Night had fully fallen by the time the truck pushed through the glowing arteries of New York. The city was blazing with light, every tower and streetlamp turning the darkness into something electric, but none of that warmth reached the road ahead. The heavy vehicle kept rolling toward the bridge that linked New York to Manhattan, its engine humming low beneath the pressure of illegal cargo and bad decisions.
Behind the wheel, Gus took a long drag from his cigarette and exhaled slowly through his nose. His eyes kept cutting toward the rearview mirror, checking the same thing over and over again as if he still couldn't believe it was there. Reflected in the glass was a massive sarcophagus, ancient and wrong-looking, taking up the truck bed like some relic that had no business existing in the modern world.
The stone coffin was covered in intricate carvings. Fine lines twisted around skulls, swords, and countless distorted monster faces, all of them packed together in a design that felt older than reason. Even without understanding what it was, anyone who saw it would know this thing didn't belong in a legal shipment. It looked less like cargo and more like a curse wrapped in stone.
"This is the last time," Gus muttered to himself, tightening his grip on the wheel.
He didn't know what was inside the sarcophagus, but he knew enough to understand the job was filthy. There was a reason Eichorst had arranged for someone with a record to move it in secret instead of using a normal transport chain. Men like Gus didn't get hired for this kind of work unless the people paying them expected plausible deniability and a disposable driver if things went bad.
Still, he had taken the job.
As the overpass loomed closer ahead, Gus let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. He had just made it through a federal checkpoint, and the entire time he had been convinced the run was about to end in flashing lights and handcuffs. If that had happened—if he had gone back to prison—his mother might not have made it. Her hospital bills were already impossible, and if the payments stopped, she'd die in a bed somewhere because he hadn't managed to keep one more promise.
That was why he had agreed to help the Stoneheart Group in the first place. Not loyalty. Not greed. Desperation.
Then a strange muffled thump came from the rear of the truck.
Gus's eyes twitched, but only for a second. He glanced at the mirror, saw nothing unusual, and forced himself to relax. The road was rough in places, and the weight in the truck bed was enormous. It had probably just shifted over a bump.
He was almost there.
As the truck approached the bridge exit, a figure suddenly stepped into the lane ahead.
Gus's pulse spiked. He slammed the brakes hard enough to make the truck lurch, the tires whining as the vehicle shuddered to a stop only a short distance from the man standing in front of it. Anger rose instantly, sharp and instinctive, pushing back against the fear that had been gnawing at him all night.
He leaned forward, staring through the windshield with a dark expression.
The man outside wore a black trench coat, and even under the streetlights there was something unnervingly composed about him. He wasn't panicked, wasn't drunk, and didn't move like some idiot who had wandered into traffic by accident. Instead, he smiled faintly and walked up toward the front of the truck as if this meeting had been scheduled.
"Good evening, Mr. Gus," he said. "My name is Locke. Nice to meet you."
Gus narrowed his eyes.
The man's tone was calm, almost polite, but that only made him more suspicious. Locke stopped at the front of the truck and looked up at him with the kind of certainty that made it obvious he knew exactly who he was.
For a brief moment, Locke studied him the same way someone might size up a blade before deciding whether it was worth picking up.
And in truth, Locke was doing exactly that.
He knew Gus well enough from memory. In the early stages of this story, Gus wasn't some throwaway thug. He had instinct, nerve, and a fighter's edge, the kind of man who could stand face-to-face with monsters and still claw his way back out alive. That was part of why Eichorst had chosen him. Men like Gus were useful because they were desperate, dangerous, and still capable of following orders when the pressure hit.
Seeing him in person only confirmed it. There was a hard sharpness buried in the man's eyes, the kind forged by poverty, prison, and survival.
Gus forced the corners of his mouth upward, trying to keep his voice even. "Can I help you?"
Locke tilted his head slightly, as though considering how much honesty the moment could survive. "Sure," he said. "You can give me a ride to Manhattan."
Gus stared at him, then let out a dry breath. "A ride? Sorry, I'm working. Can't help you."
Locke's expression didn't change. "Then let me put it another way. If you don't want to die with your throat ripped open by the thing in that sarcophagus, maybe you should reconsider."
That did it.
The fake calm vanished from Gus's face. His eyes hardened at once, and his hand moved without warning.
"You know what I'm curious about?" he said quietly.
Before the tension could break into something violent, Locke pulled open the passenger door and got in.
He sat down as if he belonged there.
