Chapter XXXIV

Carrot had never really been in a situation like this one before, and she wasn’t sure if she liked it all that much. Her mom had always told her that patience was a virtue, and that learning to wait and be calm while waiting was important, but usually that was waiting for a special event, or like, waiting next to the oven while cookies were baking. 

She had never had to wait next to a door, ready to breach into it at a moment’s notice. There was a very real possibility that what they were going to do was a crime! She’d never done crimes on purpose before! 

“You know, Mister Silas, I think you might be a bad influence.”

“You’ve mentioned it before,” Mister Silas said. He was standing with his head bowed and his arms crossed. With his longer coat, he blended well with the shadows of the alley, almost like he wasn’t there at all. “Are you nervous?” he asked.

“Hm? I guess, a little?”

“That’s normal,” he replied before casually twisting his arm to show the phone waiting in his hand. They hadn’t gotten a text from Iris yet, so the plan wasn’t yet in motion. “You know, I had to do something similar to this on one of my first missions for the ordo.”

“You did?” Carrot asked.

“It wasn't exactly like this,” he corrected. “But it was an ambush. I was barely a rank III wizard at the time. It was one of my first proper missions for the ordo, and that was enough to make me very nervous. The team’s leader was... well, his name doesn’t matter. He was a knight.”

“Knights are the ones with vows, right?” Carrot asked.

“Not necessarily,” he replied. “Knight is a rank. It means a certain level of strength, but also... knowledge and responsibility within the order and magical society at large. Anyway, my first mission with the ordo wasn’t anything special. Just culling some daemons. But the knight in charge knew that they would run at the sight of him, so he set all of the newer wizards up to ambush the fleeing daemons. I was so scared I miscast my first Firebolt entirely and had to scramble to land a second one. I don’t think I contributed much to the operation.”

“That’s not as reassuring as you think,” Carrot said, though it did make her feel a little bit better, she supposed. ‘We can’t afford to miscast too much, today.”

“No, I guess not,” Silas replied. “Just... whatever we’re facing today, don’t be afraid to escalate first.”

Carrot eyed him for a moment, then nodded.

A second or two later, the phone in his hand buzzed. “Iris sent the go signal,” he replied. “She’s about to start.”

Carrot tensed, then remembered that they were supposed to be subtle, so she reined in her magic even more, pulling it in like a cloak around herself and not letting any escape. She felt mostly ready. Mostly. A few weeks of extra practice wouldn’t hurt. The spells she had been working to improve were still in need of refining, and the spell she was trying to create from first-principles with Iris’ help wasn’t ready for use in the field. 

Even with her magic suppressed, she felt the beacon going off in the distance. It was a small, persistent blip at the edge of her senses. Maybe it was stronger because they’d used some of her surplus magic to empower it? 

The blip grew more frequent and more insistent. “It’s not working?” Carrot asked as she looked up to the building they were standing next to.

“Give it a minute,” Silas said. “It might take them a while to get moving.”

She supposed that was fair, but she was still feeling kind of anxious.

Then she felt magic moving above. It was strong, strong and nasty. She recognized the same sort of flavour as the magic that the last lieutenant had fought with. Not just bad vibes, but potent ones, with a sort of flavour to it, like fruit that had started to rot at the bottom of a warm trashcan. 

She resisted the urge to pinch her nose at the scent. 

“How many signatures?” Silas asked. 

“Um? I think two big ones? And a few smaller ones. The smaller are real weak,” Carrot said as she tried her best to parse what she was feeling without extending her senses. “Wait, one of the bigger ones is--”

She ducked on instinct as a window was opened above. A moment later, a large brown-black blur shot out of the window with a flutter of wings. The blur moved too quickly for her to make out what sort of animal it may have been. 

Something reached through the window, then slammed it shut.

“I guess part of the plan is working, at least,” Carrot said.

“Which means it’s our turn,” Silas said. “What do you feel?”

“Can I extend my magic up?” Carrot asked.

“Yes. But be subtle about it,” he said.

She nodded, then closed her eyes and did just that. Her magic really enjoyed not being cooped up and closed in. It reached upwards, and she had to pull on the leash a little to stop it from simply flooding out. Ever since making that Vow with magic, it was like she had tapped into a much deeper well than before, and it wasn’t like she lacked magic in the past. 

