Page 9 of Soulmarked (Hellbound and Hollow #1)

8

OFFICE POLITICS

I dragged myself through CITD's glass doors at exactly 7:45 AM, running on caffeine fumes and sheer stubbornness. The fluorescent lights were merciless, turning everything stark and harsh, including my reflection in the lobby's polished surfaces.

Dark circles shadowed my eyes, and despite a rushed shower, I could still catch traces of blood and smoke clinging to my jacket. The coffee in my hand, my third since dawn, wasn't doing much to keep me upright, but it was better than nothing.

The elevator ride to the 47th floor felt endless. Each ding marked another floor of normal government employees doing normal government work, blissfully unaware of what really lurked in their city's shadows. What I'd seen just hours ago in that church. What Sean and I had...

No. Not going there. Not now.

Director Sterling's office dominated the corner of the executive floor, all floor-to-ceiling windows and calculated intimidation. The space was aggressively ordered, every pen perfectly aligned, every file precisely stacked. It was the kind of meticulousness that made you acutely aware of your own dishevelment, which was probably the point.

Morning sunlight streamed through partially closed blinds, cutting harsh lines across Sterling's desk. The man himself sat like a statue, studying me with eyes that cut straight through my bullshit. I'd known James Sterling for years, but in moments like this, I was reminded that he hadn't reached his position by playing nice.

“You look like roadkill, boy.” His voice was gruff, no attempt to soften the blow. “The hell have you been getting into?”

I resisted the urge to rub my temples, where a headache was building like an approaching storm. “Nothing I can't handle, sir.”

Sterling snorted, a harsh sound devoid of humor. “That right? Because from where I'm sitting, you're about a mile out of your depth and sinking fast.” He slammed his hand down on a folder centered on his desk blotter. The CITD insignia stood out in bold black, marked urgent in red that looked too much like fresh blood.

“Three more bodies,” he continued, voice like gravel. “Phoenix Pharmaceuticals employees. Found early this morning. So don't tell me what you can handle, son. Not when you're leaving a trail of corpses behind you.”

The folder seemed to gain weight as he shoved it across the desk. I didn't want to open it. Didn't want to see what waited inside. But that wasn't how this job worked.

The first image hit like a punch to the gut. This wasn't just violence, this was artistry. The bodies had been arranged with limbs twisted into impossible angles, forming patterns that defied human anatomy. Whatever had done this wasn't just killing; it was sending a message written in blood and bone.

“Same M.O.?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.

Sterling stood, moving to shut his office door with a hard slam that made the blinds rattle. “Worse.” He stayed by the door, arms crossed, stance wide. “These weren't just hits, Cade. This was a warning.”

My exhaustion vanished, replaced by the sharp focus that came with real danger. “Who found them?”

“A cleanup team.” Sterling's words were clipped, final. “Drop this case. Now. I'm not asking.”

“Sir, with all due respect?—“

“Respect?” Sterling barked out a laugh. “You don't know the meaning of the word. If you did, you'd listen when I tell you to back the hell off.” He strode back to his desk, leaning forward on his knuckles. “You're chasing ghosts, Cade. And you're gonna get yourself killed doing it.”

I studied his face, looking for any hint of what he wasn't saying. Sterling was angry, but underneath that was something else entirely. Not fear for himself. Something deeper.

“Sir,” I chose my words carefully, fighting against my instinct to push back harder, “if Phoenix is involved in something that threatens civilian lives...”

“I said drop it!” Sterling slammed his fist on the desk, making pens jump. “You think you're the first hotshot who thought he could save the world? You think this is about doing the right thing?” He jabbed a finger toward the folder. “This is about you staying alive long enough to make it to next week.”

“These people are dead,” I said, holding my ground the way I'd done all my life when faced with authority figures who thought intimidation was leadership. “They were Phoenix employees, which makes it our jurisdiction.”

“Jurisdiction?” Sterling's laugh was bitter as black coffee. “Boy, you're playing checkers in a chess tournament. Take a closer look at the victims' files before you go crusading.”

I flipped past the crime scene photos to the personnel data. Three faces stared back at me, a research director, a security chief, and a project manager. All high-level employees, all with access to restricted areas of Phoenix's operations.

Then I saw it. The dates.

“These files were created six months ago,” I said slowly. “But their employment histories go back years.”

“Keep digging,” Sterling ordered, watching me with narrowed eyes.

