Shade

The Party Job 2/5 (Part three of A & S's adventure series)

Shade stared at him for a moment before laughing brightly, letting herself get spun away from him and into the crowd. She glanced over her shoulder at the dogpile as Aud extracted himself to shout vitriol at the young lord stuttering and flushed. She had to hand it to him, he was good at being a distraction. Every pair of eyes in the place was on him. She edged into the wall, slowly shifting into a silvery mist that lowered to the floor and poked at the seal of the door until she could fit through. It was simple enough to linger invisibly at the edge of the room, noting the exit Audemus told her of and the lone occupant who seemed unconcerned about the noise outside. Shade dabbed potion at her throat and wrists, then straightened, schooling her posture and expression. She reappeared at the door, slowly stepping out of shadow to lounge against the bookshelf with a stolen champagne flute and a slow, wicked grin.

“Erhur Flamecrest, in the flesh,” she purred, slinking toward the startled man, “And here I thought you’d be shorter.” Cornsilk hair, pale green eyes, a freckled visage from his past – not identical but close enough to keep him off balance. To let her gracefully set herself on his lap and let the pheromones work. To set the drink down for him and wait for thirst to drive him to drink it. “I-I’m sorry.. who let you in here?” Flamecrest questioned, swallowing hard as dilating eyes drifted over her wide and dreamy. “I .. may have asked pretty please at the door to have the honor of meeting you,” she told him, affecting a sweet shy grin, “I wanted to be able to bring you a drink and see you with my own eyes. Perhaps even spend a little quality time with such a fine specimen of a man?”

Her manicured fingers played with the ends of his neatly quaffed hair. He reached for the glass of wine and drained it. Her grin went wicked. Perfect. She slid off his lap, easily pushing away his grasping hands that began to twitch. The glass vanished just before he flopped down, wheezing over the blotter. As his heart failed him catastrophically, she went around his office and gathered the information she’d also been sent for. Black shadow crawled over the packet of information and vanished, leaving her to check her work, magically dispel her presence then slip from the room. She let the image of herself go strange, keeping to the shadows though she encountered no one on the way to the storeroom. When Audemus saw her again, she would look like herself to him – but like someone just on the tip of the tongue familiar to everyone else who saw her.

The lady Zidyndre Violetgaze – rich, bodice-busting, and absolutely thirsty for it – proved to be the rather tenacious sort, and he spent much more time than he would have liked in her company, unable to think up a plausible reason for his departure after her attentions had moved from her woefully unlucky dancing partner onto him. His timely opportunity finally came when she excused herself to the restroom with a simpering wave and a lingering, overly tonguey kiss. She tasted like one too many glasses of champagne. He extracted himself from the situation immediately, slipping out to an airy balcony with a disgruntled sigh and eyeroll. Content that he was alone, and unwatched, he took a minute to strike up the half-rolled thistle cigarette he had stashed away in one of his pockets and smoke it down to a nub to allow some time to pass before he entered back into the manor — although, this time, under a guise of minor invisibility. Poking around the first floor and into the mostly empty rooms (he did find one that seemed occupied in the guest wing: a perusal of this person’s items indicated an extremely boring soul very dedicated to the art of wearing clothes well past their stinky prime), the mage found himself mostly alone with his thoughts. A single servant, carrying a steaming mop bucket, had ushered by him in the hall but obviously had no sense of cloaked mage merely inches away.

Audemus gradually made his way upstairs, vaguely recalling the layout from so many years previous. The master wing — Flamerest Sr. had been housed there, at the time — would certainly prove more interesting. And honestly, he hadn’t been lying that Erhur had taken something from him once (although Shade had pegged it correctly as frivolous: a mithril cloak clasp decorated with dragons, fat sapphires for eyes. Borrowed but never returned.) but of course his interest here lay mostly in being nosy. Call it a character flaw. The door was locked, armed with a trap, both of which were handled in short order. Basic rune work easily dispelled, and a run of the mill lock which had given easily to his picks. It mattered very little to reset these things, considering the Lord would never be returning to this room.

