Rip. Tear. Rend. Kill.

The words pounded through Davey's mind with each thudding footstep, a primal rhythm driving him higher up the Blood Tower. His blackened claws gouged deep into the concrete steps with each bounding leap. He knew he was no longer human. He was something else entirely now. A werewolf, perhaps? No, that didn’t fit. He felt more like a blood-starved beast of flesh, muscle, and bone rather than fur.

Lesser beings cluttered the staircase at each turn, their crude forms a base mimicry of his ascended nature. He butchered them with ease, his axe—the last vestige of his old life—dancing a frantic ballet of gore. The mimics fell like bloody saplings snapped in half by a powerful squall.

Davey had spent so long pressed against the veil between his world and the next that it was a great relief to finally push through it. And oh, how the storm raged through him. He saw the truth now: it was petty desperation that had kept him clinging to the world of men. The future belonged to the sprites; humanity's best hope was to be perfectly assimilated.

Perhaps the Runelord knew this. If he did, the man was a coward. He recoiled from such blessed truths and still clung to the hope that humanity would prevail. Fool. Such a fool. Yet, the Runelord was arrogant enough to pull knowledge from the other world. Such a hypocrite.

Still, there was one human in this tower who fully appreciated the stunted limits of humanity. He had beckoned and called for Malgor to show interest. And so, guided by his new master’s hand, Davey was to introduce Cable the Blood Mage to a new world of carnage.

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“Master Cable, one of the anomalies is approaching,” gurgled the biomechanical device that had once been a computer. The bloodmage thought he heard the faintest whisper of a chuckle beneath the rumbling static. He had come to learn that was never a good sign.

“Define the parameters of the anomaly,” he called out, readying himself.

“The changeling.”

“That is not helpful,” Cable snapped.

“Well, you gave a shitty request,” the computer barked back, frustration rising clear through its distorted voice.

Cable’s first thought was to pop the computer like the oversized pimple it had become. Then he thought better of himself. Apparently, the storm was rising, and something was coming to visit him. He giggled with maniacal glee.

For too long, he had been needling at the Carnage Weaver’s side to go unnoticed. Even the tiniest gnat draws attention after it has supped on enough blood to become a nuisance. And Cable was that gnat. His work for Lothorr was just a pretense, an obvious one, but it served well to forward the Weaver’s plans within the Grand Game. And always, each day, Cable committed thousands of micro-blasphemies against the Weaver’s designs, hoping that one day someone would come to visit.

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And now, it seemed, his wish had been granted.

Cable had hoped it would be a Herald, for they held the power of ascension. A useful exploit in the grand scheme of things. However, his intent had been deduced, and now something else was coming. It wouldn’t be Lothorr; he was too valuable to put at risk. But a new variable? That was expendable.

Cable grinned as he watched the fruits of his plan come to fruition.

“I’ve won,” he giggled. “Check and mate, Charnal God. I forced your hand because you knew, you knew, that either you turned me or I turned everything over to the Runelord. Either we coexist as equals, or I orchestrate our mutually assured destruction. It was the simplest of propositions. You buckled and have sent something to set me on my path of ascension.”

“You fear the Runelord,” the computer chided, its voice almost completely drowned by waves of static.

“So do you. He seeks the Cradle,” Cable bit back.

“The Cradle is irrelevant. There are other battles to be won.”

“And yet, all four of you have concentrated so much attention on London. Almost like you are searching for something. I wonder what that could be?”

The computer remained silent.

“That’s what I thought,” Cable said, vindicated. “Now, piss off, I have work to do.”

At the mention of the Blood Mage’s words, the recombinant spell activated, and the computer exploded in a shower of gore. Cable wasted no time in preparation. Whipping his cloak off, he stood naked except for the MetaTEC on his wrists. His body was frail and gaunt, yet almost every inch was covered in runic scarification. There was one space left on his free wrist, which Cable connected to the rest of his body with a quick swipe of his athame blade.

The blood streamed down his hand and dripped onto the floor. No one said bamboozling a god wouldn’t involve a little pain and sacrifice. If he were anyone other than the Blood Mage, it would have been a mortal wound. But Cable worked regardless, grabbing something from a box hidden in a cabinet. Placing his dead twin brother’s MetaTEC on his still-bleeding wrist, Cable waited to face whatever was coming to destroy him—finger hovering over the activation rune.

A low howl resonated through the air as the changeling drew near. Cable positioned himself in the center of the vast, circular executive suite. High above the skyline, this room had once boasted one of the finest views of London. Now, the windows were veiled by a thin, fleshy membrane that obscured the lazy roll of mist outside. For a fleeting moment, Cable surveyed his surroundings, absorbing the biomechanical tendrils and cancerous growths that had remodeled the offices according to his design. If this were to be his final moment alive, he felt an odd pride in what he had wrought here.

Suddenly, the stairwell door exploded open. The changeling hurtled into the room, propelled by its oversized muscles and insatiable thirst for carnage. It was immense, a grotesque mass of raw, wet tissue, black bone, teeth, and claws. The changeling was the very embodiment of what Cable had envisioned over the past few years, as if his own creations were but crude imitations of this divine monstrosity. There would be no speaking, no chance for dialogue. This manifestation of the Carnage Weaver's fury had come for him.

Time seemed to slow as the changeling leaped through the air. Clawed fingers outstretched, poised to impale its prey. Pink foam frothed from a fanged, snarling mouth. Wild eyes reflected nothing but a raging red typhoon.

The first claw-tip pierced Cable's pale flesh. He would have winced at the pain if there were time. Instead, the Blood Mage's finger pressed the rune, activating his second MetaTEC.

It was time to unlock the secrets of Hasimoto's forbidden code.