Chapter 7
COUNTERFORCE
Delayne Nessen moved quickly down the dark halls. His fingers clutched the small glass vial in his pocket.
He descended the metal steps, which ended at a steel-reinforced door. A small rusted panel at its side revealed a keypad. He typed in the code that only he and Rhyden knew.
Nessen let his forehead fall against the cool steel, breathing shakily.
Whatever made the Nova inside Vesperin different from the Rogues was the key. The key to stopping this, to ridding Earth of the Rogues.
Researchers had tried and failed. Nessen himself, at one point, had been employed at a research facility working on a cure to return Rogues to Souls, so they might find peace in the Stars—but funding was cut, the project deemed useless.
He couldn’t help but be intrigued by the anomaly dropped at his doorstep, driving him to shuffle into the lab while everyone was sleeping, test her blood, and compare it to the Rogue samples.
Nessen thought of his wife, long dead before he was turned into a vampire, forced to watch each year tick by without a cure that had stolen so much from so many.
She had died in a car accident near a Nova Pulse that turned her fresh Soul into a Rogue.
He remembered the soft lines of her smile, the way her hair had slowly gone grey with each year he’d loved her.
He would do this for her.
Nessen pushed open the door and was met with the growling form of a lowlevel Rogue. The reinforced chains rattled under strain, its nostrils flaring as it sniffed the air.
If Nessen was right—
He had to be right.
Slowly, he withdrew the vial of Vesperin’s blood and held it up before the Rogue. It snapped forward, chains groaning as its claws scraped the cold concrete. Nessen stumbled back into the wall.
Its black eyes were no longer narrowed on Nessen—but on the small vial held in his hands.
Nessen’s hands trembled violently as he lifted it, the glass catching the light from the lone swinging bulb overhead.
The Rogue tilted its head, intent and dangerous.
It was just as he thought:
Vesperin’s blood was not just a weapon. It was a counterforce.
He reached for the door latch, planning to retreat but—
The chains groaned, a few links close to the wall snapping as the Rogue lashed forward. Nessen’s skull thudded against the wall as he barely avoided its claws. The vial slipped, glass shattering as red blood splattered across the floor.
The Rogue went berserk.
"Oh, god!" Nessen gasped as the last chain broke.
The Rogue pounced, forcing him to the ground, its maw opened above him. Hot saliva dripped onto his face, serrated teeth brushing against his cheeks. His last thought was that finally, he would be able to rest.
Atlas did not shy away from the bloodshed.
It was necessary.
Delayne Nessen had served his purpose. Atlas would make certain Nessen was blessed for his sacrifice. Pain in this life was but a momentary thing, nothing in the span of forever.
The wet, awful sounds of the Rogue feasting filled the room. Blood splattered across the concrete, painting everything red.
Atlas stepped out of the shadows.
Nessen groaned weakly, a feeble hand falling to the ground, and looked up and met Atlas’s utterly black eyes.
"Please," he wheezed, wanting death.
The Celestial held out a hand, fingers curling into his palm as he made a fist. The doctor’s life force crumpled. His Soul ascended.
The Rogue looked up from Nessen’s chest cavity, blood and gore coating its rocky maw as it set its sights toward the Soul.
Atlas swept his hand out, pinning the Rogue against the wall, holding it there effortlessly, even as it thrashed. Fate had shown him Vesperin and her Soulbonds would enter this room soon. He could not allow the Rogue to live.
But Atlas did not wish to kill the Soul it once was.
Shadows swirled around him as he stalked forward. Standing before the pinned Rogue, Atlas cocked his head, seeing his form mirrored in the monster’s black eyes. His own eyes were like pitch as shadows crept up his arm to his elbow, disappearing within the Rogue’s chest.
When he felt what he was searching for, he pulled it free. The Rogue slumped to the ground, dead.
Within his hand was the crystallized Soul. It was a smooth, weighty rock, glowing faintly as he tucked it in the pocket of his coat and dissolved back into the shadows, leaving the gore-soaked room.
Auren awoke with a desperate gasp, the Star carved into his face burning hotter with every passing moment he did not answer the call.
The Soul Searcher shoved the thin sheets aside and stood. He tugged on his white cloak, feeling like a soldier preparing for battle as the fabric concealed him. No more tired eyes and sleep-mussed hair—he was an ordained being, bound to the whims of the Celestials.
His scythe glowed where it leaned against the barren walls. He reached for it, but as he saw the bare skin of his hands, he paused. Blood had a way of burrowing into dreams, cracking sanity.
Auren pulled on his gloves, and only then did he grab his scythe.
