The clock struck 10:50 PM. In the city of Ashburg, the shadows were lengthening, turning into jagged claws that gripped the throats of the unsuspecting. Rayn sat in a plush armchair, his white hair shimmering under the dim light of a flickering lamp. He wasn't in his office. He wasn't in the safehouse. He was sitting in a room that smelled of lavender and old paper—a room that belonged to a man who was currently screaming for his life miles away.
Beside him, Vespera was lounging on a velvet sofa, her obsidian wings tucked neatly behind her back, but her eyes—those predatory golden slits—were fixed on the Owl-Shaped Jade Artifact sitting on the coffee table. The artifact pulsed with a sickly green light, vibrating with the audio transmission from the shipyard.
"Is it done, Victus?" Rayn asked, his voice a calm, chilling whisper that seemed to suck the warmth out of the room.
On the other end, the sound of heavy boots splashing in thick, viscous liquid echoed. It was the sound of blood. Gallons of it. Victus sounded like a beast that had just finished a feast. "The bastard is a cockroach, Rayn. My hands are flooded with his filth. The Division 1 boys are standing around him, watching the light fade from his eyes. He's done."
But then, a wet, hacking cough broke through the transmission. A voice, ragged and filled with the metallic tang of a punctured lung, erupted from the jade. Venric.
"You... you back-stabbing... sons of bitches..." Venric wheezed, the sound of bone scraping against bone audible as he tried to push himself off the floor. "If there is... another life... I'm coming for you. I'll crawl out of the deepest pit of the Void... to rip your goddamn hearts out. And Rayn... you bastard... you're first."
Rayn's reaction was a slow, terrifyingly beautiful laugh. It wasn't a laugh of amusement; it was the sound of a god watching an ant try to threaten a mountain. The sound traveled through the artifact, echoing in the cold shipyard where Venric lay broken.
"Victus," Rayn said, his voice dropping an octave. "I thought I told you to complete him. Why is the trash still talking?"
There was a stunned silence on Victus's end. He had truly thought Venric was dead. To hear the man speak was a slap to his ego. "Rayn... wait a fucking minute. I'm going to rip his heart out of his chest and show it to him before he dies."
"Do it," Rayn replied, his red eyes glowing with a manic intensity. "And do it accurately. If that cockroach shows up at the election tomorrow to confront us, I won't just kill you, Victus—I'll peel the skin off your body inch by inch while you're still breathing. Hang on... don't kill him yet. I want to hear the moment his hope dies."
At the shipyard, Victus grabbed Venric by the hair, dragging his half-shredded body toward the jade artifact. He slammed Venric's face against the cold stone floor, right next to the pulsing owl. Venric looked up, his face a mask of gore, and spat a glob of blood directly onto the jade.
Victus roared in rage, lifting his massive sword. "You think you're a hero, you little shit? You're a fucking corpse!"
"Wait," Rayn's voice crackled through the artifact. "Victus, he's still smiling. I can hear the defiance in his breathing. I don't like that. My ego doesn't allow a dying man to feel superior. Put the artifact closer to his ear. I'm going to make him beg for the afterlife."
Victus hesitated, then lowered his sword. He picked up the jade owl and shoved it against Venric's ear, pinning his head down with a heavy boot.
"Venric, you pathetic, weak-willed cunt," Rayn whispered. "How are you? Are you ready to meet the void? Or are you still clinging to the idea that Freddy is your savior? Freddy is a fool, and you're the dog that died for his dinner."
"You... you motherfucker," Venric hissed, his voice bubbling with blood. "You don't have the guts to face me. You use a sick bastard like Victus because you're a coward. You're afraid of what we stand for!"
"Guts?" Rayn laughed, and the sound was like glass breaking. "I could have ended your entire team in a blink. I worked with you because you had utility. But now? You're a burden. You're weak, Venric. And the world has no room for weak bastards who think 'loyalty' is a shield. It's a noose."
"Go to hell," Venric spat. "If God gives me one more chance..."
"There is no second chance for a failure like you," Rayn interrupted. "But since you're so fond of your family, I thought I'd let you hear something before you go. Something to make your journey to hell a bit more... personal."
Rayn stood up from the armchair. He walked across the room, his boots silent on the carpet. He reached the corner of the room where a 15-year-old girl was huddled, her eyes wide with a terror so deep she couldn't even scream. Her mother lay a few feet away, her neck shredded into a mess of red ribbons—Vespera's handiwork.
"Say hello to your father, Rebecca," Rayn said, holding the artifact out.
The girl let out a piercing, blood-curdling shriek. "DAD! DADDY, PLEASE SAVE ME! They killed Mom! The lady with the wings... she tore Mom's throat out! Daddy, please come home! They're going to kill me! DADDY!"
