Chapter 9: The Rhythm of the War-Drums

Dresden, Michigan- 5 Years Ago

Lacy let the soundwaves wash over her, the long, low strings of the bass, the steady rhythm of the drums, and the high, tight guitar riffs all coming at her at once. She leaned back on her bed, stared up at the ceiling, and parsed through the different components of the song. The lyrics began, harshly screaming about flying whales and environmental degradation. The whole piece hinged around the lyrics, all the other sounds working on some level to back it up. She couldn’t see the soundwaves, but she could feel them as they slid over her body and left echoes of vibrations behind. If she reached out with her hands, she could even touch them.

She could grab hold of them.

She stuck both hands above her head, pointing towards the ceiling of her tiny, crappy bedroom, and then moved them apart. The drums and bass were now separate from the rest of the song coming out of her phone- she held the rhythm section in her left hand, and the rest of the song in her right.

She spent the next hour tinkering with it, holding onto the soundwaves and spreading them apart over her room, adjusting the volume and the length and the pitch however she wanted, until every part of her room offered a different bit of noise: the guitar solo from her door, the lyrics from her desk, the drums from her bed, the bass from her ceiling.

Her ears twitched as the front door to her house opened- Mom and Dad were home. And Dad was yelling about something, and Mom was just taking it, as usual. Lacy snapped her fingers, and the music died. She turned off the lights in her room- it was two in the morning, and she had school the next day. She should’ve been asleep regardless. As far as they were concerned, she was asleep, though without music she found it difficult to sleep over her father’s screeching.

The next day she woke up and went about her day like she normally did: she walked to school with Danny, who rambled on about something called Gundam while struggled to concentrate; she sat at her desk and received grades generally amounting to ‘D-’ and was lectured information she did not retain; and at lunchtime she sat at an empty table in a cafeteria swirling with cacophonous slop. The worst part was being able to make out most of it- some girl was cheating on her boyfriend with two different guys; some chucklefuck on the football team was implying to his friends he could get all of them steroids; the emo kids were whining about society and how unfair it was that they weren’t allowed to drop out of school until they were sixteen- the usual bullshit. And since Danny had Second Lunch instead of First that day, she didn’t even have something else to concentrate on.

She fell back into her mind, recalled the song, recalled the flying whales, recalled the feeling of the soundwaves in her hands, and recalled spreading them like string across her room. And then her hand vibrated, and the familiar scream of ‘WHALES’ emerged and overtook the cafeteria. Everyone went silent, and everyone stared at her.

A teacher, a portly giant whose chronic heartburn rumbled inside his chest, appeared behind her seemingly from nowhere, and informed her she had detention for playing music in the cafeteria. “But I didn’t-”

“No arguments, O’Sullivan, you’re on thin ice already for that fight you got into last weekend,” he said, his forehead-vein a sickly blue guardrail above his eyes.

Lacy’s eyes narrowed. “That happened down by the river- you can’t give me detention for something I did outside school property.”

“No. I can’t. But I can give it to you for this.”

And that was how Lacy got detention on a Friday afternoon.

Danny left without her, mentioning he had somewhere to be that night and wanted to get ready, so she walked home alone and crawled into her room and locked the door and put on her heavy metal and dissociated until she lost consciousness.

She woke up around one in the morning, her phone ringing. Which was odd. Nobody ever called her except- “Danny, I was asleep. What the fuck do you want?”

“Need you to drive me home,” he said, his words slurring.

“Don’t have a car.”

“Car is here. My car is,” he said. “Need you to come here and drive me home.”

Lacy groaned. “Are you plastered?”

“Mmmm.”

“Gotcha. Um, I know you’ve been showing me how to drive but do you really want-”

She was cut off by the sound of vomiting.

Lacy sighed. “Text me the address.”

Once he’d done that, she put on some clothes and slipped out her bedroom window. Her parents were passed out on top of each other in the living room, so she wasn’t too concerned about them. She always forgot how short they both were until she saw them take up only the tiniest fraction of the floor. The night was warm and clear, Spring having thoroughly reclaimed the land and the April rains having burnt themselves out for at least a few weeks. She felt the star above her, waiting for her to accept it- a sensation of burning light, a swelling of immense power and immense dread. She wondered sometimes what would happen if she accepted it? Would it destroy her? Burn her up? Change her? What would she become?

What could she become?

