Ghost Code and Gilded Lies

Lucien Blackmoore crouched low behind the third vault pillar, breath shallow, coat smoldering faintly where it had brushed a burned sigil. The scent clung—melted plastic, scorched glyph-ink, and sweat from nerves stretched too thin. He could feel the structure groaning around him, alive in a way it shouldn't be, as if the vault itself had grown tired of tolerating his kind.

His crimson coat hung heavy with static, the lining charred and peeling in spots. Sigil-burned. Broker-stained. It whispered every time he shifted, rustling like the crackle of dead leaves soaked in brimstone. That coat had survived more back-alley crossings than most of the dead clients on his tally. Now it reeked of shortcuts—blood-tagged, black-market forged, broker-bound. And it wasn't done bleeding yet.

Nyx Dynamics didn't build vaults. They constructed labyrinthine altars to paranoia—places stitched with enough traps, drones, and psychic tripwires to make a devourer flinch. Above him, thin aerials hummed, and the air buzzed with active scans. A nearby vent whispered something that felt more like a curse than cooling. Even the walls looked like they wanted him gone.

The drones were worse. Not bulky enforcer types—these were needle-thin, shaped like obsidian wasps. They skimmed the air in lazy, perfect spirals, wings whispering at frequencies just beneath thought. They didn't search for heat. They searched for presence. Pulseprint patterns. Residual aura. Echoes of intent. Lucien figured each one cost more than a mid-tier soul pledge. Worth every sliver if you were paranoid enough—and if you had something worth hiding.

Beneath the layers of his coat, the Ledger pressed sharp against his ribs, cold and alert. Not a voice exactly—never a voice—but a thrum. A rhythm. It didn't speak in thoughts so much as insist. His bones picked up the cadence before his mind caught on.

"Soulglass proximity: 3.4 meters," it announced, a flat hum vibrating behind his eyes. "Trace origin: Marisol Krev. Codex-sealed. Seventeen previous contract entries. One unresolved boon. Trust coefficient: low. Danger tier: moderate."

Lucien winced as another arc of drone-light skimmed the corridor. "What's the trap probability?"

"Sixty-one percent. Glyphwork suggests layered tether. Runes deteriorating—rush job."

He touched his temple, eyes flaring pale as the overlay flickered to life across his vision. Ghostlight spread in layered rings, mapping the vault's internals like a living artery. Blue latticework lit the floor in pulses, the path blinking like it had a heartbeat. Lines flickered, recalibrated, curved toward something darker at the center.

A second tremor worked its way up his spine.

"Drones recalibrating," the Ledger warned. "Pattern shift in seven seconds. Entry gate override compromised. False proximity beacon holding—but degrading."

Lucien gritted his teeth. He flexed his fingers, already feeling the prick of latent sigils itching against his palm. The air was thick with ozone and the coppery ghost-smell of old sigil flares. Every breath tasted like old lightning.

"Buy me time," he muttered.

Lyra's voice crackled in his earpiece, clipped and efficient. "Decoy's still running. I've looped the upper corridor feed. You've got ninety before the watchdog AI realizes the loop isn't recursive."

He slipped forward, moving with low, liquid precision. The vault floor thrummed beneath his boots, like a beast holding its breath. Soulglass always did that—vibrated too low to hear, just deep enough to rattle your teeth and wake up the part of your brain that remembered fear.

The air grew heavier as he closed the distance. Runes blinked red under his footsteps, ancient symbols that burned with false warmth.

"Target confirmed," the Ledger whispered, almost reverent. "Encoding mark: Valthamur lineage. Broker override protocols engaged. Trap presence: likely. Recommend glyph-bleed detachment protocol."

Lucien knelt beside the case, breath steady but muscles ready to spring. Runes lashed the floor in concentric rings, warning flares pulsing in a forgotten tongue. The Ledger throbbed hard against his chest.

"Override initiated. Executing glyph bleed…"

The outer ring sparked as his gloved hand brushed it. Light snapped across the seams—purple, sickly, full of teeth. The case hissed, popped, and cracked open like it had exhaled something it had no right to keep.

Inside, a single shard of soulglass lay cradled in black foam, dark as wet ink. Its core shimmered with tangled script, runes crawling in slow loops. Names floated inside, tangled like roots beneath murky water.

Lucien leaned in.

