Spirit Breaker by William Massa Page A

helmets.  
    We’ll see them coming—and might be able to hit a few— but we’re going to be completely exposed , she thought, her heart pounding. The spirits they failed to stop would just pass through them and kill them instantly upon contact. What they were about to do was completely insane. Was this billionaire just an egomaniac with a death wish? And why was she following along with his madness?  
    Chan jumped up from the comm center’s flashing screens, a disturbed expression etched into his face.  
    What was it now?
    “We have another problem. The Ampton police scanners are going nuts. Sounds like the whole precinct is about to descend on this mall. All units are being rerouted.”
    Almost as if to lend weight to Chan’s words, sirens filled the night. The first cops were closing in.  
    “What’s going on?”
    Casca’s eyes glittered with dark realization. “This is what it’s all been about,” he said. “The copycat murders, going after Benson, gathering a new following. The Reaper is repeating the past.”
    Casca was echoing her earlier words. The Reaper was about to relive the confrontation that had cost him his life. But this time around, he’d have a horde of spooks at his disposal—and the outcome of the battle would be quite different.  

C HAPTER S IXTEEN

    THE ECTO-PULSE rifle hummed with power as Talon lined up one of the ghosts in its cross-hairs and squeezed the trigger.  
    Here we go!
    No laser beam or projectile shot out of the weapon’s muzzle. Instead, an invisible magnetic wave warped and distorted the spirit’s shape before obliterating it into whirling tendrils of energy.  
    There was no time to marvel at the rifle’s power. More specters were zeroing in on his position, and Talon unleashed a firestorm of ecto-sonic destruction. He kept moving as he fired, desperate to break out of the tightening band of ghosts. For each spirit he destroyed, two new ones took its place. How to escape an enemy that wasn’t bound by space? An enemy that couldn’t be killed – because it was dead already. Even though the magnetic waves tore the spirits apart, they’d be able to reconstitute themselves seconds later.  
    Talon was no stranger to overwhelming odds. There had been many a close call back in Afghanistan when it appeared the Taliban would overrun his team. Superior firepower and training counted for a lot, but being outnumbered by an endless stream of enemies would break the strongest fighting force in time. But at least the terrorists had been flesh and blood. Facing the dead was fraught with existential terror that easily invited despair.
    The air rippled, and a phantom materialized to his right. The entity tore into Talon, but unlike the attack by the Reaper the other night, it wasn’t able to pass through his body. His necro-armor lit up with sizzling energy as the apparition made contact. The ghost reared back, its howl reverberating over the helmet’s speakers. The shrieking voices of the dead cultists cried out in unison, a dirge of the damned. Talon wished he could just kill the audio and shut out the unnerving sounds. Seeing these lost souls was bad enough; having to listen to their unearthly cries was unbearable.
    He retreated, blasting away, more machine than man as he carved a path through the ghostly horde. Two spirits burst from the floor and attacked. The armor repelled them, but the impact sent him flying. He banged into the ground, his helmet cracking against the stone surface.  
    Reality frizzed out for a second as the para-spectral visualization system went offline. For one blissful moment, his view-screen turned dark—the ghosts vanishing from view, the keening cries dying down. The spirits were still present but invisible to his senses, a welcome illusion of being alone in the now eerily quiet plaza.  
    The respite from the ghostly onslaught didn’t last as the system came back online and a phalanx of fast approaching specters invaded his reality. They