# Chapter 19: The Knock on the Door
The air in The Gilded Flask was thick with the ghosts of the evening: stale beer, the lingering sweetness of spilled cocktails, and the faint, acrid tang of disinfectant. Relly Moe moved through the familiar ritual of closing, his motions practiced and automatic. He wiped down the polished mahogany of the bar, the damp cloth making soft, rhythmic shushing sounds against the wood. The last of the stools were upside down on the counters, their legs pointing at the ceiling like supplicants. Outside, the city's symphony of sirens and distant music was a constant, living hum, but in here, there was only the clink of glasses and the low groan of the ancient refrigerator. It was his sanctuary, his cage, his entire world. For weeks, it had felt less like a sanctuary and more like a tomb, the walls pressing in with a paranoia he couldn't shake. Every creak of the building, every shout from the street, sent a jolt of adrenaline through him. He was a rabbit in a snare, and he could feel the noose tightening.
He was just about to flip the sign on the front door from "Open" to "Closed" when it happened. Not a knock on the front, but a sharp, double-rap on the steel-reinforced back door that led to the alley. *Tap-tap.* It wasn't the hesitant knock of a late-night drunk looking for one more round. It wasn't the familiar, rhythmic signal of his delivery guy. This was an authoritative, demanding sound. The sound of a warrant. The sound of an end.
Relly froze, his hand hovering over the light switch. The air suddenly felt thin, cold. His heart, which had been beating a steady, weary rhythm, kicked into a frantic, panicked staccato against his ribs. Every instinct he'd honed over the past few weeks, every fiber of his being, screamed at him. *Don't answer. Don't move. Don't even breathe.* He extinguished the lights, plunging the bar into a gloom illuminated only by the sickly orange glow of the streetlights filtering through the grimy front windows. Shadows stretched and warped, turning the familiar space into a labyrinth of potential threats. He crept toward the back, his socks making no sound on the sticky floor. The grimoire, his curse and his only potential salvation, was tucked away in a safe behind the bar, but he felt its presence like a lodestone, a source of power he was terrified to touch.
*Tap-tap-tap.* This time, the knocks were harder, more insistent. Impatient.
Relly pressed his eye against the peephole, a tiny, distorted fisheye view of the alley. The scene was bathed in the harsh, unforgiving glare of a single bare bulb. A man stood there, perfectly still. He was dressed in a suit so sharp it could cut glass, charcoal grey with a stark white shirt and a tie the color of dried blood. His hair was cut in a severe, military-style crew cut, and his face was a mask of cold, professional indifference. He looked like an FBI agent from a television show, but there was something profoundly wrong with the picture. His eyes, even through the distorted glass, seemed to hold no light, no reflection. They were like polished stones, dead and empty. He didn't fidget. He didn't shift his weight. He didn't breathe in any perceptible way. He was a statue carved from menace.
"Mr. Moe," a voice called out, smooth and devoid of any inflection. It was the kind of voice that read death sentences. "Department of Licenses and Inspections. We have a report of a code violation."
The lie was so blatant, so mundane, it was terrifying. The DLI didn't make house calls at two in the morning. And they certainly didn't send men who looked like they could snap a man's neck with their thumb. This was it. The Aegis Concordat. They had found him. The clumsy whiskey-to-water transmutation, the one he'd performed in a moment of desperation to save the bar, had finally painted a target on his back large enough to be seen from orbit.
Relly's mind raced, a frantic scramble of useless options. He could try to slip out the front, but they'd have the street covered. He could make a run for the subway, but they'd be faster. He could grab the grimoire, but what would he do? Wave a page at them and hope for the best? He was trapped. The Wound, that old trauma that had taught him the world was a place of pain and loss, flared in his chest, a cold, tight knot of fear. It told him to hide, to make himself small, to accept the inevitable. But another, newer part of him, a spark of the defiant man he used to be, refused to simply lie down and die.
He remained silent, hoping the man would think the place was empty and leave. It was a fool's hope, and he knew it.
The man's head tilted slightly, as if listening to something Relly couldn't hear. A faint, almost imperceptible smile touched the corner of his lips. It wasn't a friendly smile. It was the smile of a predator that had just cornered its prey.
"There's no need for this to be difficult, Mr. Moe," the voice said, the calm tone somehow more menacing than a shout. "Open the door. We just need to ask a few questions about your… establishment."
Relly's hand tightened on the edge of the bar. He could feel the grain of the wood digging into his palm. He thought of Pres, of the strange, fierce hope she represented. He thought of Gramps, of the grimoire, of the legacy he was only just beginning to understand. He couldn't let it end here, in the grime and gloom of a failing bar. He had to do *something*. But what?
The man outside sighed, a sound of theatrical disappointment. "Very well. Have it your way."
Relly heard a faint click, a sound that was utterly out of place. It was the sound of a lock pick, but it was too fast, too precise. It wasn't the fumbling of a common burglar; it was the sound of a specialist, a man who dismantled security systems for a living. The deadbolt on the steel door turned with a heavy, final *thunk*. The lock was defeated. The only thing between Relly and the hunter was the door itself.
