Gregory's First Supervised Assignment

This test is going to be easier than most, I can’t help but think. These people, they’re friendly enough, but more to the point, they aren’t gullible. Which means, all it took was not trying to get anything for them to let me in. Not so much that they trust me with their secrets, of course, but enough that they’ve shown me where to look. And when. I drift quietly through the empty streets of the small town, heading to Nikos’s house.

Nikos Oikonomou is by no means anyone important to the town. At least, not as far as any official records or anyone around will talk about. But when the forty-two year old man walks around town, the entire population moves in unison. Whether out of respect or fear or some combination matters little. They don’t advertise whatever led them into the attack. Which means whoever Nikos is, it is related as well.

The door to Nikos’s completely unremarkable home is locked. I could move down and pick it, but the street will only remain empty for so long. They have their weekly town meeting, but someone always leaves early. At least someone has these last three weeks. I scratch the inside of my cheek against my canine, drawing a trickle of blood, and trace across the roof of my mouth a sigil of passage. It burns, comfortable but hot, inside my mouth, and the door is unlocked. I take a deep breath to overcome the vertigo and open the door a crack. Slipping inside, I close the door behind me and lock it. As much as I’d love to have a quick way out, the front door being unlocked would draw more suspicion. Then I move onto the search, for anything out of place.

This semester, we each got our first missions proper. An external agent brought us along on a mission deemed ‘appropriate’ for our skillset, then let us do the mission while they watch from the background. I have probably taken longer than the program would have liked, but these jobs are careful things that require precision. Over the summer, while some Maestros were working on large-scale projects, a group of cultists attacked and slaughtered most. They were subsequently tracked to this town, but the local Magisters’ attempts to gather more information led only to those Magisters disappearing. Which brought in us External Agents. Court Magister Agent Zarins chose me to follow up on this. He is undoubtedly somewhere watching, irritated that what he expected to take a week has taken more than a month. I assume. The man has said fewer than a dozen words to me the whole mission. Whether I was chosen because of my own background which they undoubtedly know, or because of my ability to integrate myself in communities, I don’t know, but I took the job seriously from the outset. I made it clear I was trying to hide without ever going out and saying it. Never asked any questions, helped out wherever I could without drawing too much attention. And I watched through my window. Tracked events in my journal. After a week and a half, people started telling me about what was going on in their lives. I wasn’t a part of the group, for sure, but I was no longer an outsider. And while they didn’t give away secrets, they gave me a good sense of the community. And that led me here, to this house, on an evening when I know no one is home.

Walking through the house, I can’t help but notice the lack of what I initially expect. No materials for the mystic practices. No blood for the vampiric ones. No chains to calm the beasts. No reason they would attack a random Villa. And, also, almost no real notes. Then, I reach the bedroom. And in the bedroom, I see the first element out of place. A black cloak, hung neatly apart from the rest of Nikos’s closet. Alongside the cloak is what appears to be some chainmail shirt and a sword. Which is also very strange, because neither the sword, nor the chain, nor the coat were of local design. They looked almost Medieval British in design. Interesting. More interesting still, however, was the journal in the man’s nightstand.

The journal is long and I don’t know how much time I have. I start to skim, looking for key dates. The beginning reads like a dream journal. Then, there is a few month break, before a different sounding entry opens. ‘Ever since that night at sea, I don’t know what’s going on. I’ve been losing sleep, and have a nagging feeling that I need to do something. And there is a deep, unfulfilled need. Like there is something other than my life I need to be doing.’

I keep skimming forwards. The following pages tell of hearing voices and blackouts. Of finding a community. Of settling down. And of waking up in odd places after blacking out at home. And finally, we reach date of the attack. ‘I woke up alone, at a school. Covered in blood. In the armor. Bodies everywhere. The other one insisted they were evil. That they had to be stopped. But why? He refused to tell me. Which is odd. The other times, when I’ve been worried he’d tell me. Which means it is just a school. What about this particular school deserved slaughter. I can smell the magic in the place, of course, but magic itself isn’t the enemy. He said so himself, when he defended his own existence. But not defending his actions means it is something else. Something questionable. Or even, indefensible.’

I start taking pictures of all the pages. Proof, at least, of who is behind the attack. Also, it seems the cult is less of a mystical one than a cult of personality and protection for this Nikos person. And the attack, at least in his own view, only had him there. So unless he is the sort of cult leader that views all those under him as a part of him, he’s incredibly dangerous. As I take the last picture, I hear the door open below us. “I assume it be thou, Georgios,” Nikos says. I recognize the voice, even though we have never spoken. But there is something else to it. He’s speaking English, and there is a menace of magic in his voice. How did he know I was here? No one saw me enter. There is something I’m missing.

