FATE\Deus Decipit

Chapter 48: The Trial of Cain

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-