**Chapter 3: The Traitor in Our Midst**
Consciousness returned to Marverick in jagged pieces. The world swam into focus—a dim, claustrophobic room reeking of blood and burnt herbs, the air thick with the keening of the wounded. Fluorescent bulbs flickered overhead, their fractured light staining the walls the color of jaundice. Ava lay beside him on a stained cot, her chest rising in shallow hitches, a fresh gash snaking across her collarbone. Rachel hovered nearby, her hands steady but her eyes wild, suturing a man's arm with thread that glinted silver—angel-forged, Marverick realized. A luxury traded for blood.
"They hit the scavengers at dusk," Rachel murmured, not looking up. Her voice was frayed wire. "Ava sensed them, but the signal…it came twisted. Like static." She tied off a stitch with a savage jerk. "They're adapting."
Ava stirred, her fingers curling into the thin blanket. "It wasn't just interference," she rasped. Her pupils were blown wide, black swallowing green. "Something was *muffling* them. Hiding their stench." Her gaze slid past Marverick, hardening. "*Him.*"
The shadows at the back of the room shifted.
Elijah stepped forward like smoke given form—tall, broad-shouldered, a scar carving through his left brow like a crack in marble. His eyes were glacier-blue, sharp enough to draw blood, and his hair fell in ink-black waves that seemed to drink the light. A sword hung at his hip, its hilt wrapped in leather worn smooth by hands that had clearly killed. Many times.
"You've got a talent for trouble, kid," Elijah said, his voice a velvet rasp. He nodded to Ava, a smirk playing on his lips. "Both of you."
Rachel wiped her hands on a rag, forcing a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Elijah's kept us alive. Reinforced the gates. Taught us how to burn their nests."
Marverick's throat tightened. Ava had gone rigid, her dagger already half-drawn beneath the blanket. Elijah noticed, his smirk deepening. "Relax, hunter. I don't bite." He leaned against a rusted IV pole, the metal groaning. "Unless you want me to."
The room prickled with tension. Marverick's eyes dropped to Elijah's wrist as the man adjusted his cuff—a flash of ink, a serpentine symbol coiled like a noose. It pulsed faintly, a sickly green glow seeping from its edges. He'd seen that same mark in the tome's margins, scrawled beside a passage on *harbingers*—mortals who sold their souls to guide the Horde to prey.
Ava's boot pressed against Marverick's ankle under the cot. A silent scream: *Run*.
"Where'd you learn to fight?" Marverick asked, his voice too calm.
Elijah's smile didn't waver. "Same place you learn anything these days. The school of bite-back." He tilted his head, studying Marverick like a specimen. "Heard you've got a bedtime story about being the Chosen One. Cute."
"And you've got a demon's brand on your wrist."
The room froze.
Elijah's grin turned feral, his eyes flickering—just for a heartbeat—to obsidian voids swimming with stars. "Observant," he purred. "But you're missing the point." He spread his hands, the symbol on his wrist now fully exposed, throbbing like a second heart. "I'm not their lackey. I'm their *shepherd*. And you…" He stepped closer, the air curdling with the stench of burnt ozone. "…are the lamb."
Chaos erupted.
The windows shattered as winged abominations poured through, their flesh a patchwork of human and rot, teeth gnashing in too-wide jaws. Survivors screamed, trampling each other as Elijah's sword flashed, not at the demons—but at *them*. Rachel lunged for Ava, hauling her backward as a claw swiped the air where her head had been.
"*You promised they'd live!*" Rachel screamed at Elijah, her voice raw.
He laughed, parrying a survivor's panicked strike with ease. "I lied."
Marverick's vision tunneled. He grabbed a scalpel from a tray and charged, driven by a white-hot roar in his veins. Elijah sidestepped, fluid as shadow, his blade kissing Marverick's ribs—a shallow cut, a warning. "You're worth more breathing," he hissed. "But not *much* more."
Ava's snarl cut through the din. She'd broken free of Rachel, her dagger buried in a demon's eye socket. "*Maverick—MOVE!*"
He ducked as a gunshot rang out. Elijah staggered, crimson blooming on his shoulder—not red, but black, viscous and wrong. His shriek was a chorus of discordant voices, the walls trembling as his facade ruptured. Skin peeled back like parchment, revealing glimpses of something scaled and ancient beneath.
The demons swarmed, clawing toward Marverick. He scrambled backward, his hand closing on a fire axe lodged in the wall. Across the room, Ava fought like a storm, her blades a silver blur. But there were too many. Always too many.
Elijah straightened, his human mask resealing, though his eyes now burned like dying stars. "This is just the opening act, prophet," he spat. "Wait till you meet the headliner."
A hand grabbed Marverick's arm—Rachel, her face streaked with ash and tears. "The tunnels! *Now!*"
He didn't look back as they fled, Ava's ragged breaths at his side. But Elijah's laughter followed, a serpent coiling around his spine.
Somewhere in the dark, the tome in Marverick's bag whispered a truth he already knew:
*The traitor wasn't the end.*
*He was the beginning.*