She walked speedily through the town, then out of town and into the wilderness, until she came upon a teenage house party at a three-story birchwood hunting lodge that wouldn’t see regular use for a few more months. The owners were out-of-towners: nobody around here could afford something this nice except for Danny’s family, and his mom wasn’t into hunting. Which meant everyone here was also trespassing, in addition to all the other misdemeanors they were ratcheting up. A colony of cars and bikes sat around the circumference of the lodge, while Jay-Z and multicolored strobe lights bled out the windows and into the night. Danny was out front with a freshly black eye and a red solo cup, leaning against his pickup truck a few yards from the lodge. “Heyyyyy buuuddy!” he shouted.

Lacy winced. “What happened to you?”

“Asked a girl to dance.”

“Her boyfriend give you the shiner?”

“Noooo, she gave it to me herself. Her boyfriend thought it was hilarious. Guess it’s nice that they’re soooo goooood for each other.”

Lacy rolled her eyes. “Just get in the car, man.”

“Haaaave a drink with me first?” he said, offering her his solo cup.

“I’m good.”

“Ah come on, don’t be like that.”

“Danny, I have to drive.”

“Oh come on- you’re no fun, Lacy-”

Lacy glared as she slashed her finger across her throat. “Not. Here. Dickhead.”

“Mmmmmmm.”

Lacy lowered her hand. “Just gimme the keys.”

He spent the next five minutes fishing them out of his jeans before finally Lacy was able to herd him into the passenger’s seat, throwing his solo cup onto the ground. She went over all the steps in her head, and backed out, slowly and carefully. This really wasn’t all that difficult, but given that her parents weren’t willing to pay for driver’s ed, or to teach her to drive in general, she tried to keep this sort of thing to a minimum. “You know, this is not the first time I’ve had to do this,” Lacy said.

“Wossat mean?”

“This is like the third time I’ve had to pick you up because you were wasted- I mean, I know you know I hate parties and crowds and shit, but why not just bring me with you to be designated driver- I’m such a lightweight I can’t really drink while I’m there anyway.”

“Oh thas prolly ‘cause ah’m not actually invited to these things and I figgered both of us doin that would be too ovious.”

“Wait… You crashed this party?”

“Please. I crash every party I go to.”

“Man, don’t do that.”

“Whyyyyy not? I can’t buy my own boooooze yet, and my mommmm only lets me have one drink at dinner.”

“Your mom lets you-”

“Yuh. It’s like the only good thing about her. God, she’s such a bitch. She’s gonna notice this bruise on my face, isn’t she?”

“Probably.”

“Yeah, she’ll gimme one to match on muh back.”

Lacy balked. “Your mom-”

“Not as often as yours do,” Danny answered for her.

“You… You’ve never mentioned that.”

“How long it take you to tell me ‘bout yer folks?”

“Less time than you.”

“Tooche. But ahm tellin ya now.” His drunken word-slurring was beginning to dip into a Chicago accent- it sounded a lot like the one his mother displayed on occasion.

“Alright then. Where am I even going? I took the shortcut through the woods here, the one by radio station. How do I get onto the main road?”

“Mmmm just go straight a while- I know that’s real difficult for you.”

“Ha ha ha,” Lacy monotoned.

“I’ll tell you where to turn.”

Lacy grunted. “I’m driving without a license through the woods in the middle of nowhere in the dead of night with only a drunk rich kid to give me directions. This is… Truly wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing this experience with me, Danny.”

“You’re welcome! No problem best buddy. I always says you need to get out more.”

“That was sarcasm. That- you know what, forget it. Just tell me when to turn.”

“Oooookaaaaaaayyyyyy.”

“Whose party even was that, anyway?” Lacy asked.

“Jack Wilder’s,” Danny answered.

“Jack Wilder- wasn’t that the guy I beat the shit out of in sixth grade?”

“Yeah,” Danny said.

“By any chance, was it Jack Wilder’s girlfriend who punched you?”

“Mmmmaybe,” Danny said.

“Do you perhaps see some correlation there?” Lacy inquired.

“Well look who’s all fancy with the fancy words.”
Lacy gripped the wheel tight. That was… That was bad. Danny shouldn’t have to deal with the consequences of her fuck-ups. Lacy could handle them on her own. Like the fact that after starting one fight, suddenly all the mico-penis-having meatheads in their school took that as a sign that they personally needed to be the ones to beat up ‘Liam’ O’Sullivan, the evil little midget who terrorized their school.

