Light flickered in the windows and the sounds of a party drifted out into the night. I scowled at the small building before me. This was not what I had planned. I had assumed that the guy would be on his own. Maybe even sleeping. But I needed to do this tonight, because tomorrow evening, Audrey and I were going to that soirée that Elise Dawson had invited us to.
I snuck closer to the back of the house. Audrey and I had split up to complete two missions tonight because we had to finish our preparations quickly since the ball in the Rose Hall was only a few days away. Or that was the reason I gave when I proposed this, at least. In truth, I also needed some space. From her.
When she had told me to fuck her, I’d thought that I could finally return the power balance between us to its proper place where it leaned in my favor. But it had affected me too, and I was pretty sure that she’d been able to tell.
Anger burned inside my chest as I grabbed the edge of the open window and pulled it farther out before climbing up on the windowsill. The sounds of people talking and laughing came from deeper inside the house. Maybe it was good that the guy had some friends over for a party. I needed to blow off some steam.
After lowering myself silently to the floor inside, I pulled the window shut behind me. For what I was about to do, it was better if the neighbors didn’t hear.
I slunk out of the deserted kitchen and moved towards the room that the voices were coming from. Candlelight lit up the pale walls in the room up ahead, and dark shadows shifted against them. Drawing myself up by the wall next to the doorframe, I cast a glance around the corner.
I narrowed my eyes as I studied the living room on the other side. Maybe I had been a bit generous in calling it a party. There were five guys in the room, including my target. They all looked to be around my age, or maybe a few years younger, and as far as I could tell, none of them would pose any threat to me.
When I had set out to do this, I’d had a different approach in mind. After all, this was a normal worker’s neighborhood rather than the shady part of town. But I needed to vent my frustration on someone.
Touching my palms together, I called up my magic and then stepped into the living room. None of the young men noticed me. My target was the skinny blond guy seated in a patched-up armchair next to the cold hearth. His four friends were sprawled across the two brown couches on the other side of the low table, and tankards and empty bottles of alcohol littered the scratched tabletop.
I decided on the blue-eyed fellow on the far right and threw a force arc at him. The attack sped through the air and cleaved him in two from the shoulder and all the way down to his lower ribs.
Now, they noticed me.
Terrified screaming erupted as the other four people shot up from their seats. Three of them whipped towards me while the one who had been sitting next to the dead guy just stared in mute horror at the blood and bones visible in his friend’s chest.
A man with long brown hair touched his hands together and threw a lightning bolt at me. I knocked it aside with a force wall before hurling a spear of magic at the one who was still staring at his dead friend. It carved a hole right through his chest, making him topple face first onto the couch before he could even turn to see who had killed him.
The three remaining men scrambled back behind the table and started throwing magic at me while screaming battle cries as if that would help the strikes hit better. The funny thing was that if they had just taken a breath and coordinated their attacks instead of throwing everything at me in a wild panic, it would have been much more difficult for me to get through. But now, they were shooting a jumble of wind and water and lightning without thinking about what they were doing, so their attacks slammed into each other’s magic more often than not. The ones that made it through, I either dodged or shoved aside with a force shield.
Panic and fear shone in their eyes as I advanced on them. Fueled by their terror, they increased the wildness of their attacks. It was starting to piss me off so I dropped the force shield and instead threw an entire wall at them.
It caught them right in the chest and sent them flying backwards across the room. Three loud bangs echoed into the otherwise suddenly silent house as they hit the wooden wall before crashing down on the floor. Stepping onto the low table, I strode right across it before jumping down on the other side and landing in front of the three young men who had struggled to their feet.
Before they could get their wits about them, I summoned a force blade and rammed it through the guy on my right. My target, on the left, let out a cry of fear and sorrow, but the dark-haired one in the middle raised his palms as if to attack while my force blade was otherwise occupied. I yanked out my real knife from the holster at the small of my back and stabbed him in the side of the neck. His eyes widened and his hands fell down by his sides again.
