031.009

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Astral Authority

Hunting and Hunted

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Chasing a suspect through a city should have been easy. Should being the key word. Alyssa had magic. She had a way to find people through walls with her ability to see souls. Draken and Fela were unbelievably fast and could smell anything from miles away. The Pharaoh and Irulon were Rank Six arcanists who, despite Alyssa’s best efforts, had an even wider range of available spells than she did. The Pharaoh in particular. He had tried using time magic, both to speed himself up to the point where he blurred past a full-speed Izsha, and to slow down their target.

No matter what, the bald man remained out of reach. He disappeared around a corner just as Alyssa rounded one corner. He turned invisible just as the Pharaoh seemed like he had his hands around the man. Everyone except Alyssa suddenly forgot about him the moment they organized their chase enough to surround him.

Something was clearly wrong. If not for the others being able to see him on occasion, she might have suspected him of being an angel. Thus far, she hadn’t seen a single male—or masculine—angel. But there were tons of angels. Alyssa only knew the names of four and had only seen two others beyond those. Deciding that they were all females, and obviously females at that, based on only six examples was ignorant to the extreme.

She suspected that he might be using some kind of miraculous artifact. Similar to the Society of the Burning Shadow at the desert outpost, it was possible that an angel like Adrael had conveniently dropped something that allowed such evasive prowess. Or perhaps he had come across—either through his own invention or through lost records—some kind of magic that even the Observatorium was unaware of.

The Observatorium was the center for all magical learning in the entire world. She didn’t think it was just a prideful boast when Irulon said that nobody else understood magic to the degree that they did. But the world was large. And she knew that there was magic that the Observatorium had not been able to replicate. Irulon had said that portals like the ones Alyssa had created were a thing thought to exist in the First City, but had been lost. And then there was whatever magic had actually destroyed the First City.

So it was possible he was using entirely human means to avoid capture.

As Alyssa directed Izsha around yet another street—the fourth right turn in a row—she couldn’t help but feel like she was being led around by the nose. A waste of time while allies of his did something else?

“Tenebrael,” she said, pistol pre-aimed at where he should be. “Immobilize my target. Rend him unable to act save for the questions he might answer. Let the miracle manifest and carry out our will.”

Two people could play at using unknown magic here.

Alyssa’s finger squeezed the trigger. The hammer slammed down, causing the gun to lurch in her hands. Despite her poor aim on the back of Izsha and from hardly seeing the man, the beam of black light actually curved, swinging around the outside edge of a building to pierce his Achilles tendon.

He sure let out a human-like cry of pain as his face slammed into the ground. With him on the ground, casting Spectral Chains was no issue. The ethereal links bound around him, pinning his arms to his side and keeping him from moving. Not that he looked like he could run anywhere anymore. His entire foot was missing from the ankle down. Not just detached, but completely and totally absent. If there was some small consolation for the man, it was that the wound looked cauterized. He wouldn’t bleed out from it.

Irulon was running up behind Alyssa, riding on the back of Musca.

Unfortunately, Alyssa wasn’t sure that she could stick around much longer.

The bright lights of the Astral Authority up high all froze when she crafted her request to Tenebrael. She couldn’t see them clearly. Not without her binoculars. Had they done the same when she had killed that Patience earlier? Probably not. There hadn’t been so many of them earlier. In fact, that one Patience might have been the only one in the entire city at that point in time. It had been the large mystic circle that had drawn their attentions. She had personally witnessed several of the fake-angels passing through portal-like gates. The signature of Tenebrael’s miracle, and such a powerful miracle at that, had drawn them. And now, they were on the lookout. On the hunt for even a small miracle like the one she had used to incapacitate the bald man.

Alyssa glanced over her shoulder. Would Irulon be able to handle him if she ran off? Normally, Alyssa would have thought so without a doubt in her mind. But more than once, this man had caused some kind of confusion effect. Irulon, and the others, had suddenly simply forgotten exactly what they were supposed to be doing. Like they hadn’t remembered that they were supposed to be chasing this guy. Alyssa wasn’t sure if it hadn’t affected her because of her connection to Tenebrael or because of Adrael’s staff attached to her back blocking magical effects.

