Instead of braving the middle of the horde of revellers, Yuriko made her way around the edges. She expanded her perception aura, but limited it to about half a pace from the floor. From there, she calculated the fluid movent of dancers and intuited a path to follow, with the least resistance. That path, surprisingly, didn’t actually involve the edge of the crowd, as that was where most people stayed still. In fact, she had better luck threading a path close to the edge before she boldly pushed through the mass at the centre. After she was through, she pushed towards the exit.
The exit hallway was just as short as the one that led to the basent, though it did have a booth for a cashier to take the cover charge. How Amalia entered when there was a clearly marked sign that said ‘Adults only, 18 ’, she didn’t know. Or rather, perhaps it was the fact that the girl’s figure was more voluptuous than Yuriko’s, or she had thick makeup on. At the mont, her crop top shirt hung loosely from the lost fat, which was thankfully covered by the cardigan. The blood stain didn’t stand out in the dim lighting, but the bouncer just at the door eyed her with so suspicion. But since she was leaving, he didn’t do anything.
The nightclub was called Stolen Whispers, and it was on a wide avenue that had about three other clubs along it. Yuriko glanced at the sky and barely managed a wince. The moon was up, but she felt no reflected Radiance from it. The skies were bereft of Chaos flows, as expected, but there were no stars either. Other than the moon, everything else was darkness.
Hmmm, maybe a couple of twinkles here and there? She didn’t get a good look at the plane’s cosmology when she entered, but perhaps it was closer to the Void than anything else. The atmosphere was bereft of any familiar energies, at least.
All that was pushed to the back of her mind as she turned left and walked on the pavent. mories trickled in, and she realised that she was headed to a bus stop. She paused for a mont and translated the thought. She was headed to a commuter tram station that would take her towards Amalia’s mum’s tenent apartnt.
Did she want to go there? Where else would she stay? For that matter, how safe was the apartnt to begin with? Dribbles of mories indicated that mum, Palma Roth, was often visited by druggie boyfriends, so of whom were annoyingly grabby.
The bus stop had a clock and a schedule at the back, and the ti was already midnight. Service stopped at ten in the evening. What were Amalia’s plans for getting ho? Unless she didn’t plan to co ho tonight? Yuriko was sure the girl hadn’t planned to get murdered either.
If mory served right, there were a bunch of seedy hotels and motels a few blocks away. So of them actually checked for IDs, but of course, she needed to go to one that didn’t. A fifteen-year-old student would stick out like a sore thumb if she went to the more legitimate places.
She crossed the avenue and snuck into an alley, away from the streetlights and prying eyes. It stunk of garbage, rotting food, and urine, and she carefully made sure her perception aura didn’t actually touch the ground. Her bootsoles stuck to so sticky spots, and she carefully didn’t think about the details.
At the fourth block she crossed, the alley let out into a small courtyard that was lit up by a fire within a steel drum. A bunch of weary-looking people bunched around it, with their hands tucked into their armpits and breath puffing out steam. The weather didn’t feel cold to Yuriko, but it was halfway through the Season of Earth back in Astoria and Shangria. The latter’s climate changed with the bio, so the temperature rose and fell accordingly, but in Astoria, it would be quite chilly indeed. Here, the cold was almost as bad. Yuriko didn’t bother the holess and simply crossed the courtyard, keeping to the shadows.
The street the alley ca out to was a bit busier than normal, even close to midnight. It looked to be a main thoroughfare, and it was impossible to cross since there was a fence right in the middle. She glanced down the road and spotted a raised pedestrian walkway, so she made her way there. At the base of the stairs, she hesitated when her perception caught sight of a bunch of hoodlums spray painting graffiti on the inside of the elevated walkway. But she didn’t know where else she could cross, and Amalia’s mory trickle ca up blank, so she just sighed and climbed up the two flights.
The hoodlums, about five of them in ratty-looking hoodies, didn’t notice her until she was several paces past the end. What they were painting looked like three yellow hexagons stacked, with the middle one to the left of the others.
“What’s a little flower like you doing outside at this hour, huh?” the nearest hoodlum sneered.
“Going ho,” Yuriko said flatly.
The young man raised an eyebrow while his gaze zeroed in on the bloodstains on her cardigan, then at her collar. “You alright, girl? You don’t look so good.”
“I’m fine,” Yuriko said, with a bit more emotion in her voice. Concern had not been what she expected from them.
The other four looked at her, then another one, a girl from her voice, chid in, “Who hurt you, girl? Need a hand?”
“I’m fine. He can’t do it anymore.”
“Oh, good for you,” the girl said. “Listen, you have trouble on our turf, you tell us.” She nodded towards the painted symbol, and Yuriko belatedly realised it was a gang tag. The Honey Bludgers.
“I will.” Yuriko nodded before she continued past them. “Thanks.”
The five of them nodded and continued their artwork, and Yuriko chuckled to herself. Her left hand twinged. It had swollen to about twice its size already, since Recovery couldn’t finish the job without nutrients. Thankfully, there was a convenience store just a couple of buildings from the pedestrian walkway’s other end.
