Chapter 16 – Five Lights in the Dark

The observation deck overlooked nothing.

No windows. No natural light. Just an expanse of darkness framed by rune-etched crystal, peering down into the deepest levels of the Grimm Institute. The illusion of stars flickered beyond the glass – soul-points, not celestial bodies. Memories. Ghosts.

Max stood with his back to the void, facing the others.

Alyssa. Chloe. Dan. Victor.

They’d come without being asked. That was loyalty. Or fear. Or both.

None of them spoke.

Max’s voice was quiet. Rough around the edges.

“You need to know what I’ve done.”

Chloe shifted. Alyssa crossed her arms. Dan lowered his gaze. Victor… didn’t move. Just waited, jaw locked.

Max looked at his hand. The one he used to awaken them.

It trembled again. Always now.

“I thought I was helping. Thought giving you power would make you safer. Stronger.”

A beat. He clenched his hand. No fire this time. Just pressure under the skin.

“But I didn’t understand the cost. Demons don’t just sense power. They hunt it. And awakened souls?”

“We’re neon signs in a graveyard.”

No response. Just stillness.

“I made you targets,” he said. “Turned you from people into bait.”

“And I never asked if you wanted that.”

Alyssa scoffed.

“Would it have mattered?” she said. “Would you have stopped?”

Max didn’t answer.

“Exactly,” she muttered, dropping into a seated position with a hard thud. “So don’t insult us by pretending this was noble.”

Dan stepped forward, gently.

“He’s not pretending. He’s apologizing.”

“Good,” Chloe said. “Let him.”

Her tone wasn’t cruel. Just clear. There was no anger in it, but no comfort either. Just the shape of truth.

Max’s voice cracked.

“You didn’t get to choose. I did. I chose for all of you.”

Victor finally spoke, voice like gravel.

“And you’ll carry that. Forever. That’s the deal when you play God.”

“I’m not—”

“You are,” Victor said. “Or you were. Until it hurt.”

That landed hard. Max flinched but didn’t argue. He deserved that one. All of it.

Dan reached out again, placing a hand on Max’s shoulder.

“We can hate the fire and still need the warmth.”

A silence passed.

Chloe sat beside Alyssa. She was still flickering slightly around the edges, as if her presence couldn’t quite decide what state to exist in.

“They’re going to come for us now,” she said softly.

Max nodded. “They already are.”

“Then we fight,” Victor said. “But no more apologies.”

Max blinked. “Why not?”

Victor stared straight at him.

“Because guilt is a weight. And you’re already sinking.”

Dan whispered, “We need you above water.”

Alyssa and Chloe said nothing.

Max turned back to the void. The soul-stars shimmered like teeth.

“I’ll carry the weight,” he said. “I lit the match.”

Chloe tilted her head.

“Then be the light that doesn't burn us.”

Alyssa shrugged.

“...though it is cool to have superpowers.”

Max didn’t smile. But something behind his eyes steadied.

Five souls stood in the dark.

One stood taller. Still shaking. Still sorry.

But standing.

…………………

The Grimm Institute was too quiet.

Victor hated that.

Not the silence itself – he could live with that. Hell, he’d slept through artillery fire. But this wasn’t silence. It was absence. A silence designed, curated. Like walking through a haunted museum where all the ghosts had signed NDAs.

He moved through the hallways barefoot, footsteps silent against the polished stone.

The air was cold.

Not chilled – cold like intention. As if the place itself didn’t breathe oxygen but secrets.

He rounded a corner and stopped.

Nothing there.

He knew there was nothing there.

But his body didn’t agree.

The hairs on the back of his neck lifted. Not from fear. Instinct.

He’d learned a long time ago to trust that.

Victor closed his eyes.

There – a flicker. No sound. No movement. But something had just recalibrated. As if the hallway forgot it was being watched.

He opened his eyes. Still nothing.

“Cowards,” he muttered.

He turned again and continued walking.

Eventually, he found Max in the lower common area – alone, arms crossed, staring at an old analogue clock embedded in the wall. It ticked audibly. Probably on purpose. The only thing in this damn place that made noise.

Max didn’t turn when Victor entered.

“You’re late,” Max said quietly.

Victor shrugged. “I was walking.”

“You always walk barefoot when you’re hunting ghosts?”

