"What? What are you talking about?" Rex asked, his voice still flat as he stood beneath the towering stained-glass cathedral window.
Rain hammered relentlessly against the thick panes, and thunder rumbled through the foundation of the hall. "I'm not even a messiah yet."
The masked cultist standing thirty feet away lazily flicked its wrist.
With a quiet whirring sound, the dagger lying abandoned on the marble floor behind Rex whipped into the air, flying straight back into the cultist's gloved palm like an obedient magnetic boomerang.
"Yes, not yet," the distorted voice hissed from beneath the dark leather hood. "But soon to be."
As Rex opened his mouth to respond—
TWANG!
A sharp, high-pitched vibration echoed through the frigid corridor air.
[Instinct]: "Down."
Rex instantly dropped his center of gravity, ducking his head six inches.
SCHWING!
An invisible, razor-thin line sheared through the space right where his neck had been a millisecond ago.
