Millie had often told her that her mother was an aficionado of the occult. She could see the appeal of conspiracy theories in a world where the moon was destroyed by something beyond human comprehension.

  Allegedly.

  Evantra slowly paced through the room, filled with dark, gothic bookshelves.

  Ghosts – sacrifice, beyond the Veil.

  Evantra’s eyes flicked to the picture of an old, dilapidated oil rig, then to another underneath it, a fishing hamlet. The images looked like they were taken centuries ago, and something about them set her on edge.

  With the advent of the Veil, there are said to be islands, lost to the horrors of the sea. Old leviathans, that have slumbered in the ocean’s depths, brought to lucidity with the screams of the Veil. Fishing towns and oil rigs which have fallen victim to the madness of the dark waters. The cult of—

  “Ok, nope. Next.”

  Evantra continued to page through the book, flicking past page after page of eerie scrawls, before finally landing on one that made her breath catch.

  Ghosts

  There have been many who have deigned to place Ghosts in neat little boxes. Categories to simplify them. As if the horror of ghosts could be sufficiently captured in classes assigned from 1 to 5. Classification, driven by humanity’s urge to conquer the unknown, as a means of soothing our existential terror. But for every Ghost that humanity encounters, there is more left unknown.

  When the Veil descended, humanity triumphed. Weapons of steel and brimstone, our technological advances carving a bloody path to victory, paved in the knowledge that humanity cultivated.

  Then the arrival of the Ghosts showed us our hubris. Poltergeists. Wisps. Spirits. Revenants. Djinn. Countless others. They coaxed us into a false sense of security. Despite the horror that they instilled in us, we observed patterns.

  Then they broke them.

  Evantra felt an electric shiver run down her spine, and she continued reading, her heartbeat beginning to accelerate, before she deliberately attempted to steady it.

  Rituals

  Rituals are one means for ghosts to walk our earth. Blood, souls, and a catalyst are the key components to any ritual. Catalysts are what we call “relics”, “occult artefacts” – the items that defy and break the rules of our world, have allowed us to reach into the unknown with the weakening of the Veil like never before.

  I have to date, and will forevermore maintain, that rituals are not limited to the summoning of paranormal monstrosities. The “Veilsurges”, as we call them, are not the gates that ghosts use to access our world. Their entry requires rituals. But with the wonders we have discovered, it would be an oversight to relegate rituals to taboo status, to damn them as forbidden, atrocious practices, when there is so much that we have yet to discover.

  In my limited study, just as rituals may be contrived by our own actions, so can there exist naturally occurring rituals. Instances since the Veilsurges, where ghosts have intruded into our world irrespective of humanity’s designs and machinations. Invited, by events of great tragedy.

  Human souls have been the focus of much study. Veilcreatures, on the other hand, are a significant gap in the literature. What we know about Veilcreatures is that their presence in the proximity of a ritual has the potential to tarnish it, resulting in unpredictable effects. However, that we have not dedicated further study to their applications is an egregious oversight.

  There is one unexplored frontier. One that terrifies me, just as much as it fascinates.

  Rituals, born of the souls of the veil.

  Evantra froze, her eyes lingering on the sentence, coming to the end of the section.

  She thought back to her abilities. She had all the ingredients.

  Blood.

  Catalysts.

  Veilsouls.

  Much like the magical girls before her, she had skills which she unlocked, but they were tied to each catalyst that she acquired, and she had to work to gain each and every one of them. That in itself afforded her far greater flexibility than it did most prior magical girls and guardians, despite her current skills leaving much to be desired when it came to pure combat ability.

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  Once she acquired all of the skills endowed by a given catalyst, she was able to use it to support a ritual.

  On a whim, Evantra hesitated, turning to the book’s cover. If books were the single bastion of knowledge untouched by the megacorps, there was one other resource that she could attempt to rely on.

  Their authors.

  The only problem was…

  Evantra’s grip on the pages tightened as she read over the name inscribed on the cover, confirming her suspicion.

  Adesina Tyjani

  If I remember correctly… she’s Millie’s great grandmother. She passed away a while back. Still… it seems like her love for the occult was shared by Adeline… not so much by Mills.

  I should speak to Adeline.

  Then she reopened it, continuing to page over it rapidly, her eyes flicking over the pages.

  Finally, they fell on a single section that made her heart stutter.

  Three words and all that they encapsulated, which made her want to shut the book and burn it to ash, after she had read the section.

