Kael couldn't stop shaking.
Even hours after stepping out of the Catacomb, his skin still tingled with an otherworldly heat—like his blood had been set on fire and hadn't yet cooled. His vision flickered at times, too, especially when he looked at the blade. The dagger now pulsed softly with each beat of his heart, and when he stared at it for too long, he could almost hear voices whispering from somewhere far away.
He wasn't sure whether to be terrified or fascinated.
"What did you see?" Marek asked as he handed Kael a steaming cup of bitter tea.
Kael sat by the stone hearth in Marek's study, wrapped in an old wool blanket. He hesitated.
"I saw her. Mom." His voice cracked. "But not… really. It was her body, but… twisted. Possessed."
Marek nodded like he expected that. "They always wear the faces of the people we love most. It's how they break us. That was a trial—your first. You passed."
Kael clenched his fists. "What happens if I fail the next one?"
Marek's silence was the only answer he needed.
By mid-afternoon, the clouds over Balefire Valley had thickened into bruised-gray sheets, and the wind carried a scent Kael hadn't noticed before: sulfur.
"It's started," Marek said grimly as they stood at the edge of the southern woods. "The seals are weakening faster than I expected."
They had driven an old black truck to a ruined chapel just past the old mill. The church was half-buried in moss and bramble, and its bell tower leaned at a crooked angle, like it was trying to whisper a secret to the trees.
"This place used to be sacred," Marek muttered, loading salt rounds into a sawed-off shotgun. "Now? It's bait."
Kael gripped the dagger tight in his hand. "For what?"
Marek didn't answer.
He didn't have to.
Inside the chapel, the air was thick and wet, and the stained glass windows had long since been shattered. Pews lay in splinters across the floor, and black scorch marks climbed the stone walls like fingers of flame. At the far end, where the altar once stood, something had been drawn.
A sigil—ancient and pulsing, etched into the ground in black ash and dried blood.
Kael's breath hitched.
He could feel it.
The presence.
Something was here.
Or had been here recently.
He stepped forward, but Marek's arm shot out, stopping him.
"Look again," Marek whispered.
Kael blinked, confused—then he did see it.
A shimmer.
A faint distortion, like heat rising off asphalt, hovering just above the blood circle.
It had eyes.
Red. Burning. Waiting.
The dagger in Kael's hand throbbed.
"Step back," Marek said calmly, raising his shotgun.
Kael obeyed, and just as he moved, the air inside the chapel ripped open.
A howling shriek exploded from the distortion, and something birthed itself from the void. It wasn't large—only slightly taller than Kael—but it was fast. A blur of shadow and claws, with a serpent-like face and a mouth that split vertically across its skull. It landed on all fours and hissed, baring rows of yellow teeth.
"Lower demon," Marek muttered. "But fast."
The demon lunged—
Marek fired. The salt round hit it square in the chest, sending it flying into a pew with a screech.
Kael's ears rang.
"Now!" Marek barked. "Finish it!"
Kael didn't hesitate.
He charged.
The dagger blazed as he leapt toward the creature. It lashed out with a clawed limb, slicing into his shoulder—but Kael didn't stop. He plunged the dagger into its chest, right above the heart, and twisted.
The thing screamed—a shriek that vibrated the walls—and burst into a shower of black ash and flame.
Kael fell backward, panting, heart hammering.
Silence returned.
Marek helped him to his feet. "Not bad."
Kael gritted his teeth as blood trickled from his shoulder. "What was that?"
"A harbinger," Marek said. "Lesser demons sent ahead of the bigger ones. Scouts. It means something more powerful is coming."
He handed Kael a flask. "Drink."
Kael obeyed. The liquid burned all the way down, but the pain in his shoulder dulled.
"What was that stuff?"
"Holy water mixed with ironroot and sage."
Kael wiped his mouth. "Tastes like garbage."
Marek smirked. "It's not meant to taste good. It's meant to keep you alive."
They returned to the farmhouse before dark.
Kael's mind buzzed with questions. He had just killed a demon. A real one. It wasn't a dream. It wasn't in his head. The claw marks on his shoulder were proof.
He had crossed a line—and there was no going back.
That night, Marek finally showed him the Hunter's Codex.
A leather-bound tome nearly three inches thick, its cover marked with the same runes Kael had seen in the chapel. Inside, the pages were filled with drawings, annotations, kill records, and maps. Some pages were marked in blood. Others looked like they were centuries old.
"This has been passed down in our family for generations," Marek said. "Your mother carried it before me. Now it's yours."
Kael opened to a random page. A sketch of a horned creature stared back at him—its eyes hollow, its name scrawled beneath in Latin: Vorrak, the Flesh Devourer.
"There are hundreds of them," Kael said quietly.
"Thousands," Marek corrected.
Kael swallowed.
"How do we stop them all?"
Marek stared at the fire.
"We don't," he said. "We stop the one controlling them."
Later that night, Kael stood at the window of his room, watching the fog roll in across the fields.
He could still feel the heat of the demon's breath, smell its burnt flesh.
His shoulder ached, but more than that, his soul felt different.
He wasn't the same person who knelt at his mother's grave yesterday.
Something had awakened inside him.
Something ancient.
And angry.
He looked at the dagger resting on his desk.
Its glow pulsed softly, like it was alive.
Suddenly, a knock at the door.
He turned.
Marek stood there, face grim. "Pack your things."
Kael frowned. "Why?"
Marek stepped inside and threw a small notebook onto Kael's bed.
Kael picked it up. His mother's handwriting filled the first page. Coordinates. Symbols. A warning scrawled in red ink:
"If I die before Kael turns eighteen, do not let him near Hollowmere."
Kael looked up, confused. "What's Hollowmere?"
Marek's eyes darkened.
"Where your mother made her last kill."