# **BITE OF DESTINY**
## Chapter 16: Dark Alliances
---
The abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Millbrook had been many things over its century of existence—a textile mill, a storage facility for bootleg liquor during Prohibition, and most recently, a forgotten relic swallowed by urban decay. Now, as Demri stood in its cavernous interior, surrounded by rusted machinery and shadows that moved with sentient hunger, it had become something else entirely.
A neutral ground for monsters.
"You're certain about this?" Kael's voice echoed from somewhere in the darkness, his form still obscured by the shadows he wielded like a second skin. "Once you step into this circle, there's no going back. The Covenant of Ash doesn't accept declined invitations."
Demri surveyed the sigils etched into the concrete floor—ancient markings that predated human civilization, symbols that had been old when the first celestials descended from the higher realms. They pulsed with a sickly amber light, casting writhing shadows across the walls.
*This is madness,* the curse whispered, and for once, its voice carried something almost like concern. *These creatures—they're not like the shadow-kin you've encountered. They're the old ones. The hungry ones.*
"I know what they are," Demri murmured.
"Do you?" Kael finally stepped into the light—such as it was—his scarred face twisted with an expression that might have been worry on features less accustomed to such emotions. "The Covenant of Ash represents every faction that exists in the spaces between light and dark. Revenants who've fed for millennia. Cursed bloodlines that sold their humanity for power. Things that don't have names in any language still spoken." He paused. "And you want to ask them for help."
"I want to offer them an alliance."
Kael laughed—a harsh, bitter sound. "Against Azarion? Against the celestial hierarchy itself?" He shook his head. "You've either grown incredibly brave since I last saw you in the courts above, or you've lost your mind entirely."
"Perhaps both." Demri moved toward the circle's edge, feeling the power radiating from the sigils like heat from a furnace. "Azarion isn't just coming for me, Kael. The corruption he unleashed—the scheme he's been weaving for centuries—it threatens everything. Every realm, every creature that exists outside the celestials' rigid order."
"And you think the Covenant cares about cosmic politics?"
"I think they care about survival." Demri met Kael's eyes. "When Azarion finishes his purge, do you think he'll stop with me? With the shadow-kin who've grown too independent? He wants to remake reality according to his vision—a world where nothing exists that he doesn't control. The old ones, the hungry ones you mentioned? They'll be swept away like dust."
Kael was silent for a long moment. Then, slowly, he nodded. "You've changed. The Demri I knew would have never stooped to bargaining with the things that lurk in the deep shadows."
"The Demri you knew hadn't fallen." He stepped into the circle. "Hadn't been cursed. Hadn't found something worth fighting for."
The sigils flared brighter as his feet crossed the boundary, and Demri felt the weight of ancient attention turn toward him—vast consciousnesses stirring in dark places, eyes that had watched civilizations rise and crumble now focusing on this single point in space and time.
*They're coming,* the curse breathed, and its voice trembled. *Host—Demri—whatever happens, do not show weakness. These creatures can smell fear across dimensions. They'll devour you before you finish your first sentence if they sense you're prey.*
"I'm no one's prey," Demri replied. "Not anymore."
The shadows in the warehouse began to move.
---
Aylin couldn't sleep.
She lay in her narrow bed, staring at the water-stained ceiling of her apartment, her mind racing with everything that had happened. Everything that was still happening. Somewhere out there, Demri was doing something dangerous—she'd seen it in his eyes before he left, that terrible resigned determination of someone preparing for battle.
And he hadn't let her come.
"You don't understand," he'd said, his voice gentle but firm. "The beings I need to meet—they wouldn't see you as an ally or even as a neutral party. They'd see you as leverage. As a weakness to be exploited."
"Your weakness," she'd countered.
He'd smiled then, a sad and beautiful expression that made her heart ache. "Yes. My greatest weakness. And my greatest strength." He'd touched her face, his fingers barely grazing her cheek. "Stay here. Stay safe. When this is over—"
"If you die in some shadow realm negotiating with monsters," she'd interrupted, "I will find a way to resurrect you just so I can kill you myself."
His laugh had been genuine, surprised out of him like sunlight through storm clouds. "That's the most romantic threat anyone's ever made to me."
Now, hours later, Aylin's threat felt hollow. She was here, safe in her apartment, while Demri faced dangers she couldn't even imagine. The helplessness burned in her chest like acid.
A knock at her door made her bolt upright.
She grabbed the iron poker from her fireplace—a gift from Nene Hazal, blessed and bound with protections that would give any supernatural creature pause—and approached carefully.
"Aylin." The voice was familiar. Female. Exhausted. "It's Helena. Please, I need your help."
