Chapter 39: The Gauntlet - The Night Market

The Sins launched forward like a thunderclap, all brute force and reckless intent, the ground beneath its huge feet shaking with every bound. A blur of muscle and shadow, its roar shook the air, trembling the bones of every spectator packed around the arena’s ledges and balconies.

Horus smiled.

He’d waited for this.

As the beast bore down on him, Horus planted his feet and raised his guard, arms crossed like iron as the hulking creature collided with him in a storm of momentum and mass. The impact sent him flying – spun through the air like a kicked can – but he twisted mid-flight and landed hard, boots sliding across the polished stone as he bent one knee to catch himself.

The crowd erupted, roaring their astonishment, their hunger for more.

The Sins didn’t wait. It thundered after him, fists like wrecking balls slamming left and right, carving chunks from the marble barriers, shaking the arena floor. Horus weaved beneath a blow that would have shattered his spine, ducked inside the monster’s reach, and drove a closed fist deep into the flesh just beneath its ribcage.

It barely flinched.

Horus’s grin faltered.

Pepper took one last look at the beast she had commanded, at the bloodbath unfolding, at Laik . . . or what was left of him . . . and strode away. She slipped through the nearest exit stairwell just as another shockwave from the Sins’ bellow rippled through the space.

The roar drowned behind her as the door clicked shut. The air inside the stairwell was quieter, colder, claustrophobic by comparison. Her boots clicked against the steel steps. She passed two levels before entering the main hallway again, winding through guests and Enforcers too distracted by the brawl to notice her slip past.

She snatched an unopened bottle of wine from a linen-covered table, something expensive by the label alone, and walked briskly toward the elevators, withdrawing her security card from a jacket pocket. She tapped it against the panel and pressed the glowing blue button marked with the number 65.

The lift doors slid to a close.

She exhaled once, shallow and sharp.

This was it.

As the lift ascended, distant rumblings from below still echoed faintly: slamming stone and gasping crowds. Laik falling. She pushed the thought aside. Not now. Focus. Just do the job.

The lift chimed and opened onto the vault floor. The lights here were different – warmer, clinical. Quiet. Sterile. She stepped out with calm, even strides, walking the length of the softly carpeted corridor toward the security post.

Behind the desk sat a familiar figure, Patrick, the poor sod who was on duty at the last party when Quinn had shown her around.

He looked up from his monitor, frowning. ‘Evening, Miss Montgomery. Not expecting any visitors tonight, what brings you here?’

Pepper kept walking, casual, like she’d been sent. ‘Concetta’s arguing with some Lore Council stiff about Relic classifications,’ she said, rolling her eyes. ‘She wants me to double-check something to prove a point. Rub fact in his face after enduring so much fantasy. You know how she gets when she’s got an audience.’

Patrick gave her a look of tired suspicion.

‘What is it with you and drawing the short straw?’ she asked.

‘Knack for it, I suppose.’

‘Not a total loss.’ Pepper held up the bottle of wine. ‘For your trouble. Been stuck behind there all night, yeah? No use it staying downstairs unopened.’

His face softened at that. He leaned back, nodding. ‘Go on, then.’

‘Legend,’ she said, handing over the bottle as she passed. ‘Personally, I can’t wait until it’s all over, y’know? Too many people to make nice.’

‘I wouldn’t know.’ He grinned, beginning to open the bottle in his lap.

The Vault doors unlocked with a gentle hiss.

Inside, the air changed again, cleaner, rushing over her as she entered. The Archivists were fewer tonight. Many had wandered off to the main floors, drawn to the commotion. Those who remained moved like ghosts, murmuring quietly, eyes deep in their paperwork or screens.

She passed them without a word. Moved confidently through the catalogue chamber, past low-lit Vault rooms, past the workshops and laboratories, directly to the Relic Gallery. She glanced at the slab of metal encased within the doorway, ready to barricade her in should it be needed.

