Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Ghost
The night tastes like ash and bourbon. I can feel it on my tongue as we cut through the crowd, Phoenix and I, side by side, hunting death dressed like it belongs.
Costumes stretch for blocks. Ghouls and glitter, devils with fake blood, and angels missing wings.
Somewhere inside it all, real monsters wait, cloaked in sugar and bone.
The Hollow Sons are planning a slaughter, and the city dances on, blind and laughing.
“Eyes sharp,” Phoenix says, her voice low, riding just under the rhythm of drums and distant brass.
I nod, my hand brushing the grip of my Glock under my jacket. I’ve never seen her like this, focused to the point of fracture, rage humming just beneath her skin. I want to touch her, anchor her, but there’s no space for softness out here.
We slip between alleyways, following smoke trails and radio bursts from Viper and Gypsy. The Non Cras are flanking the Quarter, closing in like a noose. Phoenix and I are the spearpoint meant to drive straight into the Hollow Sons’ heart.
“Any word from MV?” I ask, keeping pace with her stride.
She shakes her head once. “Off-grid. Which means it’s worse than we thought.”
The first scream doesn’t sound real. It’s too high, too sharp. The crowd just thinks it's part of the act, more Halloween theatrics. But Phoenix knows. I know. We run.
We hit Dauphine Street at a sprint. The air changes. Copper thick and smoke-curled. A body stumbles out of the shadows dressed as a skeleton, but the red on his chest isn’t paint. His mask slips as he falls, revealing the brand burned into his cheek.
Hollow Sons.
Phoenix fires first. Two clean shots. The body jerks, then folds into the gutter.
Chaos explodes like a match tossed on dry leaves.
Screams ripple through the crowd. Children cry.
Music dies. A girl in a witch hat tries to pull her friend away from the blood slicking the cobblestones. And then they’re everywhere.
Dozens of Hollow Sons, painted like corpses, move through the masses, slashing, grabbing, stabbing. The masks make them ghosts. The blood makes them real.
I lose sight of Phoenix for a beat and feel panic claw up my spine. Then I catch her, already taking down two men with that blade she hides in her boot. She fights like fury incarnate, like she’s burning from the inside out and needs violence to breathe.
I move to cover her back, taking shots clean and fast, until my clip runs dry. I reload, aim, and then fire again. But I don’t see the one coming behind me.
A sting at my neck is quick and precise. A prick of something cold rushing into my veins. I turn, but the alley spins, warping the edges of light. My body betrays me. My knees buckle, my gun slipping from my fingers. I hear Phoenix shout something, but it’s all underwater now.
Hands grab me. I swing, putting up a fight, but my limbs are lead. I fall to the cold concrete as darkness pulls me under.
I wake up coughing on the dirt floor of some hell beneath the Quarter. The room is warm, lit by candles stuffed inside carved pumpkins, their jagged faces dancing with firelight. Bones hang from the rafters. Real ones, not props.
A circle is drawn in ash around me. Symbols I don’t understand crawl across the floor like curses.
I can’t move. Something’s in my bloodstream. My vision pulses. My heart beats off-rhythm. I try to speak, but my tongue feels swollen. Cotton lines my mouth, making it dry.
The Hollow Sons chant from the shadows. Masks painted with ash and blood. One of them steps closer, holding a knife shaped like a fang.
“You’re the knight,” he whispers. “The one she’d bleed for.”
I try to lunge but fail.
“She’ll come for you,” he says, kneeling just outside the circle. “And when she does, we finish the vow. One life for many. Yours for hers.”
I smile through the numbness. “You better hope she doesn’t.”
Because if Phoenix Kane is coming, the devil himself would run from her.
The bastard kneels over me like a priest giving last rites. I’d spit in his face if I could move. But the drug’s got my muscles locked, like my bones are someone else’s. Like I’m just a passenger in this shell.
“Do you know what All Hallows means to us?” he asks, dragging the knife down the edge of his forearm like it’s foreplay. Blood rolls slow and slick over the blade. “It’s not costumes and candy. It’s the night when the veil thins. When blood matters most.”
His eyes shine behind his skull-painted mask. Delirious devotion. I’ve seen it before in killers who thought they were holy. In cops who thought the badge made them God. But this? This is different. This is older. Dirtier.
