The attacks did not begin like a battle.
They began like accidents.
The first scavenger appeared behind the tannery wells just after sunrise, climbing out of the drainage tunnel with the frantic strength of something that had not yet learned how to move in its own body. A worker spotted it first and laughed, thinking someone had fallen into the runoff channel again. The laughter stopped the moment the creature lifted its head and the faint glow of its eyes caught the morning light.
The scream carried across the street.
By the time Frankie arrived, the scavenger had already overturned a cart and killed two goats trying to reach the people scrambling toward the tannery doors.
Frankie stepped into its path without hesitation.
Marco moved with her automatically, his cane angled forward, his posture relaxed in a way that looked ordinary until the moment you saw the scavenger crash into him.
The creature struck with everything it had.
Claws raked against Marco's coat and shoulders, the impact loud enough to echo against the brick walls of the street.
Marco did not move.
The force simply disappeared into him, as though the creature had slammed into a stone pillar instead of a person.
The scavenger froze for half a heartbeat, confused by the lack of resistance.
Frankie used that moment.
Her dagger flashed once in the pale morning light, the strike clean and efficient as it cut across the creature's throat. The scavenger collapsed against Marco before sliding to the cobbles in a twitching heap.
Silence followed.
The workers stared at them.
One of the men whispered something Frankie didn't quite catch, but she heard the last word clearly.
"Ghost."
Frankie ignored it and turned away.
Because the warmth beneath her ribs had not faded.
If anything, it had grown stronger.
The second attack came near the market wells less than fifteen minutes later.
By the time Frankie and Marco reached the square, a pair of scavengers had already climbed out of a sewer channel and were chasing merchants between the carts.
Luca arrived a heartbeat behind them, the cloth wrapping falling away from Red Oath as he stepped forward.
The spear moved like it had always belonged in his hands.
One scavenger lunged toward Frankie, claws reaching.
Luca intercepted it mid-stride.
Red Oath struck forward with a smooth, brutal motion that drove the blade through the creature's ribs and pinned it against the stone edge of the well. The scavenger shrieked and twisted, but Luca tore the spear free before it could recover.
The second creature rushed him from the side.
Marco stepped between them.
The scavenger slammed into him with full momentum, its claws striking his shoulders again and again as if it could break through sheer persistence.
Marco waited until it committed its weight forward.
Then the cane moved.
The strike landed across the creature's skull with a sharp crack that cut through the chaos of the market square.
The scavenger collapsed instantly.
Frankie stepped forward and finished the first one before it could crawl away.
When the fight ended, the merchants were staring at them the same way the tannery workers had.
Recognition was spreading.
Frankie felt it in the silence.
The attacks continued.
By midday three more scavengers had emerged across the lower district.
None of them appeared alone.
None of them appeared randomly.
One burst out of a drainage grate near the river road.
Another climbed from a collapsed sewer channel beside the temple stairs.
Two more appeared behind the dye square.
Every time Frankie's group arrived just before the creatures reached the crowds.
And every time Callista had already pointed them toward the right street.
She crouched beside a rough chalk map drawn across the alley stones behind their building while the others caught their breath.
"These points connect," she said quietly, tracing a line between the streets.
Tomas wiped sweat from his face. "Connect how?"
"They're moving through the district in waves," Callista replied. "Not wandering. Directed."
Rafe frowned. "Directed by what?"
Frankie already knew the answer.
"Watchers."
Marco glanced toward the rooftops without turning his head.
"They're watching us."
The next attack came near sunset.
A scavenger burst from a sewer hatch beside the dye square, sending a pair of children running for cover behind a fruit stall.
Frankie moved first.
Marco moved faster.
The creature lunged toward the children before it noticed him.
Marco stepped into its path and caught the charge head-on.
The impact sounded like a hammer striking a wall.
The scavenger thrashed against him, claws digging into his coat, but Marco held it there with one arm as if its strength meant nothing.
"Now," he said calmly.
Frankie did not hesitate.
Her dagger struck twice in quick succession, the second cut severing the creature's spine.
The scavenger collapsed at Marco's feet.
For a moment the square remained completely silent.
Then the whispers began again.
"It's them."
"The masked ones."
"The Ghost."
Frankie heard the word clearly this time.
She still pretended she hadn't.
The dominion came a moment later.
Frankie felt the familiar pull as the creature died, but this time most of the power did not flow into her.
It went to Marco.
She watched the shift happen through the strange awareness that only she could see.
Marco — Bastion Demon
Level 3
Dominion: 0 / 300
Marco blinked and flexed his hand slowly.
"What?" Tomas asked.
Marco looked at his palm like he was testing the weight of his own bones.
"Stronger again," he said quietly.
Frankie hid a small smile.
That was exactly what she wanted.
Night settled slowly across the lower district.
The attacks finally stopped after dusk, leaving the streets tense but strangely hopeful.
People were still afraid.
But now they had seen something new.
Every scavenger that emerged into the district had died.
Every time.
And the same group of masked figures had been there when it happened.
Frankie stood at the edge of the roof above the dye square and looked down at the streets below.
Marco stepped beside her.
"You heard them," he said.
Frankie didn't pretend she hadn't.
"Yes."
"The Ghost," Marco repeated.
Frankie watched the lanterns flicker along the market road.
"Let them believe it."
Marco rested the cane against his shoulder and looked out over the rooftops.
Below them, people were talking.
Pointing.
Retelling what they had seen.
The legend had begun.
Somewhere else in the city, high above the rooftops, a Watcher watched the same streets with quiet interest.
The scavenger waves had been meant to thin the population.
Instead they had revealed something unexpected.
Something that was killing the angels' creatures before they could spread.
And for the first time since the infiltration began, the angels began paying attention to the humans who were fighting back.