The piercing whistle cut through the chaos of his thoughts as Bellamy realized what was happening. He knew that sound – it was the same one that had saved his life in the pit at the cost of countless others. He didn’t need to turn to know who held it. It was Viracio – had to be.

  The ground lurched beneath them, stone splitting in jagged cracks as The Jackal whipped itself into a frenzy to force its way up. A violent tremor sent Bellamy staggering, his boot skidding over loose rubble.

  Bellamy just didn’t understand why. Why drag him here to fight? Why put himself in the line of fire? All to kill Penny? She wasn’t a large enough piece to warrant this level of risk, unless Viracio was completely unhinged.

  “Why” is all Bellamy asked, as the building shook, pieces of stone coming loose and falling around them as The Jackal began tunneling its way out. With every layer of stone it disintegrated, another collapsed on top, burying it deeper. But eventually it would break free. There was only so much dirt until it reached the surface. Soon enough it would escape.

  Viracio’s eyes darted around the room, frustration plainly visible. “Wire got crossed,” he muttered under his breath. “What I get for making the gang decentralized.”

  Bellamy ran through their predicament.

  The Volkov’s wanted to keep their reputation. This wouldn’t look good for them to have an essence beast appear in their club. So they’d likely fight against the beast, if only cursory.

  The Wardens wanted to contain and eliminate any threats in the building. They dealt with essence related events and people. The exacts were up to individual Warden discretion, maybe they’d be seen as an asset, maybe as a threat.

  The Jackal, however, wasn’t burdened by politics or individualism. It was hunting. It was that simple.

  Another ripple in the air as a sinkhole began to form.

  It was a grim comfort, that the only thing Bellamy could predict with any certainty was the monster.

  He started making a plan, it involved him staying behind, but he was confident in his ability to escape if push came to shove.

  “Cover your faces,” Viracio instructed. “Better a glimpse than nothing left to the imagination.”

  Bellamy didn’t hesitate. He strode toward the fall wall, away from both the Volkov enforcers and the growing sinkhole. The wall facing the alleyways was already collapsing, the pit widening further to consume the club as The Jackal worked. It was a bad exit both because of Wardens no doubt watching and anything that passed over the abyss risked being swallowed.

  He moved to the far wall, opposite to the enforcers, and activated his ability. The scaffolding inside him stirred– an alien crawling sensation spreading through his core which he pushed outward, threading it through the wall, shaping and twisting until he understood its structure intimately. Then he collapsed it, folding it into razor thin cuts in space until there was naught by a passageway.

  “Out” he barked.

  Sarah hesitated, but ultimately followed, whispering to Callum in a low voice as they went “Not Safe?”

  Callum blinked out of existence and came back with a grim nod, “multiple essence signatures on the roof tops.”

  The club itself was near silent now. Bodies of previous patrons littered the floor, some slumped over tables, glass still in hand, other twisted by a spray of bullets. Those still alive cowered beneath overturned furniture, not daring to make a sound. Even for those still alive it didn’t matter. They’d be bodies shortly.

  Bellamy grimaced at the thought, but he couldn’t do anything for them. No need to be stupid.

  “We wait for it to escape” Bellamy started. “When it does, use the chaos to get out. Callum, you lead. You’re the only one who can scout and find an opening.”

  Callum hesitated, an argument on the tip of his tongue, but he swallowed it down and nodded.

  They crouched behind nearby tables, all of them and their Volkov hostage tense and waiting. Time stretched unbearably long for a span that couldn’t have been more than twenty seconds. Still no sign of The Wardens trying to enter, likely still unaware that it would never self-destruct like a normal essence beast.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The ground beneath them groaned. Then – silence. The kind that sounded quieter than it was as your brain readied itself to process the cacophony to come.

  It came in a thunderous crack that split the air.

  The sinkhole’s jaws grew wider, swallowing wood, stone, and bodies. Clouds of dust billowed up and out. Thick and suffocating that coated the ruins of the club, turning it into a miasma of swirling gray. Shapes moved rapidly within as the Volkovs finally moved. Their figures were half seen, running, tripping, vanishing.

  Bellamy couldn’t see The Jackal, but he knew it was there.

  He watched the way the air warped. The way it swirled unnaturally from the large beasts movements, displacing space around it.

  A ripple coursed through the ruins, like heat wafting off pavement. Then – just for a moment – Bellamy saw it. The hulking shape, wrong in every way. It stalked in and out of the thickest parts of the dust, barely visible through panicked muzzle flashes of gunfire.

  A low chitter fell over the ruins. It clicked its teeth, raking sharp point over sharp point as The Jackal laughed. A scream. Then silence. A sickly sweet rot filling the club with greater intensity every second.

  “Now,” Bellamy hissed. “Go.”

  Callum took the lead, the others following closely behind.

