Declan gripped the steering wheel with trembling hands, blood slicking the ridges of his knuckles as he sped down the old service road, eyes flicking to the rearview mirror again and again.

  Nothing followed him.

  Not yet.

  His ears rang. His heart thudded like a war drum in his chest, louder than the rush of wind through the open driver’s-side window. The scent of fire and iron clung to his jacket — no, to his skin — as if the ritual itself had marked him.

  He pulled onto the main road and groped blindly for his phone, still nestled in the passenger seat under his jacket. His fingers closed around it and he swiped up with his thumb, cursing the way the blood smeared the glass. No bars.

  "Come on... come on..." he muttered, squinting as the signal flickered between one and two dots.

  As he crested the ridge overlooking the downtown strip, a single bar lit up.

  He hit the call button for Willow.

  It rang once.

  Twice.

  Then her voice crackled through the line, taut with alarm. "Declan? Where the hell are you?"

  "Warehouse district," he said, breath hitching. "Langston Ironworks. They were there, Willow — they were doing it. A full ritual. Real robes, real blood, real... thing. I saw Braevers. The circle. The shadow—"

  "Did they see you?" she interrupted, sharp.

  "Yes. I—I disrupted it. Threw off the pattern. It stopped. I think it stopped. But—" His voice cracked like dry timber. "Willow... I think it was waking up."

  Silence crackled across the line for a heartbeat too long.

  Then: "Where are you now?"

  "Just passed Westfield and 7th. Headed back toward my place."

  "No. Don’t go home." Her voice was flat, commanding. "They’ll know it was you. If they don’t already, they will soon."

  Declan’s fingers tightened on the wheel. "Then where the hell am I supposed to go?"

  "I’ll text you a place. Park and wait. I’ll meet you in twenty. Do not turn on location services. Do not answer the door. And for the gods’ sake, don’t let your guard down."

  Declan nodded, even though she couldn’t see him. “I got it on film,” he said hoarsely. “Everything. Their faces. The altar. The damn thing. If anyone doubts it now—”

  "You’re a walking coffin if you show that to the wrong person," she snapped. "Just sit tight and stay alive."

  The call disconnected.

  Declan let the phone fall into his lap. His shoulders sagged, and the breath left his lungs in a long, ragged exhale.

  The Kings Horn had crossed a line tonight.

  So had he.

  He wiped the blood from his temple with the back of his sleeve and turned toward the distant hills, where Willow’s meeting point would be waiting. A safe house. A church. A shed with a locked cellar. At this point, he didn’t care.

  The war had started.

  And Declan Harper had just become a frontline soldier.

  The safehouse was little more than an abandoned root cellar behind an overgrown farmhouse on the southern edge of town. The air inside was damp and cold, filled with the scent of mildew and stone. Declan sat hunched on a rickety wooden bench, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and the weight of the night pressing down on his spine like a cinder block.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Willow stood near the narrow entrance, arms crossed, lit only by the dim orange glow of a single oil lantern. Her eyes reflected the light like a cat’s — strange, gold-flecked, feral.

  She had said little when she arrived, just checked his wounds, demanded his phone, and disabled the GPS before tossing it into a copper-lined drawer she locked with a tiny, iron key.

  Now, as the storm began to whisper outside, she finally spoke.

  "You shouldn’t have tried to stop them alone," she said softly, not unkindly. "You’re lucky the thing wasn’t fully tethered."

  Declan looked up, his face hollowed by fatigue and fear. "What was it, Willow?"

  She hesitated — just for a breath — and when she answered, her voice sounded older. Worn.

  "A hollow-born."

  Declan blinked. "That’s... not in any of my notes."

  "It wouldn’t be," she said. "Because they’re not just myth. They’re suppressed myth. Older than written history. They’re what’s left behind when belief curdles, when pain echoes too long in one place. Hollow-born aren’t summoned like demons. They gestate. In places of layered trauma. Massacres. Genocide. Prolonged grief." She glanced at the floor, then back at him. "Places like Hellen."

  Declan’s stomach clenched. "The ley lines."

  Willow nodded. "They’ve been infected for decades, maybe longer. You said they used entrails in a spiral?"

  He nodded, still seeing it — the slick loop, the way it pulsed when the chanting hit its peak.

  "That’s an old pattern. Not designed to call something. Designed to weaken the wall. To tear a hole between here and what’s buried in the roots of the land. That shadow you saw? That was the amniotic veil." Her voice dropped. "The creature was already halfway through."

  A shiver raked down Declan’s spine. "What happens if they try again?"

  Willow was silent for a long moment. Then, slowly, she sat across from him, her hands folded in her lap. “They won’t try again,” she said quietly. “They’ll succeed.”

  He stared at her, breath catching in his throat.

  Willow continued, her tone grim. "Because now they’ve tasted it. Felt it. And the ley lines are already splintering. The next time they attempt the ritual, the barrier will be weaker. The hollow-born won’t come alone."

