The house was empty now.
Malphas stood in the alley behind Professor Chen's house, invisible to mortal eyes, staring at the wards that wrapped around the building like glowing threads. He could see through the windows—could observe the empty living room where the ritual had taken place less than an hour ago—but he couldn't cross the threshold. The protections were too strong, too specifically calibrated against beings like him.
The candles were extinguished inside, the ritual circle erased, all evidence of what had transpired carefully cleaned away. But Malphas could still sense the residual energy of the protection bond that had been completed, could smell the blood that had been spilled even through the barriers that kept him out.
They'd all left. Zevrael had taken Marcus home through shadow—Malphas had felt that departure from his position outside, the brief tear in reality as demon and newly bonded human slipped between dimensions. Julian and Valerius had followed shortly after, leaving Professor Chen alone inside to clean up and reinforce her wards.
Those wards were impressive. Layer upon layer of defensive magic, each one designed to repel different types of supernatural threats. Death magic, soul manipulation, shadow travel—she'd prepared for everything. Malphas could press against them, could test for weaknesses, but actually entering? Impossible without triggering alarms that would alert not just Professor Chen but likely half the supernatural community.
Smart woman. Infuriating, but smart.
Through the window, Malphas watched as Professor Chen moved through her living room, her hands weaving patterns in the air as she strengthened the protections. She knew he was out here—he could tell by the way she glanced toward the windows, by the extra attention she paid to the barriers facing the alley where he stood.
She couldn't see him directly through her wards, but she could feel his presence. The oppressive weight of death's attention pressing against her protections like a hand testing a locked door.
Even as he tested the wards, Malphas knew the truth: they were perfect. Not a single weakness, not one gap he could exploit. Professor Chen had centuries of experience protecting magical bloodlines from beings exactly like him.
And Julian was her student now. Under her protection, receiving training that would teach him to control the very magic Malphas had hoped would spiral out of control.
Marcus was protected by Zevrael's bond. Julian was protected by multiple layers—blood bond, wards, training, allies. Valerius's soul was permanently unreachable. The Council of Shadows would see this impossibility and pull him from the assignment within weeks.
Six hundred years, ending in complete failure.
Unless he changed tactics entirely.
Malphas pulled back from the wards, his form shifting restlessly in the darkness. He couldn't break supernatural protections. But bonds—even the strongest ones—had emotional weaknesses.
Marcus's protection bond was hours old. The boy was uncomfortable, feeling Zevrael's presence in his mind like an invasion. He had a life before this—friends, routines, maybe romantic connections. What if those complications became unbearable? What if the people Marcus cared about made him choose between them and his bond? A miserable Marcus meant a distracted Zevrael, one less protector effectively supporting the group.
And Noah didn't need supernatural manipulation anymore. The boy was already confused, already hurt by whatever distance had grown between him and Julian. He would keep seeking answers, pushing for connection, making Julian question whether anyone's feelings for him were genuine.
Professor Chen could train Julian to control his magic. But she couldn't train him to control his doubts, his insecurity about whether people cared for him or just needed something from him.
The protection bonds were supposed to create safety. Malphas would ensure they created isolation instead.
It wasn't the plan he'd started with. It wouldn't give him the soul he'd been hunting. But it would make Valerius watch as his freedom slowly destroyed everything around him.
And maybe—just maybe—that would be enough to satisfy the Council of Shadows when they finally called him to account.
Malphas turned away from the house and began walking through the quiet suburban streets, his form casting no shadow despite the streetlights. The neighborhood was the kind of upper-middle-class enclave that existed on the edges of college towns—nice houses, well-maintained lawns, expensive cars in driveways. The kind of place where people paid good money to feel safe and separate from the chaos of campus life.
They had no idea that death itself was walking their streets tonight, invisible and calculating its next move.
The Council of Shadows was growing impatient with him. Six hundred years was a long time even by supernatural standards, and they were questioning whether this was duty or obsession, whether Malphas was serving balance or feeding his own wounded pride.
The answer, he knew, was both.
A dog started barking as Malphas passed, its instincts recognizing what its eyes couldn't see. The sound was quickly muffled as the owner called it inside, probably assuming it had been disturbed by a raccoon or possum. Humans were so good at explaining away the impossible, at finding rational reasons for their primal fears.
