Marcus glanced back once.
In one of the hotel's countless windows, a faint silhouette stood—tall, motionless, smiling faintly.
Griff.
Or what was left of him.
The wind picked up, carrying the faintest echo from the building behind them. It wasn't words exactly—more like the residue of speech, the ghost of something that wanted to curse but could only breathe. The sound threaded through the rain-soaked air, brushing Marcus's ear like a memory refusing to fade.
The night breathed around them. Marcus's body shuddered from exhaustion, muscles trembling under the weight of adrenaline and fear that hadn't yet dissipated. The air was sharp and clean, tinged with the scent of rain and rust. Beside him, Lila clung to his coat, her grip weak but determined, while Elias limped along the cracked pavement, his breath ragged. The faint glow of the hotel's lights pulsed behind them like a dying heartbeat.
For a long moment, Marcus stood still and stared back at what he'd fled.
The Shomon Hotel rose against the sky like something ancient dredged from the ocean floor—blackened stone, jagged angles, and hundreds of hollow windows that reflected no stars. The structure looked alive, pulsing faintly with red-black veins beneath its façade, as though it breathed through the walls themselves. Each pulse seemed slower now, but not weaker. It hated its own stillness.
He could almost hear Griff's voice again—low, resonant, and steeped in that terrible certainty of the damned.
A vow. A curse. A prayer for vengeance.
"You think the light will save you, Marcus? Light dies faster than shadow."
Marcus pressed his hand against his chest. Beneath his palm, Thecla's pendant pulsed with a slow, deliberate rhythm—like a second heartbeat. It wasn't pain, but the sensation was heavy, alive. Each pulse sent ripples through his ribs and a hum into his skull. Somewhere in that vibration was music: faint, wordless, holy. A choir sung just beyond the edge of hearing.
The divine energy had not left him. It had chosen to remain.
His senses had changed. Every sound seemed to slice through silence—the flutter of a moth's wings against a streetlight, the slow drip of water from a pipe, the quickened beat of Elias's heart beside him. The world shimmered in layers now. Beneath the ordinary, he could see faint threads of something deeper, luminous tendrils of light and veins of shadow coiling through reality itself.
The hotel's aura was the worst of it.
He could see it bleeding out—spiritual corrosion spreading into the street like ink in water. The very air trembled with the Host's wrath.
He adjusted his grip on Lila, her damp hair clinging to his sleeve, and forced his legs to move. "We need to keep going. We're not safe yet."
Lila stirred. Her eyes fluttered open, dull but conscious. "Marcus… is it gone?"
Her voice trembled, but there was life in it.
He crouched to set her down gently. "Not yet," he said quietly. "But we're beyond its reach—for now."
Lila's eyes caught the light from a broken streetlamp. Marcus froze. Something shimmered beneath her skin—not blood, not bruise. Golden filaments pulsed faintly under her veins, following the rhythm of her breath.
"It touched me," she whispered. "That light… it wasn't only yours."
Marcus followed her gaze to the pendant on his chest. It glowed faintly in response to her words. "It came from her," he said softly. "Thecla. When the ritual broke, it must have washed through both of us."
"She was there?"
"Yes." He hesitated. "And she's not gone. I can still feel her—like sunlight behind my eyes. Watching. Waiting."
The ground shuddered, cutting him short. A distant groan rose from the direction of the hotel. It wasn't a physical quake—it was anger, a spiritual tremor that reached out from the heart of the building, stretching toward the ones who had escaped. The Host was still awake.
"We move now," Marcus said. His voice had changed too—firmer, with an undertone that didn't entirely belong to him. "Elias, which way?"
The night clerk, pale and drenched, pointed toward the shadowed alley between two abandoned service buildings. "This way. The access road leads to the riverfront. If we reach the rail station, we can vanish in the city."
Marcus nodded. The rain had become a fine mist, but each drop gleamed faintly when it touched him, as if the air itself reflected the divine residue that clung to his body. His fingers glowed in brief flashes when he moved.
He tried not to think about it.
They ran. Boots splashing through puddles, breath misting in the air. The city around them seemed to pulse with quiet unease—lamps flickering, signs swaying though the wind had died. When Marcus passed beneath a light, it dimmed to near-black, then flared painfully bright after he was gone, as if rejecting his presence.
The world itself was reacting to him.
They reached the service road. Elias pushed open a rusted gate, its hinges screeching like an animal in pain. Beyond lay the outer district—Shinshigan's forgotten edge, where warehouses leaned half-collapsed and weeds grew through cracks in the asphalt.
The rain thickened. The light from the hotel faded behind them, swallowed by distance and fog.
Lila stumbled once, and Marcus caught her by the arm. Her skin was cool, but where he touched her, warmth spread instantly. Their shared light flickered like a heartbeat between them.
"Marcus," she whispered. "If she's still with you… what does she want?"
He hesitated. The pendant seemed to vibrate faintly, and for a moment, he wasn't sure if he was hearing Thecla's voice or remembering it.
"She wants it to end," he said finally. "All of it—the Host, the Foundation, the hunger that binds the dead to the living. She gave me her light so I could finish what she couldn't."
Elias turned sharply. "The Foundation? What's that?"
Marcus didn't answer yet. The word itself felt too heavy, too sharp. It vibrated with an unseen weight.
They reached a low retaining wall overlooking the street below. Beyond it, the river gleamed under the lamplight, sluggish and silver. The storm clouds were breaking.
Marcus stopped there, his breath fogging in the cold air. He felt the hum in his chest grow louder, pressing against his ribs.
Lila noticed. "You're burning up."
"It's not fever," he said. "It's… her. The light's changing me."
His reflection stared back from a puddle at his feet. His face looked the same—tired, rain-streaked—but his shadow behind him was wrong. It shimmered faintly with golden edges, shifting even when he stood still.
Elias swallowed. "You're marked."
Marcus didn't argue. He already knew.
"Marked by what?" Lila asked quietly.
He looked toward the distant hotel, its black silhouette faint against the rain. "By what the darkness fears."
They stood in silence, listening to the city breathe. Somewhere far behind, thunder rolled. The Host was still alive inside that storm, its influence pressing against the border of their world.
Finally, Lila spoke. "What happens now?"
Marcus's jaw tightened. "Now… we find someone who knows how to kill a god."
Elias's eyes flicked toward him in disbelief, but he didn't speak. There was nothing left to say.
The rain fell harder, washing away the grime from their faces but not the memory. The light within Marcus glowed through his soaked shirt—a faint gold that moved like breath. It wasn't holy anymore. It was something else. Something human that had tasted divinity and survived.
As they walked into the night, Marcus didn't look back again. But he could feel Griff's presence behind him, faint as static, bound now not to the hotel but to the rage of the thing that ruled it.
Somewhere deep within the storm, a whisper answered him.
"You cannot kill what was never alive."
Marcus clenched his jaw, gripping the pendant until his knuckles whitened. "Watch me."
The glow at his chest flared once, cutting through the rain like a blade. For a heartbeat, even the city seemed to pause.
Then they disappeared into the fog.