Prologue: Will
13 years ago
Shadows danced under the flickering street lights, oscillating between patches of weak yellow glow and suffocating darkness. Thick clouds smothered the moon—no help from above tonight. Every time the lights went out, I felt it: a draining weakness that the demons knew how to exploit.
My silver blade sliced through the smoky air, striking a gargoyle demon clawing at my legs. It let out a hiss, black ichor spilling from its thick hide before it dissolved into gray mist. Another shrieked from a light pole above, drawing my gaze. It perched like a predator, black saliva dripping from fanged jaws as it glared down at me.
I muttered a curse under my breath as it raised its claws and smashed the bulb above. The light exploded with a sharp pop, glass raining onto the pavement a few feet from me. The creature took flight, wings tattered but strong, and crushed the next streetlight—the last one still working.
“Son of a bitch,” I growled as the world fell into total darkness. The shadows retreated, and with them, so did my strength.
My biceps burned. The open gashes on my legs pulsed with pain. I should’ve worn jeans, but the summer heat was unbearable and I hadn’t planned to be ambushed tonight. Not by a swarm like this. One or two was routine. Thirty wasn’t.
“What the hell is going on?” Ronan asked, tilting his head toward the starless sky. His curved daggers, dripping with black ooze, hung low at his sides.
The pavement shook beneath us as another gargoyle crashed to the ground. It’s glowing, beady red eyes locked onto me. Scraping its clawed foot along the concrete like a bull preparing to charge, it lunged.
I braced myself, both hands gripping the hilt of my sword. No shadows meant no shield. I was exposed, just flesh and bone against a nightmare.
Before it reached me, the beast turned to dust mid-air, a black dagger clattered to the ground at my feet. I exhaled hard, my shoulders sinking.
Sheathing my blade, I turned to see Ronan approaching, casually retrieving his dagger.
“Tell me they’re gone,” I said, not even checking. I took the return of the crickets’ chirping as a sign the coast was clear.
“What, you didn’t miss the good old days?” he teased.
“We’re too old for this, Ronan.”
He smirked as he slid his daggers back into the sheath strapped to his thigh. “Speak for yourself.”
“Seriously. They’re getting stronger—smarter. They knew my weakness and exploited it.”
I’d never seen demons target my shadows before. My strength came from them. They required energy to summon, sure, but once active, they fed me more than they took. Tonight, though? I’d never felt so weak. If Ronan hadn’t been there…
“Don’t be so dramatic,” he chuckled, walking up the street.
I fell into step beside him, my legs aching and crusted with blood. The cargo shorts had definitely been a mistake.
“The longer we fight,” he said quietly, “the longer our kids won’t have to.”
His words hit me in the chest. My daughter’s face flashed in my mind—Nyx, she was probably dreaming about unicorns right now. She was my light. I’d do anything to keep her safe. But she was one of us. Once she started sleepwalking, I’d have no choice but to train her. To prepare her, like my father prepared me.
This was our legacy.
Ronan and I had fought together since we were sixteen. Our fathers before us. And soon, our children.
“Don’t you feel it, though?” I asked, taking in the heavy, humid air. There was something off. The Haze always felt different from the waking world, but this was new. Denser. Heavier. Like breathing smoke.
“Something’s changed.”
Ronan scanned the neighborhood. Quiet, peaceful homes hiding sleeping families with no idea of the war being fought above their dreams.
We called it the Haze. Some called it Purgatory, but they were wrong. This wasn’t a place for the dead. It was where we fought to keep the living safe. Where souls could be stolen, twisted, or lost. And it was our job to stop that from happening.
“I know,” Ronan said, stopping beneath the first working streetlight we’d seen since the attack.
I lifted my hand, seeing my shadow curl up from the pavement and intwine through my fingers before dissolving in my skin. Electricity buzzed through my veins and my skin heated as I flicked my wrist to Ronan's shadow, consuming that one too until I felt fully recharged.
