Chapter 383: Peek-a-Boo

We keep walking without changing pace.

Rusthaven is still crowded. Light crosses the facades, cars pass in almost continuous intervals, and groups come out of restaurants like nobody in this city has any reason to look over their shoulder. Rhayne keeps her eyes forward while she talks quietly enough that only I can hear.

"Alone, I could lose three of them."

"So I’m dead weight?"

"No!"

"Ah..."

She ignores that.

"With you it’s different. That’s two people to hide, two rhythms, two silhouettes. If one of us slips, both of us show."

"Understood."

I use another shop window to track the man in the gray jacket. He’s still behind us, keeping his distance and letting other people move between us. The woman stays on the far side of the avenue. The third one is still harder to confirm.

"I’m not confident I can lose all three like this," Rhayne continues.

I run the math in my head. Three tails rotating positions means none of them has to stay exposed for long. It also means they depend on a chain. If I break the observation at different moments, I might be able to take that chain apart piece by piece.

"I think I can lose two."

Rhayne glances at me sideways.

"And the third?"

"The third I’m leaving to luck."

Her expression closes immediately.

"Den, that’s very risky. We don’t know who they are, why they’re following us, or whether they’re armed."

"I know."

"Then why—"

"Because the plan is to find out."

That clearly doesn’t improve anything. Rhayne breathes out through her nose and keeps walking beside me.

"Sometimes I don’t know whether you notice when you say alarming things."

"I notice."

"Then why do you keep saying them?"

"Is there another way? Do you think the police would help us?"

We walk a few more yards while I watch the flow of the avenue. I have very little time to confirm something before I start separating our tails.

I look at Rhayne.

"Give me your hand."

She turns her head.

"What?"

"Now. Come on, give me your hand."

Rhayne hesitates for less than a second before putting her hand in mine. I take it and keep walking normally, without slowing down.

I think. I choose. And I wait.

Something confirms what I needed to know.

’It worked.’

I let go of her hand.

Rhayne looks at me first, then at her own fingers.

"What did you do?"

"Later."

"Dryden, tell me."

"We don’t have time."

She keeps looking at her hand for a few seconds before realizing my attention is already on the next intersection.

I know this part of Rusthaven. The avenue ahead takes heavy traffic across three lanes, and the pedestrian signal runs on short cycles because the car volume is high. From where we are, I can see the counter.

Fourteen seconds.

I calculate our distance to the crossing, compare it with the pace of the man behind us, and slow down slightly before deciding.

’Almost perfect.’

"When I run, you run with me. Don’t leave my side."

Rhayne follows my eyes.

"The light?"

"Yes."

She doesn’t ask anything else. For a spy, she catches on fast.

We keep walking while the counter drops. Nine seconds. The man in the gray jacket stays behind us. With four left, I pick up the pace and Rhayne matches it without needing another warning.

"Now."

We step onto the crossing while the signal is already flashing. A couple ahead of us speeds up too, and Rhayne passes beside me with the bags knocking against her leg. We reach the far sidewalk at the last instant.

The light changes and the cars move.

Behind us, somebody tries to use the gap too late. A horn explodes, followed by the aggressive sound of tires on asphalt. I use the reflection of a shop window to look without turning my head.

A car has stopped at an angle a few yards short of the crossing. The man in the gray jacket backed onto the sidewalk while the driver gestured something through the windshield, shouting insults without stopping.

"That’s one."

"Two left. And now we’re on the sidewalk the other one was using."

We turn before the signal opens again for pedestrians and leave the main avenue, moving into an older part of the center. Here the buildings have lost Rusthaven’s uniform shine. Modern facades were installed over old structures, small shops occupy former warehouses, and the backs of buildings raised in different decades nearly touch.

I point at a narrow alley.

"This way."

Rhayne comes in with me without hesitating. A fire escape climbs the side of a four-story building, old enough to creak when I put my weight on the first step, but still solid.

We go up to the second floor and find an unlocked service door. The inner hallway smells of mildew and dust. There are a few empty rooms on one side and closed offices on the other, but I don’t head for the main stairwell. I cross a room under renovation and open a window at the back.

The neighboring building is close enough to make the idea possible.

Rhayne looks at the maintenance platform on the other side.

