“Get the fuck out of my way!”

I shove past the Fomorian looking at me in indignant wonder, flipping him off for good measure when he opens his mouth to probably try and argue our presence here. The Order isn’t supposed to mess around in the Market that much, it makes those who utilize the black market feel confident that we won’t bust their asses for all the illegal trading going on there. I don’t really give a shit what anyone is doing here right now though, I’m only thinking about Henry.

“I can’t believe this!” I shout again. “Yeah, lock me up and keep me from helping out,” I glare over my shoulder at Sheldon, who – in a rare show of conflict aversion – doesn’t even defend his shitty decision. “Keep me in the fucking dark just like Carver did about magic!”

“Riley…” Chiaki murmurs.

“No! I have a right to be pissed!” I snap. “You trick my friend, who has helped us numerous times, fucking torture him, and then lose him and this fucking relic and now look at us!”

I don’t need to point out our pendants, they’re all going haywire. The subtle vibrations that normally tell us what kind of creature we’re dealing with have been replaced with the things jerking around on the chains like fish trying to pull free of the hook. It’s unheard of, or…I haven’t heard about it. I don’t trust senior leadership to tell us grunts anything anymore, but I know it can’t be good. I’m storming through the corridors all the same, with Chiaki quickly following and Chief Glass, Ulysses and Sheldon bringing up the rear.

It’s not only us who feel it either. There’s a hush in the black market, everyone is poised like they’re listening for something and I see some figures hurrying away, like they’re running from a threat.

“What is going on?” Chiaki asks, also noticing the odd behavior of nearly everyone down here.

“Let’s just hurry,” Ulysses suggests.

“We wouldn’t have to rush in blind if you had just let me help Henry!” I’m livid, I want to attack Sheldon for hurting Henry, for making his situation even worse. I think about his story, about his parents and the relic and Charlemagne. There’s no way a single vampire could handle all of that without help, even if that vampire wasn’t so gentle and kind as Henry.

“Hold your tongue, Averline,” Sheldon finally speaks, but the bastard sounds like he’s barely present with us.

“Fuck you.”

“Centurion!” Chief Glass warns.

Sheldon waves it away, upsetting all expectations. I’m not the least bit appeased, however, and I can’t say that I won’t throttle him after we find out what the hell is going on.

You better be alright…you better be here.

I promised Henry his family wouldn’t hurt him anymore. I promised him we would figure this all out, and when he needed me the most, I wasn’t there. I didn’t think Sheldon would lock me up when it got out what I was asking about. He wouldn’t tell me anything about the relic, or why he took such extreme measures to ambush Henry instead of using calm diplomacy…If I keep thinking of all the ways Joseph Sheldon messed this up I’m going to lose my mind. I clench my jaw, my hand at the ready to pull my gun and fire at any sign of hostility. It takes a lot not to be blinded by daydreams of shooting Sheldon with it. Somewhere nonfatal. Just enough to make him feel something for a change.

We are going deeper into the market, deeper into the earth. The pendants rattle and shake more wildly as we continue.

“Sheldon…” Ulysses murmurs.

“We don’t know yet,” Sheldon replies.

“Know what?” I ask bluntly.

“Not now,” Sheldon says.

“Now now? When? When we’re directly in the shit?”

“Averline,” Glass sighs.

“What do you expect when you all stay so goddamn cryptic?”

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“Trust in the Order,” Ulysses says.

I scoff, feeling exceptionally mistrustful of the whole organization. Chiaki puts her hand on my forearm, a reassuring touch that I wish I could appreciate, but my mind is racing. What if Henry isn’t here? What if he’s being hurt somewhere else and I can’t find him? What if we’re too late? What if this is something we can’t fight? What are we going to find when we get to the place our pendants are leading us to; the place that made every Sentinel in HQ cry out for the scorchingly bright light that filled all their minds at the same time?

No one else is this deep in the market. I don’t even think we’re in the black market anymore. I don’t know how long we continue walking down narrow corridors, surrounded by heavy stone, when I finally hear the murmur of voices ahead.

