Chapter 79 – The next day

Chapter 79 – The next day

John was sitting at the breakfast table, Aclysia standing next to his chair. Rave had gone home during the late hours of the day and so the house was quiet, save for him munching his cornflakes while impatiently eyeing his smartphone.

The electronic wonderwork was protected by a black leathery case, the type with a lid to further protect the screen. Said lid was currently open and the reflective glass contrasted with the light brown colour of the wooden breakfast table underneath.

A buzzing noise and the screen sprang to life. John quickly grabbed the phone, checking what he had received.

SecretBlonde: Here is your file. Should contain everything you need ~

Victoria_Beloozero.pdf

Download attached file?

John accepted and the file opened on the screen. In a way it was a blessing that Rave had decided to leave for the night. He was a much faster reader than her, getting through this on his own would be faster.

The document started with things he was already roughly aware of. The way Victoria’s parents had started all the way at the heart of the Soviet Union and slowly made their way west, marking every major city they had stayed in along the way as well as marking the exact point where they slipped into the Abyss (Paris). Apparently, many a refugee that had magical potential was drawn into the Abyss during and after the world wars. Times of stress did have a habit of letting more people discover alternative lifelines. While interesting it was not what he searched for.

‘Do I trust this intel?’ John asked himself for a moment. The answer to that was a simple ‘Yes’. SecretBlonde, for as annoying as they had been to John, had been vetted enough that Romulus trusted the intel and they stood nothing to gain from lying to John. He could reasonably expect this document to contain as much of the truth as could have been unearthed by the information broker.

This meant that he now had a decision to make. He could either go and confront Victoria or Travolta about the whole thing. Eyes closed, he calmly thought about the matter for a few moments. Victoria tried to harm them, he still hoped it was not an attempt on their lives, (although the sniper rifle made that kind of hard to believe) so running face first into that was naïve. It was the better decision to just ask Travolta about this first, even if he wouldn’t be willing to tell him the truth, he might at least be willing to help snuff out Victoria. John would feel a lot safer with him around.

Hoping the Guild Leader would even pick up, John called him on his phone. “Who and What?” Came the brash voice after a few seconds of waiting.

“Hey, it's John, I found out a few things about Victoria that...” A pained groan came from the other side,

“Oh shut the fuck up. That’s not important right now.... her pain is....” He stopped for a few long seconds. “...I mean HIS, his pain. Go look after Jimmie, they told me he woke up, we can talk afterwards.” Travolta ended the call and John looked at the phone in confusion.

‘That really doesn’t sound good,’ he thought. Whatever the Blood of Thana (presumably) was doing to Travolta had him all mixed up. Confronting a mentally unstable Travolta on his own sounded like a terrible idea. Also, his pool of choices had just expanded to three. Best to call Rave in on this matter as well.

“Whaddup, John?” His girlfriend’s cheery voice came from the other side. From the bass in the background he judged that she was in her room right now. He quickly brought her up to speed and then presented their options to her.

“We could either go and confront Travolta directly about this, going against his clear wishes, run face first into Victoria’s barrier or look after Jimmie.”

“Well, as my last idea was clearly stupid.” Rave said, “I will give you the chance to be wrong this time.”