DEVOUR THE GODS: They had all the power. He took it

Chapter 3: The Hunter's Thread

The sirens stopped two blocks away.

I pressed against the window, watching blue light wash over the buildings. Three Council carriages, each pulled by constructs that looked like horses made of solidified lightning. Fast. Expensive. Reserved for high-priority threats.

They thought I was worth the expense. That should have terrified me.

Instead, I felt validated.

The carriages stopped in front of my building. Guards emerged, six of them, wearing the silver and black uniforms of Council enforcement. Combat mages, all of them. Their hands glowed with various colors. Fire. Lightning. Force manipulation. They'd brought enough power to level the entire block if necessary.

Behind them, Marcus Venn stepped down from the lead carriage.

Even from four stories up, I could see the electricity dancing across his shoulders. Arcs of white-blue light that made the air around him shimmer. He was angry. More than angry. His father had lost his power to my grandmother. Now history was repeating itself, and Marcus had personal stakes in stopping it.

He looked up at my window.

Our eyes met.

He smiled. Not friendly. Not cruel. Just certain. The smile of someone who'd never failed at anything important and didn't expect to start now.

Then he raised his hand and pointed directly at me.

The guards moved.

I had maybe thirty seconds before they breached my door. Thirty seconds to decide whether I'd surrender or fight. Whether I'd accept whatever mercy the Council might offer or embrace what I was becoming.

The locket burned against my chest. The voices screamed in unified hunger.

Take them. Take them all. So much power. So much potential. TAKE IT.

My hands moved without conscious thought. I touched the wall, feeling for Mrs. Chen's plant magic. It responded instantly, eager. Vines erupted from the plaster, thick as my wrist, growing with impossible speed. They spread across the floor, up the walls, coating everything in green.

Not enough. I reached for the ice magic I'd stolen. Cold flooded through my veins, and frost raced across the vines, coating them in crystalline armor. The temperature in the room dropped twenty degrees in seconds.

Better. Still not enough.

Heavy footsteps thundered up the stairs. They weren't being subtle. Didn't need to be. Six combat mages against one untrained thief. The math was simple.

They didn't know about the locket.

They didn't know what I could do.

Neither did I.

The door exploded inward. Not kicked. Blasted. A surge of force magic that turned wood into splinters. The guards poured through the opening, moving with practiced coordination. Two took positions by the door. Two flanked left and right. Two advanced straight at me.

"Kael Thorne," the lead guard announced. "By order of the Mage Council, you are under arrest for magical theft and assault. Surrender immediately or face lethal force."

I raised my blackened hands. "I didn't mean to hurt anyone."

"Hands behind your head. Now."

The vines around the room stirred. Just slightly. Just enough to draw attention.

"What the hell?" One of the flanking guards noticed the vegetation covering the walls. "Plant magic? Reports said he was talentless."

"He stole it," Marcus said from the doorway. He stepped into my apartment, electricity crackling louder now. "Just like his grandmother. Just like the Phantom Thief."

The guards shifted uncomfortably. They'd heard the stories. Everyone had.

"Where's the artifact?" Marcus's eyes scanned the room. "You're using something. Nobody just develops power theft spontaneously. There's a device. A ritual focus. Something."

I touched the locket through my shirt. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Liar." Marcus took another step forward. Lightning arced between his fingers. "Elena told me everything. About the veins. About how you've changed. You found something, and it's corrupting you."

Elena had betrayed me. Of course she had. She was good. Followed the rules. Believed in the system.

The betrayal hurt less than it should have. Maybe I was already too far gone to feel properly.

"Last chance, Thorne. Surrender the artifact and come peacefully. We'll get you medical help. Extract whatever's poisoning you. You might even survive."

"And if I don't?"

Marcus's smile returned. "Then I get to finish what my father started forty years ago. He hunted the Phantom Thief. Never caught her. But you? You're not as smart as she was."

The lead guard raised his hand. Fire gathered in his palm, condensing into a sphere the size of a fist. "Final warning. Hands behind your head or we open fire."

