Chapter 36
The report reached them before midnight.
A cluster of organized rogues had been seen feeding near the south end of the Quarter, moving with more coordination than starving civilians should have possessed. Rhen took Cole and Malakai to investigate while the compound continued preparing for the larger assault.
The rain had rinsed grime from the streets and left the pavement slick beneath the neon. Colors bled through the puddles in bruised reflections, while cars hissed over the wet road. Somewhere nearby, a bar door opened and released music and laughter before closing again.
Rhen noticed none of it.
His attention remained fixed upon the violence waiting in the narrower arteries of the city.
Rage lived beneath his skin with the measured patience of a device counting toward detonation. It was not hot or uncontrolled. Rhen stored fury the way others stored weapons, maintaining it until the exact moment it became useful.
Cole and Malakai followed a pace behind him. Any human observer would have recognized them as a single dangerous unit, three males dressed in dark coats and hooded clothing, moving with the same predatory purpose.
Malakai caught Cole’s attention and signed as they walked.
What kind of disaster are we entering this time?
Cole kept his hands inside his hoodie pockets but turned enough for Malakai to read his response.
“Does it matter? We handle it as we always do.”
Rhen offered nothing.
His jaw remained fixed, and his eyes turned pale silver whenever the light caught them.
Cole watched the tension in his shoulders.
“I know you are well past reasonable tonight, but we still need a strategy. These rogues are organized.”
Rhen glanced back.
The look contained both warning and promise.
Cole did not flinch.
“Strategy first. I do not need your death wish complicating the work.”
Malakai rolled his neck slowly before signing.
Where were they last seen?
“Near the river. The trail moved north from there.” Cole looked toward Rhen. “We strike quickly and leave none capable of reporting our numbers. The sooner we finish, the sooner we return to the compound.”
Rhen turned into a narrow service alley between old brick buildings.
The Quarter closed around them through rusted iron balconies, rain-darkened walls, and ivy dripping into the passage. Rot, incense, and damp stone thickened the air.
Then came the metallic scent beneath them.
Blood.
It was not fresh enough to mark an active spill but recent enough to leave a trail.
Rhen’s body responded before thought became necessary. Every muscle tightened, his senses narrowed, and the predator beneath his skin rose with familiar clarity.
He did not care about the Quarter or the lives moving beyond the alley.
He cared about the kill ahead.
Their prey appeared within moments.
A male stumbled from an open service door with blood smeared around his mouth. His pupils were distended, and his unnecessary breathing came fast enough to resemble human panic.
A rogue.
Others emerged behind him, separating from the shadows in groups of two and three. Their bodies twitched with starvation and chemical agitation. They possessed speed without discipline, moving as though instinct controlled them while reason remained somewhere far behind.
Malakai’s mouth tightened.
He flashed a quick sign toward Cole.
They have been busy.
Rhen attacked before the rogues could close the distance.
He struck the first male with the force of a collision. His fist drove through the rogue’s chest, crushing ribs beneath the impact and ending the scream before it began.
The others lunged.
Rhen moved through them with brutal efficiency. Nothing in his violence was decorative. He used fists, fangs, and the unforgiving surfaces of the alley, breaking bodies as quickly as they entered his reach.
Blood spread across the cobblestones and darkened the brick walls. It coated Rhen’s hands until his grip gleamed beneath the alley lights.
He did not slow.
Cole entered the fight with a roar, catching one rogue by the throat and lifting him from the ground before driving him into the wall. Brick cracked beneath the impact, and the rogue collapsed.
Malakai fought with colder precision. He moved between attackers like a blade following seams in armor, every strike chosen before the target understood it had been exposed.
Bodies fell around him.
Then Rhen sensed something beyond the rogues.
A watcher.
His head snapped toward the far mouth of the alley.
A figure stood beyond the strongest reach of the streetlight, half concealed inside the darkness. Unlike the rogues, he remained still, composed, and entirely in control.
A heretic.
Fury narrowed Rhen’s vision until only the figure and the distance between them remained.
The heretic tilted his head.
A faint smirk appeared beneath the shadow of his hood.
Rhen stepped forward.
Cole saw the movement.
“Rhen. Wait.”
For a fraction of a second, Rhen stopped.
The heretic’s attention shifted toward the surviving rogues.
Pressure moved through the alley.
It began as a crawling wrongness against the skin before sinking deeper. The remaining rogues jerked as though invisible lines had tightened around their limbs. Their disordered movements suddenly aligned, and their hunger became coordinated aggression.
Cole blocked a directed strike and looked toward Malakai.
“He is controlling them.”
Malakai’s hands flashed through a combat signal.
Take the heretic now.
Rhen never looked away from the hooded figure.
“He is mine.”
He crossed the alley with speed too fast for human sight.
The heretic’s smirk failed when Rhen reached him.
Rhen caught him by the throat and drove him into the wall hard enough to break mortar. The heretic’s feet left the ground, his hands clawing uselessly against Rhen’s wrist.
Rhen leaned close enough for the other male to smell the blood covering him.
“Do you want to play?”
His fingers tightened.
The bones beneath them began to strain.
The heretic’s arrogance disappeared beneath panic as he fought for air his damaged throat could no longer draw.
“Not quite as clever now,” Rhen said.
For one brief moment, the outcome appeared inevitable.
Then the atmosphere shifted.
The change carried no wind or sound. Pressure slid against Rhen’s skin and entered behind his eyes like a thin blade seeking a weakness.
His grip tightened reflexively.
The heretic’s ruined mouth curved.
“You cannot stop it.”
Power struck Rhen’s mind.
It did not command him, but it disrupted the connection between instinct and movement. Pain drove behind his eyes, his tongue went cold, and the alley tilted beneath him for less than a second.
His fingers loosened.
That fraction was enough.
The heretic tore free with a wet gasp and staggered backward. Black-red energy moved through his eyes while the shadows thickened around his body.
Rhen surged after him.
The darkness folded inward.
The heretic vanished into the narrow streets before Rhen could close his hand around him again.
Rhen drove his fist into the wall.
Brick and mortar split beneath the impact, and dust shook loose through the alley. Blood gathered across his knuckles where the stone had opened his skin.
Malakai reached him first and scanned the rooftops and adjoining passages.
His hands moved sharply when Rhen looked toward him.
Where did he go?
Rhen did not answer.
The invasive residue of the attack remained behind his eyes. It had not controlled him, but it had touched his mind and interrupted his body.
That was enough to make him want the entire Quarter emptied and burned.
Cole approached more cautiously.
“You should have allowed us to close the exits before you attacked.”
Rhen turned his head.
The violence in his silver eyes required no spoken threat.
Cole remained where he was.
“He reached your mind.”
Rhen’s jaw tightened.
Cole looked toward the passage where the heretic had disappeared.
“He is stronger than we expected.”
Malakai wiped blood from the corner of his mouth and signed.
We need to move. If there are more of them—
“There will be,” Rhen said.
His voice had become controlled again, rage welded beneath it like iron reinforcing a wound.
“This is not over.”