Paris stretched out before them like a luminous beast, pulsating and unaware of the two shadows from another world observing it. Modern skyscrapers, with their glass facades reflecting the last rays of twilight, stood proudly alongside century-old Haussmannian buildings. On the boulevards, car headlights paraded like hurried fireflies, tracing epheral lines of fire in the growing darkness.
In a narrow, damp alley in the 14th arrondissent, hidden between two decrepit buildings, Ygdrasyle looked up at the Parisian sky. He studied the position of the moon, barely visible behind a veil of low clouds, before pulling on the sleeve of his black coat, a chanical gesture betraying an inner tension he was struggling to control.
- "Our first mission is clear," he murmured in a low but intense voice, each syllable carried by an icy determination. "To operate in this world, we need a legal identity. Papers. Sothing to exist in their records... Sothing to beco ghosts among the living."
Mordred, leaning against a worn brick wall covered with faded graffiti, slowly nodded. The light from a dying streetlamp filtered through the night mist, casting an orange glow on his severe features, sculpting his shadows like invisible scars.
- "Yes," he replied, his voice like a distant echo. "And for that, we need to know where these papers are made."
In his eyes shone knowledge that should not have been his. Behind his gaze, Isaac’s mories struggled like fish caught in the shes of a net pulled too tight.
Ygdrasyle nodded, his thin lips stretching into a barely perceptible smile. "I’ve spotted several buildings with a strong administrative concentration. One of them bears the na ’Bureau des Chasseurs’ (Hunters’ Office). If they’re the ones handling anomalies like us, that’s probably where we should look."
Mordred imperceptibly lowered his eyes, hiding a flash of knowledge behind his half-closed eyelids. Of course, he knew it wasn’t there. He knew everything: the buildings, the procedures, the administrative circuits... Every fragnt of knowledge that Isaac had accumulated during his human life, he now carried within himself like a second skin, both familiar and foreign.
- "Good," he said, straightening up, his shoulders tense like those of a predator about to pounce. "Let’s go fishing for information."
The night enveloped them in its inky cloak as they separated, each slipping into the darkness like the very essence of shadows.
Dawn tinted Paris with a pale light, revealing a city awakening in the morning mist. True to their plan, they separated for the day.
Ygdrasyle, thodical and calculating, undertook to explore the classic routes for obtaining papers. His shadow body blended perfectly into the human mass. He infiltrated data centers with terrifying ease, observed the population from invisible corners, his sharp ears picking up conversations at café terraces like a predator stalking its prey.
anwhile, Mordred plunged into the beating heart of the capital with a different, more personal, perhaps more dangerous objective. Each step on the Parisian cobblestones resonated in him like a painful echo. The streets, intersections, facades everything seed both foreign and terribly familiar to him.
He wandered among passersby, his inhuman gaze concealed behind tinted glasses snatched from a distracted tourist. The poison was there, Poisonoire, infiltrating his veins like a promise of suffering. For each vision of Paris awakened in him a fragnt of mory torn from Isaac: the worried smile of a sister waiting for him, laughter shared in an apartnt too cramped, a na, his na, dragged through the mud by sensation-hungry dia.
In front of a newsstand with garish colors, he stopped abruptly, frozen by a headline in bold letters that spanned the front page of a daily newspaper:
- "The Portal Killer transferred to Paris underground prison – National threat under high surveillance"
In his coat pocket, his fist clenched with such force that his knuckles cracked. A drop of blood pearled between his fingers, where his nails had cut into his palm. He did not feel the pain, only the rage, deep and silent, rising like a black tide.
Twilight enveloped the city, bathing the rooftops of Paris in an amber light that was slowly fading. They t on the roof of an abandoned building, overlooking an intersection where traffic lights blinked like red eyes in the dusk, rhythmically controlling the chanical waltz of vehicles.
Ygdrasyle pulled out a small data tablet, stolen from a municipal agent with a skill that only beings of their nature could possess. The screen projected a bluish glow on his fine features, accentuating his inhuman appearance.
