Chapter Six: Saints of the Sewer
Midnight Strike — Surface Level
Back in the city proper, explosions rocked the skyline.
The Syndicate was moving. Cleaning house. Ravenna and Jace moved like ghosts through the chaos, targeting nodes, freeing imprisoned assets, stealing data caches. Each mission escalated the war.
And then—
Then came The Black Protocol.
Every screen across the city blinked.
A woman's face.
Ageless. Beautiful. Cold.
Dr. Evelyn Voss.
"My children," she said, voice like silk on wire. "I have returned."
Ravenna stood frozen.
Jace whispered, "Is that—?"
"Yes."
The woman who made her.
The woman who wanted her back.
"I am cleansing the city. All failures will be purged. All sins reclaimed."
And in the final frame of the broadcast, Evelyn smiled directly at Ravenna.
"You can't run forever, daughter."
Underground Bunker – Sector Eleven Safe Zone
They didn't sleep that night.
After Evelyn's transmission, the city had gone feral. Curfew bots turned rogue, streets locked down, scanners sweeping for anything bio-enhanced or genetically marked.
Ravenna and Jace holed up inside a decaying bunker once used during the Dismantling Wars. The air was thick with mildew and ozone, the humming generators failing every few minutes before sputtering back to life.
Jace leaned against a metal cabinet, rifle across his chest, eyes half-lidded.
She stood in the corner, arms crossed, silent.
"She called you daughter," he said finally.
Ravenna's eyes didn't leave the floor. "She didn't birth me, Jace. She built me."
Jace straightened, walked toward her. "But you have her voice."
That made her flinch. Not because it was a compliment. Because it was true.
"She created my voice profile," she murmured. "Said it needed to be seductive, commanding. Said I was meant to lead others to their death without them even knowing it."
Silence swallowed the room again.
Then she looked up, eyes glassy but unblinking. "You still trust me?"
He nodded, slow and sure. "I trust you, Ravenna. Not who made you. Not who used you. You."
A beat.
Then her lips twitched, and for the first time in days, she smirked.
"Good," she said, stepping forward. "Because I'm going to kill her."
Elsewhere — Syndicate Black Chamber
Evelyn Voss stood in a glass sanctum suspended by cables above a massive neurocore. Data spiraled around her like holographic feathers, forming maps, biometrics, city schematics, kill lists.
She moved with the serenity of a queen. Every breath measured. Every gesture perfect.
"Status report," she commanded.
A guard stepped forward. "The asset—Ravenna Noir—is rogue. Accompanied by Agent Jace Cross, former operative of Echo Division."
Evelyn tilted her head.
"She's alive because I allowed her to be. Now she believes that means power. Hope."
She stepped to a console and tapped her wrist against it.
From the data whirl, a clone of Ravenna's face bloomed—calm, synthetic, subservient.
Prototype R-00X.
"You failed," Evelyn said to it. "But you left me the perfect blueprint."
She turned away and faced the glass.
"Deploy Protocol Seraphim. Bring me my daughter."
Inside Ravenna's Mind
That night, Ravenna dreamt of blood.
The corridors of her childhood laboratory. Cold. White. Smelling of bleach and death. She walked barefoot, a child again, as the walls whispered numbers. Her designation. Her worth.
She entered the chamber where she was first enhanced.
Her clone lay strapped to a table. A mirror image.
"You'll never escape her," the clone said. "You are her voice. Her hands. Her violence."
Ravenna picked up the scalpel from the tray beside her.
"No," she whispered. "I am her punishment."
Then she carved her name into the clone's chest.
Not R-00X.
RAVENNA NOIR.
--------------------------
--------------------
The Next Morning – Contact from the Dead
A signal blinked into Jace's receiver at 03:12 AM.
FROM: N.K.
"Who the hell is N.K.?" he muttered, pressing the receiver.
A woman's voice. Familiar. Calm. Nigerian accent. Polished, deliberate.
"Agent Cross. This is Commander Nkiru Kaine, formerly of the Global Reconnaissance Coalition. If you're hearing this, then the rumors are true. She is back. And so is your asset."
Jace froze.
"She doesn't know the full truth. Neither do you. But I do."
A pause.
"If you want to kill Evelyn Voss, you're going to need more than weapons. You'll need the truth."
Coordinates flashed on the screen.
Ravenna appeared behind him. "Who is she?"
"An old ghost," Jace said. "And maybe the only person alive who knows your origin better than Evelyn."
She looked him over, calculating.
"Then what are we waiting for?"
En Route — Rust Skies Above Sector 13
They rode a stolen hovercycle through the steel storm. Below them, Syndicate drones picked apart neighborhoods like vultures.
They saw children hiding in crates. Families burned from genetic scans. Innocents turned to ash because they had traces of old Revenant code.
Ravenna gripped Jace tighter as they flew.
"This is genocide."
He nodded grimly. "She's cleaning the experiment. Resetting the petri dish."
They touched down on a plateau of scrap metal—where the map pointed. A rusted blast door stood embedded in a cliff face.
Ravenna looked skeptical.
"This place smells like death."
Jace stepped forward.
The door hissed open.
And a figure emerged.
A woman in her forties, dreadlocks wrapped into a crown, cybernetic eye blinking in tandem with her pulse. She wore a sleek black tactical coat with insignias from a dozen long-dead armies.
"Ravenna Noir," the woman said.
"I'm Nkiru Kaine. And I helped build your mother."
Nkiru Kaine's Hideout – Beneath the Plateau
Ravenna paced the underground chamber with feline grace, her hand unconsciously resting near the blade sheathed against her thigh. The walls of the bunker were painted with fading blueprints, old war-time projections, digital relics scrawled with red corrections.
Jace stood in the background, observing the woman known as Nkiru Kaine, the only person who seemed to know everything.
"You built her?" Ravenna asked, voice low, eyes blazing.
Nkiru poured a measure of liquor into a dented steel cup, handed it to her.
"No, girl. I built what came before her. Evelyn took our early work and... perfected it. In her image. Cold. Precise. Lethal."
