Contractbound

The room suddenly became pitch black. The flames from the candled burned violently and they emitted a dark blue glow. There were murmurs all around whispering right into Graham"s ears in a language that he didn"t understand, but the tone was full of depravity and perversion. The image shown in the flames was not blurry at all, in fact, it was as clear as crystal. It was of a rotting, bloodshot eyeball that stared right into Graham"s soul. The eyeball reflected hatred and jealousy of the living.

Whoosh!

At that moment, the flames went out and the room gradually became normal.

Pant... pant...

Graham was gasping for air. His head felt like it almost exploded and his heart almost stopped. The pain had receded for now but his nose was still bleeding. He took his time to recover. He had woken up late today and went straight to doing divination on the important matters before starting his day. He was sitting in his dark office breathing heavily with the now unlit candles in front of him.

He processed what he was just shown through divination. It seemed the artifact used to be the eye of someone-- or something, and whatever it was, it was already dead. The divination showed the jealousy of the eye towards the living, probably indicating its effect when in use. He took out a piece of paper and wrote a statement on it to confirm his guess.

"The Eye of Amada"s power involves life and death."

He used his lighter to set the paper on fire and a strange dark blue flame consumed the whole paper very quickly. It either indicated an absolute positive or failure in divination. Graham went with the former because the rate at which the whole paper burned was slightly slower than it had when his divination was interfered with by the dead Romancer Cornelia.

After fully recovering, he relit the candles in the usual order and concentrated his spirituality on a question he needed to ask. He repeated it enough times in his mind and intently watched the candle lights.

"Who is Amada?"

The same absolute darkness crept into the room and the flames burned violently while slowly turning dark blue. Although they were burning brightly, the flames still couldn"t illuminate the room. Slowly, an image formed in the flames. It was indiscernible, but Graham could see albeit with difficulty something that looked like chopped up body pieces lying on top of a sigil.

Roar!

Once he saw the image, the body pieces brutally burst into dark blue flames that also burned everything nearby into ashes, and Graham felt his eyes on fire!

"Arggh!!"

He could feel the pain of the blood inside his eyeb.a.l.l.s boiling and the vein bursting. The nerves felt like they were ripped apart one by one by a hot iron knife.

He closed his eyes and covered them with his hands to stop looking at the image and to protect his burning eyes, but there was no actual flame burning him. He kept his eyes closed while grunting in pain. It lasted a whole minute but felt like days to him. He then slowly opened his eyes and the pain was still there, but slowly going away. He was panting and his heart was beating fast. The pain was many times worse than the pain he felt during his contract ritual

He sat there in silence while controlling his breathing. He noticed that the candles he had used for the divination had burned themselves out, but the flames had been extinguished. He then tried to recall what he had just seen and a.n.a.lyzed it.

"Amada is dead, but even in death, it could still do that to people trying to use divination on him. He must have been very powerful in life. But my question wasn"t answered. Who is Amada?" he said with a solemn voice while still breathing heavily.

Graham concluded that he needed to be stronger in order to bypa.s.s the spiritual security of the divination. He took out fresh votive candles that he had brought before and set them up in the formation. He then lit them one by one and concentrated on a question.

"How can I get stronger?"

The room became dark and mysteriously quiet. Little by little, a blurry image appeared within the flames. It was of a place with walls of apartment buildings and flats, not the same s.p.a.cious kind as those in central, but the small cramped ones. Graham recognized the area at once; it was in Noordeinde. The area was infamous for its badly planned residential buildings. Because the rent was very cheap, and the condition was better than the slum, a lot of people moved there, but at one point they couldn"t accommodate people anymore. Starting from there, they kept adding more and more buildings until it became the mess that it was. People nicknamed the area "The Concrete" because all they could see was concrete buildings.

Trying to find a clue there would be like trying to find a needle in a haystack. There were just too many people living in the gigantic block of buildings. However, Graham had the power of divination, so it would help him to some extent, although he still had to also use his detective instinct.

He finished his ritual and cleaned up the office desk. Once everything was clean, he got dressed and wore his favorite coat over his shirt and went out to grab a quick breakfast on the way. He would go to The Concrete right away because it was already eleven in the morning.

Graham bought a sandwich to go from a food stand near his apartment building and hailed a public motor carriage to take him to the destination. It should take him no longer than an hour to reach Nooreinde if the traffic was not bad. He got into a carriage that had pulled over for him and told the driver to take him to his destination. The driver looked at his pa.s.senger and recognized him right away.

