---
The silence that followed the psychic backfire was heavier than the one that had preceded it. The violet light from the shattered moon still painted the library in sickly hues, but the pulsating rhythm of the assault had ceased. The psychic riptide was gone, leaving behind a hollow, ringing stillness in Jack's mind, like the aftermath of a deafening explosion.
Lissa sagged against him, her breath coming in ragged, wet gasps. She was trembling, but it was the tremor of immense exertion, not terror. A thin trickle of blood had seeped from her nose. Jack held her upright, his own body thrumming with residual energy and a profound, unsettling awe. He had given her a live wire of apocalyptic power. She hadn't just held it; she had played it like a virtuoso.
"Report," Elsa's voice cut through the silence, sharp and professional, but beneath it was a thread of disbelief. She was still holding the bone-white dampener disc, its silver glow now dim and inert.
"The connection is severed. For now," Jack said, his voice rough. He helped Lissa to a chair. "They were using the ritual to find me, to pull me in. Lissa found a weakness in their network and… amplified it."
Morbius was at Lissa's side in an instant, his medical kit already open. His fingers, cold and precise, checked her pulse, her pupils. "Psychic feedback strain. Minor vascular rupture in the nasal passages. The human brain is not meant to interface with a directed global consciousness, even for a moment." He looked from Lissa's pale face to Jack's. "What you did was… insanely risky. You could have burned her mind out."
"It was burning out anyway," Lissa whispered, accepting a cloth from Morbius to dab her nose. Her eyes, when she lifted them to Jack, were clearer than he'd seen them in days. They held a shell-shocked wonder. "I could hear them, Jack. All of them. Not just their words. Their… their feeling. Their hunger for the end. It's so cold." She shuddered. "But the one in Berlin… he was afraid. He didn't want to die. He just wanted the noise in his head to stop. That's what I pushed against."
"You found a human flaw in an inhuman design," Morbius murmured, respect warring with scientific fascination. "The ritual requires perfect, fanatical harmony. A single note of fear is a catastrophic failure in the system."
"Which means they'll purge that cell immediately," Elsa said, striding to the window. The cracked moon hung, a permanent scar in the sky. "And reinforce the others. We surprised them. We don't get to do that twice. The dampener," she held up the disc, "is a scalpel. What you just did was a sledgehammer. We need the scalpel for the main event. We can't rely on finding another scared cultist every time."
Jack knew she was right. The momentary victory was just that—momentary. The Chorus was still singing. The moon was still broken. They had slapped the hand that was reaching for them, but the body it was attached to was still coming.
"We need to go on the offensive," Jack said, the decision solidifying as he spoke. "The roadmap from Mephistos listed the primary cells. Berlin is compromised. They'll be shifting resources, maybe consolidating. We hit the next weakest link before they can."
"How do you propose we do that?" Morbius asked. "We are four individuals. The ritual is global. Even with the Bloodstone jet, the logistics are impossible."
"We don't need to hit them all," Lissa said, her voice gaining strength. She looked at Jack, a silent understanding passing between them. The connection they had forged in the psychic storm was still there, a new, quiet channel. "We need to break the chorus. A chorus needs unity. We introduce… discord. We make them doubt each other. We make them look over their shoulders."
Jack nodded. "We hunt. Not to destroy each cell, but to sabotage. To leave a message. To prove their harmony is fragile." He looked at Elsa and Morbius. "Mephistos gave us the locations. He wants the ritual stopped as much as we do, for his own reasons. We use his information. We start with the closest secondary cell."
Elsa consulted a secure tablet, pulling up the encrypted data. "The nearest after L.A. would be… Phoenix. Desert site. Old copper mining tunnels repurposed. Designation: 'Anchor Point Kether.' Smaller than the primaries, but a key harmonic anchor for the western North American sector. If it goes silent or unstable, it creates a wobble in their entire network."
"Phoenix," Jack repeated. The beast within stirred, not with rage, but with a cold, focused anticipation. The hunt was changing. No longer was he the prey in a trap. He was the hunter entering the forest of his enemies. "We go now. The moon is their power, but it's also our cover. They'll be at their peak activity, focused inward on their chanting. It's the best time to slip in."
The preparations began with a grim, purposeful energy. Elsa and Morbius packed gear from the Bloodstone vaults—silver-nitrate aerosol grenades, sonic emitters tuned to disrupt psychic frequencies, the primary dampener disc stored in its lead-lined case. Jack moved through the library, gathering himself. The fracture within him was still there, a delicate fissure he had to consciously bridge to maintain control. The beast was agitated, excited by the prospect of the hunt, but also strangely settled by Lissa's new, active role. She was no longer just something to protect. She was part of the pack.
