Nikko didn't go straight to the priest.
Even half-imps knew better than to walk into the arms of a myth, especially when that myth left calling cards like cursed sigils and half-burned corpses. Before he started pulling the thread tied to the Ashmother, he needed leverage. Something to trade. Something the priest might want besides blood or secrets.
So he went to Emberlight.
It was the kind of place you didn't find unless it wanted you to. Hidden behind a fog-glassed florist shop that never opened, across the threshold of a circle that turned your breath to smoke and your heart to stone for three beats before it let you go.
Nikko had only been here once before. He'd left owing a favor.
The bar beyond the door wasn't a bar, not really. It was a memory. A space stitched together from the regrets of its patrons and held upright by the magic of debt. Walls shimmered with scenes no one wanted to remember. Tables arranged themselves based on who owed whom. A chandelier of flame hung above the main hall, fed by promises spoken in fear.
The bartender looked exactly the same as he had ten years ago.
"Skive," the man said without looking up. "Still alive. Damn shame."
"Hi, Garron."
"You here to pay the favor you owe?"
"I'm here to cash it in."
Garron paused. "You don't get to flip favors like poker chips."
"This one's special."
Nikko leaned on the bar and pulled out the sigil card Pree had given him. Garron's eyes narrowed, and the air between them turned hot enough to dry out his coat.
"Put that away," Garron said sharply.
"You recognize it."
"I recognize suicide when I see it." Garron grabbed a black bottle from the shelf and poured a shot of something that hissed when it hit the glass. "You're sniffing around her?"
"I need a name."
Garron stared at him a moment, then slid the glass across the bar. "You're not getting a name. You're getting a warning. The Ashmother doesn't take visitors."
"Then I won't be a visitor. Just someone with a question."
"You think the Ashmother answers questions? That thing collects voices. Eats names. You're lucky she doesn't already have yours."
"She might," Nikko said quietly. "That's what I'm trying to figure out."
Garron didn't speak again. Just nodded toward the back hallway.
"Booth seven. He's waiting."
"Who?"
"You'll see."
Nikko clenched his jaw and took the shot. It burned like hellfire—and smelled like lavender.
---
Booth seven was empty. For exactly one second.
Then a ripple in the air, like heat off a mirror, and someone was sitting across from him.
Not human. Not entirely demon either. Tall. Skin like obsidian lacquered in cracks of emberlight. No mouth, but when it spoke, Nikko heard it in his bones.
"You carry a debt," it said. "Now you offer it in trade."
"Yes," Nikko said. "For information. A name. Anything that leads to the Ashmother's priest."
"You do not want that," the thing said. "You need it. That makes you dangerous."
"To who?"
"To everyone."
It reached out a hand, fingers long and jointless, and touched the card Nikko placed on the table. The ink flared red, then black, then disappeared.
"The priest is called Verrin," it said. "He walks among the ash-touched. Keeps to the charred quarter. You'll find him near the burnt chapel at the edge of the Grays. He will know your scent."
"And the favor?"
"Paid."
Nikko stood, his heart hammering. "What are you?"
"I am what steps between the pact and the fire."
Then it was gone.
Booth seven sat empty again.
---
The Grays were a part of the city no map wanted to remember.
Burned in a magical accident twenty years ago, the district still smoldered under the surface. Half-melted buildings, cracked pavement, air that smelled like cinders and grief. Most of the supernaturals who ended up here were broken in one way or another. Outcasts. Forgotten.
Nikko walked carefully, his boots crunching black dust that didn't rise when stepped on.
He found the chapel by following the ash.
It wasn't just dust. It was shaped. Written. Glyphs traced into alley walls, into soot-stained doorways. Not in blood. In memory.
The chapel itself had no roof. Just a broken spire that leaned like it was trying to whisper to the ground. Inside, pews lay scattered. The altar was gone. And in its place stood a figure draped in charcoal-colored robes, face veiled, hands clasped.
"Verrin?" Nikko asked.
The figure didn't move.
"I need to know what came through the circle behind the Wyrmbone Tap. What wrote its name in ash. Why it left a body missing its soul."
"Do you know your own name?" the figure asked, voice smooth as glass.
Nikko blinked. "Yeah. Nikko Skive."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
The figure stepped closer. The veil parted just enough to reveal no eyes—just two pinpricks of fire.
"The thing you hunt remembers you. But not your name. Not yet. You are not bound. But you are marked."
Nikko's blood chilled.
"What does it want?"
"A name."
"Mine?"
Verrin tilted his head. "Yours. Or another's. It does not care. But it must be spoken in ash."
Nikko stepped forward, clenching his fists. "What is it?"
Verrin raised a hand. "Do not ask the name. To hear it is to risk speaking it. And to speak it is to feed it."
"Then tell me how to stop it."
"You cannot. But you may bargain."
Nikko shook his head. "Bargaining with something like that is suicide."
"Then run."
"I don't run."
"Then burn."
For a long moment, neither moved.
Then Verrin reached into his robes and withdrew a single shard of obsidian, etched with curling script. He offered it silently.
Nikko took it, feeling the stone tremble with heat.
"What is it?"
"A token," Verrin said. "It will open the way to the Ashmother. If she chooses to see you."
"And if she doesn't?"
"Then you will learn what it means to be forgotten."
---
That night, Nikko stood in his apartment, the token on his desk, the lights off.
He hadn't lit a cigarette in months, but he found one now. Lit it with a snap of claw. Let the smoke settle.
The glyphs. The ash. The missing souls.
It wasn't just a summoning.
Someone—or something—was calling across the Veil. Dragging old things back into the world. Things tied to the oldest names. And somehow, Nikko Skive was in the center of it.
He'd spent his whole life trying not to be a story.
But stories were made in fire.
And the ash was already here.