Rain pounded against a tall window wall, each transient drop reflecting a different neon sign hanging from the opposite side of the street. The room being heavily insulated, the storm outside could not eke a single tap of noise through the walls or the glass, leaving silence within. The pervasive blue hue of the city streets made it only a few feet into the room before being swallowed by dim shadows.
A young woman half-rested on an old, hole-ridden couch. Bits of the pillows sprung out of torn leather beside stains that had fully melded with the fabric. Her body was slumped down and her legs hung off the side, long thigh-high boots planted upon a similarly dusty rug. Her hands entwined over her exposed midriff, thumbs repeatedly tapping to a beat. She was wearing earbuds, listening to a deafening volume of music with a flat, thoughtless look to her pale face. The music was loud enough that it could be weakly heard inches from her head. Her fur-trimmed hood was pulled up, wrapped around the sides of her face and hanging over her forehead.
The room was a studio, connecting its meager living room, bedroom and kitchen all to the same open space. The couch she rested upon had its back facing the wall where her bed was up against, and before her was a small, squat table capable of fitting four plates but little else. It doubled as her coffee and dining table.
To her left, pressed up against the wall was a kitchen of modest features. A sink, a fridge, and a stove. There was no oven. Decorations here were sparse. The woman maintained a single potted plant that sat in a corner by the window wall, alive and well compared to the state of her furnishings. Framed photographs sat quietly upon a cupboard by the door.
The woman suddenly opened her eyes. Blood red irises stared up at the darkened ceiling where a three-bladed fan spun lazily and, thankfully, silently. Pulling the buds from her ears, she righted herself up, sitting at the edge of the couch, and looked over to the rain-splashed window. The hood fell back without effort, revealing a short, messy cut of black hair.
As she stood, her jacket fell loosely down to her forearms, hanging on by mere friction, and the gentle curve of her fingers, preventing the sleeves from slipping past. Her exposed back was tattooed with a dark blue ink depicting the grim visage of a skeletal horned creature, hollow sockets standing vigilant against that which she couldn’t see.
The inside of the jacket was a starkly contrasting red to the black and white color on the outside, but was largely obscured save for where her hood hung. Fishing into the jacket pockets, she pulled out a phone, and began to dial as she moved towards the window.
Throwing the memorized digits into the touchpad, she brought it to an ear, and leaned the side of her head against the windowpane, eyes falling down to the street, forty feet below. A brief sound of shuffling came through the other end of the call before a voice opened up.
“Annabelle,” the voice responded flatly.
“You sensed it, yea?” the black-haird woman replied. She lifted a hand above, and tapped on the glass absently.
“I’m at the Omer right now. Sensed it to the east.”
“I’m at home. You’re northeast of me. I sensed it to the north,” Annabelle said.
“Then it’s confirmed.”
“I suppose it is then.”
“Meet at the,” there was a pause, and the sound of others’ voices mumbling through the line, “...Meet at the sixty-five one-o’-two station. Paz and I will be there.”
“No Tina?” Annabelle asked, moving away from the window towards her bed. She opted to vault over to the back of her couch rather than move four feet further and walk around it.
“She hasn’t responded.”
“Which means she’s-”
“Partying, yes,” came the quick reply. Annabelle clicked her tongue and knelt at the foot of her bed.
“Alright. I’ll be there soon,” Annabelle said. The other party offered no goodbyes, and they both simultaneously hung up from the phone. Deftly sliding the device into a pocket of her jacket, she leaned forward, inevitably pressing a cheek against the foot of her bedframe. Reaching deep beneath, she pulled with a few quick tugs, sliding an object nearly three quarters of her height in length from underneath the bed. It was shrouded in a black canvas material, wider at one end, and gave a dull thud each time she let it fall a short distance onto the floor.
Annabelle threw her arms up, lifting her jacket back up onto her shoulders, and zipped it together at the front. Standing up, she snatched a hand around the strap bound at both ends of the object, and threw it over a shoulder to let it hang at her back.
Without a passing glance over the rest of her studio for anything else she might be missing, Annabelle fled from the room, snatching keys from the cupboard by the door. Locking it behind her, she briskly jogged through the concrete complex, striding down the four flights of dimly-lit stairs for the street.
