Chapter 122: Irrational
I emerged from the stairs to find the chaos I had expected.
In the cramped anteroom, it looked like a cyclone had swept through. An upturned chair lay awkwardly by the door, a broken table had splintered into jagged fragments, and a shattered flower vase bled water and petals across the floor.
Two dead Pulajan cultists completed the grisly picture. One had collapsed near the landing, his body sprawled sideways with a grotesque expression of horror frozen on his blood-spattered face—likely the first to fall.
The other had made it farther, a few feet from the wall, machete inches from his hand. He had gone down fighting. His torso was riddled with gashes and punctures—no doubt from Medina’s bayonet.
To the left of the landing was a narrow hallway leading to the gobernadorcillo’s office, the door marked by a weathered wooden sign hanging askew. Another Pulajan lay just outside the threshold, sprawled on his back. A clean bullet hole marked his chest, and smoke still curled lazily from the barrel of the pistol clutched in his hand.
I stepped inside the cramped office. The scent of gunpowder and blood lingered, mixing with the musty odor of damp paper and wood rot. I stepped over the outstretched leg of the corpse by the door and hopped to the other side, careful not to slip on the pooling blood. Kneeling beside the body, I leaned forward as something caught my eye. A detail obscured by the shadow cast by the window shutters.
He didn’t look like a peasant.
The dead man wore the faded navy-blue uniform of the Guardia Civil. Though frayed and unkempt, the insignia was unmistakable. I narrowed my eyes, studying his face. There was something familiar about it.
"Is this the commandante?" I asked, already sure of the answer. The Orbea pistol in his death grip was proof enough. I pried it from his stiff fingers, weighing it in my hand. It wasn’t as pristine as the one given to me by the president, but it would do. In both Kasily and now here, I had sorely felt the absence of a proper sidearm. More than once, I had considered the dishonorable act of taking back the one I’d given Vicente.
"Si..." Medina nodded. "Sargento Casimero. Head of the Guardia Civil detachment here in Santa Cruz."
I raised an eyebrow. "A fellow loyalist? Why didn’t you ask him to surrender?"