Haunteds

Chapter 30

It shouldn't be hard to distract him. He was trapped inside wherever he was for five decades. And now he's back with all this power. Of course, he's going to want to talk about it. He's been practically bragging about it ever since he grew his mouth. If it weren't for the smoke grenade, I have a feeling he'll keep on babbling about his "New Moon" lecture...That's it!

"Wait a minute," I said. "There were plenty of years before you came. Those years should have experienced new moons too, right? How come the past Shades were still affected?"

Come on, take the bait. I thought.

Daniel scoffed at me. "Well, I am not the past Shades, am I?" He raised his hand, spreading his shadow fingers. "You see, this Shade you refer to is nothing but a fraction of the Primordial's power."

Good. Tell us more. I thought.

"P-primordial?" Indigo asked. Her knees were shaking hard.

"The original inhabitants of this universe. Formless beings of pure darkness. Born out of the Void, long before the first sun blazed to life," he explained. "You know the myth about the Shadow People and the Celestials?"

No one answered.

"I guess you wouldn't. It was an old and forgotten lore that I stumbled upon by sheer happenstance," Daniel said. "Anyway, our ancestors knew of their existence and the danger they posed. They managed to banish them from this dimension. The Primordials cannot hope to enter this dimension or even manifest their influence."

For a moment, the room was silent. We were all waiting for him to continue.

"Unless they were, as I found out, permitted entry." Daniel said.

"So that night, fifty-one years ago..." I said.

"You really are quick," Daniel said. "The plan was to make my body a vessel to host one of the beings and control him."

"But they got to you first, right?" Caprice said. "You didn't complete the ritual."

"Which is why I had to improvise."

"The Shade." Indigo gasped.

"And to think my act of desperation would give me exactly what I had wanted," Daniel cackled.

"But still why now?" I said. "There were like three decades that the Shade killed haunteds freely. Why show yourself, now?"

He smiled. "I didn't. Someone had access to your blood. Someone attempted to repeat and finish the ritual. Someone MADE me show up."

"So Major Coleman was right," Harmony said. "The cult still exists. Who else could know how to do the ritual?"

"But where are they?" Cana asked.

"That really doesn't matter now, does it?" Daniel said. "What matters is I am in control of this power. At least for this night. Granted, I didn't even know I was in there until three days ago. It was still mostly Azga-the Shade's thoughts. It was like seating at the back of the car while the Shade drives in front. I only had glimpses of what happened that night. Like that spiky-headed boy."

"Kent!" Scarlet snapped. "And you killed him!"

He cocked his head to one side, considering what Scarlet just said. "Partly, yes. But like I said, I wasn't in full control. It was a constant tug-of-war with the Shade's urge to kill zodiac borns. Keeping my consciousness was hard enough. In the end, I disappeared that night."

He changed his arm into a scythe. "But last night, I had some practice."

"So all the changes three days ago, cutting up woods to destroy the lights, killing all those people, that was all you?" I asked.