Thirteen’s was open at all hours and was brightly lit. Yuriko wandered inside, quickly perused the rchandise, then purchased a bunch of trail mix bars, a couple Ren of purified water, paid twenty Weyrmarks, and left. As she returned to the street, she tore open a bar with her teeth and nomd down. The bar was overly sweet, but was quite filling. It also allowed her to finish repairing her left hand, at least to the point that it wouldn't be noticed when she checked in at the motel.
She crossed another couple of blocks before she found a likely spot. The motel was called 23rd & Drive, and the parking lot spots were about half full. That ant, she assud, that half the rooms were vacant. The building was a two-storey affair, but only a couple had lights shining from the windows. At this late hour, that didn’t an much, though. She entered the reception area and walked up to the clerk, who gave her a sowhat judgntal stare, but gave her a key for room 210 for fifty Weyrmarks.
She trudged up the stairs, found the room and entered. It wasn’t much, but it did have an ensuite bathroom. That much was worth what she paid for. She locked the door, engaged the deadbolt to be sure of privacy, pulled down the window blinds, then headed to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. Her looks had already started to shift, but Amalia looked nothing like her, so it would take a while. Still, the roots of her hair already turned gold, and the Radiance she’d gathered moved there naturally. Amalia’s hair only fell to her shoulders, so it had a lot of growing to do.
The stain on the cardigan and her shirt would be difficult to launder out, but…
She doffed the stained clothes and laid them across the sink. The Cleanse spell was easy to cast, but she wasn’t sure if it would work here, especially without ambient energies to call upon. Still, there was an easy redy, and she wanted to see if it worked first before considering her other options. She fused and converted Radiant motes into Animus, then perford the single vocal component, followed by three somatic components, then shaped the last runescript component. The bloodstain glimred for a mont, then flaked off.
“Good enough,” Yuriko muttered, even if that took an inordinate amount of Animus. It seed the plane didn’t reject Arcana Weaving, which was a relief. She couldn’t do much with it without specialising her core towards it, but if she couldn’t use Animakinesis, she might not have a choice. Either way, first to third circle spells weren’t much of an issue, though she’d have to retrieve them from her greater self at dawn.
She stripped off the rest of her clothes and took a quick bath. The water was lukewarm at best and was rather cold after the first minute. Once she was done, she wrapped herself in a bathrobe and settled on the bed.
She still needed ten minutes to fill her body with Radiant furnaces. She did just that, and thankfully, nothing interrupted her. Afterwards, she established her Radiant Physique, already adjusted to the best version she could do. If she had her third Sword Ennoia, she could probably create the core, but unfortunately, she was still lacking. Perhaps her greater self has already finished with it, and if so, synchronising at dawn should do the trick.
Well, an hour’s uninterrupted focus should get it done, and hopefully, the quiet would persist.
__________
The security officer was sweating bullets while Emilia Krese looked over the cara footage. Jacob Daniels and Joseph Laurent failed to attend the weekly review, and neither of the two had a record for tardiness. When the Stolen Whisper’s manager couldn’t confirm that they had left the club, followed by the discovery of ashes in the basent, she’d been called in.
The sweat-soaked man slled delicious to her, but her reserves were close to full. And it only took a single glance to note that the man was one of the clan’s thralls. No need to waste resources, even if most thralls would be thrilled to be fed upon. It gave them a greater chance of eventually becoming kindred.
Her fingernail traced the footage. Five minutes before ten saw Daniels enter a room with a girl, a bloodbag from the looks of it. Fifteen minutes past ten saw Laurent banging on the door. There were no caras inside the room, of course, even if it would have made the investigation smoother. Unfortunately, when the door opened, and he entered fifteen minutes later…
The fight had been quick and wasn’t caught on cara, but the sight of the poor child turning to ashes at the conclusion induced no small amount of anger. When the girl ca out and scavenged the child’s belongings, Emilia focused on the girl’s expression. Security caras didn’t have the highest fidelity, but the blank expression on her face, a marked contrast from the excitent tinged with trepidation that she had earlier, was quite notable.
“A face thief?” She muttered. “But why strike at so odd a mont? And in a place where they could be recorded?”
Emilia ignored the security officer’s startled squeak as she straightened up and marched towards the basent. The dance floor was full, and music was blaring even though it was already past midnight. She didn’t go through the crowd, but through the employees’ shortcuts, and soon, she was in front of the ash patch.
She reached for the discarded wallet and brought it up to her nose, then she burned the blood in her reserves. She filtered out the child’s scent easily and sneezed when the girl’s scent entered her nose. Sharp and deadly, and utterly distinct. It wouldn’t be much trouble to follow the trail, but the realities of physics ant that she might have limited success. Thankfully, she wasn’t limited to the mundane.
And with any luck, she would catch the possible face thief and teach those usurpers the price of crossing the Rotblu.
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