14. Camille
Camille
Seattle is supposed to be safer.
The venue passed three separate ward inspections.
Mr. Bane personally approved the broadcast systems, and every piece of equipment involved in the Vegas livestream was replaced before we crossed state lines.
The audience participation segment has been removed.
Live content is suspended. Access to the arena is restricted to cleared personnel.
The system has been corrected.
It fails anyway.
By the final song, rain hammers the roof hard enough to register beneath the music. I stand near the side-stage monitors with Blaire and the production team, watching Midnight Halo move through the last chorus.
Their weapons are already out.
That part is planned. Aurora catches the spotlights as Kaia raises it overhead. Inkthorn trails glowing script through Remy’s next turn. Heartglass reflects fractured pieces of the audience, and Jules crosses the center platform with Voltstep blazing gold-white in both hands.
The show has been clean until now. Engagement is high but within the revised thresholds. No residue alerts. No unexplained fluctuations.
Then the central screen flickers.
Once.
Twice.
The image returns out of sync. Jules completes a turn onstage while the version of her on the screen remains facing forward for half a second too long.
My body recognizes the discrepancy before the system does. Every monitor at the production bank flashes red.
“Kill the feed,” I say.
The technician reaches for the controls.
The screens turn black before he touches them. A second later, something moves inside the darkness.
Not an image. A pressure. Murky and incomplete, spreading across every screen like ink beneath glass. The nearest camera rig jerks against its track.
The stage wards flare. The audience screams, mistaking the burst of gold light for part of the performance.
Midnight Halo keeps moving. Kaia changes the formation without breaking character, steering the others toward the stage-left exit while the backing track continues. To the audience, it reads as choreography: four armed women retreating into smoke as the screens collapse into darkness behind them.
“Kaia, get them offstage,” Blaire says through the private in-ear channel. “Stage left. Keep the crowd calm.”
“We’re having a minor technical issue,” Kaia tells the crowd, calm enough to make the lie credible. “Follow staff instructions, and we’ll be back with you as soon as we can.”
“Blackout,” Blaire orders.
The stage drops into darkness. Emergency music fills the arena while the girls disappear into the wing.
Security begins clearing the front sections under the explanation of a technical failure. The audience is confused, but they have not yet seen enough to panic.
The moment Jules crosses backstage, the rig lunges at them.
She turns and catches it with Voltstep before it can strike Mina. The impact sends gold-white current through the metal frame, and the thing recoils with a sound like static forced through a throat.
The corridor behind the stage is narrow, crowded with equipment cases, hanging cables, and crew members who have not evacuated quickly enough.
“Clear the wing!” Blaire shouts.
We follow the girls through the curtain as security pushes the remaining crew toward the loading corridor. Security motions for me to retreat, but distance would weaken the bond while something is actively trying to reach Jules.
The demonic presence spreads through the backstage system. Dead monitors flare to life. Cables wrench themselves free from the walls and snake across the floor. A suspended lighting line drops behind us, sealing the route back to the stage.
Kaia steps between the threat and the fleeing crew, Aurora broad enough to block the corridor.
Remy drives Inkthorn into a junction box, glowing script racing through the wiring as she tries to sever the corrupted signal.
Mina angles Heartglass toward the nearest screen, forcing the murky presence into view.
Jules moves fast. She cuts through one cable, pivots beneath another, then uses the wall to launch herself over a third. Voltstep flashes with every strike, turning the cramped wing into bursts of gold-white light and black static.
They know what to do.
That should make this easier to watch.
It does not.
A cable strikes the concrete beside Jules and recoils like a living limb. The sound is too similar to the corridor incident days ago.
My pulse accelerates.
The physical response is immediate and disproportionate. My breathing shortens. Muscles tighten across my shoulders and throat. For one disorienting second, I am no longer standing backstage beside Blaire.
I remember being pinned against a wall, cables tightening around my body while something presses against my wards and attempts to occupy the same space.
I adjust my watch. The clasp is already aligned. My fingers remain against it anyway.
This is a biological response. Adrenaline. Pattern recognition. An involuntary association between present stimulus and prior threat.
Fear.
I know what it is.
Knowing does not stop it.
The bond tightens, and I know she can feel it too.
Jules cuts through another line, then turns her head.
