133. Underhanded tactics

We were sitting in a parked car relatively close to the mansion, but still a bit away. The building was old but clearly renovated. The property had high walls made of red brick and an entrance gate with a simple guard booth. Inside sat a guard in a blue uniform. He looked mundane at first glance, but after a few seconds of observation, I noticed a hidden dagger between the man’s shoulder blades.

“How’s the security on your end?” I spoke into the earpiece.

“Some cameras from the front and a few guards patrolling,” Luna answered. “But there are runes on the walls at regular intervals. I can’t tell if they’re powered—the flow is clearly hidden.”

I nodded. Luna and I were doing the scouting since it was the middle of the night, and only the two of us possessed natural darkvision. Well, us and Darius—but he wasn’t the inconspicuous type, and the mountain of a dwarf would draw immediate suspicion.

“I’ll deal with the runes. See any more guards or a hint of the security system?”

“No, just guards walking around. I can’t see inside the mansion, though. All the windows have closed curtains. There’s a statue of a massive gargoyle on a fountain in front of the main entrance.”

I nodded. “Tell me when the coast is clear. I want to take a look at the runes.”

I waited a bit until Luna gave me the signal. I then circled the wall and approached the palace from the side where the street ran. I didn’t have to look around for witnesses. Rome was like New York in the effects of magic on the world—the streets were empty after dark, with people hiding in their houses. I nodded to Luna, sitting in a tree of the neighboring house across the street, and got to checking out the runes.

I didn’t approach them physically, but slowly and steadily extended myself. I sensed runic work along the wall, with nodes hidden in the thicker supporting columns. I couldn’t feel much. The flow was restricted, so as not to scream that it was an alarm system.

I approached one of the nodes and tried re-attuning myself to it.

“Watch my back,” I said to Luna, and used a big part of my focus to enter the node. It was clearly trapped, but compared to the seal on the pouch, it was nothing, and after a few seconds, I managed to get close to the core of the spell.

“Watch out—a guard will be coming back on the other side. He’s with a dog. It can sense you,” Luna warned.

I nodded and got to reading the runes. It was an alarm—no attack patterns, but recognition. They must have activated the system through a ritual cast, as it was at the third circle. The runes drew power from a central circle, and they would raise an alarm if anyone not registered in the central spell crossed the barrier.

“It’s an alarm barrier around the whole place,” I said into the earpiece.

“Can’t you deactivate it?”

“Ritual cast with the main circle hidden away? No. Not in a few hours, let alone minutes.”

“They have to be able to get people in and out,” Ophelia said, listening from the car.

“No, they don’t. They just need hostages till tomorrow,” I said.

“We go in through the front?” Darius proposed.

Before I could even consider it—

“Wait. Sam. That’s not a dog. They’re using Baskerville hounds. It’s going to find you.”

“Fuck.”

“Move out of there,” Luna said, and I could sense her moving out of the treetop.

I couldn’t just pull out hastily—I would disturb the magic. It was either pulling out slowly or cutting off my consciousness. That, or…

“Wait. Don’t,” I whispered into the earpiece as I could hear footsteps.

“You and William get here. Wait next to the wall, twenty meters from me.”

There was no time for questions, and to my relief, Luna did as told. William was a bit further away, in a car, but he was one of the best assassins I knew, and fast, silent movements were his specialty.

I could hear a low, reverberating growl approaching from the other side of the wall.

“What is it?” asked a male voice. “Do you sense something?”

I could see William and Luna nearby as I started moving toward them, keeping my consciousness in the node. Instead of pulling out, I went in and “outside” on the other side, using the node like a door in a watchtower. Once I got my consciousness on the other side, I sensed the increasingly agitated hound.

I extended myself to the dog. It was pretty intelligent, but thankfully I didn’t need anything complicated—just find the part responsible for base emotion. The only gamble was whether the alarm reacted to mana or to spark attunement. If it were spark, my cast wouldn’t activate it. If it were just any mana, then we would have to go with Darius’s proposition.

The dog started sniffing under the wall, growling louder and louder. I found the part responsible for violence and finished my cast.

Distortion.

But instead of distorting its vision, I distorted its emotions using second-circle mana, amplifying the sensation that there was something on the other side—that it was not only there but also aggressive and an enemy. It needed to be killed now. A light push into the naturally aggressive mind of the hound was all it needed. Emotion manipulation alongside the target's nature proved effective, and the dog jumped onto the wall trying to get on the other side to kill the target. It was a cryptid, strong enough to pull its owner.

