'The doctor smiled. That strange youngster and his bizarre ideas . . . The only reason he feared abandoning this wretched world was that he was going to leave the boy alone and helpless. Mijail's only friends were books. What would become of him?

'"You've already given me ten years of your company, Mijail," he said. "Now you must think of yourself. Of your future."

'"I'm not going to let you die, Father."

'"Mijail, do you remember that day when you asked me what was the difference between a doctor and a magician? Well, Mijail, there is no magic. Our body begins to destroy itself from the moment it is born. We are fragile. We're creatures of pa.s.sage. All that is left of us are our actions, the good or the evil we do to our fellow humans. Do you understand what I'm trying to tell you, Mijail?"

'Ten days later the police found Mijail covered in blood, crying next to the body of the man he had learned to call father. The neighbours had alerted the authorities when they smelled a strange odour and heard the young man's howls. The police report concluded that Mijail, disturbed by the doctor's death, had dissected him and had tried to rebuild his heart using a mechanism of valves and cogs. Mijail was admitted to the Prague mental hospital, from where he escaped two years later by pretending to be dead. When the authorities went to the morgue to fetch his body, all they found was a white sheet and black b.u.t.terflies flying around it.

'Mijail reached Barcelona carrying the seeds of madness that would manifest themselves years later. He showed little interest in material things and in people's company and was never proud of the fortune he ama.s.sed. He used to say that n.o.body deserves to have a penny more than he's ready to offer those who need it more than he does. The night I met him Mijail told me that, for some reason, life usually grants us what we are not looking for. He was given wealth, fame and power, yet his soul yearned only for spiritual peace so that he could silence the shadows in his heart . . .'

'During the months following the incident in his studio, Sh.e.l.ley, Lluis and I worked together to keep Mijail away from his obsessions and distract him. It was no easy task. Mijail always knew when we were lying to him, even if he didn't say so. He'd play along, pretending to be docile and resigned to his condition. When I looked into his eyes, however, I could see the darkness flooding his soul. He had stopped trusting us. The miserable conditions we lived in worsened. Creditors had seized our accounts and the Velo-Granell a.s.sets had been confiscated by the government. Sentis, who thought his scheming was going to turn him into the sole owner of the firm, discovered that he was actually bankrupt. All he managed to salvage was Mijail's worthless old flat on Calle Princesa. We were only able to hold on to the properties Mijail had put in my name: the Gran Teatro Real a tomb in which I finally took shelter and a greenhouse next to the Sarria railway which Mijail had used in the past as a workshop for his experiments.

'Lluis took care of selling my jewellery and my dresses to the highest bidder so that we could buy food. My bridal trousseau, which I had never used, became our means of survival. Mijail and I barely spoke. He wandered around the mansion like a ghost while his body became increasingly deformed. Soon he wasn't able to hold a book in his hands. He had trouble reading. I no longer heard him cry. Now he just laughed. His bitter laughter in the middle of the night froze my blood. With his deformed hands he wrote in a notebook pages and pages of illegible writing whose content we were unable to decipher. When Dr Sh.e.l.ley came to visit him, Mijail would lock himself in his room and refuse to come out until his friend had left. I told Dr Sh.e.l.ley about my fear that Mijail might be thinking of taking his own life. Sh.e.l.ley told me that he feared something even worse. I didn't know, or I didn't want to know, what he was referring to.

'It was then that I had a crazy, desperate idea. I thought it might be a way of saving Mijail and our marriage. I decided to have a child. I was convinced that if I managed to give him a child, Mijail would find a reason to go on living and return to my side. I got carried away with that yearning. My entire body burned with longing to conceive the infant that would bring us salvation and hope. My dream was to raise a small Mijail, pure and innocent. In my heart I longed to have a new version of his father, but one free of all madness and evil. I couldn't let Mijail suspect what I was scheming or he would refuse outright. It would be difficult enough to find the opportunity to be alone with him. As I said, for a long time Mijail had been avoiding me. His deformity made him feel uncomfortable in my presence. The disease was beginning to affect his speech. He stammered, full of anger and shame. He could only swallow liquids. My efforts to show that he didn't repel me, that n.o.body could understand and share his suffering better than me, only seemed to make matters worse. But I was patient and for once in my life I thought I'd fooled Mijail. I only fooled myself. That was my worst mistake.

