Marta dipped her finger in the holy water outside the entrance before making the sign of the cross and entering the main area of the church itself.  She was here to take her religious education classes and they had just dismissed.  Ricky had dropped her off for class, and would return later.  She had asked to stay for awhile because she thought the church was quiet and pretty.  It was pretty common and it was good self-reflection time for her. It was a church; no one was going to hurt her here and she had Splash with her as well, covered in her Emotional Support vest. Marta's own eyes were covered by her contacts as always.

Marta wasn't just here to see the pretty church though and think.  Not today.  Today she was actually going to pray.  She went to the side and genuflected before putting down the kneeler.  She crossed herself as Splash lay down next to her.  She folded her hands together, resting her elbows on the pew in front of her. She looked up at the crucifix above the altar with Jesus hanging from it. She wasn't as devout in her prayers as some, but she did believe.  She had found herself praying more lately.  Sometimes she wondered if what she was planning was the right thing - if she really should stand up to the cartels. As she looked up at Jesus, she wondered what he would do if he was her.  She still didn't have an answer.

Her prayer today wasn't for herself.  Sage had told her not to worry.  Hayden had told her not to worry.  Everyone was telling her not to worry, but she couldn't help it.  It upset her how much Nox was hurting - or rather not hurting. He was numb, and that scared her more than it would if he was in pain.  So when she prayed it wasn't for herself.  It was for Nox.

God...if you can hear me. Help him...or help Sage help him...or anyone.  Please.

As was her custom, she never really spoke her prayers out loud - at least not her personal ones. She spoke the ones for Mass out loud like everyone else did. That was her whole prayer.  She kept it simple and to the point.  As she finished she felt moisture on her cheek and wiped away the tear.  Even if her prayer was done, she remained knelt with her hands folded, her eyes focused on the crucifix at the front of the church.

It turned out Natalie had no painkillers. No aspirin. Not even a forgotten bottle of expired cough syrup. Just bare shelves. Not surprising. Her apartment was bare-boned. A woman who lived light, unburdened, as if permanence might catch her off guard. He offered to stop at a vendor on the way back, toss a few dollars at something stronger, but she told him not to worry. The order had already been placed, and the delivery would beat him home.

That was when his mind began drifting. Dinner. Takeout, probably. Neither of them cooked. Grilling was always an option, but it wasn’t like he could haul a charcoal drum onto a fifth-floor balcony in central Moscow without setting off alarms. literal or metaphorical. He considered the usual spots. Ramen, maybe. Or the Turkish place with the flatbread that always came just a little burnt. And then.

Then it hit him.
He was planning dinner. Not for himself, but for them.

This is what people in relationships do.
'Hey, should I grab milk on the way home?'

The thought tightened around his chest like a rope, soft but inescapable. For a moment, he just stood there on the wet concrete, lips parted as if the cold had caught him mid-thought, and he forgot to breathe.

Was this what he wanted? This domestic drift? The soft gravity of someone waiting for him behind a door, with arms and silence and warmth?


Because when he was with Natalie — really with her — the rest of the world fell away. Her body against his, her glare, even the way she challenged him in the quiet… it felt like all the good things he thought had been scorched out of him in the years between then and now.

But when he stepped outside of her, it was like catching his reflection in some fogged mirror. He barely recognized the man he was anyway. This was like another life. It scared the hell out of him.

So he sent another message: Going to swing by the RLD. Grabbing something better for my hand. The good stuff. The kind you didn’t get in the upscale dispensaries. What he didn’t say. What he didn’t have the guts to say was that he needed a little more time. Just a few more streets between himself and that quiet warmth he couldn’t stop wanting.

He pulled up the collar of his coat as he turned off the main road. Government-issue, heavy, and warm. Buttoned up enough to hide the uniform beneath, the one marked with the sigils of the Dominions. The CCD crests were sewn into the shoulder and chest beneath, but here, he wanted to blend in. The RLD didn’t care for symbols of power, only money. Only customers.

