Chapter 5: In lieu of spiteful adoration the city never sleeps - Part 4

The west wing corridor breathed like a wounded animal—shallow, rasping gusts coursing through jagged window gaps and skimming the fluorescent cadavers dangling overhead. The place smelled of charred plaster, winter iron, and an under note of ozone left behind by ruined sigils. Snow swept in lazy spirals through every breach in the stone, refusing to obey either the panicked rhythm of sirens or the frantic footfalls echoing deeper in the academy. Each flake landed silently on marble already crazed with hairline cracks, tracing cold constellations across puddles half frozen by the night air.

Michael guided Olivia past a toppled bookcase whose shelves vomited parchment and broken binder rings. He kept a steady hand at the small of her back, more reassurance than escort, though his own nerves quivered like taut piano wire. The defenders in this wing—Mercy guild hirelings in mismatched winter rigs—had scattered after X carved open the main doors; now they drifted room to room in widening spirals, rifles twitching, unsure which shadows might slice them next. Their radios spat garbled orders—“Unit Four, hold stairwell!”—then howled with static. Without the filter of adrenaline Michael noticed every abrasive detail: the sting of gunpowder in his sinuses, the crunch of glass under heel, the raw cold needling through his Kevlar lined coat.

Ahead, the vestibule to the west entrance unspooled into a half lit wasteland of cracked pillars and gleaming meltwater. Once, this had been a student art hall—display plinths, skylight, banners for alumni showcases. Now, bullet casings lay like copper seeds along the frozen floor, and a single skylight pane hung by a corner, pinging faintly in the wind. In the center, Orland waited, boots planted in slush that had begun to glaze over. He carried no weapon—just bruises across his jaw and a resolve that gleamed like a knife kept out of sight. Breath steamed from his lips in thin white ribbons. Beside him stood X.

The executioner’s presence bent the room’s gravity. His coat—jet black except where powder burns ashed the hem—hung like a curtain around iron boots. His single arm dangled the energy blade, its tip resting in snowmelt as though gravity were a rumor. The weapon’s glow no longer blazed sapphire; instead it throbbed at half strength, a deep indigo heartbeat pulsing along its edge. Michael could swear the blade’s resonance warped the air, making distant torch sconces ripple like heat mirages.

“You’re here,” Orland said, disbelief and relief braided through his cracked voice.

The sound of it lifted Michael’s chest for half a heartbeat. Snow clung to Orland’s eyelashes, frost painting his collar. Though empty handed, he looked carved from basalt—shoulders squared, fists flexing, knuckles scabbed raw from battering barricades, their flesh already healing.

X remained motionless, gaze nailed to the floor. If he heard Orland’s greeting he gave no sign. Hair, the color of storm bleached bone, veiled his eyes; only the faintest tremor of his coat suggested a man breathing beneath all that steel.

“Oh, you know me,” Olivia said, voice lilting in stark contrast to the ruin around them. “I’d hate to sit out the climax.”

She flashed a grin that belonged in a bustling café, not a kill zone. Snowflakes found purchase on her lashes; she didn’t blink them away. Indigo sparks crackled across her fingertips—residual mana still venting after guiding Michael earlier—and illuminated ragged holes in her white blouse, edges scorched where stray charms had grazed her sleeves.

Michael nodded once, swallowing the metallic tang of nerves. Above them, the stairwell towered, its lower steps cratered by shelling. Hex had retreated beyond the landing. Though Michael couldn’t see them, their mana signature crawled along the banister, an oily residue that tugged at survival instinct. He imagined Hex pacing the hall above, eyes gleaming, listening for footfalls that would mark fresh prey.

“It’s best we head off. X, a convoy is about to be here with enemy reinforcements. Your job is to eradicate them.”

His voice rang against marble, even, almost conversational. To his own ears it sounded borrowed—some other strategist’s calm wearing his shaking bones. At that moment diesel rumble drifted through the shattered doors; headlights washed the hall in yellow streaks, making the snow whirl like insects around a streetlamp.

X did not react right away. Then the sword twitched, indigo brightening. Metal plates under his coat flexed with a silent click—like old shutters opening on a dark room—then stilled. Agreement, perhaps, or the muscle memory of obedience.

Orland rolled his wrists, shaking circulation back into numb fingers. Olivia exhaled a slow stream of fog.

They gathered at the base of the ruined stair. Michael’s pulse drummed so loud he feared Hex might hear it through the ceiling.

“If you go there, you’ll die,” X stated, voice flat as winter granite.

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No menace, no drama—just the chill clarity of a surgeon explaining odds on the operating table. The words spider cracked Michael’s composure, but he steadied on instinct.

“You really think so?” Michael managed, lips curving into a smile brittle as frozen glass.

“Yes,” X nodded.

“I’ll just have to prove you wrong,” Michael smirked as he proceeded upstairs.

