Maelstrom

Twenty-Four

[audi alteram partem]

New York City was hauntingly silent. This war waged underneath the city's nose had eradicated the streets of its bustling crowds and traffic jams. Now, only those too intransigent to leave or those unable to remained in their apartments and houses across Manhattan. Every so often, the flickering lights and wailing sirens of first responders would tear through the night towards whatever crime had been committed in the wake of the violence, then dissolve into nothing.

Dale stood at the bay of windows in her suite, listening to the haunting drone of police sirens echo through the night. She didn't know what was scarier: the ghostly noise or the fact that these first responses were never enough to quell the violence. Danger was a deadly flower that blossomed under any circumstance, through any fortress.

A shiver ran down Dale's spine, forcing her to move. Being pensive had its advantages, but not after a devastating battle.

She sat back down on her bed, amid the dozens of reports and files she'd elected to go through in the wake of the attack on Wall Street. Scouts had given her their findings, confirming that Menoetious' former lair was nothing but a heap of rubble. There had been no half-blood casualties, no one except Ms. Hale, who had sacrificed herself for them all.

Dale had heard her final words through Reese's comms. Even now, they chilled her to the bone. She fought another shiver and moved on.

However, as Dale was reaching for another file with the sound of the ebbing and rising sirens in the distance, she froze. Something didn't seem right. A chill had settled into her very bones. Those weren't sirens in the distance.

Every hair on Dale's body shot straight up as she realized that the noise was some kind of haunting melody, growing louder and softer as if it was being carried on the wind.

And it was coming from inside her room.

"Daughter of Demeter..."

Dale whirled around, her knife elongating in her hand as she pointed its tip towards the specter materializing from the curtains on the opposite side of the room. It was the same ghost as always, only now, she seemed more tangible. She glowed with an eerie blue light, like the ghosts in horror movies did.

"Who are you?" Dale demanded. "What do you want with me?"

The ghost merely watched her, tilting her head to the side ever so slightly. Her hair and gown billowed in an unseen wind.

"Answer me, or I swear on the River Styx—"

The woman held up a spectral hand, her blue aura flickering. She did not open her mouth, but the haunting melody emanated from her figure. She pinned Dale with a chilling yet desperate look, as if she needed Dale to understand something.

There was something familiar about the melody, as if Dale had known it in another lifetime. The words were soft, hardly even whispers, yet in another, cryptic language. It tickled a memory at the back of Dale's mind, but she couldn't put her finger on it.

Dale tightened her grip on her knife, and the motion halted the phantom's melody.

"What do you want with me?" Dale demanded again.

The woman's eyes glowed, and if she could show expression, she must have been angry. She lifted her hands, the blue light around her flickering as suddenly, Dale's suite started to tremble violently as if caught in an earthquake.