Chapter 5: The Crimson Veil

Chapter 5: The Crimson Veil

“What’s the plan, Angel?” I asked, the amber glow from my eyes painting the damp tunnel walls in hellish light. The guttural chanting from the chamber beyond was growing louder, a droning pulse that vibrated in my bones.

Seraphina didn’t hesitate. The nascent light around her hand solidified, the air shimmering with heat as her celestial blade took form. Her sapphire eyes, fixed on the entrance to the chamber, were chips of ice.

“The plan is simple,” she said, her voice a low, resonant command. “I will be the sword that breaks them. The light that scours the darkness. They will be focused on me.” A flicker of her gaze met mine, a silent, grudging acknowledgment. “You will be the shadow. Find the heart of the ritual and cut it out while they are blinded.”

It was the best, most insane plan we had. She was the divine hammer; I was the corrupted scalpel.

“Try not to get unmade before I get there,” I said with a grim smirk.

“Try to keep up, abomination.”

With that, she moved. She didn’t run; she erupted. Seraphina burst into the chamber like a newborn star, a nova of pure white and gold that banished every shadow. Her blade sang, a hymn of holy retribution, as she carved a path through the first circle of cultists. They shrieked as her light touched them, not in pain, but in outrage, as their connection to their precious Void was severed and their bodies immolated into clean, white dust.

The High Priest on the dais faltered, his chant stuttering as his entire congregation turned to face the incandescent angel who had crashed their party. The distraction was perfect.

While every void-filled eye was fixed on Seraphina’s dazzling assault, I slipped from the tunnel, a ghost in my black trench coat. I used the chaos, the flashing light and screams, to melt into the shadows at the chamber’s edge. My Nether-Sight was on fire, the swirling vortex of violet and crimson energy a maelstrom that threatened to overwhelm my senses.

Seraphina was magnificent, a warrior-angel from a Renaissance painting brought to violent life. But there were too many. For every two she cut down, three more would surge forward, their life-draining touch forcing her to expend more and more of her divine energy to maintain her protective aura. Her light, once blinding, began to flicker.

I saw my target. The chained demon. It wasn't just a key; it was the primary battery, its infernal nature used to anchor the portal for Malkorath. The chains of shadow weren’t just holding it; they were siphoning its very essence. If I could break that connection, the entire ritual might collapse.

I vaulted over a pile of rubble, my SIG Sauer barking twice, dropping a cultist who had gotten too close to Seraphina’s flank. She didn't acknowledge it, but the celestial pressure on my senses eased for a half-second, a silent thank you.

The High Priest saw me. His empty eyes locked onto mine from across the chamber. He raised a hand, and a tendril of pure void energy, a ribbon of absolute nothingness, lashed out at me. I threw myself to the side, the energy hitting the brick wall behind me. The bricks didn't shatter; they simply ceased to exist, leaving a perfectly silent, perfectly smooth hole in the wall.

The gateway above the sigil pulsed violently. The shadowy form of Malkorath, the Soul-Eater, began to gain substance. A clawed hand, vast as a car, pushed through the veil. The taste of ash filled the air, thick and suffocating. We were out of time.

Seraphina cried out, not in pain, but in exertion. A dozen cultists had swarmed her, their combined draining power causing her light to dim alarmingly. She was being overwhelmed.

A cold, familiar terror seized me. The same feeling I’d had as a boy, watching a shadow consume my mother. The same helpless rage. The same infernal power coiling in my gut, begging to be let out. All my life I’d kept it chained, terrified of the monster I was, the monster my father had made me. But watching Seraphina falter, watching my city about to be devoured, I knew I had no other choice.

The desire to protect, to not fail again, warred with the obstacle of my own fear. The action required was an unforgivable one: to stop being Sabre Harper, half-human detective, and become what I truly was.

“Fine,” I whispered to the darkness inside me. “You win.”

I dropped the gun. I closed my eyes. And I let go.

