Bereft: Foretold

29 | A Human Fear

I folded the warrant in half and tucked it into my fist. "He's sitting at the third stool."

The huntress glanced toward the counter, though she kept her attention casual, fingering the frayed tuft of her cap. "You're right."

"Naturally." A bored waiter meandered by and asked what we wanted to order, and I asked for a beer and a burger, as did Connie. When he left, I leaned on the table as I lowered my voice. "I'll approach him and request information, and he will most likely run. You will want to be in position in the back of the bar, because he's going to flee through the rear door."

The huntress turned her head and eyed the door in question. "Sounds good."

We waited in silence as our food was delivered and Connie picked over her meal. I went to drink my beer—then remembered the alcohol could affect me as a human, so I only tipped and turned the bottle in my hand. Robinson ate and I watched the man until the younger mage at the stool next to him paid his bill and left. I kicked the huntress's leg and shrugged a shoulder toward the innocuous rear door. Patting her mouth with a paper napkin, Connie got to her feet, then hurried from the bar without a backward glance.

I waited until the door was sealed before I left my booth and approached my target. The mage didn't noticed when I leaned onto the vacated crooked stool and laced my fingers together atop the bar's polished rail. He only looked in my direction when I cleared my throat and leaned into his personal space.

"I am...seeking information," I said in a quiet voice, inspecting my scraped knuckles with an indifferent eye as the mage shifted. The tremor in his arms told me he wasn't an augur—a dexterous mage—nor a wizard who worked with constructs. He was too shaky. If I had to guess, I would say the man was a sage, and that his craft lent itself to the spoken arts. "I am hoping you will be able to provide that information." 

The man dropped from his seat with an ungainly hop and began searching through his pockets for change despite the unfinished state of his meal and his lack of a check. "I don't have information. I don't know you."

"Ah, but I know you." I twisted my wrist and flicked the folded warrant from my closed hand. I held it between two fingers, allowing the ugly bar light to glow on his printed photograph. "Everett Robinson. Your contemptible tricks haven't gone unnoticed by the ferrymen. They issued this request for your apprehension."

Robinson stilled as his sunken eyes flicked from his own picture to my face. His lips moved in preparation of a spell, and I tutted under my breath.

"You're not a mage," he observed.

"No, I am not, but I am someone fully capable of either fulfilling or ignoring this request, depending on your answer, Everett."

I didn't have to wait long for the man's response. As I had suspected, he summoned an ember of magic and threw it at me before flinging himself toward the back door. Robinson was too weak as a mage to create anything more than a hazy burst of dust and I blew it away, brushing grit from my eyelashes as I listened to the man's sneakers squeak on the cheap flooring. The bartender shouted after him, griping about the unpaid tab.

Following at a more sedate pace, I wiped what remained of Robinson's spell from my skin and laid a large bill next to his half drunk beer. "For the trouble." 

I walked from the building and only increased my pace when I heard a bang of metal on metal and the gruff shout of a woman hitting the pavement. Exiting through a chilled kitchen entry, I came out onto a greasy alley lined with employee trucks and hulking dumpsters. Connie was slumped against the latter, shaking her head as if to dispel blurry stars, and the black mage was making his escape toward the alley's end.