ACT III

The stench of sulfur and poverty filled the air like a sickening miasma. Roads, that barely remembered themselves to be made of asphalt sprawled along the hills in random patterns, separating great,long masses of concrete that housed tens of thousands of people.

This place used to be teaming with life, a central hub of industry for most of the city. The Great Oak city was known for it's coal mines and silver mines, to fuel that industry, other sprouted and more soon followed. Metal refineries, trains, railroads, sulphur refineries, heating centers for the whole city. This place used to be the burning heart of this region.

Now it lays rotten and robbed of it's glory. A matt gray cancerous tumor seeping away life from the forests and districts surrounding them. Poison spreading in the air and the earth, corruption, pollution, stench.

The district was built upon a couple hills or what someone drunk enough could call a small mountain range. Hard rock sloped agressively, made for poor ground for expansive, post communistic blocks meant to house tens of thousands of workers. So, by might and power of the sickle and hammer, they were destroyed, shaped to human will, turned into a hive meant for production and little else.

The asphalt roads, like clogged arteries, congested and ruined, criss-crossed the hills in a random sprawl, they twisted and turned seeming to trap the traveler in an endless maze.

As soon as Luke and Sebastian turned on the train station to enter the district, the surroundings seemed to get quieter and quieter with each spin of the wheels.

The car quickly started driving up a steep slope, the engine of the somewhat new car purred and pumped power as they drove in silence, the only sound breaking it was Lukas's chewing and crumpling of wrappers.

Their silence and consternation was interrupted by loud cursing coming from Sebastians mouth. He cursed visciously as he threw his body side to side, making the steering wheel rotate and the wheels of the car screach on the asphalt. They barely managed to dodge a flaming trash container that was speeding right at them down hill, flames wrecking the green box on wheels as the plastic melted and burning trash spilled across the front of the car.

„THESE MOTHERFUCKERS!” Sebastian yelled as he tried to center the car.

Luke saw the kids dressed in ragged clothes on top of the hill, cheering and hollering at the sight that followed as the trash conteiner hit a curb and burst into a plume of waste and fire. As the car accelerated towards them, they dispersed like spooked mice.

„Haha, leave them be, they are just kids” Luke said as he waved his hand, chukling at the whole ordeal and remembering himself doing the same but with another kid put in the trash container. He laughed even harder when the kid hit the car and flew over the roof of the car, just as quickly the said kid ragdolled on the road, he stood up and ran away so the driver wouldn't kick his teeth in for the destroyed paint job.

„What a warm welcome...” he said as he gazed outside.

„Yeah, fucking scorching.” Sebastian mumbled as his grip tightened around the steering wheel.

The car dragged itself up the slope, and the sizes of houses rose with the height they rested upon. From shabby, ruined old buildings aging over 100 years, they got newer and somehow more ruined. The 4 story blocks rose like wilting grass, dense and lost of color.

What followed were the dense bushes. The car conquered the slope with a heave and the hill opened up to the thick shrubbery of concrete that the White Stone was. An enviromental disaster that corrupted the view with gray and filth. Roads filled with trash, the thrown out kind, and the human kind.

Drunken people laying in the streat like war victims, put to the ground by round after round of shots.

Thieves, rapists, hobos, those lost and those that make others loose themselvs. Animals, barely steps away from the grave, walking around with visible rotting wounds. Not even yowling in pain, just sharing the uncaring silence with the humans that occupied the same sidewalk.

„This place never changes. What a shithole.”

„What a shithole it is.” Sebastians words echoed Lukes.

The car started rattling more and more as potholes started occupying more of the road than the asphalt istelf. Gravel and dirt made the tires loose traction occasionaly and lack of working street lights made this part of the trip more exciting.

They drove deeper into the District, and the towering apartment buildings covered the sky. The walls plastered in old posters and grafiti, almost everythnig covered in cement, all of it created an atmosphere that suffocated you. That, and the insane amount of air pollution, smoke, and sulphur in the air. For people unused to this place just walking around in here would cause a nose bleed.

That was if someone didn't sell them a punch to the face first.

The car stopped at the beggining of a 15-story tall apartament building that seemed to stretch into horizon, just to be separated by a small parking lot and continue on as another endless concrete snake. They parked in the shadow of the monolith. Right next to a red shitbox occupied by the current watch that was on stakeout.

