Nulla draws a tall arch on the wall with white chalk. It needs to be big enough for him to walk through.

Hope watches with her head tilted. She’s sitting, curled in on herself, on the bottom step of the stairs with her scarf spread over her back and shoulders like a shawl to ward off the cold.

‘So, can you just draw a door anywhere and then walk through it?’ she asks.

Nulla leaves the chalk on the bookcase and gathers the Hellhound’s leash in his hand, his long sword a familiar weight on his back. ‘No, you don’t need it. It’s a focus point,’ he explains, returning to stand before it, ‘it helps you get in the right frame of mind and visualise the doorway you’re trying to bring forth.’

‘Oh,’ she says and sits back.

‘Are you disappointed?’ he asks.

‘I mean… I just thought it’d be more…’ she gestures with her hands, drawing an ambiguous shape in the air, ‘more.’

‘Fair enough,’ he says, amused. He glances down at the Hellhound waiting obediently by his side. ‘When it does happen, it’ll happen quickly. I’m not sure how long this will take but if I’m gone for more than a day, then go to the Night Market and ask for Poe. He’ll be able to help.’

‘Okay,’ she says.

Nodding, he places his hand flat against the wall at the centre of wall he’s outlined. The stone cools the palm of his hand.

Closing his eyes he concentrates, turns inward. He feels for the shape of it. It’s the same feeling as trying to recall a long-forgotten memory, prying little tendrils of it loose, little by little until it becomes snatches of remembrance. He catches the shape of the door, feels his skin ripple as he connects with it.

The surface beneath his hand bursts into cold air that curls around his fingers and wrist.

He hears Hope’s gasp.

When he opens his eyes, the area he’d marked out with chalk has dissolved into gentle peals of mist that are packed densely together, leaving him facing a living, breathing wall that he’s unable to see beyond.

He looks over his shoulder at Hope, a smile teasing the corners of his mouth when he sees her stunned expression. ‘I did say it was only a focus point.’

‘Right,’ she says, staring blankly at the mist lapping at Nulla’s toes.

Nulla glances down at the Hellhound whose gaze is hyper focused on the open door. It probably senses it’s closer to its home.

‘Remember,’ Nulla says to Hope, ‘go to Poe if anything happens.’

He waits for her nod of acknowledgement before readjusting his grip on the Hellhound’s leash. Then he walks into the wall of white.

It’s like walking through a wall of compressed heat.

Moisture soaks his hair in seconds, reducing the curls to clinging wet strands against his forehead. His jacket has seen worse and keeps the worst of it off him, but little drops gather on his skin.

After what must only be ten seconds of pushing through, he steps into the ever-shifting landscape of the Boundary.

He can’t remember how long it’s been since he’s crossed over.

It feels the same. The Boundary has a briny scent, and the air stirs in a way reminiscent of walking along a river side.

Cloaked in the mist, shapes slowly rise and fall, folding in on each other before becoming something else entirely, structures ancient and new.

As the mist swallows him too, he knows the door behind him is now gone.

The Hellhound at his side starts forward without prompting, her entire body language eager now. Like she knows exactly where she is. She doesn’t seem phased by the ground rippling into a different surface every five to ten seconds.

Inside his head, tucked into the very back and buried as deep as Nulla can manage it, the whispers rouse with an anticipatory shiver.

If he didn’t know what it would mean to listen to them, he thinks they would been only too pleased to lead him straight to the Fade. It’s been their mission from the very first time he’d heard them. To drag his fall even further.

To turn him into what Evangelos has become.

Nulla lets out a short, sharp whistle. The Hellhound stops and swivels her head to look at him. She doesn’t return to his side, but she does sit, and waits.

He pulls out the pouch and kneels beside her, pulling it up and over his neck.

‘This is who I’d like you to track for me,’ he says quietly, opening it and holding it out to the watchful creature.

Its red gaze flicks down to the pouch and after a moment, she leans forward and sniffs delicately at it.

She stands and starts walking.

Nulla watches for a moment, bemused then follows.

All amusement fades though, when the whispers grow in strength as they make their way through the Boundary.

