Cardinal stood in the rain. It wasn’t that he had no umbrella - he just simply couldn’t be bothered to cast a localised deflection spell. Instead his gaze was fixed on the alley across from the one he was in, at the taillight of a battered Tartatus Skyrider 2606 hoverbike, designed for the greatest cruising and weaving pleasure on the hyper-motorways of Express Ultima. This one, however, was in park, but not switched on, mainly because its owner in the brown leather jacket was simply hiding, waiting for an opportunity to slip out and continue his pursuit.
The stalking wasn’t really the problem. It wasn’t like Cardinal hadn’t himself tailed a target before, for one reason for the other. That actually only made it worse, because he knew damn well that the more competent the stalker, the more likely it was to end in violence. No, the problem was precisely who it was they were stalking.
“They moved yet?” the voice of his wife through the earpiece implanted in the back on nic neck, reverberating all the way up to his eardrum.
“Still in there,” he said, leaning against the side of his alley, the waterproof outermost layer of his red coat repulsing the wetness off the smooth concrete. “You sure he never saw me?”
“Oh, trust me a little.” Aerin laughed. “Clearly not the first time I’ve done this. To UHE soldiers no less.”
“That’s a good point. The hell are they waiting for?”
“Probably doesn’t realise the tram’s left.”
“Come on, they figured out Blackbird’s routine.” He frowned. “Wait, have you warned her?”
“Thought you didn’t want her warned.”
“I also didn’t want to use her as bait.”
“Yeah I told her.”
“Figured.” He made a circle with his index and thumb, and raised it to one eye. The light inside bent slightly, magnifying the hovercyclist getting back onto his seat. There was something in their hand. “Did they just fucking buy drugs?”
“Not like buying anything is illegal here,” Aerin said.
“Could mean he’s hopped up already. Bad news. They’re heading out again.”
“I’m coming around the corner.”
Cardinal stepped out onto the pavement as the cyclist took off, his engine barely making noise as he sped down the superconductor-laden roadway. As the taillight began to fade into the fog kicked up by the rainstorm, he moved his hands through the air, grabbing onto multiple invisible strings of reality, and waited for a wheeled sedan to pull up in front of him.
The passenger side window rolled down, and Aerin looked at him from the driver’s seat over the top of her driving specs. “You got the track?”
“Checking.” He moved his other hand over his only functioning right eye. Through his own flesh, and through the other cars and building that were likely in the way at this point, he could still see the tailight, hovering detached within his vision, turning right just ahead. “Yeah I got it.”
Aerin opened the car’s door for him with one of her metal hands, and Cardinal slowly clambered in, nestling his silver-tipped cane into the space under the glove box and painfully shifting himself into the seat. He closed the door and buckled his seatbelt, only to see Aerin staring at him, clearly worried.
“It’s not so bad,” he said.
“You sure?”
“At least my hands are alright. They’re getting away, you know.”
“Alright.” She placed both mechanical hands on the steering wheel, and moved up towards the intersection. “Should be me out there.”
“Take this right.” He said, drumming his fingers on the curved head of his cane. “Then at the end of the street turn left. It’s a different route than the tram.”
“So betting on her being right at the venue. That’s a lot safer.”
“A lot harder to pick them out too,” Cardinal added, gritting his teeth. “But I guess only if we let them into the venue in the first place.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
He sighed. “I haven’t run since I got out of the operating room. Might not be able to ever again. What do you think?”
"Sorry."
“I was thinking we could both go, actually.”
“An improvement.”
“Look, I just…wanted to know I wasn’t damaged or anything. I haven’t casted something that complex in so long.” He flexed the fingers of his free hand.
“That is important.”
“When I was in surgery, did you have second thoughts?”
“Huh. Me? Never. Not like anyone else would take me.” Aerin grin mischievously.
“Oh don’t say that. I see the way Isabella and Myka both look at you.”
“Why would I ever be interested in someone angel-possessed? And a vampire would literally just outlive me. Besides, I was the one who said yes while you were incredibly high on super-anesthesia”
“At this rate, you’re gonna outlive me.” Cardinal lightly touched his scars through the back of his shirt, directly over his kidneys from the posterior aspect. “All it takes is one more risky op and I’m gone.”
“Give me some credit. I don’t think I’ll let you die that easily.” She made the second turn, onto a two-way road that ran parallel to one of the inter-regional highways connecting the many corporate districts of Ultima. “It’s a straight shot to the stadium from here. I’m going to speed up.”
