Chapter 138: Shadows Over Saint Helene
By the time we returned from the Moonline, the sky over the estate looked different.
Brighter, maybe—but not lighter. The kind of brightness that comes right before a storm.
We were exhausted, salt-stained, and half-starved. Captain Isolde left us at the pier with a short nod, refusing Ethan’s offer to pay her more. “The sea’s already been paid,” she said, before steering the Morrow Wake back into the mist. I watched her go until the fog swallowed the boat whole.
The ride back to Saint Helene—a small city crouched between mountain and sea—was long and mostly silent. Aidan drove. Elena snored in the backseat with her feet on Ethan’s lap, drooling on his jacket. Echo stared out the window, quiet and thoughtful. Rhea dozed with the journal in her arms. I sat shotgun, head leaning against the glass, watching the trees blur by like ghosts trying to keep up.
Everything should’ve felt calmer now. We’d survived the crossing. We’d closed one seal. But my body still hummed, a faint echo of the power that refused to sleep. And deep inside, I could still feel it—the Harbinger. Not awake. Not gone. Just... watching.
When the estate came into view, the gates stood open. A bad sign.
Aidan slowed. “Someone’s been here.”
My hand went to my knife automatically. “Who?”
“Let’s find out.”
\---
The house was a mess. Papers scattered, doors left ajar, lights flickering even though none of us remembered leaving them on.
Elena blinked. “Okay, creepy haunted-mansion vibes are not what I needed right now.”
Ethan crouched near the desk, frowning. “It’s not looters. They didn’t take anything. They were looking for something.”
“Looking,” Echo said softly, “or leaving something.”
That got everyone’s attention.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
She pointed to the main table. There, under the flickering light, was a single object—a sealed envelope.
Aidan approached it carefully, sniffing the air like a wolf picking up an old scent. “It’s new,” he said. “Someone left this less than an hour ago.”
“Then they knew we were coming,” Rhea whispered.
He tore the envelope open.
Inside was a folded letter—and a photograph.
The letter was short.
> You’ve closed one gate. The others are waking faster than you think. If you want to stop the next, come to Saint Helene University. The wolves aren’t your only problem anymore.
P.S. Bring the girl who glows. She’s the key.
The photo was of a body. A student, maybe. Eyes open. Skin pale. And burned into their wrist—like a brand—was the same sigil from the anchor we’d just sealed.
I exhaled shakily. “They’re spreading it.”
Ethan’s face went blank. “Someone’s reproducing the seals artificially. Or replicating them in people.”
“Students,” Rhea said. “That’s what they mean. They’re testing it on students.”
Aidan ran a hand through his hair, jaw tight. “Then we’re not done with the college yet.”
Elena groaned dramatically. “Perfect. I just got the smell of cafeteria food out of my hair.”
Ethan glanced at her. “You loved that cafeteria food.”
“It was edible,” she shot back. “That’s different.”
“Barely.”
“Both of you, enough,” Aidan snapped. “We move at dawn.”
I looked at the photo again. The symbol burned into the victim’s wrist was faintly glowing in the picture, as if the camera itself had captured the residue of power.
Whatever was happening at Saint Helene University wasn’t just human experimentation. It was something much older—and smarter.
And it had been waiting for us.
\---
The next morning, we returned to campus. But this time, we weren’t students.
We were hunters.
The college looked normal enough—students moving between buildings, the faint buzz of music from the quad, laughter echoing down the halls. But underneath the surface was something wrong. You could feel it. The tension in the air, the shift in temperature when you passed certain hallways, the way the shadows didn’t match the people who cast them.
We split into pairs to blend in. Aidan and I took the central building. Elena and Ethan went to the tech labs. Echo and Rhea headed toward the archives to cross-check any new research being done in the biology wing.
The moment Aidan and I stepped inside the lecture hall, I felt it—like a pulse under the floor. Not loud, but constant. The same rhythm I’d heard at the Moonline.
Aidan caught the look on my face. “You feel it too?”
“Yeah.”
He pulled me into an empty classroom. “Talk to me. What’s it doing?”
