The run back to Rian’s apartment wasn’t long, but it felt like crossing into another world.

The clouds had thickened — now rippling faintly with veins of violet and amber light, unnatural and low to the skyline. Static buzzed in the air, crawling along the skin like invisible insects.

They stuck to the backstreets. Avoided main roads. Avoided reflections.

Rian paused at an alley’s mouth. “Hold.”

Devika turned slightly, eyes narrowing. “Something’s watching.”

Zara shifted her grip on the bent metal pipe she’d picked up from the park.

Out of the darkness, something shuffled.

It was human-shaped, but wrong. Limbs too long. Movement too jagged. Skin a shade too pale — almost luminous. Its eyes pulsed the same amber as the clouds.

“Zara,” Rian said. “Right side.”

She stepped into position beside him. Devika moved left, lowering her stance.

The creature lunged. Silent. Fast.

Rian shoved his shoulder into it mid-air, throwing it off course. It hit the alley wall, twisted unnaturally, and sprang back upright.

Devika stepped forward — her hand suddenly flaring in blue-green light. She gasped. “What—?”

Her body moved before her thoughts could catch up. With a sharp motion, she drew a line through the air. A faint crack echoed as a pulse of raw energy shot forward, striking the creature in its chest.

It was sent flying.

It slammed into a dumpster and crumpled, twitching. Its body shimmered — then disintegrated into flakes of ash and crackling static.

Zara blew out a breath. “That’s… new.”

Devika stared at her hand, still faintly glowing. “I don’t know what that was. I didn’t mean to—”

“Doesn’t matter,” Rian said. “Whatever this energy is, it reacted to you.”

Zara looked at him. “And how would you know that?”

He gave a half-shrug. “I don’t. Just a hunch.”

He turned. “We need to move. It won’t be alone.”

As they took off down the alley, Zara gave Devika a glance.

“You get magic hands. I get a rusty pipe.”

Devika managed a small smile. “Better than nothing.”

From behind them, deeper in the city’s shadows, a second creature stirred.

And somewhere beyond that — the first howl began.