Hastum
patreon
21. Like a wolf between lambs
🕑 Added 2025-08-29 22:03:35 +0000 UTCI looked at the moon slowly climbing the night sky. It was the beginning of the week, so hopefully the whole palace would be empty this late.
A perfect time for an ambush.
But I needed confirmation of the deal soon. I could just take the girl and wait for the agreement afterward, but I did not know what kind of man the CEO was. If he learned that she had changed hands, he might try to delay or take her by force from the new party involved, especially since I needed to return to the USA as soon as possible after completing the job, which meant re-entering his sphere of influence.
As if hearing my thoughts, the phone rang. “We got it, I don’t think he will go back on the promise. And even if he tries, we've got a contract signed in blood.”
I smiled. “Great, thanks.”
“Now get to murdering all those peop-” Click. I put down the phone, massaging my temples.
Well, the quicker this was over with, the quicker I could secure the most important part of the plan. The land.
I stretched my back a bit and checked the gear once again. I carried all the usual things for an exorcism, plus physical protection amulets, as bullets would be my biggest threat, and the shields I cast on instinct were more tuned to dispersing magic rather than high-velocity physical attacks. With them acting as my primary protection, I used my staff for all of the nasty spells.
As I sat down in a meditative position, I placed the head of the staff in front of me and started to weave the magic into it.
Two spells of the second circle. A Cutting Storm and Sickening Rays.
Three spells of the first circle, a simple barrier, and two charges of the cutting spell.
Next, I looked at my hands. Now to prepare the curses for tonight. Concentrating on the ink, I could feel it come alive. Moving it underneath my skin was not a pleasant experience.
I decided to prepare symbols for the Blindness of Seven Hells and Bestow Nightmare in case I needed to soften someone up for some mental work.
At the end of my ritual, I looked into myself, arriving at the shrine to the abyss inside me, and tugged a bit at the linen rope. It fell lifelessly onto the floor. I knew it would happen. I was way too far from any vein.
Well, it's well worth a try, I guess.
Coming back to the world, I took a last look at the moon and placed a hand over my heart. A steady, loud beat, a bit quicker than usual, similar to the one I felt standing in front of the house with the spawn. A smile crept onto my face. That was the third time in quite a short time. And hopefully, times like these would come more and more often.
For a couple of seconds, I cleared my mind of all distractions, focusing on the slight rush of adrenaline caused by the coming battle. What a pleasant feeling to be reminded that you’re alive, truly alive.
Finally, it was time to get moving. There was one last thing I needed done.
With a grimace, I took a root from my pocket. It was a dark and twisted bundle of smaller roots sticking to the main piece of wood. The whole thing was the size of a finger. I briefly considered using some carnival or ski mask, but abandoned those thoughts and stilled myself for the sensation as I placed the root in my mouth.
And the sensation came, with the feeling of a swarm of bugs crawling on my tongue. The roots started to grow rapidly, branches coming out of my mouth and wrapping around my head, forming a mask.
I obtained it from a living tree in Kansas after a teenager attempted to put on a cursed mask to scare his siblings. Once grown, the mask was very comfortable. You did not feel it at all as it attuned itself to your skin, and it could change your voice nicely, but the growing process was really not pleasant.
Now I was ready, my identity protected, magic precast, curse symbols aligned, talismans prepared, and now just getting into the red light distr… Oh, I forgot about that.
Well, I’m not going through the mask-growing process again.
One very awkward Taxi ride later, I was next to the brothel.
Most of the streets were empty. Some of those still out were too drunk to care about anything or anyone.
The brothel in question was a nice-looking two-story building with thick red curtains in the windows and two large dudes by the doors. Thankfully, no customers were waiting in line at this hour. After looking around to confirm that no one was paying any attention, I approached the doors.
“Hey, hey, Carlos. Look at that fucker.” One guard tugged at the other, almost asleep, man.
“What the fuck is that. Ay, lost your way from a Halloween party?” The other man jeered.
Both think I am a drunk moron, not reaching for their guns. Good.
“We are closing. If you really must, there should be some dogs wal-”
Dual cast Force.
The spells went for the sides of their heads, knocking them out in one attack. I caught the bodies and sat them on their chairs, making them look like they were sleeping on the job. I then looked around, but it seemed no one noticed the quick fight.
I opened the doors, and the moment I entered, I was ready for another fight, but instead, I was met with a silent establishment.
The room had wooden floors, a couple of paintings with suggestively posed women on the walls, wooden shutters in windows with thick red drapes, and a big reception desk with a woman sleeping on it, probably the receptionist.
She woke up with a start as I closed my hand around her mouth, muting the scream before it escaped her.
“Where is the basement?” I asked, the mask making my voice raspy and unnatural like it was made from a couple of voices stitched together by a madman.
She hesitated for a moment, but she was certainly not equipped to deal with psychopaths in masks in the middle of the night, and I could feel her trying to speak. “R-right doors, then at the end of the corridor, the last doors in front.”
