Chapter 32

David Martín enters Damián Roures’s conjuring shop, noting trick mirrors and stage props. After invoking Ricardo Salvador’s name, David closes in on the topic of Diego Marlasca. Roures bristles, dismissing Salvador as a resentful ex-policeman and insisting the official suicide verdict stood because authorities wished to avoid scandal involving Valera and Marlasca’s firm.

Pressed about the seances, Roures claims they were entertainment, not promises of real contact with the dead, and distances himself from his partner Jaco, who vanished after Marlasca died. He insists he never profited from any scheme and denies knowledge of a secret account or murder.

On Irene Sabino, Roures says she loved Marlasca and would not harm him. He believes Irene now works at a Raval laundry. He describes Marlasca as mentally unwell, convinced he was cursed and possessed by something. Roures says he tried to dissuade Marlasca from occult pursuits, but Marlasca sought help elsewhere.

According to Roures, Irene took Marlasca to the Witch of Somorrostro for protection from a powerful person to whom Marlasca was indebted. Roures has never heard of Andreas Corelli. Initially unsure about “Lux Aeterna,” he then recalls it as part of occult pamphlets used in their sessions, likely from the Afterlife Society’s library.

Roures concludes that Lux Aeterna was a poem concerning death and the seven names of the “Bringer of Light,” identifying this as Lucifer. The meeting leaves David with leads to Irene, the Witch of Somorrostro, Jaco’s disappearance, and an ominous connection between Lux Aeterna and darker occult promises surrounding Marlasca.