Chapter 5
Micah quickened his pace toward the counting house, determined to drown the unease in duty. The satchel thumped against his side with each step, a reminder of ledgers and contracts waiting to be recorded. This is my place, he told himself. The business, the family, the work—it's what I was raised for. Yet the watch pressed against his chest, humming faintly like a second heartbeat, refusing silence. He ignored it, striding forward through Broadway's bustle, though something deep in him whispered that the morning was not as it should be.
A voice cut across the hum of carriages and footsteps—raw, jagged, and filled with venom. "You! Petrillo boy!" Micah halted. Heads turned briefly, then withdrew as the crowd scattered. From between two wagons a man stepped forward, tall and grim, his dark coat brushing the cobbles, a black top hat sitting crooked on his head. In his fist gleamed a pistol, aimed with shaking fury straight at Micah's chest.
His face was hardened by bitterness, skin drawn tight around his jaw as if anger alone kept him upright. His eyes burned too bright, not with reason but with desperation—the look of a man who had already lost everything. Micah knew the name before his mind placed the face. Horace Blackwood. Once a merchant whispered about in respectable circles, later whispered about only in gambling dens, dockside taverns, and pawnshops.
"Do you know what you've done?!" Horace roared, his voice echoing down the street. The pistol wavered, not from fear, but from unrestrained rage. "You and your family and that brood of coin-counters! You've ruined me—ruined my house, my fortune, my very name!" Spittle flecked his lips as he shouted, his hand tightening white around the grip.
His fury spilled into rambling confession. "The Blackwoods were men of standing once! My grandfather owned ships, my father built warehouses! I was to raise us higher than ever—ships in every harbor, gold in every bank! I staked it all: ventures, loans, dice tables where fortune smiled on me. I was to outshine every name in New York!" His voice cracked, bitter and sharp. "But then came you. The Petrillos, with your sudden rise, your fat contracts, your 'honest trade.' Every door that once opened for me shut fast in my face!"
Micah's breath tightened. He knew the truth—the Petrillos had clawed their way up through diligence, not trickery. But Horace had been his own ruin. He had wagered more than he owned, lost ships in storms, sold family silver, drunk away coin, and borrowed from the cruelest lenders in the city. None of it was Micah's doing. Still, Horace's tirade spewed forth like venom.
"I lost ships, boy! Two fine vessels! Do you hear me?" Horace waved the pistol as if the accusation itself were a blade. "Storms swallowed them whole, storms that should have struck your family's cursed wagons and docks! Mine rotted, yours prospered! My wife's jewels pawned, my children begging scraps in the street, while you grew fat on silk and bread! Fortune favors thieves, and you are its bastard heir!"
He took a staggering step closer, the pistol now only ten or so feet from Micah's chest. His face twisted almost grotesque, teeth bared in hatred. "Do you know what it is to see creditors tear apart your home? To see your own name mocked in taverns, spat upon in the streets, while yours rises like a phoenix? You boy—you golden heir—you will not live to enjoy what was stolen from me!"
A scuff of boots broke the moment. From alleys, corners, and stores, 15 men slunk forward, armed with pistols and muskets. They formed a crescent around Micah, weapons trained with casual cruelty. Some leaned against posts with confidence, others crouched low, ready to fire. These were not loyal friends of Blackwood, but hired cutthroats—gamblers, debtors, men who had sold their hands to a ruined master. Their eyes gleamed with violence, their laughter low and mocking.
The street emptied. Passersby vanished into shops, shutters slammed, voices hushed. From a few windows, fearful eyes peered out. The city's clamor dimmed until only the creak of wagon wheels and the distant cry of a newsboy lingered faintly in the air. Micah stood frozen, the satchel at his side suddenly heavy as stone. His lungs burned with each shallow breath, but the watch against his chest throbbed with calm insistence, as though whispering: Do not yield. The path is here.
Horace's voice dropped lower, gravel and fire. "You stole my fortune simply by existing. You and your cursed blood. And today, Petrillo boy, I'll take it back with one pull of the trigger." His finger twitched on the flintlock, the barrel unwavering now. Behind him, his men shifted, eager, ready, a wall of iron and gunpowder. And yet, even as death seemed inevitable, the pocket watch beat steady, tugging Micah not toward despair but toward escape—toward her. Toward Mira.
