The trail had gone cold before it even began. Darion stood in the center of the yard, the silence of the soldiers pressing in on him like a physical weight. He searched the faces, the shadows, the very cracks in the cobblestones, but the compound refused to give up its secrets.
In his mind, he dismissed the local dregs of Fluxton instantly. Interrogating the townsfolk would be a waste of breath and knuckles; they were a broken, shivering lot who lacked the malum to even strike a match, let alone infiltrate the Abyssal stronghold. To step into this compound unannounced, to bypass the elite vanguards and reduce a man like Savier to a husk—that required a level of power that didn't just walk the streets in rags.
Darion's eyes swept the outer compound one last time. Nothing made sense. The world felt thin, as if the reality he understood was being peeled back to reveal something much older and much hungrier.
"Interrogations are finished," Darion announced, his voice carrying the finality of a slamming tomb door. The soldiers didn't move, their gazes fixed on the dirt. "But hear me well. From this moment, no one—not a single soul in this gang—lets their guard down. You will watch the shadows. You will watch each other. Until Savier's killer is found, there is no sleep that isn't earned by blood."
The soldiers stiffened. They knew Raphael held the leash of the Mark, but they also knew Darion's fists. Raphael might burn their souls, but Darion would break their bodies long before they reached the afterlife.
Without another word, Darion turned his back on them. He walked toward the estate, his heavy cloak snapping behind him like the wings of a scavenger bird.
As the heavy doors clicked shut, the tension in the compound broke, replaced by a frantic, low-velocity chatter. The soldiers huddled in small groups, their eyes darting toward the shriveled remains of their comrade.
"It's happening again," John whispered, his hand white-knuckled around the hilt of his axe. "The way he looks... it's like those things from the Night of Crimson. Maybe the Shadow Fiends never left. Maybe they're just waiting in the dark."
"Shut your mouth, John!" Jarul barked, his voice cracking with a rare edge of panic. He gingerly touched his back, where his spine was still knitting itself together with a dull, throbbing heat. "Do not speak of them so carelessly. If the Moonlight Army hadn't intervened back then, there wouldn't be a stone left of this town, let alone a neck for you to talk through."
Hemlock stood apart from the others, his eyes locked on Savier's corpse. He felt a cold, hollow sensation in his gut. They had been rivals—two blades sharpened against one another in the dark—but there had been a professional respect in their enmity. To see a man he had traded blows with only a day ago reduced to a dry, leathery shell was a sobering sight.
It was a grim reminder that his status as a vanguard meant nothing. Under the decree of the Night brothers, they were all supposedly safe, protected by the hierarchy and the Mark. But now, an unknown threat moved through the compound like a ghost, indifferent to their ranks or their deity.
The other soldiers felt it too—a collective shiver that bypassed their armor. Darion's order wasn't just a command anymore; it was a prayer for survival. Until this silent reaper was found, the Abyssal Gang was no longer the predator. They were the prey.
The heavy oak doors of the estate muffled the sounds of the panicked compound, but they could not drown out the storm brewing in Darion's chest. He exhaled a long, jagged breath that whistled through his teeth, his jaw set so tight the bone ached. He didn't linger in the hallway. He moved with purpose, his boots thudding against the plush carpets until he stood before the ornate entrance to the primary chambers.
He knocked—a sharp, rhythmic strike. At the sound of a low, cold permission from within, Darion pushed the doors open and stepped into the dim, amber-lit room.
Raphael was a silhouette of calculated power. He sat ensconced in a high-backed velvet chair, slowly swirling a glass of bioluminescent blood. The liquid cast a rhythmic, ghostly blue glow against his pale features. He didn't look up immediately; he simply stared into the swirling vortex of the glass as if he had been expecting his brother's arrival to the very second.
"Leads?" Raphael asked, his voice a smooth blade.
Darion bowed his head, the weight of his failure heavy on his shoulders. "None, Brother. The trail is cold. The compound was... asleep."
A low, dangerous sneer curled Raphael's lip.
He didn't blame Darion—he knew his brother's capacity for violence was matched only by his loyalty—but the frustration was a living thing. His grip tightened. The fine glassware groaned, spiderweb cracks blooming beneath his fingers as he let out a low, animal growl.
The door creaked again. Jay stepped into the room, his movements still slightly stiff but his eyes clear. He bowed deeply to Raphael before taking his place beside Darion. Seeing Jay nearly restored to his full strength cooled Raphael's temper, if only by a fraction.
"Thirty-seven," Raphael murmured, staring at the cracked glass. "The Devil's Flames took two at the border. Now Savier. We are thirty-seven, not counting the three of us."
It was a significant force—a pack of wolves bound by the Mark and a warped, terrifying adoration for their leader. Raphael had considered bolstering his numbers with the remnants of the Devil's Flames, but the thought left a bitter taste in his mouth. Like Darion, he didn't trust the absolute nature of the Mark when it came to those who hadn't been forged in the gang's original fire.
Intuition, sharp as a needle, warned him that bringing traitors into the fold now would be like inviting a rot into the bone.
The room fell into a suffocating silence as Raphael took a slow, deliberate sip of the glowing blood. He set the cup down on a side table and turned his gaze toward Jay.
Jay flinched. A visible tremor ran through his hands as he remembered the agonizing weight of the punishment Raphael had dealt him for his recklessness with Ezekiel.
"I am... deeply sorry, Brother," Jay whispered, his voice trembling. "I let my bloodlust override your command. It will not happen again."
Raphael heaved a deep, weary sigh. He leaned forward, his eyes boring into Jay's soul with an intensity that seemed to strip away his skin. Slowly, Raphael reached into his tunic and pulled out a pendant—a tarnished silver locket that caught the dim light.
"Do you see this?" Raphael asked, holding the image of their late mother toward them. "She would not be pleased by this discord. She didn't give her life to save us from Levi and the pillars of the Dark Kings just so we could tear each other apart."
The names echoed in the room like ghosts. They had slaughtered all five pillars and the supreme leader of the Dark Kings to claim this town. They had stood over the corpses and promised to be a unified front. A family.
Raphael's gaze shifted to Darion. "And you, Darion. You broke that promise first. You claimed a debt of a hundred lives during the Rumbling and took over a hundred instead. You let your grief for Rachel turn you into a butcher, disregarding the laws I set to keep this wretched town viable."
He stood up, pacing the rug. "The census before the last tribute put the population at sixteen hundred. But between the Moonlight Army's taxes, our collections, and your 'Rumbling,' that number is a lie. The herd is dying faster than they can breed, and now we have a ghost husking our best men in the night."
He stopped, looking at both of his brothers. "You are both breaking the promise. You are letting your personal desires rot the foundation of what we built."
Darion and Jay bowed their heads in genuine shame. There was no defense to be made. They had both allowed their impulses to fracture the unity that had kept them alive since the days of their mother's sacrifice. In the cold, quiet chambers of the estate, the Night brothers stood not as conquerors, but as a family realizing that the walls were finally starting to close in.