Aylin opened the door to find Dr. Helena Reyes looking like she'd been through a war. The normally immaculate professor was disheveled, her graying hair escaping its bun, her clothes rumpled, and her eyes wild with a mixture of fear and desperate hope.
"Helena? What—"
"They came for me." Helena pushed inside, slamming the door behind her and immediately drawing symbols on its surface with a piece of chalk she pulled from her pocket. "The things in the shadows. They came for me."
"Shadow-kin?"
"No. Worse." Helena finished her markings and slumped against the door, breathing hard. "I've spent thirty years studying the supernatural. I thought I understood it. The hierarchies, the politics, the ancient treaties that keep our world from being consumed by forces beyond human comprehension." She laughed, a high, brittle sound. "I understood *nothing*."
Aylin guided her to a chair, pressing a glass of water into her shaking hands. "Tell me what happened."
"I was researching the symbol you showed me—the one from Demri's curse. I found references to it in texts I'd never fully translated before. Ancient Sumerian tablets. Medieval grimoires. Cave paintings that predate written language by millennia." Helena took a shaky sip of water. "The curse on Demri—it's not just a punishment. It's a key."
"A key to what?"
"To *everything*." Helena's eyes met Aylin's, haunted and terrified. "Do you know what exists beneath reality? Not beside it, like the celestial realms or the shadow dimensions. *Beneath* it. The foundation upon which all creation rests."
Aylin felt a chill trace down her spine. "No."
"Neither did I. Neither does anyone, really—not even the celestials, as far as I can tell. But the curse on Demri... it came from there. From the deep. And there are things in the deep that want it back."
Before Aylin could respond, the temperature in the room dropped precipitously. Her breath misted in the air, and frost began creeping across the windows in patterns that looked almost like screaming faces.
"They followed me," Helena whispered, terror stealing the strength from her voice. "God help us, they followed me."
---
The first of the Covenant to arrive was something that had once been human—Demri could sense the echo of mortal origin buried beneath layers of corruption and transformation. She emerged from the shadows like oil rising through water, her form simultaneously solid and liquid, her features beautiful in the way that deep-sea predators were beautiful: alien, dangerous, and utterly without mercy.
"Demri of the Fallen." Her voice resonated on frequencies that made the air itself vibrate. "The Betrayed One. The Cursed." A smile curved her too-red lips. "I am Thessaly, Voice of the Crimson Court. My mistress, the Undying Countess, sends her... curiosity."
More shapes materialized around the circle. A figure wrapped in bandages that smelled of ancient tombs, only his burning eyes visible through the wrappings. A creature that seemed to be made entirely of angles and edges, geometry given hunger. Twin children with black eyes and smiles full of needle-sharp teeth. Something that had too many limbs and not enough face.
*The Covenant of Ash,* the curse supplied helpfully. *Revenant nobility, a mummy lord, a creature from the mathematical void, changelings of the unseelie courts, and something I genuinely cannot identify and do not wish to examine more closely.*
"An impressive gathering," Demri said, keeping his voice steady. "I'm honored by your attention."
"You should be terrified," the mummy lord rasped, his voice like wind through dead reeds. "Do you know how many millennia it has been since one of the divine-touched sought audience with our kind? Since they came to us as supplicant rather than executioner?"
"I come as neither." Demri held his ground as several of the creatures edged closer to the circle's boundary. "I come as a potential ally."
The changeling twins giggled in unison, a sound like breaking glass. "Alliance," they sang together. "With the broken bird. The fallen star. The host of the hungry dark."
"They can sense it," Thessaly observed, circling Demri with predatory grace. "Your curse. It calls to our kind—a kindred hunger, a familiar corruption." She leaned close, inhaling deeply. "And yet... there's something else. Something warm. Something *pure*." Her eyes narrowed. "You've been touched by mortal love. How... quaint."
"Mock me all you wish." Demri refused to flinch as the geometry creature extended an appendage that hurt to look at directly. "But hear what I have to say. There is a threat coming—one that imperils all of us. Celestial, shadow, and everything between."
"Azarion." The mummy lord's burning eyes flickered. "Yes, we've heard whispers. The Architect of Divine Order, they call him now. He moves pieces on a board that spans dimensions, and he considers us... irrelevant. Remnants of older ages, to be swept away when he remakes creation."
"Then you understand why we must act."
"What I understand," Thessaly interrupted, "is that you—a broken celestial with a parasite eating your soul—have nothing to offer us. You want our aid against forces that dwarf even our combined strength, and in return, you provide... what? Good intentions? Passionate speeches?"
Demri smiled, and for the first time, let the curse's power rise visibly around him. Shadows deepened, reality flickered, and the sigils on the floor pulsed with hungry darkness.
