The staircase leading up to the "Gilded Quill" smelled of wet rot and panic.
High Priest Malakor scrambled up the wooden steps, tripping over his own hem, breath hitching in his chest. His hands blurred, fingers knotting together as he tried to weave the one of the Names. Grey wisps of shadow leaked from his sleeves, staining the air like squid ink, but they failed to hold their shape.
"Alley... we need the alley," Malakor wheezed, sweat dripping from his nose. "Their armor reflects direct casting. If I can just cloak the heat signatures..."
Linear Gezantophil climbed past him, taking the stairs with a steady, metronomic rhythm. He watched the High Priest's desperate hand signs with the critical eye of an engineer watching a bridge collapse.
"Stop," Linear said.
Malakor flinched, the shadows fizzling out. "My Lord?"
"You're drawing ovals," Linear critiqued, brushing past him. "You want to bend light, but your geometry is sloppy. You're leaking energy at every vertex."
"But-"
"Save your breath. You're hyperventilating."
Linear reached the top of the stairs. The hidden door-a heavy bookcase-had been blasted off its hinges. The air beyond tasted of cordite and pulverized drywall.
He stepped through the wreckage.
The "Gilded Quill" was a ruin. The floor lay hidden under a mosaic of shattered porcelain and torn pages. The smell of violence hung heavy in the room-that copper-tang of adrenaline and blood mixing with the dust.
In the center of the room, the shopkeeper knelt in a pile of broken glass. His face was a swollen mask of bruises, his hands zip-tied behind him.
Standing over him were the Inspectors of the Eternal Lens.
Six figures loomed in the debris, encased in matte-black tactical armor that bulked them into faceless monoliths. No exposed skin, just composite plating and the soft blue glow of optical sensors. Five held heavy assault rifles with pneumatic bayonets. The sixth, standing in the back, wore a trench coat lined with silver thread over lighter armor. His mask was blank, save for a single white eye painted in the center.
The Silent Overseer.
One of the soldiers raised a heavy pistol to the back of the shopkeeper's head. The room went silent, save for the high-pitched whine of a capacitor charging.
"You're breaking the merchandise," Linear said.
The soldier froze. The squad turned in unison, a synchronized pivot of servos and boots.
Linear stood by the ruined bookcase, picking a splinter of wood off his cheap suit.
The Inspectors' helmets tilted. Optical lenses zoomed in, hunting for a demon signature. They found a pale man in a suit that was too tight in the shoulders.
Civilian.
The Silent Overseer snapped his fingers.
The soldier turned back to the shopkeeper and squeezed the trigger.
CRACK.
The gunshot slammed against the walls.
Sparks erupted from the floor tile, three inches to the left of the shopkeeper's head.
The soldier stared at his gun, then at his hand, which spasmed violently.
Linear was still standing by the bookcase. He had simply flicked a glass marble.
It had happened in the space between heartbeats. Linear saw the tension in the soldier's forearm-a line of force. He applied a counter-vector. The marble traveled in a straight line, striking the ulnar nerve at the exact millisecond of the trigger pull.
"You anticipate the recoil," Linear said, stepping over a pile of books. "You compensate down and left. It's mathematically offensive."
The Silent Overseer signaled again. Open Fire.
Five rifles snapped up.
Linear stood his ground and engaged the Grid-View.
The world slowed-not time itself, but his processing of it. The room became a blueprint. The invisible lines of probability extended from the rifle barrels like laser sights.
First trajectory: Chest.
Second trajectory: Throat.
Third trajectory: Femoral Artery.
He stepped.
He corrected his stance, tilting his head to the right and rotating his torso into the negative space between the vectors.
THWACK-THWACK-THWACK.
Bullets shredded the bookcase behind him. Drywall exploded into dust.
"Desync!" one soldier shouted, his voice distorted by the helmet speaker. "Target is desynchronized! I can't get a lock!"
"You're shooting at history," Linear said. He was closer now. "I'm not there anymore."
He reached down to the smashed counter and grabbed a heavy brass fountain pen.
"Malakor," Linear said. "Lights."
From the stairwell, Malakor shrieked a syllable of power.
