By the time Charlie and Madison returned to Miss Robichaux’s Academy, most of the mansion had gone dark.
The school operated with far less supervision than an ordinary boarding academy, and Cordelia rarely interfered with how the students spent their evenings unless someone disappeared or failed to answer calls for several days.
Zoe was the exception.
She had noticed that Charlie and Madison were missing throughout the afternoon.
When they finally entered the mansion together late at night, her concern immediately became mixed with jealousy.
Fortunately, Zoe was far less confrontational than Madison.
She listened while Charlie explained their search for paranormal activity, the encounter at the Hotel Monteleone, and the corpse connected to the Golden Arm.
Charlie left out Madison’s more aggressive attempts at turning their investigation into a date.
After hearing that he had nearly been killed, Zoe’s jealousy disappeared beneath genuine concern.
She checked him for injuries, reminded him to rest, and made him promise not to chase another dangerous creature without warning her first.
Charlie agreed without mentioning that he intended to continue hunting supernatural targets.
Zoe returned to the room she shared with Madison.
The actress soon stepped from the bathroom in a black camisole and matching sleep shorts, looking remarkably relaxed after everything that had happened.
Zoe watched her cross the room before looking down at the research materials on her phone.
Perhaps there were other ways to remain close to Charlie without triggering her inherited ability.
The thought strengthened her determination to study the Benson bloodline and gain control over the power that had already killed him once.
Across the hallway, Charlie finished showering and changed into clean clothes.
He opened the abandoned travel bag and removed the Golden Arm, examining its polished surface for any sign that the female corpse had left something behind.
The object appeared exactly as it had when they first found it.
Its fingers remained perfectly sculpted, and the decorative markings along the metal showed no damage despite being used to beat a corpse into the floor.
Charlie found nothing supernatural about it beyond the haunting that followed wherever it went.
For now, he returned it to the bag.
The academy was one of the safest places in New Orleans to store a cursed object.
Several young witches lived beneath the roof, Cordelia possessed considerable magical knowledge, and Fiona Goode herself had returned to the mansion.
If the Golden Arm caused another problem, Charlie would not have to face it alone.
He sat on the edge of his bed and summoned the Book of Containment.
The crimson volume appeared inside his consciousness.
After an entire day of searching and one violent battle, Charlie still had no new numbered entry to show for his efforts.
The female corpse had vanished, yet the Book had not confirmed that his ten-day containment assignment was complete.
The only clear reward was the ten Containment Points recorded on his personal page.
According to the information he had received, those points could improve his attributes or help awaken special abilities.
No ability options had appeared so far, which left him with only two practical choices.
[Physical Body: 1.1]
[Spirituality: 0.1]
Physical Body represented his overall physical condition.
Strength, endurance, speed, coordination, and resistance to injury were all included beneath that single value.
Spirituality measured supernatural power and sensitivity.
Natural-born witches such as Zoe and Madison possessed far greater Spirituality than ordinary humans.
People who occasionally saw spirits or sensed things hidden from everyone else also carried small amounts of it, even when they did not understand their abilities.
Most ordinary people had no Spirituality at all.
That was not necessarily a disadvantage.
The supernatural world found it much harder to notice those who could not perceive it.
Staring too deeply into darkness often allowed something inside the darkness to notice you in return.
That lack of supernatural resistance was one reason Zoe’s deadly gift had overwhelmed him so completely.
After Charlie’s soul entered the body, the Book of Containment awakened a small amount of Spirituality within him.
Unfortunately, a value of 0.1 was nowhere near enough to protect him from Zoe’s power.
Even for the sake of eventually having a normal relationship with his girlfriend, Charlie needed to resolve more supernatural incidents and become stronger.
He selected Spirituality and invested all ten Containment Points.
[Spirituality: 0.1 → 0.2]
Ten points increased the attribute by only 0.1.
At that rate, Charlie would need one hundred Containment Points to raise a single attribute by a full point.
He closed his eyes and waited for the transformation.
Several seconds passed.
Charlie opened them again with a disappointed expression.
He felt no stronger connection to the supernatural world.
There was no sudden awareness of invisible spirits, no magical energy flowing through his body, and no improvement he could clearly identify.
Perhaps the increase was too small to notice.
Charlie immediately regretted not choosing Physical Body instead.
Greater strength and speed would have been useful during the fight with the corpse, while improved endurance might help him survive long enough to escape future threats.
If he could run faster than the monster chasing him, spiritual insight would become much less important.