“...I’m short.”

“I think it’s adorable.”

“I have no qualms thoroughly testing these fangs on you, my darling.”

“Please tell me that’s a promise.”

“You know it is.”

My brow furrows. That was Henry and…someone else. I break ahead of the group, ignoring Sheldon’s sharp “Averline!” to reach him. I round a corner and find myself in a chamber, one that reeks of blood and ash. I stop short when I notice Henry and a fae. He stands in his briefs, with blood streaked all over his skin. He’s examining his hands like he’s never seen them before, so engrossed that he doesn’t even look up at me. There’s something very…not Henry about him, the way he holds himself, the refusal to acknowledge me. The fae sits on a stone altar behind Henry, one that is also stained red with blood. On the floor by the side of the altar facing me is a man, and behind it I see the vague outline of a woman’s arm. Further within the chamber is an older man. None of them are moving.

The Fae sees me and smirks, sliding off of the altar and wrapping his arms around Henry’s waist from behind, resting his sharp chin on Henry’s shoulder. “We have a visitor.”

“I know,” Henry replies, still looking at himself.

“Henry?”

He looks up at me finally, and those are not his eyes. They aren’t brown anymore, they’ve become a fiery orange-yellow, glowing faintly in the dim light around the chamber. The moment he looks at me, my pendant bursts, shattering into a million pieces.

“That is not my name.”

Before I can ask him what the fuck he’s talking about, or ask him what’s wrong with him, the others appear in the chamber. Like mine, their pendants break apart once this close.

“Gods…” Sheldon sounds terrified.

Henry smiles, but it’s not his smile. It is malicious and awful. He extracts himself from the Fae’s arms to take hold of his hand instead. The two of them look us over once before they step out of sight, vanishing.

“What’s going on?” I demand Sheldon, rounding on him. Both he and Ulysses are pale with fright. “What’s wrong with Henry?”

“That…was not Stone,” Sheldon murmurs. At my wild look, he takes a deep breath, as if gathering himself. “His name is…Erra, the King of Sunset…a blight upon the world.”

“But…what about Henry?”

“Gone,” Ulysses says, as if that succinct word could ever cover something so immense. “Erra consumes…”

“No,” I glare at them both. “No, I refuse to believe that. I don’t care what this ‘king’ is, Henry isn’t just…gone.”

“You do not understand,” Sheldon says. “This creature, this is the reason the Order of Cerberus was formed in the first place. All to fight him. To eradicate him…but we only ever succeeded in containing him.”

“I don’t care!” I shout. I don’t even know the nature of what’s going on, if this Erra is possessing Henry like some evil spirit or if it’s something else, but I won’t accept that there’s no way to bring Henry back. I can’t accept it. There’s no closure, there was no goodbye, and everything about our last moment together feels too little. I’m not ready. I’m not ready to think of him as gone.

I feel the sting of tears in my eyes. “If you just trusted me enough,” I snap at Sheldon. “Instead of trying to undermine everything I do then this wouldn’t have happened!”

“We cannot waste time on blame,” Sheldon replies. “We need to act. We need to alert the High Council…the Inquisition too. Chief Glass; you, Miss Ito and Mr. Averline will return to Headquarters and—”

“I’m not going back to Headquarters! I’m going after Henry!”

“This is not the time to argue, Averline!” Sheldon exclaims.

I turn to face him fully, my fist smashing into his face before I can think to stop it. I don’t think I would have anyway. He staggers back and looks at me with those piercing eyes, while Glass and Ulysses grab hold of me to keep me from continuing my assault.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t deserve that.”

I wait for his tirade of chastisement, but he straightens, massages his jaw and shakes his head. “Please return to Headquarters,” he says. It’s not an apology, but he doesn’t deny my accusation either. “We will need you for this fight, Mr. Averline.”

“I can’t fight Henry.”

“When you see what he is capable of now, what he will do not just to this city but far beyond its borders…you will realize that you must.”

The End