Years later.
The first light in Harlem was always neon, not sun: streaks of fuchsia and acid green leaking through battered blinds, striping the dust on the floorboards. Somewhere outside, a delivery drone sang the blues in metallic clicks, and a saxophone riff—recorded, not live—crackled from the pawnshop next door. In the Tenks-Leroy apartment, time had a way of skipping beats, like the needle on a jazz record too scratched to ever play straight.
Akeeth Tenks woke to the smell of rain and trouble.
He stretched, grinning, bare feet sliding across silk sheets he'd bought just to irritate Dandy. A glance at his phone: three missed alarms, two scam emails, one Sentinel directive blinking red. He yawned wide, letting his fangs flash in the empty room, and rolled out of bed.
He padded to the kitchen—marble countertops, leftover takeout, a single wilted plant. He reached for a jar of peanut butter, scooping it out with a silver spoon, and turned—
"AKEETH!"
Dandy's voice could've shattered glass, and did, once, at the Sentinel Academy talent show. He stood in the kitchen doorway, scarf already knotted at his throat, Sentinel badge crooked on his jacket, and one sock mismatched. His glare could've iced over boiling water.
Akeeth, spoon in mouth, grinned. "Good morning, Golden Boy. Peanut butter?"
Dandy stalked forward, snatched the jar, and scowled at the empty bottom. "You ate all of it again. Do you know how hard it is to find decent peanut butter in this neighborhood that's not laced with Euphoria or fake almonds?"
Akeeth flopped into a chair, hands behind his head. "It's not like you need it for muscle. You're scrawny as ever."
Dandy shot him a look. "We have a mission, Tenks. Get dressed. Sentinel alert—Veilborn activity down by the Virgil Arms."
Akeeth blinked, then rolled his eyes, making a show of checking his nails. "You could say please, you know. Some of us need our beauty sleep."
Dandy ignored that. He set a battered mug of coffee in front of Akeeth—no sugar, just how Akeeth hated it. "You're lucky Commander Toure still believes in you. If you skip another patrol, he'll have you cleaning Euphoria stains out of the Academy bathrooms for a month."
Akeeth sighed, dramatically, but his eyes sparkled. "As if anyone can out-clean those stains. Besides, who's the one who always gets us out alive?"
"Not you," Dandy said flatly. "Last time, you nearly got your head blown off because you couldn't keep your teeth in your mouth."
Akeeth smirked, licking peanut butter off the spoon. "It's called improvisation. You should try it sometime."
"Get dressed, Shark," Dandy said, already halfway to the door. "We're late."
Five minutes later—rooftop, Virgil Arms.
Rain traced quicksilver veins down the brick. The city below pulsed with light: signboards in Korean, old jazz posters, the glow of police drones skimming the gutters. Akeeth hopped over the parapet, boots hitting wet concrete, and landed beside Dandy, who was fiddling with the settings on his Chrono Spiral.
"Nice of you to join the living," Dandy muttered, raising the binoculars to his eyes. "Two Syndicate thugs in the alley, just like the briefing said."
Akeeth leaned in, close enough to make Dandy bristle. "Trying to impress me with your surveillance skills, Golden Boy? Or just scared I'll show you up again?"
Dandy rolled his eyes. "I'm scared you'll get us killed, that's what."
Akeeth gave him his shark's smile. "If I do, you can haunt me forever. Win-win."
Below, the Syndicate crew worked quick, nervous. One of them—broad, scar running through his eyebrow—kept glancing at a battered suitcase, hands shaking. The other had a pulse gun strapped under his jacket, finger twitching.
Dandy tapped the radio. "Toure, this is Leroy. We have eyes on the target. Looks like a standard drop. Orders?"
Static, then Kwame Toure's voice, gravelly: "Observe. Only intervene if they make a move. Watch for Veilborn signatures. Stay sharp."
Akeeth grinned, flexing his hands—his gloves stitched with runic thread, knuckles scuffed from last week's brawl. "We're always sharp, sir."
Dandy didn't answer, but his jaw tightened. He watched as the suitcase was passed between the thugs, one glancing up at the rooftop shadows. For a moment, Akeeth and Dandy were reflected in a puddle, warped by rain, half-light and half-shadow.
Akeeth whispered, "Remember when we used to get in trouble just for sneaking out after curfew?"
Dandy nodded, voice soft. "Now we're the ones they send after monsters."
