Emerald City never sleeps.

Not really.

Rain slicked streets glimmered under sodium streetlamps as Landry paced her apartment, barefoot, restless. When the phone buzzed on the counter, she froze. Few people had this number. Fewer still would dare use it.

She didn’t bother checking the screen.

“Landry.”

“An ORACLE archive has gone dark,” the voice rasped, gravel wrapped in smoke. Martin “Gray” Rowe. Burned ORACLE handler. Exiled, not retired. “Military response is hours out. You need to move.”

“What’s inside?”

A pause. Longer than it should’ve been.

“Secrets we both can’t afford to get out.”

And then the line went dead.

Fifteen minutes later, Landry stood beneath the soft hum of a streetlight at First and Second, the drizzle soaking through her coat. She heard him before she saw him — a scooter whining its way through the fog.

Musang.

Ex-Philippine Scout Ranger. Sniper. Jungle ghost. A friend she trusted when everything else was shadows and knives.

He stopped, flipped up the orange delivery helmet, and grinned through the mist.

“You only call when it’s trouble.”

“It’s always trouble.”

The ORACLE archive sat on the edge of the city — a nondescript warehouse tucked beneath the looming bulk of the Olympic Peninsula forests. Tonight, the fog lay thick, the Pacific Northwest rain hammering the corrugated roof in steady percussion.

They ditched the scooter a hundred yards out and ghosted forward on foot.

Musang crouched low, eyes on a lone van parked at the edge of the lot, perfectly angled for surveillance and a fast getaway.

“That’s no coincidence,” he whispered.

Landry’s enhanced vision cut through the mist — one occupant, fatigues, paramilitary kit.

One suppressed shot later, the van was silent.

The smell hit her first as they neared the guard booth.

Blood.

And beneath it… something else.

Incense. Myrrh.

Landry scaled the cliff wall in silence, grapnel biting slick stone. From the top, she could see drag marks across the wet concrete leading from the guard booth straight to the yawning black of the facility doors.

Musang joined her seconds later, Moro kris in hand, jaw tight.

Inside, the silence screamed.

A dead guard slumped against the wall, shirt torn open, a tarnished medallion on his chest.

Vigilum Dei.

The ancient lay order. Watchers of forbidden things.

Landry touched the cold pendant. The guard’s skin was fractured like volcanic glass, his clouded eyes veiled in a thin film of ash.

She didn’t have time to dwell on it.

Slavic voices echoed deeper inside. Two armed men patrolled near the entrance.

“Quietly,” Landry mouthed.

The fight erupted anyway.

Musang’s blade missed. A shout went up. A radio crackled. More boots thundered against concrete. Landry yanked a fire extinguisher from the wall, rolled it into the corridor, and shot it clean — mist exploded, cloaking the hallway in white.

Two shapes burst from the fog. Musang’s rifle barked twice. Both dropped, silent.

Landry slipped an earpiece from a fallen guard, Slavic commands hissing in fragments — positions, orders, numbers. At least five hostiles still inside. Two leaders. One name whispered like a prayer:

The Ash Widow.

They descended into the archives.

Steel racks stretched into darkness, rows upon rows heavy with sealed ORACLE history. The red glow of emergency lights painted everything blood-dark. Landry’s danger sense prickled at the base of her skull.

“Stop,” she whispered.

A breath.

Then shadows moved.

Two soldiers lunged from between the racks. One’s rifle barked wild. Landry slammed a shoulder into the shelving, sending an avalanche of steel and paper crashing down, pinning the second hostile beneath a mountain of history.

Musang’s blade found the first soldier’s ribs. The body dropped silently to the floor.

The chanting began moments later, rising from deeper within the archive.

The vault door buckled under unseen pressure, metal groaning as they pushed it open.

Inside, the air stank of burnt myrrh and molten steel. A WWII-era footlocker hung suspended above the floor, bound in chalk spirals, threads of blood, and curling trails of ash.

Lt. Kravac turned first, rifle raised, barking clipped commands to his lone surviving man.

At the center of the circle stood the woman they’d come to know by whispers alone.

The Ash Widow.

Swathed in a coat of grey silk embroidered with unholy sigils, her gloved hands carved burning symbols into the air. The box pulsed brighter with each gesture, seams bleeding light like fire through cracked stone.

Landry raised her pistol.

The Widow vanished.

Ash swirled behind her, thick as breath.

“You’re too late.”

The fight was chaos. Bullets sparked off metal. Ritual chalk lines scorched beneath wild arcs of magic. Musang’s blade rang against air that shattered like glass beneath the Widow’s touch, each strike leaving crystalline burns across his armour.

Landry darted from cover to cover, trading shots with Kravac while keeping the Widow in her sights.

One bullet landed. Smoke curled from the Widow’s shoulder.

She smiled.

And vanished — taking the glowing footlocker with her.

Kravac hurled a flashbang as he retreated, the blast overwhelming Landry’s hyper-tuned senses and dropping Musang to his knees.

When the ringing stopped, the only sound left was the rain hammering the roof above.

The dead kept their silence.

And whatever had been locked away in Archive 17 was gone.

Next Issue:

“Ashes, Blood, and the Vigil.”