The first volley struck like thunder. Mira had only just materialized before Micah, the world ripping open as her teleportation tore her from the unseen places she lingered, and already the roar of pistols split the morning. Smoke burst from muzzles, fire flared, and lead screamed through the air in jagged arcs. She had heard the shots before she saw them—before her eyes even beheld her great-grandchild. Sound was her only warning, and though her reflexes were honed by centuries, the attack came too fast, too sudden.
Her wand whipped upward, and with it came mastery born of ages. The bullets met her will in midair, sparks cascading where invisible wards clashed against metal. One by one they hissed aside, ricocheting harmlessly into brick and stone. Windows shattered, cobblestones split, glass rained down as though the city itself had been caught in the duel of mortal fire and immortal defense. Passersby screamed and scattered, the hum of morning torn apart by terror.
But there were too many. The 15 men, armed with pistols cocked and ready, stood in a semicircle of death around Micah and Mira. Their fingers worked like machinery—fire, reload, fire again. Smoke curled thick across the street, choking the air with powder. She struck down volley after volley, deflecting, unraveling, burning shot after shot mid-flight.
Her silhouette flared with each strike, the illusion unraveling in the storm of battle until the truth of her form blazed forth—crimson hair gleaming like a banner of war, golden eyes fierce as suns, the youthful and terrible beauty of a goddess revealed at last. For a moment, she was terrible and magnificent—goddess cloaked in fury, protector incarnate.
Yet even goddesses have limits. For one fraction of a second—no more—the wave of fire outpaced her, a single crack in her flawless defense. The first bullet tore into her shoulder. She staggered, crimson spilling hot across her dark garments. A second caught her thigh, spinning her half around as her wand wavered. A third grazed her ribs, white heat flaring across her side. Still she stood. Still she defended. Her pain was nothing against her vow: protect Micah.
The street had become chaos. Newsboys fled, tossing their papers into the wind. A carriage overturned in panic, horses rearing as iron-shod hooves clattered against cobblestone. Beggars at the corners scrambled for alleys, mothers shielded their children, men ducked into doorways. All the while, Mira's presence dominated the storm. She was a bastion against collapse, her will holding bullets at bay, her voice hissing words of power older than the stones beneath her feet.
With a guttural word of power, Mira drove her heel into the earth, and the cobblestones shuddered as though the very bones of the city bent to her command. Cracks spidered outward, dust leaping in startled bursts, and the gunmen staggered, their aim breaking as fear flickered in their eyes. In that heartbeat of chaos, Mira seized Micah's arm and the world folded. To him, it was like being dragged through thunder—air ripping, light bending, his stomach lurching as though the ground vanished beneath his feet. Then, in a flash of displaced air, they reappeared outside the crescent of men, the circle broken. And still she stood before them unveiled, crimson hair aflame, golden eyes burning with wrath, the terrible beauty of a goddess in full. The cutthroats faltered, terror stripping their bravado, and then panic seized them. With curses and cries they opened fire, their shots cracking through the smoke and chaos—not with precision, but with the blind desperation of men who knew they had provoked something far beyond their reckoning.
"Stay behind me!" she commanded, her voice carrying the weight of centuries. Micah could only obey, his breath ragged, heart hammering, eyes wide as his grandmother—no, not grandmother, but goddess—stood like a wall of flame before him.
Then came the opening. Mira's eyes narrowed, fury blazing. With a sharp gesture, she slashed the air itself. The world rippled, reality bending under her hand, and from that cut spilled a force invisible to Carnal eyes yet undeniable in its wrath. It shrieked like a blade drawn from the heavens, arcing across the street with unstoppable fury.
Eight men fell as though struck by divine judgment. They had no time to scream. Their bodies split in unison, their pistols clattering to the cobblestones, their blood painting the stones red. The ripple faded as quickly as it came, leaving only silence broken by the groans of the dying. Mira stood in the center of it, eyes blazing with golden fire, wand gleaming like a shard of night torn from the void.
The survivors—the men who remained, Horace among them—stumbled back in horror. For a heartbeat, they knew what they faced was no mortal. Horace's fury trembled, cracking beneath the weight of awe and terror. His pistol shook in his hand, yet his hatred would not let him drop it.