by T. C. Edge
The Phantom Chronicles, Books 1-4
The Last Phantom, Phantom Hunter, Phantom Legacy, Phantom Unleashed
T. C. Edge
This book is a work of fiction. Any names, places, events, and incidents that occur are entirely a result of the author's imagination and any resemblance to real people, events, and places is entirely coincidental.
Copyright 2019 T. C. Edge
All right reserved.
First edition: February 2019
Cover Design by Laercio Messias
No part of this book may be scanned, reproduced, or distributed in any printed or electronic form.
BY THE AUTHOR:
THE ENHANCED SERIES (MAIN SERIES):
The Enhanced (Book One)
Hybrid (Book Two)
Nameless (Book Three)
Assassin (Book Four)
Captive (Book Five)
Renegade (Book Six)
Invader (Book Seven)
Avenger (Book Eight)
Defender (Book Nine)
Nemesis (Book Ten)
Box Sets:
Book 1-4
Book 5-7
Books 8-10
Sequel (to main Enhanced series, and Warrior Race series):
The Enhanced: Awakening
The Enhanced: Conquest
THE WARRIOR RACE SERIES (ENHANCED UNIVERSE):
The Warrior Race (Book One)
The Red Warrior (Book Two)
Angel of War (Book Three)
CHILDREN OF THE PRIME:
The Chosen (Book One)
Trial of the Chosen (Book 2)
Blood of the Chosen (Book 3)
March of the Chosen (Book 4)
War of the Chosen (Book 5)
OTHER BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR:
THE WATCHERS SERIES:
The Watchers Trilogy:
The Watchers of Eden (Book One)
City of Stone (Book Two)
War at the Wall (Book Three)
The Watchers Trilogy Box Set
The Seekers Trilogy
The Watcher Wars (Book One)
The Seekers of Knight (Book Two)
The Endless Knight
The Seekers Trilogy Box Set
THE PHANTOM CHRONICLES:
The Last Phantom (Book 1)
Phantom Hunter (Book 2)
Phantom Legacy (Book 3)
Phantom Unleashed (Book 4)
Contents
BOOK ONE - THE LAST PHANTOM
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
BOOK TWO - PHANTOM HUNTER
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
BOOK THREE - PHANTOM LEGACY
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
BOOK FOUR - PHANTOM UNLEASHED
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Chapter 96
Chapter 97
Chapter 98
Chapter 99
Chapter 100
Chapter 101
Chapter 102
Chapter 103
Chapter 104
Chapter 105
Chapter 106
Chapter 107
Chapter 108
Chapter 109
Chapter 110
Chapter 111
Chapter 112
Chapter 113
Chapter 114
Chapter 115
Chapter 116
Chapter 117
Chapter 118
Chapter 119
Chapter 120
Chapter 121
What’s Next?
Also by T. C. Edge
BOOK ONE - THE LAST PHANTOM
1
The sight of a dead body wasn't an unusual one for a girl like Chloe Phantom.
She'd seen them before, in varying states of decay and dismemberment, young and old alike. Frankly, it had been hard to avoid them these last few years.
She'd even been the creator of a fair few herself.
Here in 'the pit', the unofficial name for Sub-Tower 12, one of the deepest earthscrapers in the industrial outskirts of LA, however, seeing a fresh cadaver wasn't quite as common as it had been over the preceding years. Those years had been spent running through a variety of war-torn landscapes and battered cities, making the sight of the dead a rather-too-common one for her eyes.
Now, though, Chloe had gone several months ‘clean’, like an alcoholic clinging to the wagon. She’d neither seen nor smelled a rotting body. Until today.
The sight of this particular corpse, clogging up the corridor, had seen her fall right off that wagon and go tumbling to the dirt. All with a host of horrible memories for company from the preceding few years.
By what she could see through the little, murmuring crowd, all ruggedly dressed in their working gear and gathering together down the stifling, steamy corridor on sub-level 75, it was an elderly woman who'd bitten the dust.
Her body was loosely wrapped into a bundle of filthy rags, surrounded by a collection of odd metal trinkets and cups and other bits of junk. Chloe recognised the woman immediately. She was the resident crackpot, or one of them at least, her insanity well known around these parts, mostly for her tendency to converse with herself, the corrugated iron walls, the pipes that lined the ceiling, and even the many little trinkets she seemed to hold so dear.
Come to think of it, the only people she didn’t speak with were, in fact, people. Chloe had seen he
r on many occasions, wandering these claustrophobic sub-levels, and hadn’t once known her to speak with anyone. Clearly her collection of junk was company enough.
Poor old girl must have had a hard life.
She lived here in the pit, thought Chloe sarcastically. Of course she damn well did…
Chloe inched forwards, peeking through the gathering of bodies. A man was kneeling down by the old woman’s side, seemingly confirming her departure. He felt her neck for a pulse, began nodding in a perfunctory, ‘ah well’ sort of manner, and all the while kept his eyes on the old woman’s collection of rubbish to see if there was anything of value.
That was probably the idea all along. The checking of a pulse hardly seemed necessary, after all. The half-open, empty eyes, and the tip of a tongue, dangling from her lips, was a dead giveaway.
Or maybe that’s just me…
Still, Chloe’s curiosity had her asking what had happened. That was rare for her. Speaking, that is. She’d been little more than a mute since she arrived in LA several months ago, and found refuge down here in this hellhole that was, conversely, a sanctuary for her. Speaking was only performed via necessity. Chloe’s natural inclination to ‘trust no-one’, as her father once warned her so vehemently, was a habit that had stuck fast like a limpet, refusing to let go.
