When it was ready, I observed his work. The Twelfth Arcana. Eddie had painted it in his bedroom. This story was old. We walked away from Eddie to visit the nearest hanged people. Some knots were professional, others looked like bows: it wasn’t really the rope that held them up. There were men and women, and their bodies were conserved; none showed any signs of putrefaction or of any clear violence, though of course they had all been murdered in one way or another. There was nothing more for us to do, but something was keeping us there, and Juan realized what it was. He could take something, as always when he offered a sacrifice: the Place wanted to repay him. I looked at his hands. They were surrounded by black light. Thank you, Juan said out loud. With an unerring touch, because now he was blade and weapon, he cut off Eddie’s left hand. For my companion, he said. The Hand of Glory that she so desires. He offered it to me and I cried, in grief and in thanks.

We went back to the house. Stephen was waiting for us. He wasn’t going to call the police: the Order would take care of cleaning up the massacre. The gun his brother had used was still on the ground floor, all the proof we would need to avoid being accused, now that Eddie would never be found in this world.

The dead were dead, and it was the fault of this life that one chose or received as condemnation, depending on how you looked at it. Eddie’s sacrifice had been necessary, and so had the purge. The only survivors were Stephen, Juan, and me. I was irritated that Juan couldn’t understand and believed it was all his fault, believed it with a desperation that was black and (I thought) exaggerated. The monster always lurks inside the Labyrinth, and he who enters knows that if it’s not around the first bend, it will be around the next. Some know how to let out a rope and escape. He who makes it too far does so knowing the price. Juan thought Eddie’s shot could have killed me, and he blamed himself. But I didn’t want him to take care of me. I had told him so many times. Who could he protect, destined as he was to live in the abyss?

We traveled as planned to Cadaqués, several days later. In the beautiful Margarall house we followed the news of the massacre at Cheyne Walk, which mixed with the other terrible bloodbaths of 1969. Eddie Mathers, the Manson Family, Hells Angels, the bomb in Piazza Fontana, the news of Mỹ Lai. Eddie was presumed guilty: the gun had his prints on it, and he’d also left them all over the house. We told the police he had escaped; I was wounded and couldn’t go after him; Juan had to abandon chase because of his health; Stephen had gotten farther, but lost him. We also told this story to Florence and Pedro, and they believed it: why wouldn’t they, when they themselves had met thanks to a similar purge? Florence was surprised Eddie hadn’t killed himself; she had her own vague doubts. They looked for his body in the river, with no luck. The other living witness was Graciela, the doctor: when she’d heard the shots, she’d tried to call the police, but the phone was dead. Eddie had cut the lines.