Victor sat on the bench opposite him. Ran a hand through his short dark hair, then leaned forward, forearms on knees.

“You know they’re following us,” he said.

Max turned. “The guards?”

“No. Something else.”

Max raised an eyebrow. “Explain.”

Victor exhaled. Long. Controlled. Not frustration – restraint.

“When we came in, I clocked two figures in white cloaks. Moved like soldiers. Not Kane’s kind. They had weight. Mass. You could hear it in their gait.”

Max nodded. “Grimm’s bodyguards.”

“I saw them again in the transit hall. But only in the reflections. The cameras don’t catch them. The guards don’t see them. And Kane?”

“What about him?”

Victor leaned forward, voice low.

“He’s wiping memory.”

Max blinked. “You’re sure?”

“I’m not guessing. I saw them behind Alyssa in the mess hall. I blinked. They were gone. And when I turned around? Kane was there. Smiling. Holding a tea cup like some smug bastard in a murder mystery.”

Max rubbed the bridge of his nose. “So, he’s covering for them.”

Victor nodded. “And doing a damn good job. I don’t like it.”

“Maybe they’re just security.”

Victor looked him dead in the eye.

“Max. We’re inside a place that doesn’t officially exist, run by a man whose soul is literally rotting out of his chest. I don’t think anything here is just anything.”

Max gave a half-smile. “Still the same old Vic.”

Victor’s gaze softened a fraction. “Same old Max. Always trying to play chess in a gunfight.”

They sat in silence for a beat.

Max finally spoke. “You remember when we got stuck in that landslide during the smokejump in ’09?”

Victor chuckled. “You mean when you caused the landslide?”

“I was trying to create a backburn.”

“You were trying to be a goddamn action movie.”

Max grinned. “Still saved those hikers.”

Victor shook his head, smiling despite himself. “And broke your leg. Took me six hours to carry your dumbass out.”

Max’s smile faded slowly. “You didn’t leave me.”

Victor looked down.

“No,” he said. “I never did.”

They let that sit. The weight of it. The truth of it.

Then Victor leaned back, expression hardening again.

“I’m not leaving now either. But you need to hear me, Max.”

Max looked at him.

“This place?” Victor gestured vaguely at the stone walls. “It’s a nest of knives. Everyone here smiles too easily. Every surface is polished to reflect your own face back at you. I don’t trust it. I don’t trust them.”

“I don’t either,” Max said.

Victor’s eyes narrowed. “Then why are we still here?”

“Because I need answers,” Max said. “Because Elizabeth needs help. Because we’re running out of time.”

Victor stood, pacing now. “Yeah, well, time’s not the only thing running. I can feel it, man. Something’s watching us. Waiting. Like we’re being measured for something.”

Max stood too.

“I’m aware.”

Victor turned, his voice barely above a whisper.

“Then promise me something.”

Max didn’t blink. “Anything.”

“If this place turns on us – if Grimm so much as twitches the wrong way – you don’t try to reason. You burn it down.”

Max hesitated. Then nodded. “Deal.”

Victor stepped forward, clapped a hand on Max’s shoulder.

“And next time, give me a heads-up before you hand out superpowers like fucking candy.”

Max laughed. “You were going to punch me in the face if I didn’t.”

“Still might.”

Max nodded toward the hallway. “Go get some rest.”

Victor started to walk away. Paused at the corner.

Then turned back.

“Max?”

“Yeah?”

“I know you think you broke us by making us like this. But you didn’t.”

“What did I do, then?”

Victor held his gaze.

“You gave us something worth breaking for.”

And then he was gone, swallowed by the hallway.

But Max stood in the silence for a long time.

And in the reflection of the dark glass to his left – just for a second – he saw two figures standing in the corridor behind him.

White cloaks.

Watching.

Waiting.

Gone.

…………………

The room was made of glass.

Not metaphorically. Literally.

A suspended cube, nested like a jewel inside the upper levels of the Grimm Institute – accessible only via soulprint elevator. No windows. Just transparent black smart-glass on all six sides, constantly shifting opacity in sync with the security matrix.

Inside, Dr. Grimm stood motionless, staring at the vast projection floating in the centre of the room – a slow rotation of five soul signatures. They hovered like spectral sculptures. No names. Just colours. Motion. Density.