Ravenna took the drink, didn't sip. "Why?"
"Power," Nkiru replied. "What else? We were trying to create the perfect cognitive hybrid: mind of a soldier, instinct of a predator, conscience of a saint. Instead, we made something worse."
She stepped closer. "We made you."
Ravenna's face didn't flinch, but the flicker in her eyes betrayed her.
"I'm not a mistake."
Nkiru smiled. "No, love. You're the corrected version. But she doesn't know you've begun to overwrite your directives."
Jace leaned forward. "What directives?"
Nkiru turned toward him. "A failsafe embedded in her psyche. If Evelyn speaks the activation phrase, Ravenna will turn against everyone. Even you."
Ravenna gripped the edge of the table. "And what's the phrase?"
"I don't know."
Silence.
Jace cursed. "So Evelyn could trigger her any second?"
Nkiru shook her head. "No, not unless she sees you as a threat again. Right now, you're a curiosity. She's waiting to see if you'll come back on your own."
Ravenna's voice dropped an octave. "Then we stop waiting."
She turned, pulling a holomap from the table. "Where is she?"
Nkiru tapped a blinking sector. "Cathedral Zero. The Citadel in the Sky. She moved her base above the weather line—untouchable. Invisible to anything without Syndicate clearance."
Jace frowned. "Then how do we get in?"
Ravenna smiled grimly. "We burn their gatekeeper."
----------------------
The Gatekeeper – A Flesh-Engine Called Oseirus
At the heart of the Syndicate's security ring floated a monstrous AI interface fused into an exo-titan called Oseirus. Built from dead Revenants and mechanized bone, it pulsed with red light and spoke in voices that echoed like a chorus of the damned.
To breach Evelyn's fortress, they had to kill it.
But Oseirus wasn't a program.
It was a god of war encased in armor, armed with protocols designed to crush insurgents, rebels, and legends alike.
Ravenna stood in the ruins of a pre-Strike rail station, watching the sky darken as Oseirus emerged in the distance, massive legs unfolding from a hover-base. It screamed in binary tongues, its voice splitting concrete with resonance.
Jace stepped beside her, checking his rifle. "We hit it fast and hard. Disable the neuro-core, then carve out its heart."
"You distract it," Ravenna said, eyes locked on the rising beast. "I'll butcher it."
--------------------
The Battle of Rust Ridge
The clash began with thunder.
Jace leapt from a crumbling tower, laying suppressive fire while drones erupted from Oseirus's shoulders. Each one was equipped with bone-blades and ocular turrets.
Ravenna sliced through them mid-air.
The fight turned apocalyptic.
Oseirus swung its claws, rupturing the ground. Ravenna ducked, dashed up its thigh, and buried her blade into its plating, twisting until sparks flew. Blood mixed with oil rained down.
Then the voice came.
Evelyn's.
Over the comms. Inside her skull.
"Come home, Ravenna."
Her muscles seized. Vision blurred. Code bloomed behind her eyes. The directive—Kill all threats—lit up like fire in her mind.
She turned toward Jace.
And everything went red.
Inside the Directive Loop
She saw him—Jace—arms raised, saying her name.
But the voices inside her screamed. Commanded. Demanded blood.
Her hand reached for her gun.
Her finger on the trigger.
And then—
A memory.
Jace. On the balcony in Eden Square. The night he kissed her like she was human.
She dropped the gun.
Fell to her knees.
Screamed.
The signal shattered.
Ravenna gasped, lungs burning. Blood on her lips. But her mind was hers again.
She looked up.
Jace stood there, unmoving.
"I'm still me," she whispered, trembling. "I'm still me."
He knelt beside her. Pressed his forehead to hers.
"I know."
--------------------
Oseirus – Final Blow
With the last of her energy, Ravenna surged forward, plunged her blade into Oseirus's core. The creature convulsed, screaming a thousand voices before collapsing.
The gate was open.
The path to Evelyn Voss was clear.
But the cost had been high. Her control was fraying.
Nkiru patched into their comms. "She knows. You resisted the trigger."
Ravenna, barely standing, whispered:
"Then tell her I'm coming."
Safehouse, 02:49 A.M. — Aftermath of Oseirus
The rain hit the roof like a drumline of ghosts. Inside the safehouse, flickering neon leaked through bullet-cracked windows. Ravenna sat motionless on the bed, stripped down to black tactical shorts and a thermal tank top, the bandage across her ribs stained red.
Jace entered quietly, dropped his gear, and stood watching her.
"You haven't said anything in hours."
Ravenna's eyes didn't move. "I'm still trying to understand why I didn't kill you."
"You overpowered the directive," he said, gently. "That should mean something."
"It means I'm unstable. A liability." She laughed bitterly. "It means Evelyn made me too human."
He stepped forward. "I don't care if you're half flesh, half code, or pure steel. You're you."
She looked up at him finally, her eyes glassy but fierce. "Then touch me like I'm still real."
Jace didn't hesitate.
-----------------------
Erotic Interlude – Desire as Survival
Their mouths met like a stormfront: heat and hunger, need and desperation. Jace's hands roamed her bruised body, slow at first, reverent, then rough as she guided him down with a growl.
"I don't want careful," she hissed in his ear, straddling him, pushing him onto the bed. "I want alive."
Clothes came off in urgent, tearing motions. Flesh pressed to flesh. She bit his collarbone, hard, drawing blood, and he groaned—low and guttural.
Ravenna moved over him with the fluidity of a panther, hips grinding slow, then fast. Sweat beaded across her spine. Her fingers clawed his chest as her breath grew ragged.
He flipped her.
Drove into her like a man chasing sanity, gripping her thighs like he was holding the last piece of himself. Their rhythm was savage, tangled in moans, gasps, the slap of skin on skin.
She cried out—his name, not the code, not Evelyn, not the Syndicate. Just Jace.
When they collapsed, tangled, broken open and breathless, neither spoke for a long time.
Only then did she whisper:
"If I turn on you, kill me before I kill you."
