Chapter 51
PHANTASM
Bronte
St. Aurelius’s Cemetery is crawling with Leviathan guards like maggots on a corpse.
Jezebel paces between us as we work. She stares, unblinking, at the Aurelius mausoleum towering over the cemetery. Sensing something none of us can. Edging my every ragged nerve.
“We’re all set, Emi,” I murmur as I carefully lodge the last jar in the mud. Her drone hovers nearby, watching for hostile activity. “Tell Bax I owe him a few drinks.”
“Copy. Be safe, all of you.”
“We will. Over and out.”
Nikolai is the first to take off without so much as a goodbye or a backward glance, KA-BARs in his fists as he vanishes into the dark. Dante takes a step forward, but I catch his bicep, jerking him back.
“If I fall—”
“You won’t.”
“If I do, you keep moving and save her. Got it?”
His eyes lock on mine, fear thrumming under the surface of his mask. “Got it.”
I nod, and he disappears into the spectral fog like a phantasm. That’s it; no goodbyes.
We learned long ago to never give death an opening. It’ll snatch any opportunity with greedy hands and hungry teeth.
Breathing steam through my nostrils, I pull my own blades and start moving. Jezebel prowls at my side, fangs bared.
All good plans are simple, with as little twists and turns as possible to ensure the smallest margin of error.
Fanning out, we each claim overlapping sectors of the cemetery as ours to clean, working our way in toward the mausoleum from the outskirts so we don’t miss a single hostile.
A clear path will grant us passage into the Aurelius crypt without having to watch our own backs, and the distraction planted along the treeline will turn their heads for that split second we need to slip into the viper’s den undetected.
Jezebel and I stalk as one, targeting our first victim in seamless synchronicity.
They don’t even hear us trailing behind them, nor do they feel death’s breath on their neck until my gloved hand is over their mouth, gagging their startled shout.
A swift slice through their jugular, and they drop like a weighted sack.
Blood pools onto the ground beneath them like molten rubies.
For just a moment, I let myself feel the heaviness of taking a life. Regardless of who they are or the cult they serve, these people likely have families waiting for them to come home.
But I am not the one who recruited them. I am not the one who brought them here, knowing they’d be in danger of becoming sacrificial pawns in this macabre game of chess. Their blood is on Leviathan's hands, not mine.
Still, I whisper a prayer for them to find their way to where they belong.
And then I move on to the next.
Again and again, I reach for the memories I’ve been avoiding for so long to charge the force behind every cold-blooded murder: Mama’s hazel eyes closing far too soon; my father’s hot blood bathing me in death; rabid dogs chasing me and my siblings through eldritch mazes; skinning and stitching to the sound of wretched screams; seeing the woman I love lying in bed as she fought for her life.
I lose count of the bodies I leave in my wake. Behind me, I see only one color.
Red.
I never told her, but Virgil’s fear for me was misplaced. She was there with me and my brother in Sleepy Hollow. She took as long to recover from the trauma as us. But she forgets what happened before that. She forgets that we were trained to be ruthless killing machines.
Murder is in our blood.
Jezebel pounces the next doomed soul as they round the corner of a gargoyle statue. This feline is a force of nature unlike any I’ve ever seen. Silent as tombs, deadlier than any bullet or blade. She goes for the throat, downing them without a single sound aside from a wet gargle and a heavy thump.
Scanning my surroundings to ensure we didn’t miss anyone, I murmur, “Secure.”
A moment later, Nikolai tags in. “Secure.”
“Bronte,” Dante growls in my ear, sounding strained. “I need h—”
He cuts off with a bark of pain, and I’m instantly running with Jezebel at my heels. We skid around a tall trio of weeping angels. Crimson blooms on Dante’s right thigh as he struggles with fending off two guards at once. I target the one lifting their rifle.
The KA-BAR slingshots from my hand, clanging against the raised gun. The guard whips their head my way, and Dante sinks his blade into their gut. I switch my focus to the other guard, lifting another knife to throw.
They fall for the bait, latching their attention onto me as Jezebel strikes from behind, ripping and shredding until they die with a whimper.
I clap my twin’s shoulder, jutting my chin toward the slice in his thigh. “All right, Ghostface?”
“Never better.” He grins, his pupils dilated. He’s high on adrenaline.
I shake my head, muttering, “Fucking crétin,” under my breath.
“They know you’re there,” Emi warns. “Light it up. Now!”
Dante lurches, moving fast as if he wasn’t just stabbed in the leg.
He slings off his bandolier of grenades, pulls the pin from a single pineapple, and flings it back toward the treeline.
The three of us immediately sprint for cover, diving around the back of a gravestone just as the thunderous BOOM shakes the night awake.
Faster than a lick of lightning, the dynamite catches the explosion and erupts like a slumbering volcano disturbed from its peaceful sleep and taking vengeance by ending the world. Flames spear into the sky as the forest ignites in an inferno of hot, hungry fire.
Somewhere in the chaos, I hear a madman's laughter. It takes me a moment to realize it’s coming from my ear, and it sounds like Bax.
Angels above. He really is a pyromaniac.
“Volkov,” I bark. “Tag in.”
No response.
“Emi?”
“Looking!”
“We’re wasting time,” Dante growls. “He’s probably dead.”
“Putain. Fuck it. Let’s go!”
While all eyes are turned away from us and the world is deafened, we run for the mausoleum.
I take the lead, popping smoke grenades as we sweep through the cemetery.
Resistance meets us head-on, shouting and gunfire lost in the cacophony of the chaos.
We slay every Leviathan guard trying to stand in our way. Every last one.
In minutes, we reach the Aurelius crypt, but someone beats us to the entrance—Nikolai.
“Dead.” He scoffs, his mask drenched in gore. “Your lack of faith in me is truly offensive.”
I’ll never admit it aloud, but I’m more than relieved.
We barge into the crypt, making quick work of the guards inside. I slam the pommel of my knife into the inverted ruby cross upon the empty sarcophagus. The passageway opens, and smoke billows out in thick clouds of gray. Distant screams send shivers down my spine.
I know that voice like I know my own name.
Poppy.
Poppy is screaming.
My world falls into absolute silence.
Jezebel bolts down the stairs. We follow, graceless but swift. Emi’s drone whizzes over our heads, but her voice crackles in our ears as the signal drops.
Halfway down, an impossible wind shoves the smoke past us, funneling toward the opening at our backs.
It’s so strong, it pushes Emi’s drone up, up, up the same path we’re taking down.
Stumbling over each other at the bottom, we brace ourselves against the wind and absorb the scene: the last living Morgensterns chained to a burning pyre, Quinn—fucking Quinn—lying dead in Leviathan garb while a blond woman chants an incantation on her knees outside the pentagram.
The glowing pentagram.
A trick of the light. That’s all it is. Because anything else isn’t fucking possible.
Poppy sees us and cries, “Bronte!”
The woman whips her glare to us.
My blood freezes.
“Margot?” Dante breathes.
Jezebel roars and launches forward at full throttle.
Then Margot pulls a pistol from her robes and shoots her down.