- "Nothing truly convincing," he announced, scrolling through complex diagrams on the touch screen. "The Hunters’ Office is protected by security systems that even my abilities couldn’t bypass. It’s an electronic fortress. But..."
- "It’s not there," cut in Mordred, his voice sharp as a blade.
Ygdrasyle raised an eyebrow, the only visible sign of his surprise.
- "Then?"
A silence stretched between them, carried by the wind sweeping across the heights of the city.
- "It’s another building," continued Mordred, his eyes fixed on the horizon where the last light of day was fading. "More discreet, but just as vital. The Paris City Hall. That’s where the central archives can be modified. Create an identity, erase traces..."
He spoke with clinical precision, as if reciting a text written in a language he wasn’t supposed to understand.
Silence settled again, heavier, more questioning.
- "You seem strangely precise in your knowledge," remarked Ygdrasyle, his piercing gaze scrutinizing his companion’s profile.
Mordred remained motionless, his pale face intermittently illuminated by the lights of the city awakening to the night. His eyes, two dark abysses, reflected thousands of Parisian lights like so many imprisoned souls.
- "Let’s say I’ve... studied their weaknesses," he finally replied, his voice barely more audible than the whisper of the wind.
Ygdrasyle did not respond imdiately. An enigmatic smile slowly ford on his thin lips, then he nodded in acceptance.
- "Then City Hall it shall be," he concluded with feigned nonchalance. "Shall we take care of it tomorrow?"
Mordred turned abruptly, turning his back to the city lights as if to escape their calls. "No. We’ll take care of it tonight."
The wind whistled between the abandoned chimneys, carrying away the last hesitations and the last scruples.
Night had fallen on Paris like a silent predator, smothering the last breaths of day beneath its weight. On Rue de Rivoli, the illuminated signs were turning off one after another in a synchronized ballet, tal shutters of shops were lowering in a concert of tallic screeching, and the few passersby who still dared to brave the darkness wrapped themselves in their coats to protect against the icy gusts sweeping the streets.
On the heights of a Haussmannian building with closed shutters and blind windows, two silhouettes stood perfectly still. They were just a corner of shadow on a narrow cornice, hardly more visible than the grimacing gargoyles that had watched over the city for centuries.
Ygdrasyle, stretched out with the feline grace of a predator in wait, observed the side entrance of the city hall. His patience had sothing chanical, inhuman about it. His pupils, thin as blades, dilated and contracted to the rhythm of the movents below, capturing the slightest details with superhuman acuity. Beside him, Mordred stood straight, arms crossed over his chest, face frozen in marble impassivity. Yet, beneath this cold shell, he felt his heart beating in a strange manner, as if his body, despite all its transformations, still recognized the electric tension of the world of n.
- "He shouldn’t be much longer," whispered Ygdrasyle without moving his head, his voice barely audible even to Mordred’s sharp hearing. "Every evening, at this precise ti, he leaves the building. Always alone. Always through that door."
A heavy silence settled between them, punctuated only by the distant rustle of traffic and the moaning of wind between chimneys.
Then, at exactly 8:39 PM, the service door of the city hall groaned softly on its hinges.
A man erged, pulling behind him a wheeled attaché case that clicked slightly on the uneven cobblestones. In his sowhat sagging fifties, with strict glasses perched on an aquiline nose, a poorly fitted gray suit hanging on his narrow shoulders, he resembled all those anonymous functionaries who populated administrations. An ordinary face, an ordinary body, an ordinary life. A sort of voluntary effacent into the mass. Ideal for their plan.
- "That’s him," confird Mordred in a deep voice.
With a fluid movent, he descended from his perch, his fall of several ters cushioned by an invisible net of icy mana that crackled slightly around his legs when he touched the ground. Ygdrasyle followed him with a rustling of shadow, his feet making not the slightest sound as they landed on the damp cobblestones.
