness surrounded them like a starving beast.

"The girl is already dead. I'm so sorry," she declared, her voice trembling.

"Do you know him?"

"No. But I know who he is."

The woman scribbled two addresses on a napkin. The first—where they could find the remains of the little girl. The second—the precise location of the house, or rather, the lair of the child killer.

The three officers bid the woman an almost affectionate farewell and returned, defeated, to their bunker, while Magos, shattered, remained motionless in her chair. She waited for the boy to close the door and bring her a bucket—so she could vomit out the filth that the Vision in the Universal Weave had left inside her.