The night market of Ugbo Street hit Elias like a physical blow—a riot of neon signs and charcoal smoke, the air thick with the sizzle of frying pork fat and the metallic tang of blood from the butcher's stall. He stumbled after the girl—Lira, she'd said her name was—his lungs burning as they wove through crowds of oblivious vendors.

"Fried intestines! Still hot!" a man bellowed in his ear, waving a paper cone of steaming offal.

"Get your banana fritters! Sweet as sin!"

No one glanced at the thing pursuing them. No one noticed how the streetlights dimmed where it stepped, bulbs popping in tiny bursts of blue sparks.

Lira moved like she'd been born in these streets, her elbows clearing paths through the crowd with brutal efficiency. Elias barely kept up, his backpack jerking wildly with every step. The box inside had gone ice-cold again, its surface vibrating against his spine like a tuning fork struck against bone.

"Keep the nail clenched in your fist," Lira snapped over her shoulder. "Drop it, and we're both dead."

Elias tightened his grip on the rusted charm. The etched symbols pulsed faintly against his palm, matching the rhythm of his racing heart.

A child's laughter cut through the chaos. Elias turned just in time to see a little girl in a yellow dress reach toward the shadow pooling beneath a noodle stall. Her fingers passed through the darkness—and came back dripping black sludge.

Lira cursed violently. She yanked another glass bottle from her belt, shook it hard, and hurled it over her shoulder. It shattered against the stall's canopy, spraying liquid fire over the creeping shadow.

The explosion wasn't natural. The flames burned upward, defying gravity to form a writhing wall between them and the thing Elias could now see coalescing from the darkness—a skeletal figure wrapped in strips of rotting cloth, its elongated fingers ending in hooked talons.

"Salt and holy oil," Lira panted, dragging Elias into a narrow alley. "Works on most lower-tier nasties. Won't stop what's coming next."

Elias's breath came in ragged gasps. The box in his backpack had begun to hum, a sound just below hearing that made his teeth ache. "What is that thing?"

"Nightcrawler. Nasty bastards that live in shadows." Lira pressed a hand to the alley wall, her fingers tracing a symbol carved into the brick. It glowed faintly blue. "This way. The ward's still intact."

Behind them, the night market's cacophony died abruptly. No more vendors. No more laughter. Just the wet, rhythmic sound of something heavy being dragged through the dark.

Lira froze. "Oh hell. It's summoned a Revenant."

"What's a—"

She clamped a hand over Elias's mouth. Her palm tasted like gunpowder and lemongrass. "Don't say its name," she whispered against his ear. "They like being called."

The dragging sound grew closer. Elias's heartbeat pounded in his throat as he peered around the corner.

The Revenant stood seven feet tall, its body stitched together from corpse parts—a security guard's uniform stretched over bloated limbs, a jeepney driver's face sagging from its chest like a melted mask. Where its head should have been, a swarm of flies formed a shifting, buzzing crown.

Lira's hand found his wrist, her grip steel. "When I say run," she murmured, "you run. Don't look back. Don't stop, even if you hear me scream."

Elias swallowed hard. The box in his backpack gave a sudden, violent jerk, nearly toppling him. The Revenant's fly-cloud head snapped toward the movement.

"Run."

They burst from the alley just as the Revenant lunged, its stench rolling over them in a wave of open graves and gasoline. Lira twisted mid-stride, flinging a handful of iron nails that embedded themselves in the creature's torso with sickening thunks.

"Won't kill it," she gasped, shoving Elias down a side street, "but the iron'll slow it down!"

The box was alive in his backpack now, bucking like a hooked fish. Elias's vision swam with each impact, his skull vibrating with the thing's unnatural energy. He barely registered Lira yanking him through a rusted gate into a courtyard strung with drying laundry.

"Give me the box," she demanded, hands already working at his backpack straps.

"Why?" Elias batted her away. "So you can—"

The Revenant's fist tore through the courtyard wall, spraying concrete dust. Elias barely rolled away as Lira yanked him behind a collapsed washing machine.

"Give me the box!" she demanded, fingers clawing at his backpack.

"Why? So you can feed it another demon?" Elias batted her hand away. The box thrashed against his spine, its hunger vibrating through his ribs.

Lira's eyes burned in the gloom. "That thing just ate a Revenant. You really want it hungry when the Church militia finds us?"

A shotgun blast echoed from the street. Close.

"They're here," Lira whispered. The color drained from her face. "And they brought fire."