It was the one instance in which she was not grateful to have stayed so short- apparently it meant she wasn’t allowed to win fights, or people would get even madder at her than they were before, because how dare someone under five-foot-however-tall-they-were hand their ass to them. Other than that, it was probably the only part of her body she liked; it felt like every day she found new patches of body hair, like every day her voice was getting lower, like every day was mutating her more and more into a form she would have to live with the rest of her life. God, she hated it- she just wanted it to stop, to make everything stand still, to not have to…

… To not have to…

Do…

Anything.

Well there is a way to make that happen, she thought.

“Turnnnn hereeeee,” Danny said.

“Right or left?” Lacy said, reluctantly coming back to reality.

“...”

Lacy stopped the car. “Danny?”

“I forget.”

“Goddammit- just guess, okay?”

“... Left.”

“Okay,” Lacy said.

“No, no, wait…”

“...”

“Wait…”

“...”
“... Right,” Danny said.

“Are you sure?” Lacy asked.

“Mm-hm.”

Lacy turned the car right. “Just so we’re clear, you owe me for this one.”

“Oh yeah, obviously,” Danny said. “Let’s put on some toooons.”

He fiddled with the radio, but seemed, in his drunken haze, unable to stop twisting the dial. “Let me handle that,” Lacy said. And she played Gojira’s ‘Flying Whales,’ sending the song out from the palm of her hand, Danny too drunk to realize anything was abnormal.

They made it, by some miracle, onto the main road, and, by some miracle, back into Dresden. Lacy pulled up in front of the Woodrow Manor, and took the keys out of the ignition. She sat in the driveway while Danny fumbled with his seatbelt.

“You know,” Danny said. “You’re a good friend.”

“Thank you, Danny. You have your moments as well,” Lacy said. She meant it. God, she was tired, but she meant it.

“If you ever need me to, you know, help with your folks,” Danny said.

“Hey, no, man, we’ve been over this. I’ll come out to them when we finish high school, not before. They’re gonna throw me out either way, so I may as well wait until it’s easiest to leave.”

“Yeah, but like, if you need someone there when you do it….”

Lacy paused. That… Was honestly an incredibly nice gesture. Her irritation with him evaporated. He really did mean well, even if he had no self-control and no boundaries. “Just… Just promise me that you’ll be outside with this truck so you can take me anywhere else after I have that last conversation with them. I’ll be fine until then.”

“That’s a lie,” he said, his words less slurred, his accent back to neutral. “You’re lying.”

“About what?”

“You won’t be fine. You’re never fine.”

That’s true, she thought. “Danny, you’re shit-faced. Go to your room, sleep on your side, and keep a glass of water on your nightstand; I’ve seen my parents manage it a million times, so you should be okay.”

“Don’t fucking compare me to them!” Danny hissed. “They’re evil.”

Lacy sighed. “Right. Sorry. Please go home now, I still have to walk back to my house.”

“Oooookaaaaayyyyy.”

She gave him his keys, and she watched as he lumbered back inside. After that she went back home, and when she stood in front of her house, she heard her parents shifting around.

Lacy went over to the mailbox in front of their house and conjured ‘Flying Whales’ one last time, sticking the sound to it and letting it blare. She ran around to the back of the house just as her parents woke up and ran outside to see what was going on out front, then climbed back into her window, got under the covers, and killed the noise. Her limbs were heavy and her heart throbbed from using the sound so many times in one day.

Her parents crawled back into the house, now both halfway between drunk and hungover. The sound of bottles opening indicated the implementation of their usual solution to such a state of affairs.

Lacy listened to it as she laid in bed, feeling her covers over the hair on her arms and chest, hating how it felt, hating how she felt, hating how everything felt, and tried to just listen to the world instead. Outside, though, she could hear her star burning above, waiting for her. Just like her parents were always waiting for her, like school was always waiting for her, like the world and everyone in it, everyone who needed her to be something, needed her to do things for them, waited for her. It never ended. It only ended when…

When…

When she found a way to shut out all the noise forever. She would have to figure out how, but maybe with her abilities… Maybe they would help. She just had to survive until then. And then she could be left alone forever.

For now, she needed to sleep.

***

Lacy arrived at Gwen’s house, accompanying the sunrise. She found Gwen waiting for her in the driveway. “Okay. It’s time,” Gwen said.

