Damon slid his thumb across the glass screen, his knuckles white as he brought the vibrating phone to his ear. The encrypted number vanished, leaving the display entirely dark. In the center of the room, the small silver paperclip Ryan was levitating dropped instantly to the floorboards with a sharp, metallic "ping", the sudden break in Damon's composure shattering Ryan's concentration.
"Elder Kael," Damon murmured, his voice dropping into a reverent, absolute whisper.
"Report," the voice on the other side commandingly rasped. "Report all that has transpired since your arrival on the Ohio line," He added.
Damon stood rigid by the heavy oak door, his silk pajamas offering no protection against the sudden chill that filled the room. Without a single heartbeat of hesitation, and with absolute honesty, he relayed all that had happened since he enrolled.
He spoke of Fiona's unusual ability to be able to project the sound of living beings in suffering even though she was a necromancer, he also reported what it was about, clanking of the gallows iron in her ears, the frantic transition of Molly by the lightning-scarred tree which of course was his doing along with the involvement of an unknown assailant who had vanished into the mountain trails on a bicycle.
He held nothing back, knowing the Night Walkers' ledger updated regardless of his words.
When he finished, the line remained silent for three long, agonizing seconds.
"Hmm," Kael replied. The syllable was flat no giving Damon the hint of what he was thinking.
"The regional treaty is fracturing faster than anticipated. You have done well to maintain your cover among the onlookers, Damon. But the do not incur the attention of any other aside those you have now...also, Oscar is dead."
Damon's breath caught in his throat, as sudden tightness locking his jaw. Oscar—one of the well said young expert amongst the upcoming mace organization —was gone. On the other end of the line, Kael's voice remained flat, deliberately concealing the dark, bloody reality that Klaus had been the direct instrument of the execution.
"The coven has already deemed these campus anomalies troublesome. They suspect our lineage is directly linked to the spill. Stand by your markers." The line went dead with a hollow, digital click.
Across the small room, Ryan was still caught in the cold, blue light of the video terminal. On the pad's display, Athalia's sharp features were tight with a rare, visible anxiety.
"You need to be exceptionally careful with what you do with your limbs from this point on, Ryan," Athalia warned through the low-frequency speaker, her voice penetrated through the silence of the dorm.
"The rate at which these supernatural abnormalities are occurring within the university block is entirely too high. It has already drawn the frantic attention of three neighboring regional organizations. The inspectors are logging every anomalous signal."
Ryan leaned forward, his brow furrowing beneath the low brim of his commercial baseball cap. "We're already surrounded by the campus patrol, Lady Athalia. The perimeter is locked."
"Then use the professional alibi," she countered sharply. "Professor Julian, Doctor Gadhi, and Assistant Adams are currently stationed inside the local hospital and the research labs. If you or the others need notes of official excuse to explain your missing hours, you must use their signatures. The coven is transitioning you to active missions to track the direct leads of Klaus, and a solid, unassailable alibi from licensed medical professionals is something you definitely will need before the state police registers the curfew violations."
****************
Meanwhile, within the suffocating, tense silence of the female dormitory block, the internal architecture of the third-floor room had been completely dismantled.
Rein stood in the corner, her fingers extended and trembling with a deep, exhaustive strain. Using her telekinesis, she had lifted the heavy pine bed bunks, separating the thick timber frames from the center of the floor and holding them suspended six inches into the air to clear a wide, open space on the linoleum. Beside her, Holly stood as a physical connection, her abnormal, supernatural strength locked into the load-bearing beams of the ceiling, maintaining the structural stability of the walls while Rein manipulated the furniture.
Lira knelt in the center of the cleared space. Working with a piece of grey chalk from her kit, she meticulously inscribed a massive, geometric summoning circle directly onto the floorboards, its lines interlocking with ancient, sharp runes. When the pattern was complete, she reached out and dragged the shivering, blanket-wrapped body of Molly—whose fangs were still clicking frantically against her lip—and placed her flat within the center of the chalk boundary.
With swift movements, Lira produced a dozen black wax candles, lighting them one by one until they formed a second, perfect outer circle around the first.