I went deeper, and the pieces started falling into place. Educational backgrounds that didn't check out. References that led nowhere. Professional histories with just enough substance to look real under casual inspection.

“They're plants,” I muttered. “All three of them. But who...”

“And there's the million-dollar question you need to stop asking.” Sterling finally sat, but there was nothing soft about him. He was all hard edges and old scars. “Whatever rabbit hole you're diving down, it goes deeper than you could possibly understand. And trust me when I say this, son: some things, once you see 'em, you can't unsee. Some doors don't close once you've opened them.”

The implications settled like lead in my stomach. If Phoenix was opening doors that shouldn't be opened...

“I need you to get this through your thick skull,” Sterling continued, his voice low and dangerous. “This isn't about corporate espionage or unusual deaths anymore. You've caught someone's attention. Someone who doesn't fight fair and doesn't leave witnesses.”

“Sir...”

“Shut up and listen for once in your goddamn life,” he growled. “There are forces at work in this city that operate outside any playbook you've ever seen. They'll chew you up and spit you out without breaking stride. And all your moral high ground and good intentions won't mean jack when they come for you.”

“And what if those forces are hurting people?” I challenged, feeling that familiar fire rise up inside me. “What if innocent lives are at stake? Do we just look the other way because it's convenient?”

Sterling's face hardened, but something flickered in his eyes. Recognition, maybe. “You're a good agent, Cade. But good agents end up dead when they stick their noses where they don't belong.”

I didn't flinch. Maybe I should have, but exhaustion and stubborn determination had worn away my sense of self-preservation. “Sir, if we back off now, we'll never find out what they're doing.”

“You think I don't know that?” Sterling's voice was razor-sharp. “You think I like sitting on my hands while people die? But there's a bigger picture here, and you're too pigheaded to see it.”

“Then help me see it,” I fired back. “Because from where I'm standing, we have a job to do, and backing down isn't part of the description.”

Sterling stood abruptly, looming over the desk. “Consider this your one and only warning, Cross. You keep this up, and whatever happens next is on your head. I can't protect you and won't try if you're determined to commit suicide.”

I closed the file and stood, squaring my shoulders. “Noted, sir.”

Sterling stared me down, something like disappointment mixed with grudging respect in his expression. “Your daddy would've knocked some sense into you by now.”

I smiled thinly. “Guess I'm lucky he's not here then.”

Sterling didn't argue. That was almost worse than any warning he could have given. The weight of everything he wasn't saying followed me out of his office like a shadow.

The bullpen was filling up with morning shift agents, their voices a dull murmur of case updates and coffee requests. A few glanced my way as I passed, but most gave me a wide berth.

If they only knew.

Alana was waiting at my desk, her posture radiating the kind of focused intensity that meant she'd found something. She was one of the few people in the department who didn't treat me like I had some contagious form of career suicide. Probably because she was just as obsessed with unexplained patterns as I was, even if she approached them from a more analytical angle.

Her tablet was already in hand, dark eyes sharp behind stylish frames. No good morning, no small talk. Just: “You need to see this.”

I dropped into my chair, taking a sip of coffee that had gone from terrible to actively hostile. “Tell me it's good news for once.”

Her snort said everything about that possibility. “Define 'good.'” She spun her tablet around, pulling up a map of the city overlaid with data points I didn't immediately recognize. “Because if by 'good' you mean 'evidence that Phoenix is definitely up to something way above our pay grade,' then sure, it's fantastic.”

The map filled with glowing markers, each pulsing with a steady rhythm that made my eyes hurt if I looked too long. Something about the pattern tugged at my memory, but exhaustion made it hard to focus.

“What am I looking at?”

“Phoenix has been occupying abandoned buildings all across the city.” She tapped the screen, highlighting five specific locations. “They've installed unusual equipment at each site, drawing far more electrical power than any legitimate operation would need. And look at the pattern they're forming.”

I leaned closer, forcing my tired brain to concentrate. The markers formed a rough pentagon across Manhattan, each point corresponding to a property Phoenix had quietly acquired through shell companies. There was something familiar about this arrangement, something I'd seen recently but couldn't quite place.

“Son of a bitch,” I muttered, leaning closer to the screen.

“It gets worse.” Alana's fingers flew across her tablet, pulling up files marked with classification levels that would give our cybersecurity team collective heart attacks. “Every victim so far? They were all tied to something called 'Project Ascension.' And based on what I've managed to decrypt...” She hesitated, which was never a good sign from someone usually so direct.

