The penthouse was quiet and still, with faint traces of incense and old parchment lingering from recent rituals. Sunlight streamed through large windows, casting shadows on the marble floor and revealing a sweeping view of Chicago’s skyline and Lake Michigan.
The spacious suite combined modern technology, including a touch-sensitive glass table and lacquered consoles. Blue-lit walls displayed ancient items, such as fragile scrolls, ritual knives, and a glowing carved stele with hieroglyphs.
A circular scrying basin was set in the stone floor, its smooth, dark surface surrounded by faintly glowing symbols. It usually reflected the room but could also reveal distant places and energies understood only by skilled practitioners.
A man stood motionless at the basin. He appeared to be in his late thirties, but his eyes betrayed his age. Slate-gray irises shimmered faintly beneath dark lashes. His large hands resting on the stone edge bore the calluses of labor but lacked its humility.
He had dark skin, a shaven scalp, and a full, pointed beard. Built with the quick, dense muscles of a fighter, he wore a tailored black suit that sharply contrasted with the golden diadem resting above his brow. The heads of a cobra and a vulture rose from its front, eternally poised. Tattoos of Egyptian deities, including Anubis, Ra, Sekhmet, and others, covered his torso. Each was inked with meticulous detail, a testament to a life consumed.
The basin shimmered. Faces rose and dissolved across its surface. Images of men and women, scattered across the globe, caught in moments they couldn’t comprehend. A glimpse of something entirely foreign. A pulse of light beneath skin. A flare, brief and unstable—then gone.
He passed his hand over the basin, exchanging one image for the next. One of them faltered. The image stuttered, then sharpened as the basin fixed on her. A beautiful young woman with long black hair, a pale scar on one cheek, and dark, thoughtful eyes. Somewhere in the Yucatán Peninsula.
His fingers tapped once against the stone rim. He would have to wait for her potential to flare again before he could narrow down the location, but she was a strong candidate. He typed a quick note into the tablet beside him.
The system responded instantly. Somewhere, far beyond the walls of the penthouse, signals would already be moving. His intelligence network would begin searching for the woman through facial recognition, energy resonance tracking, and behavior modeling. When they found her, his Hunters, tactical mercenary units, would be dispatched.
The image shifted again. Another flare, but weaker this time. Not worth the effort. He dismissed it with a flick of his hand. Most of them were like that, minor sparks with no true bonding potential.
The strong ones, like the woman with the dark eyes, were rare. They didn’t understand what they carried. That ignorance made them easy to harvest. Each one brought him closer. Not just to power, but to apotheosis. To create the version of the world that should have existed from the beginning.
At this thought, the diadem stirred faintly against his brow with a shared hunger. With a wave of his hand, he cleared the images from the basin. He stepped away and crossed the chamber toward a display set apart from the others.
A mannequin stood encased in glass. The olive-drab uniform it wore had been preserved with obsessive care. Pressed and immaculate, the uniform still bore the Wehrmacht eagle and the insignia of a Colonel in Rommel’s Afrika Korps. Inside the collar, the name Wilhelm Locke had been stitched in by hand.
His Schirmmütze rested on a shelf above an ornate cane with a silver pick-and-hammer handle.
He opened the glass with a soft click. Then he reached up and removed the diadem from his brow. He placed it carefully atop the mannequin’s head. The cobra and vulture settled into place above the lifeless fabric.
He studied the result in silence, head tilted slightly, as if evaluating a version of himself that no longer existed.
His fingers brushed at the collar. Decades had passed, and still, he found traces of that cursed desert sand.
The memory surfaced immediately.
It was 1942. After Rommel’s defeat at El Alamein, he had been leading his Geistereinheit—Ghost Unit—south from Cairo, skirting Allied positions near Luxor, when they came upon an archaeological camp near the Valley of the Kings.
From a ridge above the excavation, he had watched through field glasses as a young man lifted a newly unearthed diadem and placed it upon his head. The fool had no idea what he held and paid the ultimate price.
He had been fascinated by the complete efficiency of the destruction. In that instant, he understood there were forces in the world that dwarfed armies and empires alike. Power such as this did not belong to the weak. It consumed them.
That night, the Geistereinheit descended on the camp. By dawn, the diadem and every object of value had vanished. No one remained who could testify to the theft.
His hand lingered on the fabric a moment longer before withdrawing. Those days were gone, and Wilhelm Locke with them. He had forsaken that name for one more fitting—Akemhet.
He locked the case and returned to the throne-like mahogany chair at the far end of the chamber, framed by the city skyline.
