CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Solomon Vance's words hung in the dusty, kerosene-scented air of the safe house. Prove you're willing to use it. They weren't a question. They were a test, and I was already failing.
The metal box on his desk seemed to absorb the dim light. It was old, pitted with rust and scarred with symbols that looked less like writing and more like cracks in reality itself. This was the Anchor. The key to saving my daughter by damning someone else's. The weight of it was already crushing me, and I hadn't even touched it yet.
Alex stood by the door, a silent, armed shadow. Her presence was a constant cold pressure. This was no longer my private, crumbling hell. It had been militarized. My damnation was now a tactical objective.
"How?" I asked, my voice a dry rasp. The wound in my side gave a sympathetic throb. "How do I prove it?"
Vance didn't look at me. His gaze, weary and ancient, was locked on the box as if he could see the screams trapped inside. "The Anchor isn't a weapon you fire. It's a lure you set. It calls to the Archon, makes a new bloodline… appetizing. But to activate it, it needs a spark. A taste of the specific sin you're about to commit."
He finally lifted his eyes. They were the color of a dead sky. Looking into them was like staring into the quiet at the end of the world.
"It needs you to choose them."
The air left my lungs. "What does that mean?" I already knew. I just needed to hear him say it.
"It means you don't get to stumble upon a family, David. You don't get the luxury of chance. You have to pick one. Know their names. See their faces. You have to stand in the shadows and consciously select who will be your sacrifice. The Anchor feeds on that specific, premeditated intent. That conscious damnation."
This was a new level of hell. I was a killer. I knew the hot rush of the knife, the messy, intimate act of it. This was different. This was cold. Administrative. I had to go from a killer of the guilty to a shepherd leading the innocent to slaughter. I was no longer just a monster; I was a real estate agent for the apocalypse.
"You're asking me to pick a family to die," I said, the words like broken glass in my throat.
"I'm stating the non-negotiable price of saving your little girl," Vance corrected, his voice devoid of any emotion warmer than frost. "The Archon is woven into you now. It responds to your intent. A random act of violence won't work. It has to be a choice. Your choice. The more you know about them, the brighter the Anchor will burn for the Quiet Man."
I looked to Alex, seeking some flicker of protest. Her face was a mask of cold pragmatism. She had made her bargain. The cost was irrelevant. Only the containment mattered.
"How do I find them?" I whispered, the question itself a confession.
Vance slid a small, battered tablet computer across the desk. The screen was a spiderweb of cracks, but it glowed to life, showing a jittery live news feed. "The world is tearing itself apart. People are terrified. And terrified people do stupid things. They look for saviors. They flock to promised safe zones."
The screen showed a reporter, her makeup streaked with sweat, standing in front of a large community center on the other side of the city. A handmade banner behind her flapped in the wind: SANCTUARY OPEN - ALL ARE WELCOME. The camera panned over the crowd. Dozens of people, maybe hundreds. Families huddled together on the cold ground. A mother rocked a crying baby. A father tried to shield his two young kids from the camera, his face a rigid mask of forced courage.
"They're gathering the sheep for the wolf," Vance said, his voice a low rasp. "The Archon will be drawn to that much collective fear and desperation. It's a buffet of negative emotion. The military will see a hotspot to control. The Disciples will see a congregation to recruit. It's the perfect storm. And in the eye of that storm, you will find your family."
He tapped a bony, yellowed finger on the cold metal of the box. "You just need to touch this to one of them. A brush of skin against skin is all it takes. It forges the link. The Anchor does the rest. It makes their bloodline shine in the Archon's perception, a bright, helpless beacon in the dark."
I stared at the screen, my eyes locking onto a young boy, no older than Lily had been. He was clinging to his mother's leg, his face buried in her coat. He was real. He had a name. He had a favorite toy, a food he hated, a nightmare that made him crawl into his parents' bed. And I had to pick him. Or someone just like him.
"What happens after I… choose?" I asked, my hand trembling at my side.
"Then you go to St. Jude's," Vance said, as if reading from a manual. "You prepare the ground. The redirection ritual requires the sacrifice to be present at the epicenter. You bring your daughter there. You offer your willing death. Your act of pure love starves the Archon, repulses it for a single, critical moment. And in that moment of rejection, it will leap to the new, shinier, more vulnerable chain you've so kindly provided."
He made it sound so clean. Like a corporate takeover of a soul.
"And what happens to the family?" Alex asked from the doorway, her voice devoid of any inflection that might betray an opinion.
Vance looked at her, then his dead-eyed gaze swung back to me. "The same thing that happened to yours. Only faster. The corruption won't be a slow, creeping rot over years. The Archon is stronger now, fattened on your wife's blood. It will be… efficient."
Efficient. The word was a final, brutal nail hammered into the coffin of my humanity.
I reached out a hand that felt like it belonged to someone else. My fingers closed around the Anchor. It was shockingly cold, a deep, soul-sucking chill that seemed to leach the warmth directly from my bones. It was far heavier than its size suggested, as if it contained the density of a collapsing star.
"The world or your soul, David," Vance rasped, a faint, grim smile touching his cracked lips for the first time. "That's always been the only real choice. You were just too blind, too arrogant, to see it."
I tucked the Anchor inside my jacket, into the inner pocket. The cold metal burned against my chest, right over my heart. The weight of it made me stand crooked.
"We move at nightfall," Alex said, pushing off from the doorframe. The decision was made. The mission was a go. "I'll secure a vehicle. You… prepare yourself."
She left without another word, the door clicking shut behind her, leaving me alone in the oppressive silence with the old man and the terrible, frozen weight in my coat.
"She doesn't trust you," Vance stated, not looking up from his cluttered desk.
"I don't trust myself," I admitted, the truest words I'd spoken in weeks.
"Good," he grunted. "That's the first smart thing you've said since you walked in here." He leaned back in his chair, the old wood groaning in protest. "The Original, Elijah… he started just like you. Convinced he was special. He thought he could outsmart the dark, could channel it, use it. In the end, it wore him like a cheap suit. Don't for a second think you're the hero of this story, son. You're not even a tragic villain. You're just the next chapter in a very old, very sad book."
I walked out of the safe house, the Anchor a brand of ice against my ribs. The sky outside was the same sickly purple-grey, the air humming with that now-familiar wrongness. It was louder now, a constant, low-grade headache for the world.
Somewhere out there, in the gathering dusk, a family was having the worst day of their life. They were scared, they were desperate, they were praying for a miracle, for a sign, for any shred of safety in the unraveling world.
And I was their answer. I was the answer to a prayer no one should ever have to pray.