Chapter 9 #2
The female instructor stepped forward. “I’m Commander Reeves.
I oversee bane containment at this facility.
Let me be perfectly clear, these creatures may be smaller than what you’d encounter in a true incursion, but they are just as deadly.
One mistake, one moment of carelessness, and you will die. ”
A shiver ran down my spine. Not from fear, exactly, but from memory. I’d seen what bane could do to a human body. How they could drain a soul until nothing remained but an empty husk.
“You will operate in teams of four and five,” Hadley continued. “Each team will take a different entry point and follow a predetermined route through the cavern system.”
They began calling names, grouping students together. I waited, wondering where I’d be placed, hoping it would be with Tye and Lydia.
“Black,” Hadley called, and my head snapped up. “You’ll be with the Nightfall Shield.”
Of fucking course.
Tye gave me a sympathetic look as he was assigned to another group. Lydia squeezed my arm before joining Dreadwatch.
I walked over to where the four men stood, feeling like I was approaching a firing squad. Percy’s jaw was tight, his expression closed off. Aiden looked ready to pounce on his prey, aka, me. Eris gave me a small nod and maybe a wink, or might have been a muscle spasm. Draco’s face was unreadable.
“Looks like you’re stuck with me,” I said, aiming for casualness.
“Just follow our lead and try not to get in the way,” Percy snapped.
I bit back a retort. This wasn’t the time or place. “I know what I’m doing, hot shot.”
“We’ll see,” was all he said before turning away to check his weapons.
Reeves approached our group, assessing me. “Black. I’ve heard about you.”
“All good things, I hope,” I replied with a smile that felt stretched thin.
“The Assembly speaks highly of your combat record,” she said, not returning the smile. “But the Abyss is different from field encounters. These bane have been contained for study. They’ve adapted.”
“Adapted how?” I asked.
“They’ve learned to conserve energy. To wait.
The warding prevents them from creating portals to escape, but it doesn’t diminish their intelligence.
” She handed each of us a small device that looked like a compass.
“These will help you track bane signatures. The stronger the reading, the closer the bane.”
I examined the device, noting how the needle trembled slightly even now. “They’re that close to the surface?”
“The Abyss begins just below us,” Reeves confirmed. “A network of caves and tunnels that extends for miles beneath the forest. The entrance is this way.”
She led us to what appeared to be an ordinary hillside. With a gesture of her hand, the ground shifted, revealing a dark opening in the earth. Cold air rushed out, carrying with it a scent I recognized instantly—the metallic smell of dark matter.
My stomach clenched. I’d smelled this before, in New York alleys and abandoned buildings, moments before a bane emerged from its portal. It was the smell of death and emptiness and hunger.
“Your team will enter here,” Reeves instructed. “Follow the main passage until you reach the first chamber. Your route is marked in blue. Stay on it. The exercises end at sunset, or sooner if you complete your objective.”
“And what exactly is our objective?” I asked, peering into the darkness.
“Data collection. The devices will record your encounters automatically. We want to know how the bane react to different zodiac signatures, particularly yours, Ms. Black.”
Of course. This wasn’t just training, it was an experiment. With me as the lab rat.
“Gear check,” Percy ordered, ignoring my scowl. “Weapons, lights, emergency beacons.”
We all went through our equipment one final time.
I had my combat knife strapped to my thigh, a collapsible staff at my back, and several small orbs of warded silver—emergency measures against bane that got too close.
My tattoos tingled with anticipation, my magic responding to the proximity of dark matter.
“Ready?” Percy asked, not really looking for an answer as he activated his light and stepped toward the entrance.
The temperature dropped immediately as we descended.
The passage was narrow at first, forcing us to move single file, with Percy in front, then me, Draco, Eris, with Aiden taking up the rear.
Our lights cast long shadows on the rough stone walls, creating the illusion of movement where there was none.
Or so I hoped.
After about fifty feet, the passage widened into a chamber roughly the size of the dining hall at Dominion.
Crystalline formations jutted from the walls and ceiling, but they weren’t the clear or colorful crystals you’d expect in a natural cave.
These were black, with veins of dark purple running through them like infection.
“Dark matter crystals,” Draco murmured, coming to stand beside me. “They form where bane have been present for extended periods.”
