Chapter 85: Completely Insane
Raphael didn’t rush back.
He already knew where the real target was, and at Blood Frenzy speed, he could cover the distance in seconds. This was more interesting.
He watched the stalker’s straw body contract like a sponge losing water, shrinking steadily until what remained on the rooftop was a palm-sized figure, its surface stained dark with blood. He reached for it.
Purple fla caught it before his fingers arrived. It burned fast, collapsed to black ash, and scattered on the wind.
"Single use. Disappointing."
He recognized the object. Even with a third of his mory gone, a significant portion of what remained concerned witches and their associated materials.
This was a proxy doll, straw was common, cloth and wood also appeared, which allowed the user to project themselves into the doll and act through it remotely, provided the necessary ritual conditions were t.
The intelligence was typically low and the movent stilted, which matched what he’d been chasing.
A witch operating quietly in Zexi City. Selling these through a civilian channel, otherwise how does a man like that get his hands on one?
IFSA classifies this category as cursed objects, strictly prohibited. She’s been working under their radar, which ans she’s careful.
A distribution network for prohibited occult items, aid at ordinary buyers.
Which ant a supply chain. Which ant, if followed correctly, a path to Zexi City’s underground market.
Which ant, potentially, a way to acquire a firearm.
For one brief mont, Raphael considered whether Elena might be involved.
The hidden depths angle, innocent on the surface, underground supplier underneath. He turned it over for about three seconds, then dismissed it entirely.
The hotel lobby scene. The pharmacy. The mannequin hand. The coffee.
Nobody perford that kind of unselfconscious stupidity without it being genuine.
He checked the ti, let his eyes go red, and moved.
Rooftop to rooftop, through shadows and ledges, a red streak crossing the city at a pace that drew no attention because no one was looking at the right altitude.
---
After Raphael left, Elena entered a lengthy internal negotiation.
She liked sweet things, but she also knew her health mattered, which was why she occasionally forced herself to drink low-sugar coffee.
Espresso had always been her favorite, rich, clean, bitter in a way that felt honest.
She had finished her own iced coffee. Raphael’s espresso cup was sitting across the table, maybe one sip taken, most of it still there.
One part of her brain pointed out that wasting it was wrong.
Another part of her brain pointed out that he had already drunk from it.
She wasn’t entirely sure if that counted as an indirect kiss. She had read enough about indirect kisses to have ford a theoretical position on the matter.
After considerable internal debate, the nature of which she would never describe to another person, she checked the window to confirm he wasn’t on his way back, reached across the table, and picked up his cup.
She looked at the rim. Took a deep breath. Closed her eyes.
’Elena, you are genuinely a little weird’, she told herself, and pressed her lips to the exact spot he’d drunk from.
It was not, as it turned out, particularly dramatic. Just coffee, rich, then bitter, nothing stranger than that.
"Hmph. So that’s what the fuss is about. Completely manageable."
She took another sip and made a face at the bitterness.
"Now if anyone asks whether I have experience, I can say yes. Honestly and with full confidence."
She settled back in her chair, quietly pleased with herself.
"Indirect kissing absolutely counts. I am now a person with experience."
She drank more of his coffee and thought about her university friends.
Next sester they were planning so kind of urban paranormal investigation trip together, that was going to be interesting.
Maybe she’d tell them about Raphael. The interesting parts. Definitely not the alley parts.
She set the cup down and looked at the window.
"Where is he? How long does this take?"
Ding.
The café door opened, bell ringing.
A man in a black hoodie walked in and ca directly to her table, dropping into Raphael’s seat without a word.
He pulled his sunglasses off and tossed them aside. The eyes underneath were bloodshot, ringed with dark circles, radiating resentnt.
Then he took off the mask.
Round face, running to soft. Very oily skin. His hair was matted in thick greasy clumps, unwashed for what looked like so ti.
"Elena Silva." His voice was low and tight. "I am genuinely so disappointed in you."
This is very bad, Elena thought. But this is a café. In public. With people everywhere. He can’t do anything here.
The more pressing concern was: where was her allegedly very capable bodyguard?
She kept her voice flat, as if speaking to soone who had sat at the wrong table by accident.
"Can I help you? I don’t know you. And you’re in my, in my boyfriend’s seat. Please move."
The word *boyfriend* hit him like a physical object. His face did sothing ugly.
"Boyfriend?"
The word ca out like sothing he was biting through.
"You’re calling him your boyfriend now? You filthy, I thought you were sothing sacred. I thought you were pure! And you’re just, you’re!"
"I’m what, exactly?"
Elena stared at him.
"Watch what you’re calling . Sacred? Pure? This is real life. There are no sacred won. You need help."
The people around them had noticed. Nobody was getting involved, the argunt was still verbal, still deniable. They watched.
"You don’t understand." His voice was climbing.
"The things I felt, what you were supposed to be you were supposed to be untouched, clean, mine! and instead you let so stray!"
His hand moved under the table.
The fabric of his hoodie shifted. Sothing hard pressed against the cloth, angled toward her.
The shape of it was unmistakable.
The black barrel caught the ambient light, and Elena’s face reflected back at her from it, wide-eyed, no longer calm.
Elena felt her heart skip a beat.
That’s a gun.
Outside the window, a red light streaked between the buildings like a shooting star, approaching this side.
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