'When I told Mijail we were going to have a baby, his reaction scared me to death. He disappeared for almost a month. Lluis found him in the old greenhouse in Sarria weeks later, unconscious. He'd been working tirelessly. He'd reconstructed his throat and his mouth. His appearance was monstrous. He'd given himself a deep voice, metallic and malevolent. His jaws had rows of metal eye-teeth. His face was unrecognisable except for his eyes. Beneath that horror the soul of the Mijail I loved was still burning in its own inferno. Next to him Lluis found a pile of contraptions and hundreds of plans. I asked Sh.e.l.ley to have a look at them while Mijail was recovering with a sleep from which he didn't wake in three days. The doctor's conclusions were horrifying. Mijail had completely lost his mind. He was planning to rebuild his entire body before the disease consumed him altogether. We shut him away in a room at the top of the main tower, an impregnable cell. I gave birth to our daughter listening to my husband's wild screams while he was locked up like a beast. I didn't share a single day with the baby. Dr Sh.e.l.ley took care of her and swore he would bring her up as if she were his own daughter. She would be called Maria and, like me, she would never know her real mother. What little life remained in my heart left with her, but I knew I had no choice. I sensed an imminent tragedy in the air. I could feel it like poison working its way through my veins. It was just a matter of time. As usual, the final blow came from where we least expected it.'

'Benjamin Sentis, whose envy and greed had led to his own downfall, had been planning his revenge. Sentis had already been suspected of helping Sergei escape after he attacked me outside the cathedral. As in the dark prophecy of the sewer-tunnel people, the hands Mijail had given Sentis years ago had only served to weave misfortune and betrayal. And then, on the last night of 1948, Benjamin Sentis, who hated Mijail with a pa.s.sion, returned to deal him one final blow.

'During those years my former tutors Sergei and Tatiana had been in hiding. They too were anxious for revenge. The time had come. Sentis knew that Florian's squad was planning to search our house in Guell Park the following day, looking for supposedly incriminating evidence against Mijail. If the search took place, Sentis's lies and fraudulent claims would be exposed. Shortly before midnight Sergei and Tatiana doused the outside of our house using cans br.i.m.m.i.n.g with petrol. Sentis, always the coward in the shadows, watched from his car as the first flames appeared and then fled from the scene.

'When I awoke, blue smoke was rising up the staircase. The fire spread in a matter of minutes. Lluis rescued me and we managed to save our lives by jumping off a balcony onto the garage roof and from there to the garden. When we turned round, the flames had completely enveloped the first two floors and were rising towards the tower where we kept Mijail locked up. I wanted to rush towards the flames to save him, but Lluis ignored me as I screamed and struggled, holding me back in his arms. At that moment we caught sight of Sergei and Tatiana. Sergei was laughing like a madman. Tatiana was trembling silently, her hands dripping with petrol. What happened next was a vision straight out of a nightmare. The flames had reached the top of the tower. The windows shattered into a shower of gla.s.s. Suddenly a figure emerged from the flames. I thought I saw a black angel leap out onto the walls. It was Mijail. He was crawling like a spider on the outside of the building, holding on with the metal claws he had made himself. He moved at a terrifying pace. Sergei and Tatiana were staring at him in astonishment, not understanding what they were witnessing. The shadow threw itself over them and with tremendous strength dragged them inside the burning house. When I saw them disappear into that inferno and heard their screams of agony as the fire peeled the flesh off their bones, I fainted.

