Scorch rears back in the air, wings beating once, twice, holding him aloft before he lifts his massive head.
And hell itself answers.
When he opens his jaws, what pours from his throat isn’t fire.
It’sannihilation.
True dragonfire, white-hot, ancient, predating human civilization, erupts downward in a roaring column of destruction. The asphalt doesn’t burn, it liquefies, collapsing into a bubbling river of molten tar. Vampires caught beneath it don’t even have time to scream.
They don’t burn.
Theycease.
The heat is unbearable even from where I stand, skin prickling, lungs burning as the sky fills with the roar of fire and the scent of scorched earth. I shield my face, heart hammering wildly, watching Scorch arc through the sky like a god of war, raining devastation from above. Flesh, bone, ancient blood, all of it turns to ash so fine it disperses on the wind before hitting the ground.
“Come on!” Scorch’s voice is barely human anymore, roughened by centuries of containing a beast that was never meant to be contained. “Is this the best you’ve got? I’ve burnedcitieshotter than this!”
Another burst of dragonfire.
Another five vampires reduced to memory and ash.
But I can see the cost through my Crimson Sight. The fire isn’t just coming from him. It’sconsuminghim. Each blast burns a little more of his humanity away, leaving something older, something more monstrous in its place.
Oracle’s warning echoes in my mind.‘Fire consumes everything, Scorch. Even dragons forget they used to be men.’
Away from the main assault, Ronan moves through the chaos as though he’s dancing, and in a way, he is, dancing with probability itself.
A witch aims a curse at his back. Her spell misfires spectacularly, rebounding to strike her own ally instead. A vampire lunges with inhuman speed, but his foot catches on absolutely nothing, sending him sprawling directly into one of Scorch’s explosive traps.
The blast tears through three more enemies, and Ronan grins, his eyes glowing with an eerie fae shimmer.
“Luck’s on our side tonight, boys,” he shouts, his Irish accent thickening with adrenaline. “Literally!”
He doesn’t fight directly. He doesn’t need to. His power bends reality in subtle, devastating ways as weapons jam, spells backfire, and the usually graceful vampires trip over their own feet at critical moments. It’s not flashy in the way Scorch’s fire is, or brutal in the way Rogue’s claws are. It’selegant.
And absolutely terrifying if you’re on the wrong side of it.
Beside him, Jet phases in and out of reality like a ghost with purpose. One moment, he’s solid, blade flashing as it opens a vampire’s throat. The next, he’s incorporeal, attacks slicing through empty air as his wraith form slips between seconds. Then he’s solid again, appearing behind a demon-possessed human, close enough to murmur something directly into the thing wearing their skin.
The demon recoils.
Whatever Jet whispers isn’t a threat. It’s a truth.
The entity shrieks as it’s forced out, black smoke tearing free from the host’s eyes and mouth, clawing at the air before dissolving into nothing. The human’s knees buckle, body already failing now that the possession is gone, pain etched so deeply into his features it looks permanent.
I freeze. My breath stuttering as Jet catches the collapsing body before it hits the ground, his hand passes through the human chest, not ripping, not violent, but deliberate. Gentle, almost reverent. The soul comes free in a wash of pale light and shadow, frayed and broken from what it’s endured. The human exhales once, a final sound of release, pain draining from their features as the last of their suffering ends. No fear, no struggle, just stillness.
My stomach twists hard as Jet draws the soul into himself. This should horrify me, and a part of me does recoil, the nurse screaming that this is wrong, that people aren’t supposed to die quietly like that, aren’t supposed to be taken, but another part of me understands with unsettling clarity. That body wasn’t surviving this fight. That soul was already damned, already breaking under the weight of what had been done to it.
Jet is ending that suffering.
And taking what he needs to keep fighting.
It isn’t cruelty.
It’sbalance.
As the soul disappears into him, a ripple rolls through the air, subtle but unmistakable. Power settles into Jet’s wraith form, sharpening his edges, deepening his presence until he feels heavier somehow, more anchored.
