your loved ones, while you are powerless to stop it.”
Adrian sprang upward, vaulting himself onto the altar. This time he reached for Phobia’s throat, as if to strangle him, but again the villain vanished the moment he touched him.
He reappeared behind Danna and grabbed her forehead with one skeletal hand. He pulled her back against his cloak, angling the scythe so that the tip of the blade pressed into the soft spot at the base of her throat.
“Nothing is quite as debilitating,” whispered Phobia, “as seeing a loved one suffer.”
Adrian called for the concussive energy beam in his arm, only too late remembering that Queen Bee had cut that tattoo from his skin. “No!”
Snarling, Danna grabbed two of Phobia’s skeletal fingers and bent them back as hard as she could. The fingers snapped off in her hand. Phobia hissed, his grip loosening enough for her to slip out from his choke hold. The moment she was clear, a volley of throwing stars sliced through Phobia’s cloak. He evaporated into the air again, as did the bones Danna had ripped from his hand. The stars struck the wall on the other side of the sanctuary—one lodging into the mortar between stones, the other two rebounding and skidding across the floor.
“Danna, Oscar, get out of here!” Nova shouted. She raced past the altar and gathered up the discarded throwing stars. “You’re not superheroes anymore, and he’s just going to keep using you against Adrian if you don’t leave!”
Oscar sent her a frazzled look, then turned to Adrian. “I’m sorry, is this a thing we’re doing again?”
“What?” said Adrian.
“Trusting her!” Oscar yelled.
Before Adrian could respond, Phobia re-formed, towering behind Oscar. He raised the scythe, and Adrian gasped, already envisioning the swing of the blade coming down on Oscar’s throat.
But then a war cry erupted through the chamber, and Danna came charging down the aisle. She launched herself into a series of forward flips that took her beneath Phobia’s outstretched arm. It happened so fast it wasn’t until Danna had lobbed herself onto a shrine, scattering unlit votive candles, that Adrian realized she had stolen the scythe.
“We may not be prodigies anymore,” Danna said, casting a glare toward Nova, “but we’re still superheroes.”
“How quaint.” Phobia jutted a pale finger toward her, and the scythe became a twisting serpent in Danna’s grip. She cried out and dropped it. The moment the creature hit the stone floor, it scattered into a million black spiders, scurrying in every direction. Narcissa and Oscar both screamed.
The spiders merged with Phobia’s cloak, and he seemed to grow taller, as if he were pulling the very shadows around him.
Adrian’s mind searched his options. He could jump high, he could lift heavy things, he could crush his gauntleted fist through concrete walls, he could … draw things. What could he draw? It all seemed useless against Phobia.
“All right, Nightmare,” said Oscar, his voice thick with disdain. “You must know his weakness, right? How do we defeat this guy?”
Phobia continued to grow, darkness surrounding him like mist. His body stretched upward until he seemed to take over the whole sanctuary. He was a giant composed of shadows and smoke, about to engulf them all.
“Well?” Oscar said.
Nova shook her head. “I don’t know.”
Her panic was evident.
How do you kill a phantom? How do you kill a nightmare?
“Helpful, as always,” muttered Oscar.
“I told you to run!” Nova shouted.
Adrian took a step back, craning his head as Phobia’s massive form expanded, a living black hole sucking the light from the room. The scythe was in his hand again, a blade hanging ominously overhead.
Blood pounded against Adrian’s temples.
How do you kill a phantom?
“You want to know fear?” said Phobia, his voice bellowing from all directions. His form engulfed them, blacking out the rest of the world. “Fear of the dark. Fear of being trapped. Fear of death. I am master of them all.” As the sanctuary succumbed to impenetrable darkness, Adrian and the others were forced together, crowding against the altar.
“I’m not afraid of you,” said Adrian, daring to step forward into the shadows. His heavy boots clanged on the stone floor.
“Actually, you are,” said Phobia, with a low, sinister laugh. “But you are even more afraid to know the truth.”
Adrian hesitated.
Phobia’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Or do you already know?”
Heat climbed up Adrian’s neck. It wasn’t true. It couldn’t be.
“I suppose I should be grateful,” Phobia rasped. “It’s a rare gift indeed to meet one’s maker.”