The impact rang as a cathedral bell dropped into hell.
The carousel became kindling. Dust and childhood memories billowed upward in a grey shroud.
In the crater's heart, two creatures fought like the war had never ended.
Caelan had lost the sky. Liliru had answered his dive with a forest of obsidian spears. He twisted mid-air, took the landing on his shoulder, and kept moving. Now his coat was filthy, streaked with ash and her black blood.
He pinned her to broken concrete, hand around her throat, thumb on her windpipe.
"Yield."
She grinned through a mask of crimson. "Make me."
Legs snaked around his waist. Hips snapped. The world flipped.
Suddenly she straddled his chest, hot and heavy, fist already falling.
He caught her wrist. Bone creaked.
"You talk too much for a silent killer," she hissed, claws raking for his eyes.
He seized the second wrist, forced her arms wide. She was stronger than the file said. Steel under silk.
"Then judge this."
She lunged, fangs bared for his jugular.
He surged to meet her, meaning to shatter her jaw with his forehead.
They misjudged distance.
Lips smashed against lips. Teeth clacked. Fangs pierced his lower lip.
It was not a kiss. It was violence wearing lipstick.
She bit harder. He bit back.
Gold blood met red. Mixed.
The reaction was instant.
A shockwave of raw power detonated between their mouths, ozone and burnt honey. It punched the air from both their lungs and lit every nerve on fire.
For one impossible second, the fight stopped.
Caelan tasted sunlight and damnation. Liliru tasted absolution and ruin.
Then the universe slammed the brakes.
White light erupted. They flew apart.
Caelan crashed through a hot-dog stand and lay staring at the bruised sky, chest heaving. He touched his mouth. Swollen. Bleeding gold.
a
He licked the mixed blood from his lip.,
Dr
Sin had never tasted so good.spiralled
Levelled
Across the crater ,Liliru staggered upright, hair wild, dress shredded. She stared at the gold smear on her knuckles.
"You taste like home," she whispered, voice shaking.
Caelan rose. Retrieved Eden's Fang from the dirt. Leveled it.
Four bullets. One clean shot and the prophecy dies tonight.
His finger tightened.
His hand trembled.
He could not pull the trigger.
"Go," he rasped.
She blinked. "What?"
"Go. Before I remember my orders."
A slow, crooked smile cut across her bloody face. "You felt it too."
Shadows wrapped her like wings. "This isn't over, Saint. You marked me. I'm marking you back."
Then she melted into the night.
Caelan stood alone among the ruins. Wind moaned through broken coaster tracks like laughter.
He touched his mouth again.
"Damn it."
Sanctum of St. Jude – 02:00
Remiel's blind fingers flew across a ribbon-less typewriter. Flaming letters seared themselves into parchment:
Subject: Caelan
Status: Compromised
The steel door opened. Caelan limped in, coat in tatters, smelling of sulfur and vanilla.
"You are bleeding," Remiel said without looking up.
"I fell."
"You do not fall."
She inhaled. "You reek of the Pit. And something sweeter."
He scrubbed his face in the holy-water basin. Pink water spiraled down the drain.
"She escaped," he said.
"Or was released." Remiel stood, walked to him by memory alone, and laid pale fingers over his heart. "The fall begins with a single skipped name, Saint."
He slapped her hand away.
The intercom crackled.
"Confessional. Now," Father Elian said, voice stripped of velvet.
Confessional – 02:15
The chamber was a circle of mirrors and one white-iron chair.
Elian waited with a scalpel and a grandfather's smile.
"Sit."
Silver restraints snapped around wrists and ankles.
"The girl lives," Elian murmured, drawing the blade across Caelan's cheek. Gold beaded. "Explain."
"Inconclusive engagement. Collateral risk too high."
"Since when do you care about collateral?" Elian circled behind him. "Your heart rate spiked. Your aim wavered. Why?"
Caelan stayed silent.
The mirrors woke. Every surface showed Liliru: laughing, slaughtering, sleeping.
"Thirty days," Elian said. "Then we trigger the Samson Protocol. The entire borough burns."
Caelan's blood froze. "Millions."
"Sheep die so the wolf does not lead them." Elian pressed the scalpel deeper. "Fail again and I release the Seventh Bullet."
The thing in the sub-basement that used to be a Saint.
Elian leaned close, breath mint and rot. "Let us begin penance."
Steel kissed flesh. Caelan did not scream. He stared at Liliru's image and tasted iron and ash.
Dr. Ezekiel's Underground Clinic – 03:30
Liliru sat on the operating table swinging her legs while Ezekiel stitched holy burns closed with cigarette dangling.
"You fought the Saint and kept your head," he muttered. "Miracle. Double fee."
"He missed on purpose."
"Impossible."
The door creaked.
Seven skipped in, burger in one fist, red crayon in the other.
"Hi, Mommy."
Liliru froze. "Come again?"
Seven climbed a stool, spun once. "Daddy gave me a coin. Said you'd be here." She placed the warm Heaven-gold coin on the table. "He smells like you now."
Liliru stared at the coin, then at the child with oil-slick eyes.
Thirty days.
She flipped the coin, caught it, smiled with too many teeth.
"Game on, angel."
,