Seconds to Midnight: A Maiden of Midnight Prequel

Cain- Day Twelve

The plane landed smoothly in Alaska, the freezing cold air pressing in on us when we were ushered out through one of the still-running terminals, Destiny clutching her winter cloak close, her nose and ears turning red.

Wrapping my arm over her shoulder, I collected our luggage, which included the supplies we’d picked up in Finland. The allies who’d been meant to give the two bags to us were dead, killed by radiation poisoning. We’d forgone Russia, since we’d heard it was nothing but a nuclear smudge on the map, instead heading to Finland first, and then here, to Alaska.

I was just surprised a plane was still running this far into the war, and guided us out of the airport and into Juneau. It was already dark outside, as it would be permanently this time of year, disguising some of the radioactive fallout drifting from the sky as snow. Destiny shuddered, clutching the useless ward against radiation poisoning close. I would need to replace them as soon as possible.

According to the pilot, he flew one of two planes still running across the world, and we were the only two passengers still idiotic enough to be flying around. He’d been sick the instant we landed, not leaving me with high hopes of using the same plane to get out of here and back toward Britain. By the time we returned from killing Satalari, I had a feeling we would find his body frozen in the airport.

Hurrying my cousin down the street, I ushered us into a storefront, dragging out the last two wardstones I had, activating them with the wave of my hand and my power flickering over them, tossing one to Destiny, who held it close, sighing in relief.

I did the same with mine, the both of us tossing the old ones into the snow.

“Satalari could be anywhere!” Destiny cried out, shivering as snow spun around her, tousling her hair. Pulling her close to me, I promised, “She would have left a trail. We can follow it, kill her, and go back home.”

There wasn’t much of a home left. Zeella had emerged back into Britain a week ago to update us; Plenty more nuclear bombs had been dropped in the time Des and I spent travelling across the world, enough that we were fast approaching a nuclear winter.

Seventy-six percent of the world’s population was dead, and people, human and Super-Natural alike, were trying to rush the Divider every day in increasingly mad attempts to escape. The Manor was holding them off for now, but we would need to get back there and help them. The war was coming to an end much quicker than even the Manor anticipated.

Prominent members of Super-Natural groups were being captured daily, held as hostages to try and force alliances from the lingering Super-Naturals here on Earth.

There were security cameras on the street here, and given that this was Alaska’s only still-running airport, Satalari would have had to come through here.

“Let’s check out the footage from the airport,” I said, guiding Destiny back into the building, where a heavy build-up of snow and fallout was making the roof bow under the weight of it. We entered into the building, the heating out, our breath visible as I jumped the barrier to the security guard’s room. It was empty.

Booting up the computers, I eyed it, cursing. They were broken, the screens flickering and glitching. Switching them off, I rose out of the office chair, grabbing my bag again and slinging it over my shoulder. Empty cans of food and bottles of blood clinked together, much like Destiny’s supply. We would need to restock from somewhere, but eating or drinking anything from here would be dangerous; deadly.

“Any other cameras nearby?”

“We could check the stores.”

“Satalari could be dead by now…” Des hummed nervously, eyeing the empty airport like it creeped her out, “The fallout alone would be enough to kill someone. We could go back to the Manor…” I understood why she was nervous, but we’d come all this way already. I wouldn’t let anything bad happen to her.

“It’s not like you to turn away a mission.” That made me feel even more nervous than the empty airport and streets. Des turning down a chance to win Zeella’s approval?

“I don’t want to die in this frozen over Hell, from radiation poisoning or being blasted into meaty chunks by a bomb.” The fighting was becoming increasingly rare, and there was certainly none here. Most of the citizens were dead or gone. Battles had been a problem between London and Edinburgh, but quickly died out after that- Literally.

Taking her hands in mine, I promised, “Nothing is going to happen to you. We’ll kill Satalari, and get the Hell out of here. Wait here while I check the stores for any camera footage.”

She sat down on the office chair, promising to wait for me.

