The city burned neon in the distance—crimson and jade lights pulsing like veins—but here, on the forgotten fringe, everything was shadow. The outskirts were quiet, the silence unnerving, broken only by the hum of unstable leyline energy threading beneath the pavement like static-charged roots. Streetlamps flickered weakly, casting malformed halos that warped shadows into clawing things that didn’t quite move right.

  Alex moved fast.

  His hood was pulled low, face hidden in the dim, carrying a burden heavier than fear.

  Kai hung across his back, unconscious and bleeding out, his breath ragged against Alex’s shoulder. The blood had soaked through them both—warm, sticky, and far too much. Every drop a countdown. Every step an act of defiance.

  Alex didn't feel his own injuries anymore. Not the gash on his side or the bruises across his ribs. All of it paled beside the cold certainty that if he slowed down now, Kai wouldn’t make it.

  He ducked into a narrow alley. The walls closed in around him—graffitied stone covered in flickering sigils that twisted when looked at directly. The air was thick with spell residue, layers of failed enchantments and forgotten wards leaving a metallic sting in his throat.

  Something was wrong.

  The city's rhythm was off—no longer a steady pulse, but a jittering, sickly throb. The leyline currents, usually subtle, now crackled with distortion. The kind of distortion that meant only one thing:

  They were being hunted.

  Alex adjusted Kai’s weight, the limpness in the man’s limbs growing heavier by the second. “Almost there,” he muttered, though he wasn’t sure if he meant the destination… or the end.

  The alley split ahead. Left led toward noise—cars, life, light. Right led deeper, into a darkness that seemed to breathe.

  He turned right without hesitation.

  A crooked lamppost flickered above him. The shadows pulsed.

  Alex knelt, setting Kai down just long enough to pull out his aether-etched phone. Its warding shell flickered, barely holding against the arcane interference gnawing at its edges. He whispered the activation spell and pressed it to his ear.

  A few agonizing beats. Then—Lee’s voice, dry with irritation:

  “Do you know what time it is?”

  “I need extraction. Now,” Alex snapped. “Kai’s down. I need a way to Lazarus Island.”

  There was a pause. Then a shift. Lee’s voice tightened. “Where are you? Something's wrong with the signal.”

  Alex scanned the alley—walls warping at the edges, the shadows deepening like a tide.

  “They’re tracking us,” he said. “I don’t know what, but it’s not just Frangipani. I think they’ve found us—spirit magic, maybe worse.”

  “What the hell happened?”

  Before Alex could answer, the phone shrieked.

  A high, discordant wail tore through the device. His vision pulsed. He nearly dropped the phone.

  And then—

  A voice.

  Smooth. Cold. Familiar.

  “You can’t run from us, Alex.”

  The phone died in his hand.

  Alex froze. For a second, even the shadows around him stopped.

  Then the streetlights exploded.

  He moved.

  Kai slung over his shoulder once more, Alex ran. The alley twisted behind him, lengthening impossibly. The buildings shifted. It was like the city had swallowed them and was reshaping its guts to trap them inside.

  “You’ll never make it,” the voice hissed again, slithering around his thoughts like smoke.

  But Alex didn’t answer. He ran faster.

  Turn after turn, breath burning in his lungs, he searched for the old marker.

  And then he saw it.

  A rusted phone booth, half-hidden behind a dumpster, its neon sign flickering overhead—an ancient transport relay, long since decommissioned. But it still pulsed with faint ward-light. Still alive.

  He all but threw Kai inside and slammed the glass door shut behind them. The moment it clicked closed, the booth’s interior enchantments flared weakly to life, forming a fragile barrier against the madness outside.

  Alex dropped to one knee and slammed the phone receiver against its cradle.

  “Come on, come on…”

  A pulse. A crackle. Then—

  “You still breathing?” Lee’s voice, strained.

  “Barely,” Alex gritted out. “Something’s hunting us. I need that route—now.”

  “You’re near Keppel Port,” Lee said quickly. “Three blocks east, there’s a buried transport sigil. Civilian class. Might still work if the leylines haven’t collapsed. But it’s a gamble.”

  Alex closed his eyes. “That’s all I need.”

  The line cut off.

  Alex shoved the phone into his coat, lifted Kai again, and stepped back into the night.

  The shadows were waiting.

  The hunt had begun.

  The air outside had changed.

  It pressed against Alex like a second skin—thick, charged, and wrong. The leyline currents had twisted again, vibrating with a pulse that didn’t belong to this plane. Somewhere in the city, a spirit had been loosed. Or worse—invited.

  At the far end of the warped street, a figure waited.

  They stood still as stone, draped in a flowing black cloak that caught no wind. Their face was hidden behind a mask of dull, reflective metal etched with intricate runes—symbols Alex recognized from forbidden tomes in the Ninth Precinct’s archive. Sigils that whispered across dimensions. Their eyes glowed faintly behind the visor, pale and inhuman.

  And at their feet, shadows writhed.

  They didn’t follow the shape of the streetlamps. They coiled and uncoiled like serpents, stretching and tensing, eager to strike.

