"What do you think?" Ian asked him.
Cronus studied the screen for a moment and he frowned. "It appears to be a trap."
"That's what I thought, too," Ian agreed as he took back the tablet. "Think we should disappoint them?"
"That would be rude," Cronus commented in his dead-pan voice.
"Then I guess we shouldn't keep them waiting any longer," Ian replied as he started the car.
I leaned between the seats and glanced between the enigmatic men. "Mind filling me in on your paranoia?" I requested.
"Our foes are sharp enough to kidnap a lot of women without alerting the police to their scheme," Ian pointed out. He placed the tablet on the dash and tapped the screen. "And yet here we have an easy track on one of the missing girls."
"Maybe they cut it off there," I suggested.
"Or perhaps it's an invitation," he argued.
"For the police?" I wondered.
He shook his head. "No, for us."
I felt the color drain from my face. "You mean they knew ahead of time we'd be on the case?"
Ian nodded. "Yep. They kidnapped a woman with an ankle bracelet and left a witness to give us the details."
"So they want to kill us?" I guessed.
Ian looked into the rear view mirror at me. "No, they want something else."
I didn't like the look in his eyes. It made me feel hunted, like—
My eyes widened and my pulse quickened. I pointed a shaking finger at my chest.
"They. . .they want me?" I stuttered.
"They wouldn't mind getting their pale hands on my throat, but this is their first slip-up in their kidnapping scheme, and I bet you weren't their first target," Ian commented. "That means they want Cronus and me to find them, and the only difference in the equation is you're with us."
I fell back against the seat and shuddered. "So what do we do?"
"We could hand you over," he suggested.
I shot a glare at him. "Hand over yourself!" I snapped.
He chuckled. "It was just a joke."
I sank down the seat and crossed my arms over my chest. "Ha-ha, very funny. . ." I grumbled.
"Do you have a plan?" Cronus spoke up.
Ian grinned. "Nope."
I slapped my palm over my chest. "We're doomed. . ." I murmured.
"Not doomed, just a little unprepared. I thought we could find out more about your Whisperer before we confronted their group, but it looks like they're a pretty impatient bunch," Ian commented.
"Might I suggest a direct route," Cronus mused.
Ian and I looked at him as if he were crazy, which might not have been far from the truth.
"Are you nuts? These aren't the usual dumb Phantoms from the cheap bin of hell. These creatures are smart. They nearly outsmarted both of us," Ian reminded him.
"It was merely an oversight on my part," Cronus argued.
Ian frowned. "And mine?"
"A novice move," Cronus commented.
"So in this frontal assault, who dies first? You or me?" Ian wondered.
"Neither. We use the girl as a shield."
My eyes bulged out of my head. "You're going to do WHAT?"
Ian furrowed his brow and chewed on his cigarette. "It's crazy, but it could work."
"No, it can't! I'm not going to be used as a sacrifice!" I argued.
Ian glanced at me through the rear view mirror again, and this time there was a smirk on his face. "But you'd be saving another woman's life," he pointed out.
"I have this fear of death that's a little stronger than my feminine loyalty," I retorted.
"Relax. Cronus didn't mean it like that." Ian paused and glanced over at his partner. "Right?"
"We will set a trap within a trap," Cronus replied.
Ian raised an eyebrow. "Care to fill us in on the details?"
"We will allow the woman-"
"My name is Enid," I reminded him.
"-to enter the building alone while we enter through another way. She will distract the Phantoms while we search for the girl," Cronus explained.
Ian frowned. "Isn't that a little risky?"
"A little risky?" I quipped.
"She can't handle Phantoms on her own," Ian pointed out.
I glared at him. "I can handle one, but not a dozen."
"There might be a hundred of them in there," Ian added.
I froze and gulped. My imagination conjured up a wall of those red eyes that swarmed over me, covering me in eternal darkness.
"I don't want to die!" I yelped.
"You will not die," Cronus interrupted my loud whimpering. "If you need assistance we will grant you help. Otherwise this will be a learning experience."