Lissa sat quietly, recovering. She stared at her hands as if seeing them for the first time. The "spark" was no longer a theoretical, scary inheritance. It was a tool she had used. The terror was still there, a cold knot in her stomach, but woven through it was a thread of something else—agency.
Within the hour, they were in the air. The Bloodstone jet, a sleek, unmarked Gulfstream, cut through the strange night, the violet moonlight glinting off its wings. Below, the lights of greater Los Angeles gave way to the vast, dark expanse of the Mojave.
"Insertion plan," Elsa said, spreading a topographic map on a table. The target was a cluster of old shafts and processing buildings nestled in the Bradshaw Mountains, fifty miles north of Phoenix. "Satellite thermal shows concentrated heat signatures here, in the main adit. Likely the ritual chamber. Minimal external patrols. Arrogance or focus. We land here, on this dry lakebed. Five-mile hump in. Stealth approach. Morbius and I will plant the surveillance nodes and the secondary disruptors at the perimeter. Jack, you and Lissa penetrate to the chamber."
Jack raised an eyebrow. "You want the two of us going into the heart of it?"
"You're the harmonic target, and she's the empath who can read the room, literally," Elsa stated. "Your job isn't to fight. It's to plant the primary dampener on their focal point. Once it's active, it will broadcast a localized cancelling frequency, scrambling their connection to the Chorus. It will be like a fire alarm going off in the middle of their opera. The psychological impact will be greater than any physical damage. They'll think their sanctum is breached, their faith flawed."
"A message," Lissa nodded.
"A warning," Jack corrected, his gaze on the map. "We mark their territory. We show them the beast they're trying to leash can bite back in ways they don't expect."
---
The desert under the violet moon was an alien landscape. The usual silver-blue wash was replaced by a deep purple, turning the saguaro cacti into silent, twisted sentinels and the rocky hills into hunched, sleeping monsters. The air was cold and still, carrying the distant, faint scent of ozone and burnt sage—and underneath, the acrid, coppery tang of the Darkhold.
They moved in silence. Elsa took point, her movements a predator's fluid glide. Morbius followed, his senses extended, listening for heartbeats that weren't theirs. Jack kept Lissa close behind him, his own senses painting the world in layers of scent and subtle sound. He could hear it now, as they drew closer: a low, resonant hum, not through the air, but through the ground itself. A vibration of wrongness.
They crested a ridge. Below, in a shallow canyon, lay the mining complex. Rusted machinery lay skeletal under the moon. Light, not electric but a pulsing, malevolent amethyst, spilled from the main tunnel entrance. Two figures in dark robes stood guard, but their postures were slack, their heads tilted back as if listening to a distant song.
Elsa made a series of hand gestures. Two. Unalert. Proceed as planned.
Morbius nodded,slipping a compact device from his pack—a sonic mine. He and Elsa melted away into the shadows to begin laying their perimeter of discord.
Jack touched Lissa's arm, gestured towards a sheer rock face away from the entrance. They would not use the door. The beast within calculated angles, tested the air for drafts. There. A ventilation shaft, long abandoned, its grate rusted and loose. With barely a sound, Jack pried it free. The smell that wafted out was overpowering—incense, sweat, and that pervasive, icy Darkhold energy.
The shaft was a tight, vertical climb down forty feet of crumbling rock and old timbers. Jack went first, bracing himself against the walls, finding purchase with fingers and boots. Lissa followed, her movements careful but sure. The connection between them was a taut line of focus; he could feel her fear, but also her determination, a mirror of his own.
They dropped onto a catwalk overlooking the main chamber. The sight below stole Lissa's breath and made the beast within Jack snarl in primal recognition.
The mining cavern had been transformed. The rough-hewn walls were covered in intricate, glowing sigils carved into the stone and filled with a phosphorescent, violet paste. In the center stood an obelisk of polished black stone, perhaps ten feet tall, covered in spiraling inscriptions. From its apex, a beam of concentrated violet light shot upwards, vanishing through a hole in the cavern roof, a tangible thread connecting to the cracked moon above.
Around the obelisk, maybe thirty cultists knelt in concentric circles. They chanted in unison, a guttural, grating language that scraped against the mind. Their hoods were thrown back, their faces ecstatic, empty, their eyes reflecting the obelisk's light. The psychic pressure in the room was immense, a wall of focused intent.
Lissa gripped Jack's arm, her face pale. "It's so loud here," she breathed, her voice barely audible over the chant. "The harmony… it's stronger. But it's brittle. Like glass under pressure."
Jack's eyes scanned the chamber. The focal point was clear: the obelisk. Getting to it meant crossing thirty meters of open space, directly through the chanting cultists. A direct assault would trigger a chaos they might not escape.