“I haven’t been nauseous since last week, just hit it. They’re still in the same lane.”
Cardinal could viscerally feel the car start to move faster as Aerin put her foot down on the accelerator. Worst of all were his organs, still adjusting from being systematically rearranged, moving slightly, and him feeling all of them doing so.
Aerin swerved around a plodding van, cutting into the next lane to the left, and narrowly dodging a hovercar coming the opposite way before shifting back into the same lane as before. “Check your gun? Mine too.”
Cardinal pulled open the glovebox in a bid to distract himself from his churning insides, pulling out one of the two semi-automatic sidearms hidden inside, ejecting the magazine to take a look. All the bullets were purple-tipped, indicating they were nonlethal polymer rounds. “This is yours.” He placed it in the space between Aerin’s driver seat and the cupholder in the middle of the car.
The other gun had an extended magazine, and was filled with bullets that had bone-white tips, intricately carved with a variety of runes. “This will work, right?”
“These hands may not be very gentle, but they’re extremely precise when I can focus.” Aerin wiggled the metal digits of her left hand. “I’m more worried you won’t be able to catch them like you did with your air rifle.”
“I think we’re about to find out,” he said, watching as the station’s parking lot came closer and closer. His metaphysical trace told him that the hovercycle was parked near all the other bikes of its kind near the corner with the charging station. “They’re probably already on foot.”
Aerin swung their rental car into the first empty parking spot she saw, causing Cardinal to jerk in his sea. She scooped up her gun and stuffed it into the back of her waistband, before unlatching the safety belt. “Same plan?”
Cardinal swallowed some bile that had risen from the whiplash. “Y-yeah. Let’s not shoot into a crowd.”
They got out of the car and into the rain at the same time, with Cardinal finding it much easier to get back on his feet with his cane rather than gold himself into the small car. As Aerin took off running towards the crowd of remarkable size at the entrance to the stadium, he limped around the back side of the complex, grabbing another thread in the air and twisting it to temporarily disable the camera on a nearby streetlight. He put the gun in his coat, and continued on towards the service entrance, next to the fire escape that curved up to the roof.
“Anything?” he asked through their communications network.
When Aerin spoke it was through a heavy slew of background noises, from people talking to clothes rustling as she pushed between people, to the sound of raindrops repeatedly striking the glass roof of the queueing area. “I don’t see anyone with the outfit.”
“I don’t either.” Cardinal limped past a pair of security guards, the enchantment on his coat making him much more difficult to directly notice. They stopped and squinted for a moment, having seen him out of the corner of their eyes, but simply kept going. “I’m going to try another thread.”
“Wait, I think I see him!” Aerin reported, followed by exclaims as she shoved people aside. “He saw me too! Okay, he’s out of the crowd! Should be going towards you!”
He pulled his gun with his left hand, and with his right, tugged at the tread connecting his ear, then any other ear nodes he could find in the surrounding area. “I’m ready, where is-”
Someone slammed into him from behind, the force of it knocking them both to the ground and the gun out of Cardinal’s hand.
He grit his teeth and rolled over to find the gun…only to see their stalker, a scruffy middle-aged man with hair that was beginning to grey too quickly for his features, staring at the weapon as well.
Despite the insane amount of pain shooting through his lower torso Cardinal three himself forwards, grabbing the gun and pulling the slide back to load a round into the receiver; he took aim with his remaining left eye, and as he straight to angle the shot properly, his right hand spell to alter the sound faltered.
His weapon went off with a very loud, perhaps even deafening bang! and a bullet ate into the side of the building at the base of the fire escape stairs, missing the stalker by a whole meter. From the fact that it sounded pretty much like a gun, he figured his attempts to change the perception of its sound had slipped someone, and holstered his gun before the guards he had seen before could come around the corner.
“What was that!?” Aerin shouted over the comms.
“He ran into me. I shot without warning. He’s going up to the roof.”
“Okay, let me scale this. Did anyone hear-”
“I’ll deal with it.” He used his cane to prop himself up, and waved at the guards, who now noticed him and ran over. “Help!” he called. At least he didn’t have to feign being in pain this time. “He went up there!” Cardinal pointed up the fire escape stairs.
