Chapter 16
16
Raze
B eneath the halls of Ravenshurst University, there’s a mess of tunnels stretching out in all directions like gnarled, broken fingers. Most are useless, leading to dead ends packed with dirt and rock that could collapse and kill you if you aren’t careful. They’re a project the Landrys started, but never got the chance to finish, and the Midnight Syndicate purposely left untouched.
They begin at a hidden door in the chapel that opens to a set of dark, polished steps. Once you get to the base of the staircases, you’re met with a handful of tunnels that reach everywhere from the dense mountains to the town and all the way over toward a sloshy, failed attempt near the ocean. Out of a dozen planned paths, only three were successfully carved for their intended purpose.
One of them travels to the center of Nocturne Valley, spitting you out beneath the town’s bank cellar. The only entrance or exit is protected by an intricate system of locks and alarms that require special clearance to get past.
I’ve never been granted such a thing.
The second path leads to a hall of rooms carved into stone with metal bars built-in as the third wall. They’re prisons built for the gifted, enchanted to nullify any power of those unlucky enough to find themselves locked inside.
The third opens into a large assembly hall beneath the university ballroom. This is where the Midnight Syndicate holds its meetings every third full moon.
The hall has been altered to accommodate the Syndicate’s growing numbers over the past century, though they’ve kept much of the structures the same. The line of masked leaders of the Syndicate sits at a raised bench, gazing down their noses at their subordinates in the pews below. There’s a member from each of the six active bloodlines, with one empty chair to honor the Mirrane line—the lost seventh. They make up the council of Supremes for the Midnight Syndicate.
Their identities are not meant to be known by lesser members, nor should they have any sway in the matters discussed. They’re given false names, full face masks, and black robes to conceal themselves. The positions are inherited through family lines with no say from the rest of the bloodlines.
It’s mostly for tradition, honestly. We all know who they are. It’s been the same six families running the Syndicate for over one hundred years, when the cultish society was formed. Those whispers are heard by even the lowliest members.
Each time I’m down here, I want to peel my skin off my body and walk out as someone else. I despise these people. All of them.
I despise the things I’ve done to survive among them.
The resentment I hold for my father for putting me into a pit of snakes before I could consent to it still burns hot in my chest with each mandatory meeting I’ve had to attend over the last thirteen years. Even after his death, I hate him for it. In fact, his passing only served to feed the flames.
How dare he leave me to deal with the consequences of his failed dealings? To continue another generation of the Whitlock curse?
“It’s all a part of their game,” he used to claim. “We’ve just got to play the game better than they do.”
His idea of playing more strategically is living in their shadows, committing their crimes for them as the token Null—a person born without gifts. Thanks to the Syndicate’s power-hungry greed, most of Nocturne Valley is made up of Nulls.
My father thought allowing them to think they have control was the best way to ensure they don’t turn on us. I think he missed the part over the years where they ripped that control from our grasp and we truly became their slaves.
I’m a hollowed out husk of a man—destined to lose everything I hold dear to the gifted. I’ve released all attachments in my own personal act of rebellion, leaving me with nothing but an empty black soul. A beautifully painted life filled with academic achievements and professional accolades—but all of it is sloshed onto a ripped and broken canvas. It’s a mask to hide the ugliness beneath.
There will be no atoning for my sins once I’m through with the Syndicate, as they’re far too great to make up for in a single lifetime.
I’d have to care if I wanted to make amends, and I’m not interested in either.
With the Ellery girl finally making her appearance at the university, I can complete my task and lay this all to rest. I can end a lifetime of suffering.
I’m always among the first to arrive to give myself the opportunity to take in the awkward and strained social interactions between members, filing them away in my mental archives for future use.
Dean Hatchcroft is an outcast. A red-faced snake slithering around the room, desperately seeking external validation from whoever will offer it.
My gaze rolls over toward the bench, where James Stanson’s masked face stares out at nothing in particular. Nocturne Valley’s current sitting mayor, his large stature easily gives his identity away. Between his wide, square shoulders and the way he towers over everyone beside him—even seated—he’s hard to mistake for someone else.
As the Supreme descendant of the Aetheris bloodline, he’s nearly six and a half feet of pure evil, with a deceitfully friendly face and a charming personality to lure you in. Aetherises are the bravest and strongest members of society, they often graduate from Ravenshurst and go on to fight in wars or excel in sports. They’re probably the liveliest group we have, though many have short tempers. James was the first to break the Payne family’s century-long run as mayor, winning the last election by a landslide against Ashton Payne, who is currently seated as far away from him as possible.
Ashton blends in with the rest of the leaders much easier, but I could always spot the difference in his beat-down stature. Even if his father weren’t sitting right before him in the audience—glaring up at the rest of the Syndicate leaders with his brutal, dead eyes—I’d know those sagging shoulders and twitching movements were him from years of school together.
The Paynes descend from the Primaris bloodline—probably the most populated, yet actively weakening of them all. They absolutely despise the Aetherises, even before Stanson ended their reign over Nocturne Valley.
