Chapter 31: Observed

  Warring desires raged inside Cole.

  He wanted to tell the demon to go fuck himself, find some other solution. Except he couldn’t see one. What he’d previously acknowledged remained true. He just didn’t have the power or tools.

  The rift pulsed behind Veritus. Every pulse made the red runes on the concrete flare, and every flare made the children behind the bars look a little paler. Cole couldn’t stop noticing it now. He couldn’t unsee the way the light stole from them.

  The bones on the floor didn’t help. Small skeletons scattered around the main area.

  Cole’s stomach twisted. His grip tightened on the Crozier until the iron hummed.

  Then there were the dark whispers in the back of his mind.

  Caleb had chosen this. Cole hadn’t pushed him toward it. Circumstances forced this. Why shouldn’t he get something out of it?

  He almost laughed.

  In Dungeons and Dragons, or practically any story you cared to name, the heroes overcame the temptation, punched the bad guy in the face a few times, and emerged victorious. The righteous refusal. The triumphant strike. The clean ending where the villain didn’t get to touch your soul.

  But that isn’t how it usually goes.

  Temptation was an insidious thing. Excuses ran through your head. It was just one time, and never again. You’d get help. No one would ever know.

  It’s actually a good thing if you look at it right.

  Excuse after excuse.

  Cole looked at Caleb.

  Caleb’s shoulders were squared. His jaw was set. There was fear in him, Cole could see it, but it wasn’t ruling him. Resolve was steady behind his eyes.

  Cole hated that. Hated the steadiness. Hated what it meant.

  Veritus waited.

  The sad fact was that this was going to happen.

  Cole didn’t get to pretend it wasn’t. He didn’t get to believe he could brute-force his way into a miracle. He’d tried. He’d thrown his tools at the demon and watched them bounce. He’d tried to erase the runes and felt the wrongness in the air sing back at him.

  The demon wasn’t bluffing about the gap. Cole could feel it.

  Then there was the duty Cole had.

  His duty as a father.

  The love he had for his son.

  The picture seemed to burn in his pocket. It felt hot against his leg, a reminder that he’d carried around for weeks, fingers brushing it sometimes when he thought no one was looking. A stupid, fragile little piece of the world that had existed before the System, before Hawthorne, before demons and waves and ash.

  Nathan’s face, frozen in time. Younger. Unhurt. Still his.

  Cole wouldn’t delude himself. This was going to cost him something.

  He was giving something to an evil creature. He didn’t know what Veritus got out of this deal, as the demon was right. Cole was going to go take care of the Wraths regardless of what happened here.

  Tanner needed to answer for what he had done. Any organization that would harbor or help anyone hurt kids didn’t deserve to exist. Cole had the power to make sure they didn’t, and he would use that power to accomplish that goal.

  Either way, the demon got something.

  But Veritus clearly got more if he made the deal, otherwise he wouldn’t be bothering to make it. That was the part Cole couldn’t ignore. Demons didn’t do charity. They did leverage. They did traps you didn’t see until your foot was already inside.

  Still.

  Nathan.

  Cole swallowed.

  A father protected his children.

  Cole had done a pretty terrible job as a father so far.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  He’d been absent. He’d been distracted. He’d been selfish in ways that felt small at the time and monstrous now. He’d thought there would always be more time. More chances. More tomorrow.

  Tomorrow was ash.

  This was a sacrifice he would make.

  “Fine,” Cole said, voice rough. He forced the words out. “Fuck you, but fine. Give me the information. I’ll take the deal.”

  The moment the words left his mouth, something in the air shifted.

  Cole didn’t get a System notification. No glowing verdict across his vision. But he felt it anyway.

  Caleb’s expression softened. He smiled, just a little, and it made Cole feel sick. Caleb understood exactly what that choice had cost Cole.

  Veritus grinned that horrible grin.

  “So it is observed under the Unending,” the demon said.

  The way it said observed made Cole’s skin crawl.

  “The first thing I will tell you about your son, human, is that he is not where you expect him to be. Secondly, I will show you an image of where he is now.”

  Cole’s heart lurched.

  His thoughts scattered. The garage, the bones, the kids, the rift, all of it blurred for a second as one word swallowed everything else.

  Son.

  Veritus held up a hand, palm upward.

  Light condensed.

  It wasn’t warm. It wasn’t clean. It was a cold, sick glow that made the air around it look slightly oily. The light tightened into a surface.

  And suddenly an image was there.

  Nathan.

  Cole’s breath stopped.

  The first thing Cole noticed was the change in him.

  Nathan had never been much of an athlete, but he had grown into a young man. Lean, with corded muscle. The angle of his jaw, sharper now. The way his hair sat differently. The hardness behind his eyes that hadn’t been there in the photo in Cole’s pocket.

  The second thing Cole noticed was where he was.

  A prison cell.