As the guards ran up, he steadied himself with the fire escape banister, and took a deep breath, before clenching his fist and beginning his slow trek up the steps. Every time he raised his leg up to the next step, a bolt of pure agony would flicker up and down his lumbar vertebrae, causing him to bite his lip and force himself onwards. There seemed to be almost a hundred steps in total, each one bringing him closer to the top of this section of the stadium.
When he got to the top, his back felt like it was on fire, and his glasses and hair were entirely soaked, along with the front of his shirt that wasn’t waterproof. He slowly wiped his spectacles on the waterproof coat, and put them back on, only to realise his vision was swimming. Too many casts, and that trek up had drained him.
The two guards were lying off to the side of the roof, clutching their sides in pain, while Aerin telekinetically held the stalker in the air to face him, the fear in his eyes palpable. Her hands were vibrating, the paraphysically conductive material she had installed in them expending their energy to keep him aloft and at their mercy.
Cardinal limped up to him and shoved his hands into the stalker’s coat pockets, removing a pocket knife, a wallet which he threw off the side of the building, and a photograph in a protective plastic bag.
Blackbird.
“You know, I have a really fun fact from a colleague of mine.” He pocketed the photograph and drew the gun again. “Turns out getting shot in the knee is really fucking painful. Even more painful when it’s in both knees, and every time either of your legs move, you can feel the broken ends of your bones cutting into your flesh.” He pressed the barrel of his pistol to the man’s right knee.
“Please!” the man begged. “I just…I just wanted a photograph?”
“Piss off creep,” Aerin said. “We’ve been following you since the bar. Can’t take rejection, huh?”
“No, no! I just wanted to see the Christmas show!”
“Scream for me, yeah?” Cardinal said, smiling at him. His finger tightened on the trigger, and then-
“DAD!”
He paused, and turned to look towards the other end of the roof where the door to the interior stairwell had been opened. In the pouring rain just outside stood Blackbird, the blue highlights in her hair and side ponytail clearly visible even at night. “Hey sweetie!”
“Put him down dad!”
Cardinal looked at Aerin and shrugged.
She closed her hands, and the force holding the stalker vanished, dropping him onto the wet rooftop.
Holding the frills on her white performance outfit up to prevent them dragging in the water pooling on the ground, she jogged over in her dance shoes, and looked at the man on the ground. “I said no, didn’t I?”
The man wasn’t even speaking coherently anymore, just whimpering and shielding himself with his hands.
Blackbird sighed. “You two realise that if he came inside the guards would have beaten the shit out of him anyway? You told me he was coming so I asked the staff to be on the lookout.”
Cardinal opened his mouth to speak, but saw Aerin’s face and decided against it. “Ah. Sorry. We didn’t know.”
“I didn’t know you were fine enough to be torturing people either, dad,” Blackbird said, the disappointment evident in her voice. “What if you break something again?”
“I just wanted you to be okay. And part of your life, but I didn’t want you to worry.”
“I’m not a kid anymore.”
“Technically,” Aerin said, coming up to them. “You haven’t been born yet, so from our perspective, you’ve never been a kid.”
“You would actually torture and kill someone to protect your baby girl?”
Cardinal and Aerin looked at each other, and then at Blackbird. “Yeah,” they said in unison.
Blackbird sighed again. “Well at least this was actually a creep and you didn’t misunderstand an intern or something.” She took the stalker by the collar of his shirt, and dragged him to the edge of the roof, before helping him over the side.
There was a scream, and a loud sound as he impacted the metal staircase not too far below. “He’ll be fine. Hey!” She called out to the security guards trying to get up. “Call the cops. There’s an intruder who fell and slipped off the roof.”
Cardinal leaned on his cane. “That’s my girl.”
Blackbird scowled at them, and held out her hand. “Guns. Now. I’m not having you both backstage and armed.”
Aerin’s eyes lit up as she put her pistol in Blackbird’s grasp. “We can go backstage?”
“You’re here, right? After I change into the backup dress you can watch me singing from the sides.”
“That’s a hell of a deal,” Cardinal said, also relinquishing his pistol. “I’m more glad I didn’t torture someone today now.”
Blackbird just flashed a smile at the both of them, and turned to hurry her way back to the stairs, handing the guns to the other guard in the process while his partner dialed the police.
Aerin looped her arm around Cardinal’s, and helped him after her. As the clock struck midnight the rain was dying down, replaced by light, drifting snow that was more in-season.
He just hoped they had an elevator.
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