CHAPTER 10
Everyone at the foster home felt it. Even the Six paused mid-motion, sensing a force that churned the air itself. Ms. Ren's face had gone cold, her usually controlled demeanor replaced with something lethal, her eyes sharp and piercing—as if she had glimpsed an enemy worthy of assassination. She stared at Reagan as he approached the desk where Ms. Evelyn sat, the alias "Octavia Hall" barely concealing the storm beneath her composed surface.
Their presences collided. Unseen, unrestrained, and unnatural, the force reverberated all the way down to the underground training facility.
[AT THE UNDERGROUND FACILITY...]
The tremblings had passed, but their echoes lingered in the Six's bones. Even hours later, the faint hum of unnatural energy seemed to cling to the walls of the underground training facility. Draco, Lupus, Norma, Orion, Cygnus, and Corvus felt it, a pull toward the surface that set every instinct on edge.
Something was happening above, something deliberate—and dangerous.
They moved instinctively toward the stairwell, but two figures blocked the way. Nayeli and Calista, guardians assigned to supervise them, stood like sentinels, arms crossed and faces unreadable.
"Where do you think you're going?" Nayeli's tone was neutral, but it carried the weight of authority.
Calista's gaze met theirs, equally unwavering. "Nothing for you to worry about. Just an earthquake," she said, the lie rolling off her tongue too smoothly.
The Six exchanged glances. They had been trained to read deception in a heartbeat, and this excuse was thin as mist. Still, they held their ground, but a quiet frustration simmered beneath.
Minutes crawled by. Tremblings ceased. The guardians finally allowed them to leave the facility, but no explanations were offered.
The foster home above ground buzzed with unusual activity. The four guardians moved with feverish precision, preparing a feast so elaborate it could have hosted royalty.
Twelve children scurried around, setting long tables, placing silverware, arranging candles. Every gesture, every careful placement, suggested ceremony.
And yet, one presence was missing. Ms. Evelyn—their "big sister," the iron hand beneath the velvet glove—was gone. No warning, no word, just an absence that stretched across the halls like a shadow.
Opportunity whispered to the Six. Windows, unlatched. The night, dark and cold, waited. Ritual items packed, katanas ready, they poised themselves.
Draco's eyes flicked over the items, heart hammering with anticipation. "Now," he urged, voice low and insistent, "before anyone notices. Before the moment slips away."
Norma's hand rested on the edge of the table, eyes scanning the pieces with careful calculation. "Rituals aren't rushed. We do this wrong, even a little, and it fails. And if we leave before the proper hour… the consequences could be catastrophic."
Draco hesitated, then nodded.
"Commitment," he said quietly, "is part of the pact."
They approached the window, movements silent. The night air pressed against their skin, cold and electric. Then a small, familiar voice cut through the tense silence.
"Haru?" Draco whispered, a flicker of relief softening the tension in his chest and the other as well.
Haru's eyes shone with excitement and worry."I've been searching everywhere for you guys" she see them trying to escape through the window "where you all going?"
The Six exchanged glances. Smiles were fleeting, eyes grave. Secrets had always been their currency, and Haru's innocence would not be compromised. They reassured her, promises whispered and soft, and with her reluctant blessing, slipped into the night.
The woods greeted them like a living thing. Wind sliced through the branches, leaves trembling like silent warnings. The Six moved with precision, weaving between trees, leaping over roots, swinging from limbs with athletic grace that would have seemed impossible to any untrained observer. Each step, each motion, a dance honed by years of rigorous training. The abandoned house they sought lay just ahead, shrouded in shadow and bathed in the dim, reddish light of the rising full moon.
They paused.
The house stood dark and silent, an eerie sentinel in the night. Cold wind swept across its decaying façade, carrying with it the faint scent of rot and earth. They readied themselves, katanas in hand, and stepped inside.
The interior mirrored the exterior: dilapidated, creaking, alive with the echoes of unseen vermin fleeing the disturbance. Each footstep left reverberating echoes, the floorboards groaning under their weight. The living room, chosen as the ritual site, held a strange stillness, a tension that seemed to pulse in the shadows.
Ashes were traced along the floor in a hexagon-like shape, wide enough for six, their angles marked and reinforced with katanas planted into the wood. At each connecting point, black candles were positioned, their flames flickering weakly in the draft. The original parchment from the mysterious parcel was laid in the center.