I looked at the six guards. At Marcus. At the power they carried so casually. Power they were born with. Power they'd never had to fight for or steal or beg for.

Power they thought gave them the right to judge me.

The hunger in my chest became a roar.

"No," I said.

I slammed both hands against the floor.

The vines exploded into motion. Dozens of them, whipping through the air like serpents. The frost coating them made them rigid enough to pierce. Sharp enough to kill.

The guards reacted instantly. The fire mage incinerated three vines before they reached him. The force mage created a barrier that shredded another two. But there were too many, growing too fast, and I wasn't just using plant magic anymore.

I pushed ice through the vines, freezing them solid, then shattered them into hundreds of crystalline shards that filled the air like daggers.

Two guards went down immediately. One took a shard through the thigh. The other caught three in his shoulder and chest. Not fatal. Probably. I wasn't trying to kill them.

Not yet.

Marcus moved like lightning itself. One moment he stood by the door, the next he was beside me, electricity coating his fist. He swung.

I barely dodged. His knuckles grazed my cheek, and even that glancing contact sent voltage through my skull. My vision whited out. My muscles spasmed. I hit the floor hard, tasting copper.

"Stay down," Marcus said. "Don't make this harder than it has to be."

Through the stars in my vision, I saw him reaching for the locket around my neck. His fingers were an inch away.

I grabbed his wrist.

The connection formed instantly. Thicker than anything I'd felt before. Brighter. Marcus's power was massive, a lightning storm contained in human flesh. Combat-class magic. The kind that could level buildings. The kind reserved for Council enforcers and military applications.

The kind I desperately needed.

I pulled.

Marcus screamed.

The sound was inhuman. Agony and violation mixed together. His lightning flickered, sputtered, then began flowing into me like water finding a drain. I could feel it burning through my veins, teaching me its secrets. How to generate voltage from nothing. How to shape it into weapons. How to move at speeds that defied human limitation.

"Let go!" Marcus tried to wrench his arm away. The muscles in his neck stood out like cables. "Let go of me, you bastard!"

I couldn't. Not because I didn't want to. Because the locket wouldn't let me. It had tasted real power now, and it wanted more. It wanted everything.

The remaining guards attacked. Fire and force and something that felt like compressed air hit me simultaneously. Pain exploded across my back. My shirt caught fire. The impact drove me forward, slamming me into Marcus.

We went down together, his wrist still locked in my grip.

His lightning poured into me faster now. I could see it draining from his eyes, the bright blue fading to dull grey. Could feel his magic withering like a plant denied water.

"Please," he gasped. "Please stop."

The locket burned hotter. The voices sang in triumph.

YES. MORE. TAKE IT ALL. DRAIN HIM DRY.

I wanted to stop. Some part of me, the part that remembered being human, screamed to let go. But a larger part, the part that had been empty for twenty-three years, kept pulling. Kept drinking. Kept filling the void with stolen light.

Marcus's eyes rolled back. His body went limp.

I released him and stumbled backward. Lightning crackled across my skin, wild and uncontrolled. I couldn't contain it properly yet. Arcs jumped from my fingers to the walls, leaving scorch marks. The smell of ozone filled the room.

The guards stared at me in horror.

"He's down," one whispered. "Marcus Venn is down. He just..."

"Retreat," the lead guard ordered. "Fall back and call for reinforcements."

They dragged their wounded toward the door, abandoning Marcus's unconscious form. Smart. They'd come prepared to arrest a thief. Not to fight whatever I'd become.

I didn't chase them. Couldn't. The three powers inside me were fighting for dominance. Plant magic and ice magic and now lightning, all trying to coexist in a body that wasn't designed for any of them. The pain was extraordinary.

The black veins had spread to my chest now. I could see them through my burned shirt, crawling across my ribs like roots seeking purchase. They pulsed in time with my heartbeat, each pulse sending fresh agony through my nervous system.

