The second rat came out at 11:52 on Thursday night, and the third one came out right behind it.
Alex was ready this time. He had a small pile of stones beside him, river stones, round and heavy, and he had made himself comfortable on an upside-down bucket near the drying yard. Invisibility on, of course, and a thin layer of illusion over the sensor box so it would record nothing but empty grass.
He had been sitting there since ten. At home there had been nobody to lie to. That was the one good thing about living alone, he thought, and then he felt bad for thinking it, because his parents' photo was right there on the shelf, watching him eat two packets of Maggi straight from the pan. He had washed the pan, switched off every light, and left.
The night was colder than yesterday. Fog was coming off the river in thin white sheets, and it hung low over the brick rows so that only their tops showed, like the backs of sleeping buffaloes in a pond. Mosquitoes didn't care about invisibility. He had killed eleven of them so far. No EXP for those either.
While he waited, he kept thinking about what Riya had said at the canteen. Like a temple bell, but underwater. He had put his palm flat on the ground near the crack for a full minute, and he had felt it then. Not a sound exactly. A slow pulse. Like something very big breathing very far away.
Every day it's getting louder, she had said.
He had believed her. That was the part that worried him.
The first rat died before both its back legs were out of the crack. The second one was smarter. It saw its friend fall and ran sideways, low, using the brick rows for cover. Alex waited. When it jumped onto the top of a row to look around, he threw.
[Rift Rat (Lv 12) killed · EXP +40] [Rift Rat (Lv 14) killed · EXP +55]
Then the crack did something new. It shivered, and a fourth thing pushed through. This was not a rat. It was long and flat like a centipede, with a hard grey shell, as thick as his thigh, and it moved without any sound at all. It went straight for him, as if it could smell him through the invisibility.
Alex stood up from the bucket.
The crawler covered the last ten metres in a second. Up close it had no eyes, only a round mouth at the front with rings of small hooked teeth that opened and closed like a camera shutter. Its legs made no noise on the grass, but where they touched the bricks they left little white scratch marks, like chalk.
It reared up, half its body off the ground, taller than him now.
He didn't throw a stone this time. At Tier 5 he could crush the shell with his hand, but he wanted to know something. How did his body hold up in a real fight with no summon, no holding back on the enemy's side? He stepped in, grabbed the thing behind its head as it lunged, and twisted. The shell cracked. Its many legs scraped along his forearm and tore the sleeve of his jacket. Then it went limp.
[Rift Crawler (Lv 21) killed · EXP +180] [Vessel Sync: Tier 5 · Stage 2/5]
Alex let out a long breath and shook his arm. The skin was red and scratched but not bleeding. His shoulder ached in a new place.
Alex- " Stage two. Okay. Okay, that I'll take. "
It was only his second night at the kiln, and the bar had already moved. Of course, a stage at Tier 5 was the cheapest stage he would ever get. He knew that. But he could feel the difference, small but real. When he switched to Tier 6 for one second as a test, the pain behind his eyes came slower than it had in the empty room at home.
Then he checked the red dot in his mind.
The van had not moved since evening. It was parked somewhere in the south of the city, near the lake. He looked at the time. 12:20 AM.
Alex- " Let's go and meet the bishop. "
He teleported to a dark spot near the dot and found himself on a quiet tree-lined road with old two-storey houses and big gates. Rich people's area. The van was parked inside the compound of one of them, a white building with a board that said SUNRISE GUEST HOUSE in gold letters. Under the letters there was a small painted sun.
Alex almost laughed.
Before he went any closer, he stopped and let his senses spread out. Old habit. In Zaroth, any building that belonged to a church had wards on it, little traps of holy mana that would scream if something dark walked through. If these people really were connected to the Holy Church, they might know the same tricks.
He found it after a few seconds. Over the main door, painted small in gold, was another sun. It was humming, very faintly, like a tubelight about to go. A ward. Weak, badly made, probably drawn by someone who had copied it from a book without understanding half of it. But a ward.
