Chương 221: Act 3, Chapter 70: Promises of violence

Day in the story:??? It better not be two weeks after we got here Gertrude Monkey Every time I had a chance, I tried sending a warning to Alexandra. But the truth was that I did not fucking believe it would reach her and instead focused on making sure I minimized my time in here to the absolute least amount of seconds it had to take.

After all, I wasn't really sure how much time had already passed and whether those two weeks were long behind us and Sophie was already dead, or if my actions had a chance to avert anything. I was motherfucking damn sure that Peter would be fine no matter what.

"That's the tenth," Penrose said, handing me the last of the money-made spiders holding increased amounts of my Authority. I'd used one to top myself up and now had ten more of those batteries in reserve.

"Thanks," I replied, taking it away from his hand. I hated that man, but I'd use him for as long as I needed him, before I disposed of him. Luckily for me, I was created by Alexa in the image of his teachings, and mercy or even faint traces of connection she'd felt for that man, that disallowed her from finishing him off, were not going to be an obstacle for me.

"So, now what? We stop moving and fight whatever comes for us?" Thomas asked, as he paced around the statues in the lobby. He shadowboxed them every now and then, waiting for me and Phillip to finish this magical preparation session. He and Ramirez were the reasons I'd try my best to finish this operation before I dealt with Phillip once and for all.

"That would be unwise. The best course of action would be to force it out of hiding to attack someone else, and observe what we would have to face," Penrose replied, voicing my very own thoughts—which made me sick to my core. It repulsed me that we were so similar in multiple aspects.

"Let's grab whomever then. Plenty of people in here."

"I don't think it's that easy, Thomas," I told him.

"Most of the people we pass in here seem to be projections of the hotel. In truth, we might be the only people with their own souls in here, you get me?"

"No, not really. Does it mean that the rest are kind of an illusion?" Ramirez asked, as we made our way toward the stairs up.

"That's very close to the truth," I replied.

"And there is no real way of checking who is who, so we might go look for them for hours and find no one, and thanks to your employer, I for one have no luxury of 'fuck around and find out'."

"That's harsh," Penrose's face did not show any emotions.

"But not untrue. Ramirez, my dear, you will be our scapegoat in this situation," he put it matter-of-factly. Ramirez's face went pale and his movements rigid.

"Hell, nah," I replied, moving between the guy and Penrose.

"I do not agree. He might die in the test."

"We will do everything in our power to not make it happen."

"That's not good enough." I countered, while the guys remained silent.

"We need a contained environment for a test—probably a closed room, where I can paint an eye on the wall to make the spying possible. And if we put someone in there and close the doors, we might not open the same room anymore. I've seen it happen with me and Thomas. I remember it happening."

"Same," Thomas added, looking at me with furrowed brows.

"Don't know the fuck why, but this memory is clear."

"Gertrude, I understand your frustration with the circumstances you find unwarranted—or unpleasant even. I comprehend your inability to see the obvious solution to this issue, given the fact that doors stopped being an obstacle for you some time ago, but we may leave the door open. Is that not a fix to that conundrum?" He smiled, so full of himself and his cleverness, raising his chin to expose his vulnerable neck in a showcase of power.

He was so sure that even in the presence of cutthroats, no one would dare make a strike.

"And what if the first thing that happens is that whatever comes for him decides to shut those doors closed?"

"I say we remove them entirely."

"And I counter, once again, with the reason why we are doing it in the first place—to see what it is capable of—and sealing off the entrance or removing 'you know what' seems like a sensible thing to expect, given what we know—and what we should not remember, right?" I was one hundred percent certain that he was aware of that, but I felt it was good to say it out loud for those of us who might still be fuzzy about how magic worked.

"Are you volunteering to go in Ramirez's stead, Gertrude? Because as far as I am concerned, we have no other options in how to do it, and—with no offense meant to the man, who may I remind you is one of my most trusted people—he is the least valuable one here. You have magic of your own, so do I. Thomas is enhanced by the armor you've painted on him."

"Least valuable," I countered again, "if all you think about is what you can get out of someone."

"Are you suggesting that all lives are created equal, under the good old sun? Do not tempt fate—you may still hear God laugh at you for that foolish notion," he replied, laughing silently under his breath. This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

"I never said that," I replied, noticing that our argument made some of the Shadows in here take a closer look at what we were doing.

"In the situation we are in, Ramirez might provide the least help, but we will not always be here—if we do this right. And you know well enough that he is irreplaceable behind the wheel. The man could drive between two trucks on a narrow street at full speed."

"Thanks," the one in question whispered more to the air itself than to any of us. He knew full well that he had little bargaining power or any leverage to haggle for his own fate.

"Wondering about the future that may never come is unproductive. Ramirez goes, and that's the last—" he started saying, but Equinox was already in my hand, its open eye looking right into Penrose's.

"You will reconsider your stance. Others may still be scared of you—and for the right reasons, I bet—but with that attempt on the lives of my family," I stressed the word with enough underlying importance, "you've removed the only leverage you had against my retaliation."

