The Devil Reawaken!

Istanbul.

2:06 a.m.

The broker typed in the dark.

No name. No signature. Just a black-screen terminal and a connection that bounced across six countries in under a second.

He entered one line:

THE DEVIL WEARS HIS RING AGAIN.

Then hit send.

The screen went blank.

He closed the laptop, poured himself a drink, and said a quiet prayer—half to God, half to whatever was coming.

---

Rome.

A church that no longer held sermons.

High marble ceilings. Candles lit without saints. Beneath the altar, a private stairwell spiraled downward—into stone, into silence.

Four guards stood at the door of the lower chamber. They wore no uniforms, no symbols. Just suits and cold eyes.

Inside, a long wooden table stretched beneath a hanging light.

At its head sat Vittorio Diavolo.

His hair was silver now. His hands spotted with age. But his spine was straight, his voice untouched by time.

He read the printed message twice.

Then folded the paper once. Set it on the table.

No expression. No smile. Just breath.

A man beside him—older, balding, eyes sharp—spoke.

"Is it true?"

Vittorio looked at the candles burning along the wall. They flickered, steady in the still air.

Then, finally, he said:

"Let him walk."

---

Monaco.

A private terrace above the coast.

The last light of day stretched thin across the water. Wind slid over stone and silk as Luca Diavolo stood at the edge, phone in hand, eyes on the horizon.

The message was short.

RAFAEL. ACTIVE. OB-1 MARK FOUND. TARGET DECEASED.

He read it twice.

Then smiled.

This time, it reached his eyes.

He turned back into the villa—marble floors, wide glass walls, soft jazz playing from the sound system.

A man in a dark suit stood by the bar, waiting.

"Confirmed?" Luca asked.

"Yes, sir. Moss is gone. Shot once. Obsidian mark carved clean. No witnesses. No mistakes."

Luca walked to the table, poured two glasses of amaro, and handed one over.

"He's not being subtle."

"No, sir."

He raised his glass, paused, then said, "To blood," and drank.

The man hesitated, then sipped.

Luca set the glass down.

"Send word to the Inner Ring. Quietly. No orders, just eyes. If he wants back in, we open the door."

"And if he doesn't?"

Luca looked at him like the question itself was broken.

"He's coming back," he said. "He's just walking the long way."

He stepped out onto the balcony again, wind moving through his hair, and let the glass sea stretch out in front of him.

A quiet voice escaped him—meant for no one else.

"Welcome home, fratello."

---

Northern Italy.

Abandoned countryside estate, once owned by the Diavolo family.

The motorcycle's engine faded into the wind as Rafael rolled to a stop in front of the gates. Rusted iron. The emblem long worn away. Grass grew through cracked stone. Ivy curled up around the pillars like it was trying to swallow the past whole.

He dismounted in silence.

The front door hung open, tilted. He stepped inside without drawing a weapon—if someone was here, they weren't hiding well.

Dust coated everything.

Old furniture draped in gray sheets. A piano with no keys left. Walls scarred with water damage and age.

But this place wasn't a home.

It was a facility.

Down the left hall, he found what he was looking for: a metal door marked with a faded cross. Medical wing.

Inside, everything was still.

Steel tables. Cabinets. Broken scanners and old paper charts. The air smelled like rust and mold and faint antiseptic—something used to be clean here, once.

He moved slowly, checking drawers.

Most were empty.

But behind the last one, at the back of the lab, he found a cabinet built into the wall. Locked. Small, surgical.

He picked it open with a short metal pin.

Inside: folders wrapped in black string. Names burned into the corners.

And one photo.

He pulled it out carefully.

It was torn down the middle—but clear enough.

One man stood tall, proud—Rafael knew him instantly. Aria's real father. His friend. The man who died for him.

Next to him, seated and older, wearing white gloves and a long coat—

Valen Moricci.

No smile. Eyes pale. Holding a clipboard like a judge.

On the back of the photo: three things scribbled in ink.

1. "Candidate viable."

2. "Geneprint: clean."

3. "Welt. Vienna."

---

Naples.

Beneath a ruined opera house.

The chamber was shaped like a stone womb. Black walls, no light but fire. At the center stood the obsidian table—round, smooth, perfect. No one spoke over another in this room. No one needed to.

Six members of the Circle sat in silence.

A seventh chair remained empty.

One woman—the Primarch—finally broke the quiet.

"We've received confirmation. Istanbul. Monaco. Berlin. All the same."

Another leaned forward. "The Obsidian mark?"

"Yes."

"Placed over a body?"

"Yes."

Another voice. Dry. Hard-edged. "Then we send for him."

"No," said the man in the crimson collar. "He left."

"And now he returns."

"He walked away from the ring."

"And still," said Luca Diavolo, his voice sharp but measured, "the ring follows him."

The room turned to him.

Luca's eyes were calm. No fire in them—just certainty. He sat back, hands folded. "You think the Circle was broken when he left? It was never broken. It was waiting. My brother doesn't ask for power. He simply becomes it."

One of the older men sneered. "You'd give it all back without question?"

"I'd burn ten thrones to keep him alive," Luca said simply. "And so would all of you. Whether you say it or not."

A long silence.

Then all eyes shifted to the man at the end of the chamber.

Vittorio Diavolo stood in the shadows behind his chair. He had not spoken yet.

He did now.

"If Rafael walks again," Vittorio said, "he walks in fire. Alone. That is the only way he knows how."

A breath held. Then:

"Shall we stop him?" the Primarch asked.

Vittorio's voice was quiet, almost reverent.

"No."

"He does not return to us. We return to him."

---

The wind had picked up.

Clouds rolled low and slow across the hills as Rafael stood at the edge of the overgrown garden behind the estate. Moss covered the stones. The air smelled like rain, metal, and old fire.

He held the torn photo between his fingers.

Aria's father, smiling with tired eyes.

Beside him: Valen Moricci, the old doctor. Eyes empty. Hands still.

On the back of the photo, the ink was faded—but still there:

>"Candidate viable. Geneprint: clean.

Welt. Vienna."

He folded it once. Slipped it into the inside pocket of his coat.

The garden led nowhere now. Fences had collapsed. The ground had turned soft. Rafael stood still, looking out, as if expecting the world to shift beneath him.

Then he turned.

Back inside, he checked every drawer. Every cabinet. Found nothing else of value. But it didn't matter.

He had a path now.

Not a clean one. Not simple.

But straight.

Two hours later, as night swallowed the sky, Rafael drove through the rain—wet streets lit by dying lamplight. His coat dark with water, his eyes fixed ahead.

He didn't speak.

He didn't flinch.

He only rode.

Behind him, the estate sat silent again.

But the world around it had changed.

In Rome, in Naples, in Monaco—fires had started in quiet corners. Old voices were whispering. Old weapons being polished. Old debts being counted.

And across the map, from one shadow to another…

The Devil was drawing closer.