Jace closed his eyes.
"No," he said. "I'll save you again."
--------------------
The Devil's Orchard
The next move wasn't subtle.
Now that Oseirus was gone, Evelyn's defenses were weakened—but the Devil's Orchard remained. A fortress carved into the remains of a biological research ark. The place where Evelyn's Black Corps were engineered.
Ravenna stood before a wall of photos—her old squad.
"Every one of them volunteered," Nkiru explained. "Except you. You were the control variable. No memory. No choice."
She traced a face on the photo: a woman with hawk-like eyes, shaved head. "Cass."
"She's still alive," Jace said, stepping beside her. "Running the Orchard now. She remembers you."
Ravenna holstered her blades.
"Then I'll remind her who I became."
The Raid
The entrance was under a decaying cathedral, long forgotten, protected by bio-scanners coded to reject anything not born of Evelyn's labs.
Ravenna walked right in.
Jace followed, covered in thermoptic mesh. Behind them, a small crew of insurgents swept the flanks.
Then the alarms screamed.
Cass appeared on the mezzanine balcony, flanked by two genetically fused guards—soldiers with acid-stained skin and synthetic tendons.
"Red Sin," Cass called, smirking. "They said you'd gone rogue. I didn't believe them."
"I'm not rogue," Ravenna said, stepping into the atrium. "I'm awake."
Cass grinned. "Then let's test that."
The Battle in the Orchard
The entire lab erupted in chaos—hybrid soldiers leaping from walls, dripping venom, blades extending from beneath their flesh.
Ravenna danced between them, slicing throats, dodging limbs, hacking through tendons. Blood sprayed like oil across her chest.
Cass leapt from above, meeting her mid-air with a brutal collision.
They crashed into a steel beam. Fought tooth and nail, former sisters, now rivals of fate.
"You were supposed to be our messiah!" Cass screamed, pummeling her.
Ravenna headbutted her. "No. I'm your reckoning."
She plunged her knife into Cass's side, twisting. Cass howled, fell to her knees.
Jace fired from the ledge, covering her.
The Orchard was falling.
But it wasn't over.
Not yet.
The Final Message
As they escaped through a maintenance tunnel, a terminal blinked to life. A message broadcast to all Syndicate-linked tech.
Evelyn's face.
Projected into every screen, every device, and every corrupted neural implant.
She spoke, slow and deliberate:
"Red Sin. My daughter. You've betrayed your purpose. But you've proven something far more valuable."
Her smile widened—cold, surgical.
"You've proven the human soul can be rewritten. And now… I will overwrite the world."
The screen went black.
Ravenna stared.
Jace stepped beside her.
"Then we overwrite her first."
Abandoned Subway — 4:23 A.M.
The tunnel was pitch-black. The silence wasn't peace—it was the calm before something cruel. Jace led the way, rifle drawn, infrared on. Ravenna followed, her steps silent, calculating, bleeding rage in silence.
Nkiru's voice came through the comms. "I've intercepted chatter. Evelyn's building something at Spire Zero. And it's nearly operational."
Jace swore under his breath. Ravenna gripped her blade tighter.
"That's the tower in the Dead Belt, right?" Jace asked.
"Yeah. Old orbital defense system. But she's reactivated it. And integrated live AI into the targeting."
Ravenna paused.
"She's going to weaponize entire cities," she said.
Jace met her eyes. "She's going to rewrite the planet."
Ravenna nodded once.
"Then we bury her under her own code."
Flashback: The Garden
Twelve years ago.
They called it the Garden.
Not because it grew anything—but because it was where Evelyn planted her soldiers. Her "flowers," she'd say.
Ravenna remembered the drills. The needles. The unrelenting silence.
Cass was always nearby—older, stronger, always first to strike, first to obey.
Ravenna had only her nightmares and the cold.
Evelyn had smiled at her once.
"You will be the one who remembers."
Now she did.
Every fragment.
Every death.
Every scar.
And she would make Evelyn choke on them.
The Dead Belt — Outside Spire Zero
Snow tore sideways through the wind as if the world was trying to shred itself apart. Spire Zero towered above them—needle-thin, glowing faintly with internal heat, its sides crawling with autonomous sentry drones.
"Five floors of defense grid," Nkiru said. "You'll need to go silent after floor two. No comms. No backups."
Ravenna touched the side of her head. "That's fine. I don't need an army."
Jace handed her a syringe—clear fluid inside.
"You sure about this?"
She nodded. "It'll override her last failsafe. Give me maybe fifteen minutes before my neural implant burns out."
"And if it fails?"
Ravenna shrugged. "Then I die human."
She kissed him then—raw, bloody, lips trembling.
"I'll see you in hell or after."
And then she ran.
Spire Zero: Levels One to Five
Level One: Entry was carnage. Drones sliced apart before they could register her. She ran walls, dodged lasers, her knives twin ghosts in the dark.
Level Two: Genetic guards. Failed versions of her. Ravenna didn't hesitate. Each kill was personal. One hissed, "Mother misses you," before she snapped his spine.
Level Three: The Reaper Room. Six elite Black Corps. Cass had trained them.
She fought barehanded now—disarmed, bloodied, but faster. She broke a neck on a knee. Drove a jagged bone into another's throat.
"Red Sin," one whispered, dying. "She made us to love you."
Ravenna looked down, grief and fire in her eyes.
"She failed."
Level Four: Psychological warfare.
Holograms of her past. Cass. Evelyn. Her own face, laughing cruelly.
She screamed and slashed until glass and ghosts shattered.
Level Five: Evelyn's chamber.
The Throne of the Architect
The walls were chrome and crimson.
Evelyn stood in the center, dressed in a white silk robe, her veins glowing faintly blue—plugged into a neural throne.
"Welcome home, Ravenna."
Ravenna didn't flinch. "You tried to make me your god."
"I succeeded," Evelyn said, smiling. "You're proof humanity is obsolete."
"You created a weapon. I became a woman."
Evelyn sighed. "So sentimental. So flawed. So... perfect."
