Contractbound

The thing next door didn"t give off such a dangerous aura before, otherwise they should have noticed much sooner. The heavy atmosphere seemed to have been created by something else that was now approaching them slowly.

"Quickly, move! Upstairs!" urged Valentine.

They couldn"t walk back to the stairs because the source of danger was coming from there. There was no window on that floor that they could use to escape from. Going back to the room was a big no because they might get trapped if the bedroom had no windows, so going upstairs was the only option. If there was no window there either, they could just keep going up to the rooftop.

The trio moved quickly to the fourth floor while the source of danger was coming slowly from the floor below. On the fourth floor, there was a big fixed window at the end of the corridor, so they quickly ran down the narrow way. The light coming through the fourth-floor window couldn"t disperse the smothering atmosphere befalling the trio even though it was sunny outside.

"Will normal people be alright with this kind of heavy atmosphere?" asked Luuk curiously while running as fast as he could.

It was difficult for him to breathe normally, and his heart was beating fast, which made it more difficult to control his breathing.

"Normal people don"t have a spiritual perception, so they should be okay," said Valentine who was running ahead of Luuk.

They arrived at the window shortly after. It was a big one that only had one panel, but the gla.s.s was very thick; trying to break it would attract too much attention. Valentine gestured at Luuk who understood what he needed to do right away.

"I, in the name of the Deity of Theft, declare the gla.s.s of this window mine!"

Previously, he wouldn"t have been able to steal something that big, but now that his abilities had evolved, doing so was possible. Luuk made a swiping motion with his right hand and suddenly, a giant gla.s.s panel appeared there, almost crushing his slender body. Valentine and Jacco lent a hand immediately and they put down the gla.s.s safely on the floor.

After helping Luuk, Jacco looked out of the window, down to the street below, and froze immediately. The window led to a backstreet that didn"t have a lot of people at that time. They were on the fourth floor, so there was a lot of height that they needed to climb if they wanted to get down, and they needed to do it fast. The source of danger was getting closer and closer, although they couldn"t see its figure yet.

"I cannot climb!" said Jacco with sweat on his forehead.

Luuk noticed the abnormally pale color on Jacco"s face and understood what the man was feeling.

"You"re acrophobic, aren"t you?" said Luuk.

Jacco nodded embarra.s.sedly.

Valentine had moved ahead of them and was already hanging on to the water pipes, quickly making his way down. It didn"t take long for him to reach a safe distance and then jumped the rest of the height off. He landed gracefully on the concrete ground below, and then agilely rolled to the front to disperse the impact. Valentine only had several seconds until the danger arrived on the fourth floor where his two teammates were, so he didn"t waste time and quickly went to sleep.

Luuk looked at Jacco and said seriously, "You either jump off or you die,"

After saying that, he nimbly climbed down the building, using water pipes as a pole. With his agile body, it didn"t take long for him to scale the old apartment wall. However, he didn"t go all the way down to the ground. He stayed somewhere in the middle, holding tightly on to the water pipe while looking up.

"Jump now!" shouted Luuk.

Jacco, who was still upstairs, felt that the source of danger was getting closer and closer. He could even hear the faint footsteps on the stairs far behind. More droplets of sweat ran down his face and neck. He was deathly scared of height, but he was also absolutely not wanting to face whatever it was, especially alone.

Stomp... stomp...

The sound of footsteps was getting very close. Jacco looked back and he could see the head of a man wearing a top hat in the distance, climbing up the stairs one step at a time. However, he couldn"t see the man"s face. He quickly turned around to prevent the man from seeing his face and gathered up the courage. He absolutely couldn"t climb, so he could only trust his companions and jump.

"f.u.c.k me!!!" he shouted and jumped off the ledge.

His burly body fell very quickly towards the street below; if he hit the ground like that, he would surely break a lot of bones. He closed his eyes and felt like all his organs. .h.i.t the roof of his body.

"I, in the name of the Deity of Theft, declare Jacco"s momentum mine!"

Luuk held on tightly to the pipe with his left hand and his legs locked on to it while his right hand made a swiping motion. He felt that he had managed to steal something and kept his right hand in a fist firmly. From his position, he was close enough to Jacco and far enough from the ground, so he had time to finish his chanting before Jacco hit the pavement below.

Jacco, who was previously falling down very fast, was suddenly slowing down as if he had just started his jump from that location. However, there was still some distance from the ground, and he quickly regained momentum.

"I, in the name of the Deity of the Tongue, order you to land safely!"

Suddenly, Jacco made a maneuver that he didn"t know he could against his will; his body magically moved on its own. He bent his knees to get ready for the impact and once he felt the ground under his feet, he straightened his knees and rolled to the front to spread the impact of the fall evenly around. He had landed safely on the ground with the help of his two teammates.

Luuk quickly climbed down the rest of the height and followed his two companions who had started to run away from the spot as soon as Jacco finished the order from Graham.

"You two f.u.c.king rock! Thanks!" said Jacco gratefully while running closely behind Graham. The two of them had similar running speed.

Luuk, who could quickly catch up with his two slower companions, opened his mouth and spoke, "Do you think that thing will chase us?"