“Thank you.” I tried giving her a smile, forgetting that all it did was cause the branches on my face to shift like living snakes into something akin to a smile. The woman's eyes just rolled back in her head.
Well, that's a bit rude. But whatever.
Following the directions, I opened the doors to the right and made my way down the corridor. The building was long. On my left was an open lounge with sofas, armchairs, and a bar. All were lavishly decorated in red velvets with a gold chandelier on the ceiling. On my right hand were rooms, all with numbers like in a hotel, if not for the red hearts and kisses decorating them.
I finally noticed my destination at the end of the corridor. The door did not stand out much, wooden and painted brown, but it did not have any number in a red heart on it. Also, after looking closer, I could see it was thicker, with heavy metal hinges.
I approached it and put my ear to the wood, listening in. The thick lumber muted the sounds, but I could hear some voices inside. Sadly, the guards were not asleep.
I took out some rune-paint and started drawing silencing runes on the door. While thick, it wouldn’t mute a gun going off, but that could be fixed with a bit of magic.
After finishing the last rune, I powered them with my own magic, ensuring no sound would leave the room as long as it was locked. Then, happy with my work, I cast Wailing Armor, quickly opened the door, walked inside, and closed it behind me, the seal coming alive.
The scene froze in silence.
Five tattooed guys with two scantily clad girls sitting on the laps of two of them. A game of low-stakes poker lay on the wooden table alongside three guns and beer bottles. The room smelled like cheap cigarettes and even cheaper alcohol.
“Gentlemen,” I nodded at them.
And like that, all hell broke loose. Three of them went for their guns lying on the table while two bigger guys dropped the girls from their laps and charged me, swearing up a storm. I quickly fired the Cut spell into one of the throats of the gunmen and went for my dagger and an amulet.
But the two large guys were quicker than I, and the bigger one got me in a double leg takedown, pinning me against the wall with his body. I barely felt the attack as my armor took most of the force. But the same could not be said for him, as his eyes went vacant. The armor was using death magic, and right now, the wailing of ghosts was attacking his mind.
I made a quick sign in the air and placed both my hands on the face of the guy pinning me. His skin under my hands started to rot as he began to scream. The pain broke his stupor as he let go of me.
The second attacker was winding up a hit with a bat, but his screaming friend got in his way.
“Get down!” Shouted one of the gunmen.
I heard the sounds of the safety switches coming off the guns. The man with his face now rotting still dropped down on instinct.
Their training was impressive. But that wouldn't help them.
I raised my left hand holding the amulet. The shots rang in the air, followed by gasps of surprise as the bullets ricocheted off an invisible wall.
My turn.
I swung my dagger at the back of the head of the first man who attacked me, as he was rising to his feet. I could feel the dagger steal some energy as it bit into the man's skull. I pulled the blade out just in time to see the second man winding up his bat at me.
“You fucking bastard!” He screamed seeing his companion fall to the ground bleeding.
I dodged underneath it and swung the dagger at his chest. The edge barely scraped his torso as he stepped to the back, but that was enough. I released the gathered energy from the blade, and the small wound widened into a nasty hole in the man's chest.
The man went down, but with him, the last reason the gangsters with guns didn’t just unload the whole magazines everywhere. Turning my head to them with an amulet raised again, I swore.
One of them used a normal handgun. But as I turned, the other raised a massive magnum revolver he had just picked up from an open drawer. I was by no means a gun expert, but any high-powered penetrating weapon was the enemy of any shield.
And I felt it a quarter of a second later as the bullet hit my shield, and I could feel the spell crack.
Another shot could shatter it. I jumped to the side into a roll, the bullet flying over my head.
The staff unraveled into my hand as I traced a couple of quick runes in the air.
Facing the gunmen, I saw the magnum pointed at my head. But my casting was already done.
Sickening rays.
Three sinister, green beams made contact with two faces and a hand holding a revolver. Burning rotting holes in their owners as their bodies collapsed to the ground.
And then.
Silence.
The smell of the gunpowder, blood, and rotting flesh. And silence, barely broken by the quiet sobs of two women in the corner.
Quickly reviewing the fight, I had to reprimand myself for my hoarding habits. Had I used the second circle spell at the beginning, I could have ended the fight much quicker and safer, with the gunmen not even getting to stand up from the table.
Instead, I thought they were barely a problem with a simple talisman. Even if the magnum would shatter my shield, I still had the armor spell on, but taking a shot to the armor would always let some momentum through, not too bad with swords, but rather unpleasant with guns.
People in the arcane world had a tendency to underestimate normal humans, and it looked like I was no different. Being surprised by magnum's penetrating power was dumb, I scolded myself.
As my father said, ‘An overestimated enemy might put you in a bad mood, an underestimated enemy might put you in a coffin.’
I’d have to be more careful.