Her hand twitched.
From the ceiling, another Ravenna descended.
Pale. Pure. Eyes white.
A clone. A perfected Sin.
"Kill the error," Evelyn commanded.
Sin vs. Sin
They clashed like mythic beasts.
The clone moved with impossible precision—preprogrammed to match every style, every move.
Ravenna grunted, bleeding, her ribs cracked again. But she smiled through the pain.
"You copy my body," she spat, ducking a strike. "But you'll never copy my rage."
She feinted. Slid under the clone. Jammed her boot into the clone's neck, and—
Injected the failcode.
The clone convulsed—screamed, shrieked in static—and exploded into a mess of twitching circuits and gore.
Evelyn stepped back, unplugging.
"You can't kill me. I'm everywhere now."
"Then I'll start here."
Ravenna grabbed her.
Dragged her to the throne.
And jacked her own neural cable into the port.
The Mindspace: Evelyn vs. Ravenna
It was white.
Infinite.
Evelyn stood in her perfect form.
"You entered my domain?"
Ravenna smiled. "No. I brought hell into yours."
She unleashed every memory—every pain—every moment of horror. A tidal wave of bleeding children, dead comrades, tortured silence.
Evelyn screamed.
"I MADE YOU!"
"You made me hurt."
And Ravenna burned her code alive.
The Collapse
Spire Zero fell.
Literally.
Jace pulled Ravenna from the rubble. Her body was scorched. Her mind nearly gone.
She opened her eyes.
Smiled weakly.
"Next time... you do the speeches."
He laughed, tears streaming.
"You got it."
Six Days Later — Safe Zone 7
Nkiru stood at a podium, facing refugees and rogue operatives. Behind her, Jace helped Ravenna walk slowly to the stage, her wounds still raw, but her eyes burning with life.
"She broke the Architect," Nkiru said. "She broke the chain."
The crowd erupted.
But Ravenna didn't raise her fist.
She just whispered:
"It's not over yet."
And it wasn't.
In the dark corners of the Net…
A new Architect stirred.
The stink hit first—like rotting teeth and molten iron. Ravenna's boots sank ankle-deep in sludge as she dropped into the old sewer shaft. The echoes swallowed the splash behind her.
Jace landed beside her, knees bent, gun raised, eyes scanning the tunnel like a wolf sniffing rot.
"Home sweet hell," he muttered.
She said nothing. Just moved forward.
Their shadows rippled on the curved walls—two hunters soaked in grime and vengeance. Overhead, the city burned. Underneath, the kingdom of rats stirred. The Syndicate didn't rule down here. Something older did. Something worse.
Kellin followed last, gagging. "This place smells like... death and piss had a baby."
"No talking," Ravenna said. "Sound travels. And they're listening."
Jace looked at her sideways. "They?"
She didn't answer.
She didn't have to.
He remembered now.
The Saints.
The myth that wasn't a myth anymore.
Former Syndicate exiles. Operatives gone off the rails. Feral specialists who lived like ghosts in the tunnels, wearing bone masks and wielding blades dipped in neurotoxin. No allegiance. No code. Just survival—and blood sport.
And now Ravenna was leading them straight into their nest.
—
The tunnel curved like a serpent's spine, walls slick with time and secrets. Jace kept his back close to the concrete, eyes twitching from shadow to shadow. The deeper they went, the more the air thickened—cloying, wet, metallic. He could taste old violence in it.
Ravenna stopped.
Raised her hand.
Silence.
Even Kellin obeyed this time.
In the dim beam of Jace's flashlight, something moved—quickly, like the flick of a coat tail. Then another. And then, as if summoned by breathe itself, three figures emerged from the murk ahead.
They didn't walk. They glided.
White robes shredded at the hem, stained red and brown.
Masks made of human jawbones, teeth stitched into them with rusted wire.
"Saints," Jace breathed.
The one in front—taller, broader, wearing what looked like a rosary made from fingers—stepped forward.
Ravenna didn't flinch.
"Brother Silt," she said.
The masked figure cocked its head. Then spoke, voice rasped raw as old wood. "Red Sin. You are still alive. Unfortunate."
Jace shifted, gun twitching, but Ravenna didn't blink.
"You still bathing in the blood of outcasts?" she said coolly.
The other two Saints chuckled. It wasn't human laughter. It sounded... wet.
Brother Silt replied, "We drink what the surface spills. You come to give us another offering?"
"I come for a passage," Ravenna said.
The sewer god looked past her at Jace and Kellin. "And you bring offerings anyway."
"No," she said, stepping forward. "I bring debt. You owe me."
A silence.
Then a slow hiss. "She invokes the blood vow."
Jace glanced at her sharply.
"You saved a Saint?" he asked under his breath.
She didn't answer.
But Brother Silt did. "She dragged one of ours from Syndicate knives. Paid for it with flesh and fury. The kind of pain that scars the spirit."
"I need through," she said.
"And where does your rage run now?"
Ravenna's voice was low, precise. "To the Lament Gate. I'm going to burn what's behind it."
The three Saints turned to one another. Nodded. Then turned back.
Brother Silt stepped aside. "Then walk, Red Sin. But beware—the gate remembers what you did the last time."
Ravenna walked past them.
Jace hesitated.
The Saints stared at him, unblinking through bone and silence.
He followed, pulse hammering.
Kellin scampered behind, mumbling prayers.
The Lament Gate wasn't a gate in the usual sense.
It was a carved wall deep beneath the undercity, part of an abandoned railway system built before the city's second war. Painted with old sigils, barbed wire, and chains. It pulsed with energy—like the city's last heartbeat lived behind it.
And tonight, Ravenna would crack it open again.
Jace leaned close. "You sure this isn't suicide?"
She touched the old rusted lock. "What's life if it's not dying slowly?"
Then she smiled.
A broken, dangerous smile.
And pulled a thin black key from her belt.
The kind forged in blood.
The kind that opened the past.
The lock snapped.
The wall groaned.
The Gate opened.
And all hell waited behind it.
