Fade Into Black - Shadows of the Night 5

Chapter 5

Hi,

Anna will have to face one of her deepest fears in this one. Would you do the same if you were in her shoes? Let me know! I hope you enjoy the read.  :-)

Lara

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Chapter 5

The sound of hands clapping tore through the silence like a bloody sword. My head whipped around. Medici walked up to me from behind.

"Well, done, Anna Johnson." His hand descended on my shoulder, squeezing. "Welcome to the Inri-Brotherhood."

I stared at him mutely, chest heaving up and down. The cool sheen of sweat on my brow seemed to fade with the warming of my face. I didn't know how I felt, less how I was supposed to feel.

Medici's head jerked to the right, and three of the rogues moved in to retrieve whatever I'd just laid free for them. My eyes wandered back to the wall, eager and afraid to see what exactly I gave them access to. This was the prize for proving that I was one of them. The only question that remained: What evil had I released into the world?

There was a crack in the wall, big enough for a small child to climb through and hide in. No, not a child. It might be used to hide something else entirely. One of the rogues was hunched over, hand buried in the crack, searching. He straightened and drew out a quadrangular, metallic object. I craned my neck, trying to see past Medici and catch a better glimpse of it, and stilled.

A suitcase? Really?

Was this what I risked my life for?

"What is it?" I said slowly, without turning to Medici. "You said you were going to tell me what kind of artifact it is."

No way this was just a suitcase.

"Null bombs," Medici said softly.

Blood-rush in my ears, cold and hot showers of goose bumps down my back. Just like the use of dark magic, null bombs were illegal, extremely dangerous, and unpredictable. If whoever worked the spell knew what he was doing, a null bomb was a powerful device, annihilating magic within its closest vicinity after detonation.

"You can't be serious," I said, turning to face him. The words were more like soft breath, a whispered prayer, than a fully formed sentence. "There are too many negative side effects to use them safely. You could accidentally-"

"Stop telling me things I already know," Medici said.

The rogue closed the suitcase and turned around, still hunched on the ground. "Everything's there."

Medici uncrossed his arms. "Good. Get-"

A heart-wrenching squeak thundered through the empty warehouse, like metal moaning, giving way under pressure. The figures around me went rigid with the synchronicity of a dance troupe, geared and attuned to each other as if they all were limbs and arms of one and the same body.

Medici's hand was around my elbow. The sensation barely registered. My head whipped around. The rogue witch beside us winked into non-existence. Too late. I felt the familiar tug of a portal at the fingertips of my awareness. We were in the middle of-

The portal jerked me upwards, then down, back and forth again – a rollercoaster through hell and back with the devil himself holding my hand. By the time my feet hit steady ground, I was sick to the bone.

We came out. Alive. And I relearned to breathe.

Next time, take it willingly, Medici had said. Yeah right. I would have, if someone told me that we were stepping into one, beforehand.