Ashfall's sky was a bruised sheet of steel when the news broke: "Anonymous vigilante group may be trafficking ringleaders — Black Raven linked to organized crime."
Aria Morgan delivered it with a perfectly measured frown. Her voice soft enough to soothe, sharp enough to twist the blade Umbra slipped her in secret memos. In the background, Marcus Fenn nodded at the studio director, AshTV's script scrolling on the feed: No heroes in Ashfall — only criminals fighting over the city's carcass.
Rowan Pierce slammed her coffee mug down in the back row of the studio, nearly cracking the cheap plastic table. She muttered under her breath: "Heroes don't get scripts."
---
Three floors below, Selene Kain watched the same broadcast on a flickering hospital-grade TV in Camilla Dupont's backroom. Her side ached where stitches pulled too tight when she breathed. Camilla muttered curses, dabbing fresh antiseptic along her ribs.
"You see this spin?" Camilla asked, voice a rasp.
Selene's eyes were cold stones on the news anchor's painted face. "It's Umbra's smoke. If they can't kill me outright, they'll bury me under their version of the truth."
Camilla tightened the bandage. "They're calling you a trafficker. Some people might buy it."
Selene's laugh was the sound of an old blade unsheathing. "Some people don't get a choice what they believe."
Camilla didn't answer. She glanced at the silent phone on the counter, expecting it to buzz with an Umbra threat any day. She didn't ask why she kept patching up Ashfall's monster. She just did.
---
A few streets over, Reggie Slate leaned on the Molted Wing's bar, drying glasses no one wanted clean. His shotgun sat beneath the counter, same spot for fifteen years. Patrons spoke in hushes — old cops off shift, bent lawyers who knew when to talk and when to shut up, petty hoods who'd sell out their mothers for a hot tip on Umbra's next move.
He caught a whisper about three bodies found near the Dockside shipyard — horns, deep gouges in concrete. Moloch Horn was still out there, never far from the rumor mill. Reggie filed the whisper away like a bullet in the chamber — one day it'd find a target.
---
At the Calder house, the real battle crept quieter through cracked doorways and half-closed laptops. Liam Calder sat on the hallway floor, knees hugged to his chest, while Nathan's voice leaked through the office wall. Heated, hushed — another late-night call Liam shouldn't hear.
"—No. We stall the paperwork. We bury the lead. If Voss keeps poking at Dockside, we lose leverage —"
A click. Silence. Nathan's footsteps thundered closer. Liam scrambled back to his room, breathing shallow. On his bed, Maya Cadee's new drawing lay like a secret confession — a huge black shape above the city, thin stick people below it. A single word written beside it in shaky eight-year-old letters: UMBRA.
---
Detective Iris Calder ran her fingers through her hair at her precinct desk, half-listening to Navarro argue with Captain Voss near the bullpen's door.
Navarro barked, "The dockside manifests were doctored. Someone's paying off the harbor master. Half the trucks never show on paper. We need a federal subpoena."
Voss slammed a folder on the desk so hard Iris flinched. "We'll get nothing from the feds. You know how deep Umbra's got their claws in D.A. Marcus Yuen. He'll bury any warrant."
Navarro's face twisted, disgust and weariness fighting for space. "So we sit on our hands? Hope the Raven does our job for us?"
Iris said nothing. Her mind split in two: the badge that demanded law, the old scar in her chest where Selene Kain's name still lived. She opened a drawer and found the sketch Liam had left on her nightstand that morning — a raven, bigger than buildings.
Navarro leaned closer, voice softer. "Your boy draws what we hunt. He's sharp. Too sharp."
Iris closed the drawer. "He's a kid, Navarro. He's just a kid."
But she didn't believe it.
---
In the dark hum of a hidden server farm, Micah Torres traced the leak — a single corrupted flash drive slipped to a city clerk by an Umbra plant. It held just enough dirty secrets to ruin lives but not enough to kill Umbra's real plan. A trap. Micah's fingers ghosted over his keyboard, every keystroke a prayer he'd taught himself in broken code when he was twelve, hacking the lights back on so his mother could sleep.
He knew Umbra hunted him. He'd glimpsed the file: Asset: Wraith — Neutralize on Contact. They'd called him a ghost. They didn't know he'd made friends with a bigger ghost in black feathers.
He pinged Selene's secure line: They're feeding the city poison. But the pipeline's flawed. I can crack it. But you'll need to pull Silas's tongue out before he runs.
Selene's reply came back in the voice she only used with him — dead calm, final: He talks. Or he never talks again.
---
At Dockside, where saltwater ate the steel skeletons of half-dead cargo ships, a new shadow moved. Not the Bull King's brute shape — but something colder. A man in a spotless suit, surgical gloves tight on his hands, boots crunching through puddles. He hummed as he dragged a struggling Flock lieutenant into the dark.
"Orders are orders," the man said cheerfully, voice sweet as sugar. "The Herald doesn't like leaks."
The Flock man screamed. A blade flicked. Silence. The city swallowed the body whole.
---
Selene Kain stood above the Dockside yard on an old crane arm, watching the river below. Her side burned with every breath. Her mind burned worse. Silas. The Herald. Umbra's next move. The city didn't sleep — neither did she.
A feather-shaped blade glinted in her fist.
She whispered to the wind, "You die before you silence another soul."
Ashfall whispered back — somewhere below, a child drew wings on torn paper. Somewhere in a backroom bar, Reggie racked a shotgun shell. Somewhere behind studio glass, Aria Morgan rehearsed tonight's script about monsters. And in the shadows, Umbra's next lie slithered closer.
---
END OF CHAPTER EIGHTEEN