"I offer you the curse itself."
Every creature in the warehouse went absolutely still.
"Explain," the geometry creature spoke for the first time, its voice a series of mathematical equations somehow translated into sound.
"The power that Azarion used to brand me—it didn't originate with him. He found it, stole it from somewhere in the deep foundations of reality. A fragment of primordial chaos bound into a weapon." Demri let the shadows dance around his fingers. "I've spent centuries learning to control it. To direct it. And I'm offering to use it on your behalf."
*What are you doing?* the curse demanded, genuinely alarmed. *This is insane. You're promising them access to—*
"I'm promising them partnership," Demri replied silently. "Not control. There's a difference."
*They won't see it that way!*
"Then they'll learn."
Thessaly's expression had shifted from contemptuous to calculating. "You would wield your curse as a weapon for the Covenant? Become our attack dog against celestial interference?"
"I would work *with* you toward a common goal—stopping Azarion and those who support him. Once that's done, our alliance ends. You return to your shadows, I attempt to reclaim something resembling a normal existence, and we stay out of each other's way."
"And if Azarion is defeated?" The mummy lord's voice carried ancient cunning. "If the celestial threat is eliminated? You would simply... retire? A being of your power?"
"Power doesn't interest me." Demri thought of Aylin, of her laugh and her courage and the way she looked at him like he was worth saving. "I've discovered there are more important things."
The creatures exchanged glances—those that had recognizable faces to glance with, at least. Demri could sense their calculation, their weighing of risks and benefits, their predatory assessment of whether he was prey or partner.
Finally, Thessaly spoke. "The Covenant requires time to deliberate. Your offer is... unprecedented. We will send word of our decision."
"How long?"
"As long as we require." She smiled, showing teeth that were slightly too long. "Patience, fallen one. In our experience, eternity tends to move rather slowly."
One by one, the creatures dissolved back into the shadows from which they'd emerged. Only Kael remained, stepping into the circle once the sigils had dimmed.
"That was either brilliant or suicidal," he said.
"Possibly both." Demri felt the tension drain from his muscles, exhaustion flooding in to replace it. "They're interested. I could feel it."
"Interested in using you, maybe. Interested in consuming you, definitely." Kael shook his head. "The Covenant doesn't form alliances, Demri. They form... arrangements. Temporary confluences of interest that last only until betrayal becomes more profitable than cooperation."
"Then I'll have to ensure cooperation remains profitable." Demri started toward the warehouse exit, suddenly desperate for fresh air—or what passed for fresh air in Millbrook's industrial district. "Besides, I don't need their loyalty. I need their distraction. While Azarion focuses on the shadows rising against him, I can—"
He stopped mid-step, a wave of wrongness washing over him. Something cold and ancient and terribly familiar.
*Oh no,* the curse whispered. *They've found her.*
---
The creature that materialized in Aylin's apartment wasn't like the shadow-kin she'd encountered before. Those had been dangerous but comprehensible—beings of darkness that fed on fear and doubt. This thing was something else entirely.
It looked like a person who'd been turned inside out and then reassembled by someone who'd only heard vague descriptions of human anatomy. Its limbs bent in directions that defied nature. Its face was a smooth expanse of pale flesh with no features except a mouth—a mouth that opened far too wide and contained far too many teeth.
"*Give us the woman,*" it said, its voice emerging from everywhere and nowhere. "*The scholar has what we seek. Give her to us, and we will leave you unchanged.*"
Aylin placed herself between the creature and Helena, her blessed poker raised. "I don't think so."
The thing tilted its head—an unsettling gesture when performed by something without eyes. "*You would die for one who is not even your kin? Curious. Inefficient.*" It took a step closer, and where its foot touched the floor, the wood rotted instantly to black powder. "*We are many. You are one. The mathematics are not in your favor.*"
"I've never been good at math." Aylin swung the poker in a wide arc as the creature lunged.
The blessed iron connected with the thing's torso, and it screamed—a sound that shattered every window in the apartment and sent cracks spiderwebbing across the walls. But it didn't fall. It barely even stumbled.
"*Iron,*" it observed, almost curiously. "*Blessed by a hedge-witch. Quaint.*" A limb shot out faster than sight, wrapped around the poker, and *pulled*.
Aylin found herself flying across the room, crashing into her bookshelf with force that drove the air from her lungs. Books rained down around her as she struggled to rise, her vision swimming.
"*Now,*" the creature said, turning toward Helena, "*the scholar will accompany us. She has touched knowledge that does not belong to mortalkind. She will show us where the key lies hidden, and then she will be... repurposed.*"
"No," Aylin gasped, forcing herself to her feet despite the pain screaming through her body. "You can't—"
The creature moved, its too-long arm reaching for Helena—
And stopped.