“Define 'worse.'” I prompted, though part of me really didn't want to know.

She scrolled through recovered document fragments, each one making my blood run colder than the last. The technical language was dense, but certain phrases jumped out like neon warning signs:

Experimental energy field generation... Theoretical quantum displacement... Multiple subjects viable for project protocol...

My stomach churned as possibilities clicked into place. “This reads like some kind of experimental physics project.” The words tasted like ash in my mouth as I considered what Phoenix might actually be attempting.

Alana nodded grimly, her usual skepticism replaced by genuine concern. “That's what I thought too. But this isn't standard research. These power readings are off the charts, and the equipment they're installing... I've never seen anything like it. Whatever they're building, it's designed to create some kind of field or portal.”

The implications made my head spin. If Phoenix was really attempting some kind of experimental physics breakthrough using these five points across the city... No wonder Sterling had tried to warn me off. This wasn't just corporate crime anymore, this was potential catastrophe on a massive scale.

I drummed my fingers against my desk, mind racing through scenarios, each worse than the last. “Who else knows about this?”

“Officially?” Alana's smile held no humor. “No one. These files don't exist, this project doesn't exist, and if we start asking the wrong people about things that don't exist...” She let the sentence hang.

“We might not exist either,” I finished. “Yeah, that tracks with how my week's going.”

“What do you want to do with this?” Alana asked, her voice low. “Official channels aren't an option, not until we have more concrete evidence.”

I stared at the pattern on the screen, knowing there was more to this than experimental physics gone wrong. But Alana didn't need to know that part yet. Her data and analytical skills were invaluable, but dragging her deeper into this would put her at risk.

“Keep digging,” I said finally. “But carefully. Focus on paper trails, financial records, anything that can't be traced back to your searches. I need to check something else out.”

She raised an eyebrow. “You're going to one of these sites, aren't you?”

“Better you don't know,” I replied, already planning how to get Sean involved without raising Alana's suspicions. “Just keep this between us for now. I'll explain everything when I can.”

Alana didn't look happy, but she nodded. “Fine. But be careful, Cross. Whatever Phoenix is doing, it's not normal.”

My phone buzzed, and for a moment I thought it might be Sean with more cryptic warnings about ancient evils. But the name that flashed across my screen was even more surprising: Kai.

Call me. Urgent.

Kai never texted unless something was seriously wrong. And given what we'd just uncovered about Phoenix's extracurricular activities, “wrong” could mean anything from corporate conspiracy to literal hell breaking loose.

I grabbed my jacket, mind already moving to what Kai might have discovered. If he was reaching out now, after everything that had happened at the church...

Behind me, the map on Alana's tablet pulsed with five points of light. And somewhere in the city, in one of those locations, answers waited.

I just had to stay alive long enough to find them.

The elevator doors closed on the sight of Alana already back at work, her fingers flying across multiple screens as she dug deeper into Phoenix's secrets. In her own way, she was as much a hunter as Sean, tracking patterns, following trails of data instead of blood.

The Bell Tower Diner hadn't changed since we were kids, same cracked vinyl booths, same ancient coffee machines hissing steam, same flickering neon sign that made the whole place feel like a scene from an old noir film. It was our spot, had been since high school, when two scared kids needed somewhere safe to process the things they'd seen.

Back then, Kai had been the first person I trusted with my secrets, and he'd trusted me with his, including coming out as trans our junior year. We'd protected each other, fought each other's battles, faced down both human and supernatural monsters together.

Kai was already holding court in our usual corner booth, his pride flag pin catching the fluorescent light as he typed one-handed on his phone. Being one of the few openly trans consultants in private security hadn't slowed him down. Empty coffee cups suggested he'd been there a while. He looked up as I approached, and his usual easy smile faltered.

Twenty years of friendship gave him the right to that concerned look. We'd been inseparable since my grandparents took me in after my parents' deaths, two misfit kids finding solace in each other's company. Back then, before Kai's transition, we'd stay up late in Leo’s basement, surrounded by weapons neither of us understood. I didn't know why his father always carried silver knives or why their home was filled with strange books and artifacts. It wasn't until years later that Leo revealed himself as a hunter and began training us both. As Kai transitioned from female to male in his late teens, Leo had stood firmly behind his son, the monster-hunting knowledge passing from father to son as seamlessly as the family name Kai had always been meant to carry. Through Kai's hormone treatments, surgeries, and the rebuilding of his identity, he'd remained my steadfast ally, and I'd been his. He'd been my rock through everything, the nightmares, the training, my first hunt. He knew my demons better than anyone.

