Chapter 7: The Sanderson Avalanche

Chapter 7: The Sanderson Avalanche

The silence in the derelict church was a heavy shroud, broken only by the drip of grimy water from the collapsed ceiling. Kaelen stood bathed in the pale light of a single, stolen burner phone, its screen a stark white rectangle against the gloom. He was a general with no army, a king with a single subject. Seraphina watched him, her own formidable power feeling useless against the tide of paranoia and misinformation that had swept the city. They were trapped, hunted, with the engine of a magical apocalypse humming beneath their feet.

“He thinks he’s won,” Kaelen said, his voice quiet but sharp, cutting through the despair. He wasn’t looking at Seraphina, but at a map of the city on the phone’s screen, crisscrossed with lines only he could see. “He’s created the perfect storm of chaos. Everyone is fighting shadows. No one is looking at the magician behind the curtain.”

“Then what can we do?” Seraphina’s voice was raw. “My family has disavowed me. The Council is at war with itself. The mortals hunt us in the streets. We have no allies.”

“That’s not true,” Kaelen said, finally looking up at her. The analytical calm was back in his eyes, but now it burned with a desperate, focused intensity. “We don’t have allies. We have outstanding accounts. It’s time to call in some debts.”

His plan, when he laid it out, was not one of swords and fury. It was a symphony of targeted chaos, a cascade of interlocking gambits designed to attack the system, not the man. It was frantic, insane, and utterly brilliant. It was the only chance they had.

His first call was to a number he’d been given but had never expected to use. It was answered on the first ring with a low, suspicious growl.

“What?” Fenris, the Alpha of the Ironclaw pack, snarled.

“It’s Kaelen Vance,” he said, his tone all business. “The man with the riddle.”

A pause. “I remember. You have a death wish, mortal, calling me now. The city is a warzone.”

“It’s a warzone of Morian’s making,” Kaelen countered, getting straight to the point. “And he’s using the Order of Adam’s Torch as his private army. Do you really think once they’re done cleansing the vampires, they’ll just pack up and go home? The Lycan Accords won’t protect you from a mob with silver bullets and UV cannons. Your neutrality has expired.”

He could hear the Alpha’s harsh breathing on the other end. He wasn't appealing to friendship; he was appealing to self-preservation.

“Morian’s ritual is at the old North Line nexus,” Kaelen continued. “I need a diversion. A big one. On the west side of the district. I need you to give the Order a real monster to hunt, something loud and angry and impossible to ignore. Draw them away from the center.”

“You want my pack to bleed for a vampire’s war?” Fenris snarled.

“I want your pack to survive,” Kaelen retorted. “Morian’s ritual will shatter the Contract. The old vampires will become ravenous, untethered. The new war that follows will drown everyone, werewolves included. This isn’t about House Valerius. This is about preventing a reset to the dark ages. Give me one hour of chaos. That’s the deal.”

A long, tense silence stretched. Kaelen could almost see the Alpha weighing the odds, the primal pragmatism of the wolf against the ingrained hatred of the vampire.

“One hour,” Fenris finally rumbled, the sound like an avalanche starting high in the mountains. “Then you’re on your own.” He hung up.

Phase one was in motion.

Next, Kaelen knelt on the dusty floor. He took a silver locket Seraphina had worn, a simple heirloom she’d managed to keep, and placed it on a cracked flagstone. He didn’t have Flickerwing’s contact information, but he had something better: the rules of Fae bargains.

“A gift for a gift,” he whispered into the quiet air, focusing his intent, pushing the words into the Æther. “A truth for a truth. I offered safety. Now I offer a prize.” He concentrated on the memory of the terrified pixie, on the crystalline bond of their previous agreement. “Flickerwing, I have a bargain. A tale for a tale.”

A faint shimmering began near the locket. The air stirred, and the pixie materialized, his iridescent wings fluttering nervously. He eyed the locket with greedy fascination but kept his distance.

“The Bad Lady’s shiny,” he chirped, his fear warring with his desire.

“And it can be yours,” Kaelen promised. “I need you to spread a story. A new one. Fly to the watchers of the Torch. Whisper in their ears. Tell them the vampires’ ritual isn’t in the tunnels. Tell them the Valerius clan is gathering its strength for a final stand… at the old waterfront warehouses. Tell them they’re making their escape by sea. Make it convincing. Make it urgent.”

Flickerwing looked from the gleaming locket to Kaelen’s steady gaze. “They have iron that burns.”

“They won’t see you,” Kaelen said. “You’re a whisper on the wind. Do this, and the locket is yours. A simple telling. The truth of the bargain is sealed.”

The pixie’s greed won. He gave a sharp nod, and in a flash of shimmering light, he and the locket were gone. Phase two was launched.

Finally, Kaelen accessed the last part of his network. His “other contacts.” They weren’t warriors or monsters. They were the city’s magical IT department—the Ward Weavers, the Ley Line Regulators, the grumbling gnomes who maintained the Ætheric conduits beneath the city. He sent out a series of encrypted messages, phrased not as a call to arms, but as a critical systems warning.

“Unsanctioned, high-yield ritual detected at North Line nexus. Extreme risk of cascading ley line failure city-wide. Recommend immediate implementation of Protocol 7: Dampening Field Saturation. Throttle all primary conduits in Sectors 3, 4, and 7. This is not a drill.”

He wasn’t asking them to fight. He was asking them to do their jobs: to prevent a system crash by throttling the network.

While Kaelen conducted his orchestra of chaos, Seraphina stood guard, her rapier a solid, reassuring weight in her hand. She watched him, this mortal who wielded burner phones and legal jargon like ancient weapons. He was weaving a plan from desperation and promises, turning his enemies’ pawns against them. The awe she felt was profound. She was the sword, but he… he was the strategist who told the sword precisely where to strike.

The city began to scream.

The first reports were frantic. Roars echoed from the west side. News helicopters swerved, their spotlights cutting through the night to find scenes of chaos as the Ironclaw pack, in their terrifying half-wolf forms, clashed with the Order’s patrols. It was a brutal, visceral brawl that drew forces from all over the city.

Minutes later, a new wave of panic erupted. The Order’s command channels, which Kaelen was monitoring, lit up with chatter about the waterfront. A massing of vampire forces. An escape by sea. Convoys of torch-bearing fanatics diverted, racing towards the false target.

And beneath it all, a subtle change. The oppressive, purple-green glow emanating from the city’s depths began to flicker. The gnomes and weavers were doing their work, choking the ley lines, starving Morian’s ritual of the raw power it needed to remain stable.

Kaelen snapped the burner phone in half and tossed it into the dust. “That’s our window.”

They slipped out of the ruined church. The streets around them were eerily quiet, the storm of battle raging elsewhere. They were in the eye of a hurricane Kaelen had created.

“Your plan… it’s working,” Seraphina breathed, a spark of hope igniting in the depths of her despair.

“It’s a temporary solution,” Kaelen said, his eyes fixed on the entrance to the subway tunnels, now unguarded. “We haven’t stopped him. We’ve just made him angry and unstable. The goal was never to win the fight out here. It’s to get close enough to change the rules of the fight down there.”

He looked at her, the mortal consultant and the disavowed vampire princess, the last two people standing between their city and the abyss.

“He’s distracted. The system is vulnerable,” Kaelen said, his voice grimly determined. “It’s time to introduce a new, unbreakable clause into the Crimson Contract itself.”