  Alex froze.

  "Alex," the figure said, voice smooth and cold, every syllable honed like a scalpel. “Did you really think you could escape us?”

  No spell. No incantation. Just his name—and it cut deeper than any curse.

  Alex didn’t answer.

  He ran.

  Kai’s body slumped heavier over his shoulders with every step, his blood slicking Alex’s back and jacket. The pain in Alex’s ribs flared as he pushed forward, but there was no time to feel it. No room for hesitation. Every second was the difference between escape and oblivion.

  The shadows surged.

  Black tendrils lashed across the street like barbed whips, clawing at the pavement, breaking apart gravel and pulling at the air itself. One coiled around a streetlamp and snapped it like a matchstick. Another raced across the wall beside Alex, gouging a deep scar through the concrete.

  Alex twisted down an alley, nearly slipping on loose debris. His boots pounded the wet stone. His breath came in heaving gasps.

  A tendril slashed across his side. His jacket tore. A burn bloomed along his ribs—cold and searing all at once, like ice and lightning stitched together. He staggered, nearly dropped Kai, but caught himself against a rusted stairwell rail.

  Keep moving. Keep moving.

  He didn't look back. He couldn’t.

  The alley narrowed, twisted. A maze of forgotten industrial corridors and arcane-scored buildings long abandoned by the city’s warding networks. Old wards still lingered on the walls—faded chalk, bloodied ink, broken sigils that no longer held power. But one thing called to him now—

  There.

  At the base of a crumbling warehouse, beneath an overhang of rusted pipes, a soft blue glow shimmered across the stone.

  The transport sigil.

  It was fractured at the edges, dulled by time and neglect—but it was intact. Flickering like a heartbeat on the edge of death. A whisper of salvation.

  Alex stumbled toward it.

  His knees buckled. He nearly collapsed under Kai’s weight. His arms screamed. His vision blurred. His teeth clenched hard enough to crack.

  But he made it to the circle.

  His hands trembled as he pulled a vial from his coat—blood from the old Nexus registry. A contingency. Always a contingency. He shattered the vial against the ground and traced the activation lines in the air with his fingertips, speaking the words through gasping breath.

  “Axis devana… transitum nox…”

  The sigil shuddered. Light flared. The portal began to pulse.

  Then—

  The masked figure stepped from the shadows.

  No sound. No warning.

  Just presence.

  The very street behind Alex seemed to bleed darkness as the entity approached, slow and calm. The runes on its mask ignited with a sickly violet sheen, and its hands—gloved and long-fingered—lifted as if in benediction.

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  “You’ve made this so very difficult,” it murmured, almost sad. “But even the island won’t hide you. She’s already dreaming again.”

  The shadows lunged.

  Dozens of tendrils, now thinner and sharper, snapped forward like knives, aimed at Alex’s heart, at Kai’s throat, at the circle itself.

  Alex didn’t hesitate.

  He dove.

  With a final cry of effort, he hauled Kai across the edge of the sigil as the last of the glyphs flared bright.

  The portal activated.

  Light swallowed them whole.

  Behind them, the tendrils met empty air—and the sigil exploded in a flash of silver flame, sealing the rupture with a thunderous crack that shattered nearby windows and silenced the street.

  The alley went still.

  The masked figure stepped toward the smoldering remnants, head tilting again.

  And then it turned.

  Vanished.

  Lazarus Island – Arrival

  The portal spat them out like broken bones.

  Alex and Kai crashed onto the rough, damp cobblestones beneath the crumbling altar stones of the old ritual site on Lazarus Island. The scent of salt and pine hit Alex’s senses like a slap. Distant waves rolled in, slow and steady, and the ever-present hum of the Veil trembled beneath the island’s soil.

  Alex rolled onto his side, coughing violently. Blood filled his mouth—his or Kai’s, he didn’t know anymore. His hands were torn, his coat shredded. Pain laced through every joint. But—

  They were alive.

  Kai lay motionless beside him, pale and cold, but breathing. Barely.

  Alex forced himself upright on trembling limbs, his body screaming in protest. “You’re okay,” he rasped. “You’re still here. Just hold on.”

  The stone circle beneath them still glowed faintly from the transport's residue, but it was fading fast. No one would follow—for now.

  Alex tore open the emergency rune stitched into the lining of his sleeve and flared a signal across the island—a flare code.

  Blue flame. Urgent. Medical. Come now.

  The flame burst into the sky like a beacon.

  Then he knelt beside Kai, pressing a hand to his pulse.

  Still beating. Still here.

  Alex bowed his head for a moment, just long enough to breathe.

  Then he looked toward the forest.

  The island was no longer sanctuary.

  It was war ground.

  And the nightmare had followed them home.

  ___________________________________________________________

  By the time Alex stumbled into the dimly lit interior of Duff and Lee’s refuge, the world had narrowed to the ache in his limbs, the burn of blood in his mouth, and the heavy, unconscious weight of Kai across his back. The air inside was warm, scented faintly with pine oil and burning herbs, but to Alex, it smelled like safety. Just enough to keep moving.