'Lluis took me to our last remaining shelter, the ruins of the Gran Teatro Real, which has been our home ever since. The following day the newspapers announced the tragedy. Two charred bodies, clasped together, had been found in the attic. The police a.s.sumed that they belonged to Mijail and me. Only we knew that in fact they were those of Sergei and Tatiana. A third body was never found. That same day Lluis and Sh.e.l.ley went to the Sarria greenhouse in search of Mijail. There was no sign of him. The transformation was about to be completed. Sh.e.l.ley gathered all Mijail's papers, his plans and his handwritten notes, to remove all the evidence. For weeks he studied them, hoping to find some clue that would help him locate Mijail. We knew he was hiding somewhere in the city, waiting, finishing his metamorphosis. Thanks to the notes, Sh.e.l.ley discovered Mijail's plan. The diaries described a serum developed from the essence of the b.u.t.terflies he had been breeding for years, the same liquid I had seen Mijail use to resuscitate the dead body of a woman in the Velo-Granell factory. At last I understood what he was planning to do. Mijail had retired to die. He needed to rid himself of his last breath of humanity so that he could cross over to the other side. Like the black b.u.t.terfly, his body was going to be buried in order to be reborn out of the darkness. And when he returned, he would no longer do so as Mijail Kolvenik. He would do so as a beast.'

Her words echoed through the Gran Teatro.

'For months we had no news of Mijail, nor did we find his hiding place,' Eva Irinova continued. 'Deep down we were hoping his plan would fail. We were wrong. A year after the fire two police inspectors went to the Velo-Granell factory, alerted by an anonymous tip-off. Sentis again, of course. As he hadn't heard from Sergei and Tatiana, he suspected that Mijail was still alive. The factory premises had been sealed off and n.o.body had access to them. The two inspectors discovered an intruder inside the factory. They fired at him, using up all their bullets, but-'

'That's why they never found the bullets,' I said, recalling Florian's words. 'Kolvenik's body absorbed all the shots . . .'

The old lady nodded.

'The policemen's bodies were found torn to pieces,' she said. 'n.o.body could understand what had happened. Except for Sh.e.l.ley, Lluis and me. Mijail had returned. During the next few days all the members of the old Velo-Granell board of directors who had betrayed him met their deaths under strange circ.u.mstances. We suspected that Mijail was hiding in the sewer system, using the tunnels to move about the city. It was not an unknown world to him. Only one question remained. Why had he gone to the factory? Once again his notebooks gave us the answer: the serum. He needed to inject himself with the serum in order to stay alive. The reserves he'd kept in the tower had been destroyed and he must have used up all the provisions he kept in the greenhouse. Dr Sh.e.l.ley bribed a policeman to allow him access to the factory. There we found a cupboard containing the last two bottles of serum. Sh.e.l.ley decided to keep one of them. After an entire life fighting illness, death and pain, he was incapable of destroying that serum. He needed to study it and unveil its secrets. When he a.n.a.lysed it he managed to put together a mercury-based compound with which he intended to neutralise the serum's power. He filled twelve bullets with this compound and hid them, hoping he would never have to use them.'

I realised those were the bullets Sh.e.l.ley had given to Lluis Claret. I was still alive thanks to them.

'What about Mijail?' asked Marina. 'Without the serum . . .'

'We found his dead body in a sewer beneath the Gothic quarter,' said Eva Irinova. 'Or what was left of it, because he'd turned into a h.e.l.lish creature, stinking of the rotten flesh with which he had rebuilt himself . . .'

The aged woman raised her eyes to look at her old friend Lluis. The chauffeur took over and concluded the story.

'We buried the body in the Sarria cemetery, in an unmarked grave,' he explained. 'Officially, Mr Kolvenik had died a year earlier. We couldn't reveal the truth. If Sentis discovered that Senora Kolvenik was still alive, he wouldn't have stopped until he'd destroyed her as well. We condemned ourselves to a secret life in this place . . .'

'For years I thought Mijail was resting in peace,' said Eva Irinova. 'I would go there on the last Sunday of every month, like the day I met him, to visit him and remind him that soon, very soon, we would be reunited again. So we lived in a world of memories and yet we forgot something essential . . .'

'What was that?' I asked.

'Maria, our daughter.'

Marina and I exchanged glances. I remembered that Sh.e.l.ley had thrown the photograph we had shown him into the fire. The girl in that photograph was Maria Sh.e.l.ley.

When we took the alb.u.m from the greenhouse we had robbed Mijail of the only memento he possessed of the child he had never known.