"Don't you think you're putting a little too much on her shoulders? I might go with her through the front door," Ian suggested.
"Yeah!" I chimed in as I grasped the back of their seats and poked my head between them. "You've been saying all along I shouldn't be here, and now you want me to practically swim in Phantoms. What's the deal?"
Cronus' eyes flickered to me, and I felt a cold chill run down my spine. The look he gave me was a cold, calculating look that was soaked with disapproval. He was like an overbearing parent who suddenly wanted their lazy child to succeed at a nearly-impossible task. In this case, a passing grade meant survival and an F was more than just a red mark on paper.
"You chose to burrow yourself into this world, and now you must abide by its harsh rules," he snapped at me.
I plopped back into the rear seat and glared at him. "You don't have to be such a jerk about it. . ."
"There's a big problem with your plan, Cronus," Ian piped up. "Won't our hosts be suspicious if she walks in there all alone?"
"Most likely, but either way they react will be to our benefit," Cronus commented. "If they are suspicious they will be forced to split their forces. If they are not then we will have the time we require to find the girl."
"And I'll be up against whatever trap they have," I pointed out.
"Exactly," Cronus agreed.
Ian pinched his abused cigarette between his lips for a moment in thought before his eyes flickered up to the rear view mirror. "It's your call, Enid. We won't do this if you don't want to."
I clasped my hands together in my lap. They wouldn't stop shaking. "What would I be up against?"
"It's hard to say without knowing how many Whisperers are involved in this operation," Ian admitted. "They could have a single Phantom there, or there could be fifty Phantoms. We won't really know until, or if, we set the bait."
"Me. . ." I murmured.
"You," he agreed.
I gulped and steadied my hands. "Is there some advice you guys could give me so I won't be captured in ten seconds?"
"Don't hide your fear. Use it."
The advice came from Cronus. I blinked at the back of his head as he faced forward.
"Come again?" I asked him.
"Phantoms feed off uncontrolled fear," he explained. "But you must admit that you are afraid, and use that to your advantage."
"I'm definitely willing to admit I'm afraid, but how do I use it?" I persisted.
"Focus the emotion of fear into your talismans and throw them," he instructed me.
I cringed. "Yeah, about that. I kind of left them in the alley near the lamia."
Ian rummaged in his overcoat and pulled out his pack. "You can have these."
I glanced from the pack to him. "But what are you going to-" His eyes shone with an unnatural yellow light. My face fell and I took the offered talismans. "Right. I keep forgetting about that." I looked down at the pack in my hands. "So I just be scared out of my mind and toss one of these?"
"No. You control the emotion and focus its power into the talisman," Cronus corrected me.
I snorted. "Yeah, that sounds easy."
"It's a basic mystic ability, like how Cecilia used the hack and how you destroyed the Phantom in the grocery," Ian told me. "You focus your emotions into an inanimate object and will it to do yo
ur bidding. In this case, you're going to want to tell the talismans to destroy the Phantom, or Phantoms, that are scaring you."
"You guys make this sound a hell of a lot easier than it's going to be. . ." I mumbled.
Ian grinned. "Nobody ever said being a part of this world was going to be easy."
I sighed and pocketed the pack. "Or a long life, but let's get this over with."
CHAPTER 8
Ian drove us to the abandoned glue factory along the northwestern shore of the river. The whole area was depressing. Half the factories were shuttered, and the other half looked like they needed to be condemned. The edge of the river was covered in trash from both factories and people, and chain-link fence topped with barbed wire was the best-preserved part of the grounds. They didn't do their job very well, though, because the factories were covered in graffiti.
That is, all except one. The glue factory. The building was a hundred yards long, fifty yards deep, and five floors tall. Its length stretched along the road, and the whole place was surrounded by a leaning chain-link fence. The few windows that looked out over the empty and trash-littered parking lot between the gate and its walls were intact, but that only allowed them to glisten like bright eyes in the dark night. The whole place smelled of fear and wreaked of danger.