“I need to tell you something,” Ronan said, lowering his voice. “I think the shift was my fault.”
My brows pulled together. “What are you talking about?”
“When Daya was born, there was something at the hospital.” Something flashed behind Ronan’s dark eyes that made me square my shoulders.
His daughter had been born five months ago. There were complications during her birth, so he and his wife spent over a week in the hospital. During that time, their son, Balor, stayed with us and we visited daily, but there wasn’t much to report on the Haze front. That week, everything was so... quiet. Unusually so.
“It wasn’t a demon, at least not like one we’ve seen. It looked human, walking around and going from room to room. I followed it for a while and it never did anything until one night.” He trailed off almost as if he was getting lost in the memory of it and while doing so, his left eye twitched and the corner of his mouth lifted a fraction.
“I followed him into a room where an elderly man slept. He was barely breathing and I could feel the pain radiating from him like a heat wave. The thing reached out to him and the guy started glowing under its touch-”
“His soul.”
Ronan nodded once, “yeah. I went to stop him, but…”
“But what?” I prompted, urging him to just spit it out because I couldn’t stand suspense.
“I got between the thing and the soul, but instead of the soul going back into the man’s body, it– I–” he stuttered. “It came to me, but I didn’t mean to, I swear.”
My stomach turned and I studied him, searching for any sign of a lie, but there wasn't one. Not even a blink that told me he was making the entire story up.
My best friend had taken a soul.
“But, Will,” his hands landed on my shoulders, jostling me. I focused my eyes on his as the man in front of me turned into someone unrecognizable. There was a gleam in his eyes, a determination that made my saliva turn sour in my mouth. “The power I felt… It was like being struck by lightning. I was invincible.”
I was frozen, trying to process what I'd just heard.
“Think about it,” he said, stepping closer, eyes bright with a hunger I’d never seen before. “What we could do—”
“You’re suggesting we kill people?” I shoved him away.
“No, just the ones already dying. We’d be stronger and faster.”
His words came out rushed and I wasn’t sure if I heard him right. Turning away, I continued down the street towards our homes. We grew up living across the street from each other and our families got used to being close, so when we got families of our own, we thought it was only fitting to give our children the same childhood we had.
“You said it yourself,” Ronan caught up to me. “We’re getting old and the demons are getting stronger, we need-”
“We need to train our children," I snapped, digging my finger into his chest. "That's how we win. Not becoming the very thing we fight."
I dropped my hand and flexed my fingers, trying to calm the fire burning in my chest. Focusing my sight on the sun rising on the horizon, I counted the seconds it took the sky to change from black to blue and then to orange.
“I'm going to pretend this conversation never happened,” I finally told him.
He kept quiet at my side, but out of my peripheral I saw him bow his head. I wasn’t sure if he was ashamed of himself or disappointment in me. We stood in silence, letting the mourning doves chirp drown out the bitter discomfort that settled between us.
Over the brushing of tree branches and the hot gust of wind, came a blood curdling screech. I whipped my head in Ronan’s direction, seeing that he heard it too and we ran.
Then we saw it. A lonesome demon soaring out of a window of a two story home with a glowing blue ball clutched in its claws.
“No!” Ronan hurled a dagger. It spun towards the demon and plunged directly into its fleshy neck. The direct hit turned it to dust, disintegrating midair along with the blue orb.
Ronan sprinted into his house and I ran after him, up the stairs and into his daughter’s room where the demon flew out.
“No, no, no,” he whispered, over and over, reaching into the crib.
Daya appeared to be sleeping, with her lashes creating crescents over her round cheeks and her bow-shaped lips set in a pout. She looked peaceful and all too still.
His cries pierced the air as he grabbed for her. He couldn’t pick her up, our touch was nothing but static passing through bodies, but he knew she was gone. And my brother—my best friend—collapsed, sobbing into empty air, as I stood helpless in the doorway.
I should’ve done more.
I should've stopped it.
I should've stayed.
