NABC Book 18-5.1: Busy Nights
Book 18-5.1: Busy Nights
Elaine Nimdahl glanced at the rearview mirror, at their prospective sponsee, then back at the road. While she had little doubt that she wouldn’t be harmed by a crash, the same could not be said for the young man they rescued. Well, they had been looking for him, too, and she was happy to have found him in the nick of time. Prospective magi often died before they could come into their own, if they weren’t picked up by another magi, or a coven, or, in the Sagebright Archipelago, invited to join an Academy. Fledgling magi were favoured meals, sacrifices, victims, and whatever else sick tendencies the children of the Void needed them for. Here in Rakkisgrad, the infestation of night kindred was one of the worst in the seven nations. And they weren’t the sole predators living amongst humanity either. The country to the north, Nurevia, was split in half. The area closest to Westenland, where Rakkisgrad was the capital, was a ruin. Walking corpses prowled the land, spreading their vile spores. Any who died while infected rose again. To spread the infection, then breed more of their virulent spores, and to feed.
Irisvaile needed all the help it could get to survive, and Sagebright needed all the magi it could train, even if it meant recruiting from the other nations. Even if it meant abducting children with potential.
Thankfully, her mission didn’t need her to go that far.
The young man, barely more than a boy, really, had an anxious expression. No doubt because of how close to disaster he came, but from the way that he kept looking back, and how his tension didn’t seem to decrease, even though she and Nemeo, her assistant and junior magi, had calming spells active on their persons, he wasn’t calming down.
Nemeo checked and cleared his rifle, a Keisinger 52, which was an old but extremely reliable model that had been around for decades. By that measure, the K-52 was the untraceable weapon to use anonymously, since every police special ops team, every gangster with ambition, and even the night kindred used the things. It was cheap and easy to find, especially in Rakkisgrad. By the time he finished and was able to pay attention to everything else in the car, a couple of minutes had passed, and Elaine was rather relieved that they weren’t being followed.
“You alright there, Gboy616?” Elaine asked in a light tone.
The young man flushed at her mention of his username, and he muttered, “It’s Lucian. You’re…from the guild, Bellemer? In Masquerade?"
“Eyup!”
“Wha…what’s this about…”
“You didn’t appreciate being saved?”
“No! I, I mean, yeah, I am, but who are they?”
“Night kindred’s men, I think,” Nemeo said bluntly.
“Huh?”
“Those who imbibe human blood in order to prolong their unaging mockery of life,” Elaine answered.
“But…aren’t they just stories? Myths? Part of the game?” Gboy616 stuttered.
“Oh, they’re very real, though I wonder how they caught on to you so quickly.”
“What…do you mean? Why are they after me?”
“We identified your potential when you correctly answered several puzzles in the game,” Elaine chuckled, “then we tracked and monitored you.”
She could see the young man shudder, but it wasn’t as if Rakkisgrad’s secret police weren’t doing the same to other potentials.
“So, what else has got you hot and bothered?”
“Eh, whaa? I mean, it’s my sister.”
Elaine hummed. “And?”
“I found out today that she’s wanted for murder.”
Elaine scrunched her eyebrows and asked, “How did you find out?”
“Morning news.”
“Ah. Any particulars on who she killed?”
“Nothing, just the wanted bit.”
“Ah, she might have run afoul of the night kindred and managed to fight them off.”
“Oh, looks like there’s more than one potential in the family, eh?” Nemeo interjected.
“Have you heard from her?” Elaine continued.
“No, I’ve been trying to find her.”
“I see, well…” Elaine pursed her lips. “I think we can help you look for her.”
“Really?”
“Of course. Once we get to the safe house, we’ll see what we can do.”
“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” Gboy616 sighed.
“Eh, that’s our job. What’s your name, anyway? I don’t think you want us to keep calling you Gboy616.”
“Oh, it’s Lucian. Roth.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Elaine Nimdahl, and this is my apprentice, Nemeo Arganni.”
“Well met,” Nemeo rumbled.
Elaine tuned the two boys out as she focused on driving. Another potential magi? Interesting times.
____________
Emilia Krese’s eyes snapped open, jolting her from deep slumber to full wakefulness within a fraction of a second. She blinked, then sat up, throwing the blanket off her supine body. Her ears noted the usual sounds in her bedroom, and she focused on the regular rhythms of the clock’s second hand ticking, of the air conditioning unit rumbling, and of the steady heartbeat of her guards standing outside her door.
She checked her reserves and found she had three measures of blood left. In her slumber, the Void had taken twice its normal toll, but the subtle aches of the previous evening had disappeared. It was concerning since she didn’t actually notice her aches until she noted their absence.
She performed several stretches that took her about ten minutes to complete, if only to ascertain that her vessel was clean. Afterwards, she performed her ablutions, then headed to the stockroom to see about getting breakfast…
…the mundane kind, not the one that was needed to feed the Void. Blood comes later.
