0018 - The Night Market
1735 Words
Burnt lithium and stale coffee hung heavy in the Blackwood Manor kitchen. It smelled like a sweatshop, not a noble estate.
Victor Corvinus hunched over the scarred oak table. He had a jeweler’s loupe screwed tight into his right eye socket. Under the glass, the drone’s circuit board looked like a bombed-out city. Traces fused into black glass. Capacitors blown like popcorn. The CPU—a high-end neural net chip—had a c***k running right through the middle.
Victor adjusted the focus ring. His fingers, usually steady as a surgeon's, had a slight tremor tonight. The mana exhaustion from the drone raid was still cooking his nerves.
"Dead," he muttered, voice raspy. He poked the fried chip with tweezers. "Massive trauma. Total system failure."
"It is garbage," Yggdrasil corrected. The spirit’s face bloomed on the brushed-steel fridge door, wood grain twisting into a frown. "And it is leaking. Do you know how hard it is to get battery acid out of a spatial rift? It burns."
Victor ignored the ghost. He picked up a micro-screwdriver and attacked the servo motor. It was the only thing on this carcass worth saving. The screw was stripped, of course. He applied pressure, feeling the metal bite, and twisted until it shrieked and gave way.
Click.
He pulled the motor free. Heavy. Dense with copper windings.
"It’s not garbage. It’s organ harvesting," Victor said, wiping grease onto his pants. "This servo is military-grade. Fifty Hell Gold on the black market. Easy."
He dropped the motor into a burlap sack. It clinked against copper wire and sensors. A pathetic haul for a night of fighting, but it was money.
"Fifty gold," Yggdrasil scoffed. "We owe the bank fifty million. You will pay off the debt just in time for the sun to explode."
"Interest is a marathon, not a sprint." Victor checked his phone.
Viral Event Payout: +2,000 Gold.
Current Balance: 2,143 Gold.
A fortune for a street rat. Pocket change for the Lord of Blackwood. They had bills. The Gargoyle needed stabilizing with alchemical bonding paste. Without it, the house would reject the transplant like a bad kidney. The stone would c***k, the magic would bleed out, and the manor would sink back into the swamp.
"We need supplies," Victor said. He stood up, wincing as his bad hip locked—a souvenir from a werewolf bite three years ago. He tossed the bent iron ladle into the sink and grabbed his charcoal trench coat and silver-tipped cane from the rack. "And we need to sell this scrap."
"Pawnshop closes in ten minutes," Yggdrasil said.
"Not there. We’re going to District 13."
The temperature in the kitchen dropped five degrees. Frost patterns spiderwebbed across the toaster.
"The Night Market?" Yggdrasil’s voice deepened. "That is a lawless zone. The Triad of the Severed Finger does not respect property rights."
"They respect business." Victor whistled.
Fenrir trotted from the pantry, swallowing a string of sausages whole.
"Disguise," Victor said.
The wolf froze, looking indignant. The fur on his snout was still singed from the lithium acid, a patch of angry red skin visible beneath the soot. He lowered his head. Victor slid the greasy paper sack from 'The Smiling Pig Deli' over the wolf’s snout.
"Good boy. Let’s go shopping."
Crossing into the Lower City felt like falling off a cliff. By the time the freight elevator rattled open on Level 13, the smog was a physical weight.
District 13 was a punch in the face. Noise everywhere. Thumping bass, the screech of mag-lev trains, vendors screaming over each other.
“Synthetic livers! Freshly printed! No rejection guarantee!”
“Curses lifted! Two-for-one! We kill your ex’s luck or your money back!”
The air tasted of sulfur and fried grease. Neon signs flickered in the rain, casting ugly purple shadows on the wet pavement. The rain itself was nasty—acidic runoff from the Upper City that coated the street in a slick, rainbow-colored slime.
Victor stepped out, his cane tapping on the metal grate. He tapped the temple of his glasses. The battery pack whined—a high-pitched mosquito sound—before the world flickered into wireframes.
System Overlay Active.
Threat Level: High.
Battery: 12%
He saw heat signatures glowing through the smog and knots of dirty spellwork hanging over the stalls like cobwebs.
Fenrir walked at his side, the paper bag crinkling. He looked ridiculous. But the crowd didn't see a man with a pig-masked wolf. They saw... something else.
A group of scavengers huddled around a burning oil drum looked up, saw Victor's coat, and flinched. The "Cognitive Slide" enchantment was working. It made them uninteresting. Just background noise.
Two thugs with cybernetic arms shoved through the crowd, high on adrenal-boosters. They locked eyes on Victor. They saw the limp. They saw the bag.
"Easy mark," one whispered.
Then he stopped.
He didn't freeze. He just... turned away. Like water flowing around a rock. His eyes glazed over, and he walked right past Victor, completely blank.
Victor frowned. The coat is strong, he thought, feeling the dull ache of mana drain behind his eyes. Maybe too strong.
He tightened the leash. "Heel. Don't eat anyone."
