Chapter 1-29: Rats! (1/2)

I didn’t really know how or why I got drafted into poking into other’s business, but I couldn’t really turn down a Heavenbound, being the sucker I was, especially one as grim as Master Fred.

And... I personally loathed all Evilbound for some reason. Wererats, well, I was prejudiced, and considered them little more than vermin infesting the human race to be exterminated. Anything that embraced the Lunar Curse was by definition no longer human, not some cutesy mice-men.

Then there was securing transportation. A freshly stolen car from a parishioner was made available. It would be duly registered as missing and conveniently recovered from them joy-riding kids tomorrow.

Warlock Fred was riding the most unique bike I’d ever seen, with what looked a unicorn horn set in front of the handlebars, pointing ahead like a lance... and brimming with Wrath.

The spirit of the unicorn bound to the bike looked at me, I looked back at it, and I nodded at it, quite impressed. There definitely had to be a story to this.

Greater implications. Warlock Fred was riding a unicorn... poor bastard. I had to admit he had all the grim badassness down sitting on that bike, and with the magic of a unicorn on it, that bike could literally go anywhere like a ghost.

I WILL GET INTO POSITION, he told us, and smoothly drove off, vanishing into traffic as smoothly as if it were trees. We all kind of looked after him, then Sir Pellier headed for the driver’s seat, and Helix and I piled in.

We had layout plans from the city’s planning department... what, Scriba was the God of Bureaucrats, Ministers, Functionaries, and Scribes, the people working away in government trying to do the right thing, not just punch a clock. He had adherents in every government office, and so the Church of Harse rarely had problems accessing government databases when needed.

Prestidigitation had turned the light blue four-door sedan black, which both concealed it and meant it wouldn’t be picked up by any passing law enforcement looking for a freshly stolen car.

Everyone’s hair was now colored white, and we all had on painted Masks, so as to avoid easy retribution/revenge/recognition by interested Diviners, and our Weapons looked like someone else’s.

We parked a quarter-mile away from our destination, leaving the car in the drive of a car repair shop that had already closed for the night, picked out ahead of time, just one car among several.

Getting through the gate to the stockyard wasn’t hard, as it had been left slightly ajar by someone, a speechless act of laziness, no doubt, no doubt. We each took a drink of the Potion of Invisibility supplied by the temple, and I led the way, Sir Pellier’s hand on my shoulder, and Helix’s on his.

Strangely enough, I was by far the quietest of the three.

With three minutes of Invisibility, we hustled out from the back side of the garage, slid through the gate, and trotted in quiet discipline for the back of the building across from the large warehouse that was the site of the meet.

The lock had been shorn through recently with a stroke that had melted through the metal. I pulled it open, and we slipped inside just as the invisibility wore off, and we melted back into plain sight.

I scanned, as did Sir Pellier. He pointed ahead and to the left, and after a moment, I nodded.

Detect Shapechanger was coming up with three. I held up three fingers, he nodded.

We moved quietly enough through the press of boxes and stuff, while the people ahead of us seemed to be conversing and holding a card game or something.

I narrowed my eyes and scanned the area... and what looked like an office up a set of stairs to the right.

There was a spotter up there at a window.

The three fellows on the ground were all swarthy, compact of build, with dark eyes and hair, skinny and quick in motion, kind of twitchy.

Mammon was believed to be the originator of the Curse of the Rat, as greed was the strongest emotion associated with wererats, and the Curse bent them to the Red. Internally, they got along pretty well, bowing to their elders and superiors, and exploiting those beneath them. As a whole, they were quick, clever, ambitious, very greedy, and sneaky bastards who loved an unfair fight.

They all had rifles sitting against the wall as they played cards with one another, cursing one another freely in what I assumed was Italian, shoulder holsters hosting semi-automatic pistols and long knives... which, when they waved them about, were clearly not silvered, hehehe...

We pulled back to the back of the building. There was an hour to pass before the time of the meeting, so we had plenty of time to react to events.

Gingerly, we sat down on crates in the back of the large room, well out of view of the guys playing cards, while Sir Pellier calmly kept Lady Florentine, the long weight of a silencer screwed into her barrel, in his hand and ready for use.

Father Bower had found it quite reckless that we were getting involved in the work of a Warlock, but the work of Heaven was never done, and he could only give us his distant blessing after Sir Pellier informed him of what was going on...

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Renewal washed past me as the Sun fell, and I could only hum Aethra’s Salute in my head.

I could, however, do-

Dingding!

Fuuuuuck...

I Invested into Einz, and there was a swirl as what I had been working on for the past four days was completed.