"Oh, did I? Am I forcing your hand here, Alexandra?" He chose to smile, mentioning my real name. I wasn't going to satisfy him with an answer.

"You'd hear the safety clicking off if Equinox still had one." I saw Thomas raise both of his hands in a gesture to calm the situation down.

"I will do it," Thomas said, and the suddenness of that forced Ramirez and Penrose to turn to him. I remained focused on Phillip and watched everything around me as my creator intended—with the use of painted eyes.

"I will fucking go, if that makes you stop this arguing."

"Unwise choice, Thomas."

"I see no other way. I hate this, but I think I will be able to survive."

"Wrong!" A voice that sounded like something coming from underwater reached us.

"You will die. You will all die!" All of them looked around, searching for the source. I saw it first of course. Tendrils of shadow slipped between statues, stretched along the floor, climbed over the edges of bodies that instinctively recoiled the moment my hand moved toward the gun. They didn't flow smoothly—they trembled and shivered, each strand quaking in time with that voice.

Beyond that, in the distance, I saw the hotel's security running toward our location as well, most likely in response to the weapon I brought out.

"One move, and you'll all die." The shadow spoke again as it reached the center of us. They spiraled together into a tightening vortex of black that pulled every stray strand into a churning mass—a literal whirlpool made of fucking absence. The ground beneath it dimmed, as if light itself was being drained too. When the last of the threads snapped into place, then the darkness rose revealing Rei Yamashiro standing in front of me, clad in half-broken Guild armor and a torn coat over it.

His Guild armor hung in broken segments, the chestplate shattered open along the left ribs, barely held in place by a single strap over his shoulder and the belt at his waist. The coat draped over it was torn and soaked in blood. One leg was stripped of protection entirely. His wakizashi—if it could still be called that—extended toward me, half a blade left, the edge jagged and uneven.

His face was almost lost beneath neglect and madness—thick black beard, tangled hair falling in wild strands—but the one eye I left him remained. As soon as he appeared, he cast his natural shadow over the ground again and tried to use it to reach me—but I was already jumping backward, redirecting my weapon toward him.

"You will all die!" he said again, as the shadow he sent after me split into multiple tendrils and ran along the floor toward the three guards rushing toward us. He caught them mid-motion, twisting their movements to mimic his. He cast his blade toward one of them, right at his feet, while still looking at me. All of them repeated the motion, but none of them threw anything. Then he reached for the blade, forcing one of the guards to pick it up, and with one more compelled motion, made him end his own life.

Penrose did not wait for him to repeat his puppet show and instead removed the heads of the other security officers with clean cuts from extended banknotes.

"Rei! Just the man we've been looking for!" He was still facing me when the shadows that caught the guards snapped back into him like rubber bands stretched too thin.

"You! I remember. That's you, isn't it fucking right!?"

"I have no idea what you are talking about," I shot back at him.

"Rei," Penrose called him again.

"Yamashiro. You called for help. Where are your people?" The ones that Alexandra had spent so much time and effort pushing through the veil between worlds. The thief turned to Penrose, hesitantly taking his eyes off me. I redirected Equinox back at Phillip, which did not go unnoticed.

"Dead. All bloody dead. I called for help?"

"Yes. You tore through the note I left you. Must have been a long time ago, if your appearance is any indication of the passage of time."

"I… remem… That you, Mr. Penrose?" he mumbled, then suddenly dropped to his knees. He started sobbing, covering his face with his hands. Only then did I notice he was missing two fingers on his left hand. Penrose came closer and placed a hand on his shoulder, while Thomas puffed his chest and scared off two additional guards who had arrived late to the party.

"Are you okay?" Phillip asked.

"You do not look fine."

"I am not motherfucking fine, sir," he said, exposing his face as he dropped both hands to the floor.

"This place—it's hell! Made my mind go bad." Not that it was amazing to begin with.

"I saw the thing. What you wanted to summon. I can feel it coming closer—that cunt. Every second we stay still—it doesn't fucking like it. It will want you to move."

"We know," Thomas said, already pacing back and forth. Ramirez stood nearby, shifting from one foot to the other.

"Thomas? Torque?"

"Yes, Rei. That's me."

"You'd die. It would come when you stop moving, like the people I forced to be still. And when it comes, the walls change—and the floor, and the ceiling—and the cold tentacles reach for you. They try to force you to move by taking away memories, like when you remember what you should not remember—but angrier. And the moment you can't take the stillness anymore—the very second you make a fucking move—it comes for you and drains you empty of anything that makes you alive."

"Is it the same thing that came for us before… Gertrude?" Phillip addressed me.

"Seems like it," I replied, lowering my weapon and putting it back in my bag.

"You can't kill it. I tried stopping it with my shadows, but it was so powerful they didn't work." Not a surprise—when something has that much Authority over action, inaction alone won't do shit. Stupid guy.

"It will kill you all or make you forget again. You can't kill that which won't allow you to make a move…"

"We'll see about that," I said.