The heavy oak door clicked shut behind me, the sound swallowed by the thick carpet and the oppressive quiet of the room.

Griff didn't look up from the tumbler of amber liquid cradled in his hand. He was sitting behind a large desk and bathed in the warm pool cast by a single green banker's lamp. There was an expensive rug underfoot, probably Persian, and definitely older than me. I was a little concerned to see unusually thick shadows gathering in the corners of the room, which seemed to swirl out of sync with the light. I didn't think they were remotely normal.

He didn't offer me a seat, and I didn't intend to take one.

"If you're here to piss in my ear and tell me it's raining," Griff said, finally lifting his gaze and pinning me with a glare, "you better get on with it. I have things to be doing. You know how it is."

I opened my mouth to speak, but then stopped. Weirdly, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to say. Which was actually quite ridiculous. I'd played out this little confrontation so many times in my head and now, here I was, with the boss's face within punching distance, and I'd gone all shy. I licked my suddenly dry lips. "You first." Ah, classic. Proper banter that was.

[System: Target 'Griff' — unreadable

Error: NULL_SIGNATURE. Minimap anchor: jitter]

[Observer Entities: 3. O₃ (familiar) proximity ↑]

Griff smiled and then gestured vaguely with the glass towards a leather armchair angled towards the desk. My teeth gritted at what a casual and disarming gesture that was. Like this was just another post-mission debrief. I stayed standing. My feet felt planted, rooted to the spot, and refusing the implied command. My days of being told what to do by this man were well and truly over.

Griff sighed and sat up a little straighter, letting his eyes travel up and down my frame. It was a slow, assessing sweep that felt less like examining the well-being of his protege and more like he was inspecting livestock.

"Well, it look's like there's quite a story here, isn't there?" he said, a flicker of something unreadable in his eyes. "One quick trip to Worcestershire and you come back half a foot taller and with all your recently developed softness turned to muscle overnight. What happened? Does Ozempic do lethality now?"

"You know how it is, boss," I replied, keeping my face blank. "Sometimes betrayal has a transforming effect on a fellow." Even as I said it, I didn't like that line. It was too melodramatic. I'd wanted this scene to play out without any resort to cliché. It was funny how standing here, before him, stripped away all the gains I'd made in Bayteran.

Griff smiled and took a slow sip of his drink, clearly savouring it. "Now don't be sore. Big things were coming, lad," he said, his tone shifting, taking on a counterfeit weariness, like a father disappointed in a wayward son. "And we both know you'd gone off the boil. It was an easy decision, but I thought putting you down was the kindest thing. Like the end of Old Yeller. I wasn't sure it would be necessary until I got word you were running. And, while we're being all blamey about things, you should take a moment of quite reflection and consider that if I were able to get word of you rabbiting, work out where you were going and get an asset in play to take you down, it was a humane and necessary hit. You'd lost your edge."

The simile nearly made me laugh. Nearly. "You decided to have me shot because I barked at thunder."

Griff shrugged, a minute shift of expensive tailoring. "Lad, you'd become a dog who'd forgotten how to bite. Sending Katya after you was a kindness." He wasn't apologising. He was justifying. Worse, he probably believed it. Worser still, I think I saw where he was coming from.

[System Notice: Quest 'Shadow Orbs' — Completed (corrupted).

Reward: PENDING]

[System Error: A13_GUARDIAN_ABSENT. Abilities may flicker.]

"You didn't think about talking to me about it first? I mean, call me a bluff old traditionalist, but maybe a mentor-to-mentee chat might have been in order before calling in the cleaning squad?"

"What do you think we are, lad? A country club? You were messing up left, right and centre. This isn't a job where you get graded on a curve. I let the first dropped ball go. I got concerned when the second hit the floor. And the third meant I needed to put things in play. The only surprise in the whole thing is how it all shook out. Katya was good."

"Yeah," I said. "She was. Didn't bounce too well, though. But I'm not here just because you tried to have me killed, boss." I pointed at the strange shadows lurking on his side of the desk. Was it just my imagination or were there more of them now. "And I think you know that."

