Stella pulled a device from her bag that looked like a modified phone. Circuit boards and crystals were fused. I had no idea what it did or when she made it. "I can handle the biometric scanner at the maintenance entrance. Jean-Marc walked me through the hack. Give me thirty seconds once we're at the door."
Ah, so that’s what it did. Thank the gods my family was thinking things through. I was so sleep-deprived that I’d forgotten that was a concern.
I checked my watch. It was 10:58 PM. My hands were steady despite the adrenaline flooding my system. The protective stone Clio had given me pressed against my hip through my pocket. Its warmth was a constant reminder of what we were walking into.
Through my bond with Tarja, I felt her steady presence back at the house. She was watching the babies with the others."Be careful,"Tarja sent."These creatures are older and more dangerous than anything you've faced."
"I know,"I replied."But they threatened our children. Time to show them they made a mistake."
At exactly 11:03 PM, Jean-Marc's voice came through again. "Cameras are looped. You're ghosts as far as their system knows. Move now."
We exited the vehicle quickly and quietly. Aidon took point. His shadows spread ahead of us like scouts, searching for threats in the darkness. Stella and I flanked him while Nana brought up the rear. She held her shotgun comfortably. She knew exactly how to use it.
We entered the parking garage through a side entrance. It was a fire door with an alarm that Jean-Marc had already disabled. The garage was dimly lit. Our footsteps echoed on the concrete despite our attempts at stealth. The sound made my nerves sing with tension.
"Two levels down," Aidon whispered so low I could barely hear him. "The magical signature is coming from below."
My heart hammered in my chest as we descended to Level B2. The maintenance entrance was exactly where Dr. Reeves said it would be. In the northeast corner, tucked between a dumpster and a concrete pillar. A dented metal door with a card reader and a palm scanner that glowed faintly green in the dim garage lighting.
Stella worked her magic. Her device caused the scanner to believe she was an authorized user. Within twenty seconds, the lock disengaged with a soft click that seemed deafening in the silence.
"We're in," I whispered. "Jean-Marc, any movement on the cameras?"
"Negative. The guards are maintaining their positions. You're clear for now," he replied through my earbud.
The hallway beyond the maintenance door was narrow and lit by flickering fluorescents that cast a bright light on industrial tile. The walls were older there. The paint was peeling in places, revealing concrete underneath.
"This doesn't match the building plans," Aidon murmured as his shadows pooled at his feet. His power was respondingto the tension. "It's older. This was here before the rest of the structure."
He was right. The hallway reminded me of a fallout bunker built decades ago. The air tasted stale. That was likely thanks to being recycled through ventilation systems that hadn't been updated since the eighties, and not Dark magic.
"I can feel it,"Tarja's voice echoed in my mind."The Scythe. Its energy is saturating everything down there."
My protective stone grew warmer against my hip, responding to the corrupted magic permeating the sublevel. I pulled it out, watching it pulse with a faint golden light that pushed back against the darkness. I hadn’t noticed when we entered, but it was indeed trying to seep into my magical core.
We moved quickly but carefully. The hallway branched after thirty feet, offering three possible directions. Aidon's shadows explored each path. I have no idea what they told him, but his expression darkened.
"Left," he said quietly. "The magical signature is strongest that way."
Nodding, we took that corridor. It descended gradually, taking us deeper underground. How far down did this place go? The building plans hadn't shown anything below the main basement level. We'd been walking for at least five minutes and hadn't seen any hint of the areas we expected to.
Aidon froze suddenly, and his shadows pulled back to him. "We have company."
I raised my hand, signaling everyone to stop. Stella readied herself and had her witch fire crackling across her fists. Like me, she was also prepared to throw whatever spell she could at an enemy. Nana's shotgun came up smoothly, and she held it steady.
We rounded the corner and found three Thessmark. I’d come to suspect they could take other forms, but this was their trueform. They were standing guard outside a reinforced door. They were taller than we’d encountered. Their skin was a gray that reminded me of corpses pulled from water.
Scattered across their foreheads and cheeks were boils. No wonder they usually covered their faces. Their eyes were also completely black. The moment they saw us, the largest one raised its hand, and the temperature dropped twenty degrees in an instant.
Aidon's shadows exploded out of him and wrapped around the nearest Thessmark before it could attack us. The creature shrieked and began tearing at the shadows with talons that could cut through them like tissue paper. Aidon flinched every time it destroyed one. I tossed a ball of my witch fire at it, hoping to distract the thing.
Stella's magic hit the second one. It was a binding spell that should have locked it in place, but slid off its skin like water. "They're warded against standard offensive magic!" she shouted as she began recalibrating.
The third Thessmark lunged at me. I barely got my hands up in time to deflect it. My teal flames erupted from my palms with enough force to make the air crackle. When my witch fire hit the creature, it screamed. The sound made the fluorescent lights shatter above us. That plunged the corridor into darkness that was broken only by Stella and my flames.
The creature stumbled backward, the flesh where my fire had touched was turning black and flaking away like ash. Underneath wasn't muscle or bone, but something that looked like tarnished metal fused with organic matter. "Magical fireworks!" I shouted. "Aim for exposed areas!"
Nana stepped in front of me, and her shotgun boomed in the confined space. The sound was deafening. Rock salt and iron shavings—the old woman's ammunition of choice—hit thesecond Thessmark square in the chest. It stumbled but didn't stop. The fucker recovered faster than we needed.
