Demeteria.

  This was the armour worn by their operatives back in the Veilsurge…

  What were they doing in here?

  Evantra paused at the foot of the doorway, peering inside.

  Unlike the few other apartments she had glanced into, this one was clearly the sight of a massacre. She took in what looked to be five bodies, three of them Demeteria’s operatives, and two that were dressed in strange clothing.

  The first looked like a medieval jester.

  Deep purple stripes contrasted with white, except for the areas where the blood had dried to a muddy brown. Evantra could make out the tri-cone hat with bells fixed to each of its ends. Evantra could see a spattering of bullet holes that had shredded apart the front portion of its shirt, over the ribcage.

  Even dressed as it was, that was the least striking thing about the person’s visage.

  The jester’s skull was deformed.

  The front plane of the skull pulled away from it, creating an elongated snout. That wasn’t the only anomaly that she noticed. The fingers on the jester’s left and right hands numbered six and seven respectively. They were similarly elongated and were utterly disproportionate to the palms of his hands, such that even someone unacquainted with the precise proportions of skeletal finger bones was able to tell.

  Were they even human?

  Or am I looking at something like what I encountered during Caliburn’s Raid?

  Evantra tore her eyes away from the jester, turning her attention to the remaining bodies. Another was dressed in the airy robes and a hood that had slipped off its skull to bunch up above its right shoulder. Unlike the jester, the skeleton more closely resembled that of a human being, with only a single notable deformity.

  It sported a third eye socket in the middle of its forehead.

  Were Demeteria after them for some reason?

  It seems unlikely that they were original residents.

  But if that was the case… something’s strange.

  Why can’t I see any guns on the operatives?

  Evantra turned to the remaining operative. The body was splayed out across the floor, and Evantra latched onto an object in its grip.

  A data pad.

  Tempting… but I’m not making that mistake again.

  Recalling how the poltergeist in the train station which was supposedly meant to be at a lower class had detected her presence using her earbuds and pad, she wasn’t going to take the risk.

  ***

  After continuing further up the stairs, Evantra was finally met with her next obstacle.

  A simple locked door.

  An automated door that led into the executive lounge, which preceded the residential apartments above. When she had entered the megabuilding, the last thing she anticipated to halt her in her tracks was something so mundane. In hindsight, she realised that the only reason why she hadn’t encountered the problem sooner, was that the stairwells between the residential floors below weren’t cordoned off like the executive floors were, allowing her free roam.

  She paused, examining her options.

  If I break it somehow, it’ll be sure to draw the poltergeist’s attention

  This is the only entrance, and if I’m going to draw its attention anyway…

  I’m going to do it on my own terms.

  Two birds with one stone.

  She grinned.

  ***

  Evantra depressed the power button of the datapad.

  The lights of the megabuilding went out.

  Evantra’s blood ran cold. Even though she was expecting some reaction, that it had come so quickly and that it had even noticed it in the first place had come as a surprise. Especially amongst the hundreds or thousands of electrical devices in the area.

  She was instantly blanketed in darkness, and the hollow interior of the structure wink out of sight before she immediately reactivated [darkvision]. The familiar buzzing of security drones could be heard, closing in on her position.

  She flattened herself against the wall as the drones entered like vicious wasps. They honed in on the data pad, as she continued to edge around the room making her way to the exit. She dropped to the floor and watched with wide eyes as the drones darted into and out of the apartment’s rooms in search of what had caused the disruption.

  The drones started firing.

  The sound of automatic gunfire was deafening in the confined spaces of the apartment, and Evantra abandoned her caution and sprinted for the entrance.

  It’s trying to flush me out.

  It’s realised that I’m capable of evading its notice.

  Evantra stepped out into the corridor as the sounds of gunfire echoed. She darted down the corridor, racing for the next stairwell while the poltergeist was still preoccupied. She watched as the sprinklers overhead went off. The water pressure continued to build, until they clearly exceeded their operating capacity, creating small puddles in the corridor. She could see her footsteps disrupt the puddles, marking her path as she ran to the staircase.

  It’s figured out a way to reveal my position.

