Blood Ties, Part 24
You continue to make love to your two bedmates, until they're both spent and asleep. You wait a little longer to be sure, and once you're convinced, you carefully extricate yourself from the bed and sneak out into the night.
Aiming directly for the brothel you visited before, you shift into your bounty hunter guise as you run through the darkened streets. Upon arriving at the brothel, you mingle for a bit, making conversation with some of the girls. They quickly open up before your charm, and you learn that the girl you're interested in—Sylea—is currently working, taking customers. A bit more subtle inquiry reveals that her shift won't end anytime soon.
Which means that, even if you did catch a glimpse of her, it would be difficult to dreamwalk into her psyche so long as she's still awake. And unfortunately, it looks like she'll be awake all night.
You ponder the problem for a bit... and quickly realize it has one obvious solution. Dipping into the generous reserve of coin that Lily gave you prior to setting out, you simply buy out the entire rest of Sylea's night for your use.
After paying the brothel, you catch your first sight of the witness in question as she approaches. A thin, mousy thing, she looks both weary and wary, nervously regarding the new big spender with an interest in her from behind the happy, enticing mask she's become moderately proficient at wearing. It's clear that, for all the pleasure she might have given her clients, sex for her is a means of pure, simple survival.
Well. For at least one night, you're about to change all that.
She leads you to her room, making small talk that—to your expert ears, at least—sounds painfully forced. You close the door behind you as you enter, even as she turns to you. "So what do you want first?" Sylea asks, still trying to take your measure. "J-just so you know... if... if you want the really rough stuff, there's other girls who handle that. I'm not one of them."
"Nothing like that..." you say, infusing absolute confidence into your voice as you approach. Her eyes widen a little as you close in, some buried instinct warning the girl that tonight will not be like any of her previous tumbles with her customers. Reflexively she starts to shrink back, but you capture her before she can, pulling her into a hungry kiss.
After so long holding back as Niko, it's a relief to simply let loose. She whimpers into you, surrendering in seconds as you pull her tight against your chest. Her arms snake around your neck, not even noticing as you start to strip her of her loose, flimsy clothing. When you break the kiss, she's glassy-eyed with pleasure, as she looks up at you with a mixture of fear and wonderment.
You don't let up, pushing her down onto the nearby bed and immediately starting to fuck her. Her legs wrap around you, desperately pulling you in tighter, each thrust drawing a breathless cry of ecstasy. Soon, you have her in a mating press, driving deeper into her than she thought possible, even with all her experience, as she screams out her pleasure with tears in her eyes.
Normally you'd take it more gradually than this... but you are on a schedule.
You savor every inch of her body. Taking her in position after position. Bringing her to orgasm after body-wracking orgasm. She can't understand what's happening to her, how you're so much better than any of her other clients... but in the end it doesn't matter. She's entirely at your mercy... and she doesn't even put up a hint of a struggle.
Soon, you've accomplished your real goal: fucking her into complete unconsciousness. Her insensate form crumples into the bed, and you sit next to her closing your eyes and focusing. It takes a while for her to fully descend into the realm of dreams... but you just keep reaching out with you mind, making attempt after attempt as you fish for that point of connection.
After about a half-hour of trying, you finally succeed. Your vision goes black as you feel your consciousness pulled into the Dream Realm. The prostitute's soul is only just settling in... and you can sense the nearby presence of the nightmare that the Madame mentioned. Fortunately, its ever-present haunting of her means that it's close enough that all it takes is a small nudge to send her into it. A small nudge that is well within your admittedly-limited capabilities.
You appear in the dreamscape in a cramped, musty room, with barely enough space for the dirty, ragged cot laid out at the far end of it. It's part of some kind of tenement, probably in one of the poorer areas of the city. The girl you so recently fucked is sitting there, fiddling with her fingers, waiting. You can feel unease pervade that crushingly claustrophobic place. Sylea knows that something terrible is about to happen, even if the events of her dream haven't reached that point yet.
Every so often, the girl goes to the room's second-story window, pulling back the rickety shutter to peer through the wooden bars, looking eagerly down on the street below. She's waiting for someone. The victim, most likely. The rumors did say that they lived together. And it's not long before she—and you—see someone walking down that dark street.
You can't make out many details. No one pays to put up spell-lamps in such a poor area of the city, so you're left with moonlight as your only aid. If you were actually watching this yourself it wouldn't matter in the face of your nightvision... but since this dream is born from the prostitute's memories, you're limited by her senses as well.
Still, you can tell that the woman is a blonde, a little older than Sylea is. Sylea's face lights up with joy as she gets closer to the entry.