"Ah! It"s the stingy mister. Long time no see!" he said excitedly.

Graham also recognized the driver and smiled, "Good morning. So, since I"m a regular, does it mean I get a discount?"

The driver frowned right away and said shortly, "No," and then after pausing for some time, he asked, "Do you have any business in Noordeinde?"

"Yes. I"m going to The Concrete. Why did you ask?" Graham replied in a friendly tone.

"What a coincidence! I live there." the driver said loudly. "Are you there to visit someone, mister? Do you know the exact address? It"s easy to get lost there."

"No, I"m just there to look around. I don"t have any particular destination in mind," Graham said honestly.

"Do you need a guide? I happen to need to get something from home, so I can guide you for a while if you want to," the driver offered kindly.

"That would be great. I"ll be in your care," said Graham happily.

He then observed the nametag that was hanging by the rearview mirror. The driver"s name was Egon Barben. It was a pretty common name in the Republic, along with Stefan and Egbert.

"What should I call you, mister?" the driver asked while looking at Graham through the rearview mirror.

"Call me Graham. And I can call you Egon, I presume?" he asked politely.

"Yes, Egon is fine. Or Egg is also okay. That"s what my colleagues call me."

Graham and Egon arrived at the destination around fifty minutes later. It was a three-lane street with walls of buildings on both sides. They were respectively called The Concrete North and The Concrete South. The Concrete South looked relatively newer. It was added much later than the northern counterpart, so it was not as messy as the latter. The Concrete North, however, was a real concrete jungle. It would be easy to get lost if someone was a first-timer. That was why there were people hanging around the main street who would offer guide services to guests or family members visiting from other areas or cities. There would also be the occasional tourist wanting to see the infamous concrete jungle.

"Val, this is ma.s.sive," Graham muttered under his breath once he saw the towering flats around him.

The Concrete reached very high up, and inside, the sunlight couldn"t penetrate the small alleys. The walls were painted in boring grey, adding to its already depressive atmosphere. There were power cords entangled everywhere, which would be a nightmare to electricians every time they had to come and fix something. The area was relatively clean since it was not a slum. It was just a nightmare for a claustrophobic. Graham felt like he was in another world.

"I"m going home first to get something and I"ll guide you after that. Follow me closely or you"ll get lost," he said confidently.

The two men entered through a narrow alley between two giant apartment buildings. It seemed that Egon"s home was not on the outer part but deeper in. The alley was dark even though it was bright and sunny outside. Even the breeze that he had been feeling before entering was gone now. The alley was only enough for two adults to walk side by side, so Graham followed Egon from behind. There were a lot of doors on each side of the alley, which were probably the entrance to the buildings on the back.

At the end of the alley, they came to a fork. Egon turned right and kept walking until he saw a ramp. He walked up the ramp and they arrived on the second floor. However, they hadn"t arrived at Egon"s home yet. The second floor also had alleyways for people to walk through buildings, and even bridges to cross over. It was very easy to get lost there. The atmosphere there felt suffocating, on top of that. Graham was sure he wouldn"t want to live there unless he could walk through walls.

He noticed that there were a lot of restaurants and shops open, and people were cramping those places even if the alley was already narrow, to begin with. They kept walking what Graham felt like forever and turning and crossing until they arrived at a flat. It was Egon"s.

"This is where I live. Please wait here. I"ll be back quickly." he said and unlocked the door. Not long after, he came back out with nothing in his hand.

"That was quick. What did you get anyway?" Graham asked curiously.

"My ident.i.ty card. I forgot it at home, haha." Egon looked embarra.s.sed.

In the Republic, not being able to show an ident.i.ty card is a misdemeanor, and one could be fined for it, so citizens always carried theirs at all times. Graham also carried his ident.i.ty card wherever he went, and also some fake ident.i.ty cards that he hid somewhere for disguise purposes.

"Now, where do you want to go?" asked Egon.

Graham had no idea where he needed to go. His divination only showed him the general area, not a specific spot, so he decided to just walk around until fate came to him.

"Just take me around. And show me the most infamous spots if possible," he said in a laid-back manner.

"Aaaaaaaaa!!!!"

Just as he said that he heard a loud scream that belonged to a woman. He quickly ran towards the source of the scream followed closely behind by Egon who was just as curious.