The overhead bulbs burst. Darkness slammed into the room, absolute and heavy.
The soldiers switched to thermal. Their visors flared green.
But Linear found the geometry cleaner in the dark. The soldiers appeared as wireframe schematics of stress and heat. He saw the weak point in the ceramic plating of the lead soldier.
He visualized the Line. Infinite length. Zero width.
He threw the pen.
SNAP.
The sound cracked like a whip. The pen broke the sound barrier for three meters, punched through the soldier's shoulder plate, through the muscle, and pinned him to the brick wall behind him with a dull, wet thud.
The soldier screamed, dropping his rifle, thrashing as he hung by his own shoulder.
"Educational," Linear noted.
He blurred forward.
He appeared beside the second soldier. Chop. A hand stiffened into a blade struck the solar plexus. The kinetic force bypassed the armor, traveling straight into the diaphragm. The man folded like a lawn chair.
He appeared beside the third. Kick. A heel drove into the side of a knee. The joint snapped backward.
Ten seconds.
That's all it took to dismantle the squad. Five men lay on the floor, groaning, their weapons snapped, their bodies broken in precise, surgical ways.
Only the Silent Overseer remained.
The leader dropped his rifle and drew a long, grey blade from his back. Silence. A conceptual sword that cut without sound.
He lunged.
He was fast, Very Fast. The blade carved a silent, deadly arc toward Linear's throat.
A curve, Linear thought. Inefficient.
Ignoring the blade, he stepped inside the swing. He reached out with two fingers and caught the Overseer's wrist mid-air.
Halt.
He applied a stop-vector.
The momentum rebounded instantly. The sudden deceleration popped the cartilage in the Overseer's shoulder with a sound like a pistol shot. The sword clattered to the floor.
Linear slammed the Overseer against the wall, lifting him off his feet by the throat.
"You move well for a mortal," Linear whispered, face-to-face with the blank mask. "But you think in circles."
He ripped the mask off.
Linear paused.
Beneath the terrifying helmet was a child.
The boy couldn't have been older than seventeen. Blonde hair matted with sweat, eyes wide and blue, pupils blown into saucers. He stared at Linear with the terrifying, vacant acceptance of a dog used to being kicked.
Empty, Linear thought. His mind is quiet. No noise. No ego. That's... quite calming. If I can make him mine...
"They send children to hunt gods?" Linear asked, loosening his grip slightly. "The budget must be tight."
The boy tried to bite him-a feral, desperate snap of teeth.
"Feisty," Linear changed his tone to a tone that seemed to be absolute. "Submit or Die!"
The boy looked at him, Linear read the desire to live in the boy's face.
Linear dropped him. The boy slid to the floor, gasping, clutching his throat.
Malakor emerged from the stairwell, stepping gingerly over the glass. He stared at the carnage, then at the fountain pen embedded in the wall. "My Lord... you... you neutralized a Kill Squad with office supplies."
"It was a good pen," Linear said. "Check the radio."
Malakor fished the tactical comms from a groaning soldier. "It's open."
"Team Leader," a voice crackled, authoritative and impatient. "Report. Is the target neutralized?"
Linear took the radio.
"Tell your Bishop," Linear said, staring down at the gasping boy, "that the landlord is back. And he hates what you've done with the place."
He crushed the radio. Plastic shattered in his grip.
"We're leaving, release that shopkeeper." Linear said.
"Where?" Malakor asked while going toward the man, eyeing the street.
Linear looked at the boy on the floor. The kid was broken, abandoned, and lethal. But mostly, he was quiet.
Linear grabbed the back of the boy's tactical vest and hauled him up.
"You," Linear said. "Name."
"K-Kael," the boy stammered, his voice a wreck.
"Kael." Linear dusted off the boy's shoulder, a gesture that was strangely domestic in the middle of a war zone. "You are now my luggage. You know the safe houses. Take us to one."
"I..." Kael blinked, the programming in his head jamming against reality. "Yes."
Linear pushed open the shattered door.
Outside, the rain of Zonia fell in heavy sheets, washing the grime off the neon signs. Linear stepped out into the storm, the water soaking his suit instantly.
He ignored the cold, walking in a straight line through the downpour.