Gritting her teeth, she slipped the staff out of its sheath on her back. With only a glance to Irulon, Alyssa threw it high into the air.

Irulon caught it on its way back down without the appearance of the slightest strain.

“Izsha. Run past. Find someplace to hide,” Alyssa said as she allowed the Spectral Chains to dissipate. She could have dragged him along behind her, but that probably would have killed him. She was fairly certain that tying people to a horse and having it run around had been some kind of medieval execution technique. Instead, she and Izsha continued right past him, trusting Irulon to handle the bald man. Hopefully protected from whatever magic he had thanks to the staff.

If she lost the staff…

Iosefael said she would return at some point. Although she lacked Tenebrael’s black book, she might have it within her to locate an angelic weapon. And if not her, then perhaps Alyssa could just do it herself.

For now, Izsha raced on. The Astral Authority split into two groups. One looked like it was headed toward where she had originally fired the pistol. If they didn’t ignore Irulon or the bald man… They would. They had to. Irulon might have Tenebrael’s tattoo on her face, but she obviously was not Tenebrael. The other group, on the other hand, was after Alyssa.

She wasn’t Tenebrael either, but her connection might make her feel a whole lot more like Tenebrael than Irulon’s tattoos did for her.

In fact, she hoped that they would decide to all come after her. At least she knew that she could kill them if necessary. Alyssa didn’t even know how they might test whether or not Irulon, the Pharaoh, Brakkt, or any of the others might be able to harm one. They would have to capture one. If they did so, allies would come, most likely.

They should only have to worry about it for a few days anyway. After tonight, she was to head out to Owlcroft. As long as Tenebrael’s plan worked, the Astral Authority would be out of Lyria’s airspace by then.

“Tenebrael,” Alyssa said, aiming her pistol upward. “Those who dare to hunt you threaten your most loyal subjects. Offer your divine protection to the worthy while bringing down the hammer of wrath upon the false-angels of the Astral Authority.”

A black beam raced from the barrel of the gun. Just as it had with the bald man, it curved in the air to correct for Alyssa’s poor aim, piercing the nearest Patience through its… head thing. And it didn’t stop there. Coming out the back of the woven silver, the beam split in two. A Diligence tried to dodge, but the snake-like form of the dragon was too large. The beam speared it through its center, seemingly spreading out within the creature to kill it. A vein-like pattern of black-white light intensified on its scales until…

Alyssa winced. The bright light of the Diligence exploding dotted her vision with afterimages. But it wasn’t bad enough to miss the other beam of light utterly obliterate a Kindness. Unlike the bolt that had hit the Diligence, that beam continued on through.

Until it hit a Chastity. The bulwark of the Astral Authority stopped it dead. Chastities were insectile in appearance. Much like that of a spider crossed with an ironclad beetle. With feathered wings. They didn’t look like they had much in the way of weapons, but the armored hide didn’t even have a scratch after being struck by the bullet.

Although the miracle stopped dead then and there, it still achieved the effect Alyssa wanted. Three of the Astral Authority were dead. Those that remained switched their pathing, aiming toward her rather than toward Irulon.

In fact, it worked so well that it might have worked too well.

Two of those square portals opened in the air, each depositing a Patience.

One of which appeared directly above her, swiping down with its spear.

“Izsha!” Alyssa shouted, ducking her head. “Must go faster!”

The draken’s powerful muscles coiled up for a spring forward, launching them through the streets. Alyssa raised her pistol again, only to freeze. Another portal opened directly in front of them, much larger than those that had appeared higher up. Izsha hit the ground just in front of it, digging its talons into the ground in an attempt to stop itself.

“Left!” Alyssa shouted, eyes widening as she pulled out a spell card.

An arm emerged from the gaping portal. Like a lion’s paw, complete with golden fur. One at least as big as Izsha. Probably bigger. Whatever body it was attached to was clearly too small to fit through the portal, but it didn’t need the rest of its body. The paw slammed down, cracking the ground and even the walls of nearby buildings. Izsha, thankfully, followed her instructions perfectly. Alyssa and Izsha just barely squeezed out from underneath thanks to Shorten Distance, a Rank Three Physical type spell.

