Chapter 21: Battle on the Rooftops
"What happened?!" Dreamer stood in an alleyway, shaking Jezran's shoulders as tears streamed from her eyes. The old man's face was lined with heavy creases of guilt and worry.
"We were flying," he explained, "when Syllest said she heard a woman screaming, dear me… I heard no such thing, but she was already breaking away from the group to investigate. I followed immediately afterward. We took several turns around buildings and then the image before me dematerialized, as if it had been a mirage all along, dear me." He closed his eyes and a tear slid along the ridges in his face before nestling in his mustache. "I was duped by magic."
"Someone took her… YOU LET SOMEONE TAKE HER!" Dreamer cried in desperation and slammed her fists repeatedly against Jezran's chest, but weakly, as if all the strength had gone from her body.
"Get ahold of yourself," Midnight snapped from several feet away. His face was covered in shadow, dark and foreboding. "If you want to find her then you don't have time to feel sorry for yourself."
His words were harsh but they snapped her to reality. She wiped the tears from her eyes and looked at Jezran. "Can you track her?"
"Dear me, if I could I would have already begun. As it stands, I have no trace of her magical energy to follow."
Dreamer clenched a trembling fist and stared at the dirty ground below. She gasped and looked at Midnight. "The dream catcher!"
She snatched it off of his neck, breaking the chain in the process. She handed it to Jezran, whose eyes were alight in understanding. He gave a brief nod and took it from her with a weathered hand.
Midnight narrowed his eyes and watched in silence. Jezran lifted the golden pocket watch from his pocket and opened it. Inside was not a clock at all, but rather hands that resembled those of a compass. He held the dream catcher Syllest had created over the face of the watch. Its hands spun until they pointed shakily to the south-east, at the eight.
"Quickly."
They ran in that direction, back into the streets. "We must fly!" Jezran shouted. They were pushing through groups of people frantically. Flight would be much faster than running on foot. So Jezran grabbed the handlebars of a magi-bike that some kid had been riding on, thrusting the child to the side. "Pardon me, dear me." He mounted the bike and began to pedal into the air.
Dreamer enlarged Midnight's magic carpet (which had been shrunk for the sake of space), and unrolled it. He stepped on and held his hand out to her, but she was suddenly frozen.
"What are you waiting for?" Red eyes scowled at her.
"I-I can't…" Her breathing was shallow, eyes as wide as lacryma orbs. Body trembling, hair standing on her arms.
"We don't have time for you to be a fool," his lips were pulled back in something of a snarl. "Get on."
"N-No, I… I can't—"
Like before, he snatched her by the arm and yanked her onto the carpet next to him, this time with much less dramatic results. "We need your energy," he snapped.
She was trembling, totally frozen. Face as white as moonlight.
"Dreamer!" He grabbed her by the chin, his fingers gripping hard. He looked into her terrified eyes. Screaming pink. Irises retracted to almost nothing. He stared and cocked his head just slightly.
He knew this expression well. He'd seen it on a thousand faces, from children in dark cells to men begging for their lives on their knees before him. He was perfectly acquainted with it. He lived and breathed the emotion reflected in her eternal pink eyes at that moment.
"You're afraid." It was a statement, not a question.
She didn't answer, just stared at him as if not seeing. Her lip trembled uncontrollably.
"As satisfying as it is to see the look of horror on your face," he said harshly, "we have more important things to focus on—like using your magic to power this carpet."
"I… can't…" Her voice was hoarse. "You… U-use yours. Use yours."
"You pathetic fairy, have you forgotten my chains?!" He squeezed her chin harder, shaking her head a bit as if to shake some sense into her. Passerby began to watch.
"It's off," she mumbled. "The l-limiter… It's turned off."
He blinked in surprise and looked at the purple anklet. To test her words, he placed his hands on the carpet and channeled his own magical energy into it. To his astonishment, there was a surplus of magical energy bubbling under his skin for use.
