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It was a pleasant sleep; not that of the dead, but of those far past it. It hardly made sense to him why he should still dream when his body, and possibly his mind, slowly, steadily deteriorated, but considering what he used to be, and what he currently was, very little tended to surprise him anymore. He dreamed. Dreamed of birthday celebrations years in the past, of friends he supposed he once tolerated, of how things seemed to be in a recently previous life. For lack of a more effective release, he dreamed.
A sudden twinge of alarm in some far off part of his consciousness dargged him back to the realization that he was, in fact, on watch duty; someone, two someones, as he interpreted his intensifying unease, was quiclky coming close to them, barreling through ward after ward, each succesive snap of magical force cracking like a whip in his head. Thinking rationally, it was probably just someone taking a quick shortcut through the warehouse district, throwing caution they didn't know they were supposed to observe to the wind in order to arrive at home a few miuntes earlier. It just seemed a bit too direct for comfort. Discovery was hardly a problem; few stumbled upon the lair of a night gang and left without becoming a member, let alone with their lives. But he'd get a sharp reprimand and an almost certain beating if it was found out he'd been sleeping on watch.
Taking hold of his remaining wards, he poured his sight into them, walls and corrugated steel rushing by as searched for the potential intruders. One by one he checked the ends of each of his more strongly anchored spells. He'd never quite gotten the hang of maintaining sight on multiple wards; the images rushed and swirled together, and he'd get a nasty headache. Focusing on a couple of motion blurs, a young looking couple came into view. A younger, nearly ageless man with white hair tied back strode purposely forward, looking aside now and then to lash out painfully at the wards in the ambience, and....No. Impossible. Not her. She'd been stricken and left dry in the alley all that time ago. He'd seen it while dreaming. He scrambled to his feet, holding the occult ward's mental feed steady as he rushed to the upper members of the court.
The avenging hunter had come, twirling in her hand an aspen stake.
 Tezke · Sat Dec 05, 2009 @ 03:26am · 1 Comments |
