10:10pm, The Streets of Athens
On the block ahead, Xander walked through the empty, foggy streets, the deep indigo night barely held at bay by the street lamps that became fewer and farther between as he steadily made his way from the city center. His hands in his pockets, he'd maintained a steady path northward, seeming to know exactly where he was going despite lacking a map or even a clear objective.
In the shadow of a building behind him, Chauncey kept close to the corner, just out of sight, no sign of his presence except for the two red orbs that sat in the shadows cast on the street, the watchful eyes of his familiar keeping a careful gaze from the darkness. The mage's eyes were alight with the same crimson while he watched through the eyes of his devil companion. As the moon had risen higher into the sky, they'd kept this routine: Xander would walk across the empty sidewalk while the mage followed behind, always out of sight, tracking the mercenary with his shadow-laced devil.
For as much bravado as he often put on display, the truth was that Chauncey was more a mage than most, perhaps more than any on his team except for the ancient Quayyum. He'd spent his days content with his study and experiments, hardly caring for more practical magecraft, including self-defense. He would rather have a familiar who could do such things for him as he remained in his library in pursuit of the more theoretical. All to say, such espionage was far beyond him. In his younger years, perhaps not so, he could clearly recall sneaking in and out of his dorm at the Clocktower, going under the cover of darkness to various places he shouldn't have been, whether it was a nightclub or a girl's room, but, the stakes here were far more dire than a slap on the wrist, and he could feel his heart pounding in his chest. Curse magic was forbidden by the Clocktower, so Chauncey had no conception of what Xander was capable of, and, if he truly was under Caster's control, it was entirely plausible that Xander was already aware of his presence. If only for the sake of his own sanity, he had to push such thoughts from his mind: nothing could be done if he deceived himself into thinking that he'd already failed.
Ahead, Xander rounded another corner, turning left. As he disappeared from view, the mage's consciousness returned to his body, and he scampered as quietly as he could from his hiding place, rushing to the next corner as he felt Cheval swimming through the shadows to reposition himself as well. As he clung to the next shadow, waiting for Cheval's go-ahead, he caught a figure in the corner of his eye: a shambling figure bleeding black, watching with empty eyes without moving any closer.
He had, of course, been notified that there would be undead, not just by the letter they'd received, but by the simple fact that the woman who hired him was a necromancer herself. He'd expected to encounter undead long before the current moment, but he hadn't been prepared for this.
He couldn't keep his stomach from turning. He was well-acquainted with death, and even with humans being used as the tools of uncaring, ambitious mages. Hell, he was all but his own test subject, but the level of gore he'd encountered that night, even from afar, threatened to eject what few morsels he'd eaten through the day. Some of them were clearly long-dead, in various levels of severe decomposition, disturbing in and of itself, but, worse, there were obviously recent dead- corpses that oozed and bled black ichor through otherwise fresh wounds. This was one such zombie: his hair still had color, and what color was left in his flesh was undermined by the dark concoction underneath, his right arm dangling limp and bending slightly in the wrong direction, broken. It was an utterly disturbing sight, and provided yet another convincing reason to remain close to Xander, who, as a 'Master', the undead sought to avoid.
He did his best to push the zombie's presence to the back of his mind; so long as he remained vigilant in maintaining distance, there was no threat, and the twinge in the back of his mind, a signal from Cheval, was enough to distract him for the moment. As he had a thousand times before, he focused on the devil's presence in the back of his mind, and allowed his consciousness to slip into the void beyond-
He watched Xander through a veil of blood, the devil's wide field of view allowing the whole scene to be visible; he could even see himself in the far corner. It seemed the devil was perched above the other side of the thin, winding street, but while Xander seemed far, the keen ears of the familiar could hear every step he took; as if he were walking in an empty warehouse rather than an empty sidewalk. It was a strange sensation, not gazing through his familiar, but the odd mix of boredom and intrigue. He was in direct danger, his life was on the line, but, after two hours of repeating routine, the monotony was beginning to eat away at him. He could feel the devil's poking and prodding in the back of his mind, telling him to throw caution to the wind and let his anger take over. He had to assure himself continually that his patience would be rewarded, though this assurance was being continually undermined by the lack of anything significant-
Bzzzt-Bzzzt
Xander's phone vibrated in his pocket, Cheval's ears picking it up loud and clear. Chauncey was grateful for the change of pace- and paid close attention as Xander casually lifted the phone to his ear-
"Hey."
From the phone, Filza's voice could be heard, "Hey! Everything okay?"
As promised, Filza had called him on the hour, this being her second call of the night. Chauncey had to force himself not to audibly groan- this sort of sentimentalism always frustrated him, though he couldn't quite explain why. Perhaps, in this moment, he was simply lamenting the fact that it was his wife rather than some more interesting conspirator.
