Chapter 74 Peace

She sat on the sofa, hands pressed together and eyes following me curiously. Her voice trembled when she asked, “What are you doing?”

“None of your damn business,” I muttered, opening drawers and tearing through cabinets. My hands moved with purpose, but my chest burned with hurt.

“You’re scaring me,” said Onyx softly.

No. She wasn’t Onyx anymore. Not Silver either. She was just a woman, someone I once thought I couldn’t live without, someone I cherished so much that death had seemed lighter than losing her. I couldn’t bring myself to meet her gaze. I turned back to the wardrobe and pulled out a frayed black suit, worn thin at the shoulders.

I stripped down and put it on, the fabric stiff and uneven against my skin. “Forget about me,” I told her. My voice was low and final. “You don’t know me. Stay away from me.”

I clumsily tried to fix the tie, my fingers trembling, my left side betraying me with an involuntary shake. That’s when she moved. She walked straight to me, close enough that I could feel her warmth. She slid her hands up, steadying mine, tying the knot with ease, despite her lack of memories.

“Stay away from me, or—” The words caught in my throat.

“Or what?” she asked. There was no fear in her tone, just defiance, a dare to finish what I couldn’t. “Tell me… or what?”

She pulled the tie snug, the knot neat and perfect. I turned from her, facing the door. My hand landed on the cold doorknob. I didn’t look back.

“You’ll come back, right?” Her voice wavered, brittle, carrying hope and dread in equal measure.

I opened the door and walked out without answering. But through the strange pull of empathy, I felt it. Her pain was sharp and raw, confusion twisting with fear, the echo of something she still held for me even after everything. It stayed with me, heavier than the suit on my shoulders.

“I am sorry…”

It was high noon, the sun bearing down like a spotlight I hadn’t asked for. People recognized me instantly. Their eyes widened, their steps faltered, and then they scattered like frightened birds. Some gasped, others whispered my name like it was a curse. Fear rolled off them in waves, and beneath it I caught slivers of awe, curiosity, and panic. They were emotions that weren’t mine, yet I felt them as if they were.

Onyx had left me… a gift. Or maybe a curse. Empathy that dug under my skin and forced me to carry the weight of everyone else’s heart. The thought of her and Silver twisted my gut. They were gone. Truly gone. And still, they haunted me through every sensation.

I walked on, the crowd parting before me. No one dared get close. By the time I pushed open the squeaking door of a thrift store, I felt like a plague in human skin. The air inside was thick with dust and mothballs, the kind of place where time stuck in corners.

The old man behind the counter looked up, his hands trembling even before he reached for the shotgun leaning against the wall. He cocked it, the sound snapping through the silence. Without hesitation, he fired.

The pellets tore through the air, and through me. I phased, the shot breaking apart against the wall behind me. The man’s panic slammed into me harder than the blast. His heart raced, his fear pressed sharp against my chest.

Beyond him, beyond the dusty windows, I could feel the city’s pulse. Fear and confusion, resignation, rage, despair. A mixed cocktail of emotions carried on the backs of strangers, but fear always outnumbered the rest. It probably felt like the world was ending to them. Maybe it was. And I felt better, thinking that way.

The old man’s voice cracked as he stammered, “I… I don’t have much cash on me. Please. Take it. Just don’t—”

“I don’t want your money,” I interrupted, my voice low but steady. My eyes fell on a shelf by the wall. “I only wanted this.”

I reached out and grabbed a black fedora, its felt worn but still holding its shape. I looked around more and found a white mask made of papier-mâché, cracked at the edges but whole enough to wear. I lifted it, feeling its fragile weight in my hands.

“I only have this much,” I muttered, sliding a crumpled hundred-mark bill onto the counter. It wasn’t mine. I had swiped it from some poor bastard earlier, brushing against him in the crowd and leaving him none the wiser. The old man’s hand shook as he took it, eyes darting between me and the door like he was praying I’d just vanish.

I didn’t blame him.

I pressed the fedora and papier-mâché mask together, willing them to meld under my phasing touch until they became a single piece. The moment I pulled it over my face, I felt different. The world dimmed and shifted. I felt… powerful.

“I am so tired,” I whispered to no one, though the words echoed in my skull like a confession.

The door creaked as I pushed it open, sunlight spilling in. I walked straight into the street. Cars honked, tires screamed against asphalt, and metal beasts swerved wildly to avoid me. Some didn’t; they plowed through my intangible body as if I were smoke. I didn’t flinch. I just kept walking, step after step, my feet carrying me along the invisible thread tugging at my chest. It was the empathic residue Onyx had left behind.