A cat hissed from under a parked car, its back arched and fur standing on end. Malphas paused to look at it—an orange tabby with one torn ear, probably a veteran of many territorial battles. The cat's eyes were dilated, its entire body vibrating with the urge to run.
"Smart," Malphas told it. "You should run. Most things with survival instincts do."
The cat bolted, disappearing into the shadows between houses. Malphas watched it go and felt something that might have been envy. To be driven by pure instinct, to recognize danger and simply flee—that was a luxury he didn't have. He was bound by duty, by pride, by the grinding machinery of supernatural law that demanded balance and order above all else.
Malphas moved through shadow and emerged in the woods at the edge of campus, where the carefully manicured university grounds gave way to the wild forest that had stood here long before the first buildings were erected. This was old land, the kind that remembered when humans were scarce and the supernatural walked openly.
Malphas found a clearing deep in the woods, where moonlight filtered through bare branches and created patterns on the forest floor. He stood in the center and let his form settle fully into the physical realm, becoming completely corporeal for the first time that night.
This was who he really was—not the elegant predator he showed when manipulating humans, not the shadowy threat that pressed against protective wards. This was death incarnate: tall and gaunt, with skin the color of old bone and eyes that held the emptiness of the void. His fingers were too long, his joints bent at angles that shouldn't have been possible, and when he opened his mouth, the darkness inside went on forever.
He rarely showed this form. It tended to drive mortals mad if they saw it directly, and most supernatural beings found it deeply unsettling. But here, alone in the woods with no one to witness, he could be exactly what he was.
A collector of souls. An ending made manifest. The inevitable conclusion to every story.
Malphas raised his hands and began to trace symbols in the air, patterns that glowed with sickly green light before fading. He was calling his network, summoning every crow that served as his eyes and ears across this campus and the surrounding town.
They came silently, descending from the trees in a wave of black feathers and glittering eyes. Dozens of them, then hundreds, until every branch and surface was covered with watching birds. Their collective consciousness pressed against his own mind, sharing everything they'd witnessed, every fragment of information they'd gathered.
Through their eyes, Malphas reviewed what his network had observed:
Earlier that day, Julian in the canteen—his magic making every piece of glass vibrate when Noah had cornered him, asking him out. The boy had no control, no ability to prevent his power from responding to his emotions. The incident had been public enough that students had noticed, though they'd dismissed it as some acoustic phenomenon. But it proved Julian's magic was volatile, reactive, dangerous when triggered by stress.
That had been before Professor Chen began training him. Before he had any guidance at all.
Now, tonight, the pieces had shifted:
Marcus lay awake in his dorm room despite the late hour, his hand moving restlessly to touch the fresh marks on his body—testing, confirming they were real. The marks glowed faintly in the darkness. He stared at the ceiling, sleepless and troubled.
Julian was back in his own dorm, asleep in his bed. Valerius would be there somewhere, invisible and protective, but all Malphas could see was the boy's peaceful expression. He slept more soundly than he had in weeks. Protected. Safe.
Professor Chen sat alone at her desk in her house, exhaustion evident in every line of her posture, yet still awake. She made notes, planning Julian's training regimen, preparing to teach him the control that would prevent incidents like the one in the canteen.
It was exactly what Malphas had expected. Valerius had found something precious after centuries of having nothing, and he would guard it with every ounce of his considerable power.
Which meant direct attacks were futile. But devotion had its own weaknesses.
Malphas dismissed the crows with a gesture, sending them back to their posts across campus. His network would continue its surveillance—since he could no longer enter protected spaces uninvited, the crows were now his primary eyes and ears. They would watch, gather information, report back on any vulnerabilities that might emerge.
He had time. Death always had time.
The strategy was clear now, crystallized through the night's observations and manipulations:
Marcus would be pulled toward his past—an ex-girlfriend reappearing, reminding him of normal human relationships without supernatural complications. The more time he spent remembering what life was like before the bond, the more he'd resent Zevrael's presence in his mind. That resentment would create tension, making the bond feel like a burden rather than protection. It would hurt Zevrael and destabilize the group dynamic, creating fractures in their united front.