Wasting no time, he took to the air after Jezran. Dreamer screamed and wrapped her arms crushingly around his waist. She buried her face into his jacket and sobbed.
"You're afraid of heights," he observed, a smirk drawing across his lips. He would remember this information for later. For now, there were more pressing matters.
Like following a bicycling Jezran above the rooftops.
Rose Garden stretched out beneath them like a blanket of lights. Jezran followed his pocket watch and Midnight followed him. Dreamer shook violently, squeezing him tightly enough to restrict his breathing.
Through waves of terror, she saw images of Syllest's beautiful little face. Was it him? Had he taken her? No… He didn't use illusory magic. This was something else.
A scream filled the night air.
"Syllest!" Dreamer looked up for only a moment before she saw how high up they were, the roads no more than lines below them. She buried herself deeper against Midnight.
Jezran changed direction toward the scream but his cycle was suddenly stopped in place. Midnight held his hand out, his magic controlling the bicycle.
"It's not her," he said. "It's an illusion."
"How do you know?!" Jezran shouted, suspicion obvious.
"I'm a master of illusions." Midnight pointed with his free hand to Jezran's watch. "Keep following the compass."
Jezran looked at Midnight for a long moment. Brown eyes met red. Indecision and calculation flashed in the old man's eyes, and finally… he gave a brief nod. Midnight had earned his trust.
The flight continued until the hands on the pocket watch began to spin uncontrollably. Jezran drove down toward the rooftop below. Midnight followed.
On the roof of a tower, a squat man ushered a gagged girl forward. He was short and perfectly round, like an over-inflated beach ball—though something about the permanent scowl and furrowed uni-brow suggested that he wasn't nearly as fun as a beach ball. The only distinguishing feature besides his roundness was a ring he wore on one of his pudgy fingers, set with a band of black diamond.
"Come on, girlie!" He pushed her roughly toward the door that would lead them into the building and out of sight. Only a little bit further until he got his reward.
They were almost to the metal door when the child suddenly stomped on his sandaled foot. He cried out in pain and loosened his grip, just enough for her to duck down and run. A wave of black hair vanished around an air vent.
"Oy! Where do you think you'll get, girlie? There's nowhere to run!" He waddled after her.
Construction equipment laid on the roof near the edge. The girl ran to it and managed to pick up a sharp blade. She squeaked through her gag when she saw her captor approaching like an inflated balloon. She ran and hid behind a pipe that vented black air from the building. Her pink eyes narrowed in concentration as she severed the rope that bound her hands together. She ran out from behind the vent and faced her kidnapper, legs shoulder-width apart, dead-set determination in her eyes. She tore the gag out of her mouth and threw it into the breeze, where it drifted down to the streets below.
"I'm not scared of you!" She screamed at the man.
He waddled forward with an annoyed, furrowed unibrow.
"I don't have time for this, little girl. I'm just out to collect a reward, no hard feelings."
"Don't come any closer!" She put her hands together and started to form something in them. A pink magical circle. She screamed when suddenly she was surrounded by a circle of the man, multiples of him, ballooned bodies trapping her.
"Not so brave now, huh girlie?"
The child trembled and fell to the ground. She pulled her knees to her chest and cried, trying to hide.
Several chubby hands reached toward her all at once.
"Touch her and I'll slaughter you like the pig you are." A deep and threatening voice resounded from somewhere on the rooftop. The illusions disappeared, revealing the one who was the real man. He turned to face his opponent.
Midnight stepped off of the flying carpet and faced the balloon man, with hard eyes. Dreamer scrambled off of the carpet but then clutched the nearby pipe, the terror still evident on her face.
"Macbeth!" Syllest screamed in joy. "Mom!"
"S-Syllest…" Dreamer saw her through blurry tears. She tried to take a step toward her but her legs were too shaky, so she fell to her knees.
"Get back!" The man warned. "I'm not looking for a fight!"
Midnight smiled sadistically. "Oh? That's too bad. I was excited to see you put up a fight while I destroy you."