Two weeks had passed. They’d gone hunting regularly, shooting squirrels and rabbits to improve her aim while avoiding drawing attention. Lacy could fire ten water bullets in a minute, and launch a water-blade at her opponents on command. She could do it all quickly, and she could do it all without passing out or getting a nosebleed like when she’d first began.

They stood in Gwen’s driveway beneath a silver canopy of clouds. Lacy wore black leggings and a pink sweatshirt, and white headband held her hair out of her face. Gwen wore blue jeans and a leather jacket and a crimson red flannel. Her nails were painted a fresh red that matched her shirt and lipstick. “Time for?” Lacy asked.

“We’re going hunting. For ghouls.”

Lacy gulped. “A-are you sure I’m ready?”

“No,” Gwen said. “But only because it’s impossible to be sure of something like that.”

I’m not sure that’s as comforting as you think it is, Lacy thought. She smothered it, and nodded in affirmation to Gwen’s words.

“Help me load up the car. I’ll fill you in on the way.”

They spent a half-hour loading various guns, blades, explosives, and other supplies into the trunk of Gwen’s Prius. After that, they climbed in.

“Okay, so basically,” Gwen said, pressing the gas and twisting the key in the ignition. “As far as we know, ghouls have been around for about 2500 years. They emerged in Arabia, in graveyards, but they’re not mindless flesh eaters- at least, they’re not supposed to be. Most of the time, they’re intelligent, cold, calculating- but when they’ve been too long without feeding, they turn feral. And we’ve been driving them back for so long that most of them have probably forgotten what a full belly and a sound mind feel like.”

“How do you kill them?” Lacy asked.

Gwen turned the heat on high, and the fan blasted a few waves of cold air before turning hot. “My death angel spell is a guaranteed way, but it depletes almost all the Stardust in the area when I use it. Other, more consistent methods are fire and decapitation- those work on basically everything. Short of that, you’d have to brain them- they’re not technically alive, no heartbeats, so a knife or a bullet to the chest isn’t gonna work. A point-blank shot to the head, though- I’ve seen that work.”

“I’m guessing drowning them doesn’t work either?”

“Correct,” Gwen said, adjusting her mirrors.

“Damn.”

“You’ll have to get creative,” Gwen said. She reversed the car out of the driveway and onto the road, turned left, and began driving.

“How many ghouls are there?” Lacy asked. She heard the first raindrops shake free of the clouds and plummet to the earth, twitching slightly when they shattered on the car or the ground.

“Nobody’s really sure. Definitely fewer than there used to be,” Gwen said. “My dad used to talk about how many there were when he was a kid, how his aunt would take him to wipe out nests up north when he was still in his single digits.”

“Is that usually where they live? Up north?”

“On this continent, traditionally, yes,” Gwen said. “My family’s from way up where a bunch of them used to live. I think us and the other hunters may have driven them further south, though. There’ve been more and more sightings in Canada and the continental US in the past five years- especially here in Michigan.”

Behind Lacy’s brown eyes, blue Starlight pulsed. She suppressed it. “Why’s that?”

“Not sure. But my best guess would be that they’ve got a new king,” Gwen said. The rainfall accelerated as the swaths of trees gave way to the main road through Grand Rapids. They drove past flat-topped three story buildings, and the rhythm of the city blended with the rainfall and the cars and the heartbeats and the sounds of all of the people going about their days. “It’d be a serious development if true: the last one went into hiding after the end of the French and Indian War, and the ghouls have been slowly dying off ever since. Granted, so have mages, but that one isn’t as clear cut.”

“So what, they used to live in this place and now they’re coming back for it?”

“By the look of it.”

“Do you think they have some kind of larger plan?”

“That’s what me and my friends are trying to figure out.”

“You and the other monster hunters?”

“Yeah, three of them in particular,” Gwen said. “My boyfriend, Quentin, and his friends Joshua and Isabella. After this, maybe I’ll introduce you to them.”

“So where do new ghouls come from? Can they… Procreate?”

“Yes, actually, both in the more traditional way and through another method.”

“Which is?”

“Ritual,” Gwen said. “Dark magic, dark as it gets. The first ghoul was the result of someone in ancient times making a pact with a demon and merging with them. They became something new in the process: standing on the thin line between life and death. A monster.”