Outside on the street it was still dumping an ocean from above. Hunching, she pulled the hood over her head. A single layer within the clothing served as a waterproof layer, hidden away but no less capable of keeping her dry. Given the propensity for rain year-round in Shanhu, fashion often featured a waterproof layer whilst maintaining an outer appearance that was different in material. It made it possible to wear one’s own personal expression without having to obscure it in treated nylon all day.
Annabelle gripped a tight hand around the object’s strap and ran off into the clouded night. Her boots splashed over numerous puddles and rivers of water which were only just too much for the drains they poured into. Endless walls of neon lights bounced from the wet surface of her attire. The night was deep, and in her neck of the woods, things got quiet at that time. It was mostly empty of people, leaving Annabelle ample room to run. The occasional night owl or homeless person cast her a brief look as she passed them by, her pace never faltering.
Station 65-102, the intersection of gridlines 65 and 102, was a few miles away. She’d have to run the whole length if she didn’t want to leave the others waiting -they had a car to get there quicker, after all. Taking a deep breath, Annabelle tightened her diaphragm and narrowed her eyes. A feeling of heat singed her blood, and in the span of a few seconds, her pace quickened, and her lungs warmed. The strain of windburn faded, and she forced herself into a second wind with renewed vigor.
Her sprint was at a peak human speed by then, each long step carrying her past homes, past parked cars, through the waterlogged streets. Turning corners from memory, Annabelle made it to the station at a breakneck speed, and when finally the raised platform came into view, the energy in her veins faded, and with it came a sudden exhaustion that she had been dismissing until then.
Annabelle caught her breath as she slowed into a walk. An escalator carried her up twenty feet to the elevated monorail station. A large electronic sign stuck out from the awning: 65-102. Her belly stretched for air as she bent over to regain her breath, mouth agape with each pleading gasp for air. It would take some minutes to recover, but thankfully the train ride would give her that time. As the escalator plateaued, two familiar faces came into view.
Paz was a woman of comparable age to Annabelle, a few years older, who wore a blonde half-shave that fell over and hung down to her shoulders. She had a very similar aptitude for black attire, which was ultimately the norm for their circle. Paz was considerably taller, standing at a formidable six feet and three inches, towering over Annabelle’s average five feet and five inches. The other individual present only served to make her seem even more runt-like.
The man she had spoken on the phone with, Augur, was about the same height as Paz, but built even more thoroughly into the same space. Being a Transplant, he had the opportunity to create his new mechanical body as intimidating as he wished. Devoid of the fear of common colds or hypothermia, he cared little for dressing appropriately, and sported a simple collared, short-sleeve shirt of black, of course. Long jeans clung to his legs, and their being wet only made the already chiseled form of his physique more apparent.
“Get a damn car,” Paz teased as Annabelle stepped off of the escalator. Annabelle cleared her throat, and nodded with a weak smile.
“Or you could’ve just picked me up,” Annabelle retorted.
“Would have been slower, apparently,” Augur said with a laugh. Though his face was featureless -a domed obsidian screen hiding an array of sensory devices behind- Annabelle always felt as though the man could never be anything but congenial. His posture and tone painted a man of few triggers.
Wordlessly, they stepped closer to the platform and waited for their ride. There was no one else on the platform, leaving them to the persistent buzzing of the cityscape. Annabelle broke the silence after catching her breath more fully.
“Did you get any details?” she asked of Augur.
“Two,” Augur responded plainly. His fingers tapped nervously over crossed arms. Annabelle paused, seeming confused for a moment.
“Two?”
“Two manifestations.”
“That’s… are you sure?”
“We’ve talked about it before,” Paz spoke up with mild irritation, “Now it’s come to pass.”
Annabelle shifted the long object on her back, tugging at the strap. Her lips curled into a frown, and her red eyes darted to and fro as thoughts danced in her head.
“And we’re not bringing Tina for this? Or Mom? Or Ace?” she paused again, looking to Augur, “...Christine? Cecilia? Bandit? J.D.? It’s just us?”
“We couldn’t rally them fast enough. I’m not going to let this event slip past us. At the very least we need to know who,” Augur explained.
“I ain’t passing up the chance to sock their shit, though,” Paz scoffed.
“Me neither,” Augur hummed. Annabelle cast a glance up at the electronic sign showing the monorail schedule. Two minutes until the next cars.
“This kind of thing… Are we sure we don’t want to take them alive? Surely they must have somehow figured it out. How to summon,” Annabelle said.