  Evantra dashed down the corridor, curving into the stairwell. She heard the drones emerge from the apartment from behind her and unleashed a hail of bullets just as she rounded the corner. After quickly sweeping the area for CCTV cameras, she remained still and crouched as the drones rounded the corner. She noticed that the flow of water down the steps of the stairwell allowed her to appropriately conceal her presence there. Evantra resisted her urge to open fire as the drones hurtled around the corner.

  She kept her Nagantra close to her body, minimising the space that she occupied, and was ready to train it on a drone the moment that it deviated in its behaviour. She watched as the random firing ceased, and the drones filed in both directions – heading up towards the executive suites and down the stairs.

  Evantra crept after the drones heading up, ensuring that she minimised the sound of her boots meeting water. They were diligently scanning the area, which slowed them down, allowing her to keep pace with them.

  She watched as the drones drew to a halt before the closed doors. Her every heartbeat thundered heavily in her chest as she watched the drones hesitate. Then, the red light above the automatic door switched to green, and she felt a rush of relief as the pair of drones made their way through.

  Opening the way for her.

  I'm in.

  The only question is… the children.

  Why did it change up its tactics?

  Why lure the children in, instead of more Veilcreatures?

  Is it growing desperate?

  Or is it hungering for human souls?

  Following closely after the drones, Evantra emerged into the executive lounge. Its structure, format and positioning mirrored the common areas below, but it couldn’t be further from the food court that she had glimpsed.

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  In its heyday, Evantra had no doubt that it would have been stunning. Sleek, black floors beneath her feet that covered the entirety of the area. A large, artistic sculpture of a twisting helix hung high above her head, suspended in the air. Abstract paintings that fit the theme of black and gold adorned the walls of the lounge. A curving, black staircase in the central portion of the room led up to a higher level which housed a modern bar and recreational space. To her right were crystalline panels of glass that spanned from floor to ceiling. She had little doubt that one of the lounge’s purposes was to act as a buffer, separating the executive suites from the rest of the megabuilding.

  Even fallen to disrepair, the build quality of the lounge spoke for itself. It hardly felt like the place had been abandoned, or that anything was amiss at all in the executive levels. She crept across the reflective black floors, trailing the drones as they made their way to another fire exit which presumably led up to residential apartments. She quickly ascended the curving staircase, passing the bar, moving silently in their wake.

  Evantra followed the drones as they passed multiple doors to other floors, eventually halting before one of them. Evantra’s eyes narrowed when she saw that the fire escape door leading to the apartment had been battered down. While the stairwells in the megabuilding below were connected without doors breaking off to each floor, it wasn’t the case for the fire escape to the executive residential suites.

  Single floors.

  Each apartment occupies an entire floor.

  But that aside… the door looked like it was ripped from its hinges.

  I don’t see bullet holes… how exactly did the poltergeist manage it?

  Evantra stepped carefully over the fallen door as she trailed the drones. The executive suite had a stunning view of Demeteria’s continental greenhouses. She could even glimpse the remains of Wisptown from where she was positioned.

  [Ritual of Veilsight]

  Veilsouls remaining: 1,975

  The dark mist that Evantra had glimpsed before was thick in the air. The wisps of mist almost seemed to be emanating towards the ceiling above her. It seemed to be roiling in place, ebbing and flowing in thick, unsettling waves.

  The ritual must be up above. It’s keeping the children somewhere separate.

  She watched as the drones flew out of the corridor, into a wide, open living area. Crouched behind the kitchen island, Evantra peered over it into the living room below.

  She saw them.

  The children.

  Evantra felt tears prickle at the corner of her eyes when she made out Tai and Lucas, huddled together in a corner. Ade’s sister Nina was seated next to them, along with three others, all dressed in the Rosewood College uniform. Apart from some scrapes and bumps, looked like they weren’t physically harmed.

  It’s treating them like hostages…

  But to what end?

  It must have them under surveillance. If they see them react to my appearance, it’ll endanger them further.

  I need to strike directly at the poltergeist… if it even has a corporeal body for me to attack.

