“Astral?” Damien asked. Her hand gripped his arm. In the space between worlds, time flowed differently at the expense of exposing her to a new layer of threats. Nothing had entered the realm within her metaphysical center, not since her encounter with Omega. “You said something about a Guardian?” Damien urged.

Astral frowned, putting the pieces together. “If he’s a Guardian, he’s an old one.” Guardians don’t age like Humans do, existing somewhere between life and death, their life force is their soul. A soul is eternal. The fact that he had appeared as an old man well passed his expiry date was alarming. The fact that he had fed from her without suffering the side effects of her curse added credibility to his claim. However, now she needed to kill him in addition to the demon he was holding prisoner. She couldn’t afford to have Omega’s influence seep into another source.

She considered consuming him, spirit and all, but that would make her no different than the demon’s she slew. She’d have to think about it.

She realized that she had been quiet for some time as she ruminate over what she had seen. “I think this place was designed to train Hunters, but I don’t know that for sure.”

“Had yourself a psychic vision there?” Noland sneered. He couldn’t help himself. Astral felt the same way when faced with similar claims.

Damien glared at Noland. “I get your skepticism, but you need to curb the tude.”

The sergeant uttered a “Yes, sir,” and sat back waiting for the show-and-tell to end.

Astral sympathized. If one could not see, hear, or feel the world in the way she did, she did not expect understanding. She was unwilling to explain her experiences, to open their minds and expose them to the threats that humanity had no defenses against. She accepted their reluctance to take her at her word.

“He said that there were people trapped here, souls,” she corrected, “because of him. I got the impression that he had a framework to use, but didn’t quite understand what he was doing,” Astral said.

“At least we’re not looking for a family of mages.” Damien placed the side-by-side into drive.

“My impression is that he’s supernaturally aware and competent, not someone we should underestimate. However, he didn’t seem to have an understanding of the magical principles at play. It’s like he was given a blue-print of something that might work for the purposes he had described, but didn’t understand how everything worked together. But that’s just an impression, not necessarily the truth.”

“So not a cult?” Noland threw in.

Astral shrugged. “It’s still a possibility, Sergeant. I’d be lying if I told you I knew how it all connected.”

“And what about the augmentation field,” Noland did his best to hide his doubt toward all of the heightened supernatural theory.

“More than likely now, if I’m right about the training grounds.”

“Why ward training grounds?” Damien asked. “Hunters need to fight demons to ascend. It’s a compulsion.” Which was why retiring was not an option for Hunters.

“You’d ward the resting areas,” Astral said. “Even Hunters need sleep.”

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“Okay, I get it. You’d make a safe place to sleep with the wards, but you’d augment the area to make them be better fighters. Is that right?” the sergeant offered as a mental peace offering.

“You’re getting the idea,” Astral nodded. “I wouldn’t doubt you’re too far off, either.”

“Not that hard of a concept,” he laughed. Not that hard at all, once he had something to apply it to. Noland was on the cusp of understanding that his world was deeper than he gave it credit for. His soldier trade desperately clung to the simplicity of his orders. Yet, his Hunter’s mind was putting the pieces together in his subconscious.

He assessed her with his lingering gaze, wanting to ask, but never forming the words. He knew she was a young Hunter, known knowledge among a select few within the EMI.

“And the demon?” Damien asked. It was why they were here, and the Guardian had all but confirmed its existence.

“Didn’t say where, just that he was responsible.”

Damien let out a heavy breath, drawing it out as he thought. “I think we’re going to make a large donation to the Academy in the near future…” Damien said, slowly putting the words together. “I’ll calculate the materials we need for each ring.”

“Are Guardians bad?” Noland asked. His aura dimmed. He thought he was asking a stupid question. It wasn’t.

“The Guardian itself is a good thing. He’s a Hunter who gave his life in the service of his people. His soul was so anchored to the mission that, as much as I hate this term, he’s like a mini-deity protecting the campus,” Astral replied.

“That’s a good thing, right?” The sergeant arched his brow.

“Yes,” Astral said, but her yes was loaded. There was so much to being a Guardian. Creating a safe, sacred place was among their talents, but in exchange they could never leave.

“But?” Noland ventured.

“But it’s not just a Guardian we’re dealing with,” Damien said on Astral’s behalf. “It’s all of the souls he’s accidentally trapped here, souls that could be feeding the demon. And what about fiends?” He directed his last question to Astral.

She’d deal with it, at least until Mathias came to terms with his birthright. “There’s bound to be some supernatural club where I can keep an eye on things.” The idea made her skin crawl. Want-to-be witches, aspiring-mediums, the ego driven need to feel superior than the others… all while opening doors best left shut. She had better ways to spend her time.

“If this place was intended as a training ground, then it’s possible that those souls were meant to feed the system,” Noland proposed, surprising Damien. “Souls are energy, right? And magic needs energy to do its thing, right?”

Astral nodded, impressed with his rapid connection for ideas that he didn’t believe in.

“Hear me out, cause this is a long shot and there’s no way to know, but…” Noland hesitated as his aura flamed in intuitive purples dancing with intellectual blues. “What if, originally, everything was working the way it was supposed to. I mean the ward, the augments, and all that sh- stuff. What if they were churning out Hunters? Keep in mind we went through at least two regime changes, both with a vested interest in pretending that this war was under control.” He held up his hand, stopping potential questions that were never going to come. “What if, when the first regime took over, they over-wrote some of the… what did you call it? Magical foundations? That would change the way the wards work, right?”

Astral nodded seeing where he was going with this.

“Would that cause souls to stick around?” His spirit pulsed with the uncertainty of what was being asked of him. Had he taken on more than he could handle? Astral felt their alignment shift away from each other.

“Lost souls tend to be easy enough to deal with, if you can work through the fear and the confusion. Fiends on the other hand… that’s not something Hunter’s typically have to deal with. They don’t manifest too often, and when they do it’s in extreme cases. They can be confused for demons, but they don’t feed on souls. They don’t really feed on anything, but they remain hungry nonetheless. To your question, trauma or strong emotional ties can cause a soul to linger naturally. Like our Guardian, he had a strong want to protect these grounds. But if the souls are being collected intentionally, there may be ritual practices or systems anchoring the souls in place.”

“So we could be dealing with a cult after all,” Noland said.

Damien punched the steering wheel. “It’s never fucking easy!” Something else was bothering her uncle, a complex mission often made his soul sing. This was something else entirely.