Chapter 37 ： Cleared Out
Tina's first kill hit her properly when she pulled the blade free. She turned and her stomach brought up everything in it.
By the time she straightened, Evan had finished the other two.
He'd disarmed rather than killed the man he'd sent to Tina, leaving the remaining pair for himself. Wind Bind on both simultaneously — a first-tier spell that required almost no effort now, triggered by intent through the bracers rather than incantation. One of them met the point while he was still moving through the thick air. The other broke the bind with effort and found himself on slicked ground, which was all it took.
Evan looked at Tina, who was wiping her mouth and straightening her spine with visible effort. He put a hand briefly on her back. "Killing isn't pleasant. But this world doesn't spare people who can't protect themselves. You'll adjust. The Maker watches over you."
"I'm fine," she said, with the flatness of someone who was mostly telling the truth. "Just the stomach."
"Visitors." Footsteps on the stairs. Four people in the open, and from various angles around the room — alcoves, the staircase, the gallery above — crossbows appeared, each one centered on Evan or Tina.
Evan stood still. Tina tensed but held herself.
"Evan Wang," he said. "I'm here to make you an offer. Stop the contract on us, or I end this office. Those are the two options."
The oldest of the four, who appeared to be in charge, looked at him with the patience of someone who had heard variations on this speech many times. "A dead man threatening me. Interesting." He started to say something further.
Evan cast.
Dread Pulse — third-tier, wide-range, no visible manifestation. In the same moment that the old man's voice was still forming its next word, everyone in the room — the four at the front, the crossbowmen in their positions — felt something in the base of their chests go very wrong. An irrational certainty that they were outmatched, that something in the room was catastrophically dangerous, that standing still was the only option available.
The Dread Pulse lasted two seconds at most. For most of the crossbowmen it was enough. Evan pulled Tina sideways out of the lines of fire and his blade moved through three positions faster than it had any right to. The crossbowmen in the corners and alcoves felt the cold at their throats before they came back to themselves. Tina went for the one nearest her — she was in motion before she'd consciously decided to move, the blade finding the gap, the step happening on its own.
A bowstring somewhere. The arrow was already in the air when Tina turned, coming for her back. Evan's foot found a table and sent it spinning up between them; the arrow went into the wood with a solid thunk. The flintlock came out of his coat and fired at the last crossbowman. The shot connected.
From the entry of the Dread Pulse to the last crossbowman going down: less than six seconds. The four at the front of the room were still trying to make their hands obey them.
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The old man was furious and knew exactly what had happened to him. He was both mage and fighter — not an uncommon combination, though not one that usually produced mastery of either. He was sharp enough to be angry at himself for still having a clear analysis running in his head while his hands shook with involuntary fear-response.
Two of the three men with him charged. Pale yellow light had kindled around them — the body's instinctive response to Dread Pulse, a natural defense rising after the fact. Both swords came in, one from each side, the blade-auras the length of short spears, angled for Evan's chest.
He stepped left. Both adjusted. But two fighters converging on the same target interfere with each other at close range; one adjusted faster than the other and there was a hesitation, a half-step of mutual awareness.
Evan's intent moved through the bracer. His own blade-aura came up — white with a trace of grey — and ran longer than either of theirs combined, arriving before either sword completed its stroke. The man on the left threw himself right to avoid it and almost collided with his companion. The coordination broke for a half-second.
Into the gap. One sword went into the left man's body. The right man swung overhead with everything he had. Evan slipped the angle and the blade went past him.
The right man had expected the counter-thrust. His body dissolved into a shimmer — mirror image. The real body was already moving. Evan heard the air displacement at his back and surged forward, putting distance between himself and the position. Something cold passed behind him.
He stopped without turning. A faint trace of black smoke rose around him — involuntary, but not without purpose. He was an Arcanist and a lich; death magic moved when his intent moved, sometimes ahead of the thought. The air around him went briefly wrong in the particular way that death magic makes it go wrong.
The right man faltered — not paralyzed, just a fraction of a second where the wrongness in the air registered before his will could override it. A fraction was enough. Evan turned and thrust, the blade finding the throat.
The third man had shaken off the disorientation by then and had a black dagger out — the kind of blue-black that meant something had been applied to the edge. His body faded, not quite invisibility but nearly. Evan closed his eyes.
His nose had always been better in this body than it should have been. The scent of the toxin on the blade was distinct, and it moved. He tracked the movement, opened his eyes, drove the point at where the scent had shifted to, and felt the resistance of a body reappearing to meet the impact.
Three down.
The old man had been waiting for his people to resolve the situation. They had not. He reached into his coat and produced a scroll — Evan recognized it immediately by the way the air around it fizzed slightly.
Mind Strike hit him before the scroll could open.
The old man went rigid, his energy field snapping into disorder, the scroll still clenched in a hand that had forgotten what it was supposed to do. He was strong enough to surface quickly — but quickly wasn't fast enough. Evan's blade reached him, his whole body behind the step, the grey-white light running along the metal.
The cry stopped when it started.
Evan took the scroll from the open hand and checked it as he pocketed it. A flame spell. Useful.
He went up the stairs. Two women and a man, pressed together behind a curtain, shaking. He cut the curtain down with a single motion — no flourish — and all three dropped to their knees.
"Just us up here. Only us. We swear by the Maker."
He cast Wraith Eye to confirm it. "Do you work for the Silver Hand?"
"We keep records. That's all. We're not — we don't kill anyone."
"Then carry a message for me. Tell them: some targets aren't worth pursuing. If they want to test this further, I'll visit every office they have in every city." He said it in the tone of someone describing the weather.
He came back down. Tina was waiting, her eyes on the bodies, her expression complicated.
"Done. Let's go."
She looked at the dead for another moment. Then she looked away, and there was something in her face that hadn't been there this morning.