She had been in the club for hours, drifting between strangers, a half-finished glass of wine in hand. Her eyes shone, not from drink alone but from something restless inside her. The night felt too bright, too alive to bear.
It was close to midnight. October 31. Halloween. Anything could happen on a night like this.
The room throbbed, a living heart of sound and dancing bodies. Bass rolled through the floor, up her legs, into her chest. Light broke in jagged green, violet, gold, bursts, each flash erasing and remaking the faces around her.
She leaned against a pillar, watching.
A young man in mirrored sunglasses spun in slow circles, eyes closed, lost to rhythm. Two girls at the bar took selfies beneath the strobes, their intoxicated laughter muted by the beat. Someone screamed with joy as the song dropped. Another spilled a drink, and liquor spread across the floor, gleaming like sulfur. The air was thick—an excess of perfume, sweat, and spirits. A couple kissed in a corner, shadows swallowing them voraciously. Someone brushed past her, leaving a spark of heat across her arm.
Why did it feel painful?
She was wine-drunk, but still sharp. Her pulse matched the drums, quick and deliberate. Everybody moved as one, colliding, reshaping, forgetting themselves. For a moment she felt the hunger, the wanting, the desperate need to disappear inside the noise.
Then it happened. A flicker, somewhere between thought and heartbeat. A sting. Something old stirred, a pulse beneath the rhythm, a whisper older than song.
The bass stretched into a single long note, vibrating through her ribs, pushing her to tilt her head back. Lights fractured around her: arms, faces, glitter, and glasses blurred into melted motion. She froze.
Power gathered low in her chest, steady and sure. She wanted beyond pleasure, beyond flesh. She wanted something pure, impossible, absolute. She wanted to become.
Her eyes closed. The music faded. Light bled into nothing. She felt her body sway but couldn’t tell if she was dancing or falling. With a single breath, she called.
The Eye of All opened. The gates parted wide, invited her to leap. She exhaled—and leapt.
Time folded. Space gave way. The air changed—thinner, colder, endless. Then the sound—no longer a song, but a hum. A resonance that felt like her own blood remembering something ancient. She opened her eyes and inhaled.
The ceiling was gone. The club had dissolved into an ocean of stars, a pulse of diamonds and dark silk. Around her, fireworks split the sky. The Wild Bunch rode beside her, their infamous presence echoing across the firmament. Below her, the city spread like a field of embers.
She let go of weight, of name, of everything that once held her tied down. Within, the Eye of All widened, a gleam suspended in the void.
Anything could happen on a night like this.
She felt no fear. Only certainty. Every nerve alive, every breath precise. Her will ignited. Reality thinned. She broke through the weave, heading toward her hidden desire. Closing her eyes again, she dove—gracefully, deliberately. A line of light appeared below—Madrid, Villa & Corte, sleeping under a soft electric blaze.
Coordinates aligned: 40.4111° N, 3.6825° W. Altitude: 666 meters.
Downward now—swift, sure, guided by instinct. Stars blurred into streaks. Wind howled against her skin. The descent had purpose. Direction. Her body angled, the world sharpening beneath her feet. She didn’t land hard, but her knees bent on instinct. A single gust brushed her hair.
“I was built upon water; my walls are made of fire.”
Trees, gravel, silence. The park spread around the fountain, veiled in a haunting splendour. There he stood on an octagonal column. A temple of initiation. An alchemical vessel. All set for rebirth beneath the powerful pull of the heavenly spheres.
Eight sentinels of dread stood guard around him, their feral power frozen in bronze, stark and grotesque. This was the crossroad where the eight earthly directions met, the eight forces of creation folding upon themselves.
Understanding struck her, as if by possession. Though she didn’t know how she knew, she knew what to do—in her becoming, things were so simple. The world made to fold toward her will.
As she spun above the fountain, the water flared into flame.
The black air thickened, and the heat folded around her like the ardent breath of the first word. A whirlpool rose, twisting with fury and grace, fire spiraling upward where moments ago there had been only water and its reflection.
The angel’s wings shuddered—first a tremor, then a full, deliberate movement. Bronze turned supple, almost human. Light traced the veins of each feather as his body came alive. The chains slipped away, dissolving into sparks before touching the ground.
Without hesitation, she caught the angel’s hand—solid now, warm flesh and blood trembling. His young, lean body was undoubtedly made for movement and daring. Soft cheekbones, wild disheveled hair, still carrying the trace of disobedient fires. He opened his intense eyes, first dazed and confused, then with a gaze of sharp sense and clear insight. Recognition crossed his face, of the sky he’d lost, and the fire that had never died. His handsome features held in disbelief—how could a fall happen to the brightest?
For a heartbeat they stood, suspended in the glow of fire and smoke. Then he rose beside her, victorious and proud, his once-condemned wings unfurling as the night opened around them in fevered celebration. A sound—air cracking open—cut through the stillness. The clock struck twelve. Every lamp in the park went dark.
Beneath an immense Platanus hispanica, a young couple froze mid-kiss as lightning split the plaza. “Look!” the boy cried. “A superhero has stolen the Fallen Angel!”
“It was no superhero, silly,” the girl whispered, eyes of blue shadow ignited. “She was a witch. The Queen of Them All.”
***
The girl’s smile lingered long after the storm had hidden its wild heart, giving it back to the occult, and the sky above Madrid smoothed itself once more, graceful and innocent, pretending nothing out of the ordinary had ever happened.
Rosemary Thorne (she/her) is a bilingual Spanish writer, horror researcher, and translator living in Madrid, Spain. Born in 1968, too early to be understood in her own country, she is currently writing horror in English. Her first novel, El Pacto de las 12 uvas, was published in December 2021. She also translated Edward Lee’s The Bighead into Spanish for Dimensiones Ocultas Press. An active member of the HWA since 2019, her goal is to populate the English market with her dreadful monsters.
Find out more at: linktr.ee/Rosemary_thorne and Twitter.