The portal spat them into existence on the council floor — a sudden rupture of air and blinding white glyphs.
Gasps.
Drawn weapons.
Spilled tea.
Alec hit the ground first. Ramiel landed softly, fingers curled around the Seal of Nine Names.
The Elders stared from their high seats, each one cloaked in ritual silk and outdated sanctimony.
Ramiel walked forward, tossing the talisman onto their obsidian table.
"You sent me to Hell," he said, "and I brought it back. Don't mistake that for loyalty."
One of them — an old woman with silver eyes and dry lips — leaned in.
"You retrieved what was lost, Djinn. Prove your usefulness, and we may offer protection. Purpose."
Ramiel turned slowly, like stone remembering how to move.
"I don't need your protection. And I don't serve leeches in robes."
Another Elder — younger, fire-eyed — stood abruptly.
"Then we call the pact due! We command—"
Ramiel raised a hand. Just one. The air thickened, lights flickered.
"Break your tongues on me again, and you'll taste what language was before Eden."
Silence.
The air was tense.....
Alec looked nervously between the two sides.
Ramiel turned and strode to the exit without another glance.
Just before the doors opened, Alec ran after him.
"Wait."
Ramiel didn't stop walking.
"I want to go with you," Alec said.
"You shouldn't."
"But I—"
"I am not your teacher. I am not your father. I am not safe."
"I know," Alec said, breathless. "But I watched you in Hell. You didn't run. You didn't kneel. Not even to Lucarion. Everyone here talks about power and prophecy. You think your'e a prophecy."
Ramiel stopped.
Long silence.
Then, without looking back, he said:
"Keep up."
The city was greyed by dusk and cigarette fog, lights blinking through rain like tired eyes. Neon signs hummed in turkish languages. Ramiel walked like a ghost that never learned to vanish properly — Shadow stepping.
Alec trailed him with quiet wonder.
Then Ramiel stopped at a street corner where a yellow minibus idled, door open, reggae spilling softly from a cracked speaker.
"Is that a bus?" Alec asked.
Ramiel climbed in without answering.
The driver — a man with far too many talismans around his neck to be considered a driver — looked at him once and said, "5 Soul Shards Djinn"
Ramiel said nothing.
The bus began to move. Street lights passed like moments in a dream. Onboard were broken souls, sleeping drunks, and one woman praying beneath her breath.
Alec sat beside him.
"Where are we going?"
"To someone who owes me."
A pause.
"A king."
They disembarked in a fog-laced countryside hours later, it was a chapel that looked like an elegant 18th-century painting.
Ramiel walked toward the towering door and pushed it open.
Inside: dust, silence, with a faint smell of ...lust.
Then came a voice. Silken. Slow.
"Well, well... the storm returns."
From behind a shattered altar rose a man in black a black attire that looked like what came out from Keanu Reeves' Matrix. Pale skin. Red eyes. Regal and starved all at once.
Vladmir, the vampire king.
He bowed low — and when he rose, his smile was centuries old.
"I heard a whisper that someone angered the owner of the Hollow Crown, and I thought — could it be? But no... he's dead. The Djinns are gone. And not many can visit the Hollow Crown and leave unharmed"
Ramiel stepped forward, his blue eyes glowed faintly.
"Do I look dead to you?"
Vladmir's smile deepened. "You look awake. And angry."
Ramiel stopped two paces away.
"I'm going to Shrak."
Vladmir blinked — once.
"That place is ash. Cursed and forgotten."
"All the more reason."
Ramiel turned. "But first, I need what you keep in the vault."
Vladmir's expression shifted. He expected this.
"You'll need more than blades, my lord."
Ramiel's voice came like thunder dragged through snow.
"I'll take it all."