  The room was dim—candlelight casting gold against weathered wood, shadows dancing like ghosts across the ceiling. The pulse of magic was everywhere: subtle but present, woven into the walls, the floors, the wards stitched into the very air. Protective. Secret. Alive.

  Lee stood at the threshold between two rooms, sleeves rolled, his expression carved from stone.

  The moment he saw Kai, he moved.

  “Set him down,” Lee ordered, voice tight. His hands were already glowing faintly, a pale green aura crackling around his fingertips.

  Alex didn’t hesitate. He eased Kai down onto the nearest couch with all the care of someone setting a relic onto an altar. Kai’s breathing was shallow, each inhale a weak pull against the growing silence in the room.

  Lee was at his side in an instant, peeling away the shredded layers of Kai’s coat and shirt. Blood glistened beneath his fingers, too much of it, and it was still leaking slow, thick rivulets down Kai’s side.

  “Shit,” Lee muttered. “His lung’s nicked. Close to the heart, too.”

  Soft footsteps approached from the shadows, and Alex turned just as Duff emerged from the hallway—barefoot, wrapped in a long black tunic. His dark eyes swept across the room, landing on Kai, then Alex, then the blood trailing behind them both.

  “You look like hell,” Duff said evenly, crouching beside Kai with eerie calm.

  Alex gave a breathless chuckle. “Takes one to know one.”

  But the joke died in his throat when Duff’s hands hovered over Kai’s chest, and the air thickened with sudden weight. The room dimmed, as though the candles had flickered in deference. The floor groaned beneath them—not from pressure, but from power. Alex’s amulet went cold against his skin.

  Necromancy.

  Not the violent, soul-shredding kind used by the Frangipani—but old, steady, and oddly gentle. Duff’s magic crept across Kai’s chest like moonlight through water, slow and deliberate. Kai shuddered. His lips parted with a breathless gasp.

  Then—Duff jerked, like something had been ripped from inside him.

  He slammed a hand over his mouth. Blood poured between his fingers, crimson staining his chin as he pitched sideways with a hoarse cough.

  “Duff!” Alex reached forward, but Lee was already there, catching Duff by the shoulders, lowering him carefully to the floor.

  “That’s enough,” Lee said, voice low and urgent. “You’ve done enough.”

  “I had him stabilized,” Duff rasped, blood on his teeth. “He’ll live.”

  Alex saw the toll plainly now. Duff’s skin had gone pale beneath the candlelight, and his body trembled with exertion. Necromancy was never kind to the living—especially not the sort that pulled someone back from the brink.

  Lee helped him to a chair and handed him a damp cloth, then turned to Alex. “Your turn.”

  “I’m fine,” Alex lied.

  “Don’t lie to me,” Lee snapped, already reaching for the clasps on Alex’s torn jacket. “You smell like smoke and steel. That blood’s not all Kai’s.”

  Alex reluctantly allowed him to peel back the layers of soaked fabric. Beneath, his ribs were streaked with a vicious gash—shallow but long, edges scorched by spirit-warped magic. The wound throbbed in time with his heartbeat.

  Lee’s mouth tightened into a thin line. “Spirit-burn. That’s going to fester if I don’t cleanse it.”

  “I’ve had worse,” Alex muttered, trying not to wince as Lee applied pressure with a clean cloth.

  “And yet you still have the arrogance to carry two men’s worth of pain and call it a plan.”

  Lee shoved him gently toward the second couch. “Sit. Now.”

  Alex complied, his limbs too heavy to argue. The moment he sank into the cushions, it was like the weight of everything hit him at once—Mei’s near-possession, Michelle’s betrayal, Aria’s madness, the Veil’s thinning, and now this.

  His eyes met Kai’s across the flickering space between them. Kai was half-conscious now, pale lips moving without sound. But his gaze found Alex’s—worn, dark, still burning with some faint, defiant fire.

  We’re still alive, it said.

  Barely, Alex answered silently. But alive.

  Lee worked quickly and quietly, cleansing the wound with a wash of cold, bitter-smelling solution that burned worse than the injury itself. Alex hissed through clenched teeth but didn’t pull away. Not once.

  Duff, now wrapped in a heavy shawl and sipping bitter tea, watched from the other side of the room, eyes flicking between them all. His voice, when it came, was quiet.

  “They know you’re on the island.”

  Alex didn’t look up. “I know.”

  “They’ll come again. Harder.”

  “I know,” Alex repeated.

  Silence stretched between them, thick with things none of them could fix.

  Lee tied off the bandage with a sharp tug. “Then we’ll be ready.”

  Alex leaned back, his body barely holding together. But his mind, his will—that still burned.

  “They’re not going to win,” he said aloud.

  Lee exchanged a look with Duff, who raised one brow, unimpressed. “We’ll see.”

  And in the stillness that followed, Alex felt the shadows outside the cabin tighten, curling like wolves in the dark.

  They were safe—for now.

  But the next storm would be worse.

  And this time, no one would walk away unscathed.