Her power seeped into the floors above. She couldn’t make out the layout of the rooms or anything like that. Maybe someone had spells that let them do that, or had trained really hard to sense that kind of thing, but the best she could do was pick out magical feelings from the background noise. 

“Three weaker daemons,” she said. “Real weak. Probably new? Or smaller? Um, one bigger one. I don’t want to poke it, but I can feel the magic coming off of it.”

“Tsk. Anything that feels human?” he asked.

She felt around a little more, then shook her head. “No? But normal people don’t feel like much.”

“That’s normal. Okay, four or more daemons. That’s a lot.”

Carrot grinned, then flexed her bicep. It wasn’t much. She kinda wished she had big muscles, but that would also go counter to her magical girl build, so she was on the fence about it. “It’s okay! I’m strong!”

Silas sniffed, then moved over to a door nearby. He tried the handle, but it just clicked without opening. She was about to ask him how he planned on opening the door when he started to mutter a spell under his breath. “Exterminator Art: Thadeus’ Frosty Fang!”

There was a snap as a sharp, fang-like spike of deeply cold magic speared out of the air and stabbed into the handle. The door was partially covered in whitish frost, but the handle was practically iced over.

Silas took a step back, then aimed forward with an open palm while muttering through a second incantation. “Exterminator Art: Flame Bolt.”

The bolt of fire rammed into the door with surprising force, but it was mostly the sudden heat that did the job, ripping the lock apart. 

“Let’s go,” he said.

Carrot followed him into the building. Its interior was about what she expected. She hadn’t been inside the back of too many offices, but one of them looked much like any other. There was a breakroom to one side, and stairs leading up next to a small lobby by the front which was currently empty. The rows of cubicles nearby were all just as empty except for a few old computers that were just collecting dust.

“Okay,” Carrot whispered. “This is creepy.”

“It’s an office after hours,” Silas whispered back.

“Yeah, exactly,” she said.

He gave her a look, then lifted a hand and gestured for her to stay close. Carrot did. She was very good at staying close when there were daemons around. She was also very good at not touching anything, mostly because it would be rude to poke other people’s stuff when they weren’t around.

There was a little sign next to the stairs, the sort with plastic cards that could be slid in and out of little sleeves. 

First Floor: Reception, JUberwoods Accounting Serviced Ltd.

Second Floor: Conference

Third Floor: Juberwoods Property Management Co.

“Property management?” Carrot asked. “Do you think the daemons are into real estate?”

“Probably just an abandoned business,” he said. 

“Or the daemons discovered paperwork,” Carrot said.

“Let’s not assume the worst,” he said. “Although... I’ve always suspected that some members of the Ordo Logistica were bureaucracy daemons.”

Carrot slapped a hand over her mouth to keep from giggling, but a few titters escaped confinement.

Silas glanced back at her, and the corner of his mouth twitched, but he shook his head. “We’re supposed to do this quietly."

“Quietly suspect bureaucracy daemons,” she whispered back.

He sighed, then started up the stairs.

The wide stairs lead upwards to a landing. They were painted a dull beige, and each step had a well-worn rubberized lip that was worn down the middle. There wasn’t much by means of light. The bit that came in from the reception was all the had to see by until they made it to the second floor. There, a glass door revealed another empty space, with windows providing a bit more illumination.

They continued on to the third floor, moving slower to make less noise as they climbed.

The third floor smelled. It was like someone hadn’t emptied out a dumpster in too long, a faint rotting meat and old carpet odour that clung to the air. It wasn’t overpowering, just strong enough to notice and make her wince. 

The third floor's doorway was smashed open. A glass door without the glass, since most of that was piled off to one side, swept into a corner and then just left there. 

The office beyond the glass was lit by a single electric lamp on a reception desk. Everything else was shadowy and lit only by the pale bluish glow of a computer screen. Papers were scattered across the floor, and a filing cabinet had been tipped over, and folders spilling out in a fan. Something had clawed long scratches into the carpet, deep enough that the underpadding had come up in fluffy grey strips.

Moving through the room were a couple of very fat pidgeons that flew from one desk to another, and at the rear, sitting by one of the windows looking out the front, was a dog so big that it could likely meet Carrot eye-to-eye while sitting down.

“That’s our daemon,” Silas said.

“Yup. Do you... think I can pet?”

***