Monday.
October 28th.
Almost midnight.
The road stretched forward like a strip of wet ink spilled across the countryside, gleaming faintly under the headlights of a black sedan cutting through the dark. There were no streetlights out here. No houses. No distant city glow to soften the horizon. Just fields flattened into shadow and a sky that felt too wide for comfort.
Inside the car, the air was thick.
Malcolm's hands clutched the steering wheel tighter than necessary. His knuckles had gone pale beneath the dim dashboard light, fingers slick with sweat despite the cold. He could hear himself breathing, sharp inhales that fogged faintly against the windshield before the defroster swallowed the evidence.
"Quiet down," the man in the passenger seat muttered. "You're making it worse."
Malcolm shot him a glare without turning his head. "If you're so calm," he snapped under his breath, "you can come drive the car."
The words came out harsher than he intended, edged with panic.
The man beside him scoffed. "I'm not the one hyperventilating."
"Oh, I'm sorry," Malcolm hissed, tightening his grip as the tires rolled over uneven asphalt. "Should I be thrilled about this?"
The tension between them crackled, brittle and dangerous.
"Enough."
The voice from the back seat did not need to be loud to command obedience. Yet it was loud, cutting cleanly through their argument like a blade through silk.
Both men fell silent instantly.
Malcolm's eyes flicked to the rearview mirror.
The older man sat in the center of the back seat, posture composed, hands resting atop a polished leather briefcase positioned carefully across his lap. He was shorter than either apprentice, his frame plump beneath the tailored suit concealed by a white ceremonial cloak. His face was round, fleshy, and calm in a way that felt deliberate rather than natural.
High Priest O'Malley of Los Angeles.
Even in the dim lighting, Malcolm could see the faint sheen of perspiration at the priest's temples. Not fear, perhaps. But not comfort either.
The road continued to unwind beneath them.
Behind their car, another pair of headlights followed at a measured distance. Three more apprentices rode in that vehicle, silent witnesses to whatever the night would bring.
Five apprentices total.
Malcolm swallowed.
He took a long breath, forcing air deep into his lungs, willing his heart to slow. The engine hummed steadily beneath them. The tires whispered against pavement. Somewhere in the distance, wind moved through unseen trees.
Then he saw it.
At first, it appeared as a darker shape against the darkness. Then as something structured. Towering.
The cathedral.
It rose ahead of them like a fossilized beast pulled from the earth, its silhouette jagged and unnatural against the night sky. There were no surrounding buildings. No neighboring roads. Just the structure, isolated and waiting.
Malcolm's stomach tightened.
Earlier that evening.
The sun had been setting when they were summoned.
O'Malley's office had always smelled faintly of incense and old wood polish. Shelves lined with books in dead languages. Framed documents bearing seals no government would publicly acknowledge. Heavy curtains drawn halfway across tall windows, allowing only streaks of dying orange light to cut through the dim interior.
All five apprentices had stood in front of the desk.
And they had never seen the High Priest look that way before.
O'Malley's hands had been clasped too tightly. His lips pressed into a thin line.
"I have made a mistake," he had said.
No one spoke.
The word mistake did not belong in his vocabulary.
"It concerns recent findings," he continued carefully. "And certain logistical miscalculations."
The phrasing was precise, measured, yet hollow.
Malcolm remembered the way the others had exchanged glances. Panic barely concealed beneath disciplined posture. Something had gone wrong. Something significant.
"The Supreme Head has been informed."
The temperature in the room seemed to drop.
Malcolm had shifted slightly. "The Supreme Head?"
Four of the apprentices looked at him as if he had just revealed a fatal ignorance.
O'Malley's gaze had settled on him.
"You do not know who she is," the priest said quietly.
Malcolm had shaken his head.
A pause.
Then, in a tone so calm it felt heavier than a scream, O'Malley had answered.
"She is the devil herself."
No one laughed.
No one breathed.
The words had not been metaphorical. Not poetic. Not exaggerated.
They had been factual.
Malcolm had felt confusion before fear. Devil? Surely that was symbolic. A title. A theatrical exaggeration within the inner hierarchy.
But the other apprentices had looked genuinely terrified.
That was when the unease began to settle into his bones.
The car rolled to a stop.
The cathedral loomed before them fully now.
Its architecture resembled something ancient, reminiscent of the great European cathedrals, with high spires and pointed arches that clawed at the sky. Yet there was something wrong about it. The stone was darker, almost damp in appearance, as though it had absorbed centuries of rain and secrets. Gargoyles crouched along the ledges, their features too sharp, too detailed in ways that felt intentional rather than decorative.
Dim lights flickered from within the stained glass windows. The colors were not warm. They were sickly, muted greens and bruised purples that pulsed faintly like something breathing behind the glass.
The structure did not feel abandoned.
It felt aware.
Malcolm stepped out of the car.
Cold air hit him immediately, sharp and metallic against his tongue. The wind carried a faint scent of wet stone and something older, something almost sweet but rotting at its core.
The second car arrived behind them. The remaining apprentices stepped out, adjusting their white cloaks in silence.
