Last week, dear reader, Belinda and Hailey made a startling realization. Panicked after the loss to Thorm Athow and his subsequent abduction of Bella, the pair sought a way to locate the hidden magician. As the city around them mobilized with the help of a mysterious stranger sent by Beacon himself, the two realized they could locate Bella with the aid of the magical necklace they gifted her after her transformation into the evil monster Belladonna.

Now, armed with this knowledge, they stand a fighting chance of locating Bella before she bleeds out!

Time, however, is precious indeed. As precious a commodity as the blood running down Bella’s wrists as she lies in a stupor on a table in the abandoned factory where Athow sits. Around him, a complex series of runes sit inscribed on the old concrete floor. Whatever he used to write it cut through the concrete as if it were old cheese. The runes spiral out in vast scars that line the floor around him for several meters in every direction. Those runes closest to Bella overflow with her blood, running in little rivulets down toward the books lying at convergence points sitting around Athow. As they reach the texts the blood drains, leaving the writing on the accursed covers clear.

With every drop drained, the pallid cast of Bella’s skin grows. And yet as her color fades another stirs beneath the surface of her skin. Slowly, a sickly greenish taint begins to consume the whitish cast of her skin. At the center of the ghastly circle, Athow does not deign to notice as his mystical work continues.

Lying at her throat is a heated necklace, burning as it sends out an unheard signal. Searing heat pours from the metal onto Bella’s unprotected skin. On the surface of her neck, harsh burns and blistered skin begins to form and vanish as the green taint wars with the charring flesh. Red burns and green infection war while Bella lies insensate on the table.

Sitting atop the police station, Eldritch crosses her legs and places her palms on her knees. Then she breathes. In. Out. In. Out. Slowly the rising and falling of her chest takes on a rhythmic quality as the whole rooftop begins to take on the cadence of her inhales and exhales. A minute passes before she calmly opens her eyes. Instead of the normal blue color, her eyes are solid white!

Lifting her hands in supplication to the sky, she begins to draw lines of mystic energy on the air. Her eyes never pause to look at the growing creation, but her hands never waver as the lines start to form into a picture. Slowly, Eldritch recreates the scene of Bella lying on the table bleeding with a blend of mystic colors. Then, inhaling sharply, she stumbles backward as her eyes snap to their normal color.

“Ugh,” she moans as she falls on the roofing. Then, a hint of marvel in her voice, she exclaims, “It worked!”

“Indeed,” Belinda’s voice echoes in her mind.

Leaping to her feet in a swirl of power, Eldritch races over to the still image of the table and grabs onto her friend. As her fingers touch Bella’s, the picture starts to muddy and break apart.

“Wait, child!” Belinda exclaims. “Disturb the scene and it will vanish.”

Gulping, Eldritch takes a wary step back. Then she circles around the image slowly, turning it to different angles and inspecting the details.

“I don’t recognize anything, do you?” she asks.

“No,” Belinda replies. “I-”

“I do,” interjects the blind man from earlier, casually leaning against the door back into the building. “Look in the corner.”

Startled at the sudden intrusion, Eldritch uneasily complies. “N.C.S.? What’s that?”

“Napp Corp Shipping,” he replies, “they own a few warehouses down at the dock. Most of them are just storage, these days Napp subcontracts to local firms for most of the actual shipping. It won’t take long to narrow down which one he’s in.”

“Good,” Eldritch replies, pulling out her phone as she does. A few clicks later, she says, “Ginger, are you over the docks? Can you do a flyover? He’s got Bella in one of them.”

Then she closes the phone and looks over to the shirtless man. Hesitantly, she asks, “So how are you planning on getting there? I suppose the Association has like a car or something?”

He chuckles and replies, “Usually I just ride along on Beacon’s disk. Don’t worry though, I can keep up.” With that, he points to a nearby rooftop and says, “Race you.”

A second later, Eldritch watches in awe as the man takes a running start and leaps across gap and to the other building. Turning around, he hoists his sledgehammer and waves in her direction, a clear challenge.

Shaking her head, Eldritch slowly unfurls her dagger into a long whip and casts it across the gap. As she floats across over her makeshift bridge, she says to herself, “Jeez. I guess I’m the one that needs to worry about keeping up.”

As the pair makes their way across town, another pairing arrives at the docks.

Shooting an irritated glance at the chatterbox next to him, Detective Anderson slams the door of his police cruiser shut and says, “Cut the talk. We move quietly. You see anything you back off first and then give me three clicks on the radio. We meet back here and send out a signal. Absolutely no heroics.”

Swallowing lightly, the guard next to him nods. Then he whispers, “Ya know, I was workin’ down ‘ere when ta Roman-”

“Hush,” Anderson cuts him off with a warning. Then he points to one of the doors and deliberately begins walking in the opposite direction.

Nodding to reassure himself, the guard steps forward and eases open the door. Slowly, the pair slink off into the darkness, heading in opposite directions but sharing the same purpose.

Behind them, the radio in the police cruiser crackles to life.

