The gun wasn't cold.
That was the first thing I noticed as we ran away from the Old South Train Station, leaving behind the echo of sirens and the basement's horror. The metal against my skin, just above my hip, was warm. It vibrated at a low, almost imperceptible frequency — like a satisfied cat purring after a hunt.
It was disgusting.
"Here," I said, pulling Sofía's hand.
We climbed over a broken chain-link fence and slid down a gravel embankment onto the freight tracks. The city glittered in the distance, indifferent to our flight; out here in the industrial fringe there was only rust and shadow.
The plan was simple: follow the map on the stolen tablet. St. Jude Church. It was north, in the old quarter. Walking was suicide — my face was on every newsfeed. Public transit was a trap.
We had the desperate option left.
A freight train lumbered past, screeching like a wounded beast. Coal wagons, closed containers, empty platforms.
"We have to get on," I shouted to Sofía over the metal's roar.
She nodded. She didn't ask how or why. That child had lost her childhood in one night and now had the stare of a battle-hardened soldier.
I lifted her and ran alongside the train. My lungs burned — not from exertion, but from the toxic residue Anima had left in my system.
I heaved Sofía into an open boxcar. She rolled, stood up, and stretched out a hand.
I jumped. My boots slipped on the metal, but I grabbed the frame. The momentum nearly tore my shoulder out. With a grunt I hauled myself inside and hit the car's dirty, hard floor.
We were safe. For now.
The train sped up, carrying us away from the Slaughterhouse, Méndez, and the police. I crawled into the darkest corner and curled up, hugging my knees. Sofía sat beside me, pressing her shoulder to mine for warmth.
I pulled the gun from my waistband.
There it was. The Nightmare .45.
Under the moonlight spilling through the open door, the weapon seemed to absorb light instead of reflecting it. The engravings on the barrel weren't decorative; they were faces. Tiny, agonized faces carved into the black steel that seemed to shift when you glanced the wrong way.
"Throw it," I told myself.
It was the logical decision. That thing was an anchor to Anima's world. It was proof my subconscious had broken the laws of physics. If I got caught with it, there would be no explanation.
I rose and walked to the open door. Wind hit my face. The ground blurred below.
I lifted my arm. I tensed.
I only had to open my hand.
Drop it.
My fingers didn't move.
I tried again. I ordered my hand to open. I screamed inside my head.
Nothing. My fingers were clamped around the grip as if welded to metal.
Then I felt it: an intrusive thought, чужой, slick as black oil sliding through my mind.
"It's a gift, Eduur. It's rude to refuse a gift."
It wasn't Anima's voice. It was the gun. Or Anima's will imprinted on the gun.
Panic climbed my throat. I gripped my right wrist with my left hand and forced my fingers open. I pulled until my knuckles threatened to break. The pistol didn't budge. It was part of me.
"You're not going to throw it away," Sofía said.
I spun, panting, gun still in my hand.
Sofía watched from the dark. Her eyes were fixed on the pistol — not with fear, but with curiosity.
"I can't," I confessed, voice breaking. "It stuck to me."
"It isn't stuck," she said, crawling closer. "It's hungry. Like you have been."
"What do you mean?"
Sofía pointed at the magazine.
"My mom told me stories. She said some things aren't made in factories. That pistol… it doesn't use metal bullets."
She looked into my eyes, and for a second I saw an abyss of knowledge in that seven-year-old that froze my blood.
"It's made from the screams of sleeping people," she whispered. "That's why it never empties. That's why it won't let you drop it. It knows you'll feed it."
I lowered the gun, horrified.
I slid it back into my waistband just so I wouldn't have to look at it. The metal purred against my hip again.
The trip continued in silence. I checked the Syndicate tablet. The red dot blinked: NODE 7 — ST. JUDE CHURCH.
What was a "Node"? Why a church?
Lieutenant Vargas was "missing." Méndez was a vegetable. Lena was a prisoner.
I was alone against an organization that had magic, guns, and the police in its pocket.
"Hey, you!"
A flashlight stabbed into my face. I jumped, stepping in front of Sofía by instinct.
At the far end of the car a railroad security guard had climbed in from the adjacent wagon. He was a big man with a baton in one hand and a radio on his shoulder.
"Get off my train, you damn rats!" he barked, advancing toward us.
He was a normal man — a worker doing his shift.
But my body didn't react logically. It reacted with muscle memory that wasn't mine.
My right hand moved on its own.
A blur. In less than a second the Nightmare .45 was out of my waistband and aimed at the guard's chest.
I didn't shake. My stance was perfect. My breathing calmed.
The world sharpened and grew cold.
I saw the guard's fear. I saw his pulse spike at his neck. And I felt… contempt.
"Kill him," the gun hissed in my head. "He's a nuisance. A bug. Pull the trigger and watch him explode."
My finger caressed the trigger. The urge to fire was so intense, so pleasurable, I nearly pissed myself.
"No!" I shouted, fighting my own arm.
The guard froze. Not from the gun — from what he saw in my face. Or in my shadow.
He went pale. He dropped the flashlight.
"Oh God!" he screamed. "Oh God, don't look at me!"
He turned and jumped from the moving train, preferring broken legs on the gravel to one more second facing me.
I lowered the weapon, shaking violently.
It hadn't been me. It had been Anima. Through the gun, he could seize partial control. A physical Trojan.
"We have to get off," Sofía said, tugging my jacket. Her voice sounded distant. "We're almost there."
The train was slowing as it entered the northern industrial zone.
I stashed the gun. I felt filthy. Violated. We jumped off before it stopped completely, rolling on the dry grass.
We stood and looked up.
We were on a hill overlooking the old district. There it was.
St. Jude Church.
It wasn't a normal church. It was a gothic fortress of black stone, ringed with gargoyles that looked far too lifelike. There were no crosses on the roof. Strange lightning rods and coils of metal thrummed under the rain that had started to fall. And it was ringed.
Black cars. Armed men patrolling the perimeter. Not police. Syndicate soldiers.
We'd walked straight into the wolf's mouth.
"We can't go in," I whispered. "It's a base."
"Look," Sofía said, pointing at an abandoned, rusted boxcar stranded on a dead track near the church's perimeter fence.
There was writing sprayed on the rusted metal. Fresh graffiti, white paint gleaming under the lightning.
It wasn't a name. Not an insult.
It was a message. And I recognized the handwriting. The sharp, nervous scrawl of Lena.
We crept closer, hiding in the undergrowth.
The message read:
"DON'T TRUST THE ONE WHO OFFERS YOU BREAD. THE KEY DOESN'T OPEN IN — IT OPENS DOWN. FIND FATHER THOMAS."
"The one who offers bread?" I asked, confused.
Then I remembered the old man at the station. He'd fed pigeons with bread. He'd given us the locker key. He'd sent us into a trap.
The old man wasn't an ally. He was Syndicate bait. Lena had tried to warn us, but the message reached us too late.
"They sold us," I said, bile rising in my mouth. "From the start."
"Someone's coming," Sofía whispered.
I turned. From between the shadows of the old cars a figure emerged. Not a soldier.
He wore a dirty, tattered black cassock. A leather dog-collar with a broken chain hung around his neck. His eyes were bloodshot and he smiled with a mystical kind of madness.
"Welcome, pilgrims," the priest said, opening his arms. "Node 7 hungers for new prayers."
He raised a hand, and the church's gargoyles turned their stone heads toward us with the grinding sound of stone on stone.
I drew the black pistol. This time, I didn't struggle with it.
This time, I let the cold flood me.
"Anima," I whispered. "Load the gun."