'Qui: The Fall of Ottawa' Chapter 4

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Chapter 4:

The ceiling creaked directly above Qui's head and Cranston put a finger to her disfigured lips.

Qui looked up and listened intently for another sound. When he looked back down again, Cranston was gone. Vanished. For the briefest of moments panic gripped him. It was never surprising to see another Nosferatu disappear from sight, but that look on the woman's face…she'd seemed genuinely concerned. He wasn't used to seeing fear on the face of an elder. He took a step back and then another, slowly creeping away from the center of the room. When dealing with the potential for invisible foes, it was always best to get out of the open and cover your back. Cold cinderblocks caressed his shoulders and he allowed himself to relax a little, opening his senses to attune to the world around him. He closed his eyes and listened. Whoever had been lurking upstairs shifted again, hoping to escape. They had no idea that Cranston was almost within striking distance.

The near silence was shattered by an explosion of snapping wood and bone as the intruder crashed through the ceiling and tumbled downward, propelled into free-fall by the force of Cranston's supernatural attack. The spy landed on the floor directly in front of Qui, rolled away from the falling debris, and came up into a crouch, ignoring obviously broken legs and torn skin as half the ceiling came down behind her. The spy's face was a mess of oozing boils and lacerations—Qui wasn't sure where the damage from the fall ended and where the Nosferatu curse began. What he did know was that he'd seen her before, during his introduction to Bouchard. 

The old Sewer Rat must have sent her to listen in, then. Bad move on his part.

The spy looked right at Qui, blinked, then turned away. Relief flooded through him—he must have instinctively triggered his cloak of shadows when his back hit the wall. He'd be invisible until he moved. 

Above, he caught sight of Cranston perched on the wall like a spider. She was descending to the lower floor headfirst on all fours—just watching her made him feel mildly nauseous with vertigo. It was interesting to see what his patron was capable of. Collecting information on the client hiring you for an assassination was almost always as important as investigating the target themselves. In his experience, almost a quarter of his employers turned on him after the job was done in an attempt to 'tie up loose ends.' Alliances in the Kindred world were always temporary.

A portion of the wall to Qui's left crumbled, revealing a horde of feral rats, chittering and gnashing long fangs as they raced up the wall toward Cranston. At first, Qui thought his patron must have summoned them to aid her, but that notion was quickly subverted when the first rat sank its teeth into Cranston's face. She screamed with fury and shook the rat off. A second and third took its place, clawing and biting at her until she had no choice but to let go of the wall and tear them off with her hands. She used her powerful legs to propel herself further up toward the ceiling where the rats could no longer reach her. She clung there for a moment, eyeing the spy and planning her next move.

Qui had seen just about enough. It was time to end this farce and get back to business. He reached into his reserve of inner calm, steadying his nerves as he spoke. When the words escaped his lips, they were no longer his own, nor were they coming from his direction.

"They're in here!" a booming voice shouted from the stairwell leading into the basement. "Bring the torches!" Qui allowed himself a smile. He was getting very, very good at throwing his altered voice. The technique took years to perfect, but his mastery had saved his unlife on more than one occasion.

The spy shot a confused glance toward the stairwell and stood in place, wracked with indecision. So far, the fight had been going far better for her than she could have hoped. But to stand against a Primogen and her militarized backup? Foot soldiers likely wielding fire? Her face fell with dismay as she saw her chances for survival drop from slim to zero. Her rats scattered as her concentration wavered and she focused on how to escape rather than attack.

As Qui expected, that brief moment of indecision was the only opening Cranston needed. 

"Yeeeaaaaarrrrgh!" A savage, rage-fueled war cry rang out from above as Cranston coiled her legs and propelled herself downward from the ceiling. She smashed into the spy like a wrecking ball, cracking the concrete floor beneath the weight of her onslaught. The spy tried to roll away, but her arm had been pinned and nearly torn out of its socket. Sluggish vitae oozed from the gaping wound as Cranston clasped both hands together and brought them hammering down on the spy's chest, caving in her ribs with a sickening crack.

"You'd spy on me in my own home?" Cranston snarled. Her face had been torn open by the rats and stringy, dead flesh peeled from her cheek as she ranted. "I'll have you flayed before I end you!" She slammed her fist down on the spy's jaw, snapping it like dead wood. "Bouchard sent you, didn't he!"

The spy forced her oozing mouth open with an audible crack. Half of her teeth were missing or snapped off into jagged splinters. "M-made me to do it, mistress…" she groaned. Her voice was wheezy; both withered lungs had been ruptured and her windpipe was probably in just as bad condition. Kindred didn't need to breathe in order to survive, but the sound of their voice had to come out somehow. "Forgive me! Please!"

Cranston stood up, placing her foot on the spy's neck. "Why did he send you?"

"He's nervous…thinks you're replacing him with that smooth-skin fraud…"

"He sent you to die because he's nervous?" Cranston asked. "He'd burn our alliance over, what, a feeling in his gut?"

"I was above…doors were closed…I didn't hear anything!"

Cranston put more pressure on the spy's neck, murderous intent in her eyes. "You backed the wrong master."