“This is dispatch. We have an update for all search parties. It appears the supervillain is somewhere in the docks. Units currently at the docks should hold and wait for backup. Repeat, this is dispatch…”

But the message cannot reach either of the two men, for they are already too deep within the first warehouse to hear!

Easing his sidearm out of it’s holster, Detective Anderson slowly leans his way around a pillar. Then in a quick motion he moves to the other side of the room, keeping the gun low but ready to move. Peering past another corner, he repeats the motion in a silent dance that slowly moves him through the building.

On the opposite end, the guard fumbles with his flashlight. Cursing lightly to himself, he taps the device against his palm a couple of times until the unsteady light flickers back on. Then he walks forward, unconcerned, shining the bright light into various corners. Without pausing, he steps through a door and swings the light around the room.

Around them, the dilapidated old warehouse creaks and moans under the sea winds coming from the port. High in the sky, Ginger Snap struggles to maintain her altitude and position in the face of the brewing storm.

“Okay then let’s shed some mass!” she exclaims in response to her suit.

“Ms. Napp, transformation into a form suitable for this environment will require we land. This suit is simply too heavy to fly reliably under these conditions at this weight.”

“Exactly,” Ginger snaps back, “so let’s lose some weight!”

The suit falls silent for a few seconds before replying, “Ms. Napp, calculations suggest that it will take ten seconds to safely jettison enough material and reform into a stable configuration. At our current altitude-”

“Alright!” Ginger interrupts, “fly higher, I get it!”

With a sudden burst of speed, the massive figure of a metallic albatross surges higher into the sky, climbing with singular purpose. Just as she rises into the grey clouds, the sound of fingers snapping rings out. A moment later two balls of metal fall from the sky!

Hurtling down toward the sea below, Ginger grits her teeth as she feels the suit reforming around her. The metal shakes as it accelerates until reaching terminal velocity. To her right, the smaller ball of metal plummets with a shrieking sound that mirrors the howling of the wind. In her ear, the only sound is the frenetic beeping of her suit’s warning signal. Glancing down, she can see the surface of the roiling sea below and almost taste the spray of salty brine rising from the murky depths.

Then, a cool voice chirps out, “Recalibration complete.”

“Finally!” Ginger shouts as she bursts from the metal egg and into the sky once more.

This time her form is that of a smaller and more agile bird, a hunting falcon, sized up to her human form. Swooping low enough to skip the surface of the water, Ginger lets out a scream of exultation before lifting up into the sky like an arrow and flying forward to the docks.

“Whoo! Now that’s more like it!” she shouts into the sky as her wings push aside the surrounding air and increase her speed. Then her tone settles as she asks, “So, sensors? Do we see any evil wizards down there?”

“This suit is not calibrated to detect evil wizards Ms. Napp. Would you like to refine your search terms?”

Rolling her eyes, Ginger answers testily. “Fine, scan for blood. Lots and lots of blood.”

“Scanning in progress.”

Slowing down a bit as she circles above the docks, Ginger murmurs mostly to herself, “Can’t you go any faster?” revealing her underlying tension and nerves.

“Apologies, Ms. Napp, scanning from this distance requires significant processing power.”

Huffing slightly, Ginger stops complaining and lets the machine work.

Down in one of the warehouses below, Athow’s face splits into an evil grin.

“Soon,” he whispers as his hands light up with ghastly energy. “Soon, Belinda.”

Lying on the table behind him, Bella’s breath comes in shallow bursts as her wan and waxy face drains of its remaining vitality. Blood drips down her wrists slowly now, a far cry from the healthy flow that marked the start of this operation. Time, and life, are both running out.

In front of her, Athow’s body begins to take on the foul power as the nearly satiated books continue to suck greedily away Bella’s life. Her pulse slows, stutters, and then goes undetectably faint as her veins shrink and wither away. Then, for a few eternal seconds, Bella’s faint pulse stops entirely as the blood runs too thin for her heart to push.

Bella lies on the table, drained to the point of death.

A vile green light blossoms in her veins and snakes through to her heart where with a shudder of revulsion, her heart begins to beat once more. The flow of blood resumes quick enough that Athow, preoccupied exploring his new powers, does not notice. But on her neck the enchanted necklace does, bursting into an open flame that scars the nape of Bella’s neck!

The flames burn, slowly creeping up the chain that holds the delicate cross before a green hand reaches up, undoes the clasp, and casts the flaming necklace across the room!

Next to go are Bella’s glasses, the same hand removing them to reveal a horrible hatred alight in her suddenly open eyes. Bella is gone. In her place is the dreaded toxic avenger, Belladonna!

Across the room, Athow flexes his fingers into claws as he hisses, “It is done. Quicker than I expected too. Now for the final book, and then my beloved, then we will be together again!”

What does Belladonna intend? Will her inhuman search for vengeance prompt her to attack Athow or does this new development signal the creation of an unholy union? And what does it mean for Detective Anderson and his new partner? Are they walking into certain death? Can our heroes and heroines arrive in time to preempt Athow’s evil plans? Find out next week in… “Justice is Blind!”