The world didn't explode. It went silent. The coiled power in my gut didn't just flare; it detonated. The amber in my eyes bled outwards, consuming the grey until they were twin orbs of burning hellfire. Shadows, real and tangible, rose from the floor and wrapped around me, clinging to my leather coat like a living shroud. My skin prickled as dormant demonic sigils blazed to life beneath the surface. When I spoke, my voice was a layered chorus of my own and something far older, far deeper.

“Enough.”

The effect was instantaneous. Every cultist, the High Priest, even Seraphina—all froze. The raw, untamed demonic power I radiated was anathema to the cold nothingness of the Void. I was an inferno in a vacuum.

I walked forward, the stone cracking under my boots. The shadows clinging to me writhed and lashed out, not with the cold of the Void, but with the searing heat of the Pit. I didn't touch the cultists; they simply withered as I passed, their life force burning away.

From across the room, I saw Seraphina’s face. She stared at me, her celestial blade wavering. Her expression wasn't one of hatred or disgust anymore. It was one of pure, unadulterated shock. She wasn't looking at a half-breed, a stain. She was looking at a Prince of Hell.

I reached the chained demon. The great beast, which had been roaring in agony, fell silent, its head bowed in submission before my presence. The shadow-chains sizzled and dissolved where they met my aura. With a gesture, I shattered the remaining bindings.

Then, I turned my attention to the gateway.

“He is not welcome here,” my layered voice boomed, echoing with an authority that wasn't my own.

Instead of fighting the vortex, I opened myself to it. I reached out and grabbed the torrent of necrotic energy with my bare hands. It was a pain beyond measure, a cold that burned worse than any fire, but the hellfire inside me met it head-on. I became a conduit, absorbing the power the cult had gathered, my own demonic nature feasting on the energy meant to open the gates of Hell. The crimson veil of the portal tore and shredded, unable to sustain itself. Malkorath’s half-formed hand recoiled with a silent, universe-shaking roar of frustration before the gateway slammed shut.

The backlash sent a shockwave through the chamber, throwing me to my knees. The hellfire in my eyes receded, the shadows slinking away, leaving me shaking and gasping. The power was gone, chained once more, but the echo of it, the feel of it, lingered like a phantom limb. I felt hollowed out, tainted.

Silence. The chanting had stopped. The cultists were piles of blackened ash. The ritual was broken.

Only one figure remained standing: the High Priest, protected on his dais. He was dying, his body crumbling, but he was laughing—a dry, rasping sound.

I staggered towards him, my legs unsteady. “Who are you working for?” I rasped, my own voice sounding thin and weak.

He looked past me, to Seraphina who was now approaching cautiously, her blade extinguished but her posture wary.

“You think this was our design?” the priest coughed, a trickle of dust falling from his lips. “We were merely the key. The architect is much closer to you, Tenebrous Hound.”

His gaze locked with mine, a final, victorious malice in his empty eyes.

“He understands balance. To control the darkness, you must sometimes feed it. The one who sends the Hound to clean up the scraps… he was the one who set the table.”

A cold fist closed around my heart. A man who sends me cases. A man who knows about the ‘weird’ ones. A man I trusted.

“Davies,” I breathed, the name tasting like poison.

The High Priest gave a final, dusty nod. “He is preparing the city for a new master. This… this was only a test.”

With that, his body dissolved completely, leaving only his black robes to flutter to the ground.

I stood there, swaying, the revelation hitting me harder than any physical blow. The cult, the ritual, the summoning—all of it a feint, a move in a much larger game orchestrated by the one man I thought was on my side.

Seraphina stopped a few feet away, her expression unreadable. She looked at me, at the ashes of the cultists, at the spot where a portal to Hell had almost opened. The goblin charm I had given her lay on the floor between us, forgotten and useless. The rigid certainty in her eyes was gone, replaced by a terrible, complex confusion.

I had saved the city by becoming the very thing she was sworn to destroy. And in doing so, we had uncovered a conspiracy that reached into the very heart of the mortal authority we were trying to protect.

The cult was just a symptom. Frank Davies was the disease.

The real war, I realized with a sickening lurch, wasn't against the shadows. It was for the soul of London itself. And it had just begun.