Ashfall doesn't sleep — it just lies in the dark and pretends not to hear the monsters move.
Tonight, the Dockside Industrial Park becomes a new hunting ground.
---
Selene Kain stands her ground in the containment bay as Moloch Horn's chain whips across the floor, broken links sparking against the concrete. The brute shifts forward — not a charge yet, but a coiled threat, the space between them shrinking with each rumble of his chest.
Through the reinforced glass, Umbra's handlers scatter like roaches. Somewhere above, a red warning beacon spins, washing the lab in pulses of blood-light. A siren whines but no one is coming to lock the cage again. They want him loose. Or they lost control.
Selene lowers her stance, talons ready. She's fought men with knives and guns, cornered Flock lieutenants in narrow alleys, slit throats in locked rooms — but this is different. This isn't a man. It's a walking riot of bone and stitched muscle. His breath smells like formaldehyde and raw meat.
"Easy, Bull King," she murmurs behind her visor. "Not tonight."
But Moloch Horn doesn't understand easy. He explodes forward, horned head down, smashing through the glass like wet paper.
---
Outside, Iris Calder hears the roar echo from deep in the lab's guts. She wipes mud from her cheek with the back of her hand — the guard she tackled still groaning, zip-tied to a rusted pipe behind the loading dock.
She clicks her radio: "Navarro — status."
Navarro's voice crackles, ragged: "Backup's en route but they're dragging feet. Umbra's got dispatch by the balls. You inside?"
"I'm at the loading dock. Stay back — I've got movement in the lab. If shots break, you run — you hear me?"
"Copy—" His voice drops lower. "Boss… what the hell is in there?"
Iris doesn't answer. She racks the slide on her sidearm, checks the mag, breathes once to steady her pulse. Then she steps through the breached door.
---
In the containment bay, Selene dives under the first swipe of Moloch's horn — the blow shreds a steel cabinet behind her like cardboard. She rolls, talons slashing at exposed tendons above his left knee — but the beast barely flinches. He pivots, backhanding her with a forearm as thick as her torso.
She hits the wall hard enough to crack drywall — vision spots with stars. Pain is good — reminds her she's alive.
"Micah," she hisses into her comm, spitting blood. "Grid?"
---
In the dead laundromat, Micah Torres jams fresh cables into a battered battery pack. His screens flicker — the lab's security feeds fuzzed out by the containment breach. He knows what that means: Umbra's about to torch the evidence.
He keys in a new loop — reroutes a drone to the main street, drops false pings to scatter the private security teams hunting Selene.
He mutters to the dark: "C'mon, pretty bird. Window's open. Get out."
---
Selene drags herself up, ribs screaming. She watches Moloch snort and batter the far wall — testing for weakness, tasting freedom. His eyes flick back to her — a spark of animal recognition. Maybe gratitude. Maybe hunger.
She flicks a switch on her wrist gauntlet — a feathered blade snaps into place. No sense trying to kill the bull — not tonight. Just stay alive.
She slips sideways as Moloch lunges again — this time she aims for the fire door at the back of the bay. She throws a feather blade at the glass alarm panel — it shatters in a spray of shards. The lock disengages with a shriek of metal.
The Bull King roars — not at her. At the ceiling. At the world. At Umbra's chains dissolving like paper in the rain.
---
Iris creeps deeper, flashlight bouncing over overturned lab benches and smeared footprints. She freezes as the overhead lights flicker — shadows pulse in the corners like they're alive.
She spots the first dead handler — throat gone, eyes wide, badge still clipped to his lapel: UMBRA INTERNAL OPS. His keycard dangles from bloody fingers.
She kneels, pockets the card, listens. Faint static on her radio. Navarro's voice comes through, tense: "Cap's on the horn — Voss says pull back. Umbra's staging a containment team. They're saying biological hazard—"
Iris kills her radio. Bullshit, she thinks. She's seen enough hazmat suits to know this isn't about infection — it's about a secret slipping its leash.
A shape flickers across the end of the hallway — black wings, just for a heartbeat. Then gone.
"Raven…" she whispers again.
She pushes deeper.
---
Outside, Navarro crouches by the cruiser, shotgun braced on the hood. He watches the fence line twitch with shadows — Umbra SUVs with tinted windows roll in, lights off. Unmarked men spill out in black combat gear, silenced weapons ready.
He swallows, fingers white-knuckling the grip.
His gut says run. But if Iris is in there, he's not running.
---
Selene crashes through the back door, boots skidding on wet concrete. Rain hits her mask, runs in thin streams down her neck. Behind her, the lab shudders with a deafening crash — Moloch Horn bursting through an interior wall like a living battering ram.
Security sirens blare across the compound. Automated gun turrets pivot from the roof — infrared scanning for movement. Selene dives behind a cargo container as a burst of suppressive fire chews up the fence beside her.
She hisses into her comm: "Micah — eyes?"
---
Micah's voice, calm through static: "Northeast fence blind. Drain tunnel under the second lot — twelve meters to your left, behind the blue drum stack. You got sixty seconds before they retake the grid."
Selene sprints low — bullets chew the container's edge, sparks spraying her heels. She slams her shoulder into the stacked drums, kicks a rusted grate loose. Cold water greets her knees as she crawls into the drain tunnel.
Behind her, Moloch Horn's roar rolls over the Dockside. A gun turret pivots the wrong way — a handler screams once, then silence. The Bull King is loose.
---
Iris freezes as the roar hits her like a slap to the lungs. She presses her back to a cold lab wall, pistol trembling in her grip. Ahead, through a half-open door, she sees the containment bay — or what's left of it.
A footprint bigger than her chest is stamped in the blood-slick floor. The chain dangles, split. Broken glass crunches under her boot. She edges closer.
She catches a glimpse — a massive shape hunched over a slumped body. Horns rising, steam curling from stitched shoulders.
She clamps a hand over her mouth. Her brain screams RUN. But her feet won't move.
---
Outside, Navarro flinches as a shape bursts from the shadows — an Umbra contractor lunges at him with a shock baton. Navarro drops the shotgun, fists up. The baton crackles, catches him across the forearm — nerves screaming. He lashes out, catches the man's mask — rips it free, slams his head into the cruiser hood.
His knuckles split. Blood drips on the badge pinned to his coat: Ashfall Major Crimes. Tonight, it actually means something.
He spits rainwater, grabs the shotgun, and fires — the blast echoes down Dockside like a thunderclap. More shadows shift in the dark. Navarro plants his boots.
"Come on, then."
---
In the drain tunnel, Selene crawls through knee-high water and rat droppings. Her cloak is soaked, visor flickering static as Micah reroutes her comms. She hears his voice again, soft and tired:
"Pretty bird. You out?"
She breathes once, ragged: "Still breathing."
Behind her, Dockside howls — Moloch's roar, gunfire, Umbra's sirens.
Ahead of her: the city that will never sleep again.
---
At home, Nathan Calder shuts off the news feed when the kids come downstairs. He wipes the panic from his face with a father's calm smile. In his pocket, his phone buzzes with a number he shouldn't answer.
He does anyway.
A cold Umbra voice: "Containment failed. You know what you have to do, Agent Calder."
Nathan's eyes flick to the family photos on the mantle — Iris, the kids, birthday candles, cheap plastic smiles.
He lies to himself one more time: "It's for them. It's always for them."
---
Ashfall drowns in rain and rumors. The Bull King runs free. The Raven bleeds but flies. And somewhere in the wires, Micah smiles at the chaos — a ghost with feathers of his own.
---
END OF CHAPTER SIX