I saw its muzzle cross the rune line before the leash got pulled.

“Now,” I whispered, and without any more instruction needed, we jumped the wall at the same time the hound activated the alarm.

We fell on the other side, silently, with William catching Luna. The guard got slammed into the wall, giving us a second to lie down flat as William covered us with his cloak. I could sense his magic flow and some sort of illusion covering the cloak, most likely making us look like grass. It wasn’t a mental type but an actual optical illusion. Hopefully, it would be enough.

“Fucking come here!” shouted the man, and I imagined he yanked at the leash harder as I heard a thud on this side of the wall.

The hound started sniffing in our direction as I repeated my trick. Thankfully, this time the man was prepared and didn’t let the dog go after a real threat.

“What the hell is up with you?” he asked, clearly fighting against the creature.

Then a click of a shortwave radio sounded, accompanied by his voice as he finally wrestled the hound down.

“Hey, it’s Rob. My hound jumped onto the wall. No intruders in sight,” I smiled at those words, but the man continued. “But the dog is sensing something, I think. Can you send someone to check it out?”

“Fuck,” I swore. Sadly, he wasn’t a complete idiot and waited in place with the uneasy, sniffing dog. Soon, another guard could be heard, accompanied by a growing growl. They could ignore one dog going wild, sure—but two? This was getting dangerous. I prepared for a fight, ready to drop the disguise. It wasn't the best option, but we were improvising here.

“Lift the cloak. I need to see the target,” Luna whispered.

William lifted the material with his finger, and we saw the man with another hound approach. I could sense some magic stir next to me as Luna was clearly in deep concentration. The growling suddenly stopped—from both dogs.

I looked at her with a raised eyebrow, but didn’t say anything as she was clearly struggling with the spell.

“What is it?” asked the new arrival, higher in seniority judging by the ring in his tone.

“I don’t know. The hound got all agitated all of a sudden. I don’t know what it was about—jumped onto the wall like something was on the other side. I checked, but it was just an empty street.”

“Hmmmm.” The new man stayed silent for a long while. “Well, send someone registered to check out the other side. Is it still agitated?”

“No, it calmed down.”

The man clicked his tongue. “Well…” Some shifting could be heard. “I don’t see anything now. I’ll report it and send you some backup just in case, but continue the patrol.”

After a while, we heard footsteps continuing along the wall.

“Ufff,” Luna sighed as she went slightly limp, sweat covering her forehead.

“Thank fuck for the ambient mana—otherwise those spells would be like flashlights.” I gave a quick thanks to the magic.

“What was that?” I asked, curious.

“Pulled blood out of the dog's nose to make it numb,” Luna said.

“We don’t have the time. We need to get moving before that backup,” William whispered.

“Calm down, Will. I just wanted to give you some more time to lie on Luna.”

“Really, Sam—now?”

“Heh,” I chuckled at my own joke and looked from underneath the cloak as the vampire’s finger jabbed into my ribs.

I could see a large tree nearby. It looked like we were near a garden part of the estate, and I could see the mansion in the distance. The land wasn’t large, and it was a quick run to the house, but the garden was mostly flowers and some bushes—nothing to offer good cover.

“Get to the tree,” I whispered.

We broke free of the illusion and bolted for it. William and I easily climbed and then pulled Luna up, careful not to make any sound. Sitting in the treetop, we were relatively safe for now, but still far away from the building.

“So what now?” William asked.

I shrugged. “We continue improvising. Think they have more alarms in the mansion?”

“They sure do,” William said. “Not to mention more guards.”

“We can take on guards. I’m curious about the security.”

Luna finally caught her breath after the blood trick. “Maybe you were wrong, and they overwhelmed them with numbers?”

“That would sure make it easier. But the guards are weak—they’re first circle at best. There’s something else here.”

William nodded in agreement. “Wanna bet that gargoyle pretending to be a fountain will come alive?”

I frowned. “It was spouting water. Who drills an actual gargoyle?”

“Maybe they didn’t know what it was?” Luna proposed.

“Not how it works,” I sighed.

“Are we risking communication?” asked William.

I hesitated. The communicators were using ambient mana with electromagnetic signal, magic based on Q’Shar’s design for bargaining with the mortal world—hasty runework to protect against mana. Barely functional over a short distance, but if my spell didn’t raise an alarm, then this shouldn’t either.

“Can you hear me?” I whispered into the earpiece.

