Nameless Ghoul

The Belly of the Beast

Itzal ghosted along to the wasteland near the warehouse. He hadn’t completely deviated from the plan. He was always going to be sent inside the building, but he should have waited for the backup. His shadow swirled around the perimeter checking for wards and traps again, and reported to Air and Water, who had been watching the building from a safe distance all evening.

“Secondo just told us you’d gone rogue, but we’re glad you’re here. Lucia left about a half hour ago. Secondo told us not to follow or engage so we let her go," Water said.

Itzal nodded and checked his pockets to make sure that he had everything he would need. Santos had told him he would leave the window open for him to ghost through, but he had noticed the other day when he was scouting there was a black spot on the roof that he could probably ghost under to get inside. If he could get through the net of wards that covered the building, he could enter through the air conditioning vents without alerting anyone. The more time he would have inside when they didn’t know he was there, the better equipped they would be to get Sunshine back.

Air and Water wished him luck and he turned into his shadow and drifted to the roof. In his shadow form, he could see the wards as a twinkling mesh of light wrapped around the building.

On the top of the flat roof, in the centre, there was a tiny glitch about the size of a dinner plate, so he aimed for it and ghosted through. Towards the far end of the roof was a large metal fan for the air conditioning. He floated through the vents and listened for any sounds of movement. He stopped when he came to the main area of the warehouse.

As soon as he had passed beneath the wards, his bond with Sunshine clicked back into place and he breathed a sigh of relief. Itzal could feel that she was awake and he could feel that she was hurting. He sent her a gentle caress and he felt her respond. He had to steady himself and not rush in there to go to her, but he couldn’t let his anger and his panic fuck this up. Both of their lives depended on him keeping a clear head now.

He could sense Santos and the witches below, towards the corner of the space where he remembered he had seen the desk.

He ghosted out of the vent and towards a dark corner at the opposite end of the space where a stack of crates rested. He stopped behind them in the shadows and re-formed, looking around for a place to put the device the witches had given him. It was a phone that had been modified to disrupt the wards. The witches had set a timer for it to activate at eleven p.m.

Once that was in place, he ghosted through the shadows at the edge of the room to get a closer look at Sunshine. She lay chained to a large metal table towards the centre of the room. He recognised the warded metal cuffs that he had worn many times during rituals. She was still wearing the dress from the party, and she shivered in the frigid atmosphere of the room. He could smell her blood and it took every ounce of his strength to damp down the anger that bubbled up inside him. Itzal bit back his rage when he noticed the ritual circle on the floor, drawn in her blood, and he stopped himself from thinking about the witches draining it from her.

Sunshine must have sensed him there because she turned her head towards where he hid and his heart broke. She had a bleeding cut on her hairline and the blood had soaked into her hair and dripped down the side of her face. There were bruises marring her skin and her lip had split. But despite all this, she smiled weakly and sent him a wave of love through their bond. Itzal could feel how tired she was and he wanted nothing more than to break cover and rip Santos and his witches to shreds and bathe in their blood. But he knew he had to wait. He sent her an image of home and of the two of them cuddled up under a blanket watching a movie, and she sighed.

He forced himself to leave her there, even though it went against every instinct he had. His soul was screaming at him not to turn away and leave her there in the cold with that animal. He ghosted back up through the vent and out into the chilly night air, heading back to the meeting point where the others were arriving.