Akeeth elbowed him, eyes alight. "Ready to dance?"
Before Dandy could answer, Akeeth was already moving—slipping off the edge, vanishing down the fire escape with a cat's agility. Dandy sighed, checked his gun, and followed, boots nearly silent on wet metal.
Alley, Virgil Arms.
Akeeth's trick was old, but it worked: shift—bone and skin, pulse and nerve—into something smaller, sleeker. Tonight, a black cat darted behind garbage cans, tail twitching as the thugs opened the suitcase.
Dandy dropped down a moment later, gun drawn, scarf flickering with stored energy. He pressed his back to the bricks, listening.
Inside the suitcase—jazz relic: a battered saxophone, spirals etched in blood, humming with the Veil's energy.
Akeeth shifted back, silent as breath, landing next to Dandy. "Guess the Syndicate's moving relics now. This one's humming like a club at midnight."
One thug turned, saw Akeeth's grin, and went for his gun.
Dandy was faster—Chrono Spiral leveled, safety off. "Try it," he said coldly. "I dare you."
The second thug panicked, swinging the saxophone like a club. Akeeth ducked, laughing. "Watch the merchandise, man. That thing's worth more than your rent."
Gunfire cracked—one shot ricocheting off a dumpster. Dandy tackled the shooter, fist driving into his gut, then wrenched the gun away. The other tried to run, but Akeeth shifted—panther limbs, claws flashing, a blur of muscle and teeth. He brought the man down with a twist, pinning him to the cold alley floor.
Dandy cuffed the first thug, breathing hard. "You had to go loud, didn't you?"
Akeeth, breathless and wild, just grinned. "You're the one who brought a gun to a jazz fight."
They turned to the suitcase. As rain pooled in its velvet lining, the saxophone began to vibrate, a single note trembling out—a jazz riff that crawled up their spines.
Dandy reached out, then hesitated. "That's not normal Veilborn tech."
Akeeth's smile faded, something sharp flickering behind his eyes. "No. That's old Harlem. That's Kojo's song."
Dandy's scarf glowed, a thread of Zora's melody running through it. "You hear it?"
Akeeth nodded, haunted. "I always hear it. Like the city's singing through my teeth."
A second, shriller note tore from the saxophone, splitting the night. The thugs screamed, clawing at their ears, eyes rolling white.
Dandy and Akeeth locked eyes, all banter burned away. Dandy whispered, "Run."
They turned, boots splashing in alley rain, as the saxophone's song rose—neon and old blood and heartbreak—following them into the night.
Above, Harlem breathed: a city of ghosts and gunfire, where every rooftop was a crossroads, and every song could kill or save.
Minutes later, rain pounding like a war drum, Akeeth and Dandy were running full-tilt, adrenaline burning away the last of the Veilborn's wail. The alley behind them glimmered with broken glass and the sticky shimmer of Veil-blood. The city pressed close—walls sweating neon, windows fogged with secrets.
Akeeth, still half-wild with shapeshifter energy, bolted for the next corner—body blurring, bones stretching, fur rippling down his arms and neck. In a heartbeat, he was a cheetah: sleek, lean, coat gold-bright under the streetlamps, tail flicking a frantic Morse code.
Dandy, boots splashing puddles, sprinted after, scarf whipping like a banner. "Don't you dare ditch me, Tenks!"
Akeeth yowled—a sound too big for any cat, but too scared to be a laugh. "You just had to reach out, didn't you?! Had to grab the sax like a tourist at a haunted museum!"
Dandy put on a burst of speed, leaping and landing square on Akeeth's back, arms around the cheetah's neck. "Maybe if you hadn't stuck your nose in every cursed suitcase in Harlem, we'd get a night off!" he shot back, gritting his teeth as Akeeth bucked beneath him, nearly tossing him into a pile of wet trash.
"Don't blame me, Golden Boy!" Akeeth snapped, voice almost feline even in his human words. "You're the one who had to be Mister Hero. 'Let's check the case, Akeeth! Let's save the world, Akeeth!' You know how many times jazz relics tried to eat me?"
"Only the times you licked them first!" Dandy shot back, tightening his grip as Akeeth darted between dumpsters, spraying rain and gutter water in their wake. "Just get us out of here before Sentinel backup thinks we're the monsters!"