I can figure that out after I’m safely elsewhere. I need to get out of here fast. If this guy is capable of taking out all those people by himself, I wouldn’t stand a chance one on one. I look around the bedroom. It’s only a matter of time before he gets up here. The window in here looks over the main road. If Nikos is back, that means the road has people in it. Too risky. From the stairwell, I hear Nikos continue in English. “Those foul villains had to fall. The young one has come to agree with most, though he still would not understand some of those whose sin be more complex but I see howst thou watch, the deep sadness beneath thy brow. ‘Tis a sadness that only can come from understanding the wickedness of the wicked.” I pause, half tempted to stick around. I could learn more about his motivations, about the differences between his split personalities. But he’s already coming up the stairs, so he knows where the stuff anyone would be after is. He’s coming straight here. I rush through Nikos’s closet into the small ensuite. There’s a window just big enough for me to squeeze through. Once again I graze open my inner cheek. It’ll be an irritating few weeks of mouth pain, but better than leaving any traces of blood around for them to find any more information about the mysterious ‘Georgios Papadakis’ is. Tracing a more specialized sigil on my inner cheek in blood, I mutter the verses of the curse of fresh air. It opens all windows in a dwelling, and hopefully the hunter is close enough to one of them to be distracted, even if momentarily.

The windows slam open, loud enough that those nearby any might notice, but that should be fine. The bathroom window leads to the community garden, and no one gardens at night after the town meetings. I’ve watched. I know. I slide out the window, having to fold my shoulders inwards to squeeze through the small opening, and being unable to protect myself from the fall. Fortunately a fall from the second floor window isn’t deadly, but I think I dislocated a shoulder. Camera in my bag with all the evidence I need, I start to make my way to the outskirts of town.

For a few minutes, I think I’ve lost the pursuit. I make it to the outskirts and I trace the sigil on the dirt crossroad. Plenty of entities might notice any magic being poured into it, but the sigil itself is enough to draw the Court Magister’s attention. It was what Zarins had organized as the flare. It is another minute before an old, beaten up car shows up, and the unremarkable middle-aged man in the driver’s seat. Then, there is a feeling itching down my neck. I realize that, if Nikos, or his other half, can sense the magic of the dead Maestros in the Villa, he can probably track the slight magic of the sigil. I rush into the car. “We have to go,” I say.

“Job done?” the man asks, but begins to drive casually away nonetheless.

I nod. “This guy, Nikos, seems to be alone in the attacks. The cult-like activities are protecting him, for some reason, though no sign of any direct magical involvement. I have pictures of his journals which include accounts of both the attack on the villa and prior attacks, as well as the one that has taken place since then.”

Agent Zarins nods, though his face is scrunched in a bit of concern. “Any more details on the guy?” he asks. A nearly complete sentence, I can’t help but think. Something really is wrong.

The itch on my neck is getting stronger. “Not much. He speaks English, says they deserved it. Had an oldtimey suit of armor and a sword in a place of respect in his closet.” Before I finished the last sentence fragment, the car started to speed up. Zarins checks the mirror. So I was right to think something was wrong. “What is it?” I ask.

He doesn’t answer immediately. Instead, he says, “We need to get to the boat as soon as possible. Get off the island.” That wasn’t even a sentence fragment, that was a full sentence.

I pull out my phone. “I’ll make sure they’re ready to leave when we show up,” I offer, trying to be helpful. He nods in agreement as we speed through the night.

Siteia is a beautiful city that I would love to have gotten more time in. More importantly for us, it’s large enough that new people aren’t suspect but not so popular that we risk running into any who’d know us. The commercial fishing vessel that Agent Zarins had used to bring us to Crete was ready to move, no longer anchored but still docked at one of the many smaller commercial docks. We park outside and get aboard the ship. The Court Magister gives a nod to their captain, and the boat sails off into the nautical dawn light. Only once the boat has moved does he start to relax. “What is it?” I ask. Instead of answering, he hands me a spyglass and gestures towards the city, to the road into town along the coast that we’d taken. Stopped there, on a motorcycle, is a man in a dark coat and a sword, staring at us. No need for a spyglass himself. And, once I look at him, he almost seems to notice and smile.

Then, after I move the spyglass down in shock, the Full-fledged External Agent of the Magisterium replies, “Congratulations, Court Magister Greene. You have completed your assignment adequately. And survived a myth. Now I need to find out what those Maestros were doing to draw a Knight’s Ire, while you head back to debrief and return to your lessons.”