The temperature in the room, already cold, dropped to something beyond freezing. Shadows rushed in from every corner, every crack, every space where light didn't quite reach. They pooled on the floor like liquid darkness, rising higher and higher until they formed a shape.
A shape Aylin knew.
Demri emerged from the shadows like a nightmare given form. But not her nightmare—the creature's. His eyes blazed with power that belonged to something far older and darker than any celestial being. The curse marks on his skin writhed with visible hunger, and when he spoke, his voice carried harmonics that made reality shiver.
"**You dare.**"
The creature actually backed away, its eyeless face somehow conveying terror. "*The Cursed One. The Host of the Primordial Fragment. We did not know—we were not told—*"
"**You were told to leave this world alone.**" Demri moved forward, and with each step, the creature diminished—its form losing coherence, its substance literally evaporating beneath the weight of his attention. "**You were told that the mortal realm was under protection. Yet here you are, threatening what is mine.**"
"*The scholar possesses knowledge—*"
"**The scholar is under my protection. As is everyone in this room. Everyone in this city. Everyone and everything that I choose to shield.**" Demri reached out and placed his hand on the creature's head—if it could be called a head—and the thing *shrieked*. "**Go back to the deep places. Go back and tell your masters that Demri of the Fallen says this: the next emissary who crosses into my domain will not be sent back. There will be nothing left to send.**"
The creature dissolved, not into shadow but into *nothing*—erased so completely that even the memory of its presence began to fade from Aylin's mind.
Demri turned to face her, and for a moment, she saw something terrifying in his eyes. Something vast and hungry and utterly inhuman. Then he blinked, and it was just Demri again—Demri looking exhausted and worried and achingly relieved that she was alive.
"Aylin." His voice cracked. "Are you—"
She crossed the room in three steps and hit him.
Not a slap—a full punch, delivered with every ounce of strength she possessed, directly to his shoulder. "You *idiot*! You complete and utter *idiot*! You left me here thinking you were going to get yourself killed negotiating with shadow monsters, and then *different* monsters show up to attack me, and you think—"
He caught her fist before the second punch could land, pulling her into an embrace that silenced her tirade. She struggled for a moment, then gave up, pressing her face against his chest and feeling the rapid beat of whatever passed for a heart in his transformed body.
"I'm sorry," he murmured into her hair. "I thought you'd be safe. I didn't know—"
"Those things were after Helena." Aylin's voice was muffled against his shirt. "She found something. Something about your curse."
Demri went rigid. Slowly, he released Aylin and turned to face the scholar, who had pressed herself into a corner and was watching them both with wide, traumatized eyes.
"Dr. Reyes. What did you find?"
Helena's laugh bordered on hysteria. "Everything. Nothing. Answers that only lead to more questions." She pulled a crumpled paper from her pocket—notes, covered in frantic handwriting. "Your curse isn't just a curse, Demri. It's a fragment of something that existed before existence. Before light and dark, before the celestial realms, before anything had names or forms."
She handed him the paper with shaking hands. "The beings you encountered tonight—the creatures of the Covenant, the things from the deep—they can all sense it. They're drawn to it. And they're *afraid* of it. Because what lives inside you isn't just power. It's a piece of the original chaos from which all reality was carved."
Demri stared at the notes, his expression unreadable.
"Azarion didn't just curse you," Helena continued. "He gave you the key to unmake everything he's trying to build. The only question is... what are you going to do with it?"
The silence stretched for a long moment. Then Demri looked up, and in his eyes, Aylin saw something she hadn't expected.
Hope.
"I'm going to use it," he said quietly. "I'm going to use every scrap of power this curse provides, forge every alliance I can manage, and I'm going to tear down everything Azarion has built." He reached out and took Aylin's hand, his grip warm despite the supernatural cold that still lingered in the room. "But not alone. Never alone again."
Kael materialized from the shadows near the door, because apparently Aylin's apartment had become Grand Central Station for supernatural beings. "The Covenant's runners are already spreading word of your... demonstration. That creature you just destroyed? It served the Deep Lords—entities that even the Crimson Court fears. When they learn what you did..." He shook his head. "You've just declared war on forces that predate human conception of evil."
"Then we'd better start preparing." Demri didn't release Aylin's hand. If anything, his grip tightened. "Helena, I need everything you've discovered. Every scrap of information about the curse, about Azarion's plans, about the things stirring in the deep places."