They kept their distance, moving like specters along the streets, lding into the darkness at each corner, reappearing further along like nocturnal mirages. The man calmly walked up Saint-Paul Street, unaware of the danger following him. He greeted a neighbor with a nod, briefly stopped in front of a still-open bakery where warm light cast a golden rectangle on the dark sidewalk, and bought a seeded bread that he slipped into his bag. Then he entered a small old building with a flaking but carefully maintained façade, climbed to the third floor. A window lit up. A female voice welcod him, followed by the muted sound of a kiss and a discreet laugh that escaped through a half-open window.
- "Two adults. No child tonight. Perfect," whispered Ygdrasyle, a predatory smile stretching his thin lips.
They waited, motionless like forgotten statues on the roof across the street. An hour passed, then two. The cold intensified, but neither seed to feel it. Invisible to surveillance drones occasionally patrolling the Parisian sky, masked from the electronic eyes of caras by a concealnt spell, they waited, watched, prepared their move.
Mordred observed the life unfolding behind the illuminated windows, his gaze fixed like that of a raptor, but his mind swirled in a maelstrom of contradictory thoughts. This world had not changed. Still the sa half-drawn curtains, the sa warm lights filtering through the windows, the sa ordinary lives unfolding in blissful ignorance. Lives that Isaac had known. Lives he would never have again.
Twelve seventeen AM.
Finally, the lights went out in the apartnt, plunging the room into darkness pierced only by the bluish glow of a night light.
Mordred activated a silence spell that enveloped their silhouettes in a cocoon impervious to sound. In the blink of an eye, they slipped to the balcony, their movents so perfectly coordinated that they seed to follow a millennial choreography. The lock on the French window yielded without a sound under Ygdrasyle’s nimble fingers, the curtain was lifted with an almost respectful delicacy.
Inside, the couple slept deeply, nestled against each other under a thick duvet. Their regular breathing was the only sound that disturbed the silence of the room.
Ygdrasyle passed in front, his silhouette briefly outlined against the faint light filtering from the street. A fluid gesture of his hand, a net of silvery mana that briefly sparkled in the darkness, and the woman collapsed into an even deeper sleep, without pain, without dreams, without awareness of the drama being played out just centiters away from her.
The man, however, suddenly opened his eyes, too late. Mordred had already pressed a hand over his mouth, the other on his forehead, immobilizing his head against the pillow. In the civil servant’s gaze, confusion quickly gave way to the purest, most primitive terror. An animal, visceral fear that dilated his pupils and made sweat bead on his suddenly ice-cold skin.
- "Shh..." breathed Mordred in his ear, his voice barely more audible than a breath of wind. "One word, one cry, and she will never wake up."
In barely three minutes, the man was gagged with a piece of cloth torn from his own pajamas, his wrists and ankles bound by a solid mana thread that glowed faintly in the darkness. Transported out of his apartnt via the rooftops like an inert package, his ragged breathing was the only sound they left behind, the only proof that a life had just been shattered in the silence of the Parisian night.
1:24 AM. 4th arrondissent City Hall, administrative wing.
The records room rested in a bluish half-light, disrupted only by the glow of security lights lazily blinking on the servers aligned against the back wall. Ygdrasyle, after neutralizing the security devices with surgical precision that testified to an in-depth knowledge of human systems, had electrically isolated the room, cutting off all communication with the outside.
Mordred seated the man in an ergonomic chair, facing a computer terminal whose screen projected a ghostly light on his terrified face. The machine purred softly, still warm from the day’s operations.
- "You’re going to create two complete civil identities for us," said Mordred, his voice low and sharp as a thin blade. "You know the procedure, I assu? Access to the central files, creation of biotric data, insertion into historical registers..."
The civil servant trembled with his entire body, cold sweat running down his temple and tracing a shiny trail on his cheek. The cloth over his mouth did not prevent him from panting like a hunted animal, nostrils dilated with terror.
Ygdrasyle slowly materialized in his field of vision, erging from the shadow like a nightmarish apparition. Between his long, pale fingers, he twirled a curved blade that caught the light from the screen and reflected it in bluish flashes.
- "We don’t have ti for heroic acts," he murmured in an almost gentle voice, atrociously contrasted with the threat emanating from each of his gestures. "An erroneous file, a hidden alert code, a false na... and your family will find your remains under the Mirabeau Bridge. What will be left of them, at least."
