The darkness came suddenly, swallowing the underground sanctum whole.
The candles lining the chamber had sputtered out one by one as if snuffed by unseen fingers. Emergency lights along the walls clicked on a heartbeat later, casting thin, surgical beams of crimson that stretched across the stone floor like veins beneath translucent skin.
The air, already cold, seemed to grow sharper in the absence of warmth.
Pastor Delrio rose slowly from one knee. His breath fogged faintly as it touched the frigid air. For a moment, the chamber was silent except for the distant hum of generators kicking in. Then his gaze shifted toward the faint glow of the emergency monitors along the northern wall. Their dim, flickering screens painted his face in dull shades of red.
He clenched his jaw.
He thinks he can humiliate me… in my own house.
I'll show him what happens when a serpent bares its fangs.
