The War Room was a tomb of blue light and static.
A bank of twelve monitors covered the north wall, flickering with grainy feeds from the surface perimeter.
Draven stood with his arms crossed, his biceps straining against the fabric of a tactical shirt he had grabbed from the armory.
His eyes, still retaining a faint, golden luminescence from the earlier overload, were fixed on Screen 4.
On the screen, men in hazmat suits emblazoned with the Silas family crest were dragging heavy, pressurized canisters toward the main ventilation intake.
They weren't using explosives.
Explosives were loud; they drew the attention of the human authorities.
They were hooking up hoses.
"Spectrometer reading is in," Toby said, his fingers flying across a keyboard that looked like it had been salvaged from a dumpster in 1999.
"It's not tear gas, Boss. It's atomized liquid silver nitrate mixed with wolfsbane extract. Concentration is... lethal."
Draven's jaw tightened.
They weren't trying to flush the Rogues out.
They were fumigating them.
Like cockroaches.
If that gas hit the ventilation fans, it would circulate through the entire underground complex in ten minutes.
Every shifter down here would suffer chemical burns on their lungs before drowning in their own fluids.
"Seal the intakes," Draven ordered.
"I can't," Toby said, panic creeping into his voice.
"The blast doors on the upper level are rusted open. We have manual override, but—"
"But you'd need to be outside to turn the wheel," a soft voice finished the sentence.
Draven turned.
Elara was leaning against the doorframe.
She looked like a ghost haunting a graveyard.
Her skin was translucent, dark circles bruised the skin under her eyes, and she was wrapped in a blanket that swallowed her small frame.
She shouldn't be standing.
She should be in a coma.
But her eyes were clear.
Sharp.
"Go back to bed," Draven growled, stepping toward her.
"You're running on fumes."
Elara ignored him.
She shuffled past him, trailing the blanket like a royal train, and pointed a trembling finger at the large architectural blueprint spread across the central table.
"This map," she whispered, her voice raspy.
"It's wrong."
Toby blinked.
"Impossible. We stole these from the City Planning Archives last month."
"The archives are outdated," Elara said, leaning her weight on the table to stay upright.
"Twenty years ago, the Silas family bribed the mayor to divert the sewage line so they could expand their wine cellar. They installed a secondary pressure system to prevent backwash during heavy rains."
Draven looked at the map, then at the girl.
"How do you know this?"
Elara let out a dry, humorless laugh.
"I was a laundry girl, Draven. I spent twelve hours a day scrubbing wine stains out of silk tablecloths in the servant's quarters next to the boiler room. The Alpha of the Silas pack... he liked to boast about his renovations while he was down there shouting at the maintenance crew. He thinks servants are furniture. You don't whisper secrets when you're standing next to a lamp, do you?"
She tapped a specific intersection of pipes on the blueprint, right below where the hazmat team was currently attaching their hoses.
"There's a manual override valve here. A 'Panic Button' meant to flush the system in case of a blockage. It's a one-way check valve. If you seal the lower output and open the pressure release..."
Draven understood immediately.
A savage grin spread across his face.
"Physics takes over," he finished.
"The pressure builds up in the intake chamber."
"And blows everything back out the way it came," Elara nodded.
"But the valve is digitally locked. It's on a separate grid."
"Can we hack it?" Draven asked Toby.
"Not in time," Toby said, sweating.
"Unless we have the passkey."
Elara closed her eyes, digging through the filing cabinet of her trauma.
"0-5-2-4-8-8."
The room went silent.
"Are you sure?" Draven asked softly.
"May 24th, 1988," Elara opened her eyes.
They were cold.
"It's the current Alpha's birthday. I had to iron three hundred napkins with that date embroidered on them for his jubilee. He's a narcissist. He never changes his codes."
Draven looked at Toby.
"Do it."
Toby typed the sequence.
His screen flashed green.
"Access granted," Toby whispered, sounding terrified and impressed.
"Valve control is live."
Draven looked back at Screen 4.
The Silas troops had opened the canisters.
A thick, silvery fog was beginning to hiss into the grate, swirling down toward them.
"Wait for it," Draven commanded.
"Let them commit."
He watched the fog thicken.
He watched the smug arrogance of the Silas captain, who had taken off his helmet to light a cigar, confident that the 'rats' below were already dying.
"Now," Draven said.
"Reverse the polarity. Max pressure."
Toby hit the Enter key with the force of a hammer.