Dr. Adisa stood beside him, arms folded across a white coat stained faintly with runes. Her face was tight, clinical. No awe. Just exhaustion wearing the mask of professionalism.

“They’re unstable,” she said flatly.

Grimm didn’t move. “All power is, at first.”

“They’re more than unstable. They’re divergent. Off-pattern. I’ve never seen resonance like this in baseline humans.”

“Because they’re not baseline anymore.”

Adisa frowned. “Max’s awakening vector is non-reproducible. His influence isn’t just activating dormant affinity – it’s writing new soul architecture. He’s imprinting fragments of himself into them. The core frequency is still his.”

“Impressive,” Grimm murmured.

“No,” she said. “It’s dangerous.”

She gestured to the first projection.

“Alyssa. Affinity: Gravatic compression, mineral exoskeletal formation, structural anchoring. Her soul weight is increasing by the hour. If she loses emotional control in a populated area, we’ll be fishing buildings out of sinkholes.”

Grimm nodded. “Code designation?”

Adisa tapped a glyph on her tablet. “Titan-class. Level Six. Same tier we assigned to that nuclear contractor in Minsk.”

“She’s never held a weapon.”

“She is one.”

Tap. Next projection.

“Chloe. Phase-state modulation, quantum displacement, echo trailing. Her readings aren’t linear. I tried to run a standard demonic classification spectrum and it nearly looped the system.”

Grimm raised an eyebrow. “She doesn’t fit?”

“She broke the chart. Her soul weight flickers between point-zero and immeasurable. Registers as dead, alive, and theoretical. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she’s slipping between realities.”

Grimm stared at the hovering image. “Level?”

“Spectral-class. We had to create it. Only one other human ever touched that threshold – and she didn’t survive her own awakening.”

“She doesn’t need to survive forever,” Grimm said. “She just needs to haunt the right targets.”

Next: Dan Bailey.

“Harmonic resonance. Cellular regeneration. Emotional regulation through passive aura bleed. He can stabilize and even enhance cohesion in other awakened fields.”

“Classification?”

“Seraph-class. He's more than a healer. He’s a spiritual coolant. A failsafe. No outward aggression, but if you remove him from the equation, the rest of them start to spiral.”

Grimm’s expression darkened slightly. “That makes him priority protection.”

Adisa nodded. “I’ve already added secondary shielding to his training protocols.”

Tap. Victor Drake.

“Chimera-state adaptive mutation. Multi-form partial shifts. Emotional anchor remains intact, but the soul resonance is spliced – human and beast are... in negotiation.”

“Class?”

“Behemoth-class. Pure physical force. But I’ll admit, he surprised me.”

“How?”

“He doesn’t fight the monster. He understands it. That’s rare. Most Chimera-types go feral almost immediately. Victor’s still holding the reins.”

Grimm’s voice was almost amused. “So, he’s their tank and their conscience.”

Then came Max.

Adisa paused. Longer than before.

“I don’t have a full scan. He won’t let us near the core.”

Grimm didn’t move. “Because he’s hiding something?”

“Because the thing inside him is at least partially awake.”

She pulled up a snapshot of the scan – a swirling ouroboros of gold, blue and even a flicker of white flame stitched around a void.

“The Hellfire is fusing with foreign soul mass. Aamon’s legacy, I assume. But that’s not all. There are signs of other essences… smaller echoes. Whatever the ‘prison’ inside him is, it’s absorbing residual demon fragments.”

“Power level?”

Adisa exhaled. “Max himself? Indeterminate. Growing. But based on raw flare output and resonance, I’d put him somewhere between Fiend and early-stage Corruptor — when stable. Spikes could hit Archdemon-adjacent territory for milliseconds. We’ve never seen a human hold that kind of pressure without exploding.”

Grimm tapped his chin. “And the others?”

“All within Husk to low-tier Fiend-level energy emissions. Typical of early Contractors. Except…”

She hesitated again.

Grimm already knew.

“Elizabeth.”

Adisa brought up the frozen reading. Even in still-frame, Liz’s aura pulsed.

“Her affinity is pure pressure. Mental and psychic force off the charts. The nullifiers in Cryo-Vault Six are barely holding her resonance down. If she wakes up without control... I don’t know if we could contain it.”

“Level?”

Adisa spoke quietly now.