The Red Light District was humming under frost and shadow, alive with false heat. Neon poured from every overhang, advertisements flickering through condensation and low static interference. The air carried a chemical sweetness. Engineered pheromones, vaped synthetics, electric cinnamon. All designed to dull, entice, pacify. Snow was piled in the gutters like forgotten ash.

Around him, bodies moved through the streets like ghosts. Augmented limbs. Glowing eyes. Faces too perfect to be anything but curated. Jay passed by a VR parlor pumping out soft moans and colorwashed light, then a bio-lounge that promised transcendence in five microdoses or less.

He’d been here before. Of course he had. But never looking for relief. Never like this.

Tonight, he wasn’t chasing pleasure. He was chasing silence. A chemical kind. Something to numb the ache in his knuckles, which were still sore and purpled from striking both Matías and the wall behind him. But it wasn’t just his hand that hurt. It was the hollowness in his chest. The kind that nothing could fix.

It took a few tries. Most dispensaries catered to the weekend crowd. Dream-syrups, synth-mirage injectables, neural-slow patches. But eventually, tucked between a gene-tweak parlor and an automated pleasure bar, he found a vendor that carried the military-branded stuff. Combat residue relief. Nerve quieters. Burn-skin regenerants. Things marketed to a specific group.

The attendant barely looked up. Just slid a digital display across the counter and gestured at the scanner. The place was warm, artificially so. Overhead, a reactor coil hummed softly, and red light spilled from the strip-lighting above like diluted blood.

Jay keyed in a code, jaw tight, shoulders hunched beneath the heavy weight of the coat. He could feel the eyes of the district behind him. Not specific, but aware, the way this part of the city always was. Like the whole block was a creature watching from the cracks.

As the machine processed his payment, he wondered again if he was stalling because of her or because he didn’t know what kind of man he was once he let himself be happy.

Either way, the drugs would help. Not just the hand. Not just the bruises.

He stepped out into the street once more to find a place to use the very product he just purchased.

The new Atharim Headquarters was perfectly reconstructed. Nora worked at the one prior to the fire, and nobody had questioned how she survived it. In the time it took for the HQ to reopen, she’d been staying at an Atharim owned apartment in the mid-city, someplace that didn’t attract attention and served a rotating guest list of Atharim needing someplace to stay. It felt more like a dressed up hotel room rather than a home. For that reason, Nora preferred spending her waking hours in HQ, but it just felt wrong now that she knew what she was.

But she had no other choice. The only way she could do her proper research was directly on the Atharim’s servers, with database access to Vatican digital archives. She brought Claude here a few days after his arrival. Being Saint-Clair’s he had no issue with admittance, and after a short tour of the newly finished Baccarat building, they were buried in the database room, and she was quietly showing him her findings.

She stood in the middle of the room, arms crossed, brows drawn together like she was daring the data to contradict her.
“This isn’t some mood-swing death spiral, okay?” she said, her voice firm, practiced, and maybe a little defensive. “I’ve been digging through the Vatican scans, translation records, all the flagged anomalies from the last decade. Everything they don’t publish but still track.”

She clicked something on the laptop and the screen split, showing a dozen digital entries, each tagged with variations of the same phrase: uncontrolled divine surge, fatality suspected. She didn’t look at Claude, but she knew he was there. Close enough to hear, close enough to catch her if her voice cracked. It didn’t.

“They’ve been cataloguing godmarked individuals since before the term even existed. No one talks about it in the open, but the data’s there. Every time one of … ahem… someone appears. Every time a god touches their powers, something follows. Something irreversible.”

She stepped aside, letting him look if he wanted. She didn’t wait to see if he did.

“The powers always escalate. Slowly at first. But no one fades out. No one stays the same. They either go dormant and self-destruct,” she pointed to one case file, “or they snap. Violently.”