I entered the store we’d sheltered under before, breaking the lock with my gun, trying not to think of my father whenever I looked at the weapon.

Lilith refused to let him come with us through the Divider, no matter how much I begged and bargained, making the last time I’d seen him shortly after Destiny entered the Dome again, when I spent a week with him to avoid Lilith’s wrath over my sleeping with Estelle.

The store previously sold winter clothes and shoes for the nearby travellers coming in from the airport, rack after rack of puffy jackets and thermal underwear awaiting buyers that would never be coming.

Shouldering my way through to the security room, ripping the door out of the wall it was frozen to, I swore when a swollen, icy body dropped from the room and onto the floor before me, firing a shot at their head on instinct. Skull and brain fragments exploded across my shoes, and groaning, I kicked the body away, wondering how long it would take Destiny to abandon her position after hearing a gunshot.

True to form, I barely sat down in the chair before she came barelling through the front door, her own weapon raised and her eyes wild in panic.

“I’m fine!” I called out to her as I started up the computer, brushing icy fragments from the keyboard. The back window was open a crack, and there were claw marks on both the windowsill, and the back of the door- The person who’d died in here had literally tried to claw their way to freedom before succumbing to death.

Destiny stepped over the body, her nose wrinkling at the smell, before peering over my shoulder at the computer.

The ice had frozen over the keys on the keyboard, each button press clicking uselessly.

“Broken.” I slammed the technology against the wall, watching it tumble over onto the desk, and Des sighed, “We’ll keep trying. You’re right- something is bound to have picked her up on a camera out here. If we don’t find anything by nightfall-” Pausing at my snicker at the obvious, since it was already dark outside, she corrected herself, “Seven tonight, then we’ll go back to the Manor. Deal?” Checking my watch, I nodded in agreement. It was three in the afternoon. That gave us plenty of time.

“Sure. Let’s get searching. Are we splitting up?”

“No way,” she shuddered, toeing the body and cracking a weak smile at me, “Can’t have you being attacked by the dead again. What a waste of a bullet.”

I pinched her arm, pushing her out the store and into the street, the two of us crossing it and entering the next store.

Right as I found their own security room, which didn’t even have a computer, much less a camera to record footage, standing at the door and nervously watching the store and street in front of her, Inferos in her hand, she asked, “Do you think anyone heard the shot?”

“I doubt there’s anyone alive to have heard it,” I mumbled absentmindedly as a chittering sound began down the street, like a giant spider, and the sound of a window smashing followed it.

“Or maybe there is someone alive, and they did hear it.” Because of course nothing today was going right.

Destiny went still, tightening her grip on Inferos even while she reached for the pistol in her belt, motioning for me to be quiet.

Gripping it, she flicked the safety off, checking how many bullets were within.

When I raised an eyebrow in silent question, she sheathed Inferos to hold up four fingers.

Four shots.

Rising slowly from the chair I was sat in, making sure not to make so much as a floorboard creak as I stepped closer to her, I whispered low in her ear, “Do you know what it is?”

She shook her head, her eyes flickering over the street beyond.

The torn-apart remnant of a door flew by the windows of the store we were waiting in, and Des raised the gun up to her face, leaning forward to peer out of the security room, trying to get a better look at whatever was out there.

Behind us, the window of the room we were in smashed inwards, Destiny whirling and firing a shot, managing to hit the creature that reached a long, bleach-white coloured limb toward me, its sharpened talons retracting sharply as it pulled away from the window, silver blood exploding across the remaining glass that hung from the pane.

Destiny’s power knocked out that glass, my cousin diving out to face whatever this thing was. I scrambled to follow her, hearing another three shots, and then a long, loud, pissed-off scream of rage from my cousin. I fell from the window, landing in a piled heap on the ground, to see the creature was holding her by her ankle, flashbacks to her hanging over that Heart-Keeper’s pit making my blood run cold.

It was easily nine or ten feet tall, six eyes blinking at Destiny as it studied her, grinning to reveal two sharp fangs not unlike a spider. The thing looked humanoid enough, with four arms, and two legs that were bent in the wrong direction.

