Grey II - Ghosts

Chapter 23 - One Week

If I go down, I will go down fighting.
I'll go down like lighting.

ONE OK ROCK - I Was King

I didn't want to think about Abraham's message, I didn't want to believe him, but I couldn't help but check. If Jordan was joining him, that meant she was leaving Chimarah. So I visited, cloaking myself. Every nerve in my body heightened, pulling from me to see if I would feel her there, sense her like I had unknowingly at the bar, but there was nothing. Instead, I heard voices, angry ones, an argument. I counted. Four. A sick feeling began to fill my throat as I listened.

"You never should have let her stay here! Never! We don't house people like her, we don't help people like her! She was a fucking time bomb and you let her sit here ticking."

"I did what I had ta, Jevin was destroying the city with her. Someone had ta do something."

The second voice was Chimarah's, being the only female one. Something underneath her words made my chest prickle. Defeat, doubt, guilt? A low voice took up Chi's side in the lull that followed.

"Someone had to stop her, she was lost and needed balance, stability. If Chimarah had turned her away then she very well could have been snatched up by another like the Vampyre and then we would have been in even graver danger. She was a...unique situation."

"Graver than death? Was she so 'unique' she was worth the blood of our Clan? She led whoever that was here and you know it!"

"Someone had ta do something!"

Chimarah's high voice rang out now, no longer sounding like sorrow embodied, but angry.

"And why was that someone us? Since when is it our responsibility to save the city? To get involved? That is not what we do! Since when do we deal in anything other than information? Why didn't you give this to another? To a Clan that is used to dealing with shit like her? We don't fight and we don't keep Halflings under our roof because then people die, our people die!"

The voice that roared out was different from the first, but similar and the very walls seemed to shake with his rage. There was a brief pause before Chimarah responded, but when she did I could tell she was closer to me, to the door I stood behind, listening, trying to piece together what exactly had happened to make Jordan leave.

"I did it 'cause it was asked of me. I did what I was ordered ta do."

She sounded sad again, unsure, her voice low. The man that responded shared none of her emotion, the first voice again, but now mocking and sharp. It was clear the argument had halved the Clan, Chi and the low voice against the two similar ones, probably brothers. I felt my Shift jump at his words.

"Right, the faceless, nameless man you seem so loyal to. Tell me, leader, where is he now? Now that his grand plan has ended so disastrously? Tell me, where is the one you believe in so much now that your family is splintered, now that Syn's blood is on our floor? Do you serve your family or him? This ghost you won't even give a name to?"

At that, I opened the door, rolling it back as I stepped inside, letting my Shift cover me.

"Speak of the devil and he may appear."

I spoke the words around my lengthening teeth, flashing them as I smiled despite myself.

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The Vault was not at all what I had expected, which was roughly some form of Hogwarts, complete with cloaks and owls and broomsticks. What I found instead was quite...ordinary. Besides my Shift constantly twitching in me, trying to figure out what these people were, why they felt different, if they were dangerous and what they could do, everything appeared painfully normal. Like being a Mage was just a small part of their existence, and maybe it was. Ailech saying he was Human made more sense after a day in the Vault. I thought of myself first as a Darkling, then a person, but the charges at the Vault seemed to view their natures differently than I did mine, secondary to their humanity.