She exhaled through her nose and pulled up another tab. A scan of an old illuminated manuscript, faded Latin text with annotations in three languages.

“I did a reverse search on godmarkings, abrupt endings, and cataclysms.. that sort of thing to try and understand whether it’s reversible. Can you prevent a god from … well, becoming what’s inevitable. I found this, and I can’t for the life of me figure it out, but it definitely doesn’t look promising.”[/color]

She enlarged the image. A hand-drawn wheel, stylized like a sunburst, formed the centerpiece. Around it were smaller glyphs—constellations, or possibly seals. At the center: a broken sword embedded in an open eye.

“It showed up in four different texts across three centuries. All referring to the gods. All ending in some kind of cataclysm.” She ran her fingers through her hair, letting her hand linger at the back of her neck where she squeezed the tense muscles. Her voice dropped lower, not quite a whisper but something conspiratorial, wary. She was looking for answers about herself. Can she suppress her power? Can she change herself? Did this mean she should avoid having children? It’s not that she wanted them now, but someday, she figured she would.

“I asked another Atharim scholar for their opinion. He said it’s tied to something called the Unseen Pattern. Supposedly a prophecy, but it’s written in what is called 'preconceptional language’… a kind of thought-form language. There’s no Rosetta Stone for it. Even AI doesn’t have a good interpretation.”

She paused, then glanced at Claude for the first time since she’d started speaking. Her expression wasn’t confident anymore. It was measured. Cautious.

“I’ve read every commentary I can access. None of them agree on what it means. But I swear it feels familiar. Like I’ve seen it before. Maybe in a dream, or…”

She trailed off, then gave a small shrug, forcing the moment back under control. She was no prophet. She next showed him the list of commentaries, some going back two-thousand years of scholars giving their opinions. “Look, I know it’s a long shot, but you’ve always been better with puzzles than I am. This one’s chewing a hole through my brain.”

She crossed back to the laptop and tapped a few keys, bringing the image into sharper resolution.

“I hate these damn prophecies. Do you see anything in it I don’t?”




Link to research information on Nora's wiki: Scroll to Nora's Research section.

Anna didn’t know why she went to the GUM, and especially didn't know why she went by herself. She had spent a lot of time with Elyse and she loved that, but maybe she just found herself needing to get away for a bit. She didn’t really live there after all, and it was quite crazy with all the kids there that didn’t shut off it seemed. It also helped that Elyse was doing okay. She wasn’t great, but she was better than she had been. Anna didn’t worry every day anymore. Elyse had been keeping in contact with the Shale’s too. It was kind of cute seeing Elyse get a crush after she made fun of Anna for her crush on Cade. The thought of it made Anna smile. 

Apparently Anna had missed Cade showing up at the house though. Marta had told Elyse who had told Anna that he had met with Nox, and had been once again introduced to the world of monsters, and it seemed like he was at least believing now. Anna shuddered at the thought of the vampire (dreykan Elyse had called it).  It was a bad memory from an otherwise pleasant day. She could still see the dead woman’s lifeless gaze. She pushed it aside, not wanting to think about it. In response, Anna reached for her power, still surprised that it came to her so readily now, the warmth of it within her, giving her comfort and pushing away the terrible memory.

Today Anna sat on a bench though, watching people pass by. A pair of lovers walked by holding hands, several sets of mother’s pulling children around as they finished their Christmas shopping. Other people were solitary like her, but walking around with a sense of purpose. Anna didn’t really have a purpose for being here. She had thought when she had left Nox’s place that she might do some shopping, but at this point she really hadn’t started. Perhaps she would later. For now, people watching seemed to be suiting her just fine.

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The stench hit first.

Even with the brisk winter air fighting to clear the streets, the area clung to the rot of old refuse and too many bodies packed too close together. Quillon Hawke adjusted the strap of his simple black jacket: thick canvas, built for work, with the Brotherhood of Ascension's emblem stitched modestly above the chest. His jeans were worn but clean, his boots sturdy enough for cracked sidewalks and mud-slick alleys. He looked out of place here, but not unwelcome. The Brotherhood's reputation reached even the forgotten corners of the city. If not respect, then at least tolerance.