“With that kind of expertise, can we really be safe ferrying them around?” Paz hummed.
“That’s true.” They were quiet for a while before the train cars brought a gust of wind alongside their length, and came to a stop. Doors hissed open, welcoming the three into an empty train car. They stayed standing, hooking hands over the chipped silver ceiling bars, and were off northwards seconds later.
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“You’ve still got a trace on their position, Augur?” Annabelle asked. The metal man nodded.
“They take priority then. If this is a summoning, we can’t be sure how bad these monsters are. For all we know this person just pulled doom into Shanhu,” she continued.
“If they’re doom, then we’re not sticking around,” Paz said.
“Yes, but there’s only one way to figure that out in the first place,” Annabelle said. Paz stuck her hands into a duffel bag she had slung over her shoulders and pulled out a pair of solid metal-studded knuckles. They fit perfectly over her hands -custom made. Paz didn’t just sock shit, though. Paz socked them magically. She was a fist-fighter, but carried behind those hands a true motherlode of explosive force. Paz always had a dangerous smile whenever she put them on, Annabelle thought.
Augur dictated when their next stop was. His sense for the presence of Nightmares was second only to Gabriel, and was what allowed them to seek out the vile creatures more easily. Within a certain range, the detection of magic was feasible for most any Cleaner, and then it was just a matter of time before they cornered the thing.
They stopped at station 59-102, stepping off the train and back down a carbon-copy escalator to street-level. Augur immediately pointed to the west, and they followed the spiritual guide in silence. Paz’s fists clenched and unclenched in anticipation. Annabelle twisted her finger in circles at her side, preparing something.
Casting a spell was like figuring out how to navigate a maze, where the walls could be manipulated if you knew the rules behind what had placed them there in the first place. It took years to get past the barriers created by the Arcane Judge the first time, and from then on it became a game of speeding up the route. The more complex the spell, the longer it took to find that path, and the harder it was to memorize it the next time.
Descending into a subterranean path down sharp steps, their blue world turned to a grim yellowish hue. By then, Annabelle could sense the lingering magic in the air, even through what was undoubtedly many layers of concrete wall. Such a spell needed extreme privacy, she imagined. The sound of the rainstorm outside slowly faded, becoming first a static rumble, and then to nothing.
The underground tunnels curved and split, each time requiring pause from the trio to gain their bearings, and choose a new direction. Deeper they traveled until low-cost homes and shuttered businesses became service tunnels and nameless, forgotten urban paths. Civilization ended here. There was only secrecy left.
Annabelle lifted her free hand outwards, fingers splayed wide. Her ears rang, and her blood once more turned to fire. A droplet of red formed upon her palm, and then was joined by another, then another…
Beads of blood coalesced before her hand as she walked, quickly forming into a ball of crimson about the size of a basketball. As it stopped growing, it fell to the cold concrete floor with a splat, but quickly pulled itself together into a rotund shape. The ball of blood grew four stubby limbs, and without missing a beat, quickly bounded up to Annabelle’s side.
Carpenter, her familiar, kept pace with its summoner. Its blobby, liquid body swayed with each step. Annabelle pulled the object on her back around, and pulled the zipper concealing it down enough to reach inside the long cover. Steel scraped across the canvas interior, and soon she had pulled a weapon from its depths -a weapon that seemed as if it belonged to centuries long past.
Her gray sword bore a blade made of interlocking pieces, looking as if a brick-inlaid street had been formed into a tapering blade. Its hilts bore gold embroidery, and a ruby jewel upon the center. A single chain hung from the pommel, with the same red jewel at its end. Laying the greatsword over her shoulder, she was ready.
They continued down the empty tunnels for a minute longer when they all simultaneously began to slow. They all sensed it nearby.
“Tripwire,” Augur said quietly.
“I see it,” Paz replied. The two ladies took a knee, looking at the floor to something invisible to mundane vision.
“A pretty standard one,” Annabelle commented, “That answers one question though.” The bloodmage extended her left hand outwards, slowly hovering across the floor. Forward it moved, slowly and deliberately, until she paused. A red aura emanated from her hand, and with a flick of her wrist and the pinching of fingers, she snatched an unseen wire. The moment her fingers collapsed around it, what was once invisible became a thin blue string that tugged from the floor, as if Annabelle had pulled something from out of a painting.
