Chapter 3 The Man in the Black Car

Chapter 3 – The Man in the Black Car

Isaac left Maya's apartment just after 2 a.m.

He didn't want to. Every instinct told him to stay-curl up on that couch, sleep for a week, pretend the last few hours never happened. But instincts weren't enough anymore, and safety was an illusion he couldn't afford to buy into.

Not now. Not with monsters crawling through his windows and gold fire in his veins.

The city was quieter now, almost eerie. Greywood never slept, but it paused. The bars had emptied. The dealers had vanished. The cops didn't bother with this part of town unless someone lit it on fire-and even then, only maybe.

Isaac walked the long way home.

He needed air. Time. Answers.

But he wasn't alone.

He noticed the car two blocks from his apartment. Matte black, parked beneath a flickering streetlight that cast long, broken shadows over the hood. Expensive model. Clean. Wrong for the neighborhood.

Too clean.

As he got closer, the passenger window rolled down.

"You're out late, Mr. Marshall," said a voice that dripped like oil over cold stone.

Isaac froze mid-step.

The man inside wore a dark suit, crisp and tailored. Pale skin, no hair, sharp features like his face had been carved, not born. And eyes-silver. Too bright. Too still.

"Do I know you?" Isaac asked carefully.

The man smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes.

"No. But we've been watching you."

Isaac's stomach dropped. "We?"

"The kind of people who notice when something shifts. You made noise tonight, Isaac. More than you realize."

"You saying you sent that... thing into my apartment?"

"If we had, you'd be dead."

A pause.

"Consider yourself lucky. What attacked you wasn't one of ours. It was feral. Rogue. Drawn to your blood."

Isaac's hands clenched. "So you know what I am?"

"Not yet," the man said, tilting his head like a curious bird. "But we will. Your kind used to be wiped out the moment they woke. Now... the rules are changing."

Isaac took a step back. "I'm not going with you."

"I didn't offer you a ride." The smile vanished. "I came to warn you."

"About what?"

"Your awakening has painted a target on your back. Every faction in the city will want a piece of you. Some will offer power. Others will offer chains. Most won't ask before taking."

"And what do you want?"

The man's eyes flicked up and down Isaac's frame.

"To see which kind of man you become."

He tossed something out the window. A small card. Isaac caught it without thinking.

It was blank.

No name. No number. Just a symbol burned into the surface: a coiled serpent wrapped around a sword.

"When the time comes," the man said, "you'll know how to use it."

The window rolled up.

The car pulled away.

No engine hum. No sound at all.

Just gone.

Isaac stood under the dying streetlight, staring at the card, heart pounding like a war drum. The serpent stared back at him, coiled and waiting.

By the time he got back to his apartment, the ash was gone.

No sign of the attack. No broken glass. No blood. Nothing.

Except for the scent-faint, metallic, like something had bled reality and then left. He searched the room three times, found nothing out of place.

Except one thing.

A thin scratch along the edge of the mirror, near where he'd seen his eyes change. A single word etched into the glass, like it had been carved by a blade dipped in flame.

Woken.

Isaac stared at the word until his eyes burned. Then he dropped onto the mattress and lay there in the dark, clutching the card like a lifeline.

He didn't sleep.

Couldn't.

Because somewhere in the night, something had shifted. His blood wasn't just his anymore. His life wasn't just his.

He'd been seen.

And whatever world was out there, hidden behind shadows and symbols-it had just opened its gates.a