“Scan complete” the vehicle told her. “A nurse has been contacted. Please proceed to floor twenty-five for treatment.” She didn’t think her injuries were severe enough to warrant any more than a few days rest.

The lights across campus dimmed to a dull red as she stepped out of the vehicle, coat in hand. Less than five minutes until curfew was enforceable.

She moved slowly up the steps toward her prey, monitoring the tightness in her muscles, the sting of cuts brushing against her clothes, and searching for the painful strain of damaged bones. She tugged at the doors to the Educational tower. Locked.

Astral pressed her long fingers against the cold metal sensor panel and heard a light metal click as the magnetic lock unsealed. The door buzzed, signalling that an automated message, of which she could not see, had appeared for her on door.

She entered the tower, each a step a hallow count-down to the battle to come.

Should she give herself the best odds and see the nurse first? Or would they sedate her for the night? She couldn’t risk it, even if someone was expecting her arrival in the infirmary. Explaining away the gap in her arrival wouldn’t be an issue if the threat was annihilated. She could leave in the morning and head off to her next hunt. They would never get answers. They would never know how close they were to death.

The doors to the elevator sighed open. She let out a deep breath. Not much longer.

She pressed the close-doors indicator. Her fingers hovered over the lock command, an old thought nagging at her subconscious. She pressed it, aware that the action wasn’t entirely her own. Looking back at her from behind the digital panel, her core brought her finger to her lips.

The gestured reminded Astral of an old spell she used to enjoy using on the over-inquisitive. She considered the gesture as a passive means to remove annoyances. Not all enemy combatants deserved death. Two life-times over, her mission was to preserve life.

Her fingers moved across the panel, striking the floor combination that acted as the security access code to the hidden digital console. Nothing. The elevator didn’t move. She had the right combination. She tried again and nothing.

Did Seth lock her out?

A wry smile spread across her lips as she gave a hearty laugh. Figures. She could go up to the twenty-fifth floor, drag Seth unconscious body to the elevator and activate the console. Explaining that whole situation to the authorities was not on her list, which gave her all the more reason to complete her mission tonight.

Just as she hit the number for the medical floor, the doors to the elevator opened. Her fingers darted to the faded lock symbol under the glow of her aura. Her fingers thundered against it as William stepped into the elevator with her, grinning like he had caught her plundering the last of the ice cream and would run off to tell his father, unless…

She pressed her back to the console, her fingers tapping on the lock button not knowing what else to do. “You shouldn’t be here,” was all she could muster.

William was always an anomaly in the sequence that made up her life. He didn’t belong. He never belonged. He was out of sync with the story of his world, his town, his family, his friends. How could she put it? It was like, he had heard the story and loved it so much that he had to insert himself into the story. He had no impact on the actions of the world around him. He reacted to events, he offered his thoughts, but ultimately, he didn’t belong.

His pale grey figure smirked at her. He was the only person she saw with monochrome crystal clarity. He had no colour, not to his aura, not to his soul. She was pretty sure he didn’t have a soul. But then again, she had seen people without souls, and they were black, empty spaces with a vague aura made up of the souls they damaged in the pursuit of self-gratification.

“You little slut.” William’s eyes narrowed as his lips twisted in a gruesome smile. The words dripped from his lips like they had gone rancid in his mouth. “You’re looking to spend the night with Seth.”

Astral snorted in surprise. She tended to forget that William was ultimately just another barely evolved human being with an under-develop frontal lobe, and whose libido was on hyper-drive. The possibility that she was in this tower for any other reason than sex, probably never crossed his little animal brain.

Her dry chuckle darkened his mood. He was too stupid to realize that she was laughing at the absurdity of the statement, but it didn’t stop him from lashing out. “Figures that you’d try something. Like as if you’d stand a chance. He’d have to be unconscious or stoned of his mind to do anything with you.”

The lights in the elevator flickered with the rise of her sinister laughter. The lights dimmed. Her consciousness slipped from her control, as she slid to the back of her mind taking the spectator’s seat as her darkness seethed. Her consciousness spread across the elevator walls, stretching out long shadow fingers to strangle the obstinate thorn in her side. He would not stand in her way. Not when she was so close.

William stared up at her, shrinking away into a corner with nowhere to run. “Astral?”

She hadn’t stopped laughing. She couldn’t reach the ghost, and if she tried, she’d reveal its location to the one person she trusted the least. She might as well write a letter to the Red Order’s Holy Father and it would cause less damage in the long run, than revealing the entity to William.

William… who didn’t belong.

The elevator shuddered and began its decent. Frustration wet her cheeks as her dark intent slipped back into her body and she resumed control over her physical self. Astral turned her back to the frightened moron, laughing into the wall as she rested her head against her arm. She would never train William.

Her subconscious tugged at the ephemeral threads of distant memories that had been, yet were not.

The elevator stopped, its doors opening with a hesitant welcome, revealing the darkness that waited for them.

Staring into the shifting dark was an all too familiar feeling. Astral stepped toward the exit. What world would the ghost conjure? What traps waited for her? If she didn’t worry about William’s survival, she’d reach her objective. Successful completion of her goals was debatable and may leave the next generation of the nation’s hope vulnerable. She couldn’t turn back now.

Glancing at William as he joined her, she wondered if she could allow him to die. In the grand scheme of things, he was expendable. His spiritual value took more than it gave. But he was a living breathing, not quite self-aware, creature just as worthy of life as any other human.

“I think we’re in the basement?” William said and with a note of excitement added, “I’ve never been down here before.” Astral grabbed the nuisance just as he stepped over the threshold. With a great heave, he was pulled from her grasp, swallowed by the darkness.

She lunged after him just as the doors slammed shut.