Thanks to the Hellhound they progress through it quickly, accompanied only by the quiet echo of the Boundary’s continuous rearranging of itself; the sound of rubble assembling into one thing only to crumble and emerge as another, of wood creaking and houses groaning, of metal buildings shooting up into star studded dark only to quickly come down again.

For all that, Nulla’s steps and the Hellhound’s steady gait remain eerily distinguishable.

But there’s something else besides the whispers in his head. He doesn’t notice it immediately.

A different whisper. This one comes from outside. Carried in the mist, it shapes a word he can’t quite understand but touches something within him. An ache blooms behind his eyes and he frowns.

He turns his head, following the gently persistent call and sees only the swirls of white behind him.

Staring at the obscure path, he feels the empty stretch inside of him where the core of his old power once existed. He feels it yawn open in craving. It’s enough to overpower the other whispers. The ones that want to drag him further into his descent.

He straightens his back and turns away from it.

He knows what’s calling. But he can’t ever go back.

They’re about half an hour in when the already indistinct road ahead of them shifts, turning dark, like the deep darkness of a tunnel.

They’ve reached the gate.

Nulla frowns as he picks up an unexpected scent.

Blood. He smells blood.

Following it, he looks down.

The mist obscures his view of the ground that continues to shapeshift beneath his feet. Frowning he crouches and reaches down.

He touches the ground just as it ripples from rough gravel and into something cool and smooth, like marble—but his fingernails scratch over a dry, caked substance.

When he brings his hand back up, his fingers are covered in a dry dusty substance the colour of rusted red. The smell is sickly sweet and coppery.

Slowly Nulla rises and stands, staring down at the spot he cannot fully see.

It’s the nature of the Boundary that anything spilled here should have been absorbed as soon as the realm shifted in its reshaping cycle. For the blood to endure…

Thinking for a moment, he feels for the dried blood spot again before using one of his daggers to scrape some of it off the floor.

He has no choice but to use the pouch holding the pendant to tip it into. He pushes down the feeling of wrongness as he does it.

As soon as he’s back in the human realm he’ll get the pendant purified. For now this is all he can do if he wants to know what took place here.

The Hellhound chuffs impatiently.

‘Yes,’ Nulla murmurs and stands, ‘no need to fret.’ He looks at the darkness ahead.

It would only take a few steps for them to be swallowed up in it.

The whispers rise. They know how close they are to crossing over into where they want to be.

He shoves them down ruthlessly. ‘Let’s go.’

Everything in front of him goes black. Total black.

He’s never experienced something like it. It feels compressed, like air pressure squeezing him tight, his every vein straining in protest as he is suddenly sucked forward.

The whispers rise to a crescendo, deafening.

The Fade feels greedy for him.

In the next instance the pressure disappears.

He steps out into a clear night, stars remarkably bright in the sky.

Dry dirt crunches under the soles of his shoes and a vast landscape is laid out before him.

The whispers fall quiet.

The Hellhound is even more beautiful in its natural habitat. As she ventures into what looks like a derelict valley, her brilliant white short coat paints a stunning contrast against the Fade’s muted night colours and brilliant stars.

Here, there’s a lingering smell in the air, like a room that still carries traces of deep, thick smoke. It makes sense when he realises that what at first seems like mountains on either side of the valley, are actually giant dried lava.

The land itself is a surreal mix of a dumping ground from life across the ages and dilapidated structures and cars.

It’s as if a fusion of present times and years long past had existed here and then been abandoned and left to rot.

There isn’t a sign of life in sight other than Nulla and the Hellhound. No demons.

Nulla knows that there are lower levels in the Fade. It’s where they reside primarily, particularly during the Fade’s very short suns. He has no idea how to find his way down to these levels but he’s sure that the Hellhound will guide him to an entry point if what they’re tracking is there.

The Hellhound gives a full body shiver and a shake of her head that is oddly reminiscent of a horse tossing its mane before falling into a loping pace.

They keep a clipped pace. Skirting around broken carriages tilted from missing wheels, sunken cars and other out of place debris—Nulla’s sure he sees a ship in the distance too. The Hellhound doesn’t let up. She doesn’t put her nose to the ground but instead holds her head up high, regal and sure as she moves nimbly.