"You’re joking."

"No. Go, go."

There’s a little over a yard between the structures and a small difference in height. I cross first, grab the railing when the platform rocks under my weight, and signal for her to come. Rhayne crosses right after. I take her forearm when her foot touches the metal.

"I’m fine."

"You won’t be if you fall from this height. Come on."

We go down the outer stairs of the second building, enter through another door, and cross a hallway completely different from the first. When we finally reach an exit at the back, we’re almost a block away from where we started climbing.

Rhayne glances back discreetly.

"I think we—"

Fast footsteps come from somewhere above.

She stops talking, and I heard it too.

"One of them followed."

"How?"

"I don’t know yet."

We keep moving before he can make up the distance.

The next building has a maintenance passage between two internal parking areas. We go in through a heavy metal door and cross a narrow corridor until we find another exit on the opposite side.

Before moving on, I close the door we came through and slide the bolt.

Rhayne watches.

"That won’t hold for long."

"I know."

I raise my foot and kick the area around the bolt housing. The metal dents, but not enough yet. I kick again, this time concentrating the force on the plate holding the mechanism. It bends around the bolt and traps it in an uneven position.

"At least now it’ll annoy him."

We run.

We’re almost at the other end when the first impact hits the door.

The sound crosses the entire corridor.

Rhayne looks over her shoulder while a second blow makes the plate rattle. The man on the other side is trying to force his way in, but the deformed mechanism doesn’t release right away.

"He really does sound annoyed."

"He’ll get through eventually. Let’s go."

We come out the far end and go down a narrow ramp to the street. I don’t slow down while I look for the next route.

"What if he catches up?" Rhayne asks.

"Then we stop running."

She gets it fast.

"Hand to hand?"

"Yes."

"Den, be careful. They could be armed."

"I know."

I don’t have Kraken, Eventide, or armor. On Earth, a lot of what I’ve gotten used to treating as an extension of my body simply doesn’t exist. Rhayne doesn’t have her Battle Ribbon either. If this turns into a fight, we’re only two people with training against someone whose capability we don’t know, and if he’s a Diver too, his rank will matter more than technique.

That makes the idea of a confrontation bad.

It’s still better than the alternative of being taken.

We cross another street and move into a smaller commercial zone, changing direction several times until any ordinary pursuer would have lost the line of sight completely. Rhayne uses shop windows, parked cars, and reflections in the glass to check behind us without giving the movement away.

After almost two minutes, she slows a little.

"Did we lose them?"

I keep walking.

"Two of them."

She looks at me.

"Den, I don’t see anyone."

"Trust me, this smells like a Diver."

"Then how do you know there’s still one?"

There’s no supernatural sensation pointing in a direction. What there is, is a route nobody should have been able to follow.

"Because nobody should have been able to find us again after we went into that building. One of them passed the information along, and it wasn’t the same one, or he wouldn’t have fallen for the closed-door trick."

Rhayne glances back discreetly.

"Maybe he knows the city as well as you do."

"Honestly? That wouldn’t explain it."

The possibility exists, but it doesn’t cover everything. We crossed two different buildings, broke line of sight several times, and changed elevation. Someone following visually would have shown up trying to recover position, or given up on the trail.

That one did something else.

"One of them is using a tracking ability," I say.

Rhayne thinks for a few seconds before answering.

"Then he doesn’t have to see us."

"Probably not."

"How do you lose someone like that?"

I look at her.

"You don’t."

Rhayne’s expression changes immediately.

"Den..."

"We let them find us."

She’s even less satisfied, but she doesn’t try to argue again. She worked out a while ago that the plan stopped being an escape.

We go another two streets until we find a quieter stretch, still lit and close to the commercial area, but far enough from the main avenue to give us some control. I pick a narrow alley between two buildings. It runs a few yards and turns right, hiding the far end from anyone still on the street.

I pick up the pace.

Before going in, I slow for a fraction of a second and look straight back.

She appears.

It isn’t the man in the gray jacket. This is a woman, younger, short hair, ordinary clothes, controlled steps. She’s far enough away to pretend she isn’t chasing anyone, and close enough to understand perfectly when our eyes meet.

She realizes I saw her, and then I turn and go into the alley.