Each of them drew a small cut on their hands, letting blood drip onto the parchment. It was fragile, meticulous work, the kind that demanded unwavering focus.
Any error could nullify the ritual entirely. Draco's eyes glimmered with quiet certainty; he believed, without doubt, that they were the vessels destined to carry it through. The others, however, carried whispers of doubt, shadows of hesitation threading through their movements.
The final chant began. One voice, then another, measured and deliberate. Latin words flowed in unison, synchronizing breath and heartbeat, body and soul. Initially, nothing seemed to happen. But the air thickened. Cold seeped into their bones. The flames shivered, threatening to extinguish.
And then the house responded. Walls trembled, dust falling like rain. The floor quivered, as if the building itself were struggling to contain the ritual's power. Outside, the forest seemed to hold its breath. The wind howled, carrying the sound of whispered incantations beyond the house. The temperature dropped further, a bone-deep chill crawling across their skin.
Yet the Six continued, chanting as one, unwavering. Each syllable a step closer to truth, to revelation, to the awakening of something that had been set in motion the day they were born. Their hearts were steady, their minds aligned. One thought, one breath, one body, one soul.
The ritual had begun—and there was no turning back.
Outside, the night sky, once a canvas of stars and calm, began to twist into something unnatural. Dark, musky clouds swirled with unnatural speed, racing across the city like rivers of shadow. Lightning tore through the sky in sharp, jagged arcs, each strike a warning, a promise of impending calamity. The moon vanished behind the swirling tempest, leaving only a dim, crimson glow filtering through the twisted canopy of the woods. Trees bent and danced in the wind, their limbs casting long, distorted shadows that seemed to reach toward the abandoned building where the Six chanted.
Inside, the Six had long lost control. Their bodies, once precise instruments of balance and motion, now defied gravity in ways that should have been impossible. Leaning backward at angles no human form should withstand, their eyes glowed pale white, lifeless yet piercing, fixed on the ceiling as if watching something only they could perceive. The ancient Latin chants that had begun with clarity now twisted into a language unknown, flowing from lips they no longer controlled.
They were no longer themselves. They were vessels—willing or unwilling, it no longer mattered—for a force that should never have been called into the world the second time.
The room shivered under the unnatural presence, and the candles flickered violently, their flames bending toward the center of the hexagon, where the parchment now burned with a black, flickering flame that seemed to devour the light around it.
Meanwhile, elsewhere, the storm's influence spread. Reagan walked through the park, the distant city lights barely piercing the darkness. He held a phone to his ear, voice low, distracted by a conversation he barely registered. But instinct, honed over years of tracking threats and sensing presence, tugged at his awareness. The air shifted—a subtle but unmistakable disturbance—and his eyes flicked to the sky.
What had been a clear night moments ago was now a rolling expanse of black clouds, stretching unnaturally across the horizon.
The wind whispered through the trees, carrying a chill that cut deeper than winter. A flash of lightning tore across the sky behind him, thunder following in a roar that made the ground beneath his feet tremble.
Reagan's steps slowed, each one deliberate, his hand gradually lowering the phone. His instincts screamed. Someone—or something—was behind him. He didn't turn immediately; he didn't need to. The presence was familiar, deliberate, impossible to ignore. It had appeared with the lightning, sudden and silent, a shadow that should not exist.
"So then…" he said, voice calm but edged with steel, "I take it the tea wasn't free?"
The lightning flashed again, illuminating the figure in full. A dark mask, shaped like a demon with twin horns, gleamed ominously. The figure's physique was lithe, feminine, yet the lines of the body were precise, deliberate. And beneath the mask… something about the stance, the way they carried themselves, stirred recognition deep in Reagan's memory. The wind picked up, whipping around him, carrying the faint scent of iron and smoke, signaling a night that would soon be stained with blood.
Reagan's hand hovered near his coat, where a weapon or tool might rest, but he did not move hastily. He assessed, calculated, and readied himself. Every instinct screamed caution, yet familiarity gnawed at him. He had faced danger before, but this—this presence—felt like it had been waiting for him, as if the night itself had conspired to bring them here.
The storm above the city raged in tandem with the ritual below, dark clouds mirrored by dark forces unleashed within the abandoned house. The night, once ordinary, had become a battlefield, and the Six, unconscious or not, were now at its very heart.
Reagan exhaled slowly, his mind already running through possibilities. He didn't flinch, didn't betray his anticipation. The figure before him waited, silent, a challenge made flesh. And the night seemed to hold its breath.