Fenrir whined and lunged at a holographic koi fish swimming above a sushi stall. His jaws snapped on empty air, disrupting the projection into static.
"Hey!" the chef yelled, waving a robotic cleaver. "Watch your dog! That hologram costs more than your life!"
Fenrir growled. A subsonic vibration that rattled the silverware. The chef went pale as he looked at the wolf's shadow—it had too many teeth.
"Sorry," Victor said, dragging the wolf away. "He’s on a diet."
They went deeper. The neon got dimmer. The crowd got thinner, but more dangerous. Here, the vendors whispered.
Victor passed a stall selling "Wetware"—human eyes in jars, neural jacks stripped from corpses. The vendor, a woman with four mechanical arms, clicked her fingers in a rhythm that matched the dripping rain.
"Eyes?" she hissed. "Fresh. Taken from a sniper."
Victor didn't stop. "I have my own."
He reached the end of the row where the Tinkerer's booth sat—a crashed military dropship fuselage wedged between brick walls. The green-skinned goblin was soldering a circuit board inside.
"Scrap?" he rasped.
Victor dropped the sack. Thud.
The goblin jumped, pushing up his magnifying goggles. "You're late."
"Traffic was murder."
The goblin pulled out the servo motor and whistled. "Military. Fresh. Scorched. Model 7 Hunter-Killer drone. Where did you get this?"
"It flew into my house. I have a pest problem."
The goblin narrowed his eyes. "This looks like it was chewed on by a tank."
"Industrial accident. I performed the autopsy."
"Salvage?"
"Asset liquidation. What's the offer?"
The goblin touched the burn marks and flinched. "Cold residue. Old magic." He looked past Victor at the pig-masked beast sitting in the mud. He swallowed hard.
"I don't want trouble," the goblin whispered. "I run a clean shop."
"Just business. I need bonding agents. Stone-flesh synthesis paste. Two canisters. And meat. High-calorie biomass."
"You want masonry glue and... meat?"
"I have a hungry house."
The goblin didn't ask. He ducked under the counter and resurfaced with two heavy grey canisters of 'Epox-A-Fix' and a crate of military-surplus nutrient bars.
"Straight swap," the Tinkerer said. "Just take it. We never saw each other."
"Wait," Victor said, tapping the counter. "Throw in a battery pack. For the loupe. Mine is dying."
The goblin hesitated, then grunted and tossed a small lithium cell onto the pile. "Fine. Now go."
"Deal." Victor shoved the canisters into his enchanted pockets—they vanished without a bulge—and tucked the crate under his arm. "Pleasure."
He turned to leave. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up.
Not the System. Instinct.
Victor stopped. He pretended to check his watch, adjusting his glasses to 'Reflection' mode. In a dark shop window, he saw them. Three figures peeling off the alley wall, moving like a pack.
"Fenrir," Victor whispered. "We have fans."
The wolf’s ear twitched. A happy rumble vibrated in his chest.
"Not here. Too many eyes. Find an alley."
Victor turned toward the industrial zone. The lights faded to a sick orange glow. The footsteps behind them sped up. Slap. Slap. Slap.
Victor stopped. He turned, leaning heavily on his cane.
The three figures stepped into the light. The leader had a metal jaw and red optic eyes. The other two held knives that hummed with vibration.
"Found him," the leader sneered. His optic eye zoomed in with a mechanical whir, projecting a jagged hologram of Victor's face—a grainy still from the drone footage. "The viral sensation."
Victor sighed. The rain was getting into his collar. "I don't sign autographs."
"Not autographs. Bounties," the leader said, stepping closer. "That video put a price on your head, old man. Someone wants to know how a cripple scrapped a tactical squad."
Victor looked down at the pig-masked wolf.
"Waiting for the fee," Victor said. "Consultations aren't free, boys. And you just walked into the clinic."
Fenrir stood up. The paper bag crinkled. The printed pig smile seemed to stretch.
The leader laughed. "A pig? You're guarding yourself with a pig?"
"He has a condition."
"Get him."
The thugs lunged. Victor didn't move. He just tapped his cane on the wet pavement.
Click.
The sound cut through the rain. The shadows in the alley tore away from the walls. The "paper bag" on Fenrir's head didn't rip; it dissolved into black smoke. The Abyssal maw opened—rows of teeth spiraling down into a throat that held no light.
The leader skidded to a halt. His metal jaw hung loose. His targeting system whirred.
Targeting Error. Subject Unknown.
His system wasn't locking onto a dog. It was locking onto a void.
"That's not a dog," the thug whispered.
"No," Victor agreed. His glasses flashed. "It's the garbage disposal."
The alley exploded. Wet tearing sounds. The screech of metal shearing. Screams cut short by the crunch of cybernetics.
Victor checked his watch. "Two minutes," he noted. "New record."
He stepped over the mess—already dissolving into shadow—and patted Fenrir on the head. The paper bag was back. The pig was still smiling, though there was a new red stain on its snout.
"Good boy," Victor said. "Now, let's go home. The house is waiting."
- Writer
