The penthouse, once a symbol of Marcus’s sterile power, became a battleground. He wrestled me towards the altar plate, his breath coming in ragged gasps. His strength was formidable, driven by decades of unchecked ambition and a desperate need to maintain his terrifying pact.
I dug my heels into the polished floor, resisting with every ounce of my will. The small comms device on my wrist vibrated faintly; O’Connell was waiting. I needed more time.
Marcus shoved me again, my back slamming against a built-in cabinet. A jolt of pain shot through me, but it also jarred my memory.
I knew this system. I had archived its schematics. Not the occult ritual itself, but the modern server architecture it was fused with. The power conduits. The failsafe protocols.
I twisted, throwing my weight to the side, breaking his grip for a split second. My eyes darted around the room. A maintenance panel, discreetly hidden behind a decorative screen, caught my attention.
“You’ll never break me,” Marcus snarled, his eyes burning with a desperate fury as he lunged again, grabbing for my throat.
I ducked, slipping past him. I scrambled towards the panel, tearing open the screen. Wires, thick and insulated, glowed faintly with internal power. I needed to short-circuit the feed, cut off the entity’s power source, even if it meant risking a total electrical collapse.
Marcus saw my intent. “No!” he bellowed, rushing towards me, but I was faster.
My fingers flew, tearing at the panel. I remembered the power routing from the schematics, the redundant lines. A small, heavy-duty circuit breaker for the localized “cognitive processing unit.” Aetheris’s tech jargon for the altar.
I found it, a thick, red switch. I slammed it down with all my might.
A deafening CRACK echoed through the penthouse. The entire building instantly plunged into darkness. The only light now was the flashing emergency egress signs, glowing faintly red.
The altar plate on the floor shuddered. A guttural roar, not from Marcus but from something ancient and vast, reverberated through the very foundations of the building. The air grew impossibly cold, then impossibly hot, smelling of ozone and burning flesh.
Marcus stumbled, clutching his head, his face contorted in agony. The eldritch entity, starved and recoiling from the sudden power cut, was thrashing, breaking its pact. The feedback loop, the severing of its tether, ravaged Marcus’s senses.
The backlash of broken magic ripped through the building’s electrical grid, causing alarms to wail intermittently, then die. Power flickered, then died again.
Just as Marcus dropped to his knees, his hands pressed against his temples, the penthouse doors exploded inward.
Federal Agent Howard O’Connell stood framed in the doorway, her face grim, her weapon raised. Behind her, a phalanx of federal prosecutors and uniformed agents poured into the darkened room.
“Marcus Kincaid,” Agent O’Connell’s voice cut through the chaos, “you are under arrest for federal occult trafficking, fraud, and numerous other charges. You have the right to remain silent.”
Marcus, still clutching his head, looked up, his eyes wide and hollow. He stared at me, then at the agents. His empire, built on shadows and stolen souls, had finally collapsed.
➡️ Read CHAPTER 14 to continue the story
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