  Bars. Stone. A dim light source somewhere out of frame, casting shadows that didn’t look like fluorescent or LED. The place felt out of time.

  There was something about the cell Cole couldn’t place, a nagging sense that he’d seen something like it in a movie or a game or a book. The stone texture. The ironwork. The way the shadows fell.

  Nathan looked up a moment later.

  Cole felt his throat tighten until it hurt. His eyes burned.

  Then Cole heard a voice.

  The words were incredibly muffled, but he would have sworn in court that the accent was southern. Not Nathan’s voice. Another voice. Someone speaking to him. Someone close enough to be heard.

  And then it was gone.

  The light in Veritus’s palm collapsed inward and vanished.

  Cole stood there, unmoving, Crozier in hand, staring at empty air.

  He closed his eyes.

  His son was alive.

  Alive.

  The word hit him.

  Something inside of him unclenched. A worry he hadn’t known was there, a constant tension wrapped around his ribs loosening so suddenly he almost swayed.

  Alive.

  He’d been living in a world where death was constant. Where bodies became ash. Where children became bones.

  Alive meant something.

  It meant there was still a chance. Still a path. Still a reason to keep breathing.

  Cole inhaled, the taste of rust in the air. He didn’t care. He breathed anyway.

  Veritus studied him. Those pus-fire eyes flickered.

  “There now,” Veritus said softly. “I’ve delivered on my end.”

  Cole’s eyes flicked open.

  The relief didn’t erase the anger. It didn’t erase the hate. If anything, it sharpened it.

  “You haven’t given me much,” Cole said, voice tight. “Where is he? What do you mean he isn’t where I expect? Where is that cell?”

  Veritus shrugged.

  It was almost human. Almost casual. That made it worse.

  “You didn’t bargain, human. I told you I would give you information. You didn’t negotiate the nature of it.”

  Cole’s fingers dug into the Crozier. The iron hummed again, low and offended.

  “I could have told you anything and fulfilled the terms,” Veritus continued. “You should count yourself lucky I gave you so much.”

  Cole’s jaw clenched.

  The demon wasn’t wrong.

  That was the sick part.

  Cole had walked into it because he’d been desperate, because he’d been cornered, because he’d been a father staring at a chance to see his son alive again.

  The demon leaned slightly forward.

  “Learn this lesson, human,” Veritus said. “Now…”

  It turned to Caleb.

  Caleb straightened.

  Cole felt the moment tighten.

  “Go stand on the runes, human,” Veritus said.

  Caleb didn’t hesitate.

  That was what broke something in Cole. That lack of hesitation.

  Caleb walked to where Veritus indicated, boots crunching softly on ash. The runes pulsed under his feet, red light crawling along the lines like veins.

  He stopped at the edge of the pattern and looked back at the pen full of kids.

  Cole watched him take in their faces. The tears. The shaking hands gripping bars. The way they flinched every time the rift pulsed.

  “It’ll be okay,” Caleb said to the scared children. His voice was gentle, steady, the kind of voice you used when you were trying to keep your own fear from infecting everyone else. “Everything is alright now.”

  One hand tightened around his staff. The other hand, his fingers pressed into his palm, sending a slight stinging pain into his skin.

  Cole wanted to grab Caleb.

  Wanted to drag him back.

  Wanted to scream that there had to be another way.

  But there wasn’t time. And there wasn’t knowledge. And there wasn’t a tier 2 spell sitting in his pocket.

  Then Veritus did something.

  It wasn’t a gesture as obvious as raising a hand. It was a subtle shift in its stance, the axe tilting slightly, the runes in its armor flaring.

  There was a surge.

  Cole’s authority stat screamed a warning.

  The warning wasn’t a word. It was pressure. A spike that made his skull feel too tight. A sudden, visceral certainty that something irreversible had started.

  The pen around the kids collapsed.

  Metal clattered and twisted, rebar snapping free, chains whipping down and ringing against the concrete.

  Children screamed.

  The ground rumbled.

  At first it was a vibration, felt through Cole’s boots, through the Crozier, up into his arms. Then it became movement. Concrete dust drifted down from the ceiling in thin sheets. The cracked pillars groaned. Somewhere above, something heavy shifted and scraped.

  Light built.

  It started at the runes beneath Caleb’s feet.

  The red glow intensified, brightening until it hurt to look at. It crawled up his boots, clinging to him without burning his clothes. The air around him thickened, warping in a heat haze.

  Caleb wore a soft smile.

  It wasn’t joy.

  It was acceptance.

  Cole’s throat tightened again, and this time it was rage.

  Cole moved toward the kids.

  He didn’t think. He didn’t plan. He moved because that was what he did. That was his job. He’d come here to save them, and he was going to get his hands on them and drag them out of the collapsing hellhole if he had to.

  Behind him, Veritus laughed.

  The sound rolled through the garage.

  The rift pulsed, wider.