Amidst the chaos, the shop turned into a whirlwind of destruction. Books hurled themselves off shelves, pages torn from their bindings, while furniture crashed to the ground with the finality of a guillotine. But the old man stood firm, eerily composed amidst the turmoil, his eyes glinting with a calm resolve. He snatched a bar of copper from the clutter and thrust it into the heart of the storm, his voice bellowing incantations that were nearly swallowed by the roaring wind and fire.

And then, as abruptly as it began, the storm ceased. The room plunged into an unsettling quiet, the echoes of the tempest lingering in our ringing ears. We stood in the near-darkness, our breaths ragged, adrenaline still coursing through our veins. The only sound was the frantic beating of my undead heart, struggling to remember what it was supposed to do in the face of such raw power.

The old man’s demeanor didn’t falter, unfazed by the chaos that had just erupted around us. His voice remained steady, a stark contrast to my racing thoughts and the tremor in my hands that I couldn’t quite control. Looking at him, I was reminded of Professor Clark’s lectures on demonology—the stern warnings he’d issue about harnessing raw aether without a proper conduit. Back then, they seemed like the ramblings of an old academic, cautionary tales to scare the students. But now, those words echoed like ominous predictions, playing out right before my eyes. The air was still charged with residual energy, an eerie buzz that sent chills down my spine.

“Who can name Benjamin’s five primary catalysts?” Professor Clark asked, peering at us over the rim of his glasses with a mix of expectation and amusement. We sat there, fumbling for answers, until she spoke—the woman who would become my wife, who would one day give me Sarah. Her voice was like honey, smooth and sweet, but with a core of unyielding steel.

She listed them off with ease, her confidence unwavering. “Rhodium and silver are the primary conductors. Gold attracts and ensnares. Bronze buffers, and copper nullifies.”

I shook off the memory, banishing her voice to the back of my mind where it belonged, trying to anchor myself in the here and now.

"So, can you tell me who belonged to that blood?" I asked.

He looked down at the cauldron, his fingers brushing over it almost tenderly, as if touching something sacred or deeply cursed. There was a reverence there, a kind of awe that had no place among the broken shards and ruined tools.

“That blood...” he said, like he was sharing a secret with the dark. His eyes flickered in the dim light, and for a moment, he looked less like a man and more like some forgotten thing dragged up from an old well.

“It’s old-world,” he murmured, his gaze distant, as though staring at something I couldn’t see. He wasn’t talking to me anymore; he was talking to the blood itself, to whatever memory it held.

He leaned in, and the shadows shifted, deepened, painting long fingers across his face, distorting the edges of his features until they blurred into something ghostly. There was something intimate about the way he whispered to the room, his voice dropping until it barely brushed against my ears.

“It’s twisted, powerful. It doesn’t belong in any of our books, in any of our spells. It’s the kind of blood that chooses to stay hidden, that refuses to be known. This isn’t just blood. It’s alive—more alive than it has any right to be. And it knows we’re here.” He reached up, his hand moving slowly, deliberately, until his fingers traced a thin line in the air. I could almost see it then, the shimmer of something that wasn’t quite there, a ripple across the surface of reality itself.

He paused, his eyes flickering to the mess of broken equipment on the floor, the shattered glass that glinted in the weak light, and then back to me. The shadows moved across his face again, the lines of worry etched there deepening, turning into something like warning.

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“Whatever left this behind...” His voice was barely more than a breath now, his lips curling into something that could’ve been a smile, but wasn’t. “It walks outside life and death. It’s old... older than this city, older than the stone it’s built on, maybe older than anything we have words for.”

His eyes were locked on mine, and there was a chill there, a hint of something primal, something like pity. “If you’re smart,” he said, the ghost of a smile still tugging at his lips, “you’ll stay away. Because whatever it touches...” His eyes flickered to the blood once more, and I could feel the words settle into the room like a curse. “Whatever it touches, it claims. Permanently.”

There was a long pause.

“Right,” I said slowly. “Anything more helpful than eternal doom? An address, maybe?”

He looked at me like I’d spat in his drink. I sighed, nodding as if I’d gotten the answer I expected. “So, great evil, total darkness, end of the world. But nothing I can actually use. Got it.”

His hand shot out, cold fingers wrapping around my arm. He leaned in, eyes boring into mine with a twisted curiosity. “Can I keep it?”

I shrugged him off, glancing around the room. The place was a wreck, rubble and ruin everywhere. No way in all the rings of hell I’d be footing the bill for this mess, so might as well give him what he wanted. Not like it mattered to me anymore.

“Sure, why not.”

Something shifted in his gaze, a shadow flaring to life as he bowed, then began clearing the debris with a strange reverence.

My hand trembled, just a little, as I pulled the key from my pocket. Small, intricate, its patterns seemed to shift and twist in the low light, never quite the same twice. “There’s one more thing,” I said, keeping my tone even. “Know anything about this?”

The shopkeeper’s eyes darted to the key, and for a split second, something flickered—a spark of recognition, maybe, or greed—before he masked it with a shrug. “Oh, that?” His tone was too casual, like he didn’t already have his sights on it. “Just another trinket. Probably nothing special. But if you’re looking to part with it, I’d give you... fifty bucks.” He tried to keep his voice steady, but the twitch in his fingers gave him away.

I lifted an eyebrow, pulling the key back a fraction. “Fifty bucks? You can do better than that. How about telling me what you actually know?”

His mask cracked, a flicker of frustration before he composed himself, leaning in as his voice dropped to a hushed, conspiratorial tone. “Alright, alright. A hundred, then. It can’t be worth much more.”

I shook my head, a hint of a smirk tugging at my mouth. “Not for sale. Just give me something useful.”

The pretense slipped completely. He eyed me with something like resentment, but nodded, letting out a begrudging sigh. “Well... I would, but you fried my diviner.” He cast a pointed look at the smoldering remnants of his machine. “Could take days to fix… but if you leave the key with me, perhaps just for a few days, I might be able to dig up something useful for you.”

I didn’t even blink, slipping the key back into my pocket. “I think I’ll keep it. But thanks.”

His eyes narrowed, frustration and something darker smoldering there, but he slumped with a sigh, turning back to the scorched remains on his workbench, muttering curses as he sifted through the wreckage.

I left him behind in the smoky gloom, stepping out into streets that lay quiet and abandoned, the only sound the distant rumble of thunder. A storm building somewhere on the horizon. The stench of old magic and broken promises clung to me like grime on these streets, memories stirring in its wake, dark and uninvited.

There was only one group with the kind of power to twist McGuffey’s death into a neat little suicide and scramble a diviner beyond recognition: the Midnight Council. Shadows lurking in every deal, every lie, every dirty corner of this city. And when they decide to tighten their grip? You feel it.

It was either them or something I’d never tangled with before. But I'd put my money on the power-hungry over end-of-the-world evils any day. Then again, it’d be just my luck if this crackpot actually had it right.

You could never trust a demonologist.

Damned casters.