[Rien's POV]
I turned toward the voice.
There was… no one there? I heard the sound again.
"D i d Y o u F o r g e t Y o u r S h i p m e n t O f F i s h ?"
"H e l l o !"
"I R e c i e v e d M y S h i p m e n t Y e s t e r d a y . T h a n k Y o u !"
Fritz narrowed their eyes and frowned. The rest of the dock seemed to be oblivious, minding their business as usual…
It could have simply been a dock worker, but something told me something was off. I glanced warily at Fritz. "Are you hearing that too?
"...Yes," they said slowly.
I glanced around the port as my heart picked up, just a little. I had the overwhelming sense that something or someone was watching us, and listening—but there wasn't anything. Boats still rocked gently amongst the waves, sailors still mosied around like ants hard at work, and dock workers still lugged their heavy crates of cargo. Waves still bobbed off shore, their white frothy peaks gleaming in the sunlight.
Then, my eyes locked on to the shape of an Archmage Constabulary officer sitting in the shade underneath a bridge.
I glanced at Fritz. "We could go ask the officer," I suggested.
Fritz hesitated but nodded, and we made our way toward the officer.
I finished my fish and pulled the scraps off of the skewer, tossing the skewer itself into a trash bin and throwing the bones onto the wooden planks. Gulls surrounded it mere seconds later, squawking and picking at the scraps before a larger kestrel snatched it in its beak and flew off.
As we approached, the figure beneath the bridge shifted. It stood with a wet, dragging sound, like something being peeled off the dock. The shadow peeled back with it, and pale, sickly eyes surfaced, smooth and reflective.
"Excuse me, officer—" I began.
*Grab!*
Fritz suddenly yanked me aside, their grip closing around my arm. It wasn't like Fritz to be aggressive—they were a beta too. However, Fritz's eyes narrowed as they dropped their cigarette to the ground, stamping out the still-smoldering, hissing butt with the bottom of their boot.
A plume of smoke rose from their nose as Fritz stepped in front of me protectively.
"Fritz, what's wrong—" I asked.
"Officer, what's your badge number?" Fritz demanded.
The Archmage officer didn't respond and merely stared blankly.
Fritz tried again. "Could you please step out into the light?"
…No response.
The thing didn't even blink.
Then, its eyes brightened.
*PHUT—*
"Fuck!" Fritz slammed into me, shoving me to the ground. The air screamed as something gray tore past where my head had been a heartbeat ago, splattering against the wharf in a hiss.
"Run," Fritz ordered, pushing me upright frantically. "Rien. Run."
The figure under the bridge stepped forward into the light. Their entire body seemed to be formed out of a gray sludge, except for a top hat and grimy badge, both stained red with blood.
A shiver went down my back as another pair of eyes blinked open underneath the bridge. I sucked in a breath as more and more eyes began to gleam in the shadows underneath the bridge, small pinpricks of pale white in the dark. They began slithering, squirming, writhing and worming forward one by one.
Fuck, fuck, fuck…
Move, stupid legs, move… MOVE, GODDAMNIT!
One smiled—or at least, its sludgy face split to reveal pinpricks and rows upon rows of white needle teeth.
"H e l l o ! H o w C a n I H e l p Y o u ?"
"Shit," Fritz cursed.
"Hey! What's going on here?" A gruff voice asked. A couple of dock workers had stopped and glanced our way.
*PHUT-PHUT-PHUT!*
Three dock workers were completely swallowed as sludge-shapes slingshotted forwards, severing the bodies of the hapless workers in half. Their corpses thudded to the ground, splattering in bloody masses.
I didn't even get the chance to react.
The crowd at the docks scattered as panic and chaos ensued, everyone running off in different directions. There were too many bodies nearby, and many clueless people were swept along in the tide.
"Proteger!" I barely heard Fritz's voice over the shouting and screaming as they cast the protection spell on the both of us, a warm fuzzy feeling enveloping me like a cozy blanket.
Fritz led me by the arm. "Come on, Rien. We need to get out of here—"
*PHUT!*
A jet of the grey sludge smashed into us, and everything went black.
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At around the same time above the harbor of Vaulnere the wind howled across the rooftops. Far below, the docks stretched out along the dark water, lanterns swaying on their hooks as waves slapped against the pilings.
A lone figure stood watching the port from the edge of a slate roof, her black trench coat snapping sharply in the sea wind.
Inspector Aerel had arrived in the city only hours earlier, searching for the tainted mages based on leads she'd uncovered during the raid on her apartment the night before.
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[Inspector Aerel's POV]
"Inspector!"
Inspector Aerel turned toward the voice, her black trenchcoat flapping in the wind. "Casey. Do you have a report for me?"
"Yes, inspector," Casey replied. The woman—Aerel's adjutant and companion—smoothed a strand of black hair out of her eyes. "We've lost contact with two squads."
Inspector Aerel froze and her voice dropped by about a hundred degrees celcius. "Where were they last spotted?" Her icicle-white hair whipped around her shoulders in the wind.
"The harbour—eep!" Casey yelped as Aerel grabbed her by the arm. "I-Inspector?"
Casey glanced up, only to see the inspector's normally serene, beautiful face gone ice-cold as Aerel pulled the brim of her top hat low over her eyes.
"Voyager," the inspector chanted, tapping her inspector's cane against the roof tile. Aerel couldn't shake the sense of dread that crept into her chest as she enveloped them in a blossoming storm of glowing white pages with her magic.
*Flipflipflipflip!*
"I just hope we aren't too late," Aerel whispered.
The white pages snapped shut around them like a book.