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"Exordium Insaniam was a mythical cult thought to have helped Alaric of the Visigoths sack Rome in the early 400 CE. Though historians cannot ascertain their existence nor find evidence of their assistance to the barbarians, legends from the time period state that dark-hooded, knife-eared (possible intersection of Nordic mythos, see annotations) members of the Exordium were responsible for the religious turmoil tearing bonds in the Empire's holdings. They used witchcraft to sow dissent amongst the Roman soldiers and were present when the Visigoths destroyed the city of Rome. Their ultimate goal was, reportedly, the end of the Roman Empire and the collapse of ancient society...."

I sighed as I clicked off the paid reference site, having stolen in through an old password I still remembered from university to read the archives. I'd been sitting at my booth in the busy café for an hour or so, drinking coffee and searching the web for any mention of the cult. There wasn't much to be found, and what little I could dredge up spoke of mythical origins, of demons who helped kill Caesar or rode with Attila or whispered their occult lies in the ears of Hitler. If there was a grain of truth to any of it, I couldn't find it. Monstrous as Tara's murderers may be, they were human. Completely human.

My laptop closed with a snap and I polished off the remnants of my coffee. I was due to return to Klau's main desk—but I figured it mattered little whether I returned on time or not. The automated answering machine redirected calls better than I could, anyway.

I shoved my laptop into my bag again and slung it onto my shoulder. After gathering the empty cup, I rose—and, as I passed through one of the cramped walkways, my purse slipped on my arm and caught the edge of a table. The binder position there hit the floor, scattering papers everywhere, and a porcelain mug dumped steaming coffee in the businessman's lap.

"Sh—I'm so sorry!" I apologized, kneeling to shuffle and stack the fallen documents. My purse landed on the man's foot with a solid thunk. Brilliant, Sara. Just brilliant.

It must have been professional curiosity that drew my eye to the heading of the man's paperwork. I was a clerical office worker, so I naturally handled a wealth of documents on a daily basis, and my eye took in the highlighted details before I could think not to. They were official papers, the company's bold name, G&R Supplies and Distribution, listed at the very top. I'd never heard of the company before, but given Verweald's size and the host of businesses located there, I could hardly be surprised.

The man's hand descended to snatch the papers from me. "Give me those!" he sniped, dabbing at the growing coffee stain left on his pin-striped pants. I was in the middle of another apology when he lifted his arm and the ring upon his index finger caught the light. My heart stopped.

Those...those hands—.

My gaze rose to his face. Thin, fresh scars adorned his brow and cheeks, curling upward into his vanishing hairline—and a white medical patch covered his left eye.

The same eye I plunged my own thumb through. It was the man who killed my sister.

Stunned, I didn't react when he pale and shot from his seat, dashing for the door. I blinked, gasped, and bolted after him, leaving the gaggle of confused coffee drinkers behind. The street was crowded with office workers either taking or returning from their lunch break. They swarmed the sidewalk, chatting and hurrying along, oblivious to the monster they let slip into their ranks.

"No," I breathed as I pushed people out my way, turning on the spot as I tried to find where the man had vanished to. "No, dammit!" I'd been so close. The bastard had been inches from me! Why did I hesitate? Why? Why couldn't I find him? He couldn't have gotten far, he had to be—.

I leaped onto a convenient planter, ignoring the outraged shouts of the people I used as leverage. Craning my neck, I spotted the cultist's retreating back moving swiftly down the boulevard. He had a phone clutched to his ear. I jumped from my perch and followed him, unwilling to let the murderer out of my sight.

Darius, I thought as I ran and dodged the flood of Verwealdians. I willed him to appear with all my being. The cultist was close, but I knew he could slip through my grasp so easily in the dense networks of alleyways and byways that trekked Verweald's undersides. Darius! Darius, please!

"Allow yourself to be afraid." The Sin had said. "Allow your fear to take you. I will...sense it. I will come."

But I wasn't afraid; I was panicked, anxious—scared I to lose the man, but the deep-seated terror that would summon the Sin of Pride to me remained elusive. When I saw the cultist duck onto a side-street, I did the same. He was forced into a run, throwing whatever obstacles he could in my way, but he was slower than me. I gained on the puffing, fleeing man, but I didn't know what to do once I caught him. I felt like a dog chasing a car.

"Fear," I panted as I ran, my fingers clutching the strap of my bag to hold it like a shield against my wounded side. The man threw his phone. It struck the asphalt in the middle of a quiet stretch of street and shattered. "I feel fear. I'm afraid—Darius, dammit, I'm afraid!"

The cultist swung off the road into an alleyway. My heart sunk, but I pushed aside my dread and continued to follow him. I wouldn't—couldn't—be deterred. Not now, not when I was this close, no matter how stupid it was to do this alone. I couldn't let him go.