  It physically hurt to pull away from them, knowing that Tai, Lucs and their classmates were right within her reach.

  Now, all she had to do was kill a ghost.

  Taking advantage of the drones’ preoccupation, she slowly ascended the stairs, tracing the direction that the black particles were floating in. She ascended the stairs as quietly as she could, until she eventually reached her destination.

  The penthouse apartment.

  The fire escape door to the ritual area, just like the other executive apartments, had been ripped off its hinges.

  Evantra tensed as she slowly entered the room.

  The apartment was encased in darkness. She saw a faint red glow marring the ceiling of the apartment, watching as the light appeared to pulse. Unlike the apartment the children were situated in, the windows were blacked out and opaque.

  The rest of the apartment was dark, and Evantra could see the stains of blood staining the white kitchen island as she entered. She saw corpses strewn about the room, many of them dressed in fine clothing, as if they had been attending a party or function.

  Evantra crouched behind the counter. As quietly as she could, she slowly unzipped her backpack, withdrawing Galahad’s blade from within. She ignored the notification, zipping her bag back up, before she returned her attention to—

  She came face to face with two gleaming white eyes, burning in the darkness. They loomed over her where she was crouched behind the kitchen island.

  Evantra barely managed to dodge the slash as it came down. The blade severed solid marble like butter as it bore towards her. Evantra recovered, scrambling to her feet and taking in her attacker.

  A Ghostslayer.

  Or they had been.

  The sight before her was incomprehensible. Her eyes widened as she struggled to accept what she was seeing. Then, she focused on the features of her attacker.

  Or more accurately, their cyberskeleton.

  They had undergone a full cybernetic build. A matte black metallic spine connected their skull to the rest of their body. Their subdermals were exposed, synthetic skin retaining its colour where the organic corpos lying dead around her had long since decayed. Menacing red lights gleamed from within the spine segments, which curved elegantly connecting the disparate limbs of the Ghostslayer. A submachine gun was holstered at his hip, and in his hands was a standard-issue weapon she recalled seeing in the hands of Demeteria’s operatives during the Rosewood Veilsurge.

  Two blinding white orbs that were his optics shone in the darkness.

  Evantra watched as the cyberskeleton raised its weapon in her direction.

  She dove into a roll as his shotgun lit the air. A deafening blast erupted as the slug burned through the bulletproof glass that were the windows comprising the outer ‘wall’ of the apartment. Evantra breathlessly ran down the stairs, taking cover beside the staircase as the second shot went off.

  She pressed her back to the wall, gaining a brief reprieve and hearing the telltale sound of a casing clattering to the floor.

  Something had been off about this whole situation.

  Numerous children going missing in a Megabuilding.

  The poltergeist somehow managing to mimic their voices and make calls to contacts in their phone on the outside.

  The Veilcreature corpses she had glimpsed in the building. A paradox, because the ghost’s mere presence was meant to drive them away, as she had learned from her time with Caliburn. The ghost noticing the removal of the memory card from a single device among potentially hundreds or thousands in the building.

  All pointing to a single conclusion.

  This is anything but a class 5 poltergeist.

  It’s been consolidating its powers over the years, quietly staying under the radar.

  Somehow, it’s managed to overcome the natural deterrence it poses to Veilcreatures to kill them.

  Evantra’s eyes widened as the familiar image of the drone wreckage in the continental greenhouse and the bodies of teethlings beneath it returned to her. The image they had chanced upon while embarking on their bounty.

  It was sending its drones out of its territory to bring the veilcreatures back into its territory.

  And now… it’s become strong enough to override the cybernetics of a dead Ghostslayer. It also explains the missing weapons from the Demeteria operatives and the torn doors. This whole time… the poltergeist has been in possession of a cyberskeleton.

  Evantra unholstered Clark’s pistol, racking the slide and chambering the incendiary rounds. Her heartbeat was thundering in her ears as she listened for any minute change in the silence. She knew that the motion would have given away her location.

  With the blade in her offhand, Evantra leaned over, attempting to steal a glance at the Ghostslayer.