Behind him, Olivia flashed Orland a conspiratorial grin that almost looked carefree. They started up the crumbling steps, bodies lean forward against a head wind of dread. Each tread creaked, metal rasping marble, and flaky paint drifted down like stale confetti.

“I am seldom wrong,” X stated.

He remained at the threshold of the stairwell, coat fluttering around his calves, one arm holding the indigo blade at idle. The broken doors behind him framed the night: engines grumbling, snow drifting, the convoy’s headlamps angling nearer. X’s silhouette—strict, unmoving—looked sculpted for one purpose: greet those reinforcements and tear them apart. Michael felt the executioner’s gaze on his back like a chill thumb pressed between shoulder blades.

“We’ll see about that,” Michael waved him off.

A single fluorescent tube above them sputtered, then died; darkness swallowed half the stairway, leaving only Olivia’s pale outline and Orland’s squared shoulders as companions. At step six the air thickened—dense, electric, as if someone unseen had stretched a charged blanket over the upper floor. The pressure made Michael’s ears pop.

X stayed behind, awaiting the convoy like a predator waiting for its prey. The soft clack of his boot heel tapping stone was the last sound before the trio passed fully into shadow.

Halfway up, that invisible blanket cinched tight. Breath grew shallow; words stuck to teeth. Michael’s heartbeat suddenly sounded too loud—an unwanted drum solo in a mausoleum. Every step, every shift of leather over cloth, rasped like a file on bone.

“Soul!” Michael, Orland, and Olivia called out in unison.

The word felt heavier than any bullet’s impact. It detonated inward, each syllable prying open a hidden lock.

Around Orland’s wrists, dark wrought iron bracelets erupted, bands clicking into place with the finality of manacles—except these shackles hummed in anticipation, not captivity. A length of chain tattoo crept along the veins of his forearms, glowing dull red before submerging beneath skin. An emerald necklace glimmered into existence around his neck; facets caught the faint light and scattered green motes across the walls.

Inside Olivia’s palm a light blossomed. In silence it elongated, tapering, becoming a full length spear whose blade resembled living glass—prismatic, shifting, too bright to stare at directly. She twirled it once, and its head left a spiral of after images, briefly illuminating the stairwell in fractal rainbows.

Golden particles converged around Michael’s right arm, weaving pennies of light into a gauntlet that clamped his forearm. The halo surrounding his fist condensed into a shield, broad and circular—filigreed symbols crawling across its face like quicksilver spiders. When he flexed his fingers, runes blazed then dulled, as if taking their first breath.

They emerged onto the landing. Overhead fixtures flickered one by one, unable to decide between darkness and dull amber. Olivia lobbed three motes from her spear; they flitted ahead like slow moving fireflies, revealing a corridor of collapsed lockers and spray painted threats half obscured by soot.

The upper hall stretched ahead: doorways gaping, papers plastered to puddles, scorch marks crawling up plaster like creeping vines. At the corridor’s midpoint, a long wooden settee lay overturned. From behind it, faint smoke still curled, the smell sharp with burnt lacquer. Michael’s pulse stuttered—Hex’s handiwork always tasted like that: charred wood, faint copper, something almost floral beneath the ruin.

“Hello, young master,” a voice spoke out from the darkness.

The sound arrived calm, resonant, as though shaped by marble arches themselves. Olivia’s motes pivoted, pooling light over the source. Orland brought his bracers together, forging a shimmer of kinetic field in case steel or spell followed the greeting.

Before them sat Hex: a tall, muscular figure balanced atop the settee’s broken backrest, boots planted amid splinters. Dark skin gleamed with a waxy sheen under fractured lamplight; short white hair bristled over high temples. A single scar traced the corner of his mouth, cutting up his cheek and ending beneath the rim of one eye that gleamed shark bright. His posture—elbow on knee, chin on knuckles—resembled a bored instructor waiting for tardy pupils.

“A real shame that we must meet under such circumstances.” He stated.

The courtesy felt colder than any threat. Wind sighed through bullet holes behind them, but the hallway itself seemed to exhale with Hex’s words, extinguishing Olivia’s furthest mote. Shadows devoured the last ten feet of floor between them.

Michael lifted the shield, knuckles humming, and felt its rim tingle against the damp chill. Sweat prickled under his collar despite the cold. Memory of X’s warning echoed behind his ribs, but he locked it away.

“Hello Hex, it’s been a while.” Michael stated in a nonchalant manner.

Orland shifted left, emerald necklace pulsing, bracelets tightening invisibly around bone as if urging action. Olivia angled her spear, tip glinting like aurora trapped in crystal.

“I hope you’ve been well, young master.”

Hex eased off the settee, boots squelching in pooled snowmelt. He rolled broad shoulders and spread empty hands in mock welcome—an executioner inviting volunteers. The hallway lights flickered again; each pulse painted his grin in alternating frames: polite, predatory, polite.

“Let’s cut the pleasantries short– Where the hell is my sister?” Michael gleamed, his eyes radiating with vicious intent.