Chapter 13 Leo
The air went wrong before I saw anything.
It was early evening, the kind of hour where the light still lingered but had lost its warmth, stretched thin across the treetops like it was already retreating. I felt it on the ride out, a pressure change that had nothing to do with weather. The bike hummed beneath me, steady and familiar, but my spine stayed tight the entire way, nerves lit like I was riding straight into a storm that hadn’t broken yet.
I cut off the dirt path and killed the engine near the warded zone, the outermost edge of Phoenix’s protections. This wasn’t campus anymore. This was the buffer. The place where the rules blurred and things tested boundaries. The wards here were old, layered over one another by different hands across decades, some careful, some sloppy. They should have been loud to me. They weren’t.
That was the first problem.
I swung off the bike and stood still, helmet in my hand, listening. No birds. Not even the dumb ones that never learned when to shut up. No insects. The wind wasn’t moving through the leaves. The trees stood too still, branches frozen mid-reach like the world had paused and forgotten to restart.
One of my watchers had been stationed here.
Thirty-six hours without a report.
That wasn’t negligence. That was a body.
I moved forward on foot, every step measured, senses stretched wide. The ground felt wrong under my boots, not soft enough, not quite solid either. Like the earth itself was unsettled. I followed the tension through the trees, deeper into the ward line where the magic thinned and thickened in uneven pulses.
I smelled it before I saw it.
Burnt metal. Old blood. Something sour underneath, like rot that had learned how to breathe.
The soil ahead was scorched in a wide spiral, blackened in a pattern that had nothing to do with spellcraft. This wasn’t magic. This was ritual. The kind done with hands and intent and teeth. I crouched and ran my fingers just above the surface. Heat still radiated faintly. Fresh enough.
A boot jutted out from behind a tree.
I stood slowly and followed the line of it until the body came into full view. He was propped against the trunk like someone had set him there deliberately, arms hanging loose, head tilted at a wrong angle. His eyes were gone, burned out from the inside, sockets black and wet. His mouth was torn open too wide, jaw stretched and broken like something had forced its way out through his throat.
Used him.
I swallowed and muttered it aloud, the word bitter on my tongue. “Possession.”
No human did this. No animal either. Something had climbed inside him and ridden him until there was nothing left worth keeping. Either a door had been opened for it or it had clawed its way through on its own. Neither option made me feel any better.
The wind shifted then, sudden and sharp, brushing the back of my neck like a warning. I straightened and turned slowly, blade already in my hand. The forest went silent again, deeper this time, like it was holding its breath for the first punch.
The growl came from above.
Low. Vibrating. Too controlled to be animal, too layered to be human. I pivoted just as it dropped from the tree, a heavy shape crashing into the dirt where I’d been standing a second earlier. It was humanoid, but only in the loosest sense. Gray skin cracked like stone, wings folded tight against its back, limbs bent at wrong angles like joints were optional suggestions.
Its eyes glowed faint orange as it lifted its head. The light pulsed with something behind it, something aware.
“Bloodhound,” it hissed, voice splitting over itself like several mouths were trying to speak at once. “Still guarding what’s not yours.”
I didn’t bother answering.
The blade in my hand curved long and wicked, etched with runes that burned faintly red as I shifted my grip. It lunged fast, faster than it looked like it should move, claws raking where my throat had been. I twisted, felt the scrape of stone against leather, and drove the pommel into its jaw hard enough to crack bone.
It laughed.
The sound was wrong. Wet and echoing.
We collided again, close enough that I could smell it, close enough to feel the vibration in its chest when it snarled. Its wings flared and knocked me sideways into a tree. Bark split under my shoulder. Pain flared bright and sharp, but it only made me move faster. I ducked under a second swipe and slashed upward, blade biting deep into its side. Black blood sprayed hot across my arm.
It howled and staggered, then surged forward again like pain was a concept it refused to acknowledge. We went down together, rolling through dirt and leaves, fists and claws and steel colliding in tight, brutal bursts. I drove my knee into its chest and felt stone crack. It raked my side in response, claws tearing through jacket and skin alike. I ignored it and shoved the blade forward with everything I had.
The tip punched through its sternum.
It froze.
The glow in its eyes flickered. Black blood bubbled up around the blade as it grinned at me, teeth broken and sharp and wrong.
“She doesn’t even know what she is,” it gurgled, voice collapsing into itself.
I leaned in close, pressing the blade deeper, feeling the resistance give. “Who?”
Its smile widened. “Not the first,” it rasped. “Won’t be the last.”
“Who’s coming?” I demanded.
“They all are,” it said, breath rattling. “They know her now.”
The light in its eyes went out.
I shoved it off me and stood, chest heaving, blood dripping from my side. The forest slowly exhaled, sound creeping back in piece by piece. Birds started up again, cautious and distant. The wards hummed faintly, unsettled but intact.
I didn’t relax.
I dragged the body to the scorched spiral and set the runed flare. The flame caught instantly, eating stone and flesh alike, burning too hot and too clean. I watched until there was nothing left but ash and a faint metallic stink that would fade by morning.
Then it hit.
A ripple ran through the ground, deep and heavy, like a pulse through the bones of the world. It rolled up my legs, along my spine, and settled behind my eyes with a sickening certainty.
This hadn’t been an accident.
It had been a test.
I turned my head toward the city, toward Phoenix, jaw tight as the truth settled in my gut. If she was sensitive enough, she’d feel it. Maybe not consciously. Maybe just a jolt awake in the night, heart racing for no reason, skin cold with something she couldn’t name.
I wiped the blood from my blade and sheathed it slowly.
This was only the beginning.
And next time, it wouldn’t stop at the perimeter.