I closed my eyes, focused on the hum. “It’s weaker than before. But it’s there. Whatever they’re building here—it’s using the same energy as the anchor.”
He cursed softly. “They’re trying to open another one.”
“Or worse,” I said. “They’re trying to create their own.”
\---
An hour later, Elena called over comms.
“Uh, boss? You might wanna see this.”
We met them in the lower levels of the science block. Ethan was standing in front of a locked door, his laptop plugged into a strange electronic lock. Elena was pacing behind him, muttering something about “bad juju.”
Ethan hit a final key and the lock clicked open. The heavy door slid back to reveal a room glowing faint blue.
Rows of glass tanks lined the walls.
Each one held a body.
Not dead. Not alive.
Frozen in stasis.
“Holy hell,” Elena whispered. “Are those—”
“Hybrids,” Echo finished, her voice hollow.
There were at least twenty of them. Male, female, different ages. Each had the same glowing mark on their wrist. Each connected to a series of wires that ran into a central console covered in symbols.
Ethan typed furiously. “This isn’t just a lab. It’s a conduit. Someone’s using their energy to feed something bigger.”
“What could possibly be bigger than this?” Elena said.
Before he could answer, a voice came from the speakers overhead.
“Well done, children. You found my garden.”
I froze.
That voice.
Smooth. Cold. Amused.
Selene.
The others looked at me.
“Roxanne,” she purred. “You’ve been busy. Closing seals, stealing anchors, pretending to be a savior. But tell me—what happens when you can’t tell the difference between the disease and the cure?”
“Show yourself,” I snapped.
“Oh, I intend to. But first—let me introduce you to your replacements.”
The tanks began to move.
The hybrids inside opened their eyes.
All at once.
And every single one of them was looking at me.
\---
“Ethan!” Aidan shouted.
“I’m trying!” he yelled, hammering on the keyboard. “She’s locked the system!”
The glass cracked. One of the tanks burst open, spraying cold mist and shards across the floor.
The hybrid inside stepped out, eyes glowing gold.
Then another.
And another.
Within seconds, the room was full of them.
Elena fired her crossbow. The bolt struck one in the shoulder—it didn’t even flinch. “Oh, come on!” she yelled. “When did we stop following supernatural logic?”
“Don’t let them surround you!” Aidan ordered, pulling me behind him as two more hybrids lunged.
Echo’s knives flashed. Rhea grabbed a metal pipe from the wall and swung with surprising strength. Ethan kicked the power panel, causing sparks to fly. The hybrids paused for a moment, confused by the surge.
“Now!” Aidan shouted. “Move!”
We bolted down the hall. Alarms blared behind us, and Selene’s voice followed like smoke.
“You can run all you like, little Harbinger,” she said. “But every step you take just leads you closer to me.”
\---
We finally burst out into the courtyard, panting. The sky had darkened—the same unnatural fog from the Moonline rolling over the campus.
Elena bent over, hands on her knees. “Okay,” she said, gasping. “So… she’s cloning hybrids now. Fantastic. Great. We’re officially in apocalypse territory.”
Ethan looked at his tablet. “It’s not just cloning. It’s replication through resonance. She’s copying your energy signature, Rox. You’ve basically become the blueprint.”
I froze. “She’s using me to make them.”
Aidan’s hand went to my shoulder, grounding me. “Then we stop her.”
Rhea lifted her head suddenly. “Wait… look!”
We turned.
Across the courtyard, through the mist, stood a woman in a long black coat.
Selene.
Her hair silver-white, eyes bright as molten gold. She didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Just stood there, smiling faintly—as if daring me to come closer.
Elena whispered, “Please tell me we’re not actually going to walk toward her.”
“Stay back,” Aidan warned.
But I couldn’t.
Because when I looked at her, I didn’t just see the enemy.
I saw myself.
The way she stood. The glow under her skin. The same hum in the air.
It wasn’t a reflection.
It was a warning.
Selene raised her hand, palm outward, and whispered something I couldn’t hear.
Then the ground cracked open.
And the world tilted again.
The last thing I heard before the light swallowed everything was her voice, soft and knowing:
> “You can’t destroy what you were born from, Roxanne. You can only become it.”
Then everything went white.