Griff settled back, swirling his whisky again. "Look, lad, let's dispense with the wounded pride. All of this," he waved a dismissive hand, encompassing the shadowed room. The world outside. Everything. "Is just another opportunity. A business transaction. Certainly parties have made representations to me and I've been pleased to throw in my lot with them."

"As simple as that?"

"As simple as that. What have I always told you? Never let your ideals get in the way of a good deal. And, from what I understand, there's little downside in having the Veil pulled aside."

To hear him say that made me start. I don't think I'd heard anyone suggest the absence of the Veil would be a good thing for Earth.

He obviously saw the surprise on my face. "Oh, do get off your high horse, lad. We're not living in the world of white knights and black devils. The Veil is a suffocation mask across Earth and we're stagnating under it. Rotting in cosy complacency. It's been represented to me that if the night is properly opened up again, the way it used to be, then we'll get a return to the friction of the past. We'll reopen innovation! Selection. Proper purpose."

"Seriously?"

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

"Seriously. You must recognise that, lad. It's our trade after all. Things have become far too comfy, meaning the weak cling and drag us down. We have the opportunity here to recreate the traditions where the strong once more lead! Humanity doesn't thrive in a nursery. It thrives on pushing back the frontier."

"And that's why you've thrown in your lot with monsters?"

"Don't be naïve, lad. There's a power dynamic shifting here. It's been shown to me that forces are stirring that make our little games of pick-up and drop-off look like playground squabbles. And you know what? I prefer a door honestly open to one dishonestly shut. That thinning you feel? That pressure? It's opportunity knocking, lad. The Kohë-therës is coming and I won't to be on its side when it does."

He named it without flinching, the word itself seeming to make the shadows in the room deepen and press closer. "It's a natural process, really. An astrological alignment that's older than civilisation itself. The way I figure it, we either help it return and be involved in managing the transition, or we'll be the guys on the wrong team when it all kicks off. And I don't fancy being trapped in the dark with the lights going out."

[System: ROLLBACK_DENIED — Kohë-therës signature present.]

[Veil Pressure: ↑ (room). Water vector: nearby.]

He was dangling the lure, wasn't he? The promise of purpose. Of belonging. Come back under my wing, Eli. I wasn't wild about what it said about me that, despite everything I'd seen and been through since Katya had double-tapped me, I didn't immediately reject it.

But then Aunt M's face swam into focus, and I shook my head.

"A wise woman once told me that you don't need to fear the dark if you have a bright enough light," I said. 'She liked to quote a line from a book which said, 'keep that light in your eye, and go up directly thereto.' She also said doors ought to be honest. By being closed when it's night."

Griff offered a humourless smile. "I never saw the attraction of Pilgrim's Progress, myself, lad. I was always more of a Paradise Lost sort. Also, and I mean this with all love, where is that wise woman now? Things didn't work out too well for her, did they?"

At that, the shadows seemed to thicken further and the air grew colder. The very fabric of the room felt… reactive.

[Observer O₃ registers: reactive to "Guardian".]

[System: Guardian lineage detected — Sponsor: PENDING.]

He leaned forward then, resting his elbows on the middle of his polished desk. "So, is this intended to be some sort of vengeance beat? Are you here to show me the error of my ways? Put old Griff back on the straight and narrow?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "But I want the why. And then I think I'm going to do my best to stop what's coming." If I still could.

He obviously could hear the uncertainty in my voice. The flicker of doubt. Swayable. He pushed that bit harder. "You always did want the bigger picture, Eli. Remember? All those times you were frustrated by the petty jobs. The small stakes. And that's what I've got sight of now. The proper 'grand design.' Don't go parish when the cathedral needs staff. Why don't we put a pin in the last twenty-four hours, and you get to come back. No harm, no foul. There's real work to be done. Proper work."

"Are you kidding me? You ordered me killed this time yesterday!"

"I never took you to be someone who'd let a little thing like a couple of sanctioned hits get in the way of the next big payday."