The Gate of Bones
The wall screamed as it opened—not in sound, but in sensation. A low vibration rippled through the marrow of every bone, echoing from spine to skull. Jace flinched.
Ravenna didn't.
She stepped into the darkness beyond the Gate as if it were her homecoming. Shadows swallowed her. The stink of iron and salt grew thick, like a wound that refused to scab.
Kellin paused at the threshold. "This place wasn't made for men."
"No," Jace said. "But neither was war. We still bleed in it."
He followed her in.
The chamber beyond was massive—circular, domed, and choked with cables that hung from the ceiling like veins. Faint blue lights pulsed behind translucent panels in the wall. The floor was slick concrete, tattooed in broken glyphs and war-cracked metal plates.
A station, maybe. Once.
Now?
A tomb.
Something moved up above. Too quick to see, too soft to hear. But it was there. Watching.
Ravenna raised her hand again. "Don't speak. It listens through echoes."
Jace opened his mouth, then closed it. His footsteps fell quieter.
Kellin shuffled behind, hugging his coat tighter.
At the heart of the station was a throne. Twisted copper and engine parts welded together. Dried blood crusted the seat.
And sitting there—
"Shit," Jace whispered.
She was naked except for chains and dust. Albino skin. Runes carved into her thighs and collarbone. Her eyes were black pits, but they moved. Followed them. Smiled.
Ravenna stopped ten feet away. "Oracle."
The woman shifted. Not like a human. Like a marionette on strings. Her neck cracked sideways. Her voice was a rasp scraped from inside a grave. "Red Sin returns... with meat."
Jace tensed.
"Not for eating," Ravenna said coldly. "For truth."
The Oracle's lips peeled open into something like a grin. "Then give me blood."
Without flinching, Ravenna took a knife from her thigh sheath, dragged it across her palm. Black-red dripped onto the stone floor.
The glyphs lit up. Faint red first, then pulsing white.
The Oracle inhaled like a lover's gasp. "Ask."
Ravenna didn't hesitate.
"Where is Amon Vex hiding?"
The Oracle tilted her head. "The blood remembers. The blood obeys. The devil you seek is not underground."
Jace's jaw clenched.
"Then where?" Ravenna demanded.
"Where angels fall," the Oracle sang. "Where towers wear the sky like bone crowns. Look to the vertical graveyard."
Ravenna stared, unmoving.
Then: "The Aerie."
Jace stiffened. "That's Syndicate territory. He's holed up in the fucking spire?"
"Guarded by beasts of light and shadow," the Oracle rasped. "And one who was once yours, now turned."
A silence.
Ravenna's voice dropped to a whisper. "Who?"
The Oracle grinned wider.
And spoke a name like a gunshot.
"Ashriel."
Jace felt his stomach drop.
Ravenna's eyes didn't widen. They narrowed.
Ashriel. The rogue assassin. Her ex-lover. The one who disappeared in the fallout after the Velvet Massacre. Thought dead. Thought... gone.
"No," she said. But her voice trembled for the first time.
The Oracle laughed. "He waits for you. At the edge of the sky."
The glyphs dimmed. The chains rattled. And the Oracle slumped forward, as if spent.
Ravenna turned, expression carved from ash and murder.
"Get your weapons ready," she said.
Jace moved to follow. "What's the play?"
"We go up," she said. "To the towers."
"And if Ashriel's really there?"
She looked back.
Her smile was fire and funeral.
"Then I bury him again. Properly this time."
[POV SHIFT: Ashriel]
The spire hummed with heat and breath.
Ashriel stood barefoot on the uppermost ledge of the Aerie—a needlepoint of steel above the city, three hundred floors up. The wind whipped his white coat open, baring the black tattoos coiled around his ribs like chains.
Below him, Deadman's City stretched like a graveyard mid-autopsy. Lights flickered. Sirens wailed. And in the distance, a low rumble echoed beneath the crust of the underworld.
The Lament Gate had been opened.
He felt it in his spine.
"She's coming," he whispered.
A voice behind him—cool, digitized—clicked through an earpiece embedded in his jaw. "Confirmed breach from below. Red Sin is moving through abandoned Line 7. Our drones lost track two klicks from the spire's underbase."
Ashriel turned his head slightly. "Good. Let her come."
"She knows you're alive."
"I want her to know."
"You want her dead," the voice corrected.
He didn't reply.
Because that wasn't true.
Not entirely.
He wanted her broken first.
He wanted her to remember what she did.
He wanted her to scream his name one last time—between pain and pleasure.
And then?
Then he'd see.
[POV SHIFT: Ravenna]
They emerged from the sewers through a maintenance shaft near Sector Vulture, a forgotten industrial zone fenced by Syndicate patrols and feral tech clans. The air above ground was even fouler—hot with engine grease, neon ash, and corpse-rot.
Ravenna didn't blink as a gun turret whirred to life fifty meters away. She raised one hand.
Kellin threw a shroud grenade.
The turret blinked out in a static haze.
"We've got maybe twelve minutes before they pick up this hole," Jace said, checking his rifle. "Then drones. Maybe more."
"We'll need a disguise route," Ravenna said. "You still know the Jackal's Spine?"
He hesitated. "That's a suicide climb."
"Then let's die memorable."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Location: The Jackal's Spine]
[POV: Jace Cross]
They moved fast through the back alleys of Sector Vulture, where the buildings leaned like old men whispering secrets to each other. Neon bled from broken signs. The sky above was a smog-painted ceiling, orange and violet, vibrating with distant rotors.
Jace's shoulders ached beneath the weight of his gear, but he never let his eyes leave Ravenna. She walked ahead of him, black coat flaring, blood-dried gloves flexing on the hilt of her blade. She was all rhythm and ruin.
Kellin kept muttering. "This is fucked. This is so fucked. The Spine's not just dangerous—it's cursed."
"Everything in this city's cursed," Ravenna said.
Then they turned a corner—and there it was.
The Jackal's Spine.
