Rome – 02:47 local
Abandoned Hospital of Santa Maria della Pietà
Caelan stood on a crumbling cornice, moonlight carving him into white marble.
"Rules," he said.
Liliru lounged on a decapitated Virgin Mary below him, leather pants gleaming like liquid sin.
"Rule one: I lead. No freelance chaos."
She rolled her eyes. "Rule one: I get bored and people die. Live with it."
"Rule two: no feeding on Choir essence. It's paradox poison."
"Spoilsport."
"Rule three: we scout only. East wing diversion. I go main entrance. Converge atrium. Touch nothing else."
Liliru saluted with two fingers. "Yes, Daddy."
She melted into shadow before he could shoot her for the nickname.
Caelan exhaled frost. The ache in his core eased just from her nearness.
He hated how good that felt.
East Wing – Morgue Level
Liliru did not do subtle.
Twelve Choir whisperers hovered around a rift, weaving forgotten prayers into a cage of silence. Their bodies were a living echo.
"Hello, boys."
They turned, faces splitting into silent screams.
"The Hybrid," they sang in perfect, skull-splitting harmony. "Vessel of potential. You will be purified."
"Purified?" She cracked her whip. "Last angel who tried that still has my teeth marks on his lip."
Shadow tendrils lashed. They struck true, then faltered. The Choir's balanced essence resisted pure darkness; her thorns flickered like bad neon.
Shit. Still running at half charge.
She slammed a palm to the floor.
"Blood Roses!"
Black vines exploded upward, impaling half the choir. Petals opened, drank, then spasmed. White veins crawled through black petals. The roses began eating her instead.
Wrong frequency.
The Choir reformed, singing louder, a psychic drill boring into her skull.
Fine. If balance wouldn't feed her, she'd give them pure despair instead.
Liliru screamed.
Not sound. Feeling. Every suicide, every stillbirth, every prayer that went unanswered in these walls detonated outward in one psychic blast.
The morgue lights burst. The Choir staggered, harmony cracked.
Good enough.
She bolted, grinning.
He'll have felt that.
Central Atrium – 60 seconds later
Caelan stepped into the vast rotunda as the wave of despair hit him like a drug.
Predictable, he thought, mouth twitching.
Thirty Choir operatives encircled Liliru. Her whip smoked, half-formed roses crumbled to ash at her feet. She was a pale, bleeding shadow from the corners of her eyes.
"Saint!" she laughed, breathless. "Fashionably late as always."
"You were told diversion, not suicide."
"Lecture me later—"
The Choir's song rose, trying to unmake her atom by atom.
Caelan raised Eden's Fang.
"Synchronisation. Now."
He fired at the ancient pillar in the atrium's heart, once sacred, now desecrated a dozen times over.
The third bullet left the chamber as a white-hot lance of absolute sanctity.
It struck.
The pillar didn't break. It screamed holiness.
Pure, unfiltered divine light flooded the atrium like noon in a tomb.
The Choir convulsed. Their perfect balance was shattered against singularity. Bodies of living sound tore apart, streaming white ash.
Liliru dropped to her knees, gasping as the light washed over her.
It didn't burn.
It cleansed.
Every speck of borrowed paradox flushed from her veins. Darkness roared back, pure and starving.
She slammed both palms to the floor.
"Blood Garden—full bloom."
Black vines detonated upward, thicker, faster, merciless. Roses opened like mouths and drank deep. This time only darkness passed her lips, distilled, intoxicating.
Power slammed into her so hard her back arched, eyes rolling white.
Across the atrium, Caelan felt it hit him, too. Her amplified chaos poured into the hollow he'd carried for days. Warmth. Terrible, addictive warmth.
The last Choir dissolved into nothing.
Silence fell, thick and satisfied.
Liliru rose, swaying, bathed in her own night. Eyes glowing, lips parted, high on her own darkness.
She stalked toward him.
"You knew," she whispered, voice rough with awe and lust. "You knew the light would purge the paradox so I could feed clean."
"Efficient," he said.
She pressed her body to his, fingers splayed over his heart. Dark energy bled into him; the last of his coldness melted.
"Admit it, angel. You just topped me from across the room and we both came."
A muscle jumped in his jaw.
"It was… tactical."
She laughed, low, filthy, victorious.
"Whatever helps you sleep, Saint."
She threaded her fingers through his.
Power thrummed between their joined hands: perfect circuit, light and dark racing in a loop neither wanted to break.
"We're a weapon," she said, grinning like a cat that ate God. "And I'm suddenly very motivated."
Caelan looked at the empty atrium, at the black roses still drinking starlight from the air.
He did not let go of her hand.
"Next target," he said. "We find the Choir's heart and cut it out."
Liliru's smile could have started wars.
"Together?"
"Together."