Phantasia couldn’t have stopped Phoenie if she tried. The newspaper editor was marching briskly over towards the warehouse, with Katrina struggling to keep up behind her as she fiddled with her camera. Phantasia, worried about what was awaiting them, concentrated her senses on the supposed nest.

It saw her.

Without hesitation, she burst forward, her feet only lightly touching the ground to keep up the illusion of running to the two bewildered girls as she sped past them. She had to stop what was about to happen before they could see it. There was no other choice. Once she was inside the warehouse and safely out of their sight, she phased through the walls between her and her target, ignoring the ominous forces that crushed around her. There was no time to give the darkness any attention, not if she wanted to…

“DON’T DO IT!”

The boy was only about fifteen with pale skin a dark hair, a quintessential Raven. He had seen her appear out of the wall, right in front of his eyes. She didn’t care about the rules any more. He looked down at her from the pyre of broken crates and smiled.

“An angel…”

Phantasia jumped towards him, willing the flame in his hand to extinguish before it slipped from his grasp, falling down towards the petroleum-soaked wood below. He was still smiling at her as she reached out to take him away. He was still smiling at her when the fire burst to life around him, devouring cloth and flesh in a searing column of heat.

He was still smiling as she was flung backwards, back through the walls, by the explosion of dark energy that came with his final moments. It was smiling too. The shadow. The leansídhe.

Phantasia blinked open her eyes to see Katrina looking down at her. Phoenie was staring away towards the warehouse, now filled with thick smoke. As the scent of burning flesh reached her, she staggered backwards and vomited into a dark corner. Katrina, after helping Phantasia to her feet, escorted her friend away from the destruction, her camera lifeless around her neck.

Phantasia looked back into the chaos behind her and felt the same nausea that had claimed Phoenie. One would be here soon, she thought. A Reaper. Best not to be around when showed up; they weren’t the most sociable of types, after all.

~ This is the horrifying power of the Leansídhe?!~
~ Next: The Leansídhe’s next victim is…?~

Chapter 10
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