Stretched taught, one more yank snapped the arcane ward, and the ring encircling the tunnel from floor to ceiling vanished.
“It’s a mage at work,” Annabelle said, standing up. She took the lead, continuing on for a corner at the end of the tunnel. As they neared, their movement slowed again, and they clung to the wall. Peeking around the corner of the tunnel intersection, Annabelle’s eyes went wide.
A dozen yards further into the tunnel were three entities, only one of which was immediately recognizable as human. A cloaked figure was squatting in the center of the tunnel, hands busily scraping something into the ground. Before him were two shadowy… things.
Describing a Nightmare was a difficult prospect. They were not eldritch in appearance, impossible, but their forms often took on the qualities of many origins, be them living things or even simple shapes. Each of them hovered inches from the ground, and seemed to be encased in a roiling cloud of shadow. Their limbs were tucked in, as if waiting to be fully born into the dismal space. Through the blackened mist, Annabelle could make out numerous insectoid limbs tipped in arm-length talons on one of them, and rippling mammalian muscles on the other. That they had a tangible form gave Annabelle a measure of relief, at the very least.
Two Nightmares in the same place, and a sorcerer before them. The Cleaners’ worst fears had come to pass. Annabelle retracted her head and spoke in a tiny whisper to Paz and Augur.
“Three. Two Nightmares. One mage. I’ll take the mage, and you go straight for the hearts of the Nightmares. They look like they’re still in some kind of… process,” Annabelle explained. “The dispel looked to have worked.”
“Amateurish,” Paz commented, lifting her fists in mock battle.
“Even if this guy is kiddie-casting, there’s no way they’re just a chump,” Annabelle replied. “Let’s get this done cleanly.” Her teammates nodded, and Annabelle held up three fingers -a countdown.
Three… two… one…
The trio broke out from their cover, feet slamming into the concrete. The crack of sound through the tunnel immediately alerted their target, and the mage stood up taught, turning to them. Their face was obscured by a plain white mask, but Annabelle could tell by their lifted arms and wider stance that they were very much surprised.
Two shots rang out in quick succession as Augur lifted his hand and it mechanically shifted into the form of a small firearm. Each panel making up his wrist and hand slid aside, and a forest of machinery beneath twisted with a quick whirr to accommodate his hidden weapon. Each bullet he fired punched into the obscured flesh of the Nightmares, and for a brief moment they seemed as if to writhe from the pain in their cocoons.
The raincoat-cloaked mage lifted a rune-carved hand. Linework dug into his flesh glowed a sickening red color, and was followed by a spark that danced around the shell of black holding the Nightmares. Instantly, in a puff of smoke, the shells faded, and the creatures dropped onto the floor with the nimble instinct of a cat flipping onto its feet. Stygian black eyes sprouted from their faces, each blinking independently of one another.
“Flee,” the mage commanded with a calm tone. The Nightmares turned in place, and stepped into the walls. Their bodies quickly disappeared behind a solid wall of concrete, but none of the Cleaners appeared fazed.
“Glad I tagged them!” Augur said cheerily, turning his gun-arm upon the mage. He let loose two shots as they closed in, but the mage lifted his hands in a flash, intercepting the bullets with a transiently-manifested dagger of blue.
The mage retaliated, extending a hand forward to unleash a quick bolt of energy for Augur. Despite his size and muscular shape, Augur was no less acrobatic, and dove into a slide beneath the arcane projectile. The slide moved him alongside and past the mage, when he quickly lifted back up into a sprint.
Before the mage could take a swipe down at Augur, Paz drew his attention with a passing clothesline. He drew his hand back in an attempt to block Paz’s arm from slamming into his head. The manifested dagger he wielded clanged sharply into her arm, striking an invisible barrier laid across her skin. Her strength pushed him nevertheless back, but he maintained his stance.
Annabelle was upon the mage then with her greatsword already midway into a vertical chop. The mage sidestepped her, but failed to notice the eager red blob that was bringing up her rear. Carpenter morphed its body, extending a whip-like tendril to lash at the mage’s feet. It hooked around a pant leg, and threw the man over onto his back as Carpenter pulled the limb out from under him. He let out a grunt, and threw an arm sideways, rolling aside to dodge Annabelle’s follow-up.
