The rain fell in cold, spiteful sheets, washing the blood from Kieran Vale's lips and mingling it with the filth of the alleyway. Pinned against the grimy brickwork, he felt the jarring impact of a fist against his ribs, a dull percussion that stole the air from his lungs. Above him, their faces were leering masks of contempt, twisted by a casual cruelty that was, perhaps, the purest form of evil he had ever known. This was not a battle. It was a ritual of humiliation, and he was the unwilling sacrifice.
For years, he had endured. For years, he had swallowed the bile of their scorn, choked down his own rising fury, and prayed to silent idols for a strength that never came. He had secrets locked away in the catacombs of his soul, horrors that he guarded with a desperate, white-knuckled grip. A promise, made to a ghost in the twilight of his memory, had been his mantra: Be better than them. Do not let the darkness in. He had clung to that vow as a dying man clings to a splinter of driftwood in a raging sea.
But the sea was winning.
"Look at him," sneered the leader, Marcus, his voice a rasp that scraped against Kieran's raw nerves. He grabbed a fistful of Kieran's hair, forcing his head back against the drenched bricks. "Still pretending he's something more than filth. Still weeping for a world that doesn't want him."
Something within Kieran, a strand of tightly wound control, began to fray. The whisper that had been his constant, unwelcome companion—the silken, insidious voice from the abyss of his being—shifted its tone. It was no longer tempting, but reasoning.
They have torn down your every defense, it murmured, a cold logic seeping into the cracks of his resolve. They have trampled on your pain and mocked your restraint. You showed them mercy. They showed you none. Where is the justice in your silence?
Another blow, this one to his face, sent a starburst of pain through his skull. The metallic tang of blood filled his mouth, hot and real. And in that searing moment, the promise he had made shattered like glass. The ghost of memory faded, and the vow turned to dust. He had held back the tide, and for what? To drown alone.
He began to laugh.
It was not a sound of mirth, but a broken, gurgling thing that clawed its way out of his throat. The tormentors faltered, their sneers replaced by confusion. Kieran's eyes, when he lifted his head, were no longer his own. The despair was gone, replaced by a terrible, ancient light—a cold, black fire that promised annihilation. The rain around him seemed to hiss, the droplets turning to steam before they could touch his skin.
The whisper was a whisper no more. It was a roar that consumed his own consciousness, a primordial power that surged through his veins and set his very soul alight. The fear he had lived with for so long was not gone; it had merely been offered up as kindling.
Tears don't fall, the Voice boomed from the depths of him, a declaration that echoed not in the alley, but in the marrow of his tormentors' bones. They burn. Now, you will feel them. The demon is awake.