"A couple of hits?"

"What?"

"You said a couple of hits."

There was a beat of silence which stretched between us, filled only by the soft click of the whisky glass against the desk.

"Did you have anything to do with my aunt's death?" The question hung there, raw and direct.

Griff actually frowned at that, a genuine expression this time, creasing the skin around his eyes. "Who do you think I am? I'm not the mafia, lad. I don't murder maiden aunts to, what?, send some sort of message. I put down operatives who go soft. I was talking about the team I sent to the back and beyond of Worcestershire this morning. I presume you dealt with them?"

That made sense to me, I guess. He'd always tended to draw a line between the professional and the personal. Systemic correction was his domain. Straight-forward. Impersonal. Monstrous.

Then the lights flickered. Once, twice, then settled, but everything was noticeably dimmer than before. Tiny dust motes, like specks of drying ink, drifted through the air, moving against the imperceptible draft from the window. That was weird. At the same time, the expensive rug seemed to grip the soles of my boots.

My focus was starting to fray. I'd come in here with a clear plan, but something was changing. And the System glitches were getting worse, more intrusive.

[System: Rewards — PENDING.

Observer count: 3 (mask intact, mask intact, familiar).]

Griff noticed my distraction immediately. "Look at you," he said, almost pityingly. "New height and new shoulders but the same unpatched holes." He steepled his fingers. "Join us, Eli. I can promise you'll find things an awful lot easier than trying to fight what's coming. What's already nearly here, tell the truth."

My blood ran cold. "What did you let in, boss?"

"What I've always let in, lad. Leverage."

As he spoke, his shadow on the wall behind him seemed to lag, catching up a fraction of a second too late. Across the room, perched on a filing cabinet, a bronze statue of an eagle, wings half-spread, seemed to flex one stony pinion.

[System Error: HOST_DESCRIPTOR_OFFLINE.

Note: Shadow cohabitation suspected.]

Okay. New plan. Stall. Keep him talking. "This doesn't sound like you, boss," I said, forcing lightness into my tone. "What's happened to the real you? You're sounding like a bloke selling timeshare in a flood zone."

"Floods make new maps," Griff said. "And when that happens, it's the cartographers who get paid."

"Which is great, right up until you drown!"

"Well, maybe I'll get the System to grant me a set of gills. Look, as much as I've enjoyed this little catch-up session, I have things to do. You know how it is. Shall we get on with it?"

[System: Shadow (Entry) — SET. Dwelling/Leaving: PENDING.]

"I'm not here to save your soul, Griff," I said, stepping back slightly, testing the feel of the room and reaching for my gear set. "I'm here to keep the kick ass and take names."

"Goodness, really," he replied, his gaze drifting towards the inner office door behind his desk. "You want those to be your last words? I thought I trained you better." The shadows there seemed deeper, colder. A faint smell, damp stone and old coins, tickled my nose.

Then the temperature plunged, cold enough now that my breath plumed visibly. The lamp on the desk hummed with a high, frantic whine. The eagle statue's stone eyelid crumbled, showering fine dust onto the cabinet. And in the corner, something shimmered, its mask dissolving to reveal something slick and featureless beneath.

[System Alert: Warden ping — weak. Veil membrane thinning.]

Then, cutting through the sudden tension came a scream that was not human. It was an off-frequency shriek that sawed at the edges of my hearing, seeming to come from inside the walls. The inner office door bowed inward, wood groaning like a lung gasping for air.

The eagle statue's wing unfurled fully, stone dust snowing down, revealing glossy black ink shifting beneath the fractured surface. Its eye opened, black and depthless. At the same time, the wall behind Griff popped, releasing more of that coppery smell again.

A dark seam split the plaster. A hand – pale, long-fingered and dripping something dark – reached through the tear. Something was shifting out there in three-dimensional space.

[Alert!: Kohë-therës present.]

Griff didn't turn. A small, almost fond smile touched his lips. "Told you, lad. Big things. Are coming."

The shadow behind Griff lunged.

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