Steve whimpered. "Tell me that's just leftover energy."

"It's not," Cain said.

The silhouette slammed again, harder, and the rift stretched like wet cloth about to tear open afresh.

Cain felt the marks on his arm burn. Not hot. Cold. Like frost sinking under his skin.

Susan noticed then. Her eyes narrowed. "What did that thing do to you?"

"Not a priority right now."

"The hell it isn't."

The rift cracked again.

Cain didn't think. He moved.

He reached for the dying fault-line of light. His fingers stung instantly, but he forced them through, hooking into whatever edges of reality he could feel. The tear pulsed toward his grip, reacting like something alive.

The mark on his arm flared.

Cain's vision split for a heartbeat—one half the broken hall, the other an endless plane of dark sky, streaked with the silhouettes of Fallen Angels watching from above, unmoving, judging, waiting. Not real. Or maybe too real. He bit down on the urge to recoil.

He pulled.

Reality screamed.

The rift spasmed inward. The silhouette inside lunged forward, but Cain's pull twisted the aperture against it. Its shriek came through as a scrambled, distorted echo. The gap snapped shut like a trap, sealing the shape on the other side.

The hall went dark.

Then silent.

Cain dropped to one knee, breathing hard. The black lines under his skin crawled higher.

Susan grabbed his shoulders. "Cain. Look at me."

"I'm fine," he lied, breathless.

"You're not. What did you just tap into?"

"Whatever the Watcher left behind."

Susan's stare hardened. "That's corruption."

Steve swallowed loudly. "Uh… guys…?"

They turned.

At the exact spot where the rift had sealed, a new mark had burned into the floor—circular, precise, and unmistakably carved in the style of the Fallen.

Not a remnant.

A beacon.

Cain felt every hair on his arms stand on end.

"They know where we are now," he said.

The temperature dropped.

And somewhere behind the walls, something answered.

The sound behind the walls wasn't footsteps or the grind of stone. It was lighter—like claws tracing the inside of a coffin lid. Cain rose slowly, shoulders tense. Susan put herself beside him without being asked, and Steve stayed just close enough to pretend he wasn't terrified.

The beacon on the floor glowed faintly. Not bright. Not active. More like a memory burned in the stone and waiting for someone to claim it.

Cain stared at it too long. The black lattice under his skin pulsed in time with the mark, syncing to something he didn't understand. He forced his hand behind his back to keep Susan from seeing the pulse.

A second sound came. This one closer, traveling through the cracked foundation upward.

Steve's voice cracked. "Tell me Fallen Angels don't crawl."

"They don't," Susan said.

"Then what the hell is—"

"They don't crawl," she repeated, jaw tight. "Whatever this is, it's not a Fallen. But it's coming because they want it to."

Cain took a step toward the far wall. The hall was broken, half-collapsed, but the architecture remained old enough to hide a hundred passageways beneath the rubble. Whatever moved behind the stone didn't care about tunnels—it moved through them like it knew the layout by instinct.

He knelt, placing a palm on the floor beside the beacon mark. The stone hummed like it had a pulse.

"Cain," Susan warned. "Don't touch it."

"I'm not touching it." He slid his hand closer. The hum grew louder, vibrating through his fingertips. "I need to know if it's calling out."

Steve grabbed a broken tablet shard and held it like a weapon. "I hate that you're saying that like it's normal."

The hum shifted, low then high in a quick spike, like something had answered through the stone before breaking the connection again.

Cain stood. "It's been activated."

"You activated it," Susan said.

"Didn't mean to."

"Doesn't change the fact it happened."

Stone cracked behind them. Dust rained from above. A narrow fracture spread across the far wall like something pressing from the other side.

Steve backed up until he hit debris. "Okay, nope, we need to leave. Now. I vote running. I don't care where."

Cain scanned the hall. One exit remained intact, choked with rubble but passable if they moved fast. The creature—whatever it was—sounded small, but the Fallen didn't send anything small unless it had a purpose.

He pointed to the far doorway. "We go."

Susan dragged Steve by the collar when he hesitated. Cain followed, keeping himself between the others and the cracking wall.

Halfway across the hall, the fracture split open. A slender arm, pale and jointed in all the wrong places, slipped through and latched onto the stone. The fingers were too long. Too thin. They bent backward as easily as forward.

Steve gagged. "Absolutely not."

The arm pulled again, widening the gap. A head pressed through next—round, eyeless, and smooth. A slit opened across its face like a wound deciding to become a mouth.

Cain considered attacking it. Then he felt the marks in his skin surge in response to the thing's presence. It recognized him. Or it recognized the tether.

Not good.

He moved first. He pushed past Susan and grabbed the loose edge of a broken support beam. With a hard swing, he slammed the beam into the creature's hand. The fingers snapped. Not broken—dislocated, bending too easily—as it yanked them back through the wall.

Steve exhaled a shaky, relieved breath.

The creature screamed.

Not a cry. A signal.

The beacon flared white.

"Run!" Cain snapped.

They sprinted. Cain shoved rubble aside, carved a path fast enough for Susan to limp through. Steve crawled under a split arch and almost tripped on his own feet, but adrenaline kept him moving.

Behind them, the creature slammed the wall again. The crack widened. Stone dust misted the air.

Cain shoved his shoulder into the final slab blocking the exit. It tilted, toppled outward, crashed down the stairs beyond. Sunlight hit his eyes—weak dusk light, but enough to show they had reached the outside ring of the ruin.