Page 28

We track me walking to the hospital. Crossing streets. Going around corners.

But as I get within a block of where the woman intercepted me, the cameras end.

“Fuck,” Sysco curses as he sits back. “So damn close. We almost had her face!”

“How is she such a threat to the overall population?” Roman asks. He’s frustrated. It was a good plan, a good thought. And we were just seconds away from capturing her face.

“You ever heard of the Steele family?” Ares asks.

“No,” Roman answers honestly.

Sysco gives them a quick recap of the extermination their family went through.

“So, she really can do some damage,” Juliet says, her tone sounding far away. Her gaze is fixed on the floor, as if she’s picturing horrible things happening.

“Yeah, she can,” Sysco says. “Fuck.”

“Exactly what we need,” Ares says, his gaze turning back to the screens. “A ticking clock to find a slippery snake, and the looming threat to all of us.”

Bad. It’s really, really damn bad.

“One crisis at a time,” I say as I square my shoulders. “We can’t fix all of the problems at once. First, we find James and Markus.”

We head to the two buildings James had the blueprints for.

The first is a very commercial building, one Ares has owned for just over a year.

There’s two restaurants on the main floor, two floors of offices, and then half a dozen floors of apartments.

We head straight to the basement and start looking.

Without knowing exactly what we’re looking for, it’s hard to be certain if it is or isn’t there.

But all of us, myself, Ares, Roman, Juliet, and Sysco, comb through every square inch of the basement.

It’s relatively empty. A few storage boxes and some forgotten parts, there’s the heating and cooling system mechanics and a massive electrical panel.

But from what we can see, there’s nothing to indicate any space where a chest full of bones might be hidden.

We head to the second building.

The air outside the Midtown building hums with the white noise of the city. Taxis honk in the distance. Somewhere farther north, a siren wails. But all I can hear is the quiet tension buzzing between the five of us.

"We were talking about starting renovations on this building,” Ares mutters as he stares up at the building. “James had all kinds of ideas.”

"And you didn’t think that was suspicious?" Sysco asks, raising a brow.

Ares cuts him a look. “At the time? No. It’s what my company does. He worked for me. It was his job."

Except James had an ulterior motive.

Roman exhales slowly beside Juliet. His arms are crossed over his chest, eyes scanning every inch of the facade. “Well, let’s see what your right-hand man was really up to."

This is purely a residential building. There is no doorman, so at least we don’t have to talk our way in, even though Ares owns the building. We walk right on in and head to the stairs behind a closed door. The air is colder, and the proof of the building’s age is instant.

A chill works its way down my arms as we descend, and it feels a little like stepping back in time. I imagine Thaddeus visiting this building at night, when the work crews had left, coming through the skeleton of the building for a place to hide something ancient and sinister.

When we step out onto the floor of the sub-basement, the mood shifts. The light flickers overhead. Paint peels in strips down the walls. It smells like metal and mildew.

"Charming," Juliet mutters.

We move through a hallway, checking doors as we go.

There are old boxes down here, though not many.

There’s a few forgotten pieces of furniture.

There are old buckets of paint and a few trashed tools.

Finally, at the end of the hall, we find a locked maintenance door.

Ares pulls up something on his phone. He owns dozens of buildings; there’s no way he’s got every code for every place memorized.

A few seconds later, he finds what he’s looking for and keys in a code. It buzzes open.

Inside is a storage area filled with discarded drywall sheets, rusted pipes, and coils of wire. No surveillance cameras. No signs of recent construction. But the dust on the floor—it's wrong. There's a faint trail where something heavy was dragged.

Roman crouches down, eying it. "These are fresh. I’d say in the last day or so."

We follow the trail around a corner.

It’s damn obvious when we spot it.

There’s a section of wall that’s been broken up by the sledgehammer leaning against the wall. There is a crack stretching out from it, along the wall, that makes me nervous to be down here in this basement.

But there is a wide-open maw in the concrete, and inside it is a small chamber, maybe four feet wide, three feet deep, and three feet tall.

“I think we found the place,” Sysco says as he blows out air between his lips and rubs a hand through his hair.

“Not before James retrieved the bones,” Roman states.

Because the secret chamber is empty.

Inside, there’s a clear square on the floor, dust showing the place the chest rested for nearly a century. But there’s a path disturbing it and it’s clear to tell where it was retrieved and pulled from its hiding place.

Ares clenches his jaw. "He has them. He found the bones, and we probably just missed it by hours."

"And now he has Markus," I whisper. My skin goes cold.

Roman steps back, folding his arms over his chest. "He's got everything he needs. We’re not hunting for the bones anymore. We're hunting the resurrection."

"And we have no idea where or when that will happen," Sysco adds grimly.

We stare at the empty alcove for a long time. The silence feels final.

Ares' voice is low, guttural. "We’re running out of time."

I can feel the weight of it. The absence of those bones screams louder than any siren.

We turn and go. But the gravity of the situation is suffocating.

He’s already moving. And we’re just trying to catch his shadow.