"I'll compile what I can," Helena said, some of her scholarly composure returning now that the immediate threat had passed. "But my resources are limited. Most of my research materials were in my office, and after tonight, I doubt that's safe to return to."
"You'll stay with Nene Hazal." Demri's tone brooked no argument. "Her home is warded against intrusion by entities from any realm. You'll be safe there while you work."
"And me?" Aylin asked.
Demri looked at her, really looked, and she saw the conflict in his gaze—the desperate desire to protect her warring with the knowledge that she wouldn't stand for being sidelined. Not anymore.
"You," he said finally, "stay with me. Whatever comes next, we face it together."
Aylin smiled, and despite everything—the monsters, the cosmic threats, the terrifying powers swirling around them—she felt something she hadn't felt in a long time.
She felt ready.
---
In the hours before dawn, while Helena made her way to Nene Hazal's sanctuary and Kael disappeared to spread word among the shadow-kin, Demri and Aylin sat together on her fire escape. The city sprawled beneath them, ignorant of the forces gathering in its shadows.
"You terrified me tonight," Aylin said quietly. "When you appeared in that... form. With those eyes."
"I terrified myself." Demri stared at his hands, still faintly marked with the curse's dark patterns. "The power the curse offers—it's intoxicating. And every time I use it, I feel myself changing. Becoming something less like what I was and more like... something else."
"Something bad?"
"Something powerful." He turned to face her. "The difference matters, I think. Power isn't inherently evil. It's what you do with it that matters."
Aylin reached out and traced the curse marks on his forearm—dark lines that pulsed faintly at her touch, but didn't recoil. "The thing inside you. The curse. It spoke to me once. Did I ever tell you that?"
Demri went still. "No."
"It was during the fight at the church. When I thought you were losing yourself, when the shadows were consuming everything around us." She continued tracing the marks, remembering. "It reached out. Touched my mind. Just for a moment."
"What did it say?"
"It said..." Aylin paused, choosing her words carefully. "It said that you were worth saving. That it had lived inside countless hosts over millennia, and you were the first one who ever made it feel... curious. About what redemption might look like from the inside."
Demri was silent for a long moment. Then, so quietly she almost missed it: "The curse said that?"
"In its own way." Aylin smiled. "It's got a somewhat twisted sense of communication. But yes. Whatever that thing is—whatever primordial chaos fragment lives inside you—it's not just along for the ride anymore. It's choosing to be here. Choosing to be part of whatever you're becoming."
*She's perceptive,* the curse observed, and its voice carried a grudging respect. *More perceptive than I'd like.*
"It's listening right now, isn't it?" Aylin asked.
"Always." Demri allowed himself a small smile. "It says you're perceptive. Annoyingly so."
"Tell it I say thank you." She leaned against his shoulder, feeling the supernatural cold that always lingered around him now—but also the warmth beneath it, the essential *Demri-ness* that no amount of cosmic corruption could fully extinguish. "And tell it that if it ever lets anything happen to you, I'll find a way to make it regret existing."
*I believe her,* the curse said, and for the first time since it had bonded with him, Demri detected something like nervousness in its tone.
"It believes you," Demri reported. "I think you might be the first mortal to ever successfully intimidate a primordial entity."
"Good." Aylin closed her eyes, exhaustion finally catching up with her. "That's exactly how I like my cosmic horrors. Appropriately terrified."
They sat together as the sky lightened, as the first rays of sun crept over Millbrook's skyline, painting the clouds in shades of gold and rose. Somewhere out there, ancient beings deliberated on whether to join Demri's cause. Somewhere, creatures from the deep places nursed their wounds and planned retaliation. Somewhere, Azarion moved pieces on a cosmic chessboard, confident in his eventual victory.
But here, on this fire escape, Demri held onto the woman who had somehow become his entire world, and he felt something he hadn't experienced in centuries.
He felt like maybe, just maybe, there was a way out of the darkness.
Not around it. Not over it. *Through* it—fighting every step of the way, with allies at his side and love in his heart and a primordial curse that was slowly learning what it meant to be more than just destruction.
"Dark alliances," he murmured.
"Hmm?" Aylin's voice was sleepy, half-unconscious.
"It's what tonight was supposed to be about. Forming dark alliances with shadow creatures and ancient monsters." He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. "But I think the most important alliance I've made is still the one with you."
"Flatterer," she mumbled, but he could hear the smile in her voice. "Wake me when the apocalypse starts."
"I'll make sure to pencil it in."
And despite everything—the threats gathering on every horizon, the impossible odds they faced, the very real possibility that tomorrow might bring their end—Demri found himself smiling too.
Because he wasn't alone anymore.
And that, more than any cosmic power or ancient ally, was what made him believe they might actually win.