Her smile strained a shade deeper, sharp teeth showing as the word 'madam' slid, slimy and unappealing, into her ears. Did she look old enough to be called madam? Was that a European thing?
"Oh, sorry." She carefully put her glass onto the counter, folding her hands together beside it as she squared her shoulders forward. Nervousness, but unyielding eye contact as she turned her head aside. Her nails dug into her palms. Assassin said that Mages didn't act in public. She also said that pain provided resistance to mesmerization. The swirl of a drink, the scent of the air, hypnotic patterns were common to the craft of European Magi. They knew from the party a few of the mechanisms at play in the Habsburg arsenal... but this man was supposed to be a top class magician, whatever that meant. 'A tool of the nobility.' She didn't like the way Assassin had looked at her after that talk.
"I've been pretty busy today, haven't even thought to check my phone yet. Uh, I'm sure you know it worse than I do, haha. You've got an exacting nature to not just throw the party anyway, big garden and all. I'm sure that will send a stronger message than a few cocktails and frankfurters." There was no piercing the professional aura surrounding him. As he sat and sipped his whiskey there was little Luna could do to read the situation. This wasn't
exactly a worried man drowning himself in alcohol but if it had been it would have been a lot easier to handle.
But there was something to benefit from here. Assassin had said so.
Habsburg was closing the distance of comfortable bar conversation at an alarming rate, coddling his drink in one hand and offering the other. Nice tattoo, she almost said, but became mortified at the prospect of showing her own. Even this close, there was no ignoring it. The pang of agony up her Command Seal. Did he get the same warning? Was a... cultivated mage, or whatever he was, more attuned to that hideous scar? She hoped so, even as she reflexively flinched at his approach. That was all common sense. She was unexpectedly sharp for being so tired: 'Common sense meant nothing to Magi,' a mantra rang in her head. If they touched she would die. Exploding runes on his palm, some kind of mind control balm, a karate chop to the side of the head. Who would honestly see it?
"I'm Luna nice to-"Her folded hands moved on the countertop, fist crashing into the side of her glass. All the feigned awkwardness of some giddy, money hungry girl just too excited to get networking brought to bear. A fan of water splashed harmlessly between the two of them, the glass falling to the floor and shattering both itself and the comfortable quiet of the bar with an ear wrenching squeal of crystal on hardwood. The couple in the back shot upright in their seats, the bartender cast his eyes their way, even an attendant passing by poked their head in at the loud noise. All the eyes she could muster were upon them. But mostly, Luna was just mortified. She balled her hands against her chest, shriveling as a reflex to the embarrassment.
She slid backwards off of her seat, taking a measured few steps back from the pile of sharp, wet glass left on the floor.
"Oh gosh, sorry, sorry!" She looked hurriedly between Otto and the bartender, engaging the employer with eye contact as hard as humanly possible. He was already on the move, hiding the annoyance in his eyes with a rehearsed smile and a harsh tug on the dust pan kept under the bar. She flicked droplets from her mantle as her face reddened. This was fine though.
"Are you alright Mister Habsburg? Such a klutz, am I right? A few long evenings and- and this!" She forced a laugh, getting out of the way as bartender came around the counter and swept. She offered him yet more apologies, professionally deflected as she backed away from the bar.
Franz Burine Plaza
Canvas Anglerfish Mass
No fighting in public. That was the rule. If she'd stayed a second longer in that hotel it would have meant coming face to face with Habsburg and inevitably the Servant that followed him. The wraith's ability was sufficient. It was not the outcome of conflict that she feared but the consequences of trying in the first place. His own base of operations, his own trump card was an acceptable loss. How many people were staying at the Park Plaza that night? How many in the neighboring structures, fragmentation zone, debris cloud... Her fist slammed into the postal dropbox beside her. Blue metal crumpled with the indent of her bandages. A dog began to bark at the sudden noise. A few lights flickered on down the empty street, old apartment homes beginning to glow with life. How easily the strong forgot the frailty of the weak.
Disgusting. There was only one thing her addled mind could feel about the situation. The people that needed to be saved were the unwitting shield of their oppressors. How nostalgic. Assassin climbed to her feet, rising from the comforting gap between postal box and recycling bin. That dog was still barking, and it was time to move along. Under the veil of espionage the wraith turned and strode off towards the city's lights, away from the old quarter and into the modern halls of glass and neon.