In the midst of her meal, her butler approached her with a telephone in hand. She answered it, listened to the mercenary, then handed out another set of instructions.
Her meal was further interrupted by several more calls, but the life of the kindred was not one spent in idleness…not if one wanted to become more than a stooge.
It was more than an hour later when she received a call that needed more than a set of instructions said over the line.
She signalled her butler, and another ten minutes later, she was dressed for business. Whether that was for another meeting or in the field was yet to be seen.
__________
Yuriko sauntered down the hallway until she reached the stairwell, then, instead of heading downstairs, went up towards the roof deck instead. The access door was wedged open, and most of the space was taken up with laundry lines. It being the evening, most of the tenants had already retrieved their clothes, but there were a couple of lines with linen sheets and some jeans.
The laundry area was separated from the rest of the roof by a chain link fence, and the area next to it was filled with planters. The fire escape ladders were on the side beyond the greenery. She peeked over the retaining wall and clicked her tongue in annoyance. There were a couple of police officers stationed at the entrance of the alley, and one was looking up. They caught sight of her, and they called it in through their portable radio transceivers. She didn’t think they recognised her from down there, but she supposed someone on the rooftop was suspicious. She wondered how they were able to see through the gloom, however, but then again, just a flitting shadow would have attracted attention. Either way, she was debating whether to wait for them so that she could divest them of their standard arms or if she should just go. How many Weyrmarks did she have left anyway? Four hundred and eight.
Tsk.
But was she ready to live a life of crime? Irisvaile was like Astoria, in a sense. Moving between countries wasn’t easy if she didn’t have a legal identity, unless she sought to smuggle herself through each border. Then again, she was only wanted in Rakkisgrad so far, so perhaps just moving out of the city would do.
…after she made sure Amalia’s family members were relatively safe and cared for. Ah, if she wanted to check Memory Lane without being bothered, then she should cross the rooftops instead of waiting to steal, er, loot guns from the authorities. A part of her twinged at the waste. Amalia must have been quite the little miser if her habit of keeping track of every Weyrmark and pence had transferred over. At the very least, she wasn’t obsessed with keeping track of every pence and could work with whole Weyrmarks instead.
Although she still needed funds anyway. But how far would looted firearms actually bring her? How much was the passage across the Inner Sea? The textbooks didn’t say, and she missed the way she could look up things in the Network in Astoria.
It was probably better to jump across the alley rather than the street. She wouldn’t be as exposed that way, although the building across the street was about level with Willowwood, as opposed to the other, which was about three storeys taller. She pulled back by five paces, then ran to build up momentum. Her leap easily crossed the five-pace width of the alley, but she couldn’t quite jump high enough to make the difference in height trivial. Instead, she caught herself against the concrete wall, dug her fingers into the cracks, then scaled up the side. Her landing caused a dull thud that she hoped would be concealed by the noise of the sirens, but through sheer coincidence, those sirens just cut off. The relative quiet made her movement seem louder than it should have been. Still, the police officers were probably unaugmented mortals. Unfortunately, once she reached the top and pulled herself over, she glanced down the alley only to find several officers pointing up.
“Freeze!” someone yelled, but Yuriko ignored them.
Her Unyielding Guardian Sword seals pulsed, and her right index finger moved almost without conscious thought.
A spike of pain blossomed on her fingertip, mostly because her skin wasn’t completely protected by her Anima. But her fingertip intercepted the bullet, and she had deflected it back down. Not to the original shooter, as a full reflection needed conscious thought and decisiveness, but the impact slammed into the asphalt a couple of inches from an officer’s boot. The fragments must have hurt because that one jumped and yelped. She didn’t know if the shrapnel drew blood since her perception aura was retracted. Still, a moment later, a hail of bullets swished through the space she previously occupied, but she was already over the edge and out of sight.
The wound on her fingertip was too shallow to draw blood, and she had the feeling that she shouldn’t leave such traces behind. The gash healed over as she channelled Recovery, but she was noticeably hungry, since she hadn’t had her dinner yet.
She quickly oriented herself to the direction where her mum’s drug parlour was, but Amalia had never had to do that while roof hopping. She only remembered the directions from the street level, but if she translated it correctly, it was that way for five hundred paces.
. Yuriko grumbled.
She’d have to cross the street at one point, but she could do it two blocks away. She continued her sprint and leapt over a couple of buildings. Since she was on comparatively higher ground, the next few crossings were easy, and soon enough, she was just a block away from Memory Lane. It was on a smaller street that branched off an avenue and had significant foot traffic. Most of the buildings there were also commercial establishments, and there was a spate of peaked roofs that were difficult to roof hop across, so she had to descend back to the street level. She could still hear the sirens, though, but they didn’t sound like they were approaching her position.
Soon enough, she was in front of Memory Lane, which was a shop on the second level of a strip mall. With a heavy sigh, Yuriko pulled her hoodie over her head, stuffed her hands into her pockets, and strolled inside.