Noah would approach Julian with patient understanding—apologizing for being too forward, offering friendship with no pressure, showing the kind of gentle consistency that would make Julian feel guilty for being suspicious. Every interaction would remind Julian that relationships were complicated, that even friendship came with expectations and emotional weight.
And Julian, caught between his growing doubts about human connections and his reliance on supernatural ones, would become increasingly isolated. His emotions would destabilize, and with them, his magic. Professor Chen could teach control, but she couldn't prevent the emotional chaos that would make that control slip.
Small incidents would become larger ones. Eventually, something would happen that couldn't be covered up. Someone would get hurt. The Council of Balance would take notice—and they didn't tolerate magical humans who threatened to expose the supernatural world.
They had protocols for dealing with dangerously unstable magic users. Protocols that included magical binding, power suppression, or in extreme cases, sanctioned execution.
Malphas couldn't claim Valerius's soul. But he could claim Julian's.
The Council of Shadows didn't care which soul Malphas collected, as long as it was someone Valerius loved. That was their only requirement—the loss had to devastate Valerius. Julian qualified.
Valerius would suffer in ways that simple death could never accomplish. He would lose the one person who'd truly seen him, truly loved him, truly freed him. And he would know—would understand with devastating clarity—that his freedom had cost Julian everything.
That was balance.
Malphas smiled in the darkness, his too-wide mouth stretching across his bone-white face. The strategy was elegant, required patience rather than direct force, and used the very bonds and protections that were supposed to keep Julian safe as weapons against him.
The pull of the underworld intensified, becoming impossible to resist. Dawn was approaching, and with it the limitation on how long Malphas could maintain his presence in the mortal realm.
The Council of Shadows would notice. They always noticed. But Malphas would deal with their questions and concerns when they came. Right now, he had a strategy and he had time.
Everything else was just details.
Malphas let his corporeal form dissolve, becoming shadow and essence once more. The clearing in the woods was empty again, showing no sign that death itself had stood there moments before.
As he fell through the spaces between worlds, Malphas thought about Valerius's grandfather one last time. The old man who'd started all of this with his desperate love and his impossible magic.
"You saved him from me," Malphas whispered to a ghost that couldn't hear. "You gave him six hundred years of existence and a chance at freedom. But you forgot something important."
The underworld opened beneath him, familiar and cold and eternal.
"You forgot that death is patient. And eventually, everyone loses someone they love."
Malphas landed in his domain within the underworld. A vast hall filled with ledgers and records, every soul ever collected catalogued and accounted for. Millennia of work, all documented in precise detail.
Except for one entry. One soul that had escaped.
Malphas walked to the ledger that contained that failure, running his too-long fingers over the page. The entry was marked in red ink—the only red mark in thousands of pages of black:
Valerius Ashford. Escaped. Six hundred twelve years, eight months, eleven days. Status: Uncollectable.
He stared at it for a long moment, then reached for a pen. Slowly, deliberately, he began to write a new entry:
Julian Cross. Target acquired. Magical heritage: Significant. Protection level: Increasing. Status: Collectable.
The ink dried quickly, becoming permanent record. This was official now, documented in the archives that the Council of Shadows reviewed. Malphas was declaring his intention, making his new target known.
If they objected, they would send word. If they approved, they would remain silent.
Either way, Malphas would proceed. Because this wasn't just about following orders or maintaining balance anymore. This was personal.
Valerius had escaped him through the desperate magic of a dying old man. Julian would not.
Malphas set down the pen and moved to the window—if it could be called a window, this opening that looked out onto the vast expanse of the underworld. Endless gray expanses stretched in all directions, punctuated by the occasional structure or gathering of souls. It was neither heaven nor hell, just... the place where things went when they ended.
The loss of Thomas's soul had sent shockwaves throughout the underworld centuries ago. That's what happened when a bonded partner chose not to stay—when they rejected eternal existence and embraced oblivion instead. Souls were what kept the underworld functioning. This wasn't just a place for demons and other supernatural beings. Souls fed their existence, sustained the realm itself. When one chose to cease existing rather than remain, it created a void that rippled through everything.
Zevrael had never recovered from that rejection. And now he was trying again, forming a protection bond with Marcus Chen, hoping this time would be different.