One last time. That’s all I had in me. One last time to wear the mask of the villain, the monster, and the shadow that haunted Markend. After that, I was finished.

“I am going to be the bad guy for one last time,” I said aloud, as if the city needed to hear it. “And then I am done.”

The thread pulled me through streets, across neighborhoods. I passed by a family of four, mid-bite at their dining table, who screamed when I appeared in their doorway like a ghost before fading back into the walls. In an alley, a mugger had his victim pinned against brick, knife flashing in the midday sun. Both men froze at the sight of me. The knife clattered on the pavement, their footsteps loud as they fled opposite directions.

I didn’t chase. I didn’t care.

The thread tugged harder. My steps slowed as I reached a crossroads. The red light above flickered, stopping traffic, and I stood in the middle of the road as if I owned it. Civilians shouted from sidewalks, voices rising in terror and anger.

“It’s him!”

“Eclipse!”

“Monster of Markend!”

I lifted my gaze to the building just around the bend, its glass windows gleaming under the noon sun. It was Estrella Alta.

The thread pulsed, and I knew I was almost there.

Never had cape response times been this slow. The thought gnawed at me as I strolled down the middle of the street without so much as a siren in the distance. Markend must’ve been swamped and spread thin. No one expected me to be brazen enough to walk in the open, head high, and mask showing off under the noon sun.

I crossed the lobby without breaking stride, ignoring the gasps and hurried footsteps scattering away from me. The concierge ducked behind the desk, stammering into a phone. I stepped into the elevator, pressed for the top floor, and waited.

The empathic thread hummed faintly against my chest. Every time the elevator shuddered to a stop, the doors peeled open to reveal wide-eyed civilians. Their faces were masks of disbelief, mouths hanging open, too paralyzed by fear to scream at first. I didn’t move, didn’t speak. The silence stretched until they scrambled out of sight, leaving me alone with my reflection in polished steel.

Ding.

It was the top floor.

The doors parted.

I walked out onto familiar ground. It was the same floor where I’d once stood with Crow, with Silver, and with Onyx. The memory stung sharp enough to twist my stomach.

A waiter intercepted me, his tray balanced with flutes of champagne. “Champagne, sir?” His voice cracked on the last syllable.

I ignored him, kept walking, eyes locked on the pulse of the empathic thread. The poor bastard panicked, stepping into my path. My body phased through his, glasses spilling in a cascade of shattered crystal and fizzing gold. Gasps rippled across the ballroom, attention snapping toward him, away from me.

On the podium, a rotund man in an immaculate suit waved his arms grandly. His voice carried over the murmurs, oily and confident. “And let us remember… we owe all this safety, all this prosperity, to the dedication of the SRC and the Vanguard!”

I barely heard him. My focus narrowed, my path unyielding.

The thread led me to the edge of the room, to a man standing by the window with a glass of amber liquid in his hand. Blonde hair combed neatly back, blue eyes sharp with wealth and arrogance. Early forties, maybe. He looked like he’d never known hunger, never known fear.

I stopped in front of him.

He turned at last, the casual smile on his lips faltering. Slowly, recognition cracked through his features, replaced by something raw and ugly… It was shock.

“Director Hall, a fine gala you have here,” I began, my voice cutting through the hum of chatter and clinking glass.

Michael Hall turned toward me with the poise of a man used to being watched. His face betrayed nothing, though I caught the subtle twitch of his hand as it drifted to his watch. He pressed something with a casual flick, the motion nearly invisible. A signal. Reinforcements. Two minutes, maybe less, before the hindrance arrived.

He smiled thinly, glass still in hand. “Nice costume. Though you do know this isn’t a masked party. And I must say—” his eyes flicked over the fedora, the papier-mâché mask on my face, “—you’re wearing something… rather insensitive.” His tone was light, almost mocking, but the calculation behind it was razor sharp.

I tilted my head, letting the silence stretch, then pushed. Threads of empathy extended from me, brushing against him, probing deeper. The fabric of his calm was too polished and rehearsed.

“There’s no need to pretend,” I said. My voice carried the weight of certainty. “I know who you are.”

The smile cracked. His lips twitched downward as the skin on his face seemed to ripple, then stretch unnaturally. His flesh paled like wet ink spreading across paper. Long, oily strands of hair spilled from his scalp, swaying as if underwater. His eyes inverted, sclera swallowed into black voids, pupils blazing white.

Around us, the gala froze. Every guest from every laughing mouth, every hand raising a glass, and every step toward the buffet stopped mid-motion. The entire ballroom turned into a grotesque tableau, life paused at the whim of something monstrous.

Michael Hall’s new face bent toward me, the mockery of a smile curling across its lengthened features. The voice that followed was silk dragged over broken glass.

