Only the silence answered.
He yelled again. His throat tore raw from shouting, the echoes collapsing back onto him until the chamber itself seemedto mock his rage. Minutes passed; he could not tell how many. Just the steady drip of water, the dead faces grimacing on the walls, and the cross towering in its corner.
Then… footsteps.
Not the vague swish from before. These were measured, closer. Intentional.
Ash’s head snapped toward the sound. The bulkhead groaned, bolts twisting, gears grinding, metal shrieking from strain. When it opened, the gap revealed a dim silhouette standing just beyond the reach of candlelight. Tallish. Slight. Unremarkable.
“You’re awake already?” The tone was almost casual. “Fascinating. I used enough charge to put down a horse.”
Ash blinked against the gloom, vision straining, pulse thundering, trying to place the voice. He’d heard it before. He wassureof it. “That would be your final mistake,” he said, his throat burning with the words, fury sharpening his tongue. “If you’re lucky.”
The figure only chuckled, the sound grotesquely out of place in this chamber of the dead, and stepped inside, letting the candlelight wash over him.
Recognition hit Ash with a jolt.
Gordon.
The coroner’s assistant. The mousy little clerk with pale skin and watery eyes behind too-large glasses. The one who’d fetched Rick’s address two nights ago. Too nervous. Too harmless. Too forgettable.
Ash surged, teeth bared, slamming into the invisible barrier. His rage boiled over; he hurled his will outward, tried to snap Gordon against the wall. Nothing. He locked his gaze on him, poured the velvet heat of his influence into it, that magnetic pull that slid below the skin and curled around the will of others, pushing the command like a blade. “Release me.Now.”
Still nothing.
Gordon’s mouth curved into a soft, dreamy smile. “Don’t bother,” he said mildly. “It won’t work.”
Ash snarled. “It always works.”
“Not here.” Gordon gestured to the floor. “I know what you are, cambion. I’ve taken precautions.”
Ash’s jaw tightened, breath catching as he looked down at the circle hemming him in. The memory of the barrier’s blue flare burned fresh in his mind—cold, humiliating proof that he was powerless against it. A tremor shivered through him; anger or fear, he couldn’t say which.
“It’s a demon trap,” Gordon said softly. “The Book showed me how to make it.” His eyes gleamed strangely, fever-bright; his voice remained quiet, gentle, made more terrible by its calm. “As long as the boundary stays unbroken, you’re mine.”
Ash only glared at him, too stunned to speak.
Gordon tilted his head, as though amused. “Don’t look so shocked. I knew what you were the moment I saw you at the station that night. You glowed like a Christmas tree in the middle of a dark forest. The Book taught me that, too.”
Ash’s pulse spiked. “So you stalked me.”
“Of course.” Gordon’s tone was airy, almost proud. “Your address was in your arrest file. Easy enough. I watched you at the station last night, trailed you as you hopped from bar to bar tonight, waiting for the perfect moment. You never noticed me. I’ve learned how to use shadows.” His glasses caught the candlelight, turning the lenses white and depthless. “I’ve been planning this since the moment I met you. You’ll be my consummation. My masterpiece.”
The words slithered down Ash’s spine. For the first time, his anger sputtered. A cold void yawned beneath it, dread deeper than fear. He wasn’t just caught. He wasbound. Helpless.
And Gordon—small, colorless, forgettable Gordon—wasn’t harmless at all.
Ash swallowed the jagged edge of panic. “You think this makes you powerful?”
“It doesn’t make me think it,” Gordon murmured. “It proves it.” His thin lips tightened, neither smile nor sneer, as if savoring some secret taste. “Now,” he whispered, “sleep. You must rest before we begin.”
Ash bared his teeth. “Go to hell.”
But Gordon didn’t argue. He simply drew a long breath and spoke a word.
“Fhtagn.”
It wasn’t English. It wasn’t anything human. The sound burst from his throat like a rupture in the air, a guttural vibration that rattled the pipes, trembled through the floor, and sank claws into the marrow of Ash’s bones. Shadows curdled. Candle flames snapped sideways. The chamber warped around the syllable as if recoiling.