He scrambled back, his mind finally breaking through the paralysis. He needed a weapon. He grabbed the heaviest thing he could find—a cast-iron skillet from the small kitchenette behind the bar. It was cold, heavy, and pathetically inadequate. He hefted it, his knuckles white, his heart hammering so loud he was sure the man could hear it through the door.
The handle began to turn. Slowly. Deliberately.
The door swung inward, revealing the man from the peephole. He stepped inside, his polished shoes making no sound on the grimy floor. He closed the door behind him, the soft click of the latch echoing like a gunshot in the silent bar. He was even more intimidating up close. There was an aura of absolute stillness about him, a predatory calm that was more terrifying than any overt aggression. His eyes scanned the room, dismissing the mess, the empty bottles, the overturned stools, and locked onto Relly.
"Cassian," the man said, by way of introduction. He took a step forward. "And you are Relly Moe. The anomaly."
Relly raised the skillet, his arm trembling. "Stay back."
Cassian's gaze flickered to the makeshift weapon, and a flicker of amusement crossed his features. It was gone as quickly as it appeared, replaced by that same placid, dead-eyed mask. "That's not necessary. We're not here to harm you. Not yet. We're here to… sanitize the area. A loose end has been identified. You are that loose end."
"Sanitize?" Relly's voice was a hoarse whisper. The word was a chilling euphemism for extermination.
"Precisely," Cassian said, taking another step. He moved with an unnerving fluidity, a grace that was inhuman. "Your existence is a complication. An unsanctioned variable in a carefully controlled equation. My job is to remove the variable."
Relly's back hit the bar. There was nowhere left to go. The fear was a cold tide rising in his chest, threatening to drown him. The Wound screamed at him that this was it, that this was how it always ended. But beneath the fear, something else stirred. A spark of anger. A hot, defiant rage at this casual, bureaucratic description of his own murder. He wasn't a variable. He wasn't a loose end. He was Relly Moe. And he would not be sanitized.
He tightened his grip on the skillet. "I'm not going with you."
Cassian stopped, a few feet away. He tilted his head, a gesture of mild curiosity. "You think you have a choice in this? You think that… skillet… matters?" He gestured vaguely at the weapon. "You are a child playing with a toy, facing a man who has toppled empires. Your defiance is an amusing footnote."
The condescension was like a splash of gasoline on the fire of Relly's anger. The fear was still there, a cold knot in his gut, but the rage was hotter, brighter. He could feel the power inside him, the alchemical energy that connected him to the very fabric of the world. It was a wild, untamed thing, and he had always been afraid of it, afraid of losing control. But now, faced with his own erasure, control seemed like a luxury he couldn't afford.
Cassian's smile returned, predatory and confident. "We know you're in here, Mr. Moe. Open the door. It's time to sanitize the area." He had already said that, Relly realized with a jolt. He was repeating his lines, a taunt, a final, cruel joke. He wasn't here to talk. He was here to kill.
The hunter took a final step forward, his hand rising, not in a fist, but with fingers splayed, as if to simply push Relly out of his way. The air around his hand shimmered, a faint, almost invisible distortion of heat and force. He wasn't just a vampire. He was something more. A specialist. An executioner.
In that split second, Relly made a choice. He wouldn't hide. He wouldn't run. He would fight. He let go of the fear, or at least, he stopped letting it be the only thing he felt. He embraced the rage, the desperation, the raw, untamed emotion that the Wound had taught him to suppress. He poured all of it into the grimoire, into the connection he could feel thrumming in his blood. He didn't have time for a complex diagram, for a careful recitation of an ancient formula. He had only instinct. He had only need.
He slammed his free hand down on the surface of the bar, right next to the spot where he'd first turned water into whiskey. He didn't say any words. He just roared, a sound of pure, primal defiance, and poured every ounce of his will, his fear, his rage, his desperate desire to live, into the wood beneath his palm.
For a moment, nothing happened. Cassian's predatory smile widened. Then, the bar began to change.
The polished mahogany surface rippled like water struck by a stone. The deep, rich color of the wood bled away, replaced by a dull, metallic grey. The grain of the wood swirled and reformed, not into a new pattern, but into a dense, interlocking structure. The air filled with the sharp, clean scent of ozone and hot metal. The wood was no longer wood. It was becoming steel.
The transformation was violent and incomplete. The bar groaned and shuddered, the sound of grinding rock and tearing timber filling the room. A section of the bar, about six feet long, tore itself free from the rest of the structure. It didn't fall. It rose, twisting and shaping itself under Relly's frantic will. It folded over on itself, thickening, solidifying, forming a crude but solid barrier that slammed into the floor with a deafening *CLANG*, sealing off the aisle between the bar and the back door.
Relly stood, panting, his hand still pressed against the now-scarred surface of his creation. The transmutation had been crude, ugly, and it had cost him. A wave of dizziness washed over him, and his vision swam with black spots. He felt drained, hollowed out, as if he'd just run a marathon. But he was alive. And he was no longer cornered.
On the other side of the newly forged steel wall, there was a moment of silence. Then, Cassian's voice, stripped of its condescending calm and now filled with a cold, sharp fury, echoed through the bar.
"So, the little mouse has teeth." A pause. "Let's see how sharp they are."