The alley was wider and cleaner than many of the others I had seen in Verweald. By now we had passed the vestiges of the industrial office buildings and had entered commercial territory, where the streets were vacant of people during the middle of the workday. As I rounded the corner, convinced I was only yards away from the murderer, I slid to a halt when I found the alley empty.

"No!" I shouted as I slid to a stop on the gritty walkway. "No, you monster!"

Shouting my objections into the crossing breeze did little good. Sweat trickled from my hairline, spurred on by the sweltering afternoon heat as I continued to jog. He couldn't have so thoroughly evaded me. The man had been mere feet away when he had disappeared. He was close—and I would find him.

I crossed a gated driveway and spun in place, trying to stay alert to every sound and movement. The sudden backfiring of a car jolted me, and I turned on my heels. I winced as I was saturated in the overwhelming color of a van's red taillights. The van was parked just past the driveway's sloped approach. The loading doors were open, and as I turned, I glimpsed the waiting dark.

"No—!"

A body slammed into mine, wrenching it forward into the van's innards, my knees clipping the bumper as I hit the filthy floor. My attacker's weight followed, pinning me as the van's engine roared and the tires wailed on the pavement. A male voice rose in exclamation. "Go, go!"

There was a second person in the back of the van. They struggled to shut the flagging doors when the van jolted into motion. When they finally managed to seal us inside, I felt as though they were closing the lid to my proverbial coffin.

Oh God, I thought, gasping at the pain sweeping from my knees through my abdomen. This is it. I'm terrified—I'm so terrified. Please, Darius—!

My attacker bent his arm around my neck and rolled us. I resisted, fighting his grip as the van hit a turn at full speed and sent us flying into the vehicle's side. The man's body softened my impact—a grunt of air escaping the mouth by my ear when I crashed into his middle. I smelt cologne. The sleeve beneath my questing hands was slick, made from a smooth, silky material. My fingers curled upon a cufflink.

Even in my panicked delirium, that struck me as...odd.

"Jesus, Calvin!" the other man cried, stumbling like a newborn calf as he tried to find his balance. His voice was pitched high, petrified. "Hold us steady!" Though the windows in the back of the van were painted over, enough light spilled in through the small grate separating the carriage from the bed for me to discern the glint of metal.

The man had a gun, and he was trying to get a clean shot.

My foot lashed out. I snarled as I bit into the first man's fleshy arm and my heel kicked the second man's wrist. The gun sharply rose and fired into the window, prompting a squeal from its handler. Glass rained over us, and the invisible driver swerved, swearing.

"Is it done? Is it done?!"

The man with his arm caught between my jaws groaned, trying to pry me loose. My teeth sunk in deeper and his grip finally loosened. I launched myself at the man with the gun and we collided with the opposing wall. His head cracked the window and the gun fired again, winging the first cultist. The tires screamed and horns blared as the van hit another wild turn.

I took a breath. The inching darkness that occasional caressed my thoughts writhed in the recesses of my consciousness. I tasted ash upon my tongue.

A sudden blow struck the van and its side caved in the metal, the whole of it shaking, the resulting boom ringing in my ears. For a second, we were airborne. The moment hung suspended, transfixed as I floated between the walls of my cage and the two cultists, my hair in my face, smelling of orchids and green things, the cultist's clammy hand tightened upon my shirt's front. Broken glass spiraled and glinted like stars in the night sky.

Then, we landed.

The van tipped up on two wheels and rolled. I slammed into the first cultist hard enough to nearly knock the man senseless. The second landed on me, and the van screeched, sliding on its side across the asphalt, tearing at the metal as the windows shattered, and for a moment, I thought the frame wouldn't hold. Black pavement whipped by inches from my face. I and the two cultists would be little more than pulped streaks on the roadway, but then another blow hit the van, jolting us, and it rolled a final time. The top of my head smacked something solid in the resulting tumult. My vision blurred.

It was over in seconds. The van shuddered the final few feet, then lay silent like a downed antelope, seething with injury and red-lined sparks. More glass shattered from somewhere in the van's cab. The driver shouted—then began to scream, and I'd never heard such a horrid sound in my entire life. A deep thrumming filled the air. It was as if I sat in the belly of some ferocious creature, and its guttural howl surrounded me. Frost nipped my fingers.

I couldn't see him, but I felt Darius's presence—and the driver's ghastly cries would haunt my nightmares.

Fresh sunlight spilled through the windows, and the second cultist scrambled to his feet, threw the bent doors open—and ran for dear life. I caught a glimpse of a gangling, red-headed man before a hand wove itself into my hair and jerked my head around. The first cultist held my face to his, his green eyes bulging and bloodshot.

"Why couldn't you just die?" he demanded as he shook his meaty fist. I could see little through my tangled hair, though I did hear the snick of a switchblade opening. My heart stuttered.

"Darius!"

The Sin heard my panicked cry and appeared. He flicked the cultist's elbow—and the resounding snap of his bone breaking was like the crack of a tree falling. The man wailed in agony, losing his grip on my scalp. The blade fell to the van's mottled side.

