Chapter 10: The Hunter Becomes the Hunted

Chapter 10: The Hunter Becomes the Hunted

The sterile, crystalline void shattered. Morrigan found herself standing in the cold, damp alley beside the desecrated cathedral, the stench of rain and garbage a grounding, disgusting slap back to reality. The impossible choice Kael had presented and the crushing truth Thanatos had revealed were still ringing in her soul, two dissonant chords of damnation and a different kind of damnation.

A cage of rules, or a chaotic freedom? Her master, or her rival?

Before she could even begin to process the decision, a violent, sickening lurch seized her from within. It wasn't a physical sensation. It was deeper, a hook of burning, metaphysical steel sinking into the very core of her being—into the demonic brand Thanatos had just explained. It was an agonizing pull, a psychic summons that was not a request, but a demand.

Her Soul Ledger, which had been floating silently at her side, flickered erratically. The neat blue text of her assignments scrolled by in a garbled mess before the device fizzled out, dissolving into a wisp of grey smoke. Her connection to the bureaucracy of the afterlife was severed. She was officially off the grid, cut off from her master. Alone.

The pull intensified, yanking at her essence, dragging her spectral form out of the alley and back towards St. Giles. She fought it, trying to phase, to flee in the opposite direction. But it was like trying to swim against a tidal wave. The brand, the very power she had just used to slaughter the cultists, was now a leash, and its owners were reeling her in.

The two who had escaped. They had reported back. They knew she was here. They knew what she was. And they had been prepared.

"No," she gritted out, her form flickering as she strained against the invisible force. "Not again. I'm not going back in there."

But she had no choice. The force was overwhelming. She was dragged, inch by painful inch, through the stone walls of the cathedral for the second time that night. This was not a stealthy infiltration. This was an unwilling arrival.

The scene inside had been transformed. The bodies of the cultists she had killed were gone, but their blood had been used to paint a vast, intricate circle of runes that pulsed with a malevolent, crimson light. At the center of the circle, where the altar had stood, a vortex of bruised purple and black energy swirled, crackling like a storm of pure malice.

Standing at the edge of the circle, his arms raised, was a new High Priest. This one was different from the man she had killed. Power radiated from him in waves, his simple robes barely containing the demonic energy he was channeling. The two survivors from the apartment stood beside him, their eyes glowing with the same foul light, their expressions a mixture of terror and ecstatic triumph. They weren't just followers anymore; they were living conduits.

"The vessel returns!" the new High Priest boomed, his voice unnaturally amplified, echoing with the power of the entity he served. "The Master's power calls to its own! The hunt is over!"

As Morrigan was dragged across the threshold and into the cathedral, the runes on the floor flared, erupting into a wall of shimmering, blood-red energy that sealed the exits. A cage. Her ability to phase, her primary means of escape, was instantly nullified. The air inside the circle was thick and heavy, like trying to breathe underwater, and it suppressed her reaper abilities, making her feel sluggish and weak.

"You think this can hold me?" Morrigan snarled, forcing the words out, raising her scythe. The obsidian weapon materialized, but it felt heavier, less responsive, its dark light dimmed by the overwhelming demonic energy of the ritual.

The High Priest laughed, a terrible, grating sound. "Hold you? Child, this is not a cage to keep you in. It is a forge to bind you. You stole our Master's gift. Tonight, you will learn the price of that theft."

He began to chant in the same guttural language she remembered from the altar, the words clawing at her mind. The other two cultists joined in, their voices adding to the horrifying chorus. The swirling vortex above the altar spun faster, the psychic pressure in the room becoming unbearable.

Morrigan didn't wait. Forgetting the Ledger, forgetting Thanatos and Kael and the impossible choice, she was reduced to a single, primal instinct: survive.

She lunged at the nearest cultist, the woman with the blank eyes. The woman didn't flinch. She met Morrigan’s charge, her hands outstretched. Chains of pure black fire, summoned from the runes on the floor, erupted from the stone and lashed out like vipers. Morrigan spun, parrying the first chain with her scythe in a shower of screaming sparks. She ducked under a second, the searing heat of it singing the edges of her shadowy cloak.

This wasn't a fight against mortals anymore. She was fighting the direct power of their patron, wielded through its puppets.

She twisted, using her momentum to bring the scythe around in a low, sweeping arc that cut the legs out from under the male cultist. As he fell, she thrust forward, but another chain of soul-fire wrapped around the haft of her scythe, yanking it from her grasp. It clattered to the floor fifty feet away, lost in the crimson glow.

Disarmed. Trapped. Weakened.

"Your power is an echo of the Master's!" the High Priest roared, his chant reaching a fever pitch. "Here, in his sanctum, you are nothing!"

More chains erupted from the floor, a forest of seeking, burning tendrils. Morrigan dodged and weaved, her enhanced speed barely enough to keep her from being ensnared. One chain whipped across her back, and she screamed, a sound of pure agony as the unholy fire burned her very essence. It felt like the Hollow's touch, but a thousand times worse, a fire that consumed not flesh, but spirit.

She stumbled, falling to one knee. The hunt was over. She was cornered.

The High Priest slammed his staff onto the floor, and the final verse of the ritual thundered through the cathedral. "From the Abyss, we call thee! To the vessel, we bind thee! Claim what is yours!"

The vortex of energy above the altar exploded. It was not a flash of light, but a blast of absolute, crushing darkness that swallowed all sound and light within the circle. The pressure on Morrigan’s soul became infinite. She felt a presence, ancient and vast, its attention focusing on her like the gaze of a hungry god.

From the heart of the swirling abyss, something began to manifest. It wasn't a full form, but a piece, a terrifying synecdoche of the whole. A massive, clawed hand, forged of shadow and embers, stretched down from the vortex. Its fingers were as long as she was tall, tipped with obsidian talons that dripped a viscous, black ichor onto the stone floor, the droplets sizzling and eating through the rock.

Then, within the churning darkness, two points of molten, hateful red light ignited. Eyes. Eyes that held a malevolence older than mountains, a hunger that spanned eons. Eyes that recognized her.

A voice, not of words but of pure, telepathic force, slammed into her mind, a voice that was both a caress and a threat.

VESSEL.

It was him. The demon. The Master. The being she was sacrificed to. And he was here to collect his property.