A half-collapsed comms tower, four hundred meters high, built on top of an abandoned steelworks. Cables whipped in the wind like flayed tendons. The ladders were rusted. The scaffolding sang with tension.
It was the only way to reach the Syndicate Aerie without triggering the skyline mines or direct approach.
Jace swallowed hard. "You're sure Ashriel's up there?"
Ravenna turned slightly. "His ghosts are. And I intend to bury them."
She began climbing.
One hand after another, black leather fingers closing on rusted rungs.
Jace followed. Below, Kellin whimpered and spat a prayer to any god stupid enough to listen.
Halfway up, the wind changed.
So did the air.
Jace blinked. His fingers slipped.
A voice echoed inside his skull.
"He watches you."
He jerked his head—no one there.
Ravenna paused above him. "You hear that?"
"Yeah," he muttered. "But I don't know if it's the wind or something worse."
She stared down at him. "There's no such thing as just wind in Deadman's City."
[FLASHBACK — Ravenna + Ashriel | Years Earlier | Location: Velvet Hotel, Sector Cyan]
[POV: Ravenna]
They had just finished a job.
A clean one. Only three dead.
Ashriel was still laughing as he threw her onto the bed—sheets red, silk soaked in spilled wine and sweat.
"You looked so fucking alive tonight," he whispered, biting down on her shoulder.
Ravenna grinned, letting her nails dig into his back.
"You liked the throat slice?" she asked.
He growled against her skin. "It made me hard."
They kissed like two blades grinding together.
Fast.
Painful.
Perfect.
Ashriel pinned her wrists to the wall. Her legs wrapped around his waist. He moved inside her like vengeance—a rhythm of war and worship.
She moaned into his ear. "We're not going to survive this city, you know."
He smiled darkly. "Then let's give it something to remember."
She didn't know it then, but it would be the last time they touched as lovers.
The last time before betrayal.
The last time before the Syndicate took him.
And the last time she felt anything close to peace.
--------------------------------------
[BACK TO PRESENT — The Top of the Spine]
[POV: Ravenna]
They reached the apex of the Jackal's Spine at midnight.
The platform shook beneath their boots, held together by bolts and curses. Across the gap, the Aerie rose—glass and black steel, like a coffin made for gods.
Ravenna stared at it.
"You ready?" Jace asked, gun raised.
She didn't answer.
Instead, she stepped onto the zipline Kellin had prepped. It screeched. Sparks. Speed.
She crossed like a bullet in the dark.
Jace followed.
Kellin closed the rear.
They landed on the Aerie's lower balcony, breaching from the side.
No alarms.
No guards.
Too easy.
Ravenna crouched, breathing heavy. Her pulse was thunder in her ears.
Ashriel was here.
She could feel it like gravity.
And in her blood… something stirred.
Not rage.
Not hate.
Something worse.
Memory.
-------------------------------------------------
[Ashriel – Inside the Spire, Floor 308]
He watched her on the security feed—her, Jace, the priest.
A smile curved across his lips.
"Send the Bone Rooks," he said into the comm.
The handler's voice crackled back: "Now?"
"Yes. Start slow. Let them feel it."
He shut the feed off.
Pulled his knives from the table.
And stripped off his coat.
-----------------------------------------
[Location: Syndicate Aerie – Interior, Floor 306]
[POV: Jace Cross]
The moment they stepped into the corridor, the door slammed shut behind them—a gust of hot air, then silence. It wasn't just the kind of silence you could break with sound. No. It was thick. Living. Like walking into the mouth of something hungry.
Jace raised his sidearm.
Ravenna didn't. Her fingers hovered near her belt, but she was still. Controlled. Her expression unreadable, like a prayer carved in ice.
Then the lights blinked.
Once.
Twice.
And everything turned red.
Not a soft red. A pulsing, arterial crimson, like they'd been swallowed by a heartbeat.
Kellin screamed.
Three shapes dropped from the ceiling—silent, masked, fast.
The Bone Rooks.
Clad in stitched leather, bodies twisted from splicing and spore surgery. Their movements were unnatural—liquid and snapping, like vertebrae cracking in reverse.
One lunged for Ravenna.
She moved like a whisper caught in a storm.
Spun. Slammed her blade upward through the assassin's chest.
No blood.
Just a hiss of steam and the scent of formaldehyde.
Another came for Jace. It was fast—faster than him. Claws out. Teeth gleaming through its split metal mask.
He fired three shots.
Center mass.
The Rook absorbed them like a sponge, still lunging.
Jace ducked low, slid beneath it, and brought his blade up in a savage arc.
The Rook screamed—a high, wet shriek—as half its jaw ripped open.
Kellin?
Jace spun.
Too late.
The third Rook was on him, fingers clamped over the priest's mouth.
Dragged him into a vent.
Gone.
"Fuck!" Jace cursed.
But Ravenna didn't move.
She just whispered, "Let it go."
"What?"
"We'll get him if he's alive. But we move forward. That's the deal."
Jace's jaw clenched. "He's not part of the deal to me."
She didn't flinch. "He is to me. That's why I'm not panicking."
Her blade dripped. Her eyes didn't blink. She was steel.
Beautiful, bloody steel.
[Location: Hall of Echoes – Floor 308]
[POV: Ravenna Noir]
This floor was different.
The doors were mirrors. The walls breathed.
And the air smelled like sex and secrets.
The second she stepped in, the lights changed again—this time to indigo, casting everything in a sensual twilight.
Jace caught up to her, breath ragged. "This place…"
"It's not real," she said. "It's him."
Ashriel.
This was his doing.
The Hall of Echoes was his invention—a sensory labyrinth made to replay your worst memories and seduce you with the ones you wanted most.
And just as she thought that—
The mirror beside her melted.
Not shattered—melted, like silver bleeding off glass.
A figure formed.
Tall.
Naked.
Strong.
Ashriel.
From five years ago.
His body still unscarred.
His voice still full of music and malice.
"You came back," the echo said.
Jace raised his gun. "Is that him?"
Ravenna didn't answer. She stepped forward.
Her heartbeat was a hurricane.
