The Night Rider

Chapter 53 - Tidal

The tidal wave rushed into them long before Reina’s words did.

Hawkins didn’t know how she had found them so quickly but no matter how quickly the thought passed through his mind, Hack would always be three steps ahead of him. The Sand Wraith's meagre enchantment broke through the siren’s attempts to drown them, parting the waves without wasting a single pebble of his Trait.

The rain seethed against the quiet, assuming bunch of Traited, his mentor letting out a sigh of exhaustion as his breathing steadily adjusted back into its steady flow. He flicked his head towards Mantis, the half elf immediately recognising the crude Hammerlocke sign to gather everyone together and start looking for an escape. They didn’t have the strength to keep fighting much longer.

Mantis quickly ushered the three Traited and Tinker Mole over to the furthest point of Hack’s barrier, the water still rushing and filtering into the crack and rubble-strewn graveyard. Reina dropped down from her perch, still clutching an unconscious Cricket within her arms. Her jacket was the only thing covering the young Air Traited, Reina’s dishevelled hair soaked but strewn to one side.

“The chosen Bookkeeper out of all the other candidates sent to you to try and it chooses the one you wanted least, huh Hack?”

Reina looked as demented as she sounded, completely exhausted and unravelled by the constant chase between Enforcers, Overtaken and Traited. If it wasn’t for the plucky courage of a young Thyraxian trying to assist in any way she could then this whole debacle would be over. Cricket would have what she wanted.

No more annoying, scrappy Traited trying to fight there way through tooth and nail all to save a stupid book or a stupid kid caught in a war they didn’t belong in. They meddled where they didn’t belong and now she had no choice but to do the same.

"Traitor." Hack growled, attempting to stand his ground despite his own rocky footing.

Reina rolled her eyes, the rain she had summoned bucketing down as her sinister warning echoed around the void. Her scales were drenched in rain but for a moment she didn’t seem frazzled or broken but calmed by the rain she had summoned. She closed her eyes for a second and breathed, the rain trickling through the fins on her hands as she splayed them wide and summoned her grimoire.

It was a deep, dark blue almost black nothingness like the bottom of the Cercucian sea, with flecks of green and blues that flickered and died as if only escaping the light above to be dragged back down into the depths. Hawkins had never seen a Singfall siren before but he was certain with all the books he had read and stories he had been told that not one used a grimoire.

"To think you were once the infamous Gamekeeper too, Hackerby. I guess murderers certainly keep their connections when it comes to attempted genocide. Poor Sleek could never compare to you, Kinslayer.”

"What?"

Hawkins barely heard his own voice, Hack flinching and grit his teeth.

"Later."

The Sand Wraith’s expression softened, remembering their earlier argument.

"Promise."

Hawkins tugged awkwardly at his sleeves, trying to protect himself from the rain as Hack fidgeted from one leg to the other. It almost betrayed his earlier confidence with the prosthetic, the sludge like substance beneath them slowing his movements just enough to seem believable. The rain battered Hack’s attempt at the barrier, slicing through the translucent dome only for it to slowly rectify the growing holes in its surface.

Fidget was frantically digging behind them, the twins and Mantis blocking him from sight as they tried to redirect the water away from them. The two Mediators kept the attention of the Singfall siren still attempting to break their barrier, Hack’s breaths becoming more rapid by the second. Until Hawkins glanced over at Cricket. Reina was murmuring something to her, he could just about see her lips move but couldn’t read them from so far away.