Marc stumbled through the window of his flat just as the last orange tongues of fire died behind him. The warehouse in Hackney was nothing but ash and embers now, William's black money reduced to smoke on the night wind. He stripped off the hood and cloak, letting them fall onto the chair by the bed. The mirror showed a man half-broken: soot streaked across his face, knuckles raw, eyes heavy with the kind of exhaustion no sleep could ever quite fix.
He checked the clock. Two hours until sunrise.
Marc let out a hollow laugh. "Two hours. That's enough, isn't it?" He collapsed onto the mattress, body aching, head pounding with Tecciztecatl's silence. For the first time in days, he allowed himself to close his eyes.
---
Far across the city, another man stirred.
Howard Archer had always been an early riser. Old habits from his days as a military analyst never left him, and these days his mind had a new obsession: Moonveil.
He brewed coffee in silence, then sat before his laptop, reviewing security reports, police chatter, and urban myths. Patterns emerged, faint but undeniable. Moonveil's activity clustered around Hackney, Hamlet Towers, and the southern boroughs.
Howard frowned, muttering to himself, "Not random. Never random. He's guarding this sector."
The thought had been gnawing at him for weeks. Moonveil's powers, his resilience, his sudden appearance—it all rang familiar. The Aetherians. Aliens once mistaken for gods, scattered survivors of civil war, still whispered about in military circles. And one of them, the boy called Gaidan, had already revealed himself to the world.
Howard tapped the screen, circling a grainy CCTV still of Moonveil leaping across rooftops.
Howard: "You're not human, are you? You're one of them. Another Aetherian hiding in London."
His eyes gleamed with a mix of curiosity and hunger. If he could prove this theory, if he could uncover the truth of Moonveil's origins, it would change everything.
---
The next morning, Marc sat at his workstation in the cramped lab of their office. His hood and weapons were hidden away, replaced with the mask of his ordinary life: shirt, tie, a neat stack of papers. Only his weary eyes betrayed the battles of the night before.
On the table before him lay a disassembled handgun—the same make used by William's men. Marc rotated the grip, studying the circuit traces on the embedded microchip. The hum of fluorescent lights pressed against his skull.
Howard entered, balancing a file under his arm. "You've been staring at that piece all morning. Don't tell me it's whispering secrets already."
Marc's mouth twitched. For a second he almost answered in Moonveil's voice, almost forgot where he was. "It's… nothing." He coughed, recomposed himself. "Just studying the design."
Howard leaned closer. "You're sure this is the same weapon they used?"
Marc nodded. "Same make, same circuitry. Look at the etching. The microchip isn't British or American. My guess—China. They've been manufacturing knock-off tech for years, but lately they're pushing military-grade."
Howard snorted. "Figures. No wonder it exploded. Chinese chips trying to pass for originals."
Marc allowed himself a thin smile. "Say what you will. You gotta hand it to them—they've grown into a serious military power. Even with the copying, they've been innovating. Fast."
Howard tapped the gun barrel thoughtfully. "Still… if these weapons are flooding London, we need to know who's supplying them. Any leads on where the shipments come from?"
Marc's eyes flickered. "Working on it."
Howard shifted gears, his mind circling back to its obsession. "You ever think about the Aetherians, Marc? They've been on Earth for decades, maybe centuries. Wouldn't that make them Earth's as much as their homeworld's?"
Marc glanced up sharply, heart skipping a beat. "They still return to their planet. Earth is just a base—a crossroads in their empire. They don't conquer it because they don't need to. And besides… humans aren't defenseless. We've got technology that can match them, toe-to-toe."
Howard studied him for a long moment. "You sound like you've thought about this a lot."
Marc forced a laugh, hiding the tension in his shoulders. "Just theory. Late-night reading."
Howard let it go—for now—but his suspicions only deepened.
---
Far across the Atlantic, in a dusty warehouse outside Monterrey, the El Lobo brothers prepared the first shipment.
Stacks of crates were marked with forged trade seals, destined for London. Inside them, wrapped in false customs papers, lay the weapons: high-caliber rifles fitted with Chinese chips, experimental rounds tipped with a strange alloy, and chemical agents designed for quiet but devastating urban warfare.
Diego El Lobo slammed a lid shut and lit a cigar. "By the time these reach London, Webb will own half the streets."
His younger brother Rafael grinned. "And when the streets bleed, the moon-man will come. And William will finally show the world whose leash he walks on."
The brothers laughed, though the shadows in the warehouse stirred uneasily. Even here, whispers of the Tzitzimimeh lingered.
---
Back in London, William Lex Webb sat in his high-rise suite, cigar smoke wreathing his bulk. His warehouse was gone, his money ash, but he hadn't stopped smiling since the night before.
Moonveil was real. And if the demon's words were true, he was bound to Tecciztecatl, the coward god of the moon. That meant he was vulnerable. That meant he could be broken.
William traced a finger along the idol's jagged edge. "Find him," he muttered to the shadows. "Find my phantom, and I'll tear the veil from his flesh."
The idol pulsed once, faintly red.
---
That night, the moon rose full above the Thames, silver light draping the rooftops.
Marc stood on his balcony, the hood drawn once more, eyes lifted to the sky. For the last two nights, he had felt weak—Tecciztecatl's power dulled, his reflexes sluggish. But tonight was different. Tonight the moon poured into his veins like fire.
Moonveil: "I feel stronger. Finally… I can go berserk. The last two days were a drag."
Tecciztecatl's voice whispered, sharper than ever. "Yes, champion. Tonight you are more than man. Tonight you are the moon's fury."
Marc gripped the railing, the city sprawled beneath him. Somewhere out there, William plotted, the El Lobo brothers moved their weapons, and Howard hunted truths too close to the bone.
But tonight, he was ready. Tonight, London would remember why they feared the crescent in the dark.