Hollow-eyed figures watched from makeshift shelters: tents stitched from tarps and duct tape, blankets draped over shopping carts. Children peeked out and vanished again into the broken forest of rusted beams and concrete pillars. Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked. Always a dog, in places like this. 

Quillon shifted the heavy pack on his back, full of simple offerings: thermoses of hot soup, loaves of fresh bread, bundled socks, cheap but clean gloves. Enough for today. Not enough for tomorrow.

It never was.

He moved to a patch of cleared ground near an old, fire-scorched wall and set down a folding table, scratched and battered from use, then began unpacking. A few people drifted closer, drawn by the smell of real food. The scent of warm broth seemed almost unnatural here, in a place that smelled only of despair, body odor, and open sewage.

Quillon worked methodically, gloves off, sleeves pushed up to reveal forearms marked with faint scars from a childhood full of intravenous lines and medications. His presence was steady, grounded. Not friendly. Not soft. But sure.

As he handed out cups of steaming soup and warm bread, he spoke without sermonizing or shouting, just a simple reminder.

"No soul is too lost," he said, offering a sandwich to a young man whose hands shook from cold or hunger or something deeper. "Ascension waits for all who reach for it."

Most only nodded, or said nothing at all. That was enough. 

"If you think you have higher powers, we can help you find it."

"The veil calls to all. Who will answer?"

Quillon kept his face impassive, though a knot of old frustration twisted in his chest. Hope was a slow harvest. Hard to plant, harder to grow.

Today, he sowed what seeds he could.

Life was a whirlwind of crisis' one after the other. And it all felt normal and Nox had nothing but a dull feeling about it all. Sasha just showing up had been the worse and best thing that could have happened. He hated and loved it, or he would if he felt anything at all. But it all was just there. His life was just there. It was nothing but the dull day to day life of a mundane person. How did he ever live like this.

Nox had become so reliant on the power that without it he felt useless and half the person he was. But it didn't bother him. It should. He should be pissed and throwing things, but it was just life -- it went on.  One step at a time, one minute, one second. Life went on and Nox had made himself a promise a long time ago that he wouldn't go out like his father. Suicide was not in his cards. He was less a danger to himself than before, and yet even more at risk for doing something stupid. At least going after Pirozzi had gone well.  He'll have to do better against other creatures.

Salvation and Damnation were now both on his hip when he left the house under the large puffy jacket he had to wear.  Oriena's text had startled Nox as he fed Lily. He'd almost forgotten he'd sent her a text days ago about needing to meet. And she finally responded. It was a good thing he hadn't needed it anymore. But now he had to break the news and while it wouldn't damage what they had, there was a pang of guilt and sorrow that it could. Oriena was unpredictable and Nox could never guess where her wind might blow.

He sent her the location of the shit motel they used often that paid by the hour. They might use a lot or a little or none at all.

Nox left Lily with Marta a little earlier than usual, Oriena would not appreciate a baby. She barely tolerated him most days.

The place was a shit hole, but it was the cleanest of the shit holes Nox had used. No bugs, and the sheets were clean.

Nox was early he always was.  He put the gun and knife on the stand next to the TV and sat on the bed waiting for Oriena to show up. It could be soon, it could be an hour or more. He didn't expect her to jump when he said he needed her. He was not at all surprised it had been days. Normally he'd have gone looking for her in her favorite haunts, but he hadn't had the need, the horde was gone and now this was an end. He could have done it at Kallisti or someplace else it wasn't about sex though he would oblige her in anything and in any way and he could just lie, but that would end poorly. And he didn't lie to Oriena. There was no need. There were no secrets between them.