The man nodded frantically, his bulging eyes reflecting animal terror. His trembling fingers settled on the keyboard, beginning a macabre dance on the keys with desperately precise gestures.
First file : Na: Ayden Lafarge. Age: 27 years. Profession: network security engineer. Status: born in Lyon, single, clean record.
Second file : Na: Naël Bérenger. Age: 29 years. Profession: cybersecurity consultant. Status: born in Marseille, dual Franco-Canadian nationality. Record: clean.
While the civil servant completed the files under threat, Ygdrasyle discreetly injected false histories into the ancillary databases: electricity bills going back three years, old pay stubs from companies that would never verify, a few social dia interactions carefully dated... Solid. Credible. Invisible.
- "Good boy," breathed Mordred, leaning over the civil servant’s shoulder to check the information scrolling across the screen.
He then crouched in front of the man, their faces suddenly at the sa height. He remained thus for a mont, motionless, his flaming orange eyes diving into those of the terrified civil servant as if seeking to read into the depths of his soul. In that gaze burned a spark of humanity, a remnant of Isaac, perhaps, imdiately drowned under Mordred’s cold calculation.
The ID cards then slipped into the machine’s tray with a discreet click, hot and new like newborns of plastic and ink. Mordred rose and took them, observing them for a mont in the pallid light of the screen, running his thumb over the laminated edges as if to verify their authenticity. Satisfied, he handed them to Ygdrasyle, who slipped them into a secure pouch hidden under his coat.
The civil servant, still seated, his mouth dry and shoulders hunched, slowly raised his eyes to them. A glimr of hope, fragile as a fla in a storm, timidly lit up in his broken gaze.
- "You have... you have what you wanted now..." he stamred in a hoarse voice, made raspy by fear. "Please... I... I have a family... my wife..."
Mordred stared at him without answering, his face as impenetrable as a marble statue.
Ygdrasyle then approached slowly, almost calmly, and crouched again at the civil servant’s height. His movent was fluid, hypnotic. His gaze was calm, with an abyssal coldness that seed to suck away all warmth, all hope.
- "It’s precisely because you have a family that you are a risk," he murmured, his voice soft as a morbid lullaby. "They will look for you. You will talk. You will describe us."
The man’s face decomposed, the terrible understanding evident in every suddenly deepened crease of his forehead, in every tear rising to his eyes. The survival instinct took over. He jumped up, overturning the chair in a clash muffled by the silence spell, trying to scream, to run, a human, animal, desperate reflex.
But he didn’t have ti.
With a clean gesture, almost surgical in its precision, Ygdrasyle’s blade slit the civil servant’s throat. A red thread gushed forth, pulsing to the rhythm of a heart panicking one last ti, then the head gently tilted to one side, like that of a marionette whose strings had been cut. His body suddenly relaxed, all muscles giving way at the sa ti, and he fell to the floor in an almost respectful silence.
Not a cry. Not a moan. Just death. Inevitable. Necessary.
Mordred didn’t even look away. He simply observed the blood flowing onto the white tiles, tracing scarlet furrows between the slabs that reflected the bluish light of the screens. A purple pool that spread slowly, inexorably, like a bloody tide.
Ygdrasyle quietly wiped his hands on a towel retrieved from a nearby desk, contemplating his work with the detachnt of an artist evaluating a finished canvas.
- "Pity," he comnted with icy indifference. "He seed to be a good father."
- "He was a weakness," simply replied Mordred, his tone devoid of all emotion. "A flaw in our security."
They left the room without looking back, taking care to ticulously erase all traces of their passage. Behind them, the blood on the white floor was already drying, taking on that brown, almost black tint characteristic of escaping life. Soon, nothing would remain of this night, except two perfect identities and a cold body. Two ghosts dressed as n, and a man beco ghost.
In the streets of Paris, the night continued, indifferent to the drama that had just played out. The lights sparkled, rare passersby hurried to their destinations, and sowhere, a woman still slept, unaware that she would wake up a widow.
Reviews
All reviews (0)