Chapter XL

Silas rose from the back of the room. At some point, something magical had happened, and he’d ended up flipped over a desk. A desk which, in turn, had ended up flipped over him. 

He had to shift over, press his back against the wall, and shove outwards with both legs to make the workdesk move off of him, otherwise he might have just stayed there, pinned to the ground. Once he was free, he stood up, then squinted through the room.

The first thing that was immediately evident, was that they had made a mess of the place. Papers were tossed all over, desks flipped, a few of the windows were smashed, and there were places where the foam tiles on the ceiling had partially come undone and were now hanging down. A few lights had been broken, so the illumination that they did have was flickering wildly and rather uneven.

The next thing he couldn’t help but notice was the magic. The air was thick with it. It smelled, at least to his magical senses, like rot and sulfur and somehow very distinctly like dog droppings. “Carrot?” he called out, even as he prepared a spell. 

If the first thing that replied to his call was a daemon, he was going to smack it in the face with something quick. 

Instead, however, he heard a familiar voice calling out from further in the room. “Yup! Hey, I’m here.”

He pushed a chair aside, then covered his lower face with the sleeve of his coat. The smell was worse here, but he endured and approached.

Carrot was sitting on the floor, legs splayed out, back against the side of another office desk. She was in her... he loathed to call it a ‘magical girl outfit’ but he supposed that that’s what it was. The poofy skirt and lacy blouse were all ruffled up, but otherwise, Carrot looked more or less fine.

At least physically.

Magically, it was another matter. 

She was steaming, magical energy wafting off of her in waves. Her eyes were half-lidded, and her brow covered in a sheen of sweat. “Are you... okay?” he asked, slowly.

She licked her lips, then nodded. “I’m okay, I think,” she said. “The magic is helping me. My vow, I mean. Uh... I don’t think I can move.”

“Let me help you.”

“No!” Carrot snapped. Then, softer, with a shake of her head. “No. It’s okay. I don’t think you should get too close.”

“Alright,” he replied. Glancing down, he noticed a large, mangy dog, resting on its side halfway across the room. That had to be the daemon, though, other than a large ‘2’ tattooed on its chest, there weren’t any signs that this dog in particular had been the daemon. Its size was normal, and he couldn’t sense anything from it.

Then again, the air was thick with magic still, so he wouldn’t trust his senses so easily. 

“Do you need help?”

“Urgh, maybe? Just... Give me a few minutes, please, Mister Silas. I stole a lot of magic, and most of it is icky and gross. I’m trying to work through it all. I don’t think I should move, not for a few minutes.”

“Okay,” he replied. He didn’t like that, not one bit, but... sure, he could give her some time.

Moving closer to the window, he looked out onto the street. A few people had stopped and were staring, some of them cupping their eyes against the brightness of the sun. Judging by the phones some of them held, the police had been called already. Probably on account of all the glass sprinkled across the sidewalk.

So, they didn’t have forever to wait.

“We’re going to have to leave. Ah, we can take a side exit. Since there’s no fire, they might not just barge in.”

“Okay,” Carrot said.

Silas shook his head and looked around. This had not worked out as well as he had hoped, and yet he couldn’t be upset with the results. They had just taken out one of the Master’s Lieutenants. There was still a gnawing pit of worry in his chest for Carrot, though. Her Rite of Dark Purification was a dangerous spell, and it was proving more dangerous now, against stronger foes.

He’d have to have a talk with her, maybe even call in some expertise from the magical society once this was all done. Absorbing that much negative magic couldn’t be healthy. 

In the meantime, however, they had come here with a job to do.

Looking around the room left him feeling... well, like a teenager told to pick up after himself again. This place was a mess, and he was tempted to just abandon the whole thing and call it quits. But then, that wouldn’t be smart, or responsible. 

Instead, he stepped over and started to search in earnest, aware the entire time that he didn’t have all day.

Pushing aside papers and some desks revealed very little, but he did notice something that seemed out of place. A laptop case. A hardened one, that looked far newer than any of the old computers and office supplies in the room. 

It had been thrown aside during all of the fighting, but looked tough enough that he was sure it had survived.

Opening the case, then the laptop, had him freezing on the spot.

The machine was modern, yes, but there was a sticker pressed into the space next to its keyboard. It was small, inoffensive, the kind of thing that an ordinary person might have ignored.

But he knew the symbol of the Ordo Cognitio et Mutatio when he saw it. An owl, with three eyes and a slightly opened beak.

He closed the laptop and stuffed it back into its bag, then he searched the bag itself and found a few papers stuffed within. Those had the Ordo watermark on them as well.

Silas didn’t think he had the time to peruse the documents just then, but they might be a hint, and he wasn’t going to leave it behind.

He moved around some more, tossing things aside, looking over random papers, and trying to figure out what was going on here, but he couldn’t tell quite so easily. If he had certain spells, then maybe he could tie everything together and figure it out, but that was beyond him for the moment. 

“Mister Silas,” Carrot said. Her voice was a little on the weak side, which had him rushing over. “My tummy feels queasy. But, uh, I think I’m ready to go.”

“Alright,” he said. He took the bag with the laptop and slung it over one shoulder, did the same with his own satchel, then moved to Carrot’s side. The magical stench was stronger around her, but he chose not to comment. 

“What’s happening?”

“I think... at a guess, you’ve absorbed a lot of negative, dark magic, and it’s not doing you any good. I’ve never seen someone better at filtering it than you, but even so, that was a lot.”

“Ah, I bit more than I could chew,” Carrot said.

He nodded. “Something like that. Come on, let’s get you out of here.” He helped her to her feet, then wrapped one of her arms over his shoulder. It forced him to walk a little stooped, but that was fine. 

He didn’t think Carrot even needed it, but, from what he understood of her, having the support offered would mean a lot to her.

They made it to the stairwell, and he winced when he heard noise below. The police? Yes, there were sirens lit up outside.

So, he went up, helping Carrot along and hoping that the mess below would distract anyone coming to look.

At the top of the stairs was a roof access that he managed to shove open. It was locked from the inside, but the fire exit lock let him shove it open. If it was connected to any sort of alarm, then it didn’t go off.

Fortunately, they were slightly higher up then the next building over.

Less fortunately, it was still a ways away, so they’d have to jump across the gap. He stood on the edge and looked down, then felt a moment of vertigo. He shook it off, however. He wasn’t afraid of heights, just of the consequences of falling.

“Okay, think you can make it across?” he asked.

Carrot took a deep breath. Being out in the sun, and in the windy air atop the building, was helping, he suspected. It was bringing a bit of colour to her skin, and venting the negative magic out into the open was better than having it all stuck in a small, enclosed space.

“I can,” she said with certainty. “Magical girls should be experts at roofhopping, after all.”

“Uh-huh,” he said. 

This was all going to end up with him having to watch some of those cartoons of hers, wasn’t it? “Come on, I’ll go first, and I’ll be there if you need it, alright?”

She nodded. 

Which meant that he had to jump. He backed off, gathered his courage, then ran and leapt.

It wasn’t even that far of a jump, but his heart was still in his throat as he landed on the other side. Carrot joined him a moment later, making it all look very easy and casual.

“Okay... now what?” she asked.

“Now we find a way down that doesn’t look too suspicious and try to find Iris,” he said. “After that, we have some clues to work through.”

***