All that was left now was for it to prove that it was working.
“I’m ready.”
Good. There’s a storage depot two floors down from here. Walk ahead and follow my instructions.
Got it.
I started moving, slowly, careful not to make too much noise. Voyda was an ancient trick of my kind. The word itself meant night, and while it was a simple charm it was a powerful one. We didn’t need shadows, or even darkness, in order to hunt unnoticed while under the protection of a Voyda charm.
We could walk right up to our prey, and they wouldn’t know we were behind them until our knives were in their throats.
Back when I was the holy bitch, I’d have to use a Voyda charm whenever I wanted to be left alone for a few hours at a time. The charm didn’t make me invisible, not really. It just made others forget I was there. Their eyes would gloss over me, as if I was part of the furniture, the scenery.
Over the years since, though, I’d learned how to hunt with it. How to fight with it. I’d made it part of my combat style, my martial art. I felt powerful wearing it. It was as if a security blanket I’d had stolen weeks ago had been finally given back.
My first test arrived immediately as I approached the first corner. A guard was on his way down the hall, I could hear his keys jingling, boots clacking. I pressed my back against the wall as I reached the corner and peered around it. It wasn’t a guard at all, but a maintenance worker in a jumpsuit.
I calmed myself, slowing my breathing and assuring my mind the magic would hold. When the worker walked past the corner, and past me, I let a little sigh of relief escape my lips. There was nowhere to hide behind, and the corridors were well lit. I was in plain view. Had I been anyone else, he would’ve seen me.
But he hadn’t seen me.
Is everything alright?
“Everything’s fine. My magic is holding. Can you see where I’m going, or do I have to describe things?”
I can see through your eyes. You have a long walk to the storage depot. Take a left turn, and start moving.
“You don’t have to tell me twice.”
I slunk out of hiding, if you could call it that, and pushed deeper into the hallway. Knowing I had the Horseman in my head had my heart racing, and probably had me a little more distracted than I should’ve been. He was right there, watching me, watching the world through me… reading my thoughts.
I wondered if he could read everything going through my mind, or only what I intentionally meant for him to hear. If he could hear more than what was meant for him, then he would’ve known I was thinking about what we had just done. I still had his blood on my cheek, and he had mine on his. More than what was happening right now, that whole experience had my stomach in knots.
I wasn’t sure he believed in the power of the bond. I wasn’t sure if I did. But we’d made it all the same, and now there was no backing out. If the Gods of my people could hear us from all the way across the rifts, we’d promised ourselves to each other; made a pact sealed with blood that we wouldn’t hurt one another.
I guess you could say I’d already failed in my mission, but I was starting to wonder if that was a bad thing… especially since there were plenty others who wanted the Horseman dead.
A few corridors down, I encountered my second test; a guard sitting by a checkpoint. The gate was electronically sealed, openable only by those with the right keycards and clearance. That meant there was no way I would be getting through, not without taking the guard out and stealing his key. But if I did that, the entire prison would be on high alert within minutes, and I’d be screwed.
“You’re up,” I thought. “How are you going to open that gate?”
I’m not. He is.
The Horseman’s energy surged through me as I tiptoed closer to the checkpoint. My entire body seized, my heart lurched into my throat, and for a long moment I found myself unable to exhale, or take a breath. He hadn’t worked through me—he had thrust his energy through me, and I felt like a pipe trying to channel it all to keep it from going everywhere.
The guard had his face buried in his cellphone, but as soon as the Horseman’s energy reached him, it was as if he’d been struck in the chest. He rolled back on his chair a few inches, the wall stopping him from moving any further. He’d dropped his phone, and I heard the screen crack as it hit the floor.
Then his eyes glazed over, and he stood.
Slowly, almost shambling, the guard fumbled with his keycard and moved it toward the pad. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen anything like that before, such brutal mental domination—and through a conduit, no less. His level of magic went way beyond the kind of charms my people could conjure, and it only served to remind me of just how dangerous he was.
The panel bleeped, the gate unlocked, and the guard shambled back to his chair. He slumped on it, like a drunk, then clumsily fished his phone up from the ground and stuck it in his face again. I hurried past the checkpoint and through the gate before it had a chance to automatically seal again, but I stopped and watched the guard as his senses took over again.
I thought I’d notice a moment of, what the hell? But no. I doubted if he’d even noticed something had happened. He was still scrolling on his phone, numb to the world around him. Numb to me, my presence, what had just happened to him.
You should move, now.
“If I don’t do what you say, are you going to turn me into a drone, too?”
The Horseman took his time with his reply, although I got the impression it wasn’t because he was choosing his words. He was enjoying this.
Are you worried?
“No, but you should be if you try anything like that with me.”
I wouldn’t dream of it.
“Why don’t I believe you for a second?”
Because you have been conditioned to believe I am an irredeemable monster.
“Those are your words, not mine.”
Another pause, this one I couldn’t read into. The service stairs are to your left. Take them down two levels, you’ll reach one of the secondary depots.
Sure enough, the door at the bottom of the stairs spat me out into a large garage type room. A military truck with a canvas tarp covering its back was parked inside, there were crates and shelves stacked with all manner of items running all the way along the back wall, and two giant metal grates leading out into what I assumed was the central courtyard.
I hurried out of the door and took shelter behind the nearest crate I could find. As far as I could tell, the garage was empty, but I could hear sounds coming from outside. Distant yelling, the rumbling of an engine… and dogs barking.
“I’m in,” I thought, “But I don’t want to be in here a second longer than I need to be.”
Look for black crates. There shouldn’t be more than one or two in there.
I peeked around the corner of the crate I was hiding behind and tried to get a look around, but the angles were sharp. I didn’t have a choice but to move around and go snooping, searching for the Horseman’s black crates.
The warehouse stank of motor oil, burnt rubber, and sawdust, but I tried to sniff out any gunpowder in the air, thanks to a lack of noticeable black crates in the depot. If there were any in here, they were well and truly hidden.
“I can’t find any,” I thought “Are you sure they’re in here?”