The Relics, each on a plinth or in a case, were presented throughout the room, beneath powerful spotlights. And near the corner of the room, the Eternal Rose stood waiting beneath its dome of polished glass.

She stopped before it.

Took a slow, steadying breath.

Then, with a trembling hand, she opened her jacket and slipped out the false Rose, the replica she had spent days perfecting, every curve, every pearlescent shimmer painted with care and intent. It caught the light like the real thing. Close enough to fool the eye, but nothing else.

She glanced around once.

Nobody watching.

She reached in, pulled the real Eternal Rose free, her breath catching in her chest as nothing happened. No alarms, no flashing lights. The security door remained sleeping.

Quickly, she set the fake into place. Adjusted it. Smoothed the cloth beneath.

It was done.

She turned and made her way back down the corridor, the true Rose now tucked tight against her ribs. The door to the Vault loomed ahead. She pressed the round button to exit, waiting for confirmation from the other side. When the doors shuddered to life, Patrick stood facing her in the crack of light, finger to his earpiece, brow creased.

‘Hold it,’ he said.

Her heart almost stopped. The Eternal Rose felt considerably weighty against her hip, like it was becoming heavier by the second.

‘Sorry, Miss Montgomery.’ He pressed his fingers against his earpiece for a moment. ‘Just got word that there’s a situation downstairs. That brother of yours is causing chaos. This fight he’s doing is turning ugly.’

Pepper blinked. ‘How ugly?’

‘Nasty ugly on all accounts. Security is getting antsy about it. You better get down there to help. It sounds like he’s been hurt pretty bad . . .’

For a moment, she forgot how to breathe. In her mind she could see it – Laik wild, consumed by the monster within scrabbling in desperation, his blood pooling beneath on the tiles, the crowd baying for more. She could almost hear him, an awful guttural sound that wasn’t pain, but desperation. And Horus, looming over him, preparing to finish the job.

She nodded, quickly exorcising her fears, forcing her face into something neutral and managing a half-smile. ‘Thanks. I owe you.’

He, in return, raised the bottle and took a mouthful.

She stepped past, toward the lift. Each footstep felt wrong, deliberate, the rhythm of betrayal. When the doors opened, she stood staring at the panel, her reflection trembling faintly in the brushed steel. Her thumb hovered over the button to the arena floor, instinctively, maybe, she didn’t know herself.

Her hand hesitated over the controls.

She swallowed hard. The Eternal Rose pulsed against her ribs like a second heartbeat. She was so close now, so very close to the goal. This was it! This was everything the worry, the deception was for! Push the button. Just push the damn button!

All she could think of was Laik in those dire straits. And also, for some utterly inexplicable reason, the story he told her of his time in the Forest of Dean with the Romany people. Where experiences were shared around the campfire, witnessed by wood smoke that danced to the canopies. Of songs and compassion, and innocent offerings of daisies to devils. That small sliver of peace he obtained before it was cruelly stolen away. Stolen by Horus in his mad agenda.

And she would be doing the same.

Because the Sins in Laik were nothing compared to the weight she now carried. Pepper didn’t want to face it, but she knew, in the worst part of herself, that there was never going to be a version of tonight where he walked away whole. Releasing the Sins ensured that. Horus was an executioner in all but name; she had witnessed it with her own eyes, and even if he miraculously fell, there was no way the Ode Family would let it stand. Pride wouldn’t allow it. And what she knew of the Cavendishes, of their eagerness to throw Laik into the ring, everybody was expendable, especially if it involved saving face. She had just beaten them to it.

So what if she could steer the monster inside him? Control wasn’t what she needed. Just time – as much as possible to perform her deception. Pepper had transformed Laik into a storm so her own bloody handprints would be washed away in the downpour.

And no storm lasts forever. Even the wildest of them.

Pepper knew what she had to do.

She jabbed the controls and finally allowed herself to exhale the fear squeezing her lungs. And as the doors whispered shut, the hum of chaos from the arena floor grew louder, and urgent.