Saturday arrived gray and breathless, the kind of cold that didn’t bite so much as sink its teeth in slow. Snow gathered in the seams of the city: stacked along rooftops, clinging to window ledges, dusting the shoulders of old statues that stood watch over the frozen streets. The Moscow skyline looked like it had been dipped in powdered sugar and forgotten.

Ezvin arrived early.

Wrapped in a navy wool coat that flared a little too dramatically when he walked, a knit scarf the color of sea foam, and a pair of well-worn boots with snow-crusted toes, he stood outside the tucked-away address he'd texted Cadence the night before. He kept shifting from heel to toe to keep warm, breath ghosting out in soft white clouds, a paper bag clutched in one hand, and a thermos of something steaming in the other.

Just a small courtyard tucked between buildings, connected by a discreet iron arch with snow and a mosaic tile by the entrance that read Гнездо in chipped cobalt: The Nest.

He held a paper bag in one hand — still warm — and a thermos in the other. Inside the bag: pirozhki, filled with cabbage and mushroom, picked up from a bakery with an old Muscovite menu and the world’s grumpiest cashier. He’d timed it perfectly. The filling would still be hot.

The Nest wasn’t on any curated “Hidden Art Spots of Moscow” list. It wasn’t curated, period. It was an artist’s co-op, gallery, studio, café, and half-functional chaos engine all rolled into one. A living thing.

Inside, it sprawled. A labyrinth of rooms and stairwells, each one painted in a different color scheme by whoever had last claimed it. No two walls matched. One room was filled with floor-to-ceiling zines and old typewriters where visitors wrote confessions or left behind single lines of poetry. Another had a community canvas where strangers added swipes of paint, quotes, or tiny portraits in the margins. There were sculptors working in clay near the back. Musicians sometimes played in the stairwells just for the acoustics. A woman named Alisa ran a coffee counter out of what might have once been a supply closet. There was a sculpture garden in the back. 'Garden' being generous, considering everything was frozen and lightly dusted with snow, but Ezvin liked it anyway. The pieces weren’t for sale or marketable. They were unfinished, sometimes literally: half-chiseled torsos, twisted wire, a few broken limbs from a former installation now resting like sacred ruins in the white drift.

The Nest smelled like old books, varnish, espresso, and fresh snow melting off boots.

Ezvin could’ve taken her anywhere. Jazz bars. Wine tastings. Rooftop restaurants with carefully curated lighting. But that wasn’t what this was. Not with Cadence. She didn’t need the polish. She needed somewhere that was allowed to be unfinished. A work in progress. A future untold.

So when she arrived, he didn’t say much. Just handed her the thermos and the paper bag with a simple “Good morning. I've never been so excited for aimless wandering.” He smiled then he gestured her inside.

The streets pulsed with activity as he walked along. He appeared as a local. That it was a disguise to his enemies amused him darkly. Istanbul was familiar, but without a nostalgic sepia. The memories were populated with a child's concerns, and not a thought of blood. His parents still lived in the house. And he felt nervous for being here. 

Along the high rises, a cat kept its paces with him. When he had left the taxi, he had given it a piece of chicken. The cats of Istanbul were forever, and everywhere. They were hunters, like him. But they would still take a chicken wing. Pride was useless to a wordless one, though he prowled with a lions gaze. He hadn't eaten it yet. Ari began to notice that it wasn't really following him. Their intention only led them in the same direction. 

The people about him crowded a mind trained for solitude. It might have been more uncomfortable if it wasn't home. But without fatigues the clothing settled strangely on him. And the weight of his gear was gone. That wasn't very welcoming. I am just another son visiting his parents. The smells were overwhelming, it was hard to pick out who was who. Here a bit of fear, but they were only late for work. There a bit of love, they were only hopeful for a first date. And the acrid background of discontent, and residue of more drastic smells. Cities were like that now, as if the CCD had destroyed something inside him, and thrown him back to before even the most rudimentary tongue had developed. A beast looked upon a spaceship in bewilderment.