It brought the hand that held Destiny closer to its mouth, my cousin fighting, her power slamming into the creature to no effect, prompting me to shout, “WAIT!”

The creature hesitated, looking toward me, and the gun I held in my hand, begging, “Don’t take her! Please, not her!”

Tilting its head, those six eyes flickering over the bag I carried, the clothes I wore, before choking out in English, “Trade.” It spoke English! It wanted to bargain with me!

“What?” I begged, tucking my pistol into my belt and dropping my bag onto the ground, wrenching it open, “What do you want in exchange for her?”

The creature held my cousin out of reach above its head as it scuttled forward on its two legs, its toes curling in the snow for balance, eyeing the items within. Its other hand darted into the bag, reaching around, before wrapping its talons around a tin of food, one of the only ones left.

“Trade?”

“Yes, you can have it, in exchange for my cousin being given back to me.”

The creature held the can close, tearing off the lid and dropping my cousin to devour its contents. Baked beans slid down its mouth and throat, some of them dropping into the snow, only for it to dive hungrily after them, plucking them up with a ferocity.

When it was done, Destiny cowering against my side, it turned its head back toward me.

“We trade again, one day.” We. “There’s more than one of you? What are you?” I asked, and it said, “Willa-Webbers, they call us. A failed experiment, to survive the radiation.” Hell below, humans really would try anything to survive- even turn themselves into monsters. That thing had called itself a Willa-Webber.

If they tried to take Destiny, I would kill them the next time.

“We will go to the new world, and trade with you there.”

This could be an interesting opportunity for the Manor. Broken, monstrous humans would be easy to bargain with, especially as the rest of the world shunned them for their appearance. Rising to my feet, I pulled a card for the Manor out of my pocket, saying, “My name is Cain Maladur. I am a Prince of the Demonic Manor. We would be glad to do business with your people.” It snatched the card from my hand, studying it before nodding once, a toothy grin splitting its face.

“A Prince… Very charming. The girl, less so.”

Destiny flipped the creature off, making it snarl and click in her direction, the chittering sound returning. My cousin’s hand flinched for Inferos, and I laid my fingers over hers, halting her before she could aggravate the Willa-Webber again.

Bowing deeply, I said, “Thank you. Listen, I would be willing to trade another can of food in exchange for some information, if you have what I’m looking for?”

“What is it you seek?”

“A woman called Satalari Paradoxin. She came through here not long ago. Do you know of her?”

“Satalari…” It mused to itself, “Satalari Paradoxin… What does she look like?”

“White hair. Very long white hair. She might have been scared when she came through- she was running from someone.”

“From you, I assume… White hair… Satalari Paradoxin… Did she have eyes the colour of amber?”

“Yes!” Destiny cried out, the creature chittering again angrily. Silver blood continued to drip from its gunshot wounds. Had the Willa-Webber just been human, the shots would have killed. Its stretched form must have shifted its organs, however, because a bullet that should have gone through the heart of an ordinary human did not seem to affect the Willa-Webber very much.

“She came through here. She went that way.” It lifted a long, taloned finger to a path winding up through a forested mountain. Destiny set her jaw, peering at the frozen, snow-covered path and lack of lighting, before tapping her hip.

“Said something about heading to family.” Satalari’s parents and siblings lived here in Alaska, further North.

Reaching into my bag, I tossed the creature another can of food, which it tore into once again, swallowing the contents, sparing nothing.

“Thank you for your help.”

The creature nodded, saying, “I shall go to the new world now. Goodbye, Cain Maladur and Destiny Maladur.” The Willa-Webber disappeared at that, the remnants of a portal glittering around us, and Destiny’s jaw dropped open.

“How the Hell did it know my name?!”

“Who knows? Let’s just go get Satalari. She can’t have gone far.”

“It’s been over a week. She could be halfway across bloody Alaska by now.”

“Regardless, we have information. Let’s just finish the mission.”

With a sulking look, she picked up her bag, and we began our trek up the mountainside…