Brushing a strand of brown hair from his face, Marcus studied Raeh for a moment. This is not a bad person; he has done nothing to earn your spite, Marcus my man. You should show a little compassion... But compassion wasn�t what kept Marcus alive, paid, and fed. He had to leave before someone decided that he had been down in the Underground�s lair too long and was tainted... Too tainted by their ideals to live. He hardened his olive green eyes... He would be strong, and pay for his sins and his lies and the deaths that he caused when he went to be judged.
"Go to the G-District, the M. Maraconn building, tomorrow. I will leave a message at your apartment with exact location and time. Please be sure to be there. It could be very important to you." Else they'll kill you otherwise. No one who is asked and refuses lives long. Marcus tossed a card to Raeh, a mocking gesture of the man�s earlier action. "Here's my card." He walked out of the second basement of the Chalice and out onto the street without looking back. He was afraid that he would see his shadow following.
*****
"Here's my card." Raeh almost growled, roused out of his temporary self pity. He felt a frightening urge to throw the man across the bar and commence beating his face into a bloody mass.. (Born weapons don't often lose their purpose so quickly even if they do rust a little.)
Raeh snatched the card out of the air. Marcus Caravohl. 61-89-002, Cell. 875-43-11-032, Work. Nothing else. Otherwise, it was a perfectly blank white card of relatively cheap material. M. Maraconn building? Long time since he heard that name... And what went down there, he didn�t really care to contemplate. Didn�t look like he had a choice, though. He couldn�t leave the city- not enough money to bribe an official, and they�d have his picture out everywhere by then. He couldn�t not go... They�d find him sooner or later.
"Damn you," he whispered. He wasn't sure if he was talking to Caravohl or himself. "Damn you to hell." He decided to get spectacularly drunk.
*****
Lee looked up from the fascinating depths of her umpteenth drink to see Raeh walking, rather unsteadily, out of the basement. He must be drunk . . . He can�t even hold his drink. (He�s not the only one.) She put the glass down with exaggerated care, and yelled to the barkeeper -A new one, shift change- to put it on her tab.
Running out of the basement bar, she saw the stairwell door swing shut before she could reach it. (This seems somehow familiar . . . But as I remember it, the situation was reversed. Death chased us . . . We didn�t chase it.) We always chase death . . . It is our destiny to die. She ran up the stairs to the ground floor, and fled outside into the rain-slick steaming streets. She wasn�t sure where the thoughts had originated from, but they were right. She always chased death in men and in cars. And Raeh wasn�t there. Her mission was gone. She had failed, and it was on her shoulders. Atra would not be pleased . . . Hopefully death wouldn�t be waiting for her this time.
Lee ran back down into the Chalice�s bar, trying to see through the sudden haze of anticipatory tears. She ran as quickly as she could, shoving people aside. She was totally sober now; the alcohol had burned out of her system, replaced by adrenaline and fear. She ran, in the unconscious hope that if she ran fast enough she would still somehow, irrationally, succeed. She ran in hopes that her failure wouldn�t result in her final end, in her final agony. She practically flew through the Portal in the hidden back room.
The accustomed vertigo washed over her, her stomach feeling as if it had plummeted into free fall and her body feeling as if it were being crushed under 30 g�s of force. She tore out of the liquid side, strands of liquid-like ether clinging to her before snapping back. She fled blindly up the innumerable silver arches that linked the platforms of the World Between, the Void, Nox Noctis Domus. She ran up and up, trying desperately to reach the final platform in time. Her lungs ached and her feet felt like leaden stone; still, she ran until she reached the top, and knelt in abject, silent shame before her great Mistress, the Forerunner. The dully shimmering obsidian-like mosaic beneath her cut into her bare legs; she hadn�t even noticed the outfit that she had emerged in when she had torn through into Nox Noctis Domus. Black on black, a sheer, one layer dress. She recognized it from an old novel . . . A slave�s wear, a shamed servant. She trembled. Her subconscious had chosen truly. (What has become of us?)
�Stand.� Atra�s rich, melodious voice floated down from where she sat on her chrome, ever-changing throne, strangling Lee�s will. Atra smiled, albeit grimly, her unfathomable magenta eyes glittering. Lee stood, pulled up by something beyond herself. �Report.�
�I waited for . . . Him at the Silicon Chalice, an hour before he usually arrived. I sat on the bar where I could see the door, had a couple of drinks.� Lee was paralyzed, only still standing on Atra�s power. All that was free was what was necessary to speak. She had the overwhelming urge to hyperventilate. (Stay still . . . Then, sometimes, the predator cannot sense you. But it is already too late, now.) The thought surfaced in her terrified mind. Too late, too late! �He came in at the time he usually appears, 9.45 p.m.. Before I could approach, another man, blonde, five-eleven and nano-greened eyes, stood from a far table and joined him after he ordered a drink. Rum and coke.� Her eyes were glued to Atra. She couldn�t move; if she could, she would have been writhing on the floor. Pain blossomed; the Mistress was displeased. To think another woman could reduce her to an animal state of fear. �I approached him anyway, but he told me to go and gave me his card.� The forgotten paper was still clenched in her hand. The pain concentrated, retracted into a knot at the center of her spine and expanded. �I sat watching him, and ordered another drink. I lost track of time. When I looked up, the other man was gone and he was leaving. I ran out into the street; he was gone.� The last came out as a gasp; the remembered sensation of her spine being severed surfaced. She was released from the pain and the paralysis, and fell to the floor.
�You failed me, Child.� Atra twined a long strand of violet-black hair around an elegant black-taloned finger.
�Take care not to do so again. You will continue to observe Raeh, and at your next opportunity, you will bring him here under his power or yours. Do you understand?� She spoke in the bored tones suitable for explaining something painfully simple to a particularly dull child. �You are dismissed.�
Lee understood. Bring him in in any condition short of incoherence or death. She turned and fled, staggering, from the pale, majestic dark haired woman on the throne.
*****