Then, it exhausted itself on speeding past, like the tide crashing against rocks, as Pepper sank to the lobby of Leroux Tower, to serve a miracle to her sister – and distance herself from her own betrayal.

* * *

On the upper platform, Dominic Ode rose from his seat, hands braced on the carved railing.

‘Get Laik back to his senses,’ he shouted, twisting to Concetta. ‘Stop the fight!’

Heads turned. Chatter swelled.

Concetta remained seated, fingers interlocked, her expression unreadable. Mortis simply watched with narrowed eyes, arms folded. Swan, stationed at their side, didn’t even blink.

‘This is what he agreed to,’ Mortis said evenly. ‘You didn’t seem concerned when you believed Laik to be at a disadvantage. I’m guessing you had got word that he hadn’t shown his other side in a while, and assumed it to be permanent. Now that the tables are turned, you cannot simply cry foul. Unless you would like to throw in the towel for your man?’

‘He agreed to a duel,’ Dominic snapped. ‘A fair fight. Not an execution!’

Below and behind, the Enforcers began shifting. Ode’s Enforcers moved about the waves of the crowd, some having their fingers twitch near holsters. The Cavendish Enforcers didn’t follow, not yet, but you could see the energy passing between them. Ready to explode.

Quinn stood at the rear of the seating, half in shadow beneath an archway, arms folded tight against herself. She rested her shoulder against it, looking between the combatants and the rolls of motion that shifted through the tumultuous crowd.

From here, the fight was reduced to movement and colour and noise.

But her real attention was set on her brother.

She waited for Canis to excuse himself from where the rest of the Family was seated, after noticing her absence. He threaded his way up the stairs, through the press of bodies, easing past Enforcers already moving to contain the crowd.

Quinn didn’t look at him. Her gaze stayed fixed on the arena, on the way the crowd had begun to fracture. Cheers had broken into shouts, awe curdling into unease.

He reached her side and leaned in so she could hear him over the noise.

‘Are we leaving already? Because it feels like things are just getting started.’

‘They are,’ Quinn declared, finally acknowledging him. She pushed off the archway and straightened. ‘We just don’t want to be around to watch.’

‘Are you sure? Because—’

Quinn rolled her head slowly toward him, the movement lazy, almost bored, and looked at him as if he’d suggested something truly absurd.

Canis studied her for a moment, then nodded, trusting her instincts as she knew he would – and always had.

‘Alright,’ he said. ‘After you.’

They turned away together, moving through the corridor as the sounds behind them braided into something indistinguishable. The elevator doors swallowed the pair as they entered and left the mayhem for everyone else to endure.

Back down in the arena, the beast thundered towards Horus once more, mindless in rage. Its massive fingers gouged into the marble, dragging a wall down in its blind fury. It swung wild, massive fists cleaving air and stone alike. Another barricade exploded, sending a plume of shattered obsidian into the crowd’s front row.

Horus ducked under a haymaker that would’ve torn him in half, aiming for one of its thick legs, lunging a foot at it. But the creature didn’t stagger. It barely acknowledged the blow. A human, a vampire, these had no chance against Horus, but this thing didn’t adhere to their rules. He needed to do more damage; anything he was trying just wasn’t getting through.

Stone and steel rained down around them, blown free from the walls as the Sins tore the battlefield apart. A bouquet of cement-capped rebar was yanked free, skimming the ground.

Horus scooped one of the steel rods, ran for the monster and swung it like a bat.

The concrete end exploded on the Sins’ jaw.

The creature reeled, head snapping sideways in a powder cloud. The crowd screamed. Some even in joy.

The beast roared in fury.

The fight became a blur of motion, Horus ducking, jabbing, driving the rod into the creature’s side. But it was taking its toll. Every impact on his limbs was like the kiss of a brick. He kept moving because if he stopped, he’d never move again. A cannonball sailed overhead. The rebar was driven into the Sins’ gut. It surrendered resistance and sank inside the pitch, deep enough to make contact with its host – if he was even in there.