  Upon hearing the soft whisper of air parting, she dodged to the left, narrowly avoiding the Ghostslayer’s blade that protruded from his forearms. Grabbing a vase from on top of a cabinet, Evantra chucked it across the room, and just as she suspected, she saw the Ghostslayer’s skull twist in the direction of the sound it generated.

  Evantra raised Clark’s pistol and unleashed three rounds in a quick burst. She watched as they melted a path through the Ghostslayer’s ribcage, flank and left shoulder, narrowly missing his spine and skull where she had been aiming.

  The Ghostslayer answered with a blisteringly fast shot in her precise direction, but Evantra was already moving, unloading more rounds into the cyberskeleton. To her utter disbelief, the incendiary rounds that had ripped open a mimic’s ribcage were being absorbed by the subdermals.

  Unless I get a critical shot, I’m—

  Evantra watched as the cybernetics began to heal.

  She leapt over a couch, sending more items scattering throughout the room with an errant kick while vaulting, and she saw the Ghostslayer hesitate as it readied its next shot. Glancing quickly into the hallway to her right, Evantra could see the source of the glow ahead of her.

  Unfortunately for her, it seemed as if the Ghostslayer had discerned her intention.

  She heard floor tiles shatter as it leapt forwards, fully empowered by its cybernetic enhancements. Evantra watched as the couch she had vaulted over was torn in twain by its blade as it carved through it, losing not a single touch of its momentum. More rounds buried itself in the area around his clavicle as Evantra narrowly missed his neck, before the wounds began closing once more.

  Evantra’s eyes locked onto the ways that his hips shifted and his shoulders twisted.

  Reminding her of a certain infiltrator’s fighting style.

  Do as Ade did with the youguai.

  I have the advantage at close range.

  The moment I allow him to start spraying in this corridor, there’s a high chance that I’ll be shot.

  She ducked, barely catching the flash of the black blade as it cleaved the air above her. When she saw the cyberskeleton's hand drop to his side to retrieve the submachine gun at its side, Evantra leapt forwards, sending a precise kick into his knee, aiming to impact it with the heel of her foot. She watched as his knee buckled slightly before the Ghostslayer recovered in a fraction of a second.

  It bought her the time she needed to slip under his second errant slash, and this time, Evantra chose to advance forwards. She made a quick and precise diagonal slash with the blade of Galahad. She watched the blade glance off the Ghostslayer’s subdermals, barely managing to scratch it.

  The poltergeist’s scream filled her head.

  A wail of pure agony, terror and rage filled all of her senses. Her skin crawled, her ears bled and her vision flickered as it cried out in response to her blow. Evantra blinked the tears from her eyes, attempting to steady herself, but realised that the cyberskeleton was fleeing.

  She quickly withdrew Clark’s pistol, sending her very final bullet into the back of his neck, watching as the incendiary round melted through the metal of the spine of the cyberskeleton. The Ghostslayer’s head came flying off, and she watched as the blinding white optics of his eyes winked out.

  Her chest heaved as her adrenaline carved a path through her veins, her vision tinged red from the exertion.

  She had danced on the very edge.

  A single misstep, and the Ghostslayer would have torn her to bloody shreds. That she was standing at all was solely due to the [ritual of concealment], Clark’s firearm and the blade of Galahad.

  Evantra ran down the corridor, rounding into the room that housed the ritual. It was a fraction of the size of Caliburn’s ritual, but just as intricate. She saw curving lines drawn in blood spread out across the room. The red glow of the ritual she had glimpsed from around the corner had faded. It looked inert, and she highly suspected that the poltergeist had found some means to flee after she inflicted the blow with the blade.

  More dead bodies surrounded the ritual. Corpos clad in a similar fashion to the ones she had found in the living room. Bullet holes had ripped through the clothes of the victims, and Evantra highly suspected that their deaths had been the inciting incident that had brought about the poltergeist.

  Her eyes flicked to the centre of the ritual, and she found it devoid of a catalyst.

  Evantra heard the high-pitched whine of an aerial vehicle approaching the penthouse.

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