“Possibly Corruptor. Maybe more. She’s not Archdemon class – not yet but she’s close enough to scare the machines.”

Grimm’s gaze lingered on Liz’s profile. “She hasn’t awakened yet. But she’s already a battleground.”

A long silence stretched.

Adisa broke it. “We should sedate her further.”

“No,” Grimm said. “Let her dream. She’s the eye of this storm. And if Max falters…”

He turned to the glass wall, staring out at the simulated night sky.

“…she might be the only one strong enough to survive what comes next.”

Adisa said nothing.

The soul projections faded one by one.

Grimm’s voice was quiet, distant, but certain.

“Continue to deploy Alpha and Omega to shadow-level proximity. If any of them begin to crack, I want them intervening before the team even knows they’re there.”

Adisa’s lips thinned. “You’re ghosting their own instincts.”

“I’m managing them. Until they learn to manage themselves.”

And with that, he dismissed her.

She left silently. Her footsteps echoing like a slow countdown.

Behind Grimm, the display shimmered once more.

Max’s soul pattern flickered.

And in the shape of the flame… something stirred.

…………………

Sydney, Australia.

Night had fallen hard, pressing against the city like wet cloth. The skyline glittered, glass towers shimmering against black water, but beneath the Harbour Bridge – in the shadow of luxury – the world still rotted.

It was quiet in Redfern.

Too quiet.

A small, converted warehouse sat in a back alley barely lit by a flickering neon sign: Jaeger & Campbell Fire Safety Training Services. The name was faded. The paint peeling. Inside, lights glowed dimly beneath a tin roof. A punching bag swayed on a rusted chain. A whiteboard listed outdated emergency drill protocols.

And in the office at the back – surrounded by old coffee mugs, training manuals, and two framed photos of a smiling teenage girl – sat Ethan Campbell.

Mid-forties. Broad frame. A little slower now but still built like someone who knew how to pull bodies from fire. He wore an old department T-shirt, sleeves rolled. Callused hands thumbed through a faded journal, half-reading. Half waiting.

He looked up.

Something was… wrong.

The air shifted.

Not colder. Not louder. Just wrong.

He turned his head slowly toward the far end of the room. The lights hadn’t changed. The window was still shut. But the shadows felt deeper now. Thicker. Like oil creeping through the walls.

Ethan rose quietly. His eyes went to the wall – where an axe still hung. Just in case.

He didn’t hear the footsteps.

Because there weren’t any.

There was just… a breath.

Then a voice, like a razor dragged through silk.

“You don’t remember me.”

Ethan spun. “Who—?”

The words choked in his throat.

A man stood in the doorway. Tall. Black suit. Immaculate. Not a single speck of dust. His skin was pale, almost featureless. Eyes coal-dark and unreadable. The smile he wore was polite. Dead.

His shadow moved independently, coiling across the walls like liquid script.

Ethan backed away, fingers stretching toward the axe. “You have five seconds to get out—”

The man tilted his head. “Five. That’s generous.”

Ethan grabbed the axe.

Swung.

And hit nothing.

The man had moved – not stepped, not dodged, just shifted. From one side of the room to the other, like the cut between frames in a film.

The axe embedded in the wall.

Ethan wheeled—

But the man was already behind him.

“Ethan Campbell,” the thing said softly. “Fire captain. Two decades of service. Retired due to injury. Survivor of the Glebe warehouse collapse. Mentored a young Max Jaeger. Rescued him twice. Abandoned him once.”

Ethan’s mouth was dry.

“…What are you?”

The man smiled wider now.

“Your end, if necessary. But preferably... a message.”

He reached into his coat. Not fast. Not hostile.

And pulled out a photograph.

Ethan recognized it instantly.

Max. Younger. In uniform. Smiling for once.

“Where is he?” the man asked, holding the photo out like a priest offering communion. “Where’s your friend?”

Ethan didn’t speak.

The man leaned in, breath colder than frostbite.

“He’s tethered to too many,” the thing whispered. “I’ll start with the weakest chain.”

He placed the photo down on the desk, then vanished.

Not with a sound. Not with a blink.

Just… absence.

The light flickered. The air returned to normal.

Ethan stood frozen.

And on the photo, a single fingerprint burned itself into the glossy paper – black, smoking, and shaped like a brand.

A demonic sigil.

The Hunt had begun.