The echo of chants faded into the early morning haze as Damilola sat frozen by the window, her breath fogging the glass. The courtyard of St. Anthony's Convent Hospital pulsed with a presence far older than the bricks beneath it. The bonfire had collapsed into embers now, but the memory of those cloaked figures moving in circles and the unmistakable face of Father Malachy, alive and smiling, gnawed at her sanity.
He was supposed to be dead.
Three years ago, she had stood at the edge of his funeral pyre. She had watched the flames rise and had touched the urn. If that was staged, what else had been built on a lie?
She didn't wait for the nurse. Pulling the IV from her arm with a wince, she eased herself out of the hospital bed, her legs trembling beneath her. Her hospital gown clung to her skin with sweat and fear. She rummaged through the closet where Amaka had stashed her clothes. Every movement ached, but adrenaline numbed the worst of it.
She needed answers. And the only person who might have them had just risen from the grave.
Elsewhere, Adesuwa held the flash drive like it was made of bone and brimstone.
She and Efe sat side by side in the dim safe house, their faces bathed in the glow of decrypted data. Names. Coordinates. Transaction logs with dates that aligned perfectly with every major riot, blackout, and political shakeup in Lagos over the last decade.
At the center of it all: The Circle.
But something new had surfaced.
"Look at this," Efe said, enlarging a document labeled Psalms. It was a codebook. Not just for financial operations, but for communication. Embedded in hymnals, liturgical texts, and even burial records.
"They're using churches," Adesuwa whispered, heart sinking.
"Not just as a front. As sanctuaries, as command centers. The cathedrals are crypts. Holding more than just bodies."
A photo popped up, grainy, infrared, taken from a satellite drone. It was a basement chamber beneath the Cathedral of Our Lady in Marina. Marked as Site 17 - Lazarus.
Adesuwa leaned in. "They're hiding something down there."
"Or someone."
By 9 AM, Damilola was in a taxi, disguised in a large hoodie, the address scrawled on the back of a prescription slip: Cathedral of Our Lady, Marina.
Her phone buzzed. It was Amaka.
"Where are you?"
"I saw Malachy."
"I know. I saw him too. He came to my office. Didn't say a word. Just smiled and left a note."
"What did it say?"
A pause.
"Meet me where the saints never slept."
Damilola exhaled. "That's the cathedral."
"I'm coming with you."
"No," Damilola said. "If I don't come back, burn everything."
Underground, beneath the cathedral, Malachy moved like a man without a pulse, silent, weightless.
The chamber was filled with reliquaries, bones wrapped in gold, and ancient scrolls bound in blood-red leather. But at the center stood something far more recent: a control panel, cables running into the stone itself.
Ajayi's voice came through an intercom. "She's on her way."
Malachy adjusted his robe. "Let her come. The dust remembers her."
"And if she doesn't kneel?"
"She will. When she sees what we've kept beneath the bones of God."
Outside the cathedral, Adesuwa and Efe arrived seconds behind Damilola. She spotted her friend just before she slipped into the side entrance.
"Wait, Dami!"
Too late. The door shut.
They followed in silence, every step echoing with foreboding.
Inside, the nave was empty. Statues stared with hollow eyes. A candle flickered by the altar, though no one had lit it.
A soft hum rose from beneath the floor.
"She went underground," Efe said. "There's a lift shaft behind the confessional."
"How do you know?"
He didn't answer. Adesuwa didn't press.
Damilola descended into a vault that looked like it had been excavated by ancient hands. Malachy stood at the far end, arms open.
"Child," he said, "you've returned."
"You faked your death."
"I was reborn."
She took a step forward. "You murdered our faith."
"No," he said. "I revealed its truth."
The lights flickered. A screen lit up behind him, displaying a map of Lagos with red zones, areas of planned unrest. The Circle wasn't just watching the city. It was orchestrating it.
"Why?" she asked.
He smiled. "Because chaos is holy when it leads to order. The world needed to burn to be cleansed."
"Spoken like a man who's never bled for his beliefs."
"I've bled. And I've buried. The city is the altar. The ashes, our offering."
A voice cut through the chamber. "Then here's our tithe."
Efe. He and Adesuwa stood at the top of the stairwell, guns drawn.
"Step away from the console."
Malachy didn't flinch.
"You won't shoot me. Not here."
"You think God protects you?" Adesuwa asked.
"No," he said. "But the Circle does."
The walls hissed, vents opening. Gas.
Adesuwa fired. The bullet missed, ricocheting off stone. Malachy hit a switch. Darkness swallowed the chamber.
In the chaos, Damilola ran. Hands grabbed her, Efe. They ducked as sparks flew. Alarms blared.
Adesuwa dragged Malachy from the controls. "Where is Ajayi?" she demanded.
He only smiled. "Behind every mask… is another."
She struck him. He fell unconscious.
They didn't wait.
The trio escaped into the sewers as explosions rocked the cathedral's base.
Later, on a rooftop in Ikoyi, the three watched the skyline burn.
The Circle had lost a node.
But Lagos was still covered in shadows.
"Did we win?" Damilola asked.
"No," Adesuwa said. "We survived."
Efe nodded. "Tomorrow, we fight."
The rain came again.
And beneath it, Lagos held its breath.