Darian stood in front of the Spiral Lounge, hands in his pockets, the city’s neon leaking red and violet across the rain-dark street. It was almost midnight. A Thursday. The air smelled like rot and cheap liquor.

  Inside, Tomas Garrick was dying.

  Not fast. Not yet.

  The mark was working slow, feeding Velia, building something inside Garrick that would eventually boil over. Guilt, hallucination, dread—it all fermented like spoiled wine. Darian had felt it in the dream again st night: the stench of fear bleeding off the man, even through the pact-space.

  Velia had whispered, “He’s ripening.”

  Darian hadn’t replied.

  Now, he waited.

  This wasn’t about revenge anymore. Not really.

  It was about control.

  He slipped past the bouncer—same guy, same dull eyes—and moved down the narrow hall. The club was quieter than usual. The kind of quiet you only got when something was wrong and everyone felt it but didn’t say it.

  Downstairs, the poker room was closed. Roped off. Security stood nearby, nervously gncing at the reinforced door every few minutes.

  Darian walked past them like he belonged. Took the staff entrance into the storage hallway. From there, he pressed his ear to the wall.

  Nothing.

  Then—sobbing.

  Faint, wet, ragged.

  He didn’t feel triumphant.

  He felt ready.

  Inside the room, Garrick was slumped in a chair. Shirt soaked through with sweat, skin pale and blotched. His eyes darted around like something invisible crawled behind his eyeballs. He was speaking to no one.

  “They know,” he hissed. “They know what I did. What I saw—what I let happen…”

  His hands trembled. A gun y on the table, untouched.

  Darian stepped out from the shadow behind the door.

  No sound.

  No flourish.

  Just presence.

  Garrick jerked upright.

  His gaze nded on Darian like a hammer.

  “You,” he croaked. “No. You’re dead.”

  “Almost,” Darian said.

  Garrick stood, but stumbled. The mark was already eating his bance, his strength, his grip on the moment.

  “You don’t understand,” he said, shaking. “It wasn’t me. It was orders. I didn’t touch her. I told them not to—”

  Darian raised a hand.

  The room stilled.

  “No more lies,” he said.

  Garrick fell to his knees.

  “Please,” he begged. “I’ll give you anything. Money. Names. I’ll disappear. You won’t see me again.”

  “That’s the problem,” Darian said. “I still see you.”

  The sigil on his chest fred.

  Garrick screamed—not from pain, but from knowing.

  Knowing it was done.

  Velia’s voice rang behind Darian’s ears.

  “Say it.”

  He stepped closer.

  Looked Garrick in the eyes.

  “Judged.”

  The effect was instant.

  Garrick’s body convulsed. Veins bckened. His eyes rolled back, and for a moment, something dark pushed its way up his throat—like shadow trying to escape flesh. He choked, gasped, and colpsed forward, twitching.

  Then stillness.

  Blood pooled at Darian’s feet.

  He didn’t step back.

  He waited in silence for Velia to speak.

  She didn’t.

  Instead, she appeared—emerging from the dark like she'd always been there, behind him, watching.

  Her dress shimmered with Garrick’s blood, though she hadn't touched him.

  She looked pleased.

  “Your first,” she said softly.

  He didn’t respond.

  She tilted her head. “No joy?”

  “No guilt either,” he said.

  She smiled. “That’s progress.”

  “I didn’t enjoy it.”

  “You didn’t need to,” she said. “You did what was necessary. The pact is fed.”

  He looked down at Garrick’s body.

  “Is this what I am now?”

  Velia stepped behind him, voice warm in his ear.

  “No. This is what you’re becoming.”

  Velia circled the corpse like a connoisseur admiring a work of art. She didn’t crouch. Didn’t touch. Just watched it decay into silence, her presence the only fme left in the room.

  Darian leaned against the wall, pulse beginning to slow. The moment of judgment had passed. The room felt colder now. Reality reasserting itself in small, sharp details—like the way Garrick’s blood smelled too coppery, too human.

  Velia finally spoke.

  “You marked him clean. No waste.”

  “You mean no resistance.”

  She gave a small shrug. “It’s all the same in the end. He fed me just fine.”

  He looked at her. “Is that all this is to you? Feeding?”

  “No,” she said, stepping close. “It’s communion.”

  He flinched. Not because of the word—but how gently she said it.

  “You’re thinking too human again,” she added. “This isn’t about sin and punishment. This is about function.”

  “What’s mine?”

  “You’re the bde,” she said. “I’m the hunger. Together we cut and consume.”

  “And when there’s nothing left to cut?”

  Her smile deepened, turning strange. “Then we find bigger prey.”

  They left the body. No cleanup. No cover story.

  Velia didn’t ask him to. She didn’t have to.

  By the time anyone found Garrick, it wouldn’t matter. No one would believe what he’d seen before the end. Darian wasn’t a suspect. He wasn’t even a shadow. He was a symptom now—an invisible consequence.

  They walked in silence.

  The city was loud again. The streets full. Sirens howled in the distance, and steam hissed from the gutters. Darian couldn’t remember what it felt like to belong to this world.

  “You’re adapting,” Velia said, without looking at him.

  “I’m changing.”

  “Same thing.”

  They turned onto a side street. His building was close. Three blocks. But he stopped walking.

  She noticed.

  “What is it?”

  He looked at her. Not with fear. Not with anger.

  Just a question in his eyes.

  “Why me?”

  Velia blinked. For the first time, she hesitated.

  Then, softly: “Because you were already empty.”

  He said nothing.

  She moved closer, gaze steady. “You summoned me with blood, yes—but more than that, you summoned me with crity. Most people beg for mercy. You asked for action.”

  “I wanted revenge.”

  “No,” she said. “You wanted purpose.”

  He didn’t argue.

  Because it was true.

  Later that night, Darian y in bed staring at the ceiling. The mark on his chest no longer throbbed. It pulsed gently now, like it was syncing with his breath. As if it belonged there.

  Velia stood by the window, watching the city. Barefoot. Unmoving.

  “You’re not sleeping,” she said without turning.

  “I don’t think I can.”

  “You will.”

  “Eventually?”

  “No,” she said. “After the third kill.”

  He frowned. “Why?”

  “Your body will accept it then. The rhythm. The necessity.”

  He rolled to his side. “So you’ve done this before.”

  She didn’t answer directly.

  “I’ve had others,” she said. “But none sted long.”

  “What happened to them?”

  Her smile reflected faintly in the gss.

  “They hesitated.”