“What about Gabby and Eli? They know you’re the Phantom,” Delmare argued.
“We have the video of Gabby performing dark magic,” Emma reminded her. “Gabby can’t touch us so long as she’s worried we’ll expose her.”
“Us?” I asked.
“The White Rose will be there,” Emma swore. “I’m not letting you do this alone.”
I wanted to tell Emma no, ask her to stay behind— but she wouldn’t. And this was a dangerous operation. I needed help to pull it off. Setting multiple monsters loose was a recipe for disaster.
“We’ll come too,” Stefan suggested. “Once that warehouse is destroyed, it’ll take time for the cult to find another place to store those monsters. This is our next step to slow Gabby and Eli down.”
I didn’t want to bring my friends into this, but perhaps it was the only way. I’d spent too long pushing them away, and look where it had gotten me.
Maybe doing this together was the only way to get through it.
At midnight,I donned my mask. My cloak swept behind me as I perched on top of a clocktower, looking down upon the city.
The White Rose loomed beside me, her features changed by the mask she wore, hair brown and eyes blue, her white cloak swooping around her. She’d gotten a new costume, after her previous one had been stained with blood from me—
Well. We all knew what happened.
It was eerie, standing side by side like this. We’d been enemies, but now we were allies.
“Are you ready for this?” Emma had changed her voice to that mysterious lull of the White Rose.
“As ready as I’ll ever be.” I began my descent downward. Emma followed behind, using her levitation powers to lower her to the warehouse roof below, avoiding use of her wings.
“There’s an access point just ahead.” The crackling of a communicator device in my ear rang with Kiara’s voice. She and Alexei were flying over the scene, hiding in the clouds in search of any trouble. The rest of the team was on the ground. The device didn’t work very well— technology was iffy around magic— but it enabled us to hear each other from a farther distance than telepathy magic could offer.
Emma had tried making a portal into the building, but it was surrounded by wards which prevented such magic. The wards would take time to break, which we didn’t have. We’d have to force our way inside.
“Do we have the all-clear?” I asked. Kiara and Alexei had moved in, to provide a distraction for the cultists, but I didn’t know if there were more nearby.
“Alexei and I have led the guards away, but you’ll have to be quick about it,” Kiara said. “They won’t chase us forever.”
That meant we had ten minutes, tops. I ran forward. I saw a vaulted door before me. When I tried it, it was locked. Emma raised her hand, and a blue ball of magic burst out of her fingertips, making a hole as big as my fist in the doorway. I reached through it and unlocked it from the other side, letting us in.
We descended the stairs into darkness. Once we entered, I smelled monsters. Their low moans crept over the walls and caused a shiver to run up my spine.
Emma darted ahead of me when we reached the main floor. I kept my eyes open for cultists, but didn’t see any. All of them must’ve left to give chase to Kiara and Alexei. It was dark in here, no light whatsoever. I found the way to the front door using my shifter sight, and unlocked it, letting the others in.
Stefan, Delmare, Odette and Theo were dressed in all black, hoods over their heads and dark masks fitted over their faces. “This is fun, isn’t it?” Odette squeaked. “It’s like we’re a superhero team!”
“Shh,” Theo said. He put a finger to his lips, and Odette quieted down.
Emma scanned the area ahead. She cast a light illusion from her fingertips, and it spread over the room. The ball of light transferred to a singular lightbulb hanging overhead. It was enough illumination to provide a way around.
About twenty feet beyond, I saw silvery bars, and heard the rattles of chains as the monsters moved within their prisons. It was completely empty in here, save for a few boxes that were stored with food for the monsters, and the cells themselves.
In the cell closest to me was a bear-like creature, hundreds of eyes on its face like that of an insect. It was lying on the floor and trapped within a horde of chains. In the cell next to it was a familiar creature that I’d seen before— the giant, six-legged toad called thebukavac. Emma and I had seen it be kidnapped by the Black Claw last semester. It’d ended up here.
“There are only two monsters here. Where are the others?” Theo asked.
I caught sight of a motionless body in the furthest cell on the right. A monster with the feathery body of a large bird and the head of a woman laid in the corner, completely still. The creature was as big as me.
I’d read about these creatures in class— analkonost, a type of harpy. I moved toward it, daring to reach my hand through the bars and touch the bird’s curled foot. It was ice cold.
“It’s dead.” I drew back. “Gabby’s already drained this one. I bet the other monster died, and they moved the body.”
