205 - They Were Good Foldovers, Semzar [Cherno] (Patreon)

“Are… Are you alright?” Casus asked.

Krahe gave a nod, raising her right hand. The Atomica floated in her grasp.

“Pre-implantation attunement, can’t use thaumaturgy properly until it’s done. One-third of the way there.”

She glanced the way of the stillborn’s toppled lower half.

“Something tells me those won’t be the last freaks to blindly chase after me in the meanwhile.”

“Of course. You are a walking beacon,” Casus agreed, walking up to Strongman’s corpse. He took the keyring from his belt and moved to unlock the doors that stood between them and the rest of the upper floor. “Do you think it may be better for you to hide until you are in a more combat-ready state?”

“As it stands, I am… Somewhat more combat-capable than with the Twin Serpent Key. My wards will hold out a bit longer, and you’ve seen what my unrefined energy output can do. Tactically speaking it would be best for me to purposely draw the graft-beasts away from the ballroom, and thus away from Semzar. I will be able to outmaneuver them, possibly barricade them all out of the way with the last of the Forming Toroid’s charges.”

“Moreover, humouring Semzar with a face-to-face confrontation would likely work, given his personality…” Casus thought aloud. Clack. Clack. The circuits of the door’s warding flared for a moment, and then it slid open.

“...A bulkhead disguised as a swing-out door? How tasteless,” he remarked.

As it slid open, they beheld… Nothing. At first. The hallway was deserted, with neither guards nor stillborns nor barricades waiting for them. In fact, it was suspiciously calm. Then, the door across slid open just as the first one had, revealing the ballroom, and right through the precipice, Semzar upon a sofa, surrounded by women and guards — a throne of debauchery.

He was visibly pressing something on an unassuming remote control — Casus could see that it was emblazoned with a “closing door” glyph, but he didn’t get the time to say as much. Both doors began closing, only for Krahe to summon short walls as she passed through, jamming their mechanisms open.

Krahe, despite being undeniably the more vulnerable of the two, walked right into the midst of the enemy, adjusting her stride to exude an aura of piss and vinegar to match her very real aura of writhing, seething magic. She was in a weakened state, but she also exuded the single brightest aura in the building, and it wasn’t as if anyone could discern that her state was anything other than a power-up — certainly not with any of the half-dozen appraisal attempts that feebly washed over her.

Behind Semzar, Tsetse stood, calm and motionless — entirely in contrast with how Krahe remembered him. It felt like a different person piloting the same battle body. Countless performers and lower-ranked gangsters were clustered throughout the ballroom, but only a vanishingly tiny minority seemed ready to fight, even among those who seemed competent at a glance. The majority of Semzar’s security force comprised stillborns and their handlers — about sixteen stillborns in total, three to a handler. Of these sixteen, only one in three had visible weapons, and less than half had ward generators. Most of them were also sonar-types, with domed “helmets” that lacked visible eyes. Their heads immediately snapped onto Krahe, and some of them began approaching her, only for their handlers to pull them back — some with commands, others using physical leashes.

“Zavesh, spare me, and here I thought I was ready to meet you in person. Is your face rejecting you, or is that what you consider handsome? Is your venom gland perhaps atrophying?” Krahe sneered at the sight of the mafioso’s visage. It was nearly identical to how he had looked when she first saw him at the smokery, but his jawline and cheekbones were even more pronounced. He resembled a plastic surgery addict who got lucky and ended up looking only somewhat grotesque.

“So speaks the half-burnt anathemist. I expected you to be more cowardly in your approach — to think you would have a sense of decorum about coming after the boss of a rival gang…” he replied, visibly trying to put on an air of self-collectedness. The panic behind his eyes nor the twitching of his tendrils could not be denied, even as he smugly raised a cocktail from the table and poured it into his gaping maw, exhaling a puff of bluish mist.

“Rival gang?” she balked. “The bounty you put on my head was one thing. I was almost flattered, really. Then, you sent Crescent Jezail after me, twice, and even paid him for a custom shot just for me the second time! Didn’t work, I can tell you that much! But the last straw, what made me decide to tear you out of that stolen skinsuit with my own bare hands — was that you had a street vendor killed just because I bought my breakfast from him. And what, did you think I wouldn’t find out it was you? Or that I wouldn’t come after you? I liked that food cart, Semzar. He made good foldovers, Semzar! I really miss that fucking food cart, you half-Gor’ah trust fund fuckboy!”

The mafia heir shrunk back at that last phrase as if he’d been struck. 

Krahe felt Casus’ cold, firm hand on her shoulder, snapping her out of her tirade — despite being physically cold, an ephemeral warmth spread out from the spot he touched. Krahe had to gather herself. She realized she was much angrier about Imraal’s death than she had thought. Her anger had shown itself in her tendril gesturing wildly with the Pattner, randomly aiming it at the members of Semzar’s retinue. She hadn’t noticed herself giving into all her built-up anger and frustration, so busy was she trying to wrangle the flow of thauma within herself. She masked it by fishing a cigarette out of her pocket, lighting it up. Then, she immediately went back to pushing, not being willing to let up an advantage of psychological pressure.

“You wish this was just a gang war. That leaves room for politics. This is both a personal and a church matter — and would you look at that, both of your victims are right here, and it just so happens we're the executioners to boot!”

She finally took a drag.

“Aristedes, if you would.”

Casus stepped forward.