Gus reacted instantly, drawing a blade and angling it toward Locke's side. The metal caught the light, sharp and steady, but Locke didn't even flinch. He knew enough about Gus to be careful, but he also knew the man wasn't looking to start a pointless fight in the middle of an already dangerous job. And even if it came to that, Locke trusted his own reflexes enough not to panic.
"You don't want your mother losing you tonight," Locke said.
He didn't look at Gus when he said it. His eyes were fixed on the rearview mirror, and there was something disturbingly real in the fear hidden behind his calm. Gus noticed that immediately. The stranger wasn't acting like someone who had come to extort him. He was watching the sarcophagus with the alertness of someone waiting for a bomb to go off.
That realization cooled part of Gus's anger.
"In the coffin…" he started.
"Shh."
Locke raised a finger to his lips.
Under the pale spill of the streetlights, his face looked colder than it had a moment ago, all sharp planes and shadowed focus. Gus followed his gaze almost despite himself and looked into the rearview mirror again. The sarcophagus sat there in total silence, ancient and motionless, but now it seemed heavier somehow. More present.
The truck rolled on in uneasy silence after that.
Neither man spoke again until Gus finally pulled into the designated drop-off point. The location was quiet, industrial, and mostly dead at this hour. It was the perfect place for illegal cargo to vanish. The second the engine cut off, Locke moved fast, reaching into a bag at his side and pulling out an ultraviolet lamp.
Gus frowned as he watched him step out of the cab.
"What the hell are you doing?"
Locke didn't answer right away. Instead, he grabbed a second UV lamp and shoved it into Gus's hands.
"If you don't want both of us dying here," he said, "keep that light on the sarcophagus. Don't stop."
Then he pulled a small mounted searchlight from his bag and clipped it to his hat. With a press of a button, violet light spilled across his face and the truck bed, bathing everything in an eerie purple glow that made the carved monsters on the coffin look even more grotesque.
Urgency flashed in his eyes.
The next moment, Locke put both hands on the sarcophagus.
The stone felt freezing cold, as if the thing beneath it had been feeding on darkness itself. As soon as his palms made contact, a voice rang out in his mind. His eyes changed instantly, a strange intensity blooming inside them.
So it really works.
"Deprive," he murmured.
An invisible pulse flowed from his hands into the coffin.
To Gus, it looked like absolutely nothing had happened. The stranger just stood there touching a stone box under purple light like he had completely lost his mind. But then the sarcophagus suddenly shook so violently that the entire truck bed rang from the impact. The stone slammed against the metal floor with a thunderous crash.
Gus yelped and stumbled backward so hard he nearly fell flat on his back.
Locke's face darkened under the ultraviolet glow. New power surged through his body in a hot, brutal rush, and with it came sharper senses. His hearing expanded first, suddenly so acute that he could catch the internal mechanisms shifting deep inside the coffin. He heard metal moving. Locks turning.
His expression changed at once.
Not good. It's getting out.
He jumped back off the truck in one smooth motion. Gus was already bolting toward the gate, all pretense of toughness gone. The shaking sarcophagus, the sound, Locke's earlier warning—together they had shattered whatever calm he had left. He ran with the UV lamp still clenched in one hand, the beam bouncing wildly around him as he fled.
"This idiot," Locke thought.
And then he moved.
Power poured through his muscles as he twisted his body and launched forward. His speed exploded. The ground blurred beneath him, and for the first time since entering this world, he felt something close to true exhilaration. He hadn't taken everything, not even close, but he had stolen enough.
Enough to know it had been worth the risk.
Locke understood this story better than almost anyone. He had chosen this moment for one reason: the Blood Ancestor was at its most vulnerable right now. Not asleep, not fully awake, and not yet protected. That was why he had tracked down Gus and forced his way into this delivery. It had all been for this opening.
His natural talent burned bright in his thoughts.
Deprivation (Awakened): Effective against any target that does not resist. Beneficial traits may be stripped away.
It hadn't taken effect instantly. That was the only reason the monster still had anything left to fight with.
Still, the strength flooding his body made him feel as though a sealed door inside him had been kicked open. His vision sharpened. His limbs felt lighter. Every breath came with force. When he burst through the gate, his enhanced hearing caught a massive crash from the truck behind him.
The thing was out.
Locke's legs pumped harder, his body turning into a black streak under the night lights. In the span of a few breaths, he closed the distance and appeared directly in front of Gus.