'Sh.e.l.ley raised Maria as if she were his own daughter, but she always suspected that the story the doctor told her, about her mother dying during childbirth, was not true. Sh.e.l.ley never was a good liar. In time Maria discovered Mijail's old notebooks in the doctor's study and reconstructed the story I have told you. Maria was born with her father's madness. I remember that the day I told Mijail I was pregnant, he smiled. That smile worried me, even though at the time I didn't know why. Many years would pa.s.s before I understood, from Mijail's notebooks, that the black b.u.t.terfly from the sewers feeds on its young, and when it buries itself to die, it takes with it one of its larvae, which it devours when it comes back to life . . . When you came across the greenhouse, after following me from the graveyard, Maria also found, at last, what she'd been trying to discover for years. The phial of serum Dr Sh.e.l.ley had been hiding . . . And, thirty years after his death, Mijail returned from the dead. He has been feeding off Maria ever since, reconstructing himself using bits from other bodies, acquiring strength, creating others like him . . .'

I swallowed hard as I remembered what I'd seen the night before in the tunnels.

'When I realised what was happening,' the lady continued, 'I wanted to warn Sentis that he would be the first to fall. In order not to reveal my ident.i.ty, I used you, Oscar, with that visiting card. I thought that, when he saw it and when he heard what little you knew, fear would make him react and he would protect himself. Once more I overestimated the evil old man . . . He wanted to meet Mijail and destroy him and he dragged Florian down behind him . . . Lluis went to the Sarria cemetery and saw for himself that the tomb was empty. At first we suspected that Sh.e.l.ley had betrayed us. We thought he was the one who had been visiting the greenhouse, building new creatures . . . Perhaps he didn't want to die without understanding the mysteries Mijail had left unexplained . . . We were never sure about him. When we realised he was trying to protect Maria, it was too late. Now Mijail will come for us.'

'Why?' asked Marina, 'Why would he come back to this place?'

The lady quietly undid the two top b.u.t.tons of her dress and pulled out a chain with a medallion. The chain also held a gla.s.s phial with an emerald-coloured liquid inside it.

'For this,' she said.

CHAPTER 24.

I WAS EXAMINING THE SERUM BOTTLE AGAINST THE light when I heard it. So did Marina. Something was creeping over the dome of the theatre.

'They're here,' said Lluis Claret from the doorway, his voice ominous.

Showing no surprise, Eva Irinova put the serum back around her neck. I saw Lluis Claret take out his revolver and check the cylinder. The silver bullets Sh.e.l.ley had given him shone inside.

'You must leave,' Eva Irinova ordered us. 'You now know the truth. Learn to forget it.'

Her face was hidden behind the veil and her mechanical voice lacked all expression. I found it hard to accept the true meaning of her words.

'Your secret is safe with us,' I said all the same.

'Truth is always safe from people,' Eva Irinova replied coldly. 'Now go.'

Claret signalled to us to follow him and we left the dressing room. Through the translucent gla.s.s dome the moon cast a rectangle of light over the stage. Above the dome the silhouettes of Mijail Kolvenik and his creatures stood out like swaying shadows. When I looked up I thought I could count at least a dozen of them.

'Dear G.o.d . . .' murmured Marina next to me.

Claret was looking in the same direction. I saw fear in his eyes. One of the shapes struck the roof fiercely. Claret c.o.c.ked the gun and aimed. The creature kept punching the roof with all its might. In a matter of seconds the gla.s.s would give way.

'There's a tunnel under the orchestra pit. It crosses beneath the stalls up to the foyer,' Claret informed us without taking his eyes off the dome. 'You'll find a trapdoor under the main staircase. It will lead you to a corridor. Follow it until you come to a fire exit.'

'Wouldn't it be easier to go back the way we came?' I asked. 'Through your flat . . .'

'No. They've already been there.'

Marina clutched my arm and tugged at me.

'Let's do what he says, Oscar.'

I looked at Claret. In his eyes I could see the cold serenity of a man prepared to meet death without fear or remorse. A second later the gla.s.s pane of the dome burst into a thousand pieces and a wolfish creature hurled itself onto the stage. Claret held his weapon with both hands and aimed calmly. The bullet blew off the top of the creature's skull and it slumped to its knees, dead. We raised our eyes to the opening in the dome. A dozen silhouettes loomed around the edge, looking at us with cold angry eyes. I immediately recognised Kolvenik, standing in the middle. At his signal they slipped in and started to crawl down towards the stage.