Then the man emerges from the shadows behind her, like a wraith taking solid form. A long, ragged coat. Black gloves, holding a long steel knife. A wide-brimmed hat that casts his face mostly in shadow.
He grabs his target before either of the girls has a chance to react, clamping a hand over the blonde's mouth and dragging her backward, the knife held at her throat. She struggles, fighting and kicking in terror... but there's no hope. She can't break free. You get the feeling that the killer is enjoying her attempts, enjoying the power he has over her.
Sylea lets out a shriek, which causes the killer to look up at the window from which it came. You catch a brief glimpse of his face: wide, sullen and ominous-looking. The prostitute, meanwhile, ducks back down, frantically curling up into the corner. She's hyperventilating now, frozen in terror. She screams again, begging for help... but it comes out as a weak, pathetic little noise. And it isn't as though many people in this kind of neighborhood are likely to play the hero.
In the end, all she can do is sit there, gasping for breath. Staring at the door to the cramped room. Expecting that the killer could come bursting through for her at any moment.
But no one comes.
Knowing what you know, it's not surprising. If the killer truly can shapeshift then he has nothing to fear, even in the unlikely event that she did see his face by moonlight, from such a distance. That face itself is a mask, to be used or discarded as he sees fit. All the more potent because it doesn't seem to be one. It wouldn't be worth wasting time and arousing attention by breaking into the tenement to kill a possible witness. It would be so inconsequential, you wonder if he even bothered to remember it.
Or at least... it would have made sense for him to think of it that way at the time. But there's a new wrinkle that has developed in the months since then. One he couldn't have accounted for on that night.
Limited by the prostitute's senses, you couldn't get a perfect look at the killer. But when he glanced up at her, it was more than enough to confirm that it was not Hastrik's face the killer was wearing for that attack. Even the body type wasn't quite right, if he'd been trying to evoke that impression. Just a bit too broad-shouldered for the comparatively reedy noble.
No... this suggests that the plan to frame Hastrik probably came later. Almost certainly as a result of Ceriss coming so close to catching him. With such a determined heroine on his trail, he must have wanted to give her an actual body. A conclusive close to her investigation, with no loose ends remaining to lead back to him.
And that means this girl's existence now poses a threat to the killer's scheme.
You watch as Sylea cowers there, in the corner of the tiny, dirty room. Her face stricken with fear... and also guilt, knowing that she is doing nothing to save her friend. Not that there's anything she could do, short of getting herself killed as well. But even so, she still has to live with each passing second... as she does nothing. Knowing that outside, her friend is being taken. She tries to scream yet again, but it just comes out as a despairing sob.
Concentrating, you nudge the girl toward a more dreamless sleep, and her psyche is only too eager to follow the opening you create. The images of the dream lose their cohesion, dissipating like smoke. Once that's done, you return your consciousness to your own body, and soon you're looking down at the girl's sleeping frame in the real world. She's curled up in the bed you shared, and while her expression looks a bit more peaceful now, long tear-tracks run down her face.
You consider the possibilities that this presents. She can't actually identify the killer, of course. But she could cast doubt on whether Hastrik is really the one who has been murdering all those prostitutes. Maybe even cause Ceriss to start digging again. If you convinced Sylea to go to Ceriss with the story, then it might open the door for the heroine to make some of the same realizations that you have.
Especially if "Niko" were there to guide the conversation.
Or... riskier... if something were to remind the killer of that brief, "inconsequential" encounter all those months ago... If, perhaps, she were to start making noises about testifying against Hastrik herself, loudly enough that he caught wind... That just might impel the killer to act. Attempting to deal with the threat, before she could raise even the specter of doubt against his precious plan.
Convincing her to act as bait for the very killer she's so utterly terrified of would be quite the feat, even for you. But you think you could pull it off, especially since you've already fucked her repeatedly. It would be a dangerous plan, though. You still don't even know who or what this bastard even is, let alone the full scope of what he can do.
Alternatively, you could send her to safety... and then you take her place instead in that plan, whenever you felt ready to make your move. You are, after all, significantly more difficult to kill than she is.
You could have one of the ratfolk messengers deliver her to Kovora. Her skills and profession would certainly be in high demand among your loyal orcs. And you're quite certain that your orcs would, in turn, be able to show her a far more enjoyable time (with all the training you've given them) than any client she's ever had in this city.
Except for you, of course.
Or... perhaps you think such a trap is a bad idea to begin with. Perhaps you want to take an alternate approach to dealing with your foe. Or perhaps you want to keep it as merely an option, until you know more.
One way or another, though, you'll need to decide what to do here before you leave.