Her eyes find mine across the corridor.
The shift lasts less than a second, but I feel the exact moment she registers my fear. Her focus breaks. Concern flashes across her face, startlingly clear.
She hesitates.
The demon does not.
A cable catches her across the torso and throws her into a stack of equipment cases hard enough to send them crashing across the floor.
“Jules.” Her name escapes before I can stop it.
She hits the concrete, rolls once, and slams into the base of a lighting rack. Voltstep flickers in her hands.
Pain moves through the bond, then disorientation.
Then anger, bright and immediate.
She pushes herself upright.
Relief hits me hard enough to be painful.
Kaia reaches her first, Aurora cutting through the cable before it can strike again. Mina steps between Jules and the nearest screen, Heartglass flashing as she forces the presence back into the wiring. Remy shouts for Jules to move left.
Jules looks at me again.
This time, I force my breathing into a measured rhythm. I straighten and remove my hand from my watch.
The message is inadequate but clear: I am functional. Focus.
Her mouth tightens. Then she turns back toward the threat. The girls dismantle it in under three minutes.
It feels considerably longer.
Remy severs the final connection. Mina exposes the central knot in the system, and Jules drives both blades through it while Kaia shields them from the backlash.
Every backstage monitor dies at once. The cables collapse. Silence returns.
Beyond the curtain, the arena evacuation announcement continues in a calm prerecorded loop. The audience still believes they witnessed a production failure.
For now.
Mr. Bane enters the wing with two handlers before the residual static has fully faded, their cases already open. Medical reaches Jules seconds later.
I remain where I am until Mina helps her toward the backstage treatment room.
***
Jules sits on the edge of a folding chair with one foot propped on an equipment case while a medic examines her ribs. A shallow cut near her hairline has already stopped bleeding, and someone from wardrobe is pretending not to stare at the dark smear across the sole of her boot.
It is not a significant amount of blood.
That is the problem.
Just enough to be dismissed. Just enough to be classified as superficial. Just enough that the system will not flag it as meaningful.
“You should see the other guy,” Jules says, when she notices me looking.
There is no humor in the statement. Only the expectation of it.
I do not provide the appropriate response. Instead, I look at the medic expectantly.
“She has bruising along the ribs,” he says. “No indication of fracture. Minor swelling in her knee, but nothing torn. The cuts are superficial, but we’ll monitor for concussion symptoms.”
The treatment room continues moving around us. Assistants carry damaged equipment past the open door. Security personnel exchange statements. A wardrobe technician kneels to inspect the tear in Jules’s stage costume as if the fabric is the most urgent concern in the building.
Everyone is behaving as though this is routine.
For them, perhaps it is.
That is the part that does not align.
The bond carries Jules’s discomfort beneath the performance she is presenting. Pain at her ribs. Exhaustion. The last edge of adrenaline. All of it muted beneath deliberate amusement.
She notices me noticing.
“Camille.”
“What?”
“You’re doing the thing.”
“That is not specific.”
“The silent staring thing where you turn me into numbers,” she says.
“I’m assessing whether you require additional treatment.”
“I have a doctor for that.”
“Medic,” the man beside her corrects.
Jules looks at him. “That feels less impressive.”
The medic smiles.
I do not.
“You looked away from the threat,” I say.
Her expression changes slightly. “Yeah, I noticed.”
“You allowed the bond to disrupt your concentration.”
“You were terrified.”
The room seems to narrow around the sentence. Kaia’s gaze shifts to me, surprise briefly breaking through her composure. Heat rises beneath my collar, immediate and unwelcome. Not because Jules is wrong.
Because she said it aloud.
“I was functional.”
“That wasn’t what I said.”
Mina looks between us but remains silent. Her hand rests near Jules’s knee, close enough to reassure without restraining.
“The attack was similar to what happened in the corridor. That’s it, right?” Jules continues. Her voice is quieter now. “You felt it. I felt you feeling it.”
“The resemblance triggered an involuntary biological response.”
“Fear,” she says.
“Yes, fear.”
Something in her expression softens. I dislike that immediately.
“You don’t have to say it like it’s a diagnosis,” Jules adds.
“It is one.”
“No, it’s a feeling.”
“Feelings are biological data.”
“And there she is.”