The tracking spell I wove through the ghoul's claw lead us somewhere to one of the lower Wards, an area of the Citadel that was ridden with more crime and poverty than the Council would ever willingly admit. Fact of the matter, though, was that the farther away one got from the Presidium, the poorer the neighborhood seemed to get.
My inner cynic, when it first discovered that fact, had taken it and ran around gleefully (or as gleefully as cynicism can). It only made sense, after all. The wealthy all wanted to stay in the same place, away from those peasant poor people. And what better place to show off the wealth gap than the seat of the entire galactic government?
It also made sense that the areas surrounding the Presidium were better off than the farther reaches of the Citadels arms. After all, why would the galaxies finest want to live near anywhere that might show some sort of trial and hardship of life? They'd almost have to start living life, rather than having it handed to them on a silver platter.
Of course, my inner cynic wasn't wrong, as there was plenty of hardship to go around on this particular Ward, but it wasn't exactly right either.
Though, none of this was of any relevance as Garrus and I walked down the street, following the tilt of the claw dangling from a leather cord that I had used as a focus to the tracking spell.
We came up to a large building, an old and hardy apartment building that seemed to be old enough where it should have been torn down long ago, yet hasn't been. Behind me, I heard Garrus mutter, "I don't like it here…"
I looked behind me at him, but said nothing. Then I looked back to the claw, it somehow leaning towards the large building as though there was some sort of perpetual wind that was blowing it in that direction. Then I turned to face the turian, and said, "Wait here. I think this is the place, but I've got to be sure."
He nodded, and I made a circuit around the building, checking to see if the claw would remain dangling towards it. It did, and I made my way back to Garrus, across the street from the building.
"This is the place," I said as I walked up next to him. "Call the others. No doubt they'd be mad at us if we went on this Shepard hunt without them."
He nodded, and did so, calling everyone over the collective comm. that we had agreed (read as: forced to by an oddly maternal sounding commander) to keep open in just such an emergency.
While he did so, I crossed my arms and took a look at the street around us.
The rest of the street didn't exactly match the old and decrepit look of the building that the ghoul was in. Sure, there was more detricus and junk strewn about than there was on my street, and yeah all the buildings had a certain poverty-stricken look about them, but none of them set my teeth on edge like the old apartment across the street did.
The people around us, jostling around Garrus and I in a manner that screamed they were poor prey for a mugging, seemed hard and uncaring, their eyes flat with false purpose as they strode past. Their clothes were dirtier and more ragged than any I had seen on the Citadel before, though nowhere near the worst I'd ever seen ever. Due to the fact that this level of the Citadel hadn't been graced with a window to show off the beautiful expanse of space, the hard, artificial lighting of the Ward around us made everyone seem to have paler skin and deeper bags under their eyes than would be normal for someone who got actual sunlight on them.
There was also something odd about everyone. Something that I couldn't quite place.
It took me a second of looking around and adding a few things I knew up before I finally got it, but when I did, I let out an audible, "Huh," and turned my eyes back to the old building across from Garrus and I.
The turian must have heard me because he took his talon off his ear (or whatever the turian equivalent is, given they don't actually have ears), looked at me, and asked, "What?"
I cast a glance at him, then shrugged. "Look around you," I told him. "Notice anything odd?"
HIs eyes scanned the street around us, taking in the people, the litter, and the buildings around us in much the same manner I had. When he finished casting his eyes about, a noticeable confused frown found it's way onto his features. "There's…" He muttered, clearly thinking out loud. "There's something wrong with this picture."
I nodded. Close enough. "It's the other side of the street," I told him. "No one's walking on it."
The confused furrow in his brow only deepened at my words, and he looked across the street, right at the area immediately around the front of the old apartment/ghoul lair. "You're right," he said after a second. "But… What's so odd about that?" The next bit he looked down a bit, almost speaking to himself as he asked, "Why does it unsettle me?"
I jerked my head at the dirty, old apartment. "It's that place. It has a…" I scrunched up my face as I tried to think of a way to describe it. "It… Gives off a presence, sort of. It's like…" Then I furrowed my brow, and thought of a better idea. I looked back up at Garrus. "You know what? You tell me." I nodded at the building across the street. "Take a look at that place- a real good look- and tell me the kind of vibe it give you."
Garrus did as I asked, taking a good look at the far building, noting as he did that there was graffiti of one kind or another on every building of that side of the street except for the large apartment. He took in the worn walls, the faded windows, the cracked and damaged door. He took in the fact that there seemed to be no one walking down the street who seemed to be brave enough to try and simply walk past the front of the building.
He slowly turned his head back to me. He said, "That's a bad place."
I nodded. "Yeah. There's a sort of ambient energy that malicious beings like ghouls give off. In a face to face encounter, it gives you the kind of feeling you get when you see a tiger or something start to circle you. When they take up residence, however, that dark magic can start to cling to the place where they've taken up their lair. People start to feel it after a while, and," I made a gesture at the people around us. One salarian wino stumbled past me and glared at the gesture. I ignored the drunk. "People start to avoid the places, even if they don't really know why. Hell, I mean, look at us. We're our own perfect example. We're about to go in there, and we're still waiting on the other side of the street until we have more back up." I looked at the empty space in front of the lair. "It's the kind of thing that create a sort of wasteland all on its own."
Garrus followed my gaze, and as members of the ground team, Tali and Liara specifically, made themselves visible as they turned a corner, he asked, "We'd be doing this street a service by getting rid of them, wouldn't we?"
As the girls sidled up next to us, I bobbed my head. "It's no 'socio-economic reviving' program, but yeah. It'll be a start." Then I turned to the girls. "Ladies. Glad you could join us. Let me catch you up to speed."
A/N: Feh. Shortest chapter I've written, I think. And it's mostly filler. Don't like it.
But what ever. Things'll start to go FUBAR for our intrepid wizard within the next few chapters, don't you worry. I'm sure some sort of bodily harm will come to him as well. What kind, I have no idea, but something will happen. I enjoy making his life hard.
But still. While I don't like the length of the chapter, I do actually like the contents of it. It's simple and I found it fun because of that. Feel free to share a thought or two of your own in a review. I certainly won't complain.
Anywho. It's one in the morning, and I've listened to nothing but Elvis Presley's "A Little Less Conversation" for the past two hours.
So, in the immortal words of Waldo Butters, "Sleep is God. Go worship."
Amen to that.
And as always,
Thanks For Reading!
~ThatBlueScreenGuy