Marina and I jumped into the orchestra pit and followed Claret's directions while he covered our backs. I heard another deafening shot. I turned to take one last look before entering the narrow pa.s.sageway. A body wrapped in bloodstained rags leaped onto the stage and pounced on Claret. Claret's bullet had opened a smoking hole in its chest the size of a fist. The body was still advancing when I closed the trap door and pushed Marina forward.

'What will happen to Claret?'

'I don't know,' I lied. 'Run.'

We hurried down the tunnel. It can't have been more than a metre wide and a metre and a half high. We had to stoop and feel the walls with our hands to advance without losing our balance. We'd only covered a few metres when we heard heavy footsteps above us. We were being followed from the stalls; someone was stalking us. The echo of the shots became more and more intense. I wondered how many shots Claret had left before being torn to shreds by the pack.

Suddenly somebody lifted a plank of wood above our heads. Light poured through, blinding us, and something fell at our feet. It was a body. Claret. His eyes were empty, lifeless. The barrel of the gun he held in his hands was still smoking. There were no apparent bruises or wounds on his body, but something looked wrong. Marina peered over my shoulder and moaned. His neck had been so brutally broken that his head was facing backwards. A shadow spread over us and I noticed a black b.u.t.terfly settling on Kolvenik's old friend. I was distracted for a second and didn't become aware of Mijail's presence until he plunged right through the soft, rotten wood and was clasping Marina's neck with his claws. He lifted her straight up, s.n.a.t.c.hing her from my side before I was able to hold her back. I shouted his name. He turned slowly and looked into my eyes. I was paralysed with fear. Then he spoke to me. I'll never forget his voice.

'If you want to see your friend in one piece again, bring me the bottle.'

For a few seconds I was unable to think straight. Then anguish brought me back to reality. I leaned over Claret's body and fumbled for the weapon: the muscles in his hand had stiffened with his final spasm and his index finger was stuck in the trigger. Pulling back one finger at a time, I retrieved the gun. I opened the cylinder and saw there was no ammunition left. I felt Claret's pockets for more bullets and found the second charge of ammunition, six silver bullets with a hole punctured in the tip. The poor man hadn't had time to reload. Maybe after so many years of fearing that meeting, Claret had been incapable of shooting at Mijail Kolvenik, or what was left of him. Little did it matter now.

Trembling, I clambered up the tunnel wall into the stalls and set off in search of Marina.

Dr Sh.e.l.ley's bullets had left a trail of bodies across the stage. Others had ended up skewered on chandeliers or dangling over the boxes. Lluis Claret had rid himself of the pack of beasts, but not of the master. Gazing at the corpses, I couldn't help thinking that this was the best fate they could aspire to. Once the breath of life had left them, the monstrosity of their artificial grafts and components became more evident. One of the bodies lay stretched out on the central aisle of the stalls, face up, its jaw dislocated. I stepped over it. The emptiness in its opaque eyes sent an icy shiver down my spine. There was nothing in them. Nothing.

I approached the stage and climbed onto it. The light in Eva Irinova's dressing room was still on, but there was n.o.body there. There was a smell of carrion in the air. The trace of bloodstained fingers could be seen on the old photographs hanging on the walls. Kolvenik. I heard a creaking sound behind me and turned round, holding the gun up high. I could hear footsteps moving away.

'Eva?' I called.

I returned to the stage and noticed a ring of amber light in the upper circle. As I drew closer I recognised Eva Irinova's silhouette. She was holding a candelabrum in her hands and gazing at the ruins of the Gran Teatro Real. The ruins of her life. She turned round and slowly raised the flaming candles until they touched the threadbare tongues of velvet hanging from the boxes. The dry material caught fire immediately. Bit by bit she sowed a trail of fire which soon spread over the walls of the boxes, over the gilded enamel of the main hall and over the seats.

'No!' I yelled.