It wouldn't be. Protection bonds rarely produced genuine happiness—they were too unequal, too forced, too much about supernatural protection and not enough about authentic choice. Marcus would grow to resent Zevrael, and Zevrael would watch another human slip away from him, and the cycle would continue.
That was the beautiful cruelty of existence: everyone kept trying, kept hoping, kept reaching for connection even when experience taught them it was futile. Hope was the ultimate trap, the thing that made suffering possible.
Without hope, there was no disappointment. Without love, there was no loss. Without connection, there was no pain when that connection severed.
Malphas had learned that lesson over millennia of watching, collecting, ending. He'd seen every variation of human attachment, every form of love and loss. And the constant truth was that everything ended. Everyone died. Every connection eventually broke.
The only variable was how much it hurt when it happened.
Valerius had suffered centuries of isolation, but he'd been essentially alone. Now he had Julian—had someone who mattered more than his own existence—and that meant he was vulnerable in entirely new ways.
When Julian fell—not if, but when—Valerius would experience a kind of loss that his six hundred years of imprisonment couldn't match. Because losing someone you'd never really had was sad. But losing someone who'd made you whole after centuries of being broken?
That was devastating.
And Malphas would be there to collect the pieces.
He turned away from the window and moved deeper into his domain, past the endless ledgers and into the section where he kept his most significant collections. Souls that had taken considerable effort to claim, that had resisted or fought or required special attention.
He stopped at an empty case—already prepared, already waiting.
The nameplate read: Julian Cross.
Presumptuous, perhaps. But Malphas had been hunting long enough to know when a collection was inevitable. Julian might have months, might even have years if circumstances were favorable. But eventually, his unstable magic and the complicated supernatural forces surrounding him would create a situation that even Valerius's protection couldn't prevent.
And when that moment came, Malphas would be ready.
He reached out and touched the empty case, feeling the cold crystal that would one day hold a soul. It was beautiful, in its way—elegant and perfect and absolutely final.
"I'll see you soon, Julian Cross," Malphas said quietly. "Take your time. Build your connections. Find your happiness. It will all make the ending that much more poignant."
He paused, considering.
"And when I do collect you, when you're standing in this very room understanding that your story is over—I'll make sure Valerius is there to watch. I'll make sure he sees exactly what his freedom cost. That seems fair, doesn't it? He got six hundred years of existence because his grandfather stole a soul from me. The least he can do is witness the price of that theft."
The thought brought satisfaction that was almost peaceful. Not rage anymore, not even the burning need for revenge that had driven him for centuries. Just... resolution. The understanding that everything would eventually balance out, that the universe would correct its own inequalities given enough time.
Malphas moved to his rest chamber—a space that looked almost like a bedroom, if bedrooms were designed by something that had never truly lived. He didn't need sleep, not exactly, but rest was necessary after extended time in the mortal realm. His essence needed to settle, to reintegrate with the underworld's fundamental nature.
As he lay down on what passed for a bed in this place, his last thought before surrendering to rest was simple:
Six hundred twelve years, eight months, eleven days. And now the endgame begins.
In the mortal realm, dawn was breaking over Crestwood University. Students were waking up, beginning another day of classes and studying and social interaction. Most of them completely unaware that death itself had walked their campus the night before, setting in motion events that would change everything.
Julian woke in his dorm room, wrapped in Valerius's arms, feeling safer than he'd ever felt in his life. Marcus woke in his own room, the marks of his protection bond still burning with uncomfortable heat, Zevrael's presence a constant weight in the back of his mind. Noah woke in his apartment, his heart full of confusion about his feelings for Julian and what their friendship could become.
And Professor Chen woke at her desk, having fallen asleep researching, her notes scattered across ancient texts about magical bloodlines and the dangers of awakening too quickly.
None of them knew what Malphas had set in motion. None of them understood that the real war hadn't started with Valerius's freedom or Julian's awakening or Marcus's protection bond.
It had started the moment Malphas decided that if he couldn't reclaim the soul that had escaped him, he would destroy everything that soul cared about instead.
That was the problem with death. It was patient, it was inevitable, and it always—always—collected its due.
One way or another.