On Screen 4, the world exploded.
A deep, subterranean thrum shook the camera.
Then, with a sound like a jet engine taking off, the ventilation grate on the surface erupted.
The silver fog didn't just drift back up; it was ejected at 400 PSI.
The heavy iron grate blew off its hinges, decapitating a streetlamp.
A geyser of concentrated silver nitrate and wolfsbane blasted into the faces of the Silas strike team.
The feed turned into chaos.
Men were screaming, clawing at their melting skin.
The captain who had been smoking dropped his cigar as the chemical mist hit his exposed face.
He fell to his knees, his body trying to shift into wolf form to heal, but the silver instantly burned the emerging fur, trapping him in a grotesque half-transformation.
"Open the armory doors," Draven said, his voice low and deadly.
He pulled a serrated combat knife from his belt.
"We're going up to collect the garbage."
Five minutes later, the alleyway behind the warehouse district was a painting of carnage.
The Silas troops, blinded and choking on their own poison, offered zero resistance.
The Rogues, wearing gas masks salvaged from previous raids, moved through the smoke like wraiths, incapacitating the survivors with efficient brutality.
Draven didn't need a mask.
He held his breath, his high-tier lungs capable of holding oxygen for minutes at a time.
He strode through the silver mist, ignoring the slight stinging on his skin.
He found his target trying to crawl toward a waiting SUV.
It was Deacon Vane.
The Silas family's High Deacon.
A man who wore white suits and carried a cane he didn't need.
Currently, his white suit was covered in gray sludge, and he was coughing up blood.
Draven stepped on Vane's ankle.
There was a wet snap.
Vane screamed, a high-pitched, pathetic sound.
"You have something that belongs to me," Draven said calmly.
He reached down, grabbed Vane by the collar, and hauled him up.
Vane's eyes were swollen shut from the gas, but he smelled the Alpha pheromones rolling off Draven.
"Draven," Vane wheezed.
"You... you abomination."
"I prefer 'Entrepreneur'," Draven said.
He patted Vane's pockets.
He found a wallet, a encrypted phone, and a thick envelope sealed with wax.
Draven ripped the envelope open.
He expected orders.
Or coordinates.
Instead, he pulled out a medical dossier.
Attached to the front was a photo of Elara, taken from a distance—likely while she was hanging laundry.
Draven scanned the document.
His blood ran cold.
Technical terms jumped out at him.
Bio-luminescent Energy Sink.
Nullification Vector.
Sustainable Extraction Model.
And then, a handwritten note at the bottom from the Silas Head Researcher to the Council of Elders:
"Subject 042 (Elara) is not cursed. Her marrow contains a natural enzyme that neutralizes Alpha radiation. If we can harvest her, we can bottle 'Command Immunity.' We can sell resistance to the King's authority. She is not a person; she is a biological weapon worth billions. Do not kill. Capture and vivisect."
Draven lowered the paper.
The roar in his ears returned, but this time, it wasn't the beast trying to get out.
It was a cold, human rage.
They didn't hate her because she was bad luck.
They hunted her because they wanted to chop her up and sell her pieces to the highest bidder.
Vane chuckled weakly, blood bubbling on his lips.
"You can't keep her, mongrel. She's... too expensive for a stray like you."
Draven didn't waste a witty retort.
He simply punched Vane in the throat, crushing his windpipe, ensuring the Deacon would never speak again, then tossed the unconscious body to two waiting Rogues.
"Bag him," Draven ordered.
"He's going to tell us everything about the extraction protocols before he dies."
He looked up at the sky.
The rain had stopped, but heavy gray clouds choked the city lights.
The battle was won.
They had humiliated the Silas family.
But as Draven looked at the captured supply trucks, he realized they were empty.
The Silas family hadn't just come to gas them.
They had established a perimeter.
Toby jogged up, his gas mask dangling from his hand.
"Boss, we checked the trucks. Nothing. And the scouts say all four major access tunnels have been collapsed with explosives. The subway lines are concrete-sealed."
Draven crumpled the dossier in his fist.
The gas was just the opening act.
The real weapon was silence.
They were sealed in.
No food.
No medical supplies.
And with the underground population doubling due to refugees fleeing the purges, their current stockpiles would last three days.
Draven looked back toward the dark entrance of the underground, where a fragile girl with a billion-dollar skeleton was waiting for him.
"Ration the water," Draven said, his voice hollow.
"And tell the cook to start counting the cans of beans. We're under siege."