O'Malley exited last, gripping his briefcase firmly.
"Fix your hoods," he instructed quietly.
They obeyed.
As Malcolm adjusted the fabric over his head, O'Malley's voice pulled him into another memory.
Just before departure.
The High Priest had gathered them one final time.
"You will walk behind me at all times," he had said, pacing slowly before them. "You will remain close. When we enter her presence, you will kneel in a straight line behind me."
His eyes had hardened.
"If she offers you something, you will accept it. Immediately. Without hesitation."
One apprentice had swallowed audibly.
"I have prepared what to say," O'Malley continued. "It will de escalate the situation. If all proceeds as intended, we will return by three in the morning."
Three a.m.
Such a normal time for something that felt anything but normal.
Back in the present, figures emerged from the cathedral's entrance.
At first Malcolm thought they were shadows.
Then he realized they were guards.
They wore black cloaks that swallowed the light around them. Their hoods were raised, concealing their faces completely. Yet as they approached, Malcolm noticed something that made his chest tighten.
There were no faces.
Where skin should have been, where eyes and mouths should have existed beneath the hood, there was only darkness. Not fabric shadow. Not depth.
Smoke.
Black smoke drifted lazily from within the hood openings, curling outward in thin, whispering tendrils before dissipating into the night air. It did not move like breath. It moved like something alive, coiling and uncoiling without wind.
If the cloaks were removed, Malcolm was certain there would be nothing inside them.
Just smoke.
His pulse began to hammer again.
The guards said nothing. They simply turned and gestured.
The group followed.
Inside, the cathedral was vast.
The ceilings arched impossibly high, ribbed vaults stretching upward like the skeleton of some enormous creature. Stained glass windows towered along the walls, depicting scenes Malcolm did not recognize, figures with too many wings, too many eyes, too many expressions frozen between agony and ecstasy.
The air smelled of incense thick enough to taste. Bitter. Metallic.
Their footsteps echoed across the stone floor as they passed the main nave. Rows of empty pews extended endlessly on either side, perfectly aligned yet coated in a thin layer of dust that suggested no ordinary congregation ever sat there.
At the altar, candles burned with green flames.
Green.
Not yellow. Not orange.
The flames flickered without smoke, casting elongated shadows that writhed unnaturally against the walls.
They did not stop.
The guards led them past the altar and toward a staircase descending behind it.
Underground.
The temperature dropped with each step.
Malcolm felt the space widening as they descended, the air opening up rather than closing in. The basement was enormous, easily rivaling the cathedral above in scale. Stone corridors branched outward in multiple directions.
They passed iron doors set into the walls. Some bore scratch marks. Others had small barred windows through which darkness breathed.
Malcolm kept his eyes forward.
He did not want to know.
The guards continued until the corridor opened into something massive.
The throne room.
Six pillars lined each side of the hall, twelve in total, stretching upward to support a ceiling lost in shadow. Between them, green flames burned in suspended braziers, their light reflecting off polished black stone floors that mirrored everything like a distorted lake.
At the far end sat an altar platform.
Upon it rested a throne.
Though throne felt inaccurate.
It was shaped more like a luxurious lounge, curved and elongated, upholstered in dark material that seemed to shift subtly as if alive.
And on it, reclined a woman.
She wore a cloak darker than the guards', its fabric draped around her form in effortless folds. She did not sit rigidly. She lounged with feline fluidity, one arm resting lazily along the side, posture relaxed yet predatory.
Waiting.
The guards stopped.
A whisper filled the air.
Not from one direction. From everywhere. Layered voices overlapping in tones too low to decipher yet unmistakably commanding.
Kneel.
The word did not sound spoken. It felt placed directly into Malcolm's skull.
They obeyed.
Malcolm lowered himself carefully, forming a straight line perpendicular to the throne, directly behind O'Malley as instructed. From this position, she would see the High Priest clearly, and beyond him, all five apprentices aligned in submission.
The guards stepped backward.
Then they were gone, dissolving into the shadows behind the pillars as though they had never been solid to begin with.
Silence settled.
It pressed against Malcolm's ears until he could hear his own heartbeat again.
As he knelt there, staring at the polished stone floor, memory crept back in despite himself.
He had been at a party.
Bright lights. Expensive champagne. Laughter too loud and meaningless. He had always been good at speaking, at weaving words into something persuasive. Old money ran in his veins. Generations of inheritance had cushioned his life from consequence.
O'Malley had approached him that night quietly.
He had handed Malcolm a jade letter.
The envelope had been smooth, cool to the touch.
"This is an opportunity," O'Malley had said. "If you wish to be enlightened."
Malcolm had opened it.
Inside were symbols. Coordinates. A promise.
He would learn the secrets of the world.
He would see what others could not.
He would become unstoppable.
And he had.
He had witnessed things that defied logic. Phenomena he could only describe as magic. Rituals that bent probability. Knowledge that made governments seem like children playing at control. That would rival even the supernatural that had become so... Natural.
But never, not once, had he imagined kneeling here.
Before the Supreme Head.
Before the devil herself.
He did not know what she looked like beneath that hood.
But he was about to find out.