Chapter 8: Lockdown

The first sign of trouble came as they were walking toward the mansion's exit. Drew's hand suddenly clamped down on Jade's arm, his enhanced Fae senses picking up something her troll heritage had missed.

"The wards," he said quietly. "They're changing."

Jade paused, feeling it now—a subtle shift in the air pressure, a humming that seemed to come from the walls themselves. The protective spells that had been designed to keep unwanted visitors out were shifting, reconfiguring themselves into something else entirely.

"Lockdown protocol," she realized. "Someone's trapping us inside."

Behind them, the remaining guests were beginning to notice as well. Conversations died as people pressed against windows and doors, finding them sealed with barriers of solid light. The mansion's elegant Gothic architecture had become a prison, its soaring arches and stained glass windows now highlighted by the ominous glow of containment spells.

"Nobody panic," Elara's voice cut through the rising murmur of concern, her authority carrying clearly across the entrance hall. "This is a standard containment procedure while we process the crime scene."

But Jade could hear the lie in her voice. This wasn't standard anything—the power required to seal a building of this size was enormous, and the magical signatures were all wrong. The wards felt old, primal, like they'd been woven into the mansion's foundation decades ago and were only now being activated.

"Standard, my ass," Jade muttered, then raised her voice. "Captain Frostborn, we need to talk. Now."

Elara approached them with measured steps, her silver armor gleaming in the magical light. But Jade noticed how her hand rested on her sword hilt, how her eyes kept scanning the crowd for threats.

"The lockdown wasn't authorized by the Fae Courts," Elara said quietly once she was close enough. "Someone else activated the mansion's emergency protocols."

"Someone who had administrative access to Lord Meridian's security systems," Drew added grimly. "Which means either they've been planning this for a long time, or—"

"Or Meridian wasn't the Society's financier," Jade finished. "He was their prisoner."

The implications hit them simultaneously. If Meridian had been coerced rather than complicit, then his death wasn't the end of the conspiracy—it was the removal of a witness. Someone who might have been able to identify the real power behind the Celestial Society.

"How many Society members are still alive in this room?" Jade asked.

Elara's silver light spell was still active, highlighting roughly a dozen guests with the telltale glow of exposure to the Society's magical techniques. But as they watched, several of those lights began to flicker and change color.

"They're being marked," Drew said, his voice tight with understanding. "Whatever's controlling the mansion's wards is identifying targets."

As if summoned by his words, a new voice echoed through the hall—not spoken aloud, but transmitted directly through the magical infrastructure of the building itself. It was cultured, refined, and completely without warmth.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I do apologize for the inconvenience. Please remain calm while we conclude tonight's business."

"Who is that?" one of the guests demanded, his voice cracking with fear.

"Someone who's been playing a much longer game than we realized," Elara replied grimly. She raised her voice, addressing the unseen speaker. "Identify yourself. By what authority do you hold us?"

"Authority?" The voice carried a note of amusement. "My dear Captain, I am authority. I have been guiding the magical development of this city for longer than most of you have been alive. The Celestial Society was merely one tool among many."

The lights began to dim, and Jade felt her enhanced senses picking up new scents—ozone, copper, and something else. Something that reminded her of ancient stone and deep places beneath the earth.

"The murders," she said suddenly. "Elara, you've been killing the wrong people."

"What?"

"Thorne, Cassandra, Meridian—they weren't the leaders of the conspiracy. They were expendable assets." Jade's mind was racing, pieces clicking together. "Someone's been using them to test the soul-binding techniques, refining the process."

"Refining it for what?"

Before anyone could answer, the mansion's main chandelier exploded in a shower of crystal and magical fire. In the chaos that followed, screams echoed through the hall as guests scattered, seeking cover behind overturned furniture and decorative columns.

Through the smoke and confusion, Jade saw movement—figures in hooded robes materializing from hidden passages, their hands glowing with the same amber light that had marked every crime scene. They moved with inhuman coordination, like pieces of a single consciousness directing multiple bodies.

"The real Society members," Drew breathed. "The ones who've already undergone the consciousness-binding process."

"How many?" Jade asked, but she was already counting—at least a dozen robed figures, all moving with that same eerie synchronization.

"Too many," Elara replied, drawing her silver sword. "And they're herding us toward the ballroom."

She was right. The hooded figures weren't attacking—they were positioning themselves to guide the panicked guests in a specific direction. Toward the ballroom, where the bodies of Cassandra and Meridian still lay in their amber pools.

"It's a ritual circle," Drew realized. "The entire ballroom. That's why the murders happened there—they weren't random kills, they were components in a larger working."

"And now they need the rest of us to complete it," Jade added grimly.

A scream from behind them spun all three around. One of the Society members marked by Elara's light—a young woman in expensive robes—was writhing on the floor as her body began to dissolve. But unlike the previous murders, this transformation was slow, controlled, and the woman remained conscious throughout.

"Please," she gasped, her voice distorting as her vocal cords began to liquefy. "I never wanted... we were told it was theoretical research... please..."

The amber puddle that had been a person began to flow across the marble floor, guided by invisible forces toward the ballroom entrance. The other marked Society members watched in horror, finally understanding their fate.

"That's it," Jade snarled. "I've had enough of this supernatural bullshit."

She strode toward the nearest hooded figure, her troll strength allowing her to push through the crowd of panicked guests. The robed cultist turned toward her with inhuman fluidity, raising hands that crackled with destructive energy.