The glow zipping across the silver blade illuminated the room as he swiped it through the air, letting the scythe guide him.
Auren stepped through the portal.
The metallic scent of fresh blood hit him. His boots splashed in something.
As always, it took him a moment to gain his bearings; such horrors he had been forced to see.
The concrete walls were splattered with blood. This was a massacre.
A body lay cracked open, with entrails strewn like red ribbons. Deep gouges on a face he swore looked familiar…
The thick, iron-scented air coated Auren’s tongue.
An amorphous form hovered, a Soul begging to be reaped. Auren swung his scythe, scattering it into a cloud of dust, like millions of Stars, before disappearing entirely.
"I wish you a safe journey to the Stars," the Soul Searcher murmured, the farewell more routine at this point.
Auren slowly walked closer to the body, stepping over blood, broken chains, and shards of glass.
A man in a blood-soaked lab coat. He had thinning, grey hair.
"Nessen," Auren breathed.
Recognition hit him, replaced by confusion as his gaze swung to a corner, seeing the broken heap of a dead Rogue.
A thick door at his back led to a familiar grey hall.
Metal stairs clanged under him as he ascended, ceilings opening to hollow tubes that coiled along the walls to the monitors.
At the far side, the warehouse shifted into a garage, filled with every manner of vehicle one running a criminal empire could need.
Auren was still in Rhyden’s base.
Rhyden was trained to awaken at the slightest of noises.
A soft rap on the door jolted him from a dream he wished he could make reality. His wife, on her back, tied up in his bed, sweat-soaked and flush-cheeked, as she begged and begged—but he never gave her what he wanted.
He was hard as a goddamned rock.
Fuck.
Rhyden grabbed his handgun and stood, adjusting his low-strung black sweatpants as he stalked to the door and pressed his ear to it. Nothing. He angled his body, gun raised, finger hovering over the trigger. Then he threw the door open, aiming.
"Auren?" Rhyden growled, lowering the gun as he saw the Soul Searcher standing in the dark hall. "The fuck are you doing?"
"I am sorry for disturbing you, but I think you need to come with me."
Rhyden glanced skyward. "Are all Soul Searchers as cryptic as you?" When he lowered his gaze, he found Auren’s eyes were wide, troubled. Rhyden let his attention fall down his cloaked form. The fingers of his white gloves were stained red.
"You need to come see this. It is the doctor."
For one faltering breath, Rhyden thought Auren had meant Lucien. And why did his goddamned heart stutter in his chest? It wasn’t for him, but for his lying little Soulbond, who would be devastated if anything happened to the other man.
"Nessen. He is… dead."
Rhyden blew out a sharp breath. Nessen—dead?
Don’t show weakness.
He lowered his hand, grip loosening around the gun. He tucked it in the back of his sweats, feeling the metal against the bare skin of his lower back.
"Fine, okay. Let’s go. But do something with that cloak of yours. All that white is hurting my goddamned eyes."
Rin’s breath hitched as Cyrus moved aside, letting her take in the room.
Blood sprayed the walls, Nessen’s Soulless body in the center of the carnage.
Rhyden nudged the Rogue with his bare foot. Rin’s tired, shocked brain struggled to follow his words. A dark grip of a gun poked out from the waistband of Rhyden’s low-hung sweats. His white hair was disheveled.
Lucien’s hand dropped on Rin’s shoulder. "Vesperin," he said, voice thick with sleep, "you don’t need to see this. Go back upstairs with Cyrus."
Rin shook her head, swallowing down her nausea from the gore as she met his eyes. "What happened here?"
She carefully stepped over a puddle of blood, but she flinched when Rhyden barked suddenly:
"Fucking—watch out for the glass!"
Rin jerked to a stop, glancing down to see shattered pieces of glass.
Rhyden stood right before her when she looked back up. "You idiot. Why’d you go and let yourself get cut?"
"Why do you care?" she asked.
He didn’t respond, and her question was lost in the blood of the room, sinking into the grey walls.
"I didn’t get cut. See." She lifted her foot.
Rhyden grabbed her ankle and yanked her leg up higher, uncaring of the small, distressed sound she made from the strain. Cyrus steadied her as Rhyden’s thumb smoothed over the top of her foot, tracing up to her ankle, staring at her decidedly uncut skin.
"Then why do I—" Rhyden paused sharply, head tilting to the side as his red eyes scoured the room. He didn’t let her foot go. His nostrils flared. "Your blood is in this room. I smell it."
"You… smell it?" Rin grimaced, scrunching her toes. "Are you going to let me go, Rhyden?"
Rhyden jerked his head down to look at where he still held her foot, then dropped it without comment.