I nodded, resisting the urge to touch one. “I’ve seen smaller versions in severe incursion sites, but nothing like this.” I neglected to tell him that the tattoo ink used for my serpents were infused with dark matter crystals. I didn’t feel like poking the bear today.
My tracking device was pulsing now, the needle swinging in slow circles as if confused. Percy checked his own, frowning.
“Readings are scattered,” he said. “They could be anywhere.”
“Or everywhere,” Aiden added grimly, his hand moving to the hilt of his blade.
I closed my eyes briefly, extending my senses the way I’d been trained. As an Ophis, I could detect disturbances in space that normal zodiacs couldn’t sense. The Abyss felt like reality itself was stretched thin here, the fabric of our dimension rubbing against something else.
“They’re close,” I murmured, opening my eyes. “Three o’clock, maybe fifty feet.”
Percy gave me a skeptical look but checked his tracker. His eyebrows raised slightly when the reading confirmed my assessment. “How did you—”
“Experience,” I cut him off. “I’ve been hunting these things for three years in the wild.”
We moved forward cautiously, the blue markers on the wall guiding us deeper into the cavern system.
The ceiling grew higher, the chamber expanding into a cathedral-like space filled with those infected black crystals.
Some were as small as my finger, others as large as a person, all of them pulsing with a faint purple glow that made my skin crawl.
“The crystals absorb dark matter,” I explained quietly as we walked. “They’re like batteries storing negative energy. In major incursion sites, they can grow to the size of buildings.”
“You sound like you’ve seen a lot of them,” Eris commented.
“Too many. My first assignment with the Assembly was cleaning up after a major breach in Queens. The crystals had taken over an entire apartment building. They had to demolish it afterward.”
Draco moved closer to examine one of the larger formations. “The texts say these can be used as anchors for portal magic.”
I nodded. “For bane, yes. They use them to stabilize their entry points. For us...” I hesitated, not sure how much to reveal about what I could do.
“For you?” Percy prompted, suddenly interested.
Before I could answer, my tracker went wild, the needle spinning rapidly. At the same moment, the temperature plummeted. My breath frosted in front of my face, and the hairs on my arms stood up.
“Contact,” Aiden hissed, drawing his blades.
And then I saw it. A ripple in the air about twenty feet ahead, like heat rising from pavement, except cold and wrong. The ripple coalesced into a form that human eyes would never register, but to a zodiac, it was unmistakable.
The bane was roughly humanoid, but that’s where any resemblance to humanity ended.
Its limbs were too long and too numerous.
I counted six arms ending in elongated fingers that dragged along the ground.
Its head was misshapen, bulbous on one side, with no discernible facial features except for a gaping maw that seemed to be constantly opening and closing.
Its body bent at impossible angles, joints moving in directions that defied anatomy.
“Shit,” Eris breathed.
“At least it’s a small one,” I said. The bane I’d encountered in New York had been twice this size, some even larger. “Level two, maybe three at most.”
The bane hadn’t noticed us yet. It was moving slowly around a cluster of crystals, occasionally reaching out to touch one with those too-long fingers. When it did, the crystal pulsed brighter, and the bane seemed to grow slightly more solid.
Percy motioned for us to spread out, a standard containment formation. “Remember, observation only. No engagement unless it attacks first.”
I took my position on the right flank, careful to move silently. But I’d barely taken three steps when my foot dislodged a small stone, sending it skittering across the floor.
The bane froze. Then, with a movement so fast it blurred, its head swiveled 180 degrees toward us. The maw opened wider, revealing nothing but darkness inside, a void that seemed to pull at the light around it.
“So much for observation,” I muttered, drawing my staff and extending it with a flick of my wrist.
The bane moved, a jerking, disjointed motion that covered ground with terrifying speed. It wasn’t coming for Percy or Aiden or Eris. It was coming straight for me.
“Black, move!” Percy shouted, but I was already in motion.
I dove to the side as the bane lunged, feeling the cold rush of its passage like a blast of arctic air.
Rolling to my feet, I called on my magic, silver light flooding my vision as it coursed through my veins and into my tattoos.
The serpents on my arms writhed with power, glowing bright against my skin.
The bane screeched, a sound like metal tearing, and recoiled from the light. That was interesting. In my previous encounters, they’d been drawn to my magic, not repelled by it.