Sebastian pulled his window down and took the notebook with current information from them and just noded, and they knew their shift was done. With tire squeel they drove backwards and sped away to do their own stuff.

Luke took the notebook and started parsing through the godawful, dogshit hand writing as Sebastian set up his laptop and connected to the cameras they installed.

They choose this peculiar dealer as Lukas already had the oppurtunity to meet him. The one that chased this Tall Lady in the club and tried to harass her. He had numerous, previous criminal charges and a criminal record thick enough you could use it as a chair. In this criminal record, a good third came from battery charges and domnestic abuse charges. The man had recently became a family man again, after his previous wife abondoned him in the middle of the night and escaped with his children that he used to use as stress relievers. They took off, without a trace and the Man became alone. That was, untill some over a year ago, he impregnated a drug addict that was his regular client, and made her move in with him. Luke even had a comment about it from the man himself in his notes:

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„It's always better to have your toys at a hands reach”

That toy soon gave birth to twins, a girl and a boy, who were barely 11 months old now. Since the time of their birth, the police already responded to 3 calls from the neighbours about domnestic abuse and the mother had her arm broken once by the man, or rather, when she fell down on some furniture.

Apparently, after that debacle in the club the dealer started to use his own inventory alot more, he showed all the signs of addiction that stepped too far to come back from safely. His mass grew, and so did his agression. Week after week, he seemed more chaotic and frantic. Last week, he beat four people that didn't have the money they owed him so badly, three were left in a coma and one had all his limbs broken. Sloppy work, you never beat the people that owe you money so badly they won't be able to earn what they owe.

Luke was no hero, and he knew that, that knowledge hurt him, that no matter what he did he will never scrape off the filth of his past that clung to him. But, that did not mean he can't continue to try.

„The past shapes us, but does not define us.” he whispered under his breath.

Sebastian just shot a glance at Luke but remained quiet. In the time they spend together, he got used to Luke's quirks and odd behaviours. A shrug of his shoulders and he let the moment escape into the realm of forgotten memories.

Click, click, clack and the video feed from the cameras installed throughout the building was visible to them both. All of the entries, some staircases and the enirety of the 11th floor that the flat of the man they hunted was on.

From the previous noted interactions the deliveries usually took place on Sundays, in broad daylight, usually between 4-6 P.M. Luke was not suprised, that was the usual time the party people either woke up from their weekend bender or were slowly stoping the partying.

From the reviewed tapes he saw, the man seemed to just pop out from nowhere with a carton box containing a full crate of that hideus drug. He always entered through the staircase, never the lift, and enetred the apartment after 4 distinctly timed knocks. This, by itself, made Luke suspicious and expecting a magical kind of hassle. The delivery usually took 15-30min. The plan they prepared relied on Luke's quick entry and knock out of both the delivery man and the people in the house.

It was a point of contest between him, Baldie and Sebastian but he insisted on going in alone. He couldn't explain that there might be some wizard shit going on, so he played it off as needing someone to be on watch with the cameras, and be ready to chase down the men in case someone escaped him and tried to leave the building. Any more people staked out there could spook the delivery so they had to make do with a skeleton crew for this.

Sebastian and Luke were on comms. Luke had a bluetooth earpiece connected to his phone, muted for him but hearing anything Sebix wanted to tell him from the car. Any wobble in the cameras, any disruption or ruckus in the building was to be reported. If he saw anyone escaping, he was to wait for Luke's contact and block of the exit and wait for information to follow.

Luke armed himself, he had a bag full of ropes, some injections with substances that would put an elephant to sleep, and some trinkets for eventual clean up if things go sideways.

He put the knuckle dusters in his pant pockets and his phone in the back pocket with a zipper to make sure it would not fall out or disconnect and so they waited. A Walther PP-90 was tucked in behind his back, tightly clinging to his body, under the belt of his pant. Locked, and loaded.

They arrived 2h early so they had some time to spare and for Luke to plan more details on the spot.

The time passed and as 5 P.M drew closer both of them were starting to get restless. Luke even thought about shrouding them in Void Cowl to make it even less possible to be noticed but he decided not to. While it worked most of the time, the myriad of magical creatures and their abilities always left a possibility that his „shrouding” would shine brightly for some. His ring allowed him to blend in with the mortals enough to make it seem like two random guys just sitting in a car together.

As he was playing with his ring, carresing it gently with his thumb, the cameras on the staircase flickered and started to loose focus.