"Not going to happen!" A green fog suddenly settled on the rooftop, obscuring the view of everything more than a few inches away.
"MOM!" Syllest's scream echoed into the air.
"Syllest, don't move!" Dreamer yelled back. "You might fall!" There was no way to see the edge of the rooftop in this fog.
There was the sound of knives whistling through the air, followed by the high pitched, mechanical sound of Midnight's reflector magic. He easily diverted the blades that were thrown at him in the fog.
"Is that the best you can do? How boring."
"Midnight! Don't play with him! Syllest! We have to get Syllest!"
If Midnight heard her, he didn't show it. He was walking casually on the rooftop toward where the man was dragging Syllest with his hand clasped over her mouth.
The man looked up in horror to see nothing but two glowing red eyes in the green fog. He scrambled backward and released a gurgled sound of fear. "Impossible! Y-You can still see!"
"Of course I can." Midnight stepped closer. "I can see exactly what you are." Venom dripped from his tone. "You're a filthy pig that eats the slop thrown to it. You scavenge for food, even feasting on trash. I've killed a hundred vermin just like you."
Even Syllest moved back, until her spine hit the edge of the wall of the rooftop. Her thick eyelashes fluttered in fear at the sight of this… this demon moving through the fog toward them.
"G-Get back! Or I'll throw her off!" The man suddenly grabbed Syllest by the throat and held her in the air, dangling over the city below. The girl gave a strangled cry and looked at Midnight in desperation. The fog cleared due to the enemy wizard's inability to focus. Dreamer could see the three of them now.
"Syllest!" She stumbled forward, but the world spun. She fought through the fear, forcing her feet to move one after another, toward the girl whose black hair whipped in the wind.
"Go ahead," Midnight said.
The only sound was the wind whistling against the rooftop. Three sets of eyes stared in disbelief at the dark silhouette with red eyes. His gray coat fluttered in the breeze with the fur scarf he wore. White hair whipped his pale cheeks, sticking to painted lips.
"Go ahead. Throw her off," Midnight repeated. He was all red eyes and black lips and bloodlust. "You think I care about that worthless fairy fly?"
Tears welled in Dreamer's eyes. Syllest sobbed and clutched at her captor's black-gloved hand. Her skin was beginning to change color at the restriction of blood flow.
"Do it." Midnight's voice was a dark command. His smirk pulled back into a sneer. The fingers on his right hand twitched.
The man hesitated, eyes bulging. He hadn't expected this job to be like this. He'd just wanted easy money, but this? Facing off against something so terrifying? Was this man even human?
"N-No way! I need her!" The man stuttered.
"Cowardly swine!" Midnight lifted his hand and manipulated the gloved hand around Syllest's throat.
"NO!" Dreamer screamed in horror and ran, forgetting her fear, forgetting everything. Her eyes flickered between Midnight's outstretched hand and fingertips, and Syllest's cherry-blossom eyes. Her heart screamed, her mouth opened in silence to beg Midnight. Pleading. Frantic. Don't do this! This isn't who you are! Please! Please! Please! Begging him to look at her so that she could use her own magic to soothe him—to control his bloody hunger. Look at me! Macbeth, look at me…
But his eyes were fixed on the man, his lips drawn in a sadistic smirk, fingers manipulating dark energy. He laughed—maniacally, evilly…
As the man's grip broke on Syllest's throat, and the girl dropped out of sight.
A/N: I'm sorry for another cliffhanger. You guys probably hate me right about now.
QuestionablyCapableGhoul, your review made me laugh out loud. "What level do we have to be to unlock Dreamer's backstory?" XD Well, from here on in, you guys should be able to start piecing it all together. This mini-arc of sorts lays the foundation.
As always, thank you guys so much for reading and reviewing! I'm so honored to have so many regulars to this fic! Please, continue to share your opinions with me! (Even the bad ones, like "you monster, i hate you and your heartless cliffhangers.")