Contractbound

"Are you ready?" Graham asked Luuk. He already knew the answer; he just wanted to know Luuk"s state of mind from the response.

"I am," Luuk answered shortly.

Graham observed his partner"s expression and determined that Luuk was calm enough, despite this probably being his first big mission. He commended the young man"s resolve. Graham himself was calm because he had divined everything he needed about the mission, almost using up all his attempts today.

The two men walked downstairs and out in the street. They were supposed to meet up with Jacco van Wert and his men on Kruisstraat. He had divined that it was the street that his target"s motor carriage would take. Graham hailed a public motor carriage and the two men got in. The driver started driving right away after his pa.s.sengers told him their destination.

They arrived at Kruisstraat more than ten minutes later and got out of the carriage as soon as they paid. The street still looked busy because it was the main crossroad leading to a lot of other big streets. Many people were still out and about at that hour too, visiting the many stores in that four-lane street.

Graham and Luuk walked into a secluded alley, the place they had planned to meet up. In the alley, there were a lot of men and some women dressed in colorful clothing. Many of them were carrying various musical makeshift musical instruments like trash can lids and bottle cap tambourine.

"I"m amazed," Graham said in approval.

"Haha, leave it up to us to bring in total chaos!" Jacco said proudly with his ba.s.sy voice that resounded in the alley.

"Are you sure this will work?" Luuk asked while observing the people around him. He felt like he was in a circus.

"Yes. I"ve double-checked with divination." Graham spoke in a very a.s.suring manner.

"You know can do divination?" Luuk asked in surprise.

"You didn"t know?" Graham didn"t respond to the question.

In fact, it was the first time Luuk had heard that his partner could do divination. Luuk had only seen him use the power of secrets and persuasion. He decided to just go with his partner"s words and focused on his own part.

"Anyway, you can"t steal through walls or doors, can you?" Graham asked Luuk, making sure.

"No. I need to be able to have an un.o.bstructed line of sight of my target and I can"t see through walls." Luuk explained.

Graham briefed everyone about the plan again because there were some updates from his latest divination. They waited in the alley until exactly seven twenty-four and Graham gave a signal for everyone to make their move.

At seven twenty-six, an expensive-looking motor carriage was driving on the road in Kruisstraat. Inside, there was a man with eyes that looked like they could kill by just staring at someone. The man was dressed neatly in a suit and dress pants. The dapper-looking man was Zeger de Witt, the target of tonight"s operation. Next to the target, there was an intimidating looking man with a tattoo on his face. He was the bodyguard of Zeger de Witt. The motor carriage that they were in suddenly stopped because of a commotion in the street.

"Why did you stop?" Zeger asked his driver annoyedly.

"I"m sorry, Sir. There seems to be a group of people in the street." the driver said apologetically.

In the middle of the street, a lot of people in colorful clothing were singing and dancing and playing music. They were Jacco"s men. They laughed and jumped around, causing the traffic to halt. The commotion attracted pa.s.sersby, who were curious about what was happening, and as a result, a lot more people had been gathered in that busy street.

"Is this the circus?" asked a curious man carrying a small dog.

"I don"t know. Their music is pretty bad." said a woman with a baby stroller.

Clang...

Cling...

Rustle...

Badum... badum...

The sounds of metal objects. .h.i.tting each other were loud and unpleasant, but the listener felt strangely invigorated by them.

"Woohoo! Keep going, man!" shouted a young man with spiky hair excitedly.

"This is not too bad!" said a woman loudly amidst the clanking noises.

The music, the dancing, the singing, and the cheering continued on for some time. Zeger de Witt started to lose his patience and said angrily to the driver, "Turn around. We go another way."

The driver and his pa.s.senger didn"t notice that a man was standing very close behind their motor carriage. It was Luuk who was there to do his part. He was already wearing a facemask to hide his face.

"I, in the name of the Deity of Theft, declare the air of the left rear tire of this motor carriage mine!"

He made a swiping motion with his right hand and he felt a breeze that quickly dissipated. The left rear tire of the motor carriage went flat as a result. Luuk quickly fled before he was discovered while still excitedly processing the whole thing; it was his first time trying something like that and he was surprised that it actually worked. He had only done so under Graham"s instruction with complete trust in the man.