The trio didn"t look back and kept running ahead. They needed to get to the main street where people were.

"They shouldn"t. This area is still within the jurisdiction of the Police, so they won"t dare to be reckless. Besides, Contractbound related accidents are really fast to be noticed by them," said Graham with slight difficulty; he was running as fast as he could while explaining all that.

"It"s a he," said Jacco suddenly while breathing heavily.

"You saw him?" asked Luuk curiously.

He didn"t answer but just kept running. The trio arrived at the main street not long after and quickly turned from running to walking normally as if nothing was wrong. Only after they were safe did Jacco answer Luuk"s question.

"Not really. I only saw his top hat, nothing else,"

"Did he see you?" asked Luuk.

"Not my face. He saw my back, probably."

"Well, it"s good then that you"re not wearing your skull jacket. It would be easy to track you otherwise," said Luuk in relief.

The three of them stopped in front of a supermarket where a lot of people were. Just like everything else in Oosteinde, even the busy supermarket was not as crowded as the one in Central Sloten, but that number of people should be enough to make them feel safe.

"He won"t chase us. If he wanted to kill us, we would have been dead now," said Graham quietly.

"Why do you think so?" asked Jacco, confused.

"With his power, he should have been able to climb up the stairs quickly and confront us, but he chose to walk slowly," said Luuk and looked at Graham for confirmation.

"Yes. He was most likely just warning us not to mess in his turf anymore. It was a display of power," added Graham.

The man must have been very powerful since he didn"t appear in Graham"s divination at all. It was the right choice not to risk fighting him even though there were the three of them.

Jacco nodded and finally understood what the other two were saying.

"Although, if we had been caught, I don"t think he would ever let us live," said Graham seriously.

The mood became sour. They had just barely got away from certain death and got reminded of how weak they were. They had been proud previously because they could kill the supernatural creature relatively easily, just to be pushed back to the ground by reality.

"So what are you two going to do now?" asked Graham, breaking the silence.

"I"ve been excused from work, so I"m free the whole day," said Jacco.

"I took a day off from campus, so I"m also free..." said Luuk.

He was thinking of going back home to relax, but he thought that he wouldn"t be able to do so peacefully after what had just happened.

"Let"s go back to the sewer and kill off some wraiths then. We"ll split the loot equally," proposed Graham.

Jacco liked the idea very much, not because of the prospect of money, but because he could fight more and felt powerful. It was not a pleasant feeling for him to be made to feel helpless like that.

"I"m in!!" he said right away excitedly.

"How are we going to kill them though?" asked Luuk.

None of them had any blood attack, and Graham wouldn"t want to waste a two-guilder blood bullet only to kill wraiths without knowing how much money he could make from selling their remains. He quickly decided what to do and spoke.

"Come with me," said Graham, beckoning his partners.

They followed him to a more secluded part of the street where only a handful of people were around. Luuk understood what he wanted to do so he blocked the people"s view with his back and asked Jacco to do the same.

Graham took out his lighter and lit it. He concentrated on the flame and then repeated a question in his mind.

"How much can we sell a wraith"s remains for?"

The flame in his hand began forming an image slowly. The three men could see a place that looked like a shady market with several objects placed inside a big gla.s.s display. One of them, which looked like a rotting eyeball, glowed red. It was most likely the remains of a wraith. Above the eyeball, a number floated: six guilders. Graham"s eyes opened wide in surprise and the image disappeared suddenly.

"Val, I didn"t know it"s that much. I should have hunted more of them then," he muttered.

"Who is Val?" asked Jacco who heard Graham"s muttering.

"It"s a private matter," he brushed aside the topic, and then put out the fire.

The cost of a blood bullet is Sloten was two and a half guilders, so with one remains, he could gain a net profit of three and a half guilders. However, he wouldn"t be able to deal with that many wraiths all at once alone, so he needed the other two and had to split the profit.

"I have a way of killing them," he said.

Graham took out a bullet from a bullet pouch that he had bought before. It was strapped around his waist to make it easier to take out the bullets.

"This is a blood bullet, and it costs three guilders to buy. Because this is the only thing that we can use to kill wraiths, I"d like to get the three guilders from selling the remains for the bullets and we split the rest equally," he proposed with a jacked-up price.

Luuk and Jacco didn"t seem to object with the proposal. After all, they could only provide support and not kill the wraiths themselves.

"That"s not a problem for me," said Luuk.

"Fine by me," said Jacco.

"Good. I only have thirteen of these left, so we must be careful there," added Graham.

He showed Luuk and Jacco his concealed revolver that had a tiny bloodstain on the handle under his coat. Valentine had put anti-divination on it, so it should be untraceable, although if there was a random check-point he could still get busted.

"One more thing. The wraiths" remains can fetch such a high price but they are still safely roaming the sewers. There must be something else there. We have to make sure our escape route is always clear," he said seriously.

"That"s true. Although Contractbounds are rare, there should be some who are able to kill them, but there are still many wraiths there. I hope it"s not because of something like earlier," said Luuk thoughtfully.

"Well, let"s just head over there and see for ourselves then!" said Jacco.

The three men moved walked away from their spot and headed to their destination: Westeinde Sewer.