The decision could not be reversed, so Charlie dismissed the Book and lay down.
His muscles ached from swinging the Golden Arm, and the excitement of the day had finally given way to exhaustion.
Sleep claimed him within minutes.
Late that night, the academy fell silent.
Inside Fiona Goode’s bedroom, an elderly woman wearing a dress from another century struggled against the ropes securing her to a chair.
Her heavy body twisted violently while she tested every knot, but the restraints refused to loosen.
The prisoner was Madame Delphine LaLaurie.
She had once owned the infamous mansion now remembered as one of the darkest sites in New Orleans.
Behind its elegant walls, Delphine had tortured enslaved people through mutilation, starvation, and cruel experiments.
Her crimes eventually reached Marie Laveau.
After Delphine mutilated Bastien, Marie’s lover, and displayed him with the head of a bull, the Voodoo Queen took revenge.
She cursed Delphine with immortality before burying her alive inside a coffin.
Delphine remained beneath the ground for nearly two centuries.
During Fiona’s field trip earlier that day, Nan had heard the buried woman’s thoughts near the LaLaurie property.
Fiona’s obsession with eternal youth immediately made an immortal prisoner valuable, so she secretly dug Delphine from the earth and brought her back to the academy.
Fiona intended to question her the following morning.
After spending almost two hundred years trapped inside darkness, Delphine had no intention of accepting another prison.
She fought the ropes throughout the night and created enough noise to wake Fiona.
The Supreme sat up with an irritated expression.
“For God’s sake, can you remain quiet for five minutes?”
She crossed the room and looked down at Delphine.
“Losing sleep is terrible for a woman’s skin, and unlike you, I still care what mine looks like.”
Fiona raised one hand, preparing to silence the prisoner with magic.
Before she completed the spell, her expression changed.
A cold supernatural presence moved through the mansion.
Fiona turned toward the bedroom door.
“Why is there an angry spirit inside my house?”
A violent crash tore Charlie from his sleep.
His eyes opened as freezing wind poured through the bedroom.
The window had opened on its own, and the door slammed repeatedly against the wall while the temperature dropped fast enough for his breath to become visible. The source of this chapter is g.com.
Charlie recognized the signs immediately.
“You have got to be kidding me.”
He threw aside the blanket and reached for the travel bag.
A familiar whisper spread through the room.
“Give me… my Golden Arm…”
The one-armed female corpse stepped from the darkness.
Rotten flesh hung from her bones while insects moved through the wounds covering her body.
Her red eyes remained fixed on the bag beside Charlie’s bed.
Charlie stared at her in disbelief.
“You came back?”
He had watched the corpse dissolve inside the Hotel Monteleone.
The ten Containment Points suggested that he had accomplished something, but her return proved that he had not truly destroyed or contained her.
The Book of Containment had remained silent because the threat was never resolved.
Charlie pulled the Golden Arm from the bag and gripped it with both hands.
He had survived the previous encounter by striking the corpse with the object she desired, so he immediately attempted the same method.
“Fine.
You want it back?”
He swung the Golden Arm toward her.
The corpse moved faster than he remembered.
Her remaining hand struck Charlie across the chest before his attack connected.
The impact lifted him from the floor and threw him backward as though he had been hit by a speeding car.
Charlie crashed onto the hardwood floor.
Pain exploded across his back, but he had no time to recover.
The corpse launched herself toward him with unnatural speed and landed on top of his body.
Charlie raised the Golden Arm horizontally.
The metal limb stopped her rotten mouth and chest from crushing down against him.
Her decaying face hovered only inches above his own while maggots crawled between her broken teeth.
“My Golden Arm…”
Her remaining hand wrapped around the golden wrist.
“Thief… give it back…”
Charlie gagged at the smell but refused to release his grip.
The Golden Arm was the only object that had affected her during their previous fight, and surrendering it would leave him defenseless.
He pushed upward with both hands.
The corpse was much stronger.
Despite Charlie’s resistance, the Golden Arm moved steadily toward her.
His injured back scraped against the floor while his arms began trembling under the strain.
He had forgotten one important detail from the hotel fight.
Madison had used her telekinesis to pin the corpse in place.
Without her help, Charlie could not even land a proper blow.
The Golden Arm slipped several inches closer to the creature’s grasp.
Panic spread through him as his strength began to fail.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway.
Before Charlie could call for help, an invisible shock wave tore through the bedroom.