Long-press a paragraph to send danmaku
The monastery smells like old blood and wet stone.
I'm standing at the iron gate, and I shouldn't be here. Four hundred years. That's how long I stayed away from St. Stone. That's how long I kept my promise to never come back.
But three nights ago, I heard her voice.
My mother's voice.
She said my name. Not the name I use now—Ella Nowak, clean and forgettable—but the name she gave me when I was born. The name no one alive should know.
So yeah. I'm back.
The gate's rusted shut, but I don't need it open. I slip through the gap where the hinge broke decades ago, probably when the last priest died and the diocese decided this place wasn't worth keeping. The courtyard's overgrown. Weeds push through the cracks in the stones. There used to be a fountain here. Now it's just a hole full of dead leaves.
I cross to the chapel. The door's half off. Inside, the pews are rotting, and something's nested in the altar cloth. I don't look too close. I'm not here for the chapel.
I'm here for what's underneath.
The crypt entrance is behind the altar, hidden under a stone slab with a carving so worn you can barely see the cross anymore. I kneel and press my palm flat against it. The stone's cold enough to sting, even through my glove.
I wait.
Nothing.
I pull the glove off and try again, skin to stone.
This time, I feel it. A hum. Low and old, like a current running through bones. The slab shifts—just an inch—and I get my fingers under the edge and haul it aside. It weighs maybe three hundred pounds, but I've always been strong. Comes with the blood.
The Darkborn blood.
The stairs go down into black. No light. No sound. I've got a flashlight in my coat, but I don't take it out yet. I sit on the edge of the hole and let my legs dangle, and I breathe.
In. Out.
I can feel the thing inside me waking up.
That's what happens when I go underground. When I go into places that smell like death. The Darkborn half of me stretches and yawns and tries to take over, and I have to keep it locked down or I'll do something I can't take back.
It's been quiet for months. I've been careful. I stay in cities, stay in light, stay around people. I don't hunt. I don't feed. I live on coffee and spite and the kind of ironclad discipline that comes from watching yourself kill someone you loved.
But now I'm here, and the thing inside me is awake, and it wants to go deeper.
I tell it no.
It doesn't listen.
I drop down into the stairwell. My boots hit stone, and the air changes. It's colder here. Thicker. I can taste copper and something else—something sweeter, like rot that's aged into wine.
I pull out the flashlight and click it on.
The beam cuts through the dark, and I see the walls. They're carved. Symbols I recognize, symbols I don't. Some of them are Guild marks—hunters were here, a long time ago. Some of them are older. Darkborn script. My mother's people.
My people.
I follow the stairs down. Twenty steps. Thirty. The walls get narrower. The ceiling drops. By the time I reach the bottom, I have to duck.
The crypt's bigger than I remember.
There are alcoves carved into the rock, and each one holds a stone box. Fifty, maybe more. I shine the light over them, looking for names, but most of the inscriptions are gone. Time does that. Even to the dead.
I walk to the center of the room, where the floor dips into a shallow basin. There's a groove running around the edge, like a channel. I know what it's for. I've seen it before.
Blood.
This is where they died.
My mother. Her sisters. The twelve Darkborn women who lived here, hidden inside a human monastery, pretending to be nuns. They thought the holy ground would protect them. They thought the Guild wouldn't look here.
They were wrong.
I close my eyes, and I can still hear the screaming.
Then I hear something else.
"Ella."
My eyes snap open.
The voice is behind me. Soft. Familiar.
I turn, and there's no one there.
"Ella, my child."
It's her. My mother. I'd know her voice anywhere, even after four hundred years, even though I watched her throat open and her blood run into this basin.
"Where are you?" I say it out loud, and my voice bounces off the stone.
No answer.
I sweep the flashlight across the alcoves. Nothing. Just boxes and dust and shadows that don't move.
"I came back," I say. "You called me. I'm here."
Silence.
Then—
"You still hum when you're scared."
I freeze.
That's not something anyone else would know. Not the Guild. Not the Darkborn Council. Not even Lucas, and he's the closest thing I have to a friend.
I used to hum. When I was little. When my mother would take me down into the tunnels under the monastery to teach me how to control the change. I'd hum to keep myself calm, and she'd hum back, and it was our thing.
No one alive knows that.
"Prove it's you," I say.
The air shifts. It's subtle, like a draft, but there's no wind down here.
"The song was 'Greensleeves,'" the voice says. "You always got the third line wrong."
My throat closes up.
It's her.
Or it's something wearing her voice, and it knows things it shouldn't.
"What do you want?" I ask.
The voice doesn't answer.
Instead, I hear something else.
Footsteps.
Behind me. On the stairs.
I spin, flashlight up, and I see a shadow moving down the steps. Big. Tall. Human-shaped.
I kill the light.
The footsteps stop.
I press my back against the nearest alcove and pull the knife from my belt. It's old steel, not silver. Silver burns me, same as it burns full Darkborn, but steel works fine.
I wait.
The footsteps start again. Slower now. Careful.
Whoever it is, they know I'm here.
I can hear breathing. Steady. Controlled. Not afraid.
That's a problem.
Most people who come down here are either stupid or desperate, and both types panic fast. This one's calm. That means training.
That means Guild.
I tighten my grip on the knife.
The breathing gets closer. I can smell him now—gun oil, leather, something sharp like antiseptic. He's armed. Probably more than just a gun.
I wait until he's three steps past my alcove, then I move.
I'm fast. Faster than human. I get the knife to his throat before he can turn, and I press just hard enough to draw a single drop of blood.
"Don't," I say.
He freezes.
I can feel his pulse against the blade. Steady. Still not panicking.
"Drop the gun," I say.
He doesn't.
"I said drop it."
"You first," he says.
His voice is low. American. East Coast, maybe New York. He sounds young, but not stupid.
"I've got a knife on your carotid," I say. "You've got a gun pointed at the floor. Do the math."
"I've got a flashbang in my other hand," he says. "Pin's already out. You kill me, my hand opens, we both go blind, and then we both die when the Guild backup gets here."
I pause.
He's bluffing.
Probably.
"There's no backup," I say.
"You sure?"
I'm not.
I ease the knife back, just a fraction, and he takes that as permission to turn his head. I still can't see his face, but I can see the shape of him. Tall. Broad shoulders. Tactical vest under his coat.
Definitely Guild.
"Why are you here?" I ask.
"Same reason you are," he says.
That's not an answer.
I press the knife back in. "Try again."
"I'm hunting," he says. "There's a Darkborn here. Old one. Dangerous. I'm here to kill it."
My stomach drops.
He's here for me.
Or he's here for whoever's pretending to be my mother.
Either way, this just got worse.
"You're in the wrong place," I say.
"No," he says. "I'm not."
Then he moves.
He's fast—faster than I expected—and he gets a hand on my wrist and twists. The knife clatters to the floor. I go for his throat with my other hand, but he blocks, and then we're grappling in the dark, and I can feel the Darkborn half of me surging up, wanting to bite, wanting to tear, and I shove it back down.
I can't lose control.
Not here.
Not now.
I get a knee into his ribs and he grunts, and I use that half-second to break his grip and shove him back. He stumbles, catches himself, and I hear the click of a safety coming off.
I freeze.
"Don't move," he says.
I raise my hands.
He pulls a light stick from his vest and cracks it. Green chemical glow floods the crypt, and for the first time, I see his face.
And my heart stops.
Because I know that face.
I know those eyes.
I saw them four hundred years ago, right before my mother died.
He looks exactly like the man who killed her.