But it’s the next sound that stops all of us in our tracks, just moments before we step out onto the balcony.
It cuts through the quiet like a blade through something live—wet and unnatural.
It starts low. A grotesque, slurping noise, like raw meat being dragged across concrete. Then a crunch—sharp and intimate, the sound of bone grinding against bone, not breaking but fitting, locking into place like puzzle pieces being forced together too fast, too tight.
A moment of silence follows, and each of us looks at the other with absolute dread.
We’re too late. We’re too fucking late.
There’s something in the air. I can’t see it. But I feel something inside and around. Like it’s rushing. It’s as if we’re stuck in a tunnel, and the air is being sucked in or out, I can’t tell which. But it’s entirely unnatural and completely disturbing.
The sound builds.
A wet pop. Then another. Like joints snapping back into sockets. But deeper. Thicker. It's as if something once hollow is being filled—arteries swollen with new blood, lungs inflating for the first time in centuries. There's a grotesque gurgle, like fluid sloshing in a throat, and then a rattling, wet choke—the sound of someone trying to take their first breath through lungs that haven’t remembered how yet.
Ares shifts beside me. I feel him tense, and it’s a testament to how damn disturbing the sounds are that we’re all frozen here, immobilized by the horror of it.
The temperature continues to drop, turning more frigid by the second.
A tear—flesh knitting over raw muscle. The slick suction of tissue sealing closed. Then a terrible, stretching groan, like skin being dragged over a frame too fast, too tight, too alive. A shiver rips down my spine as something lets out a shuddering moan—not pain, not pleasure. Just the confused, guttural sound of something remembering how to be alive.
Roman curses under his breath.
We all hear it now—the heartbeat. A wet thumping, pulsing erratically, like someone built a heart from scratch and didn’t know which way it should beat.
And it's wrong. It’s so fucking wrong I feel it in a visceral way.
Stretching. Curling. Wrapping around bone with slick, wet snaps.
A wet gasp fills the air—but it’s not from any of us.
Finally, it’s Juliet who steps out onto the balcony. I see her face blanch white, and she covers her mouth with her hands. Ares steps out after her, immediately followed by Roman and then me, and finally Sysco.
We find the edge tucked in the dark. But it grants us a perfect view of the stage, and the nightmare waiting down below.
Markus stands in the center of the stage. In front of him is an old oak table, and lying upon it, there are bones. He keeps a hand laid on them, only the bones are no longer still, and they are no longer simply bones. They twitch. Rattle. Shift. Connect.
Muscle begins to thread itself between the joints.
Veins burst from within, wrapping around the growing tissue like vines choking a tree. A ribcage forms. A spine. The hollow socket of a skull knits into place. The body breathes.
Breathes.
Oh fuck. I feel tears prick my eyes. It’s the most disturbing and horrifying scene I’ve ever laid eyes on, and I walked in on my mother and sister’s dead, murdered bodies.
It’s because I know what that reincarnating nightmare is. The wreckage he would make the world.
And we were too late to prevent the beginning of this.
I’m chilled even more when I hear Markus muttering. I can’t understand the words. And then I realize his eyes are entirely black. There isn’t a trace of white left in them.
Beside Markus stands James. Calm. Steady. Reverent.
Two other men flank him, one on either side. They look so much like him that, for a second, I think I’m seeing triple. But no—brothers, they have to be. Their posture is militant, their expressions unreadable. Their gazes remain fixed on the reforming Blood Father.
Ares’ fingers close around my hand. I hadn’t realized I was reaching for him until I feel his grip. We exchange no words, but I see it in his eyes. Horror.
Markus chants louder, the words something ancient and evil.