Worth it, though. God, it was worth it.

I knelt beside Marcus. His breathing was shallow but steady. Alive. I'd drained him but not killed him. That had to count for something.

His Council ring glowed faintly on his finger. Silver band with a blue stone. Proof of his registration. Proof he mattered.

I took it.

Not for the ring itself. For what it represented. Every registered mage's ring connected to the Council database. Wearing it would mark me as legitimate. As someone with the right to exist.

I slipped it on. It resized automatically, tightening around my finger until it fit perfectly. The stone pulsed once, then settled into a steady glow.

Somewhere in Council headquarters, an alarm was probably screaming. Unauthorized ring transfer. Magical signature mismatch. But it would take them time to respond. Time to organize another strike team. Time I could use.

I grabbed my coat and walked out of the apartment. Didn't run. Running attracted attention. I moved at a normal pace, just another Dregs resident going about his day.

The guards had left the carriages unattended. The lightning constructs stood perfectly still, waiting for commands. I approached the nearest one carefully.

It turned its head toward me. Eyes like blue stars assessed me with alien intelligence.

Then it bowed.

The ring. It recognized Marcus's ring and accepted me as its master.

I climbed into the carriage. "Take me to the Garden District."

The construct surged forward. We left the Dregs behind in seconds, racing through streets that blurred together. People scattered. Other carriages swerved aside. Nobody questioned a Council vehicle moving at emergency speed.

The Garden District materialized around me like a different world. Clean streets. Intact buildings. Trees that grew in neat rows instead of struggling through cracked pavement. Wealth and power made visible in architecture.

I'd never been here before. Students from the Dregs weren't welcome. Too much risk of theft or violence or simply existing in spaces reserved for better people.

Now I wore a Council ring and commanded a Council carriage. Now I could go anywhere.

The construct stopped in front of an iron gate. Beyond it, a mansion sprawled across manicured lawns. Three stories of white stone and stained glass. Enchanted lights floated around the property, casting rainbow shadows.

Elena's house. I'd memorized the address years ago from an academy directory. Never thought I'd actually come here.

I walked through the gate. It didn't stop me. The ring again, granting me access to places that should have been forbidden.

The front door opened before I reached it. Elena stood in the entrance, her face pale.

"Kael. What did you do?"

"What I had to."

"Marcus. Is he..."

"Alive." I held up my blackened hands. "I'm not a killer, Elena. Not yet."

She looked at the ring on my finger. At the veins spreading across my neck. At the lightning still crackling faintly around my shoulders.

"You took his power."

"He tried to take everything from me. I just returned the favor."

"This isn't you. Whatever that thing around your neck is doing to you, fight it. You're better than this."

I laughed. Couldn't help it. "Better? Elena, I've never been better. I've spent my entire life being nothing. Being less than nothing. Now I'm something. Now I matter."

"You matter because of stolen power. That's not real. That's not earned."

"Neither is being born with magic. You didn't earn your telekinesis. Marcus didn't earn his lightning. You were just lucky. Genetic lottery winners who've spent your lives pretending you deserve what you have."

Elena stepped back. "You need help. Medical help. Let me call someone. A healer. Someone who specializes in magical corruption."

"I'm not corrupted. I'm finally whole."

"Look at yourself!" She gestured at my hands, my chest, my neck. "Those veins are spreading. You're dying, Kael. Whatever that artifact is, it's killing you."

"No. It's making me alive."

I felt her power. Telekinesis. Precise and controlled. Beautiful, really. She could manipulate objects with thought alone, threading needles from across a room. Useful magic. Valuable magic.

Magic I wanted.

The hunger stirred again. Stronger than before. The more I took, the more I needed. Like the locket was a stomach that could never be filled.

I took a step toward Elena.

She raised her hand. A dozen objects around the room lifted into the air. Vases. Books. A letter opener. All aimed at me.

"Don't," she said. "Please don't make me hurt you."

"You won't."

"I will if I have to."