„Oh come on you piece of shit!” Sebix yelled as he slapped the laptop. Not even commenting on the stupidity of the act, Lukas focused on the image, and the window next to the staircase that showed the hallway of the floor, and the man draped in dark trenchcoat that suddenly popped out of the staircase.

„He's here! Luke, look!” He pushed the laptop into Lukes face.

„I can see that, no delivery thought, take that laptop away from my face you fuck!” He said as his whole field of vision was taken over by pixelated image.

Something was wrong, the break in the pattern was always a bad sign. Even if he was not mortal, he always carried the delivery with him. Always collected payment after handing it away. Something changed, and that meant Luke had to hurry.

„STAY HERE” he repeated for the last time and jumped out of the car, slamming the doors behind him.

Rushing into the closest entry to the building he shoulder bumped some people but paid them no mind as they stumbled and fell into dried shrubbery that surrounded the base of the building.

He heel kicked the doors and the metal lock gave way, the glass in them burst and before it even hit the ground, Luke already passed it and started leaping over the stairs, taking deep breaths and huffing with each jump as he crossed 10 stairs in 2 jumps. As he reached second floor he remembered to take off Monsoons ring. He hid it in the gem between his clavicles.

His skin crawled as the reality of his form imposed on the wider reality once again. The wrongness of it made his arm hair stand up, as the skin lost color and turned cadaver pale. The scars became visible once more, and his eyes darkened, and the darkness dripped along the Trail of Tears.

Adding more speed by dragging himself along the rusted guardrails he practically flew up the stair, a blurr to the few that he passed by over their heads or by rebounding of the wall to dodge them.

Mid jump, he barely remembered to drag the ski-mask over his face.

Ten floors passed in a matter of a minute, as his head peaked over the staircase and saw the barely visible „11” on the bent, metal door, he kicked of the railing and propelled himself into the hallway of the floor.

His magical awerness returned fully as his feet hit the ground and it expanded in a wide zone, covering 50 meters to each side. He started rushing to the right, passing 5 flats, and as the house he was aiming for came into his cognitions range, he heard it.

A womans scream cut short by a gurge, and what followed was silence.

His knee bent, and his body hung low for a second. His heel lifted and his toes dug deeply into the sole of his shoe as he shot forward like a canonball, making the trash on the floor get swept by the air that his body displaced.

Three steps, all it took to reach the door to the house of the dealer. One back swing of his right hand was all it took to crush open the doors, one step it took to get inside.

He was too late.

The dealer laid dead near on the couch, cut from head to groin in one ragged swipe, his entrails spilling over the brown material and onto the trash covered floor.

The mothers body hung in the air, her last act of defiance as she shielded her babies, a pitiful try of the weak, her last will of life to protect.

Her neck was broken, bones visibly jutting from under the purple skin that changed color as blood flow was restricted from her head. The bones poked out from shadowy talons that wrapped around her and were lifting her in the air effortlesly.

With her tongue out of her mouth, probably from her last scream cut short, she looked abstract, with the veins visible all over her purple-reddish complexion and eyes bloodshot and empty of the spark of life.

Eyes that looked directly at the entrence of her house. As if her last thoughts were that of hope, hope of rescue, hope that someone will protect her, protect her children. Keep them from harm.

The infants were crying, howling, as if awere of their mothers demise, bawiling their little eyes out.

Luke felt a pang of guilt within, a spark of pain and shame that, fueled by the sight of a mother dead, a good mother that cared for her children, taken too early by a monster given human form, fueled that spark into a blasting inferno of rage.

All these thoughts happened in a span of seconds, the door barely had time to bounce back on the hinges and the wooden splinters grazed Luke's arm as he got into action.

„BECOME SILENCE!” He roared as an amulet made of bronze and crystal manifested in his right hand, clenching it with force, the spikes on it opened the skin of his palm and drank the Void infested blood greedily. The fist dug in up to the wrist in concrete and the amulet was smashed, and with it's destruction, a wave of desruption followed. Much, much bigger than the one Klaus took on. This amulet was improved, perfected, adapted from the mistakes of the past version.

The man with the shadowy talons dropped the womans body and it folded as it hit the floor, left in an unsightly manner.

„Who are you? Why are you here?” The thing asked, it's face covered by a hood of ashen darkness that rolled and moved in the wind.

„I am here to bring you pain!” Luke growled at him.