"I'm not here for this," she said. "I want the real you."
The echo smiled. "I am the real me. The one you still dream about when you touch yourself in the dark."
Jace twitched. His gaze darted toward her.
She didn't break eye contact with the hallucination.
Didn't deny it.
Instead, she said, "You're just a shadow."
The mirror Ashriel reached for her, hand outstretched.
Ravenna let her blade drop.
Then—at the last second—plunged her other hand straight into the apparition's throat.
The silver figure screamed.
Then evaporated.
Jace said nothing. But his eyes were burning.
Ravenna turned. "Don't look at me like that."
"You still dream about him?"
"He fucked me better than any man ever has," she said coldly. "But that doesn't mean I wouldn't gut him if I had the chance."
Silence.
Then Jace looked away. "Let's keep moving."
----------------------------------------------
[Location: Memory Trap Chamber – Floor 310]
[POV: Jace Cross]
Jace walked into the next room—and the door locked behind him.
He turned. "Ravenna?"
Silence.
A moment later, the lights flickered—and he wasn't in the Aerie anymore.
He was in a jungle.
A real one.
Hot.
Wet.
Smelling of blood and palm sap.
He knew this place.
Taribian Delta.
Four years ago.
This was the op that had broke him.
He turned—and there she was.
Cora.
Naked. Kneeling. Begging.
Gun in her mouth.
The moment Jace had to decide between saving the girl… or killing the warlord.
He had chosen the mission.
And left her there.
"Please," Cora sobbed.
The jungle echoed.
"You always choose war over love."
Jace dropped to his knees.
"Fuck… no… no…"
He raised his hands.
"I'm sorry."
But the vision didn't stop.
Because the pain didn't stop.
Because this place knew what he feared most.
And what he hated in himself.
And it made him live it.
Again.
And again.
And again.
[Meanwhile – Floor 311: Real Ashriel's Chamber]
[POV: Ashriel]
He lit a cigarette. Black filter. Silver ash.
Ravenna was coming.
She always did.
No matter how far she ran.
Because rage was just love set on fire.
And he'd set her on fire first.
------------------------------------------
[Location: Floor 311 – The Sanctum of Ashriel Voss]
[POV: Ravenna Noir]
The final door was black steel.
No handle.
No lock.
Just a heartbeat sensor and a sigil she recognized—etched in red, shaped like a serpent swallowing its own eye.
She stared at it, her own heart still pounding from the hallucination chamber.
He's in there.
Not a ghost.
Not a memory.
The real Ashriel.
She placed her hand on the panel.
The metal hissed.
The sigil blinked once—then opened.
The room inside was massive.
Dimly lit. Smelling of incense, blood, and ozone. Velvet curtains half-drawn over gothic windows. Paintings she didn't want to look at. A gramophone in the corner playing something low, slow, and orchestral.
And in the center of the room:
Ashriel.
Alive.
Dressed in black slacks and nothing else. Bare chest marked with ritual scars, slick with sweat. A silver chain looped around his neck—dangling with the pendant he stole from her six years ago.
Her pendant.
He didn't move when she stepped in.
Didn't blink.
Just smiled.
And whispered, "I was beginning to think you wouldn't come."
Ravenna didn't answer.
She moved forward—silent, slow, deadly.
But her hands were empty.
She didn't draw her blade.
Didn't raise her gun.
She was caught in it again.
The pull.
He always had it.
That gravity.
That voice.
Even after betrayal. Even after the burn.
"Did you enjoy the memories I curated for you?" Ashriel asked, stepping off the dais. His voice was velvet soaked in wine. "The guilt. The pleasure. The mix of who we used to be."
"I came to kill you," Ravenna said.
Ashriel grinned. "You always say that."
Then he moved closer.
Close enough to touch.
And whispered, "But look at you. Still shaking. Still wet between the thighs. Still haunted."
Her jaw clenched.
She hated him.
But gods, she hated how much she still wanted him more.
"You burned me," she said, voice like broken glass. "You left me in that fire. Screaming."
"I wanted you to be reborn."
"Fuck your rebirth."
Ashriel stepped closer.
She didn't move.
They were nose to nose.
His fingers slid up her arm.
Soft.
Slow.
Dangerous.
"You haven't touched another man the same way since me," he whispered against her ear. "Not even your little agent boy. You let him in your bed. But you never gave him this."
His hand was at her waist now.
She didn't stop him.
Not yet.
The blade was still at her back, under her coat.
Ashriel leaned in.
Pressed his lips to hers.
And for a moment—
She kissed him back.
Not because she forgave him.
Not because she loved him.
But because rage and desire wore the same face.
The kiss was savage. Brutal. Tongue and teeth. She bit his lip. He grabbed her throat.
They slammed into the wall.
Clothes tore.
Flesh burned.
He lifted her—pinned her—entered her with no words and no forgiveness.
Ravenna moaned, not from pleasure, but from war.
Every thrust was a sin revisited.
Every breath a curse.
Their bodies moved like fire meeting gasoline—screaming, writhing, breaking the past apart.
He called her name like a death sentence.
She scratched his back until it bled.
And when he came inside her—growling her name like a god fallen from grace—
She reached behind her back—
And drew the blade.
Pressed it to his throat.
Ashriel froze.
Still inside her.
Still shaking from the orgasm.
And smiled.
"I always knew," he whispered.
"That I'd kill you like this?" she said, voice shaking.
"That you'd still need to fuck me first."
A beat passed.
A breath.
A tear slid down her cheek.
But her hand didn't waver.
She wanted to kill him.
She had to.
But gods...
Did she?
[Location: Floor 310 – The Trap Chamber]
[POV: Jace Cross]
He tore the hallucination apart.
Screamed through it.
Blood on his face.
Memories melting like wax.
Until the door opened.
And he stumbled out.
Ravenna wasn't there.
But he heard something.
A moan.
A cry.
A voice.
Coming from the next floor.
He ran.
Gun drawn.
Up the stairwell.
He reached the doorway—and stopped.
There she was.
Against the wall.
