Glass shattered in the front room, the sharp crack of breaking wood echoing through the narrow hallway of Marcus’s safehouse.
Instinct took over before my mind could process the threat. My hand gripped the hilt of the tactical katana resting against the desk, the leather wrapping rough and reassuring against my palm.
"Get behind me," I hissed, pushing Marcus toward the heavy metal filing cabinets in the corner. His breath hitched, his pale face draining of what little color it had left.
Heavy boots stomped through the debris. They weren't trying to be quiet anymore; they wanted us to know they were coming.
Three men rounded the corner, their faces covered by black tactical masks, but the dark, pulsating energy radiating from their chests gave them away. These weren't ordinary mercenaries.
Gold-threaded sigils of Set gleamed on their tactical vests, glowing with a faint, sickly purple light.
"She is here," one of them rasped, his voice sounding like two dry stones grinding together. He raised a silenced submachine gun.
Before he could squeeze the trigger, I lunged forward. My blade cleared the scabbard with a sharp hiss, cutting a clean arc through the dim light of the basement.
Metal clashed against metal as I deflected his barrel upward. A stream of bullets chewed into the ceiling plaster, raining white dust over us like toxic snow.
Spinning on my heel, I drove my elbow straight into his sternum. That impact cracked his ribs, sending him crashing backward into his partner.
"Move!" I yelled at Marcus, not looking back as the second man lunged with a long, curved dagger that hummed with dark energy.
Pure adrenaline surged through my veins, hot and demanding. I dodged the swipe, feeling the chill of the blade graze my cheek.
Gold sparks flared from my knuckles as I retaliated. It was the Light of Ma'at, thin and fading, but still strong enough to burn.
My fist connected with his jaw, the holy light detonating in a bright flash that smelled of ozone and ancient sand.
He screamed, clutching his face as the dark magic in his vest sputtered and died, leaving him crumpled on the concrete floor.
"Anna, behind you!" Marcus shrieked from his hiding spot.
Turning sharply, I saw the third cultist pulling a heavy silver canister from his belt. He didn't aim a gun; he twisted the cap, releasing a thick, oily black mist that crawled along the floor like living snakes.
Sensing the danger, I leaped backward, landing lightly on Marcus’s desk. This black mist hissed where it touched the floorboards, eating away the wood like battery acid.
"Set’s breath," I whispered, recognizing the ancient corruption. It was a curse designed to sap the strength of divine beings.
My chest tightened. My brand on my shoulder flared with agonizing heat, threatening to bring me to my knees right there.
I bit my lip so hard I tasted copper. I couldn't let them see me weak.
Focusing the remaining warmth of Ma'at in my chest, I channeled it down my arms and into the steel of my katana. The blade glowed with a soft, warm amber light.
"Back to the desert with you," I growled, swinging the sword in a wide horizontal arc.
A wave of pure, golden light erupted from the blade, slicing through the oily mist and dissolving it into harmless gray vapor.
Marcus gaped at me, his eyes wide as dinner plates. He had read about my power, but seeing it in the flesh was different.
Taking advantage of his distraction, the third cultist charged, swinging a heavy iron pipe. I sidestepped his clumsy attack, swept his legs, and brought the pommel of my sword down hard on his temple.
He went limp instantly.
Silence returned to the basement, broken only by our ragged breathing and the drip of a broken pipe somewhere in the walls.
"Are you hurt?" I asked, turning to Marcus and sheathing the katana with a metallic click.
He shook his head rapidly, his hands trembling so hard he could barely adjust his glasses. "No, no. But we have to go. If they found us here, it means the whole network is compromised."
"How did they track us?" I demanded, scanning the bodies for any clues.
"They didn't track me," Marcus whispered, pointing a shaking finger at my shoulder. "They tracked the brand. It acts as an active marker for them when it's active."
"I suppressed it," I argued, though the lingering ache in my shoulder told a different story.
"Suppression isn't eradication, Anna," he said, scrambling to grab a heavy leather satchel from under his desk. He stuffed several ancient-looking journals and a laptop inside. "Every time you use Ma'at’s light, it clashes with Set's mark. It’s like lighting a flare in a dark room."
"Then we run," I said, grabbing his arm and pulling him toward the back exit. "Where is the safest place?"
"My warehouse in Queens," Marcus panted as we hurried up a flight of creaking wooden stairs. "It’s lined with lead and copper mesh. It should block the supernatural signal."
---
Rain poured down in sheets as we slipped into the alleyway behind the building. Cool New York air was a welcome relief against my burning skin.
Sirens wailed in the distance, but they were blocks away. The mundane police would be too late to help, and too useless against what was chasing us anyway.
Marcus unlocked a battered gray sedan, his keys jingling loudly in the quiet night. I jumped into the passenger seat, my eyes darting to the rooftops.
No one was there. Not yet.
He started the engine, the car sputtering to life before he slammed his foot on the gas, peeling out of the alley and onto the wet asphalt.
"Tell me about the vessel," I said, staring out the window at the passing neon signs of the city. "Why me? Set has had other followers. Other hosts."
"You don't understand your own value, do you?" Marcus asked, keeping his eyes glued to the road. "You were cleansed by the Light of Ma'at. Your soul is a vacuum of pure divine energy right now. Perfect, untainted, yet capable of holding immense power."