Her sword crashed into the ground with a cacophonous screech, and was quickly lifted back up. She chambered her sword for a thrust, aiming to slice right into the mage’s runic arm. Once more did he summon his fleeting blue dagger, and caught the edge of Annabelle’s sword, angling it aside and past him.
Working tandem, Carpenter always took the opportunity to distract the enemy when Annabelle was moving into her next attack. His tendril lashed out again, this time for the mage’s wrists, but was suddenly met with a rising heat. The space around the mage skyrocketed in temperature, visibly imbuing a dim glow into the concrete beneath his feet. Air around him sizzled briefly, and Carpenter’s tendril was instantly boiled and then vaporized before it could wrap around a wrist.
Annabelle too was burned by the heat, quickly retreating from the spot with grit teeth. With a moment’s reprieve from her assault, the mage lifted his hand again, and following the glow of his runes, suddenly disappeared from sight. Invisibility. That was three spells Annabelle counted -by no means a number commonly encountered in the underworld.
Paz and Augur had long since disappeared through the tunnels, chasing after the Nightmares to unseen places. Nightmares capable of walking through walls was not uncommon. The ghostlike quality seemed as though a common fear of men.
Annabelle knew the mage was still there -she could sense the magic presence. But she could no longer be sure where, specifically. Annabelle lifted her sword defensively and began to step backwards, getting some distance. Unfortunately for the mage, Annabelle had experience in dealing with such trickery.
Carpenter leaped up a few feet when its body suddenly exploded outwards, forming into a web-like net that flew through the air. Carpenter’s wide form clung around the mage the moment a single strand impacted the transparent body. A lattice of red enveloped him, and restrained him from moving.
Annabelle’s sword swung wide, but was a second too late. Once more did the mage unleash a superheated wave around his body, turning much of Carpenter into a haze. His arm lifted and caught Annabelle’s strike, though it pained him to do so; his whole arm was pressed up against his body uncomfortably, only just managing to stop the massive sword from knocking him over entirely.
As she drew back the weapon, what remained of Carpenter drifted backwards, snaking through the air to cling to her blade as a glistening layer of blood. Her heels turned, body spinning at first slowly, and then at speed. With sword lifting into what was to become another overhead strike, she was already underway blasting through the mage’s next attack.
Something flashed towards her -a blue dart of glass-like energy shattered as it was dismissed to the floor by her falling blade, and though her attack only swung into empty air a few yards before the mage, she did not fail to attack him. The blood that had coalesced upon Annabelle’s sword lashed outward in a vertical wave, and Carpenter’s newly launched form solidified, becoming a spined ring, crystal-like and sharpened to impale and slice into the mage.
If only it had hit.
The mage adeptly dodged to the side with a spin on his heel, and came upon Annabelle with his arcane blade permanently summoned while Carpenter splattered across a wall behind. Though Annabelle’s weapon looked and sounded to be heavy, her attunement to the blade gave her a heightened control, and she manipulated it with the same precision and quickness as the dwarfed weapon swinging at her. The evenly-matched mages traded blows, no longer resorting to tricks to catch each other unawares. A personal, vicious melee persisted through blocks and dodges, feints and parries.
In her struggle to land a blow on the mage, Annabelle was quickly made aware of the tier of mage she was facing; not simply a spellslinger or a street ninja, but a bona fide nexus of the two. Whoever the masked stranger was, she was not ending this battle easily.
With one more interception of the blue blade, Annabelle was prepared to try something new when a whisper of darkness signalled doom. Her eyes had nary a millisecond to look down at the source when it struck her.
A dagger of shadow sunk into her belly, right past her jacket. A third limb had manifested from beneath the mage’s right shoulder, escaping her sight and expectations, and that was all the mage needed.
Four spells. She underestimated her opponent.
Annabelle collapsed to her knees. The mage stepped back, and mercifully ended his attacks there. She could not see him with her head bowed, but even as the pain wracked her body, she could sense he had disappeared in a blink.
Black marks expanded around the bloodless spot where the blade had stricken her, rending her body with seething agony. She knew it wouldn’t be enough to kill her, but the lingering curse would not abate without the help of someone adept at healing. She wrestled against the pain, forehead buried into the floor as bullets of sweat dripped into a growing pool. Gasps of air escaped her, and her belly tensed repeatedly. It continued for minutes, felt like hours, and soon her constitution could not keep up. Her vision blurred, mind slipping away.
After five minutes of fighting against the affliction, she fell unconscious.