Any place to hide, any task to distract the mind until the next opportunity presented itself. Assassin had found an airy plaza, a place with trees, a breeze, and the smell of something other than exhaust fumes. It thronged with people, more than enough lively faces passing by for her to just sit on a bench and feel invisible for a while. A Servant was a spiritual creature, and despite the human trappings this Servant clung to that nature came with a new set of senses to match. A ghost turned loose on the world, forced to drink in its emotive states and persist on the immaterial energies of her new dimension. Excitement was in the air. Passion, invigorating just seductive enough. A concert was gathering, the sounds of instruments tuning up swelling over the voices of the crowd come to see the show. Bright hair, distressed clothes in plaid, she knew the type. The instrumentation was actually familiar. Played on her van's speakers that very morning, while her Master nervously eyed the touchscreen. The Servant tittered to themselves as they bowed their shaggy head and listened.
Something passed through her. A sickening expansion of magical energy. Once more the senses of a spirit betrayed the wraith. That boiling sensation, passed almost in an instant, was the creation of a bounded field. Her knowledge of Magecraft was not so specific as to identify its source, type, or function but it was enough to know that a Magus was nearby. Enough to remind her she was at war. One green eye hinged open to stare at the pavement below, slick lid creaking open over dark bags.
A local mage, uninvolved? A Master? Worst case, the Caster Servant? The inside of her wrist revealed the cracked face of her watch. The hour struck. Glass broke. Guns roared over the plaza. The music stopped, each instrument dying away on its own rhythm. Feedback filled the speakers as stage mics toppled, some capturing the screams of terrified spectators turned prey.
Assassin's head raised, face sullen, question answered. Bodies fluttered around them, tangled masses of people scrambling for an exit. The flow of the crowd ceased too soon, locked in place. Though they couldn't see it, the spirit could intuitively feel that borderline holding them back. At least one function of the field was identified. The couple sitting next to her scrambled away, both shrieking as the rattle of uninterrupted gunfire continued. One fell to the ground. The count began. Assassin stood up, lurching forward, hunching as her body loosely followed a trained-in procedure. The glass facade of the adjacent hotel was broken, figures silhouetted in the remains of the doorway by the internal lights. The fiery report of gunfire was unmistakable. The ones she could spot in the chaos of the crowd all shuffled with telltale purpose. Muzzle flashes lit the night, some staying to open fire while others streaked into the crowd, the weapons not stained in blood glinting in the dark. Some kid fell away from the herd in front of her, the back of his denim vest bloody. Not fast, not lucky... Caught up in the cull. Over him stood another man, smoking pistol slowly raising for another shot at the punk rock teen.
The bullet flattened against her chest. The wraith intervened, lithe form stretched across the ground as a bound placed her between predator and prey. Self indulgent. Unnecessary. Her mind reprimanded her as a second bullet meant for another body bounced off of her harnessed torso. The Servant's frayed coat fluttered behind her, a ragged tail shadowing every movement as she reached out at the gunman. A slap on the back of the hand collapsed his aim, the third shot burrowing harmlessly into asphalt as his arm folded against his chest. Her other hand came up holding the blackened polymer of her service pistol.
The owner of the bounded field was in for a surprise. Whatever they expected to harvest or monitor, whatever trap they had laid... Was working exceptionally well. Only moments into the ruse, an unmistakable signal went up. A feeling familiar to another Servant, an anomaly in the field that could mean only one thing to a Master. As fast as the trigger could reset, taking three measured shots, Assassin relinquished her camouflage. The answer to their bait was a Servant spontaneously appearing, wrapped neatly in their net.
The rat in their trap had sharp aim. The first shot destroyed the pawn's hand, a mass of twisted fingers letting his gun fall to the ground. They walked the last two up his body, perforating the stomach, smashing the sternum.
"Live." She surged onto him, scowling maw relinquishing a breath that steamed even in the sultry night. His dazed form spun in her hands, head shunted across her shoulder as a boot cracked the back of his knees. The wraith pulled its scarf up over its fangs, returning to its face the illusion of determined calm as a single burning eye set itself forwards. Assassin braced their elbow into the pawn's back, powerful legs driving her forwards.
"Live a moment longer." Assassin charged the boundary, straight towards the gunmen at the front of the hotel. A spirit could have ran from most bounded fields, but this spirit wanted to know just how well it would stop a body. A crowd of ordinary people had no chance at breaking the barrier. A sane person can't throw themselves into a wall without regard for the crash.
But her victim was going through one way or another. Whether it broke the threshold or took her closer to the caster or did nothing at all no longer mattered. Bystanders, other pawns, bullets, plenty of distractions pelted her human ram as Assassin raced straight for the doors of the hotel.