  "Then we stop them," Declan said, voice hoarse. "We go public. I show them the footage. We blow the lid off the whole damn thing."

  Willow’s gaze was sharp, but full of sorrow. “You’ll be branded as insane, or worse — someone trying to start a panic. The Kings Horn has deep roots, Declan. Deeper than you know. Your words alone won’t stop them."

  "Then what will?" he demanded.

  She reached into her coat and pulled out a thin book — bound in cracked leather, pages yellowed and brittle. She slid it across the table. On the cover was a symbol Declan recognized instantly: the same spiral he had seen drawn in blood on the warehouse floor.

  "This is a counter-charm," Willow said. "Old. Dangerous. Mostly forgotten. But it can sever the tether. If done before the veil finishes tearing."

  Declan’s hand hovered over the book, not touching it yet. “And if I screw it up?”

  Willow’s voice was barely audible. “Then the hollow-born finishes what it started. And this town becomes its cradle.”

  Declan finally reached for the book.

  The leather was warm. Not in a way that suggested heat — but in the way living skin holds memory. He opened it slowly, the spine creaking like an old man’s joints, and skimmed the first few pages. The writing was cramped, hand-scribed in ink faded to rust-brown. Symbols danced along the margins, curling like tendrils, like vines — or veins.

  "This looks more like poetry than spellwork," he muttered, frowning at the looping prose.

  Willow leaned forward, her voice low. "It’s encoded. Most counter-charms from that era were. They couldn’t risk being read by the wrong eyes. Or minds."

  Declan closed the book with a sigh and rubbed his temples. "So we’ve got a half-translated death-ritual, a cult that thinks blood is the fastest way to enlightenment, and no idea where or when they’ll strike again."

  Willow gave a small, knowing smile. “That’s not entirely true.”

  He glanced up.

  She crossed to her satchel and pulled out a folded, dog-eared map. It was covered in hand-drawn notes and sigils in colored pencil — some circles, some jagged bursts, and a few that looked scorched into the paper itself. She spread it across the small table between them and tapped at three marked locations.

  "These are where ley lines converge beneath Hellen," she explained. "This one—" she tapped the site of the Langston Ironworks, "—was the weakest. Easy to access, already fraying. That’s why they started there."

  Declan followed her finger to the next marked spot — Marrow Hollow, just north of town.

  "I’ve been out there," he said. "Old church, abandoned graveyard. Locals won’t go near it. Swear it’s haunted."

  "It’s worse than haunted. It’s raw. There’s something trapped under the hollow — sealed before the town was even founded. The ley lines there are brittle. If the Kings Horn wants to finish what they started, they’ll go where the wall is thinnest."

  Declan leaned over the map, tapping the third location. “What about this one?”

  “Underneath the riverbed by the millworks. But the ley line is buffered by the water. They’d need a blood sacrifice large enough to overtake a current. It’s not impossible... but not practical. Not yet.”

  "Then Marrow Hollow’s next."

  Willow nodded, her expression grim.

  Declan’s journalist brain kicked in, adrenaline washing away the ache in his muscles. “Alright. If we know where they’re going, we can beat them there. Set up cameras, hidden mics. I can rig a thermal drone — get a live body count before we even get within shouting distance.”

  Willow arched an eyebrow. "And then what?"

  He blinked. "Then we stop them."

  "With what?" she asked softly. "A notebook and your convictions? Declan, this is a cult that answers to something older than gods. They nearly tore the veil with a handful of believers. What do you think they’ll do when they arrive prepared?"

  Silence stretched between them.

  He sat back slowly. "You’re right," he admitted. "I’m not ready. But I can’t wait until I am."

  Willow stared at him a long moment, then opened the book to a page near the middle — one lined with red thread, the paper beneath almost translucent with age.

  “There’s a working we can use. It’s not a weapon. More like a lens. If we anchor it at Marrow Hollow, it’ll let us see what they’re building beneath the surface — the ritual scaffolding. Even before they arrive.”

  Declan nodded. "A ritual to track a ritual."

  "Exactly. But it takes time. Hours, maybe longer. We’ll need protection while it casts. And if the Kings Horn arrives early…"

  “We’ll deal with it,” he said, rising to his feet. “I’ve faced bureaucrats, smug mayors, and liars with guns. This is new ground — but it’s still about control. And they won’t keep it.”

  He grabbed his coat and pulled it on, the weight settling across his shoulders like old armor.

  Willow rolled up the map. "Then we leave at dusk tomorrow. We'll need moonlight, and Marrow Hollow doesn’t open itself to strangers during the day."

  Declan nodded, feeling the weight of what was to come settle over him like dust from an old grave.

  He had always been a man of facts, of ink and evidence. But tonight, he accepted something far older than truth.

  Something was stirring beneath Hellen.

  And he was going to meet it head-on.