“Why don’t more people know about them?”

“Well for most of the early years ghouls lived exclusively in graveyards. But then they start moving around and scattering across the world, taking to isolated areas. There’s a staggering amount of them just below the arctic circle, for instance, but spread all across. And they just… Keep going. Ghouls don’t die on their own, you have to kill them.”

“Christ. So what about this new guy then? This new king. Was he born into it?”

Gwen hesitated a moment, then said, “I don’t think so. Probably they got there the same way the first guy did: making a pact with Infernal Powers in exchange for the title.”

“How could someone do that?”

“I dunno,” Gwen said with a sigh. “People will do crazy things to get ahead.”

A Star descended from the heavens, following her, hoping to drag her down to hell. It clung to her soul and made her sink into her own darkness, with nothing for company but her rage and misery. It led her to walls she would break down, to worlds she would destroy and rebuild, to the Crown of Ice and Starlight that would tear her head from her shoulders, to the Chosen One and their encounter which would tear the world asunder.

Gwen snapped her fingers in front of Lacy’s face. “Wake up.”

Lacy blinked rapidly. “Hm?”

“The brain-fog was strangling you again.”

“Again?”

“I’ve noticed it before. You kinda go away for a while, get stuck inside your own head.”

Lacy didn’t respond.

“Hey, come on, that’s not reassuring,” Gwen said.

“Sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize. Though I would like it if you’d talk to me.”

“Hm?”

“We’re about to go into a fight, kid. You’re gonna need a clear head for that. Now talk to me- what’s going on with you?”

Grand Rapids gave way to the highway, lined by trees, interrupted by other cars. She hated highways- they were a place between places, connective tissues between the solid parts of reality, the empty blackness in which she could only struggle and flail.

Lacy breathed in deep through her nose. And then she told Gwen about the Star, and about her dreams, and about what she thought they meant.

Gwen was silent for a few minutes. Outside the car, war-drums of rainfall pounded viciously. Other cars, other people, other lives, sped by them, and Lacy envied as they drove away in the other direction.

Gwen heaved a deep sigh. “Shit.”

Lacy’s heart burned in shame.

“No, not you,” Gwen said. She pulled over to the side of the road, where strings of water ran down the small incline off the street and into the forest.

Lacy raised an eyebrow. “Did- did you know about-”

“Yes and no,” Gwen said, hands gripping the steering wheel tightly. “I’ve heard of this thing. I didn’t know you had one.”

“I don’t have one though- I never let it near me. Whatever this thing does, I want nothing to do with it.”

“But it chose you. And you say you keep seeing it in your dreams- I don’t think it’s interested in anyone else.”

“So what the fuck is it, exactly?!” Lacy said. She jammed her hands under her rear, trying to get them to stop spasming.

“It’s called a Destiny Star,” Gwen said. “And it’s… Well, it’s a Star. Not the conventional kind, the magic kind- Stardust, Starlight, magic in general, it all comes from these things. Most of the Stars dispersed across the universe, giving us magic, but the ones that remained intact… They’re something else altogether. They’re primordial cornerstones of creation, the forces that shape lives and guide sagas. If one chooses you, then you have a Destiny. The Star settles inside your heart, and you can call upon its power on your journey. If you let it, it will guide you to where you need to go, so you can do whatever it’s asking of you.”

Lacy sat there, staring directly ahead, unblinking, as Gwen explained all this. Then she unbuckled her seatbelt, unlocked the car door, got out of the vehicle, and began walking in the direction they’d come from. Rain drenched her, a frigid shower falling from the sky, the noise nearly enough to fill the screaming emptiness inside her skull.

She heard a car door open and slam shut behind her, heard Gwen’s heartbeat and footsteps. “Lacy, what the hell?!”

“I’m not doing this,” Lacy said.

“Yes, you are,” Gwen said. “You can’t run away from this.”

Lacy swelled with rage and resentment. “Yeah, yeah, yeah I can’t escape who I am, Destiny dictates who you are, I’m gonna become some awful, angry violent guy and destroy everything- I’ve heard all this shit before. My dad used to tell me stuff like that, but he didn’t dress it all up under the guise of magic and Destiny- he just said I was a stupid little boy and that I would spend my whole life making awful, self-destructive decisions like him. No fucking thank you. I’m leaving.”