  Magical girl rituals.

  With the advent of magical girls, significant resources were invested to replicate the “system” – Magical Girls (Forces against Darkness). Experiments, with their blood, soul gems, their bodies, and those of their companions. Mankind’s desperation drew it to unthinkable extremes, at the expense of the kindest of souls.

  We failed.

  Every whisper that I have come across has reflected that the governments’ attempts to experiment with magical girls have ended in failure. Failure to replicate the system of power that governs their abilities. Failure to iterate on it, to empower them. Failure to reactivate it once the companions ceased appearing to recruit magical girls and guardians.

  We “succeeded” on one occasion.

  I speculate that it may have been the cause of what occurred on the moon.

  What, the blood of a magical girl, ushered into reality.

  Evantra’s eyes shook as they lingered on the final sentence of the section.

  “You can’t just… you’re kidding me. That’s it?”

  Evantra desperately flipped through the book in search of any modicum of information or any further leads, but there were none to be found.

  She let out a sigh, in relief as much as disappointment. She didn’t think she would like what she found.

  The dull sounds of the thunderstorm outside reached her, the patter of the ectorain on glass, and the deep rumble of thunder far above her. Despite searching the book for other relevant sections, it mostly covered anecdotes of dubious veracity, eyewitness sightings of the paranormal, nothing that was of use to her.

  I’m not done yet. Focus, Evantra.

  Evantra pushed deeper into the basement. The dark shelves only grew less well maintained, seeming to correspond with the nature of the texts that they held. Evantra pressed forward, her eyes systematically scanning the spines of the books for anything that stood out to her.

  Ectorain.

  Church of the Pryderi.

  The Dancer, the history of the Wisp of longing.

  Fuckin’ Australia Mate.

  The Hanging Gardens of Babylon, Demeter’s Nightmare.

  Evantra froze, frowning, as her eyes latched onto the title of the third book. She reached out, the temptation to find out just what was going on in Australia burned within her, before hesitating and shaking her head.

  Focus.

  She continued, pressing onwards, until eventually, she reached the end of the basement. Its deepest recesses. The sounds of the rain outside were subdued, and it was deadly silent, each minute movement that she made, making her wince.

  Finally, her eyes latched onto a book that she had to physically restrain herself from lunging towards.

  Magical girl outcasts.

  The cover of the book was bound in leather with a strange texture, paler than most of the books she had glimpsed in Millie’s mother’s collection. She wrinkled her nose at the strange smell that it gave off. Even the books in the Adeline’s dark basement had the pleasant smell of old books, but this one was strange.

  Evantra opened the cover, and she frowned.

  The pages within had been defaced. Torn, stained, scribbled over, such that only the slightest fragments of sentences remained.

  “Too good to be true… though I wonder, what would have caused someone to deface it like this? Would Adeline know anything about it?”

  Whoever had authored the book had failed to dignify it with their name. It looked like it had been defaced with vitriol.

  *Thump*

  Evantra froze.

  She kept every hair on her body still, every muscle tensed, her breath held.

  As quietly as she could, stepping with the balls of her feet, she secluded herself in the space between two bookshelves, which were just wide enough to fit her.

  *Thump*

  Evantra activated her skills.

  [Conceal]

  [Stonerooted]

  [Object mimicry]

  Is the noise coming from the basement? I’m struggling to place it.

  She stood deathly still, taking the appearance of a short wooden ladder. Her heartbeat began to slow under the stress of maintaining three skills concurrently. Still, she gritted her teeth and she focused, alert to every detail she could comprehend.

  *Thump*

  Did someone enter the store?

  Her eyes widened.

  Millie.

  Evantra released her skills and unholstered her Nagantra machine pistol, creeping forwards at a fast pace while doing her best to mask her footsteps.

  *Thump*

  Extending the gun out before her, she slowly climbed the steps, emerging into the bookshop proper. She cast her gaze around the shelves, but saw no one in the store.

  *Thump*

  She quickly ascended the stairs to find Millie fast asleep.

  Silently descending back to the ground floor, she unlatched the lock and emerged from the store. The bar next to her, filled with patrons that had been enraptured in their revelry, was deathly silent, as they stared at—

  It’s coming from...

  Wait… I was wrong.

  I do know what this is.

  Evantra let out a breath as she turned towards some of the patrons in the bar next to her.

  They were all looking at the ground.

  Caliburn have started to dig.

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