The objects trembled in the air. Her control was perfect, but her will was breaking. She didn't want to fight me. Didn't want to believe I'd become something that needed fighting.

I reached for her power.

The connection formed. Thin. Delicate. Different from the combat mages I'd drained. Her magic was precise where theirs was forceful. Surgical where theirs was brutal.

"Kael, no."

I hesitated. For just a moment, I saw her as she'd been in second year. Laughing behind the library. Kissing me in the shadows. Making me believe I could be worth something.

Then I remembered how she'd looked at Marcus during the Ascension Ceremony. The love in her eyes. The casual certainty that she belonged with someone powerful.

I pulled.

Elena gasped. The floating objects crashed to the floor. Her hand went to her chest, exactly like Mrs. Chen had done. Like the thread-mage. Like Marcus.

"Stop," she whispered. "Please stop."

The telekinetic power flowed into me. Elegant. Complex. It taught me things the other magics hadn't. How to manipulate force at a distance. How to feel objects without touching them. How to move with thought instead of muscle.

Elena sank to her knees. Tears streamed down her face. "Why?"

"Because I'm tired of being empty." My voice sounded wrong. Multiple tones layered over each other. The voices from the locket bleeding into my speech. "Because you had everything and I had nothing. Because the world is built by people like you for people like you, and people like me don't even register as human."

"I loved you," she said. "In second year. I really did. I just got scared when you didn't manifest. I thought it would be temporary. I thought you'd catch up."

"And when I didn't?"

"I was weak. I was wrong. I'm sorry."

Her power drained completely. The connection severed. She collapsed forward, catching herself on trembling arms.

I stood over her, feeling her magic settle into my bones alongside the others. Four abilities now. Plant manipulation. Ice generation. Lightning control. Telekinesis.

I was becoming a collection. Just like my grandmother.

Just like the monster they'd all feared.

"I'm sorry too," I said. "For what it's worth."

Elena looked up at me. Her eyes held no magic now. Just tears and accusation. "What happened to you?"

"I got tired of being powerless."

I turned and walked away. Left her there on the floor of her mansion, surrounded by wealth and privilege and everything I'd never have.

The lightning construct waited outside. It bowed again when I approached.

"Take me to the Undercity," I commanded.

The construct hesitated. Its stellar eyes flickered. Taking a Council carriage to the Undercity was asking for it to be stripped and sold for parts within minutes.

But it obeyed. That's what Marcus's ring commanded.

We descended into the lower levels of the city. Past the Dregs. Past even the industrial districts. Down to where the original city had been buried under centuries of construction. The Undercity. Where criminals and refugees and people with nothing left to lose made their homes in the bones of the dead past.

The construct stopped at a massive iron door built into the street. Beyond it, tunnels stretched into darkness. The entrance to the underground.

I climbed out. "Return to Council headquarters. Tell them Marcus Venn has been incapacitated. Tell them Kael Thorne is responsible. Tell them I'm done running."

The construct bowed one final time, then raced away.

I pulled the Council ring from my finger and threw it into the gutter. Let them track it here. Let them waste resources searching the Undercity while I disappeared into its depths.

The iron door opened with a thought. Telekinesis made everything easier.

I descended into darkness.

The voices in the locket sang.

Good. Yes. Down here, there are more. So many more. Powers uncounted. Abilities unregistered. Take them. Take them all. Fill yourself until there's no room left for doubt or guilt or weakness.

The black veins had reached my shoulders now. Soon they'd cover my entire body. Soon I'd be more corruption than human.

I didn't care.

For the first time in my life, I had power. Real power. The kind that made people afraid. The kind that mattered.

And I was going to take more.

Much more.

Behind me, sirens wailed. The Council mobilizing in force. They'd send everything they had now. Combat mages. Investigators. Maybe even the Magistrates themselves.

Let them come.

I had lightning in my veins and ice in my heart and an endless hunger that could only be satisfied by devouring their world piece by piece.

They'd made me nothing.

I'd become everything.

And I was just getting started.