He pointed to a series of heavy, rusted ore carts on tracks that ran along the far wall, leading towards the obelisk's dais. The plan reformed in his mind. Not a warrior's charge. A saboteur's infiltration.
He helped Lissa down from the catwalk onto a pile of tailings. They crouched in the deep shadows by the wall. The chant was all-consuming, a sonic blanket that masked their careful movements. They crept from shadow to shadow, behind crumbling machinery and stacks of old timbers, getting closer to the ore cart line.
A cultist, a woman with hollow cheeks, broke from the outer circle, moving towards a side tunnel, perhaps for a ritual component. Her path took her within ten feet of their hiding spot.
Jack went still. Lissa froze, pressing herself against the cold rock. The woman paused, her head tilting as if she'd heard a discordant note. She began to turn.
Lissa acted. She didn't make a sound. Instead, she closed her eyes and pushed. It wasn't the amplified blast from the library. It was a subtle, focused pulse of empathetic suggestion—a wave of nothing to see here, blended with the woman's own chanting-induced fugue state.
The cultist blinked, shook her head slightly, and continued on her way, the moment of doubt seamlessly absorbed back into the ritual's rhythm.
Jack looked at Lissa, impressed. She gave a tiny, shaky nod. I'm learning.
They reached the ore carts. Jack gestured. They would use them as moving cover. He put his shoulder against the back of one of the heavy iron carts and pushed. It gave with a groan that was terrifyingly loud to Jack's ears, but the monolithic chanting swallowed the sound. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, the cart began to roll forward on the rusty tracks, its path curving gently towards the central dais.
They moved with it, crouched low behind its bulk. The violet light painted the cart's pitted surface. The chant vibrated through the iron. Twenty meters. Fifteen.
A cultist in the second circle, a man with a scarred scalp, opened his eyes. He wasn't looking at them, but his gaze was unfocused, scanning. He sensed an intrusion, a break in the perfect psychic fabric.
The cart was ten meters from the obelisk's base. They were out of deep shadow now, exposed in the dim, reflected light.
The scarred man's head snapped towards the moving cart. His chanting faltered.
Now.
Jack didn't hesitate.He vaulted over the front of the ore cart, landing in a crouch on the stone dais. The action was so sudden, so utterly outside the ritual's predictable pattern, that it caused a hiccup in the chant. Dozens of hooded heads turned.
Jack ignored them. His target was the obelisk. He pulled the dampener disc from his belt. Its bone-white surface felt warm, eager.
The scarred cultist screamed, not in fear, but in rage—a pure, doctrinal fury at the desecration. He lunged, a ritual dagger appearing in his hand.
Jack didn't fight him. He sidestepped the clumsy lunge, grabbed the man's wrist, and used his own momentum to hurl him into the path of two others who were rising. It created a tangle of bodies, a moment of physical discord to mirror the psychic one he was about to cause.
He slapped the dampener disc onto the base of the obelisk, right where the swirling inscriptions were most dense. He channeled his will into it, not as a beast's roar, but as a precise, focused command: Silence.
The disc flared with pure, actinic silver light.
The effect was instantaneous and catastrophic.
The beam of violet light connecting the obelisk to the moon didn't just sever—it shattered, exploding outwards in a silent shockwave of conflicting energies. The resonant hum died, replaced by a deafening, high-pitched shriek of nullified power. Every glowing sigil on the wall winked out.
The Chorus of Ruin in Anchor Point Kether didn't just stop singing.
It screamed in thirty individual voices of panic, pain, and profound, faith-shattering confusion.
The harmony was broken. The glass had cracked.
Jack turned from the obelisk. The cultists were staggering, clutching their heads, some bleeding from their ears and noses, their connection to the greater power violently ripped away. They were disoriented, terrified.
He saw Lissa, standing by the ore cart, her hands over her ears but her eyes wide and clear. She met his gaze and pointed sharply towards the tunnel they'd come from. Go.
From outside the chamber, the night erupted with staccato flashes of light and muffled thumps—Elsa and Morbius's perimeter devices activating, sowing further chaos.
Jack grabbed Lissa's hand and they ran, not as hunted prey, but as saboteurs exiting the scene of a perfectly executed strike. They left behind not bodies, but a chamber full of broken believers and a silent, scarred obelisk—a monument to their failure and a clear, unmistakable message sent echoing through the network of the Chorus.
The beast had not howled in challenge. It had whispered a promise of ruin into the enemy's ear. And for the first time since the moon cracked, Jack Russell felt not like a victim of the ritual, but its active, cunning hunter.
To Be Continue...