Chương 216: 204. First sacrifice

I drove to the meeting place with Ophelia, yet my mind wasn't on the sacrifice, but on my conversation with Q'Shar. The two needed to be ready to kill if need be. The world wasn't as forgiving as stories and legends. The heroes didn't get saved by accident right before they had to make the hard decision. And mercy was rarely met with mercy, but rather with a sword through the heart.

Of all the lessons possible to teach my pupils, mercy wasn't on the list, not unless I wanted them to have a very pure and very short life. But I didn't really consider whether they could take it. Ophelia took it kind of in stride, but the two… Peter, I thought, could. He had gotten used to the darker side of the magical world, he had lived through a lot for someone his age. But Josh… Josh was a mystery to me. Sometimes he showed a strong will, sometimes he retreated at the bare mention of a hardship.

I couldn't tell what he was thinking, but most of all, what he felt. Would he break? Become a shell of himself? I was thankful for the late hour, because the streets were relatively empty and I didn't have to focus on the road while my mind was elsewhere. Finally, I saw the gas station where we were supposed to meet. I took the turn and entered the parking lot.

The sun was below the horizon by now, and the moon shyly peeked over the trees, the scenery completed by a light fog slowly rising from the ground, just enough to give the place a strange, ethereal feeling. A good night for a kill. I noticed Ophelia's car and approached my apprentice, who was leaning on her vehicle while reading a small book. Noticing me, she smiled and nodded in greeting.

"Ready?" I asked.

"Yes," she replied, putting away the small book. We both loaded into her car, me getting into the passenger seat. Today she was in the lead, and I was here mainly to observe. She started the old car, and we pulled out of the parking lot.

"You got your info?" I asked once we were back on the road.

"Yes. The house layout, the target's information, and the target's face."

"And if he has siblings?" I asked, earning a look of surprise.

"You don't want to kill someone's twin brother," I said with a smile.

"Oh," she answered, and then reached for the files in the car's glovebox.

"No siblings," she finally said, leafing through the binder with one hand.

"Good. Overall, if something like a twin is a factor, the cats would put it at the front of the file so it's hard to miss, but you don't want someone's mistake to become yours. Always check. It's very awkward, you know. You hang someone upside down, you ask their name before you make the kill, and they tell you the wrong one. Really awkward conversation."

"You speak from experience?" she asked, looking at me, trying to hide a smile.

"Maybe, maybe not. But that's why you always wea—" Before I finished speaking, she pulled out a mask similar to the one we used in the ritual, animalistic, with an image of a snake.

"Good. Now, where do we go?"

"You'll see," she said mysteriously, earning a short snort from me. Ophelia then drove me another half hour into the forest, stopping on a smaller side road.

"The target," she began explaining once we were out of the car, like I was her helper, "is a middle-aged man with no magical talent or any other possible dangers beyond a handgun in the house. He is currently at a mansion he inherited from his parents. The mansion has security, and due to the lack of any nearby veins, it should work well. We will cut the power to the house and then approach from the side, kidnap him, then transport him to the kill site," she recited the instructions.

"Good. Lead the way." Ophelia led me to a sizable house in the forest with quite a bit of land around it. I had to say, the cats picked a great target for the first-timer. Spends his free time deep in the woods, with no family. I always appreciated their information network. We put on our masks once we were in the forest and began the stroll. The land the man possessed was quite large, as it turned out, so it was actually a good few minutes before the lights of the house became visible.

I summoned Sally to have some fun with us, and then sat back and observed as my apprentice worked. All the while, I petted my abomination, like a proud father watching his child mow the lawn.

"I could use a beer," I whispered to Ophelia, earning myself an irritated glance. We looked from the tree line at a sizable house with, sadly, a rather small garden, making an approach hard. Ophelia spent a good hour like that, observing the windows, trying to find where the man was and whether there were other people in the building. Once she noticed his silhouette, she sent her familiar to scout for any company.

'Clear' was the verdict.

"Good approach," I whispered in the strange voice altered by the mask on my face.

"What's your next step?"

"Cut the power," she said, and I nodded. She approached the power line running along the road leading to the house and, using a simple cutting spell, ripped through the cord. From that point onward, she had around three minutes to make the attack, as the mansion's security should pick up on the change, assuming it wasn't a cheap one. I followed behind her as she closed the distance from the side toward where the man had last moved in the window's light.

To my surprise, she used some sort of illusion spell, making her form less interesting, most likely a vision-based mind magic of sorts, similar to hypnosis in principle. It wouldn't fool a camera, but it surely would human eyes. We made our way to the side of the white building and pressed our backs against the cold stone. A few choice swear words came from the inside as the man made his way through the house, looking for a flashlight.

Ophelia bent down to go under the white windows as she approached a room right behind where the man was currently swearing. Just as she was about to confirm her target from up close, a light shone through the window, prompting her to bend down quickly. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. I used the simple message spell.

"Don't jump down the moment the light shines if you're mostly covered. Eyes in the darkness notice movement most of all. Wait for the light to move off you and hide slowly. If you were so exposed they would notice you, then moving will just solidify that in the first place." The moment my spell reached her, she looked to me, seeing me standing next to the wall with a leisurely expression. I was enjoying the show.

Finally, the light moved back as the man figured his next step was the breakers and started walking deeper into the house. I saw Ophelia look more closely at the window. Good. Not all alarms would go down with the power. Some had separate power systems. Ophelia looked over the glass and then pulled out a talisman with a Muffle spell. She didn't master it yet, apparently, but got herself a ready-made item.