A thorough examination of the room revealed an interesting collection of toys (he made sure not to touch) and an equally as interesting stack of ledgers and forgeries in a locked desk drawer that Audemus stashed away in the lining of his cloak to pour over later. The amount of money that a quick perusal indicated was being embezzled — and covered up — might come in handy, but it wasn’t the time or the place. He swiped all of the jewelry contained in a wooden box on the top of an armoire — no luck on his poor clasp — out of habit. Perhaps this hadn’t been worth his time at all, although he did appreciate the lengths Shade had gone through to indulge him. Turning sharply on a heel to leave, the toe of his boot caught on one corner of the plush rug beneath him, causing him to stutter-step once. The noise of it sounded hollow, a dull, echoing thud from the misstep — instantly sending his curiosity pinging again. Ripping back the rug and rapping down the line of wooden floor planks, a small feeling of satisfaction suffused through him at the difference in sound. It only took a small period of time to find the break in the flooring to open this secret passageway, and delight tingled low in his stomach. There was no telling how long Shade was going to take, but he very well couldn’t leave this new stone unturned.

Shade made it to the storeroom easily enough, blending in with shadows on walls or the few servants she ran across. Once there, she readjusted her gear, tightened her hair out of reflex and melted into the shadows between sacks of grain and potatoes, waiting for Audemus. Her only concern in all of this was, inevitably, him. Not that she thought he couldn’t take care of himself, no, he had that same taste to him that she had if .. different. But, he was flippant when he did things for fun. This was not a place to get caught or trapped if flippant became careless. Flamecrest had been her target, but this place served as the operations base for a larger organization. And the proof of it she’d already sent along to Rey to get to headquarters. However, with Audemus poking around she was sure he would come across – and take – other information. She just hoped he wouldn’t borrow trouble for his amusement. Her fingers touched the charm between her skin and the silk of the dress, the beat of his heart steady. He felt.. mischievous, curious. Like a cat about to get into shit and knock it all over. She sighed softly and let her head tip back against the wall.

The underground passageway was narrow and winding, inky black as none of the sconces were lit up. The walls were damp, and a stray footfall sent echoes reverberating for what seemed like a very long time. He tightened up his illusory guise and concentrated both on light footwork and masking the tell-tale arcane energies he was expending in case there were any around able to sense the magic at work. A mildly exhaustive process, but one he was familiar with – very much unlike this strange place he had crept down into. Audemus mulled over what exactly Flamerest would be hiding under here. A vault? It seemed a bit overdramatic for such a thing. Perhaps an escape route? Boring, but he could see the need – his own home had possessed such things in case of, well, people like the one he had attended this very party with. What he found, though, sent a spike of sharp distaste through his gut. The stone passage opened up into what looked to essentially be a holding chamber of some sorts. Reeked of filth – ammonia and unwashed bodies, death – and a sharp metallic odor, no doubt aided in part by the rows of iron cages and piles of rusted over (or perhaps, bloodied) manacles in this disgusting space. Smelly, but quiet: a lone guard seemed to be posted here, flicking through a paperback novel, and all the cells were empty –

Ah, no. Not quite empty. The distaste boiled over into nausea as he caught a glimpse of a small group of huddled figures in the corner of one dirty cage: little children, wearing shifts of burlap hardly even suited for potatoes. Skinny legs, dirty faces, wide, pale eyes that seemed to eclipse their gaunt cheeks. Three of them? Four? It was hard to tell the way they crowded together like baby birds. His mouth set into a tight frown as he stalked towards the unaware guard, a simmering feeling of discontent roiling inside of him. The guard died quietly, a sharp glacial shard spearing through the side of neck, hot gush of blood directed to the side and away. Audemus left the body slumped, and turned to the hushed gaggle – who seemed hardly phased – with no small sense of urgency. “Come here.” He ordered, in as gently of a tone as he could muster as he knelt forward to take two iron bars within his grasp, forcing frost magic into the metal to chill it to the point of brittleness until it flaked away in his grip. The kids didn’t move – but could he blame them? A cold sense of dread licked down the back of his neck, and he extended his hand. “I’ll help you. But, we have to go. Now.