Eva ignored my call and disappeared through a door leading to the corridors behind the boxes. In a matter of seconds the flames were spreading like blood on water, creeping forward and devouring everything in their path. The glow of the fire revealed the lost grandeur of the theatre. A sudden wave of intense heat swept over me and the smell of burned wood and paint made me feel nauseous.

I followed the rising flames with my eyes. I could see the stage machinery far above, an intricate system of ropes, curtains, pulleys, suspended sets and walkways. Two blazing eyes observed me from on high. Kolvenik. He was holding Marina in one hand, as if she were a toy. I watched him move around the scaffolding with the agility of a cat. I turned my head and noticed that the flames had spread along the whole of the first floor and were beginning to lick their way up to the boxes on the second level. The hole in the dome was feeding the flames, creating a huge chimney.

I hurried towards a flight of wooden stairs. They rose in a zigzag and wobbled under my feet. When I reached the third floor I stopped and looked up. I'd lost Kolvenik. Just then I felt claws dig into my back. I swung round to escape their mortal embrace and faced one of Kolvenik's creatures. Claret's shots had almost ripped off one of its arms, but the figure was still alive. It had long hair and its face had once belonged to a woman. I pointed the gun at her, but she didn't stop. Suddenly I felt certain I'd seen that face before. The glow of the flames revealed what remained of her eyes. I felt my mouth drying up.

'Maria?' I stammered.

Kolvenik's daughter, or the creature inhabiting her carca.s.s, stopped for a moment, hesitating.

'Maria?' I said again.

Nothing remained of the angelic aura I remembered. Her beauty had been destroyed and a pathetic spine-chilling vermin had taken its place. Her skin was still fresh: Kolvenik had worked fast. I lowered the gun and stretched out a hand towards the poor woman. Perhaps there was still some hope for her.

'Maria? Do you recognise me? I'm Oscar, Oscar Drai. Don't you remember me?'

Maria Sh.e.l.ley looked at me intently. For a moment a spark of life rose to her eyes. I saw her shed tears and raise her hands. She stared at the monstrous metal claws that sprouted from her arms and I heard her moan. Again I stretched out a hand to her. Maria Sh.e.l.ley took a step back, trembling.

A wave of flames burst over one of the bars supporting the main curtain. The sheet of threadbare material fell away in a blanket of fire and the ropes that had been holding it up snapped outwards like fiery whips, reaching the walkway on which we were standing. A line of fire fell between us. Again I held a hand out to Kolvenik's daughter.

'Please, take my hand.'

She withdrew, shying away, her face drenched in tears. The platform under our feet creaked.

'Maria, please . . .'

The creature gazed at the flames, as if she could see something in them. She gave me one last look and seized the blazing rope, which was now lying on the platform. The fire spread over her arm, her torso, her hair, her clothes and face. I saw her burn as if she were a wax figure, until the wooden planks beneath her feet gave way and she fell into the abyss.

I ran to one of the third-floor exits. I had to find Eva Irinova and save Marina.

'Eva!' I yelled when at last I sighted her.

She ignored my call and continued on her way. I caught up with her on the central marble staircase, grabbed her arm and stopped her. She struggled to free herself.

'He's got Marina. If I don't give him the serum he'll kill her.'

'Your friend is already dead. Get out of here while you can.'

'No!'

Eva Irinova looked around us. Plumes of smoke were creeping up the stairs. There wasn't much time left.

'I can't go without her . . .'

'You don't understand,' she replied. 'If I give you the serum he'll kill both of you and n.o.body will be able to stop him.'

'He doesn't want to kill anybody. He only wants to live.'

'You still don't understand, Oscar,' said Eva. 'I can't do anything. It's all in G.o.d's hands.'

With those words she turned and walked away.

'n.o.body can do G.o.d's work. Not even you,' I said, reminding her of her own words.

She paused. I raised my gun and aimed. The click as I c.o.c.ked the gun echoed through the gallery. The sound made her turn round.

'I'm only trying to save Mijail's soul,' she said.

'I don't know whether you'll be able to save Kolvenik's soul, but you can still save your own.'

The lady now looked at me without speaking, facing the threat of the gun in my shaking hands.