“There’s no need to be shy,” he said, every syllable vibrating in my bones. “Say my name.”

“Back in the detainment facility,” I asked, never taking my eyes off the stretched smile that had become Hall’s face, “who did you send into my cell?”

“A homeless nobody, dressed up to look like me with lots of makeup.”

“How about the ‘crows’ that you left in people’s shadows?”

“Ah,” intoned Hall. “Parasites, fueled by emotions, Little agents immune to nullifiers and perfect for spying. So, that’s how you got rid of the ‘crow’ I placed on you. Fascinating. How did you do it exactly? Empathic powers are not easy to develop; moreover, to pull...”

“Caw!”

I turned to the guests.

“Caw! Caw!”

Then another answered it, and another, until the whole hall seemed to echo with their rasping cries.

“Caw! Caw! Caw!”

Shadows split, feathers spilled, and suddenly, crows were everywhere. They didn’t swoop or attack. They landed, calm and certain, perching on shoulders, chair backs, and gilded banisters as though the place had always been theirs. Each bird clung like a parasite, its black eyes fixed and unblinking, tethered to the guest it chose. I felt the connections, thin threads of will binding bird to host, empathy made into chains.

Faces I knew stood stiff beneath the weight: a councilman whose speeches bled with promises, a CEO who fattened himself on war contracts, even a judge whose rulings had carved lives apart. Their smiles and polish were gone, replaced by glassy stillness, marionettes awaiting command. The sight turned my stomach. What looked like power was nothing but another layer of Hall’s rot, dressed in feathers and silence.

“I’ll give you one last chance to walk away, Nicholas,” said Hall. “Leave my city and vanish. We can both pretend we never crossed paths.”

His theatrics should have bored me; instead, I felt the hum of everyone else’s fear feeding whatever stagecraft he’d spun. I let the thread of empathy drift through the crowd like a slow finger probing an open wound… I could taste their locked breath, and their confusion melded with obedience.

“Why do you think I’m here?” I asked aloud. “Please, indulge me.”

The room answered, not Hall but a chorus of practiced terror unspooling in perfect synchronization. “WE ARE THE MURDER OF CROWS, AND WE ALWAYS GET WHAT WE WANT. LEAVE OR YOU SHALL PERISH.”

“Wrong answer.”

I reached to my right, and grabbed…

Hall appeared before me, his throat caught in my hand. He tried to stab me with a knife, only for the weapon to clatter uselessly as I phased it with a touch. The dark-haired Crow that served as his mask cracked and vanished. His illusion, dead! It almost made me laugh how easy it was. Hall thrashed in my grip, and the shadows writhed with him. His Umbrakinetic illusions blurred the room into a mess of lies, trying to con me into letting him go from using invisibility, tugging at my emotions with his empathy, and conjuring Mom, Silver, and even Onyx.

“Please, son…”

“This is wrong!”

“Nick, you don’t have to do this!”

My empathic threads clung to him like a leash, and no matter what mask he wore, I could still feel his pulse and panic, beating steadily in my skull.

“Crows, attack!” he screamed, his voice cracking as he grew desperate. “Kill him! Kill him!”

The guests remained unmoving, their glasses trembling in their locked hands. Their faces stayed blank, each of them pinned by my interference. I had cut through the string that tied them to him, peeling away his hold with a mixture of intangibility and empathy, like cutting through rotten sinew. His chorus was gone, and now he had no audience to clap.

Hall’s bravado collapsed into desperation, clawing at my sleeve. “Wealth… I can make you richer than anyone alive. Power… you can have the city, the country, whatever you want! Knowledge… I’ve learned things, secrets beyond what you can imagine. A new life, Nick. I can give you that. Please… please!”

I let him babble. I walked to the edge of the gala room, where tall windows gave way to the sprawl of Markend beneath us, a city that still burned and shivered from everything I had done and everything he had done before me. His pleading voice scraped at my back, but I barely heard it. My hand rested on the cold glass, my reflection a blur beneath the mask.

“Do you know,” I asked quietly, turning to look at him, “that crows can fly?”

Before his eyes could widen fully, I phased him forward.

“No, no,” cried Hall. “Please, don’t do this to me!”

I let go.

Michael Hall went screaming into open air, his voice sharp against the roar of traffic and the buzz of city life below. I held the empathic thread taut as he plummeted. I felt everything… rage flaring, confusion twisting, defeat settling like lead, and at the last heartbeat, pure, naked fear. Then silence. He struck the ground and vanished beneath it, phased through to whatever abyss waited beneath the skin of the city. And I stood there, staring at the hole he left in the world, the quiet almost louder than his scream.

“Finally, peace…”