The room was completely sealed. The thick velvet curtains had been pulled flush against the glass, and a small, square metallic device—a specialized acoustic block—had been placed at each of the four angles of the walls, its low hum vibrating through the plaster to prevent any human noise or supernatural frequency from escaping into the corridor where the journalists were roaming.
Lira took a deep breath, her eyes going dark as she began to recite the rhythmic, low-frequency spell. The ancient syllables felt heavy on her tongue, smelling faintly of sulfur and old water.
Within seconds, a violent gush of freezing wind materialized from thin air, rushing through the closed room and causing the candle flames to flare into bright, violet tongues of fire. Lira didn't hesitate. She bared her own sharp fangs and bit deep into the palm of her right hand until the dark blood welled up. She held her hand over the line, allowing the heavy drops to fall directly into the middle space between the outer candle wax and the inner chalk circle as she sang a chant.
The reaction was immediate. The spilled blood did not sink into the wood; instead, it began to run itself across the floorboards, forming thin, vibrating red strings that wove a physical, web-like connection between each candle and the circle.
Molly's body gave a sudden, violent jolt. Her limbs went perfectly rigid as she began to levitate into the air, rising three feet above the linoleum as the red strings pulsed with a low, shimmering light.
The violet fire flared to the ceiling not burning it or causing a dark smear instead, a dark, heavy specter emerged from the very center of the chalk boundary. The shadow twisted violently before its form changed, stabilizing into the translucent, shimmering figure of an ancient female witch. Her eyes were hollow, her long, vaporous garments floating in the artificial gale.
She slowly turned her head, her gaze locking onto Lira with an expression of immediate, biting disdain.
"You dare use the blood of the infected to unlock the gate?" the ghost rebuked, her voice a hollow, echoing hiss that vibrated inside their teeth. "You are a vampire, girl. Using your filthy blood as a summon is no different from sprinkling common dirt into the very door of the sanctuary—into the other world where the true entities and old elders reside. How preposterous."
Lira, completely unlike her usual confident, sarcastic self, went utterly pale. Her knees trembled against the floorboards as she lowered her head, her voice dropping into a frantic, apologetic whisper. "I... I apologize, Ancient One. The timeline was shrinking. I wasn't even sure if the alignment would allow the gateway to open."
The ghost swept her translucent gaze over the room, catching the absolute cluelessness and desperation in Lira's wide eyes. "Why have you summoned me from the resting blocks, child of the night? State your purpose before the circle burns through."
Lira swallowed hard, reaching into her pocket to bring out a simple, rough metal ring she had carved into interlocking circles for fun during her seminar hours. She held it out with a shaking hand toward the floating body of Molly.
"I need to forge a daylight ring for her," Lira explained, her voice cracking as she gestured toward the newly transitioned girl. "She's in the middle of the transition, and the sun will rise over the Ohio ridge in four hours. I don't care if it's a temporary matrix... Anything enough to give shade to survive the land of the living is fine."
The ghost floated closer, her vaporous hand hovering an inch above the silver band. Her cold brow furrowed into a deep, heavy frown. "A vampire who knows the chants of a high summoning circle... Who is it that taught you how to draw these lines, girl?"
"Elder Kael," Lira whispered, her knuckles whitening as she kept her head bowed. "He was the one who showed me the script before we were sent to the western districts."
The ghost's expression hardened at the mention of the name. She went completely rigid, her translucent lips twisting into a severe, resentful grimace. She did not respond for several long, suffocating minutes, the silence in the room growing so thick that the acoustic blocks began to ring with a high, mechanical whine.
Slowly, the ancient spirit turned her head, her vacant eyes shifting away from Lira to look at the remaining girls in the corners.
Rein was sitting flat against the wall, her hands still extended to keep the bed bunks levitating, her face completely white and covered in cold sweat, thoroughly frightened by the sheer, freezing presence of the ghost. Holly, on the other hand, was no longer anchoring the ceiling. The very moment the unnatural, spiritual wind had erupted from the center of the linoleum, the overwhelming pressure of the other world had crushed her consciousness; she had already collapsed limp onto the rug, completely out cold before the first candle could even burn down to the silver.