Chapter 7: Echoes in the Quiet
The city skyline glowed against the falling dusk as Damian's matte black car slid to a smooth stop in front of Celeste's building. The street was quiet, painted with the soft orange haze of streetlights.
Celeste stepped out, her heels clicking against the pavement. She turned back, offering Damian a quick, distracted smile.
"Thanks for the ride."
He nodded once. "You have my number. Don't hesitate."
She didn't respond — just gave another small nod and disappeared into the building. Her figure was swallowed by the elevator doors, and for a moment, Damian sat still in the driver's seat, hand on the steering wheel, staring at nothing.
He exhaled sharply through his nose, started the engine, and drove off.
---
Twenty minutes later, he pulled into the underground parking lot of his penthouse — a private section of a luxury skyscraper downtown, towering over the sleepless city. The building was smart and silent, every surface polished, every camera subtle. The elevator recognized him before he even reached for the biometric panel.
Inside, the penthouse was cool and quiet.
It wasn't over-the-top. It was designed to perfection — sleek furniture in dark leather and steel, curated lighting, custom tech embedded into the walls. The kind of place where silence wasn't heavy — it was expected. Floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over a city that never truly slept, casting slow-moving reflections over the glass coffee table.
He dropped his keys on the marble island in the kitchen, then shrugged off his jacket and unbuttoned the top of his dress shirt. A tension headache pulsed just beneath his skull, but it wasn't from stress.
It was from uncertainty.
With deliberate steps, Damian walked into the private study near the back of the apartment. It was less decorative than the rest of the penthouse — lined wall-to-wall with high shelves, sleek matte-black drawers, and a glass desk. Every item had its place.
He pulled out one of the black manual binders labeled "Nightborn Regulatory Index | Class A | Transfer Protocols" and began flipping through the pages. The documents weren't arcane — they were clinical. Precise. Laid out like a government database rather than something supernatural.
No mention of a demon seal vanishing. No mention of power loss without death. No case file of the tattoo simply... disappearing.
Damian's brows pulled together.
Nothing made sense.
"Still nothing?" came a voice from behind.
Damian didn't turn. "Nothing."
Bob, his butler, entered the room quietly — holding a dark ceramic mug in gloved hands. Bob looked no older than twenty-five — lean build, smooth skin, pale blue eyes sharp as glass. But that look was a lie. Bob was over two hundred years old. And only still alive because of one thing — Damian. A supernatural stasis held his body together, aging paused entirely.
Bob set the mug down gently on the desk.
"You've checked everything. Twice," Bob said. "Maybe even three times."
"Not everything," Damian murmured, flipping open a different manual — this one older, hand-annotated. His thumb brushed across a sticky note he'd placed himself. Still nothing.
"The seal is gone," Damian muttered, more to himself. "No trace of it. I couldn't access shadowform. Couldn't freeze time. Couldn't even flick water off my hand…"
Bob's face tightened subtly. "I suspected that."
Damian finally looked up at him. "What do you mean?"
Bob didn't respond. Instead, he reached over to a side table, picked up a cold glass of water, and — without warning — threw it directly at Damian.
The water splashed across his chest. He didn't move. Didn't blink.
Before, if he still had his power, a flick of his wrist would've stopped it mid-air. The water would've hovered, frozen in time — he wouldn't even have needed to think about it.
Now?
It drenched his shirt, trailing down his collarbone, cold and humiliatingly ordinary.
Bob raised an eyebrow. "I needed to confirm."
Damian clenched his jaw and took a step back, wiping his face with a towel. He stared at his reflection in the glossy cabinet finish — wet, drained, vulnerable.
The power was gone.
But he knew something else.
"It came back… when I touched her," he said.
Bob stiffened. "Her?"
"Celeste," Damian clarified. "When I took her wrist. It was brief. I felt it… flicker. The pulse. But the moment I let go, it vanished again."
Bob folded his arms. "The seal's presence is bound to her. That's not supposed to happen. A transfer like that is incomplete at best — impossible at worst."
"Which is why I need answers," Damian said tightly. "This isn't just a mutation of protocol. This is something entirely unrecorded. Unmonitored."
Bob stepped closer, lowering his voice. "Damian, if the seal is no longer yours, you're technically not authorized for active protection duty."
Damian met his eyes coldly. "Doesn't change anything. I'm still her bodyguard."
Bob sighed. "You may not be for long, if the Council finds out."
Just then, the door slid open and a tall woman walked in, wrapped in a flowing navy robe and holding a tablet in her hand.
"Is that what you're stressing over again?" she asked, voice smooth and slightly teasing.
Cierra walked across the room with the confidence of a seasoned performer. Her long black hair was tucked up in a messy bun, and her face — even without makeup — still carried the effortless beauty of a screen legend. She was a successful actress, known internationally, but here, she was something else.
A friend. A confidante. Maybe something more — if not for the wall Damian always kept up.
She glanced at his soaked shirt and raised an eyebrow. "Rough night?"
"Bob decided to throw water at me," Damian muttered.
"I needed to be sure," Bob said again with a small shrug. "His power is gone."
Cierra's teasing faded slightly. She moved closer, concern ghosting across her features. "Gone?"
"Not permanently," Damian replied quickly. "It's just… tied to her. Somehow."
Cierra looked down, her fingers curling around her tablet. "And if it never comes back?"
Damian didn't answer.
He just stared at the manual still open on the desk. The blank spaces. The rules that didn't apply anymore. The silence that suddenly seemed heavy.
---
Meanwhile, Back at Celeste's Apartment...
Celeste stood in her room, freshly showered, towel wrapped around her head as she stared out her window. The city lights twinkled, cars moved like glowing veins across the streets below, but her mind wasn't on the city.
It was on him.
Damian.
The way he looked at her — calm, unreadable, yet always attentive. He was good-looking, yes — unfairly so — but there was more to it. A weight behind his eyes. Like he'd lived through more than most people could imagine.
And that moment — when he grabbed her wrist earlier that day — something about it made her heart skip. Like time slowed. Like she felt something pass between them.
She blinked.
Her phone buzzed suddenly on the bed.
Celeste turned, frowning. She hadn't given her number out recently.
An unknown number. No name.
Just one message.
> "I see you. You won't make it to the end."
Her heart thudded.
She stared at the text. No traceable information. No preview ID. It wasn't even in her recent call logs. Like the message had slipped in through a crack in reality.
Goosebumps crawled across her skin.
She read it again, hands trembling slightly.
> I see you. You won't make it to the end.
And that was when she realized… something had just begun.