“Do we get Red Hood support, or are they all needed for the frontal assault?” she asked as she locked the gun-like catalyst to her left arm’s bracer.
“Unfortunately, we shall be on our own in the subterrain,” Casus said.
And so, they were off, riding through the city until they reached a somewhat nearby nook to stash the motorbike in. As they approached their goal, Krahe sent Barzai further and further ahead. Even if it was secret, given its nature, it was not unlikely for Semzar or one of his subordinates to station guards or at least lookouts nearby.
There were no guards standing outside the secret entrance, and it was walled up just as Seer had described, but Barzai did see something. A woman, walking down the street with a boy in tow. He couldn’t be more than seven or eight, dressed in brand new, generic clothes. The woman’s manner of dress was the same, generic to the point of being suspicious, and imperfect at points. Her fingers bore numerous rings, some of which were Calbian currency, and tattoos peeked out from the insides of her sleeves. Something about the two of them, about that boy’s demeanor and the way he seemed to be dragged along, set Krahe off. She had seen human trafficking countless times; in fact, she had personally depopulated entire sub-sectors that had been used for that revolting practice. Seeing that woman all but dragging the child along was dubious enough, but the fact she looked utterly unlike the boy was another nail in her coffin. In fact, she didn’t look much like a real person at all. It wasn’t obvious at a glance, not something a normal person would easily notice; no baneworm tendrils visible under her skin, no evidence of heavy cosmetic grafting, nothing so surface-level. It was her entire being, particularly her face and the manner in which she moved. Krahe had seen it countless times; gangsters, merchants of death, loan sharks, corporate ladder-climbers, politicians.
If Krahe’s measure of her was right, the fundamental thread of humanity inside that woman was too severely corroded for her to mask it at all times - and as far as she knew, there was nobody looking right now.
“There’s someone approaching the entrance. Stay out of sight if you can,” she said to Casus. She rushed along, sending Barzai to the underpass, where she left him hovering in a manner impossible for a living bird. Hidden from sight, the eidolon hung there, flapping his wings without disturbing the air. Closer and closer. Krahe timed her approach so she would entrap the woman, while Casus hung back, ducking into an alleyway.
From this up close, she would be able to be sure. She just needed the woman to face her, and she did. At first she turned slightly to face the hidden entrance, glimpsing Krahe in the periphery, after which she whipped around to face her, reaching for something on her hip.
“It’s… It’s you… The one from the posters!” came an alarmed utterance. The woman raised her barrier, forming a translucent shield of greenish-blue hexagons. It was about a meter tall, a bit less wide, and flat rather than domed. Meanwhile, she raised one hand, forming octahedral spikes in front of each finger. With her other, she held onto the boy. There was a feral kind of fear in her eyes.
“Oh? You know me? Then this’ll be easier. Just answer me one question. Just one. Easy, right? Where are you taking the kid? Tell the truth for once in your wretched life, and I won’t kill you, or maim you.”
Krahe genuinely meant that. If the woman spoke truthfully, she would choke her out, tie her up, and get Casus to drag her off to be detained by the church. She also knew that was astronomically unlikely to come to pass.
“H-huh? Him? I- He’s my cousin’s little brother. I’m taking him home, yeah, taking him home.”
Even without the kid’s eyes screaming that it was a lie, it would’ve been obvious. Slowly approaching, raising her own Barrier just in case, Krahe reiterated: “That’s a lie. One more chance, c’mon. I won’t pretend to be an Inquisitor, but I have my own means of getting the truth when I want it. If you lie, or even try to avoid the question, may the spirit of a raven peck out your eyes. Well?”
Obviously, a human trafficker wouldn’t openly admit that she was a human trafficker.
She opened her mouth to speak, and the moment the beginnings of a word came out, Krahe willed Barzai to set upon her. He revealed himself, screeching with the voice of some bird that definitely wasn’t a raven, and indeed set upon the trafficker-woman’s face, tearing into her Wards with his beak, reddish flame spilling out. She wildly fired off her thaumaturgy, but Krahe had already dived, and before the boy could be hurt, Krahe had the woman in a simplistic grapple. She had surfaced and simply wrapped her left arm around the trafficker from behind, pinning her arms to her body.
The trafficker-woman’s strength faltered utterly against hers, despite the fact she was stronger than a civilian man. Thanks to consistent physical training, Krahe’s Force had grown to E2, but that alone would not have produced this result. The Left Arm of Chernobog grew in strength alongside all of her attributes, including even the Shardkey’s benefits. This all coalesced into a crushingly powerful bearhug that squeezed the air out of the trafficker-woman’s lungs and forced her to let go of the boy. Despite all this, the trafficker got her bearings and fought back, summoning up ghostly hands that snatched Barzai, grabbed at Krahe’s hair, and attempted to grab at any possible point to get her off the trafficker. Quickly realizing that it wasn’t working, the trafficker gathered all but one at Krahe’s arm and simply tried to pry it free - the one leftover fighting with Barzai. These ghostly limbs were all just as strong as the trafficker, four of them managing to weaken Krahe’s grasp enough for the woman to slip free. Krahe couldn’t help but wonder whether she was a trafficker because of this ability, or vice versa.
Either way, it didn’t matter. She was a corpse that didn’t know it was dead yet.
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