Rhayne watches me.

"Did you do that on purpose?"

"I did."

"Why?"

"I need her to know where we turned."

The footsteps are still distant, but they’ve already entered the stretch behind us.

We reach the corner. Past it there’s a short run of wall, two closed service doors, and some empty crates stacked beside a ventilation system. There’s no immediate exit, which makes the place look exactly like what I want it to look like: a bad choice made in a hurry.

Rhayne looks around.

"Den?"

"Can you use Void Monarch?"

She understands we’ve reached the part of the plan I was keeping to myself.

"I can."

"Then get ready."

Rhayne concentrates while I take her hand.

This time there’s no reason to hide what I’m doing.

When I came back to Earth the first time, I tried to use Consume and nothing happened. At the time I concluded the skill simply didn’t work on this side.

I was wrong.

Consume never worked without something to consume. In Thirstfall, I offered an Echo Fragment. The skill destroyed it and turned whatever it carried into something else: experience, knowledge, sometimes the possibility of a contract. Duvilin only entered my class structure because something was handed over first.

Here, the currency changed.

On Earth, my skills charge time and a specific target.

I squeeze Rhayne’s hand and whisper.

"Consume."

The answer comes immediately. I feel the counter react, and with it something between us closing. It isn’t a new skill appearing inside me. It’s a temporary connection, built out of the price I just paid.

"Now, Rhayne."

"Void Monarch."

The first colors cross her skin the same way as before. Reflections of concrete, metal, and night light run over her face and arms while her outline starts to disappear. Except this time the effect reaches the hand I’m holding, and it doesn’t stop there.

The distortion moves into my fingers, climbs my wrist, and takes my forearm. My skin loses definition at the same time my clothes start blending into the wall behind me. For a few seconds, the light seems to be trying to reorganize its own path around my body.

Rhayne looks at our joined arms.

"Den..."

"Don’t let go of my hand for anything, and stay quiet. She should be close."

The effect finishes covering both of us.

I look down at my own body and find almost nothing beyond small deformations in the space when I move. It worked exactly as I imagined. Consume didn’t give me Void Monarch. It only let her effect recognize me inside the same connection, for as long as we stay linked.

I pull Rhayne against the wall.

"Now stay quiet."

She leans in beside me and drops her voice even further.

"My counter is falling."

"So is mine, but look, it seems reduced."

We don’t need to discuss the cost. The footsteps are getting closer.

They come fast at first, like the woman is trying to recover the distance after seeing us turn into the alley. Just before the corner, though, they slow. She doesn’t come in running. She seems to be feeling the place out.

That worries me more.

Someone who comes in running believes they’re chasing something that can escape. Someone who slows before entering expects to find something on the other side.

Rhayne squeezes my hand slightly. I answer once with my fingers and keep my body still.

The footsteps reach the corner.

They stop.

For a few seconds there’s only the distant noise of traffic and the low sound of the ventilation system behind the crates.

Then the woman turns.

She comes into our field of view and stops almost immediately.

The alley, to her, is empty.

Her eyes run first over the far end, then over the two side doors and the windows above. She doesn’t show open surprise, but the way her head moves says something doesn’t match what she expected to find.

She takes a few steps in, not like someone who lost a trail.

Like someone trying to understand why her own tracking method keeps pointing at a place where nobody is.

She looks back once, confirming that neither of us returned the way we came, and advances a few more yards. The distance shrinks slowly. Rhayne stays completely still beside me, close enough that I can feel the tension in her hand even without seeing her.

The woman stops again.

Her face turns a few degrees in our direction.

For an instant I wait for some reaction telling me she’s seen us. It doesn’t come. Her eyes pass over the spot where we’re standing and keep going, but her body doesn’t follow. She stays there, suspicious of the empty space.

Her ability knows something her eyes can’t confirm.

Then her hand drops to the side of her jacket.

The movement is slow, careful, almost casual. The fabric shifts far enough to show a shape held underneath.

A gun.

She takes one more step toward us while her hand disappears under the jacket.

If the tracking is telling her we’re here and her sight insists the alley is empty, she has to choose which of the two to trust.

From the way her fingers start closing around whatever is hidden under that fabric, she’s already chosen.