Giving Chase

Paars was floating invisibly far behind the runaway members of Pale Society who hadn't seemed to notice him. The stitched wings of one of them were flapping heavily in the air while the snake woman was agilely making her way from one building to the others. Paars, who couldn't fly nor maneuver around buildings, were just floating a little above the ground with a speed much faster than that of someone running.

They came to a wide street where the woman in the snake form couldn't easily jump to the next building. She had to come down and cross the street on the ground, which gave Paars some time to catch up with her. The man with the bird skull mask, however, was just flying over the street without much difficulty, so he was far ahead. He turned around to wait for his partner while observing her surroundings to make sure the Police weren't on their tails. He couldn't see Paars who was in his invisible mode, so the bird man judged that the situation was safe.

Tootle-too...

He played his flute from across the street, high up above, and its melodious sound was carried by the wind to the area below him. The people who were panicking from seeing a giant peach-colored snake crossing the street suddenly calmed down and acted like they didn't see anything.

Paars, who was also affected, felt the effect of the man's ability. He suddenly couldn't see the snake woman and felt inexplicably calm like nothing could go wrong in his life ever. He slowed down his pace because of the calming tune and had a sudden desire to stay there and enjoy the melody.

Once the snake woman crossed the street and disappeared into another rooftop, the bird man stopped playing the flute and Paars came back to his senses. He increased his pace to make up for the lost distance between him and the enemies.

The two enemies went over the tall building in front of him, so he went to an alley nearby to get to the other side, and arrived at the backstreet soon after. However, once he was there, there was no more sight of the enemies. He looked around once more to make sure they were actually gone before hiding behind a tree. He went out of his invisibility and stood naked there, covered by the tree, although lucky for him, there was no one around in that back street at that hour.

The other Police members didn't know where he had gone, so he needed to give the signal to them. Paars bit his fingers hard and controlled his blood to flow more than it naturally would. He gathered some blood on his palm and then concentrated on the crimson liquid. Once ready, he shot his blood up to the sky and it pierced through the air quickly like a bullet. After reaching its maximum height, which was visible from afar, the blood magically spread and created a circle in the sky before quickly evaporating.

Seeing his signal, the Police members who were also chasing the enemies quickly went towards his location and arrived not long after. Rood, who was the fastest, arrived first, followed by Wit and Groen after. The normal Police officers arrived in a group behind Groen.

"Your clothes," said Groen while handing Paars clothes to him.

"I take it we lost them?" asked Rood to confirm.

Paars quickly put on only his coat which was enough to cover his body and nodded at Rood.

"Yes. The man with the bird mask used his ability to control the people in the street and it affected me as well," he explained honestly, and then asked, "Did you bring my mirror?"

Groen gave the briefcase that he was carrying back to its owner. Paars quickly unzipped the case and took out a medium-sized mirror with a plain design. He controlled more blood to come flowing from the previous wound that hadn't completely healed and smeared the blood all over the surface of the mirror.

He concentrated on the mirror in his hand and asked a question in his mind.

'Where are the snake woman and the bird man heading?'

The blood on the mirror's surface got sucked into the center and slowly spread around, forming an image. However, it was not something that he had asked, but instead, was an image of a sinister-looking face that belonged to a corpse. Paars got a dangerous foreboding and instinctively threw the mirror as far away as he could.

Crack!

Suddenly the mirror broke and shattered into small shards that exploded violently, stabbing anything in its path. Luckily, the mirror was far from them, which gave the Police time to protect themselves.

"What the hell was that?!" exclaimed Wit.

"I think they managed to put a curse on the divination," replied Paars.

"Such a thing is possible?" asked Groen.

It seemed that among the members present there, only Paars was well-versed in divination. The other Contractbounds were just as clueless as the normal members.

"It is, but it must be done in real-time. Meaning, if I want to stop someone from divining our whereabouts and want to curse the divinator, I must do it at the time when the divinator is doing the divination," he explained lengthly.

"That sounds complicated. How did they know when you were going to use divination?" asked Rood.

"They didn't. They must have felt it right then and quickly prepared the curse. It means we're dealing with a powerful Contractbound if they can prepare a curse that quickly, although it was a relatively weak one,"

"What about the man that she was beating to death?" asked Wit.

Paars took out another smaller mirror from his briefcase and repeated the procedure and concentrated on the bloody surface while repeating a question in his head. However, instead of showing an image, the blood got sucked dry by the mirror and nothing else happened. Paars looked up to his team members.

"Do you want to make a bet that the guy was our mysterious Shroud?" said Groen to Rood.

"No need. I'm sure he is. Why is he always involved in these kinds of matters?" replied Rood with interest, "Did anyone get a clear look at him?"

Everybody shook their heads. The man had started running away the moment they got out of their motor carriages, or even way before. They only saw his back, which didn't look any different from other people's, and besides, they had been focused on the woman with the dangerous aura at that time.

"He should be awarded the master of running away," said Groen sarcastically.

...

Valentine had managed to run away from the enemy and the Police while suffering a heavy injury. He had arrived home in a motor carriage and was now lying in bed in pain. His body hurt really badly and he felt strangely tired although he hadn't used a lot of his abilities.. He hadn't thought that his condition was that bad because of the adrenaline, but now that he was safe and resting, the sensation all came to him at once.

"What did we learn today, G?" he muttered, "Never jinx something."

He panted and then opened his mouth again.