Ian parked the car in front of the locked chain-link gates, and we stepped out. The light from the headlights glistened off the rusted metal. A chill breeze blew past, but other than a few rustling bags of trash the area was quiet.
"Why can't they pick an amusement park or someplace happy to hide out in?" I wondered.
"Maybe they don't like clowns," Ian suggested.
Ian strode forward and grasped the lock that bound the two wings of the gates together. He crushed the lock in his strong hand and opened his palm to let the shattered remains fall to the ground. The gates pushed open, and I cringed when they squealed.
"Don't they believe in WD-40?" I asked the others.
"Phantoms have no use for gates," Cronus pointed out.
"Or trash pickup," I added.
Ian half-turned to me and swept his hand in the direction of the factory. The headlights from the car created a hundred-foot path to the entrance. "You have to go it alone now," he told me.
I looked up at the tall factory building and managed a shaky smile. "Well, it was nice knowing you guys."
"I'll come to you if you need me," Ian promised.
"Yeah, I'll scream your name," I promised as I walked through the gates.
The breeze swept soiled napkins and ripped garbage bags past my feet as I made my way to the large double doors that made up the entrance. The doors were located at one end of the factory, and the rest of the building stretched out to my left.
I heard a rumble and the headlights in front of me moved across the wall of the building. I swung around and watched Ian's car disappear down the road. My shoulders shook so bad that I wrapped my arms around myself to keep them from popping out of their sockets.
"S-steady there, Enid. Nothing to fear but fear itself," I murmured to myself as I returned my attention to the front doors.
The area was even quieter now that the purr of the car engine was gone. I crept forward one tip of my toe at a time until I reached the metal doors. Tiny thick glass windows lay in the center-top of each door. I stood on my tiptoes and looked inside.
The front entrance was a perfectly normal, albeit dusty, office lobby. A straight counter ran across the room and stood opposite from the doors. Behind that was another door that I guessed led to some offices. The floor was littered with crumbling bits of paint and wall, and a scent of death lingered in the air.
I took a deep breath, and prayed the door wouldn't open. A gentle push and one unanswered prayer later, and I was inside the lobby. The air was still and quiet as I crept across the hard linoleum towards the counter. The hairs on the back of my head raised so high I wondered if I had a mohawk. It was about that time I wished I'd grabbed Ian's tablet phone to see exactly where I was supposed to search for the missing woman.
My answer came when the door behind the counter slowly creaked open. I froze and my eyes grew wide. Nobody stood in the doorway.
"H-hello?" I croaked. A soft breeze brushed against my cheek like a teasing hand. Dread fell over me like a cold towel on a warm day. "I-is anyone there?"
"Good evening."
I screamed and spun around. My hand was raised to slap the offending intruder, but a hand caught me. A cold, clammy hand. The room was still dark and shadowed, but I could plainly see the face of my captor.
The man in white.
He grinned back at me, and his shiny white teeth practically glowed in the darkness. "What strange places we meet. First a psychiatric clinic, then outside a grocery, and now in an abandoned glue factory."
I wrenched myself from his cold grasp and stumbled back. He held still as I cradled my frozen wrist in my other hand.
"W-what do you want?" I stuttered.
He chuckled and shook his head. "It's not what I want, it's who I want," he corrected me. His dark eyes fell on me. "And you're who I want."
"Y-you don't want me. I'm an idiot," I argued as I stumbled back.
He matched me step-for-step. "That may be so, but you're a very unusual idiot."
I stopped and glared at him. My fear was swept aside in favor of insulted anger. "You don't have to agree with me so fast," I snapped at him.
"No, but I do have to take you somewhere before your friends come for you," he returned as he reached out for me. "Now be a good girl and come with me."
"You're right that you should've taken her before we got back," a voice piped up.
Anger and surprise were reflected in the white-suited man's eyes. I spun around and watched Ian rise from behind the counter. He lit a cigarette and stuck it in his mouth, and he flicked the match over his shoulder.
"Funny thing about bait and traps. They can only work if the bait thinks she's really abandoned," Ian added.