On the other end of the line, the shipyard went deathly quiet. Then, a sound erupted from Venric that wasn't human. It was the scream of a man whose soul had just been incinerated. "REBECCA?! NO! RAYN, YOU DEMON! YOU FILTHY, GODLESS MOTHERFUCKER! SHE'S JUST A CHILD! LEAVE HER OUT OF THIS! KILL ME! DO WHATEVER YOU WANT TO ME, BUT LET HER GO!"
Rayn's face was a mask of cold stone. "This is the sound I wanted to hear, Venric. The sound of a 'hero' realizing he can't protect anything."
Rayn summoned his Conqueror's Sword. The air in the room crackled as a blade of obsidian, wreathed in violent crimson thunder, materialized in his hand. The lightning hissed, illuminating the girl's terrified face.
"DADDY! SAVE ME—"
Rayn didn't hesitate. With a single, brutal downward stroke, the crimson thunder roared. The blade cut through Rebecca's head, splitting her skull down through her torso with a sickening squelch of bone and brain matter. Blood sprayed across the room, coating the walls, the furniture, and Rayn's own face in a warm, iron-scented mist. Her body fell apart in two jagged halves at his feet.
"There," Rayn said, wiping a drop of the girl's blood from his lip. "Now, when you get to the afterlife, your family will be there to welcome you. They'll tell you exactly how much of a failure you were. They'll talk about me for eternity."
Venric's voice on the other end was gone. It was just a hollow, guttural sob. "I'll kill you... I'll kill you... I'll..."
SHINK.
The sound of a heavy blade meeting a neck ended the transmission. Victus had beheaded him.
Victus picked up the artifact. "He's gone, Rayn. The head is ten feet away from the body. What now?"
Rayn looked down at the ruin of the girl at his feet. "Vespera, leave the mother and the daughter here. Don't clean a single drop of blood. We're going to use these corpses to 'frame' Freddy's desperation tomorrow. Now, Victus... meet me at the Blue Stone building. Arrive in 30 minutes. We have the rest of the rats to catch."
"I'll be there in ten," Victus replied.
Rayn and Vespera changed their blood-soaked clothes with the casual indifference of people changing for dinner. They stepped out of the house of death and vanished into the night.
Ten minutes later, they stood outside a high-end apartment building. Victus and ten of his most brutal Division 1 soldiers were waiting in the shadows. Rayn pointed to a second-story window that had been left open.
"Enter. No survivors unless I say so," Rayn commanded.
They slipped through the window like shadows. The apartment was expensive, filled with the scent of high-grade incense. They moved toward the master bedroom and kicked the door open.
On the bed, two figures were tangled together in a deep sleep. They were completely nude, their bodies entwined in a way that left nothing to the imagination. As the light hit them, they bolted upright.
It was Catherine and Benny.
Vespera tilted her head, a look of pure disgust crossing her face. "Rayn... didn't she tell the team they were blood-related siblings? This is... revolting. Even for a human."
Rayn let out a low, mocking chuckle. "Incest. The ultimate secret of the 'pure' heroes. It doesn't matter right now, Vespera. Degeneracy is just another tool for us to use."
Before Catherine could scream, Rayn was on her. He slammed a cloth soaked in Unconscious Scent over her face. Benny tried to reach for a knife on the nightstand, but Victus's hand, the size of a dinner plate, crushed Benny's face into the pillow, knocking him senseless.
When Catherine woke up, she was suspended from a hook in a cold, damp basement. Her arms were stretched above her head, bound by Gnosis-suppressing chains. She looked to her left and saw Benny. He was tied to a chair, his face a purple, swollen mass of bruises. He was conscious, his eyes wide with agony.
"Benny!" she shrieked.
"He can't talk back yet, Catherine," Rayn said, stepping out of the darkness. He was holding a small, serrated knife. Victus stood behind him, looking like a gargoyle carved from shadow.
"You... you bastard," Catherine spat, blood dripping from her lip. "You're working with him? After we trusted you? We were a team!"
Rayn didn't even look at her. He grabbed Benny's hand, spreading the fingers out on the arm of the chair.
"Trust is a currency for the poor, Catherine," Rayn said.
With a sudden, violent jerk, he drove the knife through Benny's pinky finger, sawing through the bone with a rhythmic skritch-skritch-skritch. Benny let out a high-pitched, gargling scream that echoed off the concrete walls. He thrashed in the chair, but Victus held him still.
"STOP! PLEASE, STOP IT!" Catherine screamed, her body convulsing in the chains. "WHAT DO YOU WANT?!"
Rayn tossed the severed finger onto the floor and knelt in front of her, the bloody knife resting against her throat.
"I want the truth, Catherine. And I want your absolute obedience," Rayn whispered, his red eyes boring into hers. "Venric is dead. His wife and daughter are dead. Freddy is a dead man walking. You and your... 'brother'... are the only ones left. I can take him apart piece by piece while you watch, or you can join us. You will help Victus win the election. You will testify that Freddy ordered the hits. You will be my puppets."
Rayn's smile was the last thing she saw before the darkness of despair took her. "Choose wisely, Catherine. Or I'll start on his other hand."