They made it to the old service canal just before full dark.
The concrete embankment gave them a narrow defensible strip between the water and a wall of collapsed industrial buildings. Elara called a stop long enough to get Bram bandaged and Toren breathing again. No one wasted energy pretending they were safe.
They were not safe.
They were cornered.
Bram sat against the canal wall, jaw clenched while Malik tightened a pressure wrap around the deep gouges along his shoulder and ribs.
"You keeping that arm?" Malik asked.
Bram looked down. "Preferably."
"Then stop whining."
"I'm not whining."
"You are internally whining."
Sera crouched at the edge of the canal, studying the black water. "No roof movement. No street movement either."
"That should worry us more," Elara said.
Toren wiped blood off his goggles with shaking fingers. "I would like to officially say this patrol has become deeply unprofessional."
Kael stood apart from them all, staring back the way they had come.
The bite of cold on his skin had changed.
Everything had changed.
He could hear too much now—the water shifting against cracked stone, Bram's ragged breathing, the tiny metallic tick from the relay core in Toren's satchel, Sera's pulse where she crouched twenty feet away.
His own heartbeat sounded wrong in comparison.
Too heavy.
Too loud.
"Kael."
He turned.
Elara had noticed.
Of course she had.
"You're pale," she said.
"Been a busy night."
"That's not what I mean."
He was about to answer when all the comm-beads on their collars hissed at once.
Not static.
A voice.
"Helios Gate patrol," said a calm male tone from nowhere. "You run well."
Everyone froze.
Toren stared at the comm unit like it had grown teeth. "That is not one of ours."
Malik drew his sword.
"Show yourself."
A laugh answered him. Low. Amused.
Then the lights along the canal flickered on one by one.
Old maintenance lamps, dead for decades, glowing now with a weak red pulse.
At the far end of the canal, a lone figure stood beneath the last one.
Tall. Coat dark as wet ash. Face half-obscured. Motionless.
The ancient from Hollow Row.
Kael felt it before anyone spoke.
Pressure.
Like standing too close to thunder.
"No retreat routes," the figure said mildly. "No wall support. Injured heavy. Limited munitions." He tilted his head. "I had expected better from Helios Gate."
Elara stepped in front of the squad, blade igniting in a wash of gold.
"Take one more step and find out."
The ancient looked at her, then at the rest of them.
Then finally at Kael.
"There you are."
Every instinct in Kael's body went cold.
Bram pushed himself upright despite Malik's obvious frustration. "You know this one?"
"No," Kael said.
But the word felt wrong the moment it left his mouth.
The ancient smiled.
"You don't remember me," he said. "That's fine. Your blood does."
Sera loosed the first bolt.
It would have hit a feral clean through the eye.
The ancient caught it between two fingers without looking.
The bolt blackened, then crumbled to ash.
Then he moved.
He crossed the canal in a blur.
Elara met him head-on, sword arcing with brilliant solar light. He slipped past the strike so smoothly it looked effortless, his hand flashing out just once to slam her aside hard enough to crack her into the wall.
Malik and Bram hit him together.
Malik's silver blade sliced his sleeve; Bram's hammer clipped his ribs with a UV burst that should have burned flesh to cinders.
The ancient barely reacted.
He backhanded Malik into the water and seized Bram by the throat, lifting all of him one-handed before hurling him across the canal path like dead weight.
Toren threw two grenades.
The blasts lit the night violet-white and filled the air with burning dust.
For half a second Kael thought maybe—
Then the ancient stepped out of the smoke untouched.
Sera disappeared into shadow and reappeared behind him with a blade at his neck.
He caught her wrist without turning.
"Interesting," he said, almost kindly.
Then he broke her arm.
Her scream ripped through the canal.
Kael moved without thinking.
He drove his spear toward the ancient's spine with everything he had.
The weapon hit.
And stopped.
Not because the ancient blocked it.
Because the shaft itself bent as if reality around him had hardened.
The ancient turned slowly to face Kael.
Up close, his eyes were not red.
They were black at the center with a faint ring of dim gold.
Ancient eyes.
Old enough to be tired.
Powerful enough not to care.
"There," he said softly. "Much better."
Kael tried to wrench the spear free.
The ancient grabbed him by the front of his armor and pulled him close enough that their foreheads almost touched.
Around them the squad was getting up, trying to reach him, failing.
Kael saw Elara staggering to her feet through blood and light.
Saw Malik hauling himself from the canal.
Saw Bram trying to rise again on one knee.
The ancient lowered his voice.
"You are not like the others."
Then he bit him.
Pain exploded through Kael's neck and straight into his spine.
Not the sharp pain of teeth.
Something deeper.
Something burning its way into his blood.
Kael screamed.
The world lurched sideways.
He saw flashes—sky split by red lightning, an eclipse swallowing the sun, a black crater pulsing like a heart, pale figures standing around it with crowns of bone and hollow stars behind their eyes.
Then he was falling.
The ancient let him go.
Kael hit the ground hard, spear clattering from his hand, every nerve in his body on fire.
Elara's voice sounded distant. "Kael!"
The ancient stepped back as if the fight had ended.
For him, maybe it had.
He looked down at Kael the way a craftsman might inspect the first crack in a stone.
Then the Pale Watcher from Hollow Row appeared at the top of the canal wall.
Not alone.
Three more stood with it, tall and silent against the night.
For the first time, the ancient looked annoyed.
He glanced up at them, then back at Kael.
"We will finish this later."
And then he was gone.
The pressure vanished with him.
Elara dropped to her knees beside Kael. Malik and Bram closed in, weapons out, while Sera cradled her broken arm and stared at the Watchers above.
They did not attack.
They only watched.
Kael tried to speak, but blood flooded the back of his throat.
Everything felt too hot.
Too bright.
Too loud.
Elara's hand pressed against the wound on his neck.
"Stay with me."
He wanted to answer.
Instead he heard the pounding of six hearts around him and realized with sudden animal terror that each one sounded beautiful.
Hungry.
He blacked out before he could tell anyone.