The silence that fell upon the clearing was heavier than the fight itself. It was a weighted, listening silence, broken only by the ragged sound of Marco's breathing, each gasp a painful tear in the quiet. The fire he'd summoned moments ago had retreated, leaving only the scent of ozone and scorched earth hanging in the cool mountain air. A thick, coppery smell, alien and wrong, rose from the two mangled forms on the forest floor, a smell that clung to the back of the throat.
The second creature lay twisted around the base of a balete tree, the earthen spike Tala had summoned still protruding from its chest like a grotesque, premature branch. It didn't bleed. A dark, viscous fluid, thick as tar, oozed from the wound, dripping onto the moss with a faint sizzling sound. Marco stared at it, his knuckles white where he gripped his own arms. The adrenaline that had flooded him, that had made the fire an extension of his will, was now draining away, leaving a hollow tremor in its wake. His face, smeared with soot, was pale beneath the grime. Beside him, Tala stood frozen, his small hands still held slightly aloft, as if he feared the earth might betray him again if he relaxed.
From a high branch, Bayu let out a sharp, questioning chatter, the sound unnervingly normal in the wake of such unnatural violence. Mavian landed silently on Geneva's shoulder, its weight a familiar anchor. The bird's head was cocked, its eyes fixed on the slain predators.
From the cabin doorway, Eloisa's voice was a fragile whisper. "Is it… over?" She clutched Dana's carrier to her chest so tightly her fingers ached, the cat a silent, tense weight within.
Geneva didn't answer. Her gaze swept the treeline, a dark, unbroken wall of shadows that felt deeper and more menacing than before. Every rustle of leaves, every snap of a distant twig, was a potential threat. Her body screamed with an exhaustion that was bone-deep, the familiar, aching price of pushing her limits. "Stay there, Eloisa," she commanded, her voice low but carrying with cold authority. Knife still in hand, she took a slow, deliberate step toward the nearest creature. Its form, even in death, seemed to ripple at the edges of her vision, the lines blurring as if it were an image projected on smoke.
Marco, needing to do something other than stand and shake, nudged the beast with his boot. It was strangely light, its mass not matching its size. "What were they?" he muttered, the question more for himself than for anyone else. He crouched, a mix of revulsion and morbid curiosity on his face. He reached out, hesitating, then prodded its matted, patchy fur with the toe of his shoe, rolling the carcass onto its side.
That's when the moonlight caught it.
It wasn't a wound or a scar. On the back of the creature's neck, nestled in the coarse fur, was a mark. It was perfect, impossibly precise. Not branded by heat or carved with a blade, but seemingly woven into its very being, a symbol that pulsed with a faint, dying light. A perfect circle, a single sweeping line beneath it, and two stark, flanking lines on either side. An unblinking eye.
"Geneva," Marco said, his voice strained.
But she was already moving. "Wait," she snapped, her own voice sharp with an urgency that cut through the haze of the battle. She knelt beside the second creature, the one felled by Tala, and ruthlessly brushed aside its foul-smelling fur. The same symbol was there. Pristine. Identical. It glowed with a soft, residual energy, a phantom light that pulsed in time with a heartbeat that was no longer there.
For Geneva, the world tilted. The cool forest air vanished, replaced by the humid, oppressive heat of a Manila street. The scent of pine and ichor became the smell of hot asphalt and fear. The memory didn't just surface; it pulled her under. She was there again, time warped and syrupy around her, the screams of terrified onlookers stretching into surreal howls. She saw him—the levitating man, suspended four feet above the pavement, his body crackling with a strange static. She saw the blood leaking from the corners of his blank, grayish eyes. And she saw the symbol, not on his skin, but in the very air around him, a psychic crest, an invisible mark of ownership that Kayoko's clairvoyant visions had burned into her mind. The Eye will try to erase her.
The Eye of Ra.
The knife felt heavy in her hand. A cold dread, far deeper and more chilling than the fear of the fight, washed over her. These were not wild animals. They weren't random mutations spawned by the same storm that had marked them. They were crafted. They were sent.
"It's them," she whispered, the words barely audible, her own breath fogging in the air. Her blood ran cold. "The Eye."
Tala took a hesitant step closer, his eyes wide as he looked from the fading marks on the creatures to Geneva's grim, haunted face. "The what?"
As he spoke, the creature at Geneva's feet began to change. Its form lost cohesion, the edges dissolving into a fine, black dust. The fur, the muscle, the bone—it all began to unravel, not rotting, but simply ceasing to be. The wind, picking up slightly, stirred the dark particles, carrying them away into the forest like a puff of ash from a dead fire. Within moments, there was nothing left but a dark stain on the moss and the lingering, foul smell. The other creature did the same, its terrifying form crumbling into nothingness.
The evidence was gone, but the truth remained, settling between them like a shroud.
"They were summons," Geneva said, her voice hollow as she watched the last of the black dust scatter. She straightened up, her joints protesting. She looked at Eloisa, who had crept from the cabin, her face a mask of horrified understanding. "The ones hunting you. The ones Kayoko warned me about."
Her gaze moved to Marco, then to Tala. The pieces were slotting together with horrifying clarity. The man in Manila. The government's blind panic. This ancient, unseen order. They weren't just hiding from soldiers who wanted to lock them in a lab. They were being actively hunted by a force that could create monsters from shadow and send them across the country. A force that knew about the prophecy. A force that wanted Eloisa erased.
Eloisa's hand went to her chest, feeling the unsteady beat of her own heart. "So they know where we are." It wasn't a question.
Geneva stood tall, the exhaustion and pain in her body secondary to the iron will that now forged in her eyes. The fight for survival had just become a war. They were no longer just running; they were a target. And the hunters were not human. She wiped the creature's viscous fluid from her blade onto the leg of her pants, the simple, practical action a promise to herself.
"Yes," she said, her voice low and steady, cutting through the silence of the clearing. "And they'll send more."