Her dad had died the following week. That was probably why…
Still, she’d been here long enough now to get comfortable. Or, at least, her version of it.
“So, what happened?" she asked, spying the body and posing the question to the grouping of people ahead. “How did she kick it?”
She directed the query at no one in particular, her tone of delivery hardly respectful. It was a clear sign that she’d become far too used to witnessing the dead.
Several of the dreary, smoky-faced workers around her looked to her and shrugged half-heartedly, none seeming to care any more than she did.
Only one, a man of advanced years with a mouth almost empty of teeth, deigned to answer, doing so with a whistle through the two that remained.
"Fumes got her," he chimed, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. “Old Harriet was on the wane these last months. Bound to happen sooner or later.”
He started coughing just as he completed the explanation, suggesting he was close to following suit. Which, unfortunately, he might well be. The old were particularly under threat from the nasty industrial smog that filled the lower levels, pumped from the subterranean factories and plants that littered the deep. Mostly, this colossal earthscraper was designed for industry, not for residency, though tended to be both for those who worked here.
And Chloe was one of them.
“Harriet,” repeated Chloe sombrely, looking back at the sad old figure on the ground with a pinch of pity. She hadn’t heard the name before. It made her less a bundle of flesh and rags, and more a person. “You knew her?”
The old man took Harriet in for a brief moment with a mournful gaze.
“Used to, before she lost it up there,” he said, tapping his forehead. “These walls will do that to a person. It’s the lack of natural light. People weren’t designed to live like rats in a sewer.”
His eyes turned quizzical as he worked them back to Chloe, inspecting the pale, youthful complexion hidden beneath the soot and grime, and the keen, bright azure eyes that truly didn’t belong down here
“You’re new here,” he said, coughing again as he covered his mouth with a filthy sleeve. It wasn’t a question, but a statement. As if he knew everyone here.
“Newish,” murmured Chloe, realising she’d crossed a line and preparing to move off. She didn’t enjoy being inspected too closely. Her natural defensive reaction was kicking in.
She began pushing through the collection of bodies, keen to escape the man’s gaze.
As she went, however, his whistling old voice came once more, just as she was extricating herself from the throng.
“You should seek work up top,” he called out, lifting his eyes to the low, pipe-lined ceiling. “You’re much too young to be down here, girl. This ain’t no place for a thing like you.”
Chloe didn’t answer. The man had no idea just who she was.
And what she was capable of.
She hurried straight down the clanking corridor, feet banging away on the treaded metal floor. Around the body, the crowd were already losing interest, snatching up the old woman’s trinkets for their own and slinking off into the fog.
Chloe’s mind was speeding elsewhere.
Too young, she thought. That’s the entire point.
Who’s going to come looking for me here?
The lift doors wrenched themselves open with an unpleasant squeal, and Chloe stepped out into the relative freshness of sub-level 39.
If the bottom half of the pit was designed for industry, the top was where the workers lived. Quite what old Harriet had so loved about the depths was beyond Chloe, though she wasn’t about to spend much time wasting her thoughts trying to unravel the mental processes of a madwoman.
Most likely, she simply found that little space in the corridor on sub-level 75 and took it as her own. Not everyone here was fortunate enough to have their own living quarters. Those that didn’t work, or couldn’t find an available ‘box’, as the tiny apartments here were aptly called, mostly just parked themselves wherever they could, living on scraps from the trash and the kindness of strangers, both of which were in short supply.
This wasn’t a place for wastefulness, nor was it particularly neighbourly. It was a place for lost souls, a tomb of little joy. Living here in Sub-Tower 12 was a simple admittance of failure in life. It was existence at its lowest form, a state that so much of the population now had to accept.
Gone were the good days. They’d left before Chloe was born…
Sub-level 39 was a grim place, though less so than the working levels below. Nothing but a jungle of tiny box apartments that littered the many corridors stretching away from the central gallery.
The middle of the entire earthscraper was hollow, delving deep into the crust of the earth hundreds of metres down. Each of the hundred levels had a gallery that surrounded the core, giving a view up and down through the belly of the beast. It was quite the sight on days when you could actually see - mostly, visibility was poor, owing to the steam that constantly rose from the lower levels.
Sometimes, just to avoid the temperamental elevators, Chloe would take the scenic route when moving between the floors. Each had a staircase leading to the level above and below, providing a route, should you need it, from the lowest level right up to the surface without ever having to step into an elevator. If the power failed - and that was often, particularly at night when certain systems were manually shut down - then the only way out of this subterranean tower block would be right up through the core.
Chloe knew, of course, that not all earthscrapers were like this one. Here in the southern outskirts of LA, they were mostly used for industry. Others, however, were intended for pleasant, and even luxury, living. Safe havens beneath the earth and beyond the threat of warfare.
That was the primary reason for their inception. Skyscrapers, though still common, were always considered more dangerous living abodes than the earthscrapers that were beginning to replace them. The Second American civil war had seen so many of the giant towers toppled that people often sought out more sheltered living. It was a slow shift, and still in its early days, but Chloe knew that the longer this new, third conflict went on, the more appealing subterranean living would become.
But not here, in Sub-Tower 12. Few wished to be here, and most were forced here by a need to find work. The factories in the deep created many things, giving employment to thousands, but rewarded them with nothing but money for rent and a minimal allowance of food. In the end, the people here were living day to day, hand to mouth, with few pleasures beyond the vices that had taken to infesting the place.