CHAPTER 4 — “Extracurricular Activities”

POV: Rowan Fantome

Most schools had clubs for debate, athletics, or community service.

Pureheart Academy had one that did not exist.

Rowan slipped through the maintenance corridor with the casual confidence of someone who knew every blind spot in the security system — because Elias had designed most of them.

The fluorescent lights flickered overhead, buzzing like trapped insects.

At the end of the hall, a heavy door bore a simple plaque:

ARCHIVAL STORAGE — AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY

Rowan tapped twice, paused, then once more.

Locks disengaged with a soft mechanical sigh.

Inside, the room did not resemble storage at all.

It resembled a command center.

Multiple monitors displayed camera feeds from across campus. Schematics of buildings layered over digital maps. Cabinets labeled with codes rather than names.

Evelyn sat at the central table, gloved hands folded over a dossier.

“Punctuality is appreciated,” she said without looking up.

Rowan dropped into a chair, boots scraping loudly on purpose.

“Target still breathing?”

“For the moment.”

Elias entered last, silent as falling ash.

The room seemed to sharpen around him.

“Begin briefing,” he said.

Evelyn slid a photograph forward.

A senior student. Athletic. Popular. Smiling with the careless arrogance of someone who had never been meaningfully opposed.

“Daniel Mercer,” she said. “Repeated violent assaults. Sexual coercion. Institutional complaints suppressed by family influence.”

Rowan’s lip curled beneath the mask.

“Gross.”

“Three prior victims transferred schools,” Evelyn continued. “Fourth disappeared last week.”

That caught Rowan’s attention.

“Disappeared how?”

Elias tapped the table.

A new image appeared — police report excerpt, redacted heavily.

“No evidence of departure. No ransom. No body.”

Rowan tilted their head.

“So someone else is hunting on our territory.”

“Possibly,” Elias said.

“Or,” Evelyn added delicately, “something else.”

Silence settled.

Rowan’s grin returned, sharp and eager.

“So we do him anyway.”

Elias nodded.

“Poetic justice protocol.”

POV: Leon Hainely

The university archives smelled like dust and forgotten ambition.

Leon preferred it that way.

No students.
No colleagues.
No risk of someone noticing how quickly he turned pages or how long he could stand without moving.

He spread the brittle manuscript carefully across the table.

On Malefic Transformations and Blood Curses — 1793

His family name appeared in the margins again and again, each reference a quiet indictment.

“…the Blackwood practitioner Edgar, having been grievously wronged, did enact a ritual not of beast-binding but of soul inversion…”

Leon’s hands tightened.

Soul inversion.

“…such victims become vessels for predation, retaining human cognition whilst stripped of divine restraint…”

He stopped reading.

Retaining cognition.

Yes.

That was the worst part.

A floorboard creaked behind him.

Leon turned instantly.

Claire d’Assine stood at the end of the aisle, one gloved hand resting lightly on the shelf as though she had always been there.

“You research unusual topics, Mr. Hainely.”

Her voice was soft enough not to carry, yet perfectly clear.

He exhaled slowly.

“History is rarely tidy.”

She approached, gaze drifting to the manuscript.

“Curses?” she asked.

“Folklore.”

Claire tilted her head slightly.

“You don’t believe that.”

Their eyes met.

For the first time, neither looked away quickly.

“You asked me once to attend dinner voluntarily,” she said.

Leon blinked, caught off guard.

“Yes.”

“I have reconsidered.”

Hope flickered — cautious, fragile.

“I would like that,” he said.

Something in her expression softened — almost imperceptibly.

“Good.”

Neither moved.

The silence between them felt less empty than before.

Almost… warm.

POV: Victoria Blackwood

Victoria Blackwood did not believe in coincidence.

She believed in incompetence, malice, or design.

Three missing students in two weeks was not incompetence.

She sat at her desk, gloved fingers drumming lightly on a stack of disciplinary files.

Ravena Crowe leaned against the window, sipping tea from a travel mug that emitted faint mechanical clicks.

“You’re brooding,” Ravena observed.

“I am thinking.”

“Dangerous.”

Vicky ignored her.

“These disappearances,” she said, “are too clean.”

“No bodies,” Ravena agreed. “No digital trails either.”

“Precisely.”

Vicky opened a drawer and withdrew a thin obsidian blade — ceremonial, ancient, utterly illegal.

She pricked her thumb.

A drop of blood fell onto a sheet of parchment covered in sigils.

It sizzled.

Then the paper blackened… and crumbled into ash.

Ravena raised an eyebrow.

“Well. That’s not normal.”

“No,” Vicky said softly. “It isn’t.”

She looked toward the door, expression sharpening into predatory interest.

“Something is interfering with divination.”

“Supernatural?” Ravena asked.

“Or exceptionally professional.”

Her lips curved into a delighted, dangerous smile.

“Oh, I do hope it’s the latter.”

POV: Rowan Fantome

Daniel Mercer never saw them approach.

He was too busy laughing with friends behind the gym after dark, cigarette glowing like a tiny distress beacon.

One by one, the others drifted away.

Rowan waited until he was alone.

Then stepped from the shadows.

Black coat. Hood. Mask. No visible face.

Daniel stiffened.

“The hell are you supposed to be?”

Rowan tilted their head.

“Extracurricular activity.”

The voice filter turned the words into a graveyard whisper.

Daniel scoffed, stepping forward.

“Yeah? Get lost before I—”

He stopped.

Evelyn stood behind him.

He hadn’t heard her arrive.

Panic flashed across his face.

“Who are you people—”

A needle slipped into his neck.

Fast. Precise.

Daniel collapsed, limbs failing before he hit the ground.

Rowan crouched beside him, almost sympathetic.

“Don’t worry,” they said softly. “We’re not the ones who took the girl.”

His eyes widened in terror.

“Oh yes,” Rowan continued, voice bright with curiosity. “We know about that.”

Evelyn checked his pulse.

“Stable.”

Elias emerged last, surveying the scene with clinical calm.

“Transport.”

They lifted the paralyzed boy effortlessly and disappeared into the darkness as though swallowed by it.

No witnesses.

No sound.

No trace.

POV: Claire d’Assine

She stood on the academy balcony, watching students cross the courtyard below like pieces on a board.

Leon walked among them, speaking gently to a nervous first-year.

So careful.

So human.

It stirred something uncomfortable inside her.

Then — a flicker at the edge of her perception.

Three figures crossing the far gate.

Black coats. Concealed faces.

They moved wrong.

Not supernatural.

Worse.

Disciplined.

Claire narrowed her eyes.

Predators.

But not of any species she knew.

POV: Unknown

Deep beneath the city, chains rattled in a chamber carved from raw stone.

A figure knelt within a circle of ancient runes, body twisted into something no longer entirely human.

Eyes burned with feral intelligence.

Voice cracked with hunger.

“Bring… more…”

Outside the circle, cultists bowed.

“The time approaches,” one said reverently. “The curse will spread.”

Above them, the city slept — blissfully unaware that it was becoming a hunting ground for monsters…

…and those who hunted monsters in return.

End of Chapter 4