Jade's response was simple and direct—she grabbed the figure by the throat and slammed it into the nearest wall with enough force to crack the stone. The impact should have killed or at least incapacitated any normal person.

Instead, the cultist smiled at her with a face that was wrong in ways that hurt to look at—features that shifted and flowed like they weren't quite solid, eyes that held depths no human gaze should possess.

"You cannot stop what has already begun," it said in a voice like grinding stone. "The convergence points fail, the barriers weaken, and soon all consciousness shall be unified under the true masters of reality."

"Yeah, well, here's what I think of your masters," Jade replied, and drove her fist through the cultist's chest.

Her hand came away covered in something that wasn't quite blood—a substance that glowed with the same amber light as the dissolved victims. The cultist looked down at the hole where its heart should be, then back at Jade with an expression of mild interest.

"Fascinating. Troll physiology does allow for impressive destructive capacity." It reached up with hands that were dissolving even as Jade watched. "But you still don't understand what you're fighting."

The cultist's body collapsed into amber liquid that immediately began flowing toward the ballroom, just like the previous victim. But as it moved, Jade could swear she heard it laughing.

"Jade!" Drew's voice cut through her shock. "We need to move. Now!"

She turned to see that the remaining cultists had abandoned any pretense of herding—they were now advancing on the guests with obvious hostile intent. Elara was engaging three of them simultaneously, her silver blade cutting through their robes but seemingly having little effect on the entities wearing them.

"The wards," Drew continued, his hands glowing with winter-cold power. "I can break through them, but I need time and I need you to keep these things off me."

"How long?"

"Five minutes. Maybe ten."

Around them, the situation was deteriorating rapidly. More of the marked Society members were beginning to dissolve, their screams echoing off the mansion's stone walls. The unmarked guests were pressed against the sealed exits, pounding uselessly on barriers that absorbed every impact.

"Fine," Jade said, cracking her knuckles. "But after this, we're having a serious conversation about hazard pay."

She waded into the nearest group of cultists, using her troll strength and enhanced durability to devastating effect. These things might not be fully human anymore, but they still responded to physical trauma—even if they didn't stay down the way normal opponents would.

Behind her, she could hear Drew chanting in a language that predated human civilization, his voice carrying harmonics that made the air itself crystallize with frost. The mansion's wards were fighting back, their golden light clashing with his silver-blue power in displays that left afterimages burned into the retinas of anyone foolish enough to look directly at them.

"Drew!" Elara's voice carried a note of warning. "Whatever you're doing, do it faster. The ritual is beginning."

Jade risked a glance toward the ballroom and immediately wished she hadn't. The amber pools where the bodies had dissolved were beginning to rise from the floor, forming complex geometric patterns in the air. And at the center of those patterns, something was taking shape—something that hurt to look at and whispered promises of power in voices that bypassed the ears entirely.

"Almost there," Drew gasped, but Jade could see the strain on his face. Breaking through wards this powerful was taking everything he had, and the cultists seemed to sense his vulnerability. More of them were converging on his position, their inhuman coordination making them dangerously effective despite their physical limitations.

That's when Jade made a decision that would have horrified her superiors at the VDPD.

"Hey!" she shouted, her voice carrying across the entire entrance hall. "You want to unified consciousness? Let me show you what troll consciousness looks like when it's really pissed off!"

She stopped holding back.

The change was immediate and dramatic. Her already impressive physiology enhanced further, drawing on genetic memory that went back to the earliest days of her species. Her skin took on the mottled grey-green of living stone, her muscles swelled with strength that could crack mountains, and her senses expanded to encompass every living thing in the mansion.

The cultists turned toward her as one, their collective attention like a weight pressing down on her mind. But Jade had grown up as an outcast, learned to stand alone against a world that saw her as a monster. Their psychic pressure broke against her mental defenses like water against granite.

"Come on then," she growled, her voice now carrying undertones that resonated through the building's stone foundation. "Let's dance."

What followed wasn't really a fight—it was a natural disaster in humanoid form systematically dismantling anything that got in her way. Cultists flew through the air to impact walls with bone-crushing force. Ancient stone columns cracked under the impact of bodies moving at superhuman speed. And through it all, Drew's chanting continued, his power boring through the mansion's defenses like a drill made of winter itself.

"Got it!" he finally shouted, and the golden wards shattered like spun glass.

The mansion's doors and windows burst open, releasing the trapped guests in a stampede toward freedom. But Jade wasn't following them—her enhanced senses had picked up something the others had missed.

"The basement," she said, still in her enhanced state. "Whatever's controlling this, it's not in the ballroom. It's underneath us."

Drew and Elara exchanged glances, then nodded. The guests could escape, but the three of them had a job to finish.

"After you," Elara said grimly, gesturing toward a service stairway that led down into the mansion's lower levels.

"Right," Jade replied, her form slowly returning to normal as they descended into darkness. "Because following mysterious voices into creepy basements always ends well."

"Look on the bright side," Drew said, conjuring a ball of cold light to illuminate their path. "At least this time we know we're walking into a trap."

"That's supposed to be comforting?"

"I'm working on my optimism. How am I doing?"

"Terribly," both women replied simultaneously.

Drew's laugh echoed off the stone walls as they descended deeper into whatever was waiting for them below.