Akeeth skidded around a corner, nearly bowling over a rat the size of a chihuahua. "I am a monster, sometimes!" he yelped, then shifted—flesh and fur folding until he was back in his boy shape, knees buckling under Dandy's weight. Both of them tumbled into a tangle at the mouth of the alley, landing in a heap by a flickering streetlight.
Dandy scrambled to his feet, clutching the Chrono Spiral. "You good?"
Akeeth spat out a wad of fur. "Never better. Next time you want a piggyback, schedule it in advance."
"Sure. I'll file a request with Commander Toure." Dandy dusted himself off, eyes scanning the street. "You see that Veilborn's face? Like a trumpet bell with teeth. I'm gonna have nightmares for weeks."
Akeeth's shark grin was back, a little shakier now. "Jazz gives you nightmares, huh? I thought it was supposed to soothe the soul."
Dandy shot him a look. "Depends who's playing." He reached out, offering a hand. "Come on. We need to get that sax to the safehouse before some Syndicate cleanup crew sniffs the trail."
Akeeth eyed the hand, then took it, letting Dandy pull him upright. "You're starting to sound like my mom, Leroy."
Dandy's expression softened a fraction. "Zora knew how to survive in Harlem. Can't say the same for your family's crowd."
Akeeth rolled his eyes, but there was a thread of real hurt in the way he glanced away. "Yeah, well, survival's a low bar. C'mon. Let's get moving before Toure does make us mop the bathrooms."
They set off together, sticking close to the shadows, sneakers silent on wet asphalt.
Halfway to the safehouse.
The city seemed to hold its breath, every puddle reflecting a ghost, every alley humming with aftershocks. The saxophone, jammed into the battered suitcase Akeeth carried, pulsed with low, guttered jazz—soft enough to sound like memory, just loud enough to make both boys itch under their skin.
Akeeth broke the silence first. "You ever think about just… dropping all this? Walking away? We're just kids. We should be doing homework, not dodging Veilborn curses."
Dandy didn't slow. "You want to leave Harlem?"
Akeeth hesitated. "Sometimes. Sometimes I wonder if anywhere else would be safer. Maybe Brooklyn, even Jersey…"
Dandy snorted. "Jersey? That's your idea of hope? We'd last a week before you pissed off the wrong mobster."
Akeeth managed a lopsided smile. "Yeah, but at least I'd have stories."
Dandy's voice turned quiet. "We all have stories, Tenks. Most of mine start with someone I lost."
They lapsed into silence, boots squelching through the mud. The saxophone's song grew, a spiral of longing and regret.
Akeeth couldn't help it—he reached for Dandy's shoulder. "Hey. You still got that scarf?"
Dandy glanced down, fingers tightening on the silk. "Yeah. It's… it's all I got left of her. Some nights, I hear her voice in the city noise. You ever get that with your folks?"
Akeeth's mouth twisted. "Sometimes. Most nights I just hear my own teeth grinding."
Dandy smirked. "That's cause you never shut up."
"Love you too, Golden Boy."
"Don't push it."
They rounded another corner—closer now, the safehouse a block away, its roof a silhouette against the sodium haze. Just as they reached the end of the alley, a figure stepped from the shadows: Commander Toure, coat flapping, eyes sharp as a hawk.
"Thought you two might need a chaperone," he rumbled, looking them both up and down. "Any trouble?"
Akeeth flashed his fangs, leaning into his swagger. "Only the usual. Dead Veilborn, traumatized thugs, priceless jazz relic. You want the suitcase or should I drop it in the Hudson?"
Toure grinned, broad and bright. "Let's get you both inside before the night gets any weirder. Dandy, you bring the paperwork?"
Dandy nodded, showing the battered mission folder.
Toure clapped them both on the shoulder. "Good. City's quieter with you two on patrol. Don't ever forget that, even when you're raising hell."
As they moved toward the safehouse door, Akeeth glanced up at the sky—rain still falling, neon reflecting in every drop.
"You know, Dandy," he whispered, "for a second, when that sax started playing, I thought we were done for."
Dandy looked at him, solemn. "Yeah. But we're not. Not tonight."
Akeeth smiled—shark's grin, soft at the edges. "Guess that means Harlem gets one more song."
And somewhere, in the city's heartbeat, an old jazz melody spun out, winding between broken windows and battered hearts—promising, if not safety, at least another verse.
TO BE CONTINUED.