It covered the door. It did not cover the outside staircase.
Alex- " Amateurs. "
Even so, he pulled his aura in as tight as it would go, until he felt like a fist inside his own skin. A street dog sleeping under the van lifted its head as he passed, sniffed the air, and decided he was not its problem.
Alex- " You people really aren't subtle. "
The gate had a guard who was asleep on a plastic chair with his mouth open. Alex walked past him invisible, through the small garden, and up the outside staircase. On the first floor, one window had light behind the curtains and he could hear voices. He stood beside it and listened.
There were five people inside. He recognised two voices: Ansel, the tall one, and the short sweaty one from the kiln. Somebody was pouring tea. He could hear the steel glasses clinking and the slurp of a man who drank it too hot. The other three were new. One of them spoke more than the others. His voice was soft and old and very calm, like a doctor telling you bad news.
Alex found a gap where the curtain didn't meet the window frame and put one eye to it. The old man sat in the only proper chair in the room, in a white kurta with a grey shawl, a wooden walking stick across his knees. His white hair was combed back with oil. He had a soft, kind face, the kind you would trust to bless your new scooter. The other four sat on mats around him like students, and when he lifted his cup, the nearest one leaned forward to hold the saucer.
Old Man- " …a third party. Strong enough to kill a crawler-class without a weapon. "
Ansel- " It was a rat, Your Grace. With a brick. "
Old Man- " And tonight the sensor showed nothing. Nothing at all, for one full hour. Do you know how hard it is to show nothing, Brother Ansel? Even the wind moves the grass. "
Silence. Alex quietly rubbed his chin. So the illusion had been too perfect. Lesson noted.
Old Man- " The Dawn does not like surprises. Saturday must go cleanly. Brother Mohan. "
Short- " Yes, Your Grace. "
Old Man- " The van will wait at the east gate of the college at 9:30. When the singing starts, the girl will put her hands on her ears. They always do. You will be the kind uncle who helps her to the medical room. "
Mohan- " And if she doesn't come? "
Old Man- " Then you carry her. Nobody will be looking at one girl on that day. "
Alex's hand had started to glow a very faint red. He noticed it, and he let it fade. Not yet. Killing five men in a guest house was easy. Finding out who was above an old man who called himself "Your Grace" was harder. In Zaroth he had learned that if you cut a weed from the top, it grows back by the next rain.
Then the door beside the window opened.
Alex didn't move. A young man came out onto the balcony, maybe twenty, in a white kurta with the same small sun on the pocket. He had a cigarette already between his lips and was patting his pockets for a lighter. He stood so close that Alex could smell the Lifebuoy soap on him.
The boy found the lighter, lit up, and blew smoke straight into Alex's face.
Alex held his breath. Invisibility hid him from eyes. It did not stop someone from walking into him. If the boy took one step to the left, he would hit a wall that wasn't there.
The boy didn't step left. He leaned on the railing, scrolled through Instagram reels for two minutes with the sound off, laughed once at something, and flicked the cigarette into the garden. Then he went back in and shut the door.
Alex let his breath out very slowly through his nose. Even in Zaroth, he had never been this close to getting caught by a cigarette.
Old Man- " One more thing. "
Paper rustled.
Old Man- " The road incident. Somebody recorded it on a phone from the bus stop. Here. The boy who pulled her back. "
Alex's eyes narrowed.
Old Man- " He moved before the people shouted. Before. Look at his feet in the second frame. Normal boys don't move like that. I want his name, his house, his family. By tomorrow night. "
Ansel- " You think he's the third party? "
Old Man- " I think the Dawn told us to watch for a man who doesn't belong to this world. And I think we should be very sure before we meet him. "
Alex stood very still in the dark by the window. Through a small gap between the curtains, he could see the table. On it lay a printed photo, a little blurry, taken from a phone. In the photo a boy in a bikers jacket was jumping back, holding a girl in glasses.
The boy was him.