The space it could warp was only about the size of a room. But that was enough to get away from the lion arm reaching through the portal.

Alyssa aimed her pistol again, request to Tenebrael already on her lips. But she paused. Not because of another portal popping up, but because of a realization.

The Astral Authority had lost dozens of members in their assault on the massive circle above the city. And yet, despite those losses, they had continued throwing more and more members at it until they had overwhelmed it through sheer numbers. If they were limited by how many they had, Tenebrael would surely have simply killed the rest and been done with it.

She had to assume that continually killing them wouldn’t do much of anything.

From Iosefael, Alyssa knew that their portals weren’t just conjured out of nowhere. A Charity had the sole role of creating those portals. They could traverse worlds and such without a Charity around, but it was a longer and more involved process. They weren’t angels. They didn’t have direct access to the Throne and the many worlds it was connected to like angels did.

Finding the Charity and killing it might give her enough of a momentary advantage to defeat the rest. Or to escape.

The only other option was to hide outright. And if she couldn’t figure out a way to locate the Charity, hiding might be the only option.

Ducking under the bladed tip of a Patience’s spear, Alyssa wasn’t sure that they were going to give her much of a chance to do that. Maybe another distraction? She had to wonder if such a thing would even work with them already after her like they were. When she had conjured the large circle above the city, and even when she had killed that first Patience, there hadn’t been any others around her.

“Izsha, let’s get out of the city.” That, at the very least, would mean that she didn’t have to worry that another Equanimity would stick its paw out of a portal and crush some poor farmer’s cart of cabbages. It would also give Izsha perfectly clear and open terrain to rush across at top speed.

Izsha turned, hightailing it straight away. They were still near the easternmost gate. Though, now that she was being chased, it felt like they were much further than Alyssa wanted to be. And some of those things were getting close.

A Patience swooped in. Alyssa almost fired at it, only deciding at the last moment to not create more miracles with Tenebrael’s signature. Doing so would only draw more to her. Instead, she cast the tried and true Spectral Chains.

It didn’t kill the Patience, but it did stop it from spearing her through the head. Wings bound together against the silver filigree of its body underneath the chains. It plummeted into the ground. Dust, brickwork, and gravel kicked up into the air. Izsha whined slightly, likely having felt like a ship at high speed having its anchor catch on something solid. Spectral Chains did stretch—new links sprouted out of thin air—but not enough to support the speed at which they were moving.

Alyssa canceled the spell. She didn’t know if the impact had done any damage to the Patience. It certainly did not fly back into the air before she had to focus on other things.

Like the Diligence firing a blast of… fake-angelic magic. Projectile Reflection was still up from earlier. She wasn’t going to trust it to deal with something that had taken out a significant portion of the giant mystic circle. Another Shorten Distance got them out of immediate danger. As they skipped ahead, Alyssa decided to try an Empty Vessel.

She honestly hadn’t expected it to do much. Angels ignored Empty Mirror. Even ones like Iosefael that were affected by Spectral Chains. She suspected it had something to do with the way angels perceived souls. And yet, glancing over her shoulder, the entire gathering of the Astral Authority had… not stopped. They were all still traveling in the same direction, but they were no longer honed in on her.

Quietly, just in case they could somehow hear through the alternate reality field, Alyssa spoke to Izsha. “Break off. Head along the wall. We can jump it if we still need to get out of the city.”

Izsha made a noise that might have been an agreement. Or it might have simply been an acknowledgment. Either way, the draken took the next crossroad. As they changed directions, Alyssa kept a careful eye on her pursuers.

They did not follow.

Still, she did not stop Izsha. Not until they were well away from the Astral Authority. Even though she had watched half of her pursuers vanish back into their portals and the other half disperse around the city—probably looking for her—she still felt nervous stopping. It would have been simple for a portal to pop up behind her and unleash a lion’s paw. It wasn’t like they made noise.