It sat on a raised dais behind an ornate dark-wood desk edged in gold. He placed the tablet on the desk, next to a stack of parchment bound with twine and a small bowl containing large, dark walnuts.
He leaned back in the chair and rested his crossed feet on the edge of the desk. Opening a side drawer, he pulled out an aged leather volume, its yellowed pages filled with meticulously handwritten text and images. The Exousía Grimoire had been the key to unlocking the secrets of the diadem.
He slowly turned the pages but was interrupted when a woman appeared at the far end of the chamber. She was tall and poised, dressed in an immaculate white suit, sharply tailored, its stark elegance contrasted by deep red lips and ink-black gloves. An exquisite iron choker embraced her neck.
Her heels clicked against the polished stone floor as she strode toward him. A tablet was in one hand, while her steel-gray eyes stayed fixed ahead. Her hair, a glossy blue-gray, was pulled back into a sleek style that highlighted the sharp lines of her flawless features.
When she reached the foot of the dais, Seraphine Vale bowed with practiced grace, her head dipping barely enough to show respect without submission.
He ignored her and reached for the small bowl, picking up several walnuts.
“My lord,” she said, her voice smooth and composed. “The girl from Indiana—Rebecca Stadler. She has rejected Stone’s offer.”
Akemhet regarded her, the low light of the chamber catching on the inlaid sigils that crawled across the wall behind him. His face remained impassive as he spun the golf-ball-sized shells between his fingers.
“So,” he finally said, his voice echoing through the large room. “She turns away from the shepherd.”
“Yes, my lord. She has left Central America. Unclaimed and unprotected.” She paused almost imperceptibly. “So, your late discovery of her may not be a total loss after all.”
Akemhet’s fingers clenched and the shells cracked in his grip. He began to slowly eat the nuts as he focused intently on the woman in front of him.
Her skin prickled, and a sharp, invisible weight pressed down on Seraphine’s shoulders. She stiffened but refused to flinch. Akemhet’s power always unsettled her, and he knew it scraped along her nerves. She endured it without comment, though resentment simmered beneath her calm exterior.
The Stadler girl was already on the way to Costa Rica before Akemhet learned of her through the scrying basin. By the time he divined the girl’s location and had dispatched Seraphine, the opportunity to intercept her had already slipped away.
The basin had shown him another strong candidate in Montana at the time. The face had been indistinct, then vanished altogether. He had, perhaps foolishly, decided to chase that thread. It was… a miscalculation.
Had the Stadler girl accepted Stone’s offer, she would have passed beyond his reach entirely. For Seraphine to point this out bordered on insubordination.
“Potential unclaimed is potential wasted,” he murmured. “And that is an insult.”
Across from him, Seraphine frowned but said nothing.
“Stone hesitates,” Akemhet continued with clear disdain in his voice. “She always does. Somehow, she locates them before I can, irresistibly drawn to potentials like the proverbial moth.” He drummed his fingers against the throne’s armrest. “But rather than claiming or coercing the bond, she nurtures and waits patiently for consent, the perfect moment.”
He formed a sharp, humorless smile. “She mistakes patience for virtue. By holding their hand and pretending choice is sacred, she leaves the door open. And in that gap, in that indulgent mercy…” his eyes darkened. “I can step through.”
He leaned forward. “The Delphic witch may decide to send someone to watch the girl. We must act quickly. Since Ms. Stadler has elected not to be bonded, she will be harvested.”
Seraphine bowed. “As you command,” she said, not hiding the trace of contempt.
Akemhet rose from the throne in a smooth, predatory motion. “Take the Hunters. Find her before she understands that her options are limited. End it cleanly. No noise. No trace. It is unlikely anyone will bother to look for her.”
Seraphine nodded once with anticipation.
“I assume I am to use the Dhulma-Eresh to secure her essence,” she said coolly, as if discussing something mundane.
Akemhet’s smile was thin and terrible. “Yes. Bring it to me. What Stone seeks to protect will serve me instead.”
Seraphine straightened. “I will see to it.”
She turned to leave. Akemhet’s voice followed her.
“Do not underestimate her. Even unbonded, she’s capable of extreme violence. Find her. Bleed her. Take what she carries and bring it to me. I have a feeling she will be quite… satisfying.”
Seraphine paused long enough to incline her head. Her face stayed expressionless, though her fingers clenched the tablet as she left the chamber.
Akemhet fixed his gaze on the towering doors as they closed behind her, his expression unreadable. He reflected that he shouldn’t have let Seraphine’s attitude pass without correction. Another lesson might soon be necessary.