Page 119 of Dark Night of the Soul

“That’s generous,” I said, already dropping to one knee.

I pulled the charge from my pack. Compact. Directional. Ugly in the way only purpose-built things were. Kincade had explained it how the blast would fold inward, how the shockwave would turn hardware into molten scrap without leveling the building.

Enough to erase. Not enough to die.

I fixed it to the center rack, hands steady despite the adrenaline humming in my veins. Magnetic clamps bit into metal. Solid. Secure.

“Angle it down,” he said, stepping in close. His voice was tight now, clipped. “Toward the core.”

I adjusted it.

The servers hummed on, blissfully unaware.

I armed the detonator. The device pulsed once—green, then red—waiting.

A strange calm settled over me.

This wasn’t rage. It was finality.

“Thirty seconds,” I said.

His jaw flexed. He took one last look at the room, like he was memorizing the death of something that deserved it.

“Let it burn,” he said.

We moved.

The door sealed behind us as we hit the corridor at a controlled jog—fast enough to matter, slow enough not to draw attention. My heart pounded, but my head was clear.

Five.

Four.

Three—

The explosion wasn’t loud.

It was deep.

A concussive thud rolled through the floor, a pressure wave that rattled the walls and knocked the breath from my lungs. Alarms screamed to life behind us, lights flickering as the building shuddered in protest.

He grabbed my arm to keep me steady as the hallway filled with smoke.

“That’s it,” he said. “Go.”

We didn’t look back.

By the time we hit the exit, the fire suppression had kicked in. Gas flooding the server room, useless now, choking empty space while molten metal cooled into slag.

Vormund’s work was gone.

Outside, the late afternoon sun hit my face like a benediction as we jogged across the parking lot, slipped into the car and vanished into traffic, another pair absorbed by the city.

Only this time—

The monster didn’t get the last word.

Chapter 35 | Kincade