"Dorian Nix," he murmured. "Minor devourer. Ghost of a debt."

He plucked the shard and slipped it into the soul-pouch against his ribs. It buzzed against his coat, eager. Like it remembered him.

"Soulglass integrity: stable. Interlock complete. Brokered shard now encoded to your Ledger."

He tapped his comm.

"Pull the decoy on my mark."

A cold pulse surged through him—then sharper still.

"Warning: drone vector shift. Path intersects with ally Lyra in 9.8 seconds."

"Lyra, move," he snapped. "They're flanking your exit."

"Can't," she shot back. "Override burst drew them right to me. The hallway's sealed."

Lucien bit back a curse and dropped low, fingers scanning his belt for something unstable. He grabbed a smoke beacon, twisted it open.

"Coolant vents. West rail. Second cluster."

"That'll trigger a backup lockdown."

"I'll eat the fallout."

He tossed the beacon into the drone bay.

A surge of heat signatures erupted, loud enough to fry every detection node in a five-meter radius. The sirens screeched, staggered, as if confused by too many overlapping threats.

"Disruption successful. Drones rerouting. Lyra's exit path cleared."

The lighting above began to stutter. Not just flicker—strobe in deliberate intervals. A pattern. Lucien's gut twisted.

And then he saw it. Carved into the far wall in golden ash, still wet around the edges.

Cassian's cipher.

A warped mimicry of Lucien's own sigil, twisted like it had been etched by someone seizing mid-dream. The curve broken, the angle too deep, as if it wasn't drawn by a hand but vomited into the world out of spite.

"Proxy presence confirmed. Glyph structure unstable. Emotional residue detected—rage. Trust fissure expanding."

Lucien's jaw locked tight.

He snapped open a maintenance conduit beside him, shoved a hex bomb into the casing, and armed the failsafe. "You want noise?" he whispered. "Here's a goddamn chorus."

"Trap armed. Detonation in 45 seconds. Lyra cleared."

"Moving," Lyra confirmed, breathless but steady.

Lucien rose just as the lights cut out completely.

The vault shuddered around him—walls groaning like something ancient had shifted in its sleep. He didn't spare the glyph a second glance. He raised two fingers in a silent, bitter salute, then ran.

He vaulted a containment crate, hurdled a collapsed vent hatch, and skidded through the outer bay as the detonation flared behind him. It wasn't fire—it was pressure. A thunderous, concussive ripple that turned everything into static and punched the air from his lungs.

"Success. Vault containment integrity preserved. Cassian proxy signature fractured."

A pause.

"Lyra trust coefficient: 73%. Trust degradation—ongoing. Caution advised."

Lucien hit the stairwell railing and leaned hard, panting through grit-stained teeth. His coat steamed faintly, fabric curling at the hem. He peeled his glove off and checked the soulglass shard—still intact, warm like a secret in the dark.

"Crimson Sector?"

"Sector compromised. Cassian proxy infiltrated contract exchange. Five clients displaced. Two terminated. One soul rerouted to Kess Vol's dominion."

Lucien scoffed, wiping sweat and ash from his brow. "Classic Cassian. Throw knives, leave the bleeding for someone else."

"He undermines to stall. You retaliate to dominate. Neither action repairs. Both perpetuate."

Lucien paused halfway down the stairwell. A broken window gave him a view of Valthara sprawled below—fog-wrapped, neon-lit, vein-marked with light and decay. It looked almost serene from up here. But serenity was always a trick in this city. Just the breath before something worse.

The Ledger flickered again.

"Repair the breach. Rebuild loyalty. Or prepare for collapse."

He touched his coat, fingers brushing the edge of the hidden shard. It pulsed against his ribs like judgment. He remembered Lyra's voice—tight, controlled, but edged with something close to disappointment. She'd bought him ninety seconds. And he'd nearly signed her death warrant in return.

He swallowed. Hard.

"Yeah, we're all bleeding in someone's ledger," he whispered, mostly to himself.

The Ledger didn't respond.

Lucien adjusted the pouch, feeling the shard shift slightly. Behind him, the vault was already sealing itself, indifferent to the chaos it had witnessed. Cassian's signature still echoed behind his eyes—loud, crooked, and arrogant.

Lucien smiled, thin and sharp. It didn't reach his eyes.

Next time, he'd return the favor, and he'd make sure it left a scar.