Before I could take a breath, Darius's arm clotheslined my middle and yanked me away from the blithering cultist. I blinked at the sight of the afternoon sky, then collapsed on the warm pavement, Darius crouched overhead as he took my chin between his fingers and tilted my head this way and that. "Sara," he said, his eyes aglow with crimson fire. "Sara, answer!"

"I'm okay," I replied, not quite able to bring my thoughts into focus. Despite everything, I truly was okay. Reality sank in like paper boats slowly succumbing to the wet tide; I'd been kidnapped. Confronted with a gun. It had been over in mere minutes. I was still out of breath from chasing Tara's murderer.

There were voices around us. Several people stood on the sidewalks as they whispered to one another with shock and confusion. The van had collided with a pickup truck, and the driver was clamoring from his seat, rubbing his head.

"There's...people," I wheezed, sitting up from my prone position. The Sin's fingers touched a cut on my forehead and I winced. "Don't do that—!"

A gunshot cut my words short. The bystanders screamed and gasped. I waited for the pain to hit me—but there was nothing. Wide-eyed, I followed Darius's gaze to the road behind me.

The terrified red-headed cultist had returned to finish the job. He stood roughly ten feet from us, his small-caliber pistol held between his two white-knuckled hands. Before my eyes, the man teetered, then slumped to the ground with a wet exhale.

Beyond the dead man stood Amoroth and her large suited guards. One had his own gun drawn.

Amoroth flipped her hair from her eyes as she strode forward, her heels crushing the van's shredded bits beneath them. She paused at the dead cultist and used her foot to flip the man to his back. She bent over him, inhaling sharply. "You're going to want to stop the other one from escaping, Darius."

The first cultist crawled from the van's belly, using his legs to propel himself as his arm was displaced at an obscene angle. With a furious sound, Darius rose and pounced upon the injured man.

A shadow fell across me. I glanced upward to see Amoroth had materialized above, and she loomed like her monstrous tower loomed upon the Verwealdian skyline. Her lips twitched as she watched me struggle to find my feet. "This makes us even, Gaspard."

"Even?"

She jerked her chin toward a black SUV that had parked between the van's carcass and the growing ground. Several official-looking men and women spilled from the vehicle and wordlessly began gathering the bystanders. I saw a large sack of those mind-altering crystals get tossed from one hand to another.

My worried gaze found Amoroth's.

"You'd best never complain again about me throwing you from a roof," the Sin said as a savage grin twisted her lips. Her eyes narrowed and suddenly winged over the Sin of Pride. "Darius—!"

Darius had been quietly interrogating the downed cultist, purposefully prodding his injured limb to goad his prey—when the Sin abruptly swore and clutched the man's throat, forcing his hand into the cultist's mouth as if trying to rip out his tongue. The man's pudgy body began to seize as foam issued from between his lips.

"What—?!" Aghast, I reached for Darius—only to realize my fist was closed upon something sharp. I uncrimped my reluctant fingers and tipped my palm upward; sunlight glittered upon the golden cufflink I'd ripped from the cultist's sleeve. A lovely gem was faceted to its square front, colored an effervescent green. It must have been expensive.

The cultist was dead. He continued to foam at the mouth like a rabid beast until he fell silent and the pupils dilated in his glassy eyes. Equally silent, Darius removed his fingers from the man's throat and wiped them clean on the lapel of the cultist's blue suit.

"Cyanide," the Sin uttered as his upper lip twitched with the need to snarl. "He had it within a false molar. Check the other man and you'll find the same."

"You're joking." Amoroth moved closer, her spotless attire an odd contrast to the devastation surrounding her. Her many silent henchmen milled about the scene, altering the witness accounts. I felt an odd stirring of energy like a clean breath of air spilling through the mingling scents of oil and burnt rubber. The energy was familiar, and I expected to find Saule lingering amongst the masses until I realized I was somehow sensing another witch's magic. Amoroth must have one on payroll, or bribed one into assisting. "It seems they're serious about their secrecy, Pride."

"So it would seem." Darius's fingers curled in upon his palm. I wondered if he was fighting the urge to break the dead man's neck.

I had been leaning upon my arm for support, but it weakened and gave beneath my weight. I fell forward and expected to land face-first on the smoking pavement—but Darius caught me. I found myself the subject of his igneous glare. "You," he snarled, directing his fury to me instead of the dead man. "Is it too difficult for you to avoid trouble for one afternoon?"

I blinked, dazed, and unable to defend myself. "I guess."

"I am this close to shoving you into a box somewhere out of sight!"

Darius held his thumb and forefinger a millimeter apart before my face. There was blood on his palm and fingers. A day didn't pass without the Sin painting his hands that grotesque shade of red.

The action of spacing his fingers to show his displeasure was so strangely...human. How ridiculous! In shock, I choked on a laugh and the Sin bared his frightening teeth. "Wow, that's close!"

I fainted.


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