"Of course. Bands are still working fine, obviously. I don't feel any more tired than before, and I've yet to see any undead." He chuckled to himself, the overly-casual conversation unnerving the listening mage, "I'm almost starting to think that maybe Aisha was lying about it all."
It was obviously a joke, but one that hit a bit too close to home for the other two, "Well- still be careful. Any traces of Samman?"
"Not yet. Hopefully I'll have good news next time you call."
"Alright. Be careful..."
"Naturally. Talk to you soon-"
As he removed the phone from his ear and moved to hang up, the phone spoke again, quickly so as not to be cut off, "You haven't seen Chauncey, have you?"
The devil mage froze. Being disconnected from his body, he could see the breath get caught in his own throat, and watch his hands clench into tense fists. Fear pierced all corners of his being as he cursed the woman.
Surges in the back of his mind resounded like the cackling of a hyena.
Xander paused with the phone in his hand, almost trying to read his wife's expression even though it wasn't visible, before lifting it back up to his ear, "What was that?"
The mage mentally pleaded with Filza, begging her to play dumb, while the crimson dog waited with anticipation.
"Ah- well... Chauncey left a while ago to take care of something, and he hasn't come back yet, so I was wondering if maybe you'd seen him?"
"... I haven't, no. Have you tried calling him?"
"No- no, not yet. Just asking."
"Hm... that's not good. I hope he knows what he's doing."
"Yeah... me too."
The words seemed to hang in the air, and the mage couldn't help but wonder who she was talking to.
"Thanks for telling me. I'll keep that in mind."
"Right."
"I'll talk to you later. I love you."
"I love you, too. I'll call again in a bit."
A soft smile touched the mercenary's lips, "I'd expect nothing else. Talk to you then."
Not allowing his wife a chance to continue the conversation, Xander quickly hung up, not out of fear, but with a sense of purpose that shone through his brown eyes.
It was hard, even with his disposition, to be angry with the poor woman. The fact that she was genuinely worried stroked his ego in a way he seldom experienced, but, even so, he cursed her sentimentalism. His job was, at minimum, ten times harder than it had been even ten seconds ago, and, depending on what happened from here, could already be compromised. He watched the mercenary closely: Xander stared at his phone, still as a statue, like a well-trained dog patiently awaiting its next order, before he began tapping away and navigating the menus. Chauncey couldn't quite make out what he was doing from the devil's perspective; at first, he resolved simply to watch and wait, but then a seed of an idea began to germinate in his mind, still too amorphous to understand, but enough to sense. As he turned to the idea, it suddenly grew out, moving like a pointed spear directly through his mind.
He pulled back to his physical body, pulling and gripping at the threads that connected his mind to that of his devil's as fast as he could. Entering back into his body like slipping into clothes, he immediately reached into his pocket- grasping for his phone. He flipped open the old device and immediately moved to silence it, and just as he went to press the button in his options- Xander's name appeared on the screen and blocked out everything else.
In that moment, his heart went still, and, from under his hand where he couldn't see, a force beyond his control wrapped his phone in inky blackness the second before the first ring- silencing the device through less-than-conventional means.
He could feel his shadow laughing at its own little prank as he struggled not to double over while holding his breath; desperate to not make a noise. He glared across the street at the two red orbs on the opposite building, before reluctantly allowing the eyes to pull him back into its perspective.
Xander's phone rang, and rang, and rang, all the while he searched his surroundings with both eyes and ears. He was clearly already under the assumption that Chauncey was nearby- a correct assumption that would have to be put to rest. As the phone went to voicemail, he put on a casual voice while his eyes suspiciously shifted from one corner to another, "Hey, Filza said you left earlier. Is everything okay? Call me when you can; we don't need anyone else going AWOL."
The message ended, but his suspicion, naturally, did not.
Moving the phone back to his pocket, slowly, deliberately, he brought his hands together, rubbing and netting them as indigo light began to pull like strings between them. He cautiously brought his eyes to his work as he circled his hands as if molding clay within, before opening to reveal a deep indigo sphere within another, lighter sphere, veins of light connecting the inner to the outer, like an eye looking in all directions at once.
Xander began to mutter under his breath, in a language that Chauncey neither understood nor recognized, but ears of his familiar solved the issue:
"All-Seeing Eye,
"There is knowledge too dangerous to be known,
"And men too dangerous to be left alive-"
With the writing on the wall made clear, he once again rushed to his physical body- he could just barely hear the whispers of the foreign incantations on the wind. He hesitated for a moment, before realizing that there was no time for such deliberations. He reached into his shirt and felt his hand plunge into cold darkness, grasping at the shadows before finding his objective. From inside the darkness of his shirt, he removed a black-iron revolver, one of master craft with blood-leather grip and gold engravings.
He wasted no time, stepping out and into the light, making his presence known through the cocking of his devilish firearm- pointed directly at the back of Xander's head.
....