The driver tried to drive the motor carriage but he heard a clank from his rear and it felt heavy. He didn"t dare look at his pa.s.senger"s eyes and only apologized before going out of the motor carriage. The left rear tire had gone totally flat and would be impossible to drive without damaging it.

Graham, already wearing a facemask, approached the driver who was checking his tire from the pa.s.senger"s blind spot. He looked at the driver and spoke in a low but convincing voice,

"You should look for a mechanic right now. Don"t go back in first to tell your pa.s.senger because he will be very angry."

The driver looked visibly confused for a second but then thought that Graham"s words made perfect sense. He darted right away in a direction and was gone from sight. Graham left the carriage and went into hiding.

Chime...

Tinkle...

c.h.i.n.k...

Badum... badum...

The sound of music was still playing, and more and more people had gathered to watch and dance vigorously. They were entranced by the sound of the drumming of the metal lid.

Zeger de Witt was enraged because of all the commotion, and his emotion was also strangely enhanced. After waiting for the driver who had yet to come back for a while, he gestured to his bodyguard and they got out of the motor carriage. He had lost his patience and would deal with the people himself.

They walked quickly towards the crowd which was a distance away from them. A lot of people were walking in the same direction, but he just brushed past them. Because of his rage, he didn"t realize that a man was walking closely behind him among the other people who were still approaching the commotion. He started chanting quietly under his breath.

"I, in the name of the Deity of Theft, declare Zeger de Witt"s cube-shaped artifact mine!"

Luuk made a swiping motion with his right hand and a cube the size of his hand appeared there. He quickly stuffed the artifact with an open eye on it under his shirt and retreated from the spot.

Zeger de Witt"s spiritual intuition told him something was wrong. He stopped in his track and tapped his body to make sure everything was still in place. He was infuriated when he found out that his artifact had been missing. He looked around frantically with eyes as cold as the peak of winter and saw Luuk who was moving away from him very quickly.

"Catch that b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" he yelled at his bodyguard while pointing at Luuk. He darted towards Luuk"s direction but was stopped by three men.

"Mister, can we ask you to fill in this survey?" said the muscular man who was carrying a piece of survey paper.

Graham had persuaded the three men who happened to be handing out survey papers to approach his target. With the time that Graham bought him, Luuk managed to slip farther away from Zeger de Witt.

Zeger was angry, but he couldn"t attack people in public because of his position. He was a Government official, after all, so he had to maintain his image. He looked at the muscular man in the eye and his own eyes glowed orange. He said seriously,

"This man spread a terrible rumor about your mother."

The man"s expression became twisted with anger.

He then turned to the third man while pointing at the first man and said, "This man f.u.c.ked your grandmother,"

"My grandmother is already dead! How dare you f.u.c.k her!" the third man was enraged and started mauling the muscular first man, who had started punching the confused second man.

Bam!

Smack!

"f.u.c.k you!" said the muscular man while hitting the third man back.

With the three men fighting each other, Zeger and his bodyguard could pa.s.s through and continued chasing the thief. He moved very quickly, leaving his burly bodyguard behind.

Graham and Luuk were running away while the former kept looking at his watch. He was counting down the seconds while keeping up with Luuk"s pace.

"Three... two... one... now!" he shouted.

Shake...

Shake...

Boom!!

Suddenly, there was a strong earthquake. The people inside buildings were all running out in panic even though the earthquake had stopped. The already crowded street had descended into total chaos. Graham and Luuk slipped away in the crowd and disappeared from Zeger de Witt"s sight. The circus had also gone away before the earthquake stroke as if they already knew that it would happen.

"Curse them!!" Zeger de Witt was very angry. He was still trying to catch them, but was stopped by the crowd of people running for safety. He couldn"t make all of them fight each other or it would turn into a riot. He could only plan for his next step.

In an empty house far away from the chaos, Graham and Luuk were resting. They had taken a public motor carriage to get there but were still tired after all that happened. It was a house that he had prepared beforehand, with the lock picked by Valentine. He had also placed anti-divination in the house.

Graham took out the artifact wrapped in cloth with a tiny blood-stain on it. Luuk had handed it over to Graham and he had wrapped it in cloth that Valentine had turned into an anti-divination shroud using his blood. He observed the artifact closely, trying to remember every single one of its features for later use in divination. Once he was done, he spoke calmly to Luuk,

"Now we only need to turn this in to get our reward."