Terry Florwyn is nearly swallowed by her mask beside Ashton. As the Supreme descendant of the Viridian bloodline, she inherited her notorious petite stature from her ancestors. It’s said that as healers, the Viridians needed to remain small to be able to travel with soldiers to different war camps centuries ago without taking up too much space. That’s why they’ve remained petite all this time. Terry is a middle-aged, esteemed oncologist halfway through a record-breaking career. She’s one of the few gifted who uses her magic for good.
Harold Mirasen sits beside Terry, a skeletal figure draped in black robes who has represented the Valeria bloodline for longer than I’ve been here. Outside of this, he works as a government diplomat—the perfect job for an empath who can sense intentions and emotions. He has incited wars and genocides with his gift.
Angelica Sunspire is still as a statue and wrapped in shadows. She took over the role last year, after her grandfather was found dead in his basement one gloomy, autumn morning. She blames me for his untimely death, though I’ve sworn up and down that it wasn’t me.
Prior to stepping into the role as representative for the Luminara line, Angelica spent most of her days hole up in a studio apartment in New York. She was world-renowned for her abstract paintings that perfectly depicted tumultuous times in history. When her grandfather died and her parents called her back, she disappeared from the public eye and moved back to Nocturne Valley to live in the shadows and haunt the town with her morose grumbling.
The Luminaras are our guides beyond the veil and the masters of light and dark. They’re all so moody, it’s insufferable.
Next to her, a stiff-looking figure is dwarfed by the black robes that are draped across their shoulders. Ronald Everwatch always looks like he would rather be anywhere else. His mask does little to hide his identity, as it’s impossible to miss the bright red mess of hair falling out of his hood or the potbelly that sits above his lap. Outside of his role in the Midnight Syndicate, he’s the head librarian of the Library of Congress—a perfect waste of talent for a bloodline as interesting as Aeternum, if you ask me.
But no one ever does.
And as always, the seat beside him sits empty in honor of the Mirrane bloodline. No one knows if they all disappeared by choice, or if they were killed off, but their mysterious powers always made people uncomfortable. They could cloak themselves in darkness and walk beside you without you ever knowing. They could infiltrate your mind and convince you there’s a thousand spiders crawling beneath your skin, then let you claw at and mangle your own flesh until there’s nothing left for their own entertainment. They could manipulate the very fabric of reality.
They were powerful and dangerous, and that was enough for everyone to beg the Syndicate to put an end to them.
No one has seen a descendant from the Mirrane line in over half a century, when the final council member representative took his last breath.
I make my way down the line of masked faces, identifying each one with practiced ease when Divina Ellery slips into the row ahead of mine and gracefully falls into a seat beside one of her usual accomplices.
If Mayor Stanson is pure evil, then Divina Ellery is the source from which he feeds. She’s worse than every sorry excuse of a person in this room combined. Parading around as an empath, she certainly senses the energies of those around her, and then sucks them dry. The beginning and end of all my suffering—she will be the final part of my plan. Only after I get my hands on her daughter. I refuse to allow her to prance around as if she isn’t a cold-blooded murderer for much longer.
“Let the record show that the meeting has officially begun as of 7:33 in the evening. We’ve got a full docket of topics to be discussed, so without further delay, let’s get right into it,” Mayor Stanson announces into his microphone in a dull, robotic voice that comes out muddled through his fabric mask. He begins to read from a sheet of paper sitting before him as the other members pass around a sign-in sheet.
In all honesty, I spend most of these meetings zoned out from what they’re speaking about, taking the time to study the body language of those around me instead.
Most members fly in from around the country to attend, then take a redeye out as soon as the meeting ends. Not every Ravenshurst legacy finds themselves imprisoned by a Midnight Syndicate membership. These are the ones who have gotten themselves involved in one way or another—usually with something having to do with their financial standing or hunger for success. Their squirming bodies and expressive eye rolls usually indicate they don’t want to be here, mostly for fear that their presence will somehow put them in the crosshairs of one of the Syndicate’s many enemies. Or of the Syndicate members themselves.
It’s truly a group of petulant children throwing tantrums that cost lives.
Others, like Divina and me, were offered a choice: to join or to die. Her father did a lot of negotiating to get her that deal after what happened in the woods, just as mine had done. She wisely took the option to join. I know it haunted my old man every day he had to look into the eyes of his son’s killer without permission to retaliate the way he craved.
“Motion to grant Raze permission to eliminate the threat,” Stanson mumbles into his microphone sometime later. My attention snaps back to the front. Hands fly into the air, casting their votes, and I realize I should have been paying better attention.
“Majority vote says the motion is granted.” Swinging his gaze toward the back to meet mine, he nods his head. “You’ll take care of the Haggartys before our next meeting.”
Fuck . The Haggartys?
I nod once, refusing to look at anyone in particular as I work to school my expression.
They were my old neighbors growing up—a kind couple who went out of their way to help us whenever they could.
What could they have done to get in the Syndicate’s crosshairs?
It doesn’t matter much anymore. Once the issue is voted on and Stanson swings his godforsaken gavel, the issue is settled. I’ll have to kill them as soon as I receive the text that it’s safe to do so.
It never pays to care.