Fors gave a helpless sigh. "Isn't that obvious? You're not usually this slow."
"…"
Xio pressed her lips together and cut a glance at Vincent. That's her fault. She squeezed me dry.
Vincent smiled pleasantly. "Miss Xio — shall I refund you? I don't actually need anything from you right now. Consider those two pieces of information a gift. A goodwill gesture, between friends."
Xio wrinkled her nose. "We don't charge people for making friends where I'm from. And as for the three hundred pounds — if what you told me is true, then it was money well spent. End of."
"Oh?"
Audrey's eyes went wide with curiosity. What information? What three hundred pounds?
Before she could decide whether to ask, Mr. A announced that trading was resuming. She swallowed her questions.
The second half was sparser than the first, but the items on offer were, on the whole, considerably more valuable. Since she'd already drawn Mr. A's attention, Audrey quietly tucked away her shopping impulses and settled in with the others until the gathering wound down.
Mr. A's gathering dispersed without much ceremony. Everyone simply filed out and went their separate ways.
Vincent had barely settled into the carriage when he heard it — a faint squeak in his ear. The signal. The Invisible Servant had done as instructed and delivered the tip-offs to all three Churches.
Unless Mr. A disappeared right now, this instant, he was about to receive a crushing blow from multiple directions at once. He might not even survive the night.
And even if he somehow did, he certainly wouldn't be hosting another gathering any time soon.
But the needs of unaffiliated Extraordinaries didn't simply evaporate because their regular gathering got shut down. All Vivienne had to do was put out a few quiet words in the right ears, and they'd find their own way to his door soon enough.
"BOOM!"
The carriage had barely turned the corner and covered ten minutes of road when the night cracked open. The horses screamed and lurched, fighting against their traces. Inside the carriage, everyone felt the shockwave.
"What — what was that?!"
Glaint, the only ordinary person present, had gone pale and completely lost his composure. His words came out in broken pieces.
Fors cracked the window and peered out, visibly shaken. "It came from the direction of the gathering. Something's exploded!"
Audrey pressed close to look. "Was it a gas main?"
"No." Xio's expression had gone flat and serious. "That sounds like Extraordinaries fighting."
Before the words had fully left her mouth, more concussions rolled across the city, accompanied by columns of fire and blinding white bolts of lightning that lit up an entire quarter of the night sky.
Glaint's face drained of colour. "An Extraordinary battle — it's really that terrifying?"
Xio and Fors exchanged a look. They were both Sequence 9, and they had no real framework for imagining what mid-Sequence or high-Sequence combat actually looked like.
Almost in the same moment, both of them glanced toward Vincent.
Someone who called herself a broker and carried herself the way this woman did — she'd know, surely.
Vincent said offhandedly, "Those are probably mid-Sequence Extraordinaries."
Audrey's eyes went wide. "Mid-Sequence is already that powerful? What would a high-Sequence Extraordinary look like?"
And what about Mr. Fool — who was something beyond even that entirely?
For a moment, even Glaint forgot to be frightened, and let himself imagine it.
Vincent said nothing. She just looked out the carriage window at the distant glow and sent up a quiet, earnest prayer on Mr. A's behalf.
Please. Just die.
You lecherous, staring creep.
Once Vincent was satisfied no one had followed, she climbed out partway through the journey. "Good night, everyone. May you all sleep well."
Audrey waved cheerfully from the window. "Good night, Ms. Natasha!"
The carriage rolled away into the dark. Vincent ducked into a nearby alley and set off on foot toward the Caesar Restaurant. The underground trains had stopped running, and the public and hire carriages had long since finished for the night. There was nothing for it but to walk.
She'd only gone a few streets when the sound of frantic footsteps behind her made her turn.
In the crimson moonlight, a figure in a hooded cloak came sprinting at full tilt, gasping for breath — a black mask on his face, three or four silhouettes in pursuit behind him.
That's the man who was offloading Extraordinary materials at bargain prices.
She remembered him less because of the volume he'd sold and more because of how cheap the prices were. Were the people chasing him after the money on him? Did they know Mr. A had been struck down and decide there was no longer any reason to respect his rules?
Vincent immediately activated the ring and slipped into invisibility, stepping aside. She had no intention of getting involved. She was self-aware enough to know what she was: a Sequence 9 blank-slate Extraordinary — the Prying Eye added nothing to her combat effectiveness whatsoever. Staying alive was the priority.
"Running is prohibited in this district. Violators are subject to flogging."
A voice of quiet, absolute authority rang out. The masked man's legs buckled. Livid lash marks split open across his body. He screamed and toppled — falling in Vincent's direction, crashing to the ground.
Two figures were on him in an instant, pinning him down, clamping a hand over his mouth, and with a series of sickening crunches, wrenching both his arms and legs out of joint.
The man's body went rigid. He was clearly in agony — the only thing stopping him from screaming was the hand pressed hard over his face.
Then a man in a gold mask appeared, looking down at the pinned figure with cold detachment. "Why did you betray MI9?"
"Ahhh—!"
The moment the hand was removed, the man let out a low, strangled moan. He was hauled upright between the two, face twisted with pain and fury. "Kill me. Just kill me."
The gold-masked figure took one step forward, radiating quiet authority. "Why. Did you betray. MI9?"
"Because… because I couldn't do it anymore. I didn't want to keep pushing… pushing those poor people into the abyss. I don't want to be a butcher, an executioner, a slaver!"
Crack.
The gold-masked man snapped his throat. "Bring him back. We'll use Spiritism."
"And you, sir?"
A cold smile. "I have other business."
"Running invisible is prohibited in this district. Violators are subject to the blade."
He spoke the words of prohibition with calm finality — and Vincent's figure materialised from thin air, only to crack apart into a shattered mask in the next instant. Her true self appeared seven or eight metres away.
She hadn't panicked — because the moment before the gold-masked man made his move, her spirituality had given her the warning. She'd slipped the mask back on an instant before visibility was forced upon her.
The moment her image appeared, she was already gripping an unfurled scroll in her outstretched hand. She triggered it and flung it simultaneously. "Mutual Multiplication — Detonation Talisman!"
The next instant — fire, frost, howling wind, and cascading explosions tore outward in every direction, engulfing the figures in a wave of stacking Extraordinary effects. Vincent turned and ran, two blinks of flash-step carrying her to the next street over, where she immediately slipped back into invisibility and kept running.
Two or three minutes later, the effects of the scroll burned themselves out. Of the three figures, two lay on the ground, unmoving and of unknown condition. Only the gold-masked man was still standing — barely. He swayed on his feet, his body marked by a patchwork of wounds. Fury smouldered in his eyes as he said quietly, "The Witch Sect?!"
To be continued…
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