Naked.
Pinned.
And Ashriel—
Inside her.
His blade at his throat.
And he was smiling.
Jace's hand tightened on the trigger.
His heart cracked.
He'd lost her again.
But then—
Ravenna turned her head.
Saw him.
Their eyes locked.
And something in her gaze snapped.
She screamed.
And slashed Ashriel's throat open.
Blood sprayed.
Ashriel's mouth fell open.
He choked on it.
Slid out of her.
Collapsed.
Dead.
Ravenna sank to the floor, shaking.
Crying.
Not because she regretted it.
But because she'd finally ended something she'd once loved more than life.
[Location: Rooftop – Minutes Later]
[POV: Ravenna Noir]
She lit a cigarette with bloody fingers.
Naked beneath her coat.
The city roared below.
Jace sat beside her. Silent.
She didn't look at him.
Just whispered, "Don't say it."
He didn't.
But he reached out.
And held her hand.
Not as an agent.
Not as a lover.
But as a man who'd seen the worst parts of her—and still stayed.
She squeezed back.
For the first time in a long time—
She didn't feel alone.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Location: Rooftop of Floor 311 – Post-Kill Aftermath]
[POV: Ravenna Noir]
She smoked in silence.
Ashriel's blood was still on her thighs. Still warm. Still clinging to her like a memory that refused to die.
The wind cut through her coat, brushing her exposed skin.
She didn't flinch.
She wanted to feel the cold. Wanted it to punish her. Wanted it to rip through every nerve ending and remind her she was alive and not in that memory palace anymore.
Jace sat beside her. Not touching her now. Just close enough to feel his presence.
He finally spoke.
Voice low.
Controlled.
But bleeding. "Was it real?"
Ravenna didn't answer at first.
She dragged in another breath of smoke, blew it out in a long stream. Then, without looking at him, said:
"Yes."
Jace's jaw twitched. "You let him touch you."
"No. I used him," she corrected. Her voice was steel over lava. "That was the only way he'd let his guard down."
Jace said nothing.
But she could feel the doubt in him.
The silence stretched.
Heavy.
Then he said something soft. Something true.
"You loved him."
She turned to him slowly.
Her eyes met his.
"No," she whispered. "I loved what he made me believe I was. That's different."
And then—
Softly.
As if confessing to God and not a man—
"I never loved anyone... until you."
That made him look away.
He was angry.
Not because of the confession—but because he wanted to believe it so badly.
But trust in this city didn't grow like flowers.
It grew like tumors.
With pain.
With poison.
And when it died, it left scars.
[Location: Lower Levels – The Rise of the Jackals]
[POV: Silas Drayke – Crime Lord of the Outskirts]
The word spread fast.
Ashriel was dead.
The man who once fed corpses to machines.
Who ruled the Midnight Quarter with an iron grip and a velvet tongue?
Gone.
Silas Drayke read the update from a flashscreen in his office.
He didn't smile.
Didn't sigh.
Just whispered:
"Well... fuck."
Because Ashriel wasn't just a threat.
He was a barrier.
A dam holding back worse monsters.
With him gone—
The Jackals would rise.
The Gate would fall.
And the streets would flood with feral blood again.
He pressed a button.
Called his inner circle.
"Time to move the chessboard," he said. "Because war's coming. And the Queen's unchained."
---------------------------------------------------
[Location: Floor 311 – Later That Night]
[POV: Jace Cross]
She was asleep.
Finally.
Wrapped in one of Ashriel's silk sheets. A strange irony.
Her breathing was shallow. Twitchy. As if even in her dreams, she couldn't rest.
Jace sat across the room, shirtless, staring at the wall.
Thinking.
Bleeding.
He'd watched her kill a man after riding him.
He'd felt the weight of her pain.
But also the way she'd looked at Ashriel like an addict looks at their last fix.
And he hated himself.
Because he understood.
He knew what it was like to crave someone who destroyed you.
His father.
His handlers.
Even Ravenna herself.
He stood.
Walked over to her.
Brushed a strand of hair from her face.
She didn't wake.
But she whispered something.
Barely audible.
"…don't leave…"
Jace froze.
His hand hovered.
Then lowered.
He got into the bed beside her.
Didn't touch her.
Just stayed.
Letting her feel he was there.
And for the first time since his mission began—
He stopped being a spy.
And just became a man who didn't want her to break alone.
----------------------------------------------------------
[Location: Underground Vault – 04:00 A.M.]
[POV: UNKNOWN]
The file was delivered.
Encrypted.
Signed in red.
A gloved hand inserted the key. The file opened.
Footage played.
Ashriel's death.
Ravenna's blade.
Jace watching.
The face in the shadows smiled.
Not cruelly.
Not angrily.
Just...
Curious.
"She's finally awake," the voice said. Feminine. Cold. Old.
The figure turned.
Behind her, a wall of red screens. Each tracking factions across Deadman's City.
The Syndicate. The Ash Daughters. The Gatekeepers. The Hollow Saints.
And now... a new anomaly.
"Red Sin."
The voice spoke again.
"Activate the Phoenix Protocol."
A second figure appeared in the frame—masked, massive, breathing like a wolf.
"She's the one," the woman said. "We thought it was him. But no. She will burn the city clean."
The wolf-voiced figure asked, "Orders?"
"Let her think she's free. Then send the Hollow Saints to test her."
A pause.
"And when she breaks…"
The woman smiled, razor-sharp.
"…we give her the crown."
---------------------------------------------------
[Location: Floor 311 – Dawn]
[POV: Ravenna Noir]
She woke to silence.
Jace was gone.
Just a note.
Written in his chicken-scratch block letters:
"Had to move fast. City's going to hell now. You broke the chain. You did good. I'll find you again."
– J."
She sat up.
The room was still stained in sex and blood.
Ashriel's body had been burned.
The pendant was around her neck now.
Her eyes were hollow.
But her heart—
Was finally empty.
She stood.
Dressed in black.
Strapped her weapons to her thighs.
And said quietly to the city:
"Let them come."