"I am not a vessel," I spat, my jaw clenching. "I am Anna. I am my own master."
"To them, you are a masterwork trophy," Marcus explained, his voice softening with pity. "If Set possesses a normal human, the mortal body burns out in days. But you? An immortal princess, cleansed of your old malice but still physically divine? You could hold his essence forever."
"They would have to kill me first," I muttered, crossing my arms.
Marcus shook his head. "They don't want to kill you. They want to bind you. And they have the artifact to do it."
"What artifact?" I turned to face him, my heart hammering against my ribs.
"Set's own dagger," he revealed, taking a sharp turn onto the Williamsburg Bridge. "The original one. Not the ceremonial replicas. An actual tooth of the chaos beast, forged in the underworld."
"I thought that was destroyed during the fall of the New Kingdom," I recalled, memories of my ancient life flickering in my mind like old film reels.
"Prodigium found it in ninety-six," Marcus said. "They kept it in a maximum-security vault in London. But when Prodigium fell apart, the vault was looted. We thought it was lost. Now we know the cult has it."
"If they strike me with it..." I trailed off, the implication clear.
"It will tear your soul apart and force his essence inside," Marcus confirmed. "No amount of Ma'at’s light will save you then."
Speeding through the rain, the tires hissed against the wet pavement. I looked at my reflection in the side mirror, seeing the faint, golden line of my iris before it faded back to normal brown.
Fighting in the cage had been my escape from this. The physical pain of MMA took my mind off the centuries of blood on my hands. But this was different; this was a battle for my very soul.
"How did you get involved with Prodigium anyway?" I asked, wanting to distract myself from the terror building in my chest.
"I was a young academic," Marcus said, a sad smile touching his lips. "Fascinated by things that shouldn't exist. I thought we were the good guys, protecting humanity from the dark. But Henry Jekyll... he had his own demons. Literally."
"Jekyll was a fool," I replied coldly. "He thought he could study the gods without paying the price. He thought he could control me."
"He paid the ultimate price in the end," Marcus noted, turning the wheel onto a dark, industrial avenue. "We all do when we play with things from your era."
"I didn't choose to be born in that era," I murmured, watching the dark warehouses rise up around us like silent giants.
"No, but you chose to survive it," he said softly. "And you're choosing to fight now. That's what matters."
---
We arrived at the warehouse in Queens an hour later. The building was an abandoned meatpacking plant, its brick facade covered in graffiti and rust.
Marcus drove the car straight through a rusted garage door that rolled up with a deafening screech, closing it quickly behind us.
Inside, the air smelled of damp earth and old iron. It was cold, but the heavy shielding Marcus had mentioned was immediately apparent. A constant, high-pitched hum in the back of my mind—the call of the brand—suddenly vanished.
I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding, leaning against the car door. "It worked. The signal is gone."
"For now," Marcus said, stepping out of the car and turning on a few dim overhead lights. "But we can't stay here forever. We need a plan to destroy that dagger."
"We need to find where they are keeping it," I agreed, walking over to a wooden table covered in old maps and blueprints.
"I might have a lead on that," Marcus said, walking toward a small kitchen area in the corner of the warehouse. "But first, we need to prepare. You look exhausted, Anna. Let me get you some water."
"Thank you," I murmured, rubbing my temples. My headache from the brand was fading, but the mental fatigue was overwhelming.
I stared at the blueprints on the table. They were schematics of a private estate upstate. A fortress belonging to a man named Arthur Vance.
Vance was a known billionaire philanthropist, but rumors in the underworld whispered that he was the high priest of the modern Set cult.
"Marcus?" I called out, tracing a finger over the security detail on the blueprint. "Is this where the dagger is?"
No response came from the kitchen.
"Marcus?" I repeated, turning around, my hand instinctively drifting back to the hilt of my katana.
He walked out of the kitchen, carrying two glasses of water. His gait was strange, stiff and mechanical, unlike his usual nervous scurry.
"Marcus, what's wrong?" I asked, my eyes narrowing.
He stopped five feet away from me. He didn't offer me the glass. Instead, he dropped both of them, the glass shattering on the concrete floor, water splashing over my boots.
"You shouldn't have suppressed the brand, Anna," Marcus said.
Except, it wasn't Marcus’s voice.
His voice was layered, a terrible, booming echo of a thousand dying stars mixed with the dry rasp of desert wind.
I took a step back, drawing my katana halfway out of its sheath. "What did you do to him?"
Marcus’s face contorted into a horrific, unnatural grin. He slowly raised his hands, and I watched in horror as his fingers began to wither, the skin turning gray and dry like papyrus.
His eyes, usually a soft brown behind his thick lenses, rolled back. When they rolled forward again, they were entirely black, weeping a dark, tar-like substance that stained his cheeks.
"He was always so weak," the voice rasped through Marcus's lips, a cruel chuckle echoing through the vast warehouse. "An easy lock to pick. I didn't even need the brand to find you. I just needed him to bring you to me."
"Set," I breathed, my blood turning to ice.
"Hello, my chosen bride," the entity occupying Marcus's body sneered, taking a step toward me as cold air swept in, our breath turning to mist. "The dagger is already on its way, and your sanctuary has just become your tomb."