A massive fist crashed into him.

Horus flew.

He rolled, coughed blood onto the floor, and didn’t get up for several seconds.

But when he did, he was laughing through the pain.

The Sins staggered back a couple of steps, acknowledging the chunk of rebar that was now impaled within it, howling in alarm. Blood – not red but something slicker, oozing, pattered to the floor in thick, dark drops. Its initial fury was fading from its new injury.

‘Finally . . . oh God damn, I got you . . .’ Horus croaked, straightening his back. Something moved in his chest, seeping pain throughout it. A rib, maybe. But it wouldn’t be enough to spoil this victory. He had waited almost a century for this moment.

‘I did ask for this, didn’t I? And you have certainly delivered . . . Look at this. This is the real you, Laik. The abomination! The thing the Families were too scared to do anything about . . . made their secret plans . . . hoping that I could make the problem go away . . . Isn’t that right, Dominic?’

On the balcony, Dominic fed his nails into the railing, turning red. The others all looked to him. Silence fell.

‘I kill you, and the Cavendish trump card is gone. I was the only one who could do the job, because we have history! But them up there? They’ll keep quiet if it doesn’t pan out. Just another secret. Just another lie to add to the masses. I’ll be their sacrifice in the name of their peace. And if I didn’t walk out of here, they’d find another patsy until it happened . . . but here’s the kicker, are you ready for this? Do you hear me, Dominic? You, and all you other sycophantic fools? You self-elevated monarchs, acting like your word is God and smite down whoever you deem to be a heretic out of fancy? I proclaim to you this – I say to you all now’ – sucking in breath, he raised his hand as a clenched a fist before spreading his fingers out – ‘the Families have had their day!’

Suddenly, screaming erupted from the balconies. In the crowd random, unaffiliated vampires, normal Night Market patrons dressed from finery to grunge turned on the closest Enforcer to them. Blades were drawn. Guns flashed silver. Blood sprayed across the arena steps. As panic sent the crowd in every direction, the Enforcers were hopelessly consumed by the chaos, fighting to see the enemy until it was too late. When the firing began, bullets scorched the air overhead, the innocent caught in the crossfire. The Ode Enforcers battled with leaping bodies that tackled them to the ground, and set teeth upon neck. Desperate cries mingled with calls of mobilisation. Swan directed the Cavendish Enforcers to fall in and protect the Family, but even he was watching them disappear beneath seats and bodies and carnage. The Beretta bucked in his grip as he switched to each death-drunk face that catapulted towards him, knocking them out the air.

The overhead lights snapped from crisp white to pulsing red. A powerful, rising siren cut through the air as Leroux Tower shifted into full lockdown. The screams of the escaping spectators became sharper. Panic was becoming overwhelming. Above the bedlam, fragments of words could be heard.

‘No more lies!’

‘No more Families!’

Dominic was still at the railing, mouth open. The encompassing chaos was closing in, stealing his judgement. Mortis grabbed him by the collar, spitting as he shouted.

‘What have you done?!’

Dominic was wide-eyed as he tried to babble an apology. Wide-eyed as his pupils darted to the shape within the stands just outside of the balcony seating. And those eyes rolled backwards as a bullet relieved him of part of his skull with a force that tore him from Mortis’s grip and sent him tumbling over the balcony, down into the arena below.

Mortis snatched Concetta by the arm, angling his body between her and the chaos. Swan handed him a firearm, and he wasted no time putting it to use by downing Dominic’s killer with a single shot. Around them, the Enforcers formed a wall of bodies, an unyielding barrier pushing back both the panicked and the murderous alike, clearing a path to the elevators. They were bundled inside with as many Enforcers as could be held, leaving Swan and a gaggle of others, with their backs to the walls to buy time for their escape.

Horus’s sympathisers worked their way through the crowd to set upon them.