They ran. There was no plan, no destination, only the primal, screaming need to put distance between themselves and the nightmare in the trench. The sounds of the struggle-the shouts, the alien roar, the sickening thuds-chased them, a cacophony of madness that drowned out the city's usual nocturnal hum.
Leo led, his historian's mind somehow pulling a map of the city's forgotten arteries from sheer panic. He ducked into an alley, then another, his movements sharp and desperate. "This way! Don't stop!"
Maya's lungs were fire, her legs lead. She clutched a stitch in her side, but the image of Alastor's face-the disorientation, the panic, the silent plea-propelled her forward. Chloe was a ghost beside her, sobbing with every ragged breath, her feet slapping against the wet pavement in a frantic, uneven rhythm.
Behind them, a new sound joined the chaos. A high, piercing whine, followed by a concussive THUMP that vibrated through the soles of their shoes. A flash of actinic blue light lit up the alley mouth behind them, casting their fleeing shadows long and monstrous against the brick walls.
"They're using energy weapons!" Jax's voice was a shredded, staticky scream in their earpieces. The connection was breaking up, victim of Pandora's jammers. "I saw-on the thermal-oh god, he's-"
The line dissolved into a wash of white noise.
"Jax! Jax, can you hear us?" Leo yelled into his mic, getting no response but the hiss of dead air.
They burst out of the alley network onto a wider, deserted service road that ran behind a line of shuttered warehouses. The relative openness felt like a death sentence.
"We can't outrun them in the open!" Maya gasped, leaning against a cold, corrugated metal wall, her chest heaving.
"We don't have to outrun them," Leo panted, his eyes wild. "We just have to hide. Find a place to hole up until morning."
"Where?" Chloe cried, her voice shrill with terror. "They'll look everywhere! They'll find us!"
A new sound cut through the night, freezing the blood in their veins. It was the smooth, powerful purr of multiple engines. Headlights speared the darkness at the far end of the service road, sweeping towards them.
"Pandora!" Leo hissed.
They were trapped. The road was a dead end, blocked by a high, chain-link fence topped with razor wire. The warehouses were sealed up, their doors solid steel.
"This way!" Maya grabbed Chloe's arm and yanked her towards a recessed loading bay, a shallow concrete alcove that offered the barest sliver of shadow. They pressed themselves into it, their bodies trembling, trying to become one with the wall. The headlights grew brighter, the engine noise louder, a predator closing in.
The lead vehicle, a black SUV with tinted windows, slowed to a crawl as it passed their hiding spot. It was close enough that Maya could see the dust on its tires. It stopped.
The passenger window slid down with a quiet electric hum. An agent, his face obscured by the gloom inside, scanned the area. Maya held her breath, her heart hammering so loudly she was sure he could hear it. She could feel Chloe trembling violently against her.
The agent's gaze swept over their alcove. It paused for a heart-stopping second. Did he see them? Had a scrap of fabric caught the light?
Then, a voice crackled from the SUV's radio, loud and urgent. "-primary asset is mobile! I repeat, the asset is mobile! All units converge on the primary trench! He's heading for the river!"
The agent in the SUV snapped his head towards the voice. "Copy that." The window slid back up, and the SUV accelerated with a roar, its tires screeching as it rounded a corner and vanished, the other vehicles following in its wake.
The service road was silent again, save for the distant, fading sirens.
For a long moment, none of them moved. They just stood in the shallow darkness, breathing in ragged, disbelieving gasps.
"He... he got away?" Leo whispered, the words sounding impossible.
"He drew them off," Maya said, the realization dawning with a wave of awe and fresh fear. "He led them away from us."
A new sound reached them, carried on the cold river air from the direction of the dig site. It was a roar, but unlike the first one of panic and pain. This one was raw, unfiltered fury. A promise of vengeance. It was followed by a sound like shattering glass and twisting metal, and then, a blast of light that was not blue and electrical, but orange and red and terrifyingly organic.
For a single, searing second, the night sky above the rooftops was illuminated by a colossal, spectral shape. The silhouette of a monstrous hound, three heads thrown back in a silent, world-ending howl, wreathed in hellish flame. It was there, burned onto their retinas, a myth made terrifyingly real, and then it was gone.
The light vanished. The sounds of battle ceased abruptly.
The silence that fell was deeper and more profound than any they had ever heard.
In their earpieces, the static cleared for a moment, and Jax's voice returned, small and shattered. "Did you see that?" he breathed. "Please tell me you saw that."
They had seen it. The proof was in the trembling of their hands, the cold sweat on their brows, the shared, unspoken knowledge that the world was not what they had believed it to be an hour ago.
Maya pushed herself away from the wall. Her legs felt weak, but her mind was terrifyingly clear. The initial, blind panic was gone, replaced by a cold, hard certainty.
"He's out there," she said, her voice low and steady. "Alone. In a world he doesn't understand. Hunted."
Leo stared at her. "Maya, we can't. We have to think about this. We have to-"
"We have to find him," she interrupted, her gaze unwavering. "Before Thorne does."
She looked at her two friends, their faces pale and smudged with dirt in the dim light. They were just archaeology interns. They were in over their heads. But they were all he had.
"He looked at me, Leo," she said, the memory of those amber eyes, that silent plea, giving her a strength she didn't know she possessed. "He asked for help."
She didn't wait for an argument. She stepped out of the shadows of the loading bay and into the open street, turning not towards safety, but back towards the heart of the storm.
"Come on," she said, and started to run.