“You think she’s coming for you,” he says, voice all velvet rot. “But it’s not a rescue. It’s a sacrifice. Blood of the lover. Willingly given or violently taken. The Veil is thinnest tonight. Her blood would’ve opened the gate, but yours will do. You carry her soul’s echo. You bleed, she breaks.”
He lifts my chin with the tip of his blade. “What do you think she’ll choose?”
I smile slowly. Feral. “She’ll burn this whole city down before she lets you touch me.”
That gets to him. His eyes flicker, unsure. And that’s when the first explosion hits.
A deep-throated boom shakes the chamber. Dust shifts from the ceiling like snowfall. Men's screaming echoes through the hallways. The kind of screams you don’t recover from.
The leader stumbles, his knife jerking away. He curses and backs up, but I already hear her.
Phoenix.
Her boots hit the stone floor like war drums. The door slams open, and smoke curls in behind her, wrapping around her like a cloak.
She doesn’t walk, she storms. Her eyes are locked on me.
And if I thought she looked dangerous before, now she’s something mythic.
Blood on her cheek. Smoke streaking her clothes. Fire in her goddamn soul.
“Step away from him,” she growls.
The man doesn’t move. Neither does she.
“I said move,” she repeats, but it’s lower now, calm in a way that means death.
“I was hoping you’d come,” he says, his knife back in hand. “You’ll complete the circle. One soul for another. That’s how balance works.”
“Then let’s balance this,” she says and throws her knife straight into his throat.
He stumbles back, gurgling, while clutching the blade. His dark eyes widen as blood paints his chest. He drops, gasping.
Then hell breaks loose.
The others rush her. Half a dozen of them, but she’s already moving. Glock up, blasting a body into the wall. Spinning, cracking another’s knee with her boot, using the downed man as a human shield while she fires over his shoulder. Bone shatters. Screams ring.
I try to move again. I’m still sluggish, but the drug is thinning. Adrenaline coursing through my veins helps. So does the sheer goddamn fury boiling in my gut.
One of the Hollow Sons peels away from the melee and sees me twitching. He grins. Big mistake. He raises a machete.
I meet his eyes. “Come on, you coward.”
He charges.
And then his body seizes mid-stride. Three shots to the chest from Phoenix, fast as breathing.
I roll out of the circle as he collapses on top of it, bones crunching under his weight. My muscles scream, but they obey now. I crawl to the wall and grab the edge of a rusted lantern stand, forcing myself upright.
My experience and knowledge lead me to believe that Phoenix is down to one bullet and two blades. She locks eyes with me as she flips a man over her shoulder and buries a knife in his spine.
“You good?” she shouts.
“Better now,” I rasp, picking up the machete. My legs wobble, but I stand. “Let’s finish this.”
In the middle of the chaos, I finally get what being her Knightmare means.
It’s a vow. To be the blade in her hand.
The shadow at her back. To haunt the men who dared to try and take her.
We fight like we were meant to. She fights to protect.
I fight to punish. Side by side, in rhythm, breathing each other in between the cracks of gunfire and screams.
We cut down the last of them, leaving blood on the altar and bones on the floor.
Then, silence.
Ash floats through the room like it’s snowing. Phoenix breathes heavily, eyes scanning for any movement. I step toward her with shaky limbs.
“You came for me,” I say. She doesn’t answer, just looks at me like she’s checking for holes in my skin, for breaks in my bones. “I’m fine,” I add.
“No,” she says, voice raw, “you’re not.” And then she grabs my face and kisses me like she needs to prove I’m alive.
The room spins differently now. Not from drugs. But from her.
When she pulls back, her hands stay on my jaw. “They marked you. They were going to use you to get to me.”
I stumble, and Phoenix is right here to catch me. “I figured that out,” I say, nodding to the altar. “Real subtle guys.”
She doesn’t laugh. She’s still too close to breaking. “This isn’t over. The Hollow Sons didn’t just want blood tonight. They wanted a damn prophecy.”
“They didn’t get it.”
“No,” she agrees. “Because we rewrote the ending.”
We don’t speak as we climb the cracked stairs to the surface. The Quarter above is quieter now. I can hear sirens in the distance, a siren’s wail that isn’t for us.
Phoenix’s hand brushes mine as we walk. It’s not affection. It’s a promise. A warning. A tether. She will always come for me, no matter who tries to take me.
Above ground, smoke still lingers. The city still dances, blind again. But somewhere out there, Vale is watching. And he just got his warning.