“Lacy, it doesn’t work like that,” Gwen said, following after her. “This thing chose you-”

“And I didn’t choose it! I didn’t choose any of this! I don’t want this,” she said, stopping where she stood, clenching her fists, closing her eyes. “I don’t wanna be him!”

“You don’t have to be!” Gwen said. “You’re not that- you’re not your father, and you’re not a monster! It’s your choice, who you become! With this thing or without. You always have a choice. The Star won’t bond to you unless you accept it, and even then, it’s not like it can force you to do anything.”

“So then what does it do?” Lacy said, opening her eyes, staring at the road, cars zooming past her in both lanes, walls of wind slamming into her.

“It takes you where you need to go, shows you the choice you have to make. And it gives you the power to make it.”

She spun around and stared Gwen down. “How do you know that? How do you know all this? How did you find me again- do you really expect me to believe it was a coincidence? You’re bringing Destiny into all this and you’re expect me to believe that-”

Gwen raised her right hand and tapped her chest. White light sparked against the slate-gray air. A white Star emerged and danced around Gwen. No cars came by, no people in view. Just two mages beneath the warm light of two Stars.

“Like I said,” Gwen whispered, “I was in a bad place a few years ago. I found a renewed sense of purpose. This thing… Came to me. I didn’t want it. I knew what it was, but I knew more than anything I didn’t want it. And I accepted it anyway. You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but know that you’ll have to take the first step eventually, with or without it. You’re wondering how I found you again: this is how. It took me to where I needed to go, and I realized what I needed to do as soon as I saw you again that night a few months ago. I realized that I made a mistake by not taking you under my wing all those years ago, by not taking you with me and training you. By not saving you from your parents. And I’m sorry for that. I really am. But I can’t be sorry forever. And you can’t stay hidden forever. Eventually, the light comes for you. It always does.”

Lacy’s chest heaved up and down, and her fists unclenched. Blue Starlight shone in the back of her mind, but instead of burying it, she let it stay, let it shine. It was warm. To her astonishment, she found she wanted to hold onto it. Behind her, Gwen’s footsteps drew nearer. A hand landed on Lacy’s shoulder. “For what it’s worth,” Gwen said gently. “Girls can be evil overlords too. Well, evil over-ladies.”

Lacy hugged her. Gwen hugged her back. After a few more moments in the cold rain, beneath the warm Starlight, they got back in the car. Gwen tapped her chest, and her Star retreated back inside her. Lacy warmed her hands over the heater, let it travel up her arms and carry through her. Gwen took a towel from the glove compartment and wiped off her running makeup, then put the car back in drive.

The journey took another hour. They voyaged through increasingly sparse roads as they ventured further north-central. Red oaks lined the streets, and the rainfall grew steadily more torrential. Finally, they came upon an abandoned lot wherein stood a lone warehouse. It was fifty feet in height, one hundred in width, one hundred in length, with boarded up windows and a broken chain on the front door.

“You’re sure this is the right place?” Lacy asked.

“My Star says so.”

“Alright,” Lacy said.

“Before we go in, take a deep breath, yeah? Take stock of your surroundings, take stock of how much Stardust is in the area- it’s a finite amount, and it takes a while to replenish itself. Don’t forget that, and don’t overexert yourself. The last thing we need is you passing out on the job because you tried to drown someone on land.”

Lacy smirked. “Fair enough.” She closed her eyes, and she listened. She listened to the wind curving around the oaks surrounding the abandoned lot as it came in from all sides of the forest; she listened as it shaped itself around the grass and weeds and gravel atop the ground, and came in through the holes in the fence that surrounded the lot; she listened to the birds and the chipmunks in the woods, and the babbling of a brook beyond; she listened to the sky above, as wind shifted and heat rose; she listened to the rain explode on the ground, on the warehouse roof, on the foliage, on Gwen, and on herself. She breathed in through her nose.

She opened her eyes.

She followed Gwen into the warehouse.

There were no heartbeats inside the warehouse, but seven pairs of eyes pierced the darkness with an unholy crimson glow. Gwen’s lips twitched with a wild confidence, an eagerness. The seven pairs of eyes were attached to seven bodies in varying states of decay: they ranged from the type of ghoul Lacy had been attacked by, an apparent human with stone-like skin and red eyes, to deformed monsters with fangs sprouting out their mouths at every angle, a lack of hair or living flesh anywhere on their bodies. They covered the whole spectrum, the most deformed among them resembling a bald wolverine stretched into a humanoid length.

