The Order of Shadows

Hidden magic lurks in the heart of the Dark City. Can one man keep it from tearing itself apart? The name's Morgan Rook. I was done with demons, werewolves, and creatures that didn't even have names. I'd cleaned up enough of the city's darkness to earn my exit. Sun, sand, and no more bodies. One last job changed that. A vampire's rampage. Bodies piling up like discarded toys. Beneath it all, something older — and far worse. A darkness that had the monsters themselves trembling.

A cursed town full of wild magic. I should have turned back at the county line. I'd barely gotten the city's blood off my boots when the next job found me - a town called Copperwood Falls, bodies piling up, whispers of a ritual gone wrong. The deeper I went, the worse it got. A ruthless gang with old scores to settle. Something dark clawing its way up from inside me - something I'd spent years trying not to look at. And a demon with a grudge who'd marked me as his way back. One wrong step and Copperwood Falls would be my last case. I should have walked away. I never do.

The witches were weaving a deadly game. I was their next play. The city had gone mean. Hexes flying, bodies dropping, a coven moving through the shadows like they owned them - and I was the one sent in to unravel it. The deeper I dug, the more personal it became. The magic was clawing at scars I'd buried long ago. Someone knew exactly which ones to hit.

A rogue shadow was tearing the city apart. I was the only thing standing in its way. The streets were unraveling. Something was shredding through the city's defenses, and I was the last line before it reached everything else. The trail led somewhere I'd spent years avoiding. Back to the asylum. Back to the place I was born into darkness with no name and no past - and whatever had been waiting there for me ever since. My magic was fraying. My will was down to a thread. And the thing living inside me, the one I'd spent years refusing to name, was done waiting to escape.

The final shadow rose to claim it all. I was out of moves. The city was a battlefield. Every enemy I'd ever buried was crawling back from the grave - demons, sorcerers, ghosts of my own making - and they'd come to finish it. The scars were wide open. And the dark other that had been stirring since the beginning wasn't stirring anymore. He was calling the shots. I was down to raw will and a flicker of magic. The streets were ash. The odds were a slaughter.