Another presence existed behind the face.
It appeared only as a shadow layered over shadow: a suggestion of pale skin, the movement of hair, and a shape the dying mind might have interpreted as feminine.
The impression tore apart before Rhen could seize it.
His awareness slammed back into the passage.
He ripped his fangs free, and the rogue collapsed beneath him as though the force holding it upright had suddenly been severed.
Cole watched him.
“What did you see?”
Rhen wiped the tainted blood from his mouth.
“More than one presence.”
“How many?”
Rhen stood and searched the surrounding darkness.
“It does not matter. We find the heretic and end this now.”
He turned toward the deeper streets, and his brothers followed.
These were no longer isolated rogues.
The violence was coordinated, and Rhen had become its primary target.
They had barely taken ten steps when another growl rose from the darkness. A second answered it, then a third.
Shapes emerged from alley mouths and abandoned doorways. Every rogue carried the same black-red light inside its eyes, and every body twitched as though awaiting a command.
Malakai caught Cole’s attention.
Where are they all coming from?
Cole counted the figures moving closer.
“It does not matter. There are simply more to break.”
The air carried more than rain, blood, and alley rot now. A darker pressure moved across their skin and gathered at the base of Rhen’s skull.
These were not starving rogues following instinct.
They were soldiers wearing the bodies of rogues.
The first entered the light, and Rhen met it with pure violence.
His fist struck the creature’s face hard enough to crush bone and teeth. The body flew backward into the wall and dropped before it could make a sound.
More followed.
They attacked in coordinated bursts, choosing angles and timing with the discipline of a single mind. One caught Rhen along the flank, claws tearing through his coat and opening the flesh beneath.
He barely registered the wound.
Pain was an inconvenience, hunger existed only as background noise, and rage remained the only clean sensation left inside him.