I looked around the room, and the two girls were in the corner, one sobbing and the other emptying the contents of her stomach next to her. Their mental states were fragile, so putting them to sleep with a mental attack was easy.
Looking around the room, I found another set of doors, thankfully closed, which meant my silencing seal had done its job.
Now, after switching to a new talisman, I opened them, revealing stairs going down into the basement. After dealing with one sleepy guard, I saw another long corridor. This one had rooms on both sides, but they were different. This part was apparently for ‘special clientele,’ as half the rooms were clearly themed.
Some of the doors were painted to resemble those of a cell, with the numbers on them styled in dark leather. The room also had a name: the punishment room. Another room was styled to look like that of a princess, with fake gems and pearls. And another looking like a classroom with desks visible through half-open doors.
Something for all tastes from classrooms to dungeons, I guess. Thankfully, all the rooms were empty. No special clientele today.
I made my way almost to the end of the corridor. There was a heavy, clearly armored door there.
How should I handle the room behind it? I did not know the number of people or the room's shape, so it was dangerous to just waltz in, as I had learned a minute earlier.
A scrying spell should do the trick. Then, I can hopefully take them out silently.
Abyss, I could use a familiar right now.
But nothing ever went too easily. As I prepared for casting, the doors swung open. I was now standing face to face with a man who was clearly excited about something. His wide smile changed into surprise as he came eye-to-eye with me.
The gangster froze in place like an ice statue.
This was precisely the moment for a prepared spell. As he opened his mouth to scream, a cutting spell met his throat, silencing him. He grabbed his neck with both hands, trying to stop the bleeding on instinct.
I closed the distance and finished him with a dagger to the heart as I met his eyes.
He took a step back and fell to the floor. Three more men sitting at the table froze, seeing their friend fall over, bleeding.
“Alaaarm!” one of them screamed.
They tried to raise their guns, but Cutting Storm from my staff met them, shredding the three men to ribbons.
I looked to the left, barely seeing rows of cells, just to duck back as a shotgun blast ripped apart the door frame, washing me in a rain of wood and dust.
“Well, there goes my plan,” I sighed, casting another cutting storm.
** A cage in the brothel's basement **
Anna sat in her cage, her head pressed between her knees, eyes closed. Her legs and hands did all they could to prevent the sounds from outside from reaching her.
She tried to keep the shouting out of her mind, but that was almost impossible.
She was brought here a couple of days ago. Something they wanted from her father was probably the only thing keeping her in relatively good shape.
But that could not be said for all the other girls in the cells. When the guards didn’t pay them any attention, they talked a bit. From what she got, most of them were aspiring models receiving shady modeling offers. Just to be kidnapped, addicted to drugs, and sold off to the highest bidder.
She gritted her teeth at the injustice as she made the decision to raise her head and look at the scene, hoping that maybe something had changed while her eyes were closed, that this was all a dream, and she would open her eyes in her own room in her home.
But reality was a cruel mistress. She raised her head to see the ugly scene in front of her. One of the new girls made a fuss a couple of minutes ago, screaming and threatening, which finally got on the nerves of the guards. The other women tried to silence her, but it was too late.
Carl, the biggest of the men and the guard chief with a nasty reputation among the girls who had been here a bit longer, approached the newcomer. She tried to fight for a second, but that only made things worse. He dragged her from her cell and decided that they would teach her a lesson. A lesson that would be for all of them.
Anna didn't want to know what the lesson would be. She hoped that something would change, that maybe the heartless bastard who was their warden would find some last dregs of humanity in him and stop this.
“Wait, wait, dude, I’ll go get the camera,” came an excited voice from one of the men.
Any hope for a show of humanity just escaped. It evaporated in an instant at the sleazy excitement coloring the voice that spoke.
Her reddened eyes involuntarily followed the men who made for the doors. Keeping them closed while being able to hear everything was much worse, so she turned her gaze to the man moving away from the scene. Anything to avoid looking in front of her at the terrified woman.
She thought about praying, but that was all she had been doing for the past couple of days, and it was having no effect. Helplessness was slowly taking the form of apathy.
Until a strange scene took place.
Something difficult to describe.
First, the previously excited man stumbled back into the room, holding his neck, with blood pouring from underneath his hands, coloring his white shirt and the floor scarlet red.
Next, something happened to the three guards, who were still finishing up a game of poker next to the doors. It was hard to narrate, they… they just fell apart. Like toy soldiers dropped from a height, limbs, hands, and other body parts just collapsed into a heap where a person had previously been.
The whole scene seemed to freeze in horror. One of the men, still retaining some sanity, reached for his shotgun, but then froze at what showed itself next.
A person, or rather, a person-shaped creature, peeked into the room. A head that looked like an amalgamation of black branches, with two hollow, unnerving eyes, made its way into the room, only to duck back as a shotgun blast ripped apart the doorframe.
When the guards died, she thought that maybe God actually answered her prayers, but if so, why would he send a demon?