Perhaps because the sky isn’t all that dark and she senses the threat of the sun.

Not for the first time he wonders just how much that collar on the Hellhound’s neck accounts for her continued guidance, even when her instinct must be eating at her to burrow deep and hide somewhere before the sun rises. He’ll have to ask Poe about it when they return.

If he knew where they were headed then he’d be able to cover the distance in half the time but right now keeping to the Hellhound’s pace is all he can do.

The Hellhound takes them around a gutted bus on its side. The valley opens up, and Nulla thinks he sees a few scattered buildings far-off.

As they clear the bus, they weave through what feels like a labyrinth of small and large debris and that’s when he sees the first sign of life outside of the two of them.

A rotten smell interweaves with the acrid air right before the first body comes into focus.

Like the Hellhound, it stands out against the bleakness surrounding them. Nulla identifies it right away as a demon. Its unnaturally white skin marbled with black veins and the overly long limbs give it away. The head is at an awkward angle. Its neck is broken.

Behind it, there are more.

The majority of them seem to be dead, but one is still moving. Using its feet and chin, it pulls itself in their direction. Though it doesn’t seem to have noticed Nulla and the Hellhound’s arrival.

The Hellhound makes a beeline for the first body, seeming nothing more than curious as she sniffs at the demon.

Nulla sweeps his gaze over their surroundings to find what’s missing from this picture and walks over.

That’s when the Hellhound lifts her head and looks right in the direction of a particular wrecked car. It’s barely got a roof left and the doors gone.

From within, an amber, unblinking gaze is trained on Nulla.

This isn’t another demon.

The car’s occupant has a crow in his lap and a hand pressed to the side of his neck. Dishevelled black hair spills a robe that Nulla sure is more luxurious than anything he owns but it’s dirtied by blood. Demon blood by the looks of it, as well as his own.

There are manacles on his thin wrists.

Leathered skin sinks around their cheekbones and eyes, and it is shrunken over his hands, making the long sharp nails look even more vicious. They’re stained in the same black blood coating his clothes.

His mouth is curled in a sneer and Nulla sees the hint of a fang.

A vampire in the Fade and clearly on the brink of starvation.

And yet…

Nulla turns away from the vampire and surveys the trail of bodies with new understanding.

What reason could a vampire possibly have for being in the Fade?

Why could demons possibly want from a vampire?

Another glance up shows him that the sky has gotten lighter since he’d entered the realm. The deep blue of night is softening into purple. The sunrise is coming.

He glances back at the vampire.

There’s nowhere to hide here.

If the vampire caused all this damage, then he’s impressive. Especially in a state of starvation. In fact, with a sunrise not so far away, it’s incredible that he’s still awake. Most vampires would be sinking into lethargy the second the sun began its approach.

But there is no vampire that can survive the sun.

Those eyes stay on him, venomous.

The demon dragging itself along the floor doesn’t glance Nulla’s way. It’s slowly getting closer.  

Its attention is on the vampire inside the car.

The demon’s chin is scraped to pulp, and its arms leave trails in the dirt as they drag uselessly along by its sides. It overtakes the body with the cracked neck.

The Hellhound bares her teeth at the demon as it drags itself another inch, lowering her head, a steady growl pouring out from behind sharp teeth.

A scream tears down the valley, vibrating with power. Like it’s trying to rip the realm apart.

Nestled against his sternum, the pendant within the pouch heats so fast it burns into his skin through the fabric.

Nulla jerks his head in the direction of the scream.

The Hellhound throws her head back and a long, lone howl swells until it fills the valley.

The scream comes again, like someone is being torn apart and the pendant grows hotter. Nulla makes no move to protect himself from it.

From its position on the ground, the demon’s red eyes have gone wide and now they’re focused on Nulla and the Hellhound.

Its face twists into a snarl. It coils in on itself, managing to push off the ground with its shoulders until it’s on its knees.

It launches itself at Nulla.

Nulla severs its head with an easy arc of his sword.

He’s running in the direction of the scream before the spray of blood and the head touch the ground.