"Smart," I sent her a message straight to her brain, making her flinch right as she was about to use it. She cast it over the window after giving me an irritated look and got ready to break in. And that was when I noticed something was wrong. It was actually Sally who warned me, as her ears were way better than mine. The sound was barely there, but it was made to echo in the first place, so it reached us despite the thick woods all around us. To me, it was barely perceptible, but Sally caught it easily.

I looked at Ophelia, who was by now fully focused on entering the home. The window was already broken, so we would leave a trace. But her first ritual going south was a great learning opportunity, so I did not inform my apprentice of the coming company and just stood back. Ophelia stepped through the shattered glass and looked around. The man was in the basement. They had about a minute and a half of safety before she needed to get the target to the woods so they could escape comfortably.

She turned to the door and began walking, but Sam's voice echoing inside her head stopped her.

"It's funny how the same focus that makes us great at magic can also cause us to make mistakes," he said, using the messaging spell. Ophelia froze. For all she knew about the man, that wasn't some simple philosophy he just thought of, but a clue. A vital one. Did she miss something? It wasn't her first kill, but it was her first job of that kind and one she was leading from start to finish. The weight of the coming ritual, and most likely the impending visions from her god, pressed on her. So what was it?

She looked around for a hidden enemy, spread her senses, and tapped into the mind of her familiar, sending him to look for a trap. Was he joking? Or was she too focused on the job? Was it something she hadn't prepared? She went through the list. The kill spot was secured—an abandoned barn a few kilometers away. The cars were rentals under fake data. The gas station didn't have its cameras working.

"Focus," Ophelia whispered, mulling the work over. She was focused on the room and the target, so maybe… She looked out the broken window and, focusing on the outside, heard it immediately. Sirens. Police sirens, to be exact. Approaching fast, judging by the slight red and blue hue visible over the trees.

"How?" she whispered, looking toward Sam with a question. He shrugged.

"Don't look at me. I didn't call them," he said.

"What is it, then?" Ophelia asked, to which the man just tilted his head.

"I don't know. Not my job, not my decision." She froze for a second with her mouth open, but then pushed aside the surprise and began analyzing. First, the question of how and why entered her mind, only to be quickly shoved aside.

'First decide the next steps and make sure you're not in danger, then you can ponder.' Sam's words, spoken during her training, entered her mind. She looked deeper into the house. Should she go for the target or not? That was the question. She hesitated, her hand tightening on the rapier's handle as two reptilian eyes of her snake shone in the darkness, looking at her with curiosity. She could make it. She could easily knock out the man and run before the cars made their way here.

But how the police knew was a mystery. Were they tracking her? Her phone was turned off and in the car, as was Sam's. So, was there a traitor among the cats? Or maybe a fluke? So many questions. Getting caught during the transport wasn't ideal.

"We're turning away," she commanded.

"Oh?" Sam asked, his expression neither happy nor disappointed in her decision, mostly only curious.

"Too many unknowns. If someone knew about the job, then the ritual site might be compromised. Tonight doesn't coincide with any moon phases or dates, so the ritual can be moved with a different target, as the criteria aren't that complicated to meet," she recited, making her way back through the window.

"Good." Sam finally smiled. They made their way to the tree line before the police cars reached the massive property and saw the owner walk in front of the mansion with a flashlight, waiting for the cars, as by now their sirens were pretty hard to ignore. Ophelia turned around, ready to get back to the cars, checking whether they were being followed, but she then noticed Sam didn't move. She turned, looking at him.

"Do you know how that might have happened?" he asked.

"Right now?"

"Right now, you have a breather. If someone knew about the job, then five minutes won't make a difference in getting back to the cars. Back then, you needed a fast decision, which made knowing the reason mostly useless. But now, you might make a mistake by not knowing what it might have been, or at least suspecting which enemy you might meet, assuming this is a trap."

"Right," she scolded herself internally before bringing her mind back to the job.

"The police were using sirens full blast, no SWAT team in sight, so it's more likely to move us out. The police are also a strange choice for a mage, especially with the house and the forest making for a good ambush spot. This seems like either a strange coincidence…"

"And we don't believe in those," Sam said, nodding.

"Or a warning of sorts? Message, maybe?" she proposed.

"Most likely," Sam said, turning toward the police cars visible through the trees.

"A 'hey, look at what we can do.'""What do you think they used?" Ophelia asked after not coming up with an answer. To her surprise, Sam shrugged.

"Not sure, honestly. From a magical perspective, the job was almost perfect. But I don't know about the rest. Did someone tap the phones, track the cars' GPS, or look through the street cameras? I have no idea. But I would bet on some tech bullshit," Sam finished with a note of irritation in his voice, "really starting to get on my nerves."

"Okay. So we destroy our phones and walk until we can get a taxi, then send cats to retrieve the car?" Ophelia proposed. Sam shook his head.

"We didn't commit any crimes. I'll hide our stuff in my pouch, and if we get pulled over, we might learn something about who it was."

"Okay," Ophelia agreed and once again turned around to walk, but Sam still stood like a statue. She paused, wondering whether she had missed something, before finally arriving at an answer as she saw Sam's eyes shine through the mask in the pale moonlight, making him look like a strange forest demon rather than a man.

"We should answer the message," Ophelia said, realizing.

"Yes," Sam said, the mask twisting into a wide smile.

"And what should our answer be?"

"Your efforts are worthless," Ophelia said, commanding her snake to slither through the grass. By now, the police had seated the man in the cruiser and were sweeping the house after noticing the broken window. In all the adrenaline, the man didn't feel the bite on the calf as a black snake slithered into the car through the open door. As the two turned around to go back to their car, they could hear the commotion begin as the man started spasming, foam pouring from his mouth.