Lacy’s heart thundered, and her eyes spread wide. The most monstrous of the ghouls charged at them first, snarling and screeching as it bounded towards them on all fours. Her hand reached behind her, out the open door, towards the rainfall, and she listened and let the Stardust filter into her heart and ignite on her Spark. Rainwater coalesced into a sharpened ribbon and swirled inside through the door. It formed a guardrail in front of Lacy and Gwen, and the ghoul slammed into it and was decapitated.

Black blood splattered on the ground, and the head of the monster landed at Lacy’s feet with a splat. Her heart moved so quickly she could not hear it inside her chest. Her ears rang, and her hands shook.

Four more ghouls charged simultaneously.

Lacy reached for another vein of water, only for it to shatter after assembling. Shit.

Gwen pulled out her glock and unloaded a full clip, taking one ghoul in the forehead and another in the eye. Another came upon her, and once it was within range Gwen cried, “Todeshand!” She grabbed the ghoul by the throat, and her hand sang with white light. The ghoul’s mouth stopped moving, and then its face wholesale. It flailed wildly, and Gwen dropped it to the ground. It forced itself up onto its legs, but its balance was unwieldy and it could not support the weight of its own deadened skull. It stumbled forward as its eyes turned to ash inside its sockets. No scream, only an incoherent cry of anguish.

The next ghoul came upon Gwen, and Lacy assembled water into the familiar form of a bullet. She aimed with a pointed finger and fired the bullet through the ghoul’s eye socket. The water exploded the back of its skull and its gray matter decorated its comrade behind it.

Lacy stepped forward and reached for more rainwater. She gathered into a shape, into the one of the knives she and Danny sold. Her legs carried her forward, and she sliced the head of the ghoul Gwen had wounded clean off its shoulders. The water broke apart once the job was done, and there was soreness in her arms and chest.

Two ghouls remained.

Lacy and Gwen stood next to each other, tall and proud. The two ghouls charged them, and Gwen nodded at her and smirked.

Gwen fired off a round, and it took the ghoul in the face.

Lacy, meanwhile, reached for another mass of rainwater and forged it this time into an even larger blade. The ghoul’s skull carved apart like butter, and the blade shattered. Lacy breathed in deep through her mouth, and her shoulders heaved up and down, and she smiled. Gwen put a hand on Lacy’s shoulder and gave her an approving nod, then wiped the sweat from her own brow with the sleeve of her black leather jacket.

Two heartbeats, both rapid but steadying in their owners’ chests. Lacy closed her eyes, listened so that she could steady herself. She did it, she’d done it! She’d fought them, she’d used her powers, she hadn’t lost control- she could do this. She could do this! She let herself smile, and she listened.

Two heartbeats.

Rainfall.

Wind.

Two heartbeats.

Footsteps.

Three heartbeats.

Lacy’s ears twitched as she pivoted forty-five degrees to her left. Behind her, the door to the warehouse fell shut.

“What the shit?” Gwen muttered.

Not a good sign.

The third heartbeat was slow and steady and uncanny. The attached footsteps were almost completely hushed, accompanied by the shifting sound of long, thick hair bouncing up and down. On the rafting of the warehouse’s upper level stood a young woman. She carried herself with an aged weariness and perfect posture that had clearly stemmed from years of practice. She wore an Edwardian style black dress, long and slinky and loose with a high neck, along with navy blue gloves over her hands. She had long white hair piled into a large bun atop her head, and she wore a black raven’s mask over her face.

Next to Lacy, Gwen’s heartbeat skyrocketed and her hands trembled. Her mouth hung open, and she couldn’t stop staring at the person looming above them.

“Hey Gwen,” the young woman said.

What the fuck? Lacy thought.

“Who are you?” Gwen said. Her teacher stepped forward, hands shaking, heart ablaze. “What are you doing here- what’s going on?”

“I’m doing my job,” the young woman said. Her voice was high-pitched and thin, and she pronounced each word with the utmost emphasis. “I’m living up to my responsibilities. Unlike you- you’ve never done that in your life. And you know exactly who I am.”

The plague-masked woman yanked the blue glove from her right hand, and she held her palm flat towards Gwen and Lacy. She muttered under her breath, but then closed her hand and snapped her fingers.

A flash of light turned everything into smoke and ash.