“Jesus, you look worse than usual,” he said by way of greeting, pushing a fresh mug toward me. “Though I guess that's what happens when you spend your nights chasing monsters.”

I slid into the booth, letting the familiar atmosphere wash over me. Here, surrounded by the smell of coffee and grilled cheese, it was almost possible to pretend the world was normal. That I hadn't spent last night fighting creatures that turned to ash when they died.

“Long night,” was all I said, but Kai knew me too well to let it go at that.

His eyes narrowed slightly as he refilled my coffee without being asked. I knew that look, he'd heard something. Kai's network of vampire informants kept him plugged into the city's supernatural pulse better than any police scanner. Whatever went down last night hadn't stayed quiet in certain circles.

He leaned forward, voice dropping low enough that the morning crowd of truckers and early shift workers couldn't hear. “Tell me you're not still chasing Phoenix.”

My silence was answer enough. The way his shoulders tensed told me he'd been hoping, probably praying, I'd have better sense.

“Christ, Cade.” He ran a hand down his face, a gesture so familiar it hurt. We'd been through too much together for him to sugar-coat his concern. “This isn't just some back-alley case you can solve with a badge and good intentions. You're stepping into deep water, and you don't even know what's swimming under the surface.”

I studied him over the rim of my coffee mug, noting the shadows under his eyes, the tension in his jaw. Kai didn't scare easily, hadn't since that night when we were kids, when we both learned the hard way that monsters were real. “You've heard something.”

He hesitated, glancing around the diner like he expected shadows to be listening. Maybe they were. Finally, he sighed, shoulders slumping slightly. “Yeah. Some of my contacts, the ones who deal in real bad shit? They're saying Phoenix isn't just dealing with one entity. They've got ties to multiple supernatural factions, some of which don't play by any rules we understand.”

It wasn't new information, but hearing it from Kai made it more real somehow. He'd always been my reality check, the voice of reason when I started diving too deep into cases that could get me killed.

“I get it, okay?” His voice softened, carrying the weight of shared history. “You want answers. After everything that happened... hell, I want them too. But don't let this consume you.” He paused, and I could hear the echo of old grief in his next words. “You already lost too much, Cade.”

Neither of us needed to say the name, but it hung in the air between us. Emma. Our third musketeer since middle school, the one who'd followed us into that abandoned factory five years ago, armed with nothing but a flashlight and unwavering loyalty. We'd been tracking what we thought was a single ghoul. We were wrong. I still heard her screams in my nightmares, still saw her face in the split second before she was pulled into the darkness. Three experienced hunters had gone in that night, but only two came out. Some nights I wondered if part of me was still in that factory too, trapped with her in the shadows.

I stared down at my coffee, watching steam curl upward like lost spirits. “If I walk away, more people die.”

“And if you don't?” Kai's voice carried an edge of desperate frustration. “What happens when whatever Phoenix is playing with decides you're asking too many questions? You think a badge will protect you from things that can tear reality apart?”

I met his gaze steadily. “Then I find the truth before it finds me.”

Kai exhaled sharply, then shook his head with a small, rueful smile that carried decades of friendship and shared nightmares. “You're the most stubborn bastard I know, you know that?”

“Wouldn't be me otherwise.” I managed a grin, but we both knew it was thin.

“Just...” Kai's voice pulled me back to the present. “Promise me you'll be careful.”

I nodded, grateful not for the first time that fate had given me a friend who understood this world, even if he tried to stay clear of it. “Thanks, Kai.”

“Don't thank me yet.” He pulled out his wallet, dropping bills on the table. “Just remember what happened to the last people who got too close to Phoenix's secrets. Whatever they're planning? Whatever they're trying to unlock? It's bigger than both of us.”

As he stood to leave, I caught his arm. “Kai? What aren't you telling me?”

He hesitated, then leaned down close to my ear. “Watch the churches at midnight. All of them. Something's coming, Cade. Something big. And Phoenix? They're just the beginning.”

Then he was gone, leaving me with cooling coffee and too many questions. Deep down, I knew he was right about one thing, I was already in too deep. But maybe that's exactly where I needed to be to find the truth.

The diner's ancient clock ticked steadily toward noon, each second bringing us closer to whatever Phoenix had planned. And somewhere in the city, in one of those five points of power, answers waited.

I just had to survive long enough to find them.