She had taken a moment to send a text to the other phones. Fractal magic did work to hide her. It might help if one came snooping around Irulon. Alyssa couldn’t discount the possibility that it was a property unique to her. Too much was unknown at this point in relation to the Astral Authority.

But, for the time being, it seemed as if hiding had worked out. Which was an amazing thing. Her plan to locate the local Charity had included another request to Tenebrael, which would only have drawn even more attention to her. Besides that, she didn’t know their actual range. The Charity could have been a week’s worth of nonstop draken ride away for all she knew.

Together with Izsha, Alyssa stood by and simply watched the skies for a full hour. They stopped right near the wall, well away from any normal foot traffic areas. Just in case. But none of the Astral Authority ever came close to her. They were investigating along the route she had been taking when she used Empty Vessel, but, after an hour, all the lights in the sky had vanished. Most seemed to have gone back into portals. There were some others that simply flew off, some into the city and some out. She still waited an extra half hour after the last light disappeared from the sky.

“Take us over the wall, Izsha. Just in case we need to run again.”

The draken tilted its head enough to look back. It was one of those looks.

“Sorry for dragging you into this,” Alyssa said, giving what she hoped was a comforting pat on the head and not a patronizing one. “I’d go off on my own and drop the invisibility, but I worry that they will notice you and come after you even if I’m not around.” Sighing, she stroked the scales, still not even sure that the draken could really feel it underneath all that armor. “I still want to find a way to properly communicate, but using more of Tenebrael’s power seems like a bad idea at the moment.”

In fact, it was probably a bad idea all around until she followed through with Tenebrael’s plan. Even then, she might want to wait until Tenebrael enacted whatever she was going to do to deal with the threat as a whole. Which… was unfortunate. That meant no portal to the pit. Nor to anywhere the Pharaoh had requested.

Izsha, either accepting the apology or simply deciding to go along with Alyssa’s request anyway, did jump the wall. The landing wasn’t quite as gentle as Alyssa had gotten used to, but that was probably because the ground on the other side was sloped away from the wall rather than any intentional annoyance on Izsha’s part.

A short distance away, Alyssa finally let the Empty Vessel drop.

Again, she waited for about a half hour before deciding that nothing was after her right at that very second.

She still didn’t head back into the city right away. Instead, she decided to get a quick update. She had ended the conference call while being chased, so had to dial up Jason’s number, hoping that Irulon still had the phone.

“Alyssa?” The first ring hadn’t even finished. “Are you alright?”

“Fine, Mom. Is Irulon there?”

There was a hesitation before an answer came. Alyssa could tell that Lisa had something else to ask. Probably something about all the nonsense that had happened since night fell. But, she answered the question rather than asked one of her own. “She is in the middle of interrogating the man you helped capture.”

“Find out anything interesting?”

“Actually, just about everything, as far as I understand it. He is answering all questions asked of him.”

“After how evasive he was?”

“Irulon thinks you had something to do with it.”

“Me? But I… I… Oh.” Wait. The request to Tenebrael. She had asked that he be unable to do anything but answer questions. “Yeah. That might have been me.”

“It seems as if he was hired by nobles of the city. The plague related items and equipment were going to be an attempt to draw out Fela and involve her in some incident.”

“Really? He wasn’t part of the Society of the Burning Shadow? The nobles killed their own men at the gate?” The city guard, including those who protected the gates, were men sourced primarily from the various cities and towns deemed large enough to have their own knights and trained soldiers. “Unless… Check with Oxart. I bet all of them were recruited locally. Probably in recent weeks at that.”

“You seem to be handling this well… Tell me, this kind of stuff…”

“It’s what I had to deal with practically every week for my first month or two inside the city. Everything calmed down the moment you arrived.”

“I see,” Lisa said after a long pause.

“Yeah.” Alyssa didn’t know what else to say. She had already gone over everything that had happened to her since arriving, and quite extensively at that. But it was probably one thing to hear about it and another thing to experience it firsthand. “Tell Irulon that Izsha and I will be back shortly, barring any more encounters with the Astral Authority.”

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