"We need to find a way to fight against brute strength enemies. But right now, you have to take care of our body,"

Valentine closed his eyes and tried to sleep amidst the suffering. It took him longer than usual, but he still managed to fall asleep nonetheless. Graham woke up not long after and felt the full course of pain suddenly. He didn't want to waste time, so he chanted quickly.

"I, in the name of the Deity of the Tongue, order the pain that I'm feeling to go away!"

With that said, the pain that he had been feeling just until a moment ago suddenly disappeared, giving him some moment of respite. However, since the source was still there, it came back not long after, still as intense as before. Graham quickly opened his mouth and chanted.

"I, in the name of the Deity of the Tongue, order my body to heal more quickly!"

He felt that his body was healing a little bit more quickly than before. His ability's effect wasn't significant because the injury was greater and there was a lot to heal.

Ding... dong...

Suddenly, the doorbell rang. Graham wasn't expecting any guests, so he lit his lighter and divined who it was, still lying down.

'Who's at the door right now?'

The flame in his hand showed an image of a man in his early twenties. It was Luuk who had rung the bell.

Graham was still too in pain to get up and get the door, so he just abused his ability.

"I, in the name of the Deity of the Tongue, order my next sentence to reach Luuk's ears,"

As he finished chanting, he spoke.

"Unlock the door yourself and get in,"

His voice wouldn't usually reach the outside even though he yelled from inside the bedroom. However, his previous line mysteriously reached Luuk, who was standing at the door, ringing right in his ears like a whisper.

Luuk was confused at first, but then he did as requested. He stole the whole lock mechanism from the door and let himself in. He didn't know how to pick a lock manually, and he was sure Graham could fix the door with his own ability, so he didn't hold back.

He closed the door, which now had a gaping hole near the handle, behind him, and put the stolen lock on the desk. Graham, who heard the sound of his footsteps, shouted from the open bedroom.

"I'm in here. Do you need anything?"

"Where were you? I came earlier but you weren't home," asked Luuk from the office.

"I was in the black market," he replied.

"Uhm, anyway, I broke your door, so you need to fix it later. I put the part on your desk," he said casually, "I'm here to get my share for the ghoul's thing. I'm low in cash right now,"

"I'll need to charge you for the door then," he said with a serious tone.

"Come on. You can get it fixed easily with just a sentence," Luuk replied as he entered Graham's bedroom.

It was the first time he had been there, and everything looked neatly organized, unlike his own which was very messy.

"What happened to you?" he asked curiously while looking at Graham, who was lying on the bed powerlessly.

"Got beat up by a vulgar woman. Probably a stalker," he replied nonchalantly.

"Seriously now,"

"One of the bad guys from Pale Society. I was almost dead. Good thing I had called the Police beforehand," replied Graham as he got up and sat on the bed with difficulty.

"You had called the Police? How? And how did you know you were going to be attacked?" asked Luuk in confusion.

"Remember angry person after we killed the ghoul?" replied Graham shortly.

Then it dawned on Luuk what the sequence of events might be. His expression showed revelation.

"So they were watching the black market to find anyone who was selling ghoul's remains. If someone turns up, it means they killed their ghoul. And since you already knew about that, you called the Police initiatively," Luuk said after that.

"It's exactly like that. What I didn't expect was that they sent someone I'm weak against. There was literally nothing I could use on her," added Graham.

Luuk wasn't that worried about his partner because he seemed to always have a way to get out of dangerous situations, and also, a way to get himself in those dangerous situations in the first place. He then suddenly remembered the other reason why he had come.

"By the way, I'm a Jeweller now."

Graham wasn't surprised. He then became curious about Luuk's new abilities. Although the ancient book had a description of Jewellers, sometimes there were abilities that were unrecorded, like Gloom's blood ritual that he had used to make Valentine lose consciousness.

"Tell me about your abilities,"

"Sure. I got this instinctive detection for the location of gemstones near me. It's just something I feel at a spiritual level. I can probably also pinpoint the spot where they are located,"

Graham nodded.

"Besides that, I can also embed gemstones to weapons now. I've tried doing that with my knife right here," he said as he showed Graham the knife in his hand that has a tiny red gemstone embedded in its hilt.

"Is that the gemstone that can add a burning element to your attacks?" asked Graham.

"Yes. It works for ten attacks only. I can also embed stones to bullets, but I don't have any right now," he replied.

Graham's eyes opened wide. It was something that would work well with his fighting style. He could just go hunting for gemstones and have Luuk embed them to his bullets.

"Next, I also got an extensive knowledge of gemstones and herbs. I can mix herbs for various effects-- I mean, I'm sure normal people can do so too, but with my ability, the effect of my mixture will be stronger than what normal people can do,"

Graham was very interested in this ability as well. He opened his mouth and spoke.

"Can you create something to speed up my natural healing right now?"

"It's impossible right now. Although I got the knowledge, I didn't magically get the required herbs. I need to either go to the supermarket or go foraging in the forest like our target," he responded casually.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Here's your money, and a little extra for you to buy the ingredients. I'm dying here," said Graham dramatically as he handed Luuk his share and the money for shopping.

"Don't you want to hear about my evolved Thief abilities?" asked Luuk in disbelief.

"Yes, but later," replied Graham insistingly.

Luuk shook his head and made a repeated 'tsk' noise before leaving Graham's apartment for the supermarket.