“And then I broke his back over my knee, and I’m like, ‘even if I can’t fit in a mine, I was still born underground, raised underground. I didn’t see the light—’”

“Darius, please turn off the communicator.”

“Oh, shit.” I heard some fidgeting, and the line fell quiet.

“Loooud and clear. How are you?” Myhur spoke.

“Currently in a tree. We’re in the garden, but don’t have an idea about invading the mansion.”

“Maaaybe kidnap one of them and interrogate them about the hostage?”

“I don’t see it without risking an alarm,” William whispered, looking over the garden.

“I say we cause a small commotion, and then we knock out the guards who come and enter. Then you have a short time to get the girl,” Darius suggested.

“Not all of us have to go in. We can just see where she is and go straight to Plan B,” William said, shaking his head.

He was right. “Yeah. I think Plan B might be better. But we still need to figure out where she is.”

We improvised our way inside, but that was all. Now we sat in a tree like a bunch of clowns, trying to come up with an idea. But I was drawing blanks like the rest.

“I’ll try to enter alone,” William said after observing the place and the movement of guards.

“How?”

He pointed at the wall where the guard had slammed his face into the bricks after the dog pulled on him. I squinted, snapping my irises open, and saw what he was talking about—there was a small, darker spot. It was blood, most likely from a cut forehead over the uneven bricks. I wouldn’t have seen that if he hadn’t pointed it out. I looked at him with surprise.

“Some of us don’t have special bodies or an undead constitution. Slamming into a wall will usually leave a mark.”

“Okay, but any curses that will act in minutes or hours will be obvious. Anything sneakier will take a lot of time.”

William stayed silent for a few seconds, looking into my eyes as if he was struggling with his next words.

He finally cleared his throat quietly and spoke. “Right. But could you make him evacuate his bowels?”

“What?” I asked, on reflex.

“Using a curse that affects a body. We don’t need any damage—just an incident.”

I looked at him with an open mouth.

“Oh, can you make the guard shit his pants, Sam—yes or no?” he snapped, almost too loudly. “It’s so uncouth. God, why do I have to—ugh, so uncivilized.” I could hear him whisper to himself as his muscles tensed and his aura changed.

Luna quickly put a hand on his shoulder, which stopped the change.

“That was a close one,” I thanked her with a nod and started thinking. Could I do that? Withering curse weakened the body. It took a lot of time, but if I adjusted it to target specific muscles and relax them, assuming he had started the patrol long ago and needed to go soon, which was likely given the level of security… “Yeeeah… I think I can?”

“Do it, then—when he comes back around here.”

I did as asked. Once the coast was clear, I quickly went for the wall to get the blood and returned to the tree. And calculating the curse activation time—at least as much as I could, as I hadn’t tried that one before—I cast it.

Withering.

The spell anchored into the right muscles. And we waited in a very tense, very awkward silence, our gazes fixed on the guard.

“Sam,” William whispered.

“Yes, William?”

“If this works and you start using this on others, I swear to God—if my name is anywhere near that idea…”

“I think I’ll register it as a new spell.”

“Don’t.”

“William’s Brown Note—that’s a good name, eh?”

“Sam, I swear to God,” he hissed.

“Hey, shut up. I think—um—I think something’s happening,” Luna scolded us, then finished in a very awkward tone.

The guard froze, then looked around awkwardly. He moved a bit as if unsure, then slowly raised the radio to his mouth, calling for a change as he wasn’t feeling well and needed to take a break.

After some time, another man came to take the dog, and after a brief, hurried conversation, the original guard returned to the mansion.

Sensing the moment, William draped the cloak over himself and ran after the man. I wasn’t sure what he would do. The cloak billowed and moved, becoming almost see-through, partially obscuring William. He looked like a strange ghost showing himself in the folds of cloth. The moment the guard opened the door, William stopped right behind him, so close he almost touched his back. And then, without a sound, mimicking the man’s movement, he entered the mansion like his shadow.

I waited for a commotion and an alarm, but the guy running for the toilet most likely didn’t look behind. The place stayed silent.

“I can’t believe that worked,” I whispered to myself. “Well, as long as there’s no alarm raised, we should be good.”

“Yes—but he will be dead if he fights alone,” Luna said with concern.

“Don’t worry.”

I trusted William when it came to sneaking around.

“Um, guys,” I heard Ophelia’s voice on the earpiece.

“I think we have a problem. There is a dark elf approaching the mansion from the front. And I think I saw a group of them moving in from the side.”

“Oh, fuck,” I groaned, exchanging looks with a now very worried Luna.