  The moving Volkovs all seemed to have different plans. Some ran for the exits, others shouted orders, but he could no longer glimpse the training that he saw from Rick and Dadum, it was more mob than regiment now. Those who tried to fight, or organize all seemed to have their voices cut off in screams as The Jackal hunted them down one by one.

  Bellamy stood still, watching the smoke.

  And then, through the haze, something locked eyes with him.

  Gray met brown.

  The Jackal’s jaw trembled with anticipation, it arched it’s back, but more shouting caused its ears to twitch at the chaos. Irritation flickered over its monstrous features, leading to ripples of flesh along its skin.

  It could have lunged, could have begun their fight once again. But it didn’t. Instead, its claws scraped against the floor in a slow deliberate line – an unmistakable command.

  Don’t cross.

  Then it vanished – a blur of twisted flesh moving far too fast. It was a blur. The first scream was cut short with a snapping sound. The second dragged across the ground, choked and desperate before going silent. The third was longer, a shriek followed by the roar of gunfire. The muzzle flash painted light across the dust, granting all those looking a horrifying glimpse of serrated teeth biting into a silhouette, before the enforcer combusted into paste.

  It continued, with each muzzle flash the room seemed to heat. The screams continued. Another yell. Another meaty crack. Another pop of evisceration. Another set of gunfire.

  Then – nothing.

  Bellamy stood, unmoving, waiting as the dust thinned. The last remnants of chaos settling into the previous quiet from before.

  Bellamy met The Jackal’s gaze once more. It panted, tongue lolling from its maw, eyes gleaming with anticipation.. He flared his essence, ready for the fight to come. He didn’t need to win, he just needed to stall. Stall long enough for The Wardens to realize this thing wasn’t going to handle itself.

  The two circled each other. The Jackal reared onto its hind legs, then – lunged forward snapping jaws descending like a fox diving into snow. This time, Bellamy didn’t bother moving. Instead, he activated his ability, folding the space in front of The Jackal itself.

  To any onlooker, it would seem like an illusion – the beast twisting mid-air, it’s trajectory warping impossibly as its entire being rippled. Sending it back in the direction it jumped from, far away from Bellamy.

  He couldn’t rely on brute force for this encounter. Any attack he made would be redirected to himself. The stronger the attack, the more likely he’d hurt himself. Even a weak attack wouldn’t do anything even if he managed to get it through The Jackals defense.

  But there was a way to win. There always was, he just needed to find it.

  He drew on his essence, feeling the power pulse through him, raw and volatile. He shaped the fold – a fragile, spherical, twisting prison of warped space. If he could properly invert the sphere to point inwards, he could fold the creature into a pocket dimension –severing its connection from the outside world. Then he could just wait for it to starve.

  He shaped fast, focusing as best as he could, but for the life of him he couldn’t figure out how to invert the sphere properly. It left the distortion unstable – requiring constant effort to maintain. With all the twists and folds he managed to get most of it to point inwards, but it resulted in two weak points – singularities where all the space met and buckled under its own weight.

  It would have to do.

  The Jackal attempted to move forward, but halted as its head met its side, trapped within the sphere of folded space. It growled, prowling the edge of the sphere. It tested the invisible wall, with snaps of its teeth. Then a kick, before finally it let out a piercing howl. The growth of energy in the closed system pressed against the distortion and caused the singularities to flare with energy. It seemed the entirety of the howl was concentrated at the two weak spots as all space traveled to the two locations, funneling more and more energy.

  Bellamy felt the pressure like a migraine splitting his skull. He shouldn’t feel pain, yet it felt like his mind was on fire.

  Hold.

  Just hold.

  The sphere shattered.

  Bellamy was thrown backward from the backlash of losing control of his essence. Heat rippled outward. The air shimmered, and The Jackal threw back its head and laughed. It grew louder and louder.

  Bellamy felt the energy build, the disturbance in space. The volume grew to a crescendo.

  Then reality fractured.

  Everything within thirty feet of the beast ceased to be – tables, bodies, walls, dust – all erased in an instant. No remnants. Just a yawning void over a fighting pit.

  Bellamy fell.

  For a split second it felt like there was nothing except terrible weightlessness. He mastered himself, and pulled – folding space beneath his feet to the now fully revealed fighting pit where it all started.

  The Jackal landed a few seconds later, panting heavily as it stalked side to side. It’s gaze locked on him.

  It was time for the second exchange.

  Except–

  “Messy work, huh?” the voice resounded from above, calm, reassuring. “These temp Wardens are quite the set of cowards.”

  Another voice responded, raspy, as if they had fire in their throat, “I believe they choose to call it being ‘strategically minded’ Ridley”

  Bellamy risked a look up and saw two men standing at the edge of the pit. One had chains wrapped around their too long arms, which almost reached their knees. The other seemed to be a middle aged man with red hair. Bellamy’s heart sank when he saw their garb. While they did have the embroidery of the Wardens on their shoulder pads, the flowing cloaks told him everything he needed to know, these two were from The Congregation.