Wet gurgling filled the room as I withdrew both the knife and the force blade. The two unfortunate men collapsed to the floor. I turned towards the final person in the room.
His gray eyes were wide and terrified as he tried to back away, but he hit the wall behind him after only two steps.
“You’re going to be working as a waiter at the ball in the Rose Hall in three days, correct?”
“You’re a dark mage,” he pressed out, his gaze flicking to the force blade I still held in my right hand.
“Yes. Now, answer my question. You’re going to be working as a waiter at the ball in the Rose Hall in three days, correct?”
“I… I,” he stammered, eyes still on the vibrating blade.
Spinning the force blade in my hand, I took a step forward and leveled it at his chest. He sucked in a gasp and snapped his frightened gaze to my face. I cocked my head.
“Don’t make me repeat myself a third time.”
“Yes,” he finally answered. “Yes, I am.”
I already knew that, of course. Under the guise of wanting to hire more kitchen staff, I had managed to discreetly get some information out of Violet regarding which company would be supplying the ball with waiters. After that, I had just posed as a potential client and gotten a look at their roster. This guy was apparently the newest addition, which meant that he had the least loyalty towards the company. And the least experience.
“Of course you are,” I said and then raised the force blade until it was pressed firmly against the side of his neck.
Fear flooded his eyes. “No, wait. Wait. I can… I can quit if you want. If you want the spot.”
“Are you saying I look like a servant?”
“No!” Horror washed over his face when he thought that he had offended me.
“Then what are you saying?”
“I…” His legs buckled and he dropped to his knees right before my feet. Staring at my boots, he drew in a shuddering breath and then pressed out a pitiful, “Please.”
For a few seconds, I just let the silence stretch. I needed him terrified and obedient, and nothing instilled dread in people like the fear of uncertainty. The fear of knowing that their life was hanging in the balance and that they could do nothing but wait for someone else to decide their fate.
“I need someone at the ball who can make sure that a certain person gets to a certain place at a certain time,” I said at last.
He jerked his head up and a glimmer of hope shone in his eyes. “What do I have to do?”
“At the ball, I will tell you the name of a person and a place. Then, all you have to do is walk up to that person, give them some bullshit excuse, and lead them to the room. Alone.”
“You’re going to kill someone.”
I just gave him a wolfish smile in reply.
“What happens to me?” He swallowed while looking up at me with pleading eyes. “If I lead this person into the room, what happens to me? Will you let me live? Because if that’s the case, I’ll do it. I’ll do whatever you want.”
“Yes, if you get this person into the room I specify, I will let you live. You’re no one to me. So there would be no point in killing you.”
“Then I’ll do it.”
“Smart choice.”
While letting my force blade fade out, I wiped my knife on the toppled armchair and then sheathed it at my back again. The unlucky waiter tracked my every move with wary eyes. Once I was done, I leaned down and took a firm grip on his collar. With a hard yank, I hauled him to his feet and slammed him up against the wall instead.
Keeping my grip on his collar, I locked hard eyes on him. “But know this… If you fail to hold up your end of this bargain, you are going to wish that I had done something as kind as to simply kill you.”
“Y-yes. I understand.”
“Good.” I arched an expectant eyebrow at him. “Aren’t you going to thank me for showing you mercy?”
“Thank you,” he blurted out, his words almost tripping over his tongue.
I let out a dark laugh as I finally released his collar. He collapsed to the ground with a thud. Turning my back on him, I started back towards the door.
“Wait…” he called after me. “What do I… tell people?”
Casting a glance over my shoulder, I found him motioning towards the room full of dead people. “Until the ball is over, you tell them that your friends took a spontaneous trip somewhere.” I flicked my wrist dismissively as I turned back to the corridor ahead and strode across the threshold. “After that, you can tell them whatever the hell you like.”
A small sob followed me as I left the blackmailed waiter and the collateral damage behind while I strode back out of the building.
We had our bait so that we could lure Lance into the room with the side door. Now, we just needed a distraction.
Time to go and see what that damn poison mage had accomplished tonight.