As he approached the courtyard, seagulls cawed over the ancient walls. A new Rome had found owning the hellesponte a convenient tradition. He wondered if he could ever lose the taste of their prey in his jaws. The Wordless ones mocked him in the dream for letting the state choose his hunt, and seeking no pack. The black cat did not waver from their shared path, entirely coincidentally.

 Above the walls, a warships communication tower revolved, a CCD banner flapping furiously in the wind. A bloody supply line, right from Moscow, bisecting the Black Sea. He lingered on it for a moment, like the cat, but drove on through the streets.

His house was as he remembered it. Anxiousness for their meeting wasn't just because of the departure he had made from his old self, or the too few letters once he became lost in the hunt. He wondered if the Vegas searched for him, or some other CCD power. Wouldn't they come here? The most predictable place to come?

He circled three times, but the people only appeared unsuspiciously. And the authorities had no eyes for him, attached more to the city than any particular dark, secret rooms. It was a risk he wouldn't have taken under normal circumstances. Was it cowardice, to merely place a letter in their mailbox?

In a dark alley, he watched the mailbox. It was the point he would get caught, if at all., The black cat pranced without a care past him, the piece of chicken bobbing heavily in his jaws. His nostrils sniffed as many others joined his feline scent, and he looked up to find a small gang of glowing golden orbs above him. They mewed and pattered down behind a dumpster, and feasted on the chicken together.

Ari smiled at their smacking lips, thinking that it was a worthy hunt after all, and that he should find some friends like that. Others added to the feline pot, but none so richly as the black one. None of them ate before they saw their pack. He took out his letter one last time, and read it through.

Mama and Papa,

I am sorry I haven't talked with you. It is hard to begin any other way with this letter. You deserve better from your son. The army has been like Papa said it would be; taking pieces of me and offering a poor replacement part. I don't want you to worry, but I won't lie. I am in trouble. But it's ok; I can take care of myself. I have left the army, because of Papas thing. But also because of something else. It's no use to tell you everything, but something is changing me, from the inside. 

I'm not sure if it is for the good, but I think it might be. I love you. I miss you. I promise I will talk more, but it will be hard for awhile. Im hoping to join something for the right reasons, this time. You couldn't be proud of what I have done, with resentment in my heart. This time you will see my work, and you will say, 'He is mine.' Forgive me for not listening. I will contact you soon. Look for the untraceable number.

Love,
Ari

The old letter he folded, streaked as it was with rare tears. To unbox his childhood felt like tearing out stitches before they were ready. Now that he had read it, he longed to risk the Vegas wrath, and simply knock on the door. He bribed a mischievous young man to drop it in the mailbox, and turned from the scene.

He found a dilapidated old bed and breakfast, the kind middle class tourists like, but thought better of it when he looked at his wallet. Instead, in the darkness, he deftly climbed hand over fist a drain-pipe, and swung over the ledge of a flat roof. Right here, he would sleep in the warm summer night. Looking up, the stars were grotesquely faded in the light pollution of the city, but the skyline was lovely. He unrolled his sleeping back, and laid back, with a brick for a pillow. It was comfortable enough, and free. Sleep came quickly.

The sensation in the dream was intense, for all his rainy sentry duty was boring in every other respect. Five of the pack, bounding athletically over the crest of a hill. A gazzele, trailing a pungent crimson spatter, fell before them. And then another, a hungry, lonely dog, with nothing to eat.

His camouflaged face regarded the thought, and spoke feebly in its human tongue in response. "Yes. I want it. Show me. Show me the pack."

A black wolf emerged, looking fierce and wise. "You. Do you come at night, because it is easy for you?" Amused, he sent an image of Ari himself, stalking amidst the stars in some forgotten jungle. "I know. Are you one of my pack?" In response, he simply ran. Without saying, it was implied; he chased after Night Hunter, and they played in this way. But just as present was the implication that they were going somewhere.