My eyebrows crashed down and I balled my hands into fists. "What does that mean? That you and Cronus told me you were going to leave and didn't?"
"Cronus? What an interesting name," the man in white commented.
Ian swung himself over the counter and gestured for me to come to him. "Now is not the time, Enid."
"Now's never the time!" I growled.
"As amusing as this is, I hate to have my time wasted," the man in white spoke up.
Another cold breeze swept my hair over my shoulders and into my face. I froze and stiffly turned around. The man in white stood three feet from me with that same triumphant grin on his face. That was probably because he was surrounded by several dozen Phantoms of various sizes. Their red eyes glared at me with a thirsty intention that didn't involve going out for milkshakes.
The man in white nodded at us. "Get the girl, but kill the werewolf."
A dozen Phantoms hissed and leapt at me. Ian's strong arms pulled me back and flung me against the front of the counter. My back hit the top hard as he placed himself between me and the Phantoms. His transformation was swift as his clothes tore open and his height grew to over six feet.
Ian swiped his clawed hands at the Phantoms. They let out loud, piercing screeches of pain as their shadowed bodies were cut into ribbons. They fell like paper to the floor at his feet. Their bodies twitched for a moment before their bodies lay still and the light left their red eyes. Ian stopped the first onslaught of Phantoms, but as the stranger folded his arms another two dozen appeared around him.
"So you have the Touch along with the Smell?" the man in white commented.
Ian grinned and flexed his claws as his deep voice rumbled from his mouth. "I guess I'm just full of surprises."
The man in white chuckled and extended his arm in front of him. "So am I."
The stranger snapped his fingers. The Phantoms at Ian's feet rose up with their arms limp by their sides. Their torn strips hung about them, but not for long. The strips melted into
their bodies and reformed at the damaged areas. In a few seconds you couldn't tell that Ian had struck them.
Ian stepped back and tensed. The stranger chuckled.
"Don't you like my stronger Phantoms? Their courtesy of the mystics I've already captured," he informed us. He stroked a nearby Phantom like one would stroke a pet. "I doubt even a talisman could burn them, much less kill them."
I ground my teeth and pulled out Ian's packet of talismans. I slipped one from its brethren and waved it in front of me. "Care to try it?" I asked him.
"I would be honored," he agreed.
The Phantoms must have seen a signal I didn't because a dozen of them rushed forward. The ones around Ian swooped over him and tackled him into a doggy-pile of shadows. The dozen flew over him and aimed straight at me.
I remembered what Cronus had told me, about the fear being my motivation. I didn't have any of that right then. All I had was a desire to wipe that stupid grin off the guy's face. I pulled my arm back that held the talisman and watched in slow-motion as the Phantoms arched down at me. Their black bodies blended together as though they were a single mass, and their red eyes thirsted for my capture to satiate their need to please their master.
That wasn't gonna happen.
I focused all my anger, all my disgust into that little bit of paper and threw it. The talisman sliced through the air like a dagger and plunged into the forehead of the nearest Phantom. A bright light burst from the hole and out the back of its head. The creature, its momentum carrying it forward, screamed and fell to my feet as nothing more than a small pile of cinders.
That got their attention.
The other Phantoms stopped their assault and hovered three feet around me. Their numbers meant I was completely surrounded, but that wasn't going to stop me. I pulled out another half dozen of the talismans and twirled around, throwing them as I spun. Each talisman hit its mark, and another half dozen Phantoms disappeared forever. The other Phantoms hesitated. They didn't like the idea of being nothing but plant food.
I heard a clap, and looked through the Phantoms to the man in white. He finished his clapping and his big stupid grin was still on his face.
"Bravo. I would ask for an encore, but I really am fond of my Phantoms," he commented. He snapped his fingers again. The Phantoms retreated, but not without a prize.
The creatures pulled back, and with them they took Ian. His body emerged from the pile as a rag of cuts, slashes, and gashes. He was bruised from head to foot, and blood poured from his wounds and covered the tiles with a red wax. Two Phantoms held onto his arms and dragged him so he was suspended beside the man in white.