Chapter 284: The Hyena’s Scent
Stone ground against stone overhead. The movable shelf closed across the top of the stairs, and a red security line formed over the route.
The sealed stair was useless. Rias changed direction before the guard at the controls could turn and trap her against it.
Only the aisle beside the formula cabinets remained open. Raze had left it that way deliberately.
Rias entered it anyway, then used Shadow Step to leave the first patch of darkness before Raze could close in behind her. She emerged beneath a hanging chain, caught it with her free hand, and swung around the end of the cabinet row.
Raze was already there with Deadmaw in his hand.
He had ignored the shadow and gone straight to the spot where a fleeing assassin would have to land.
Rias released the chain early. Deadmaw missed her stomach by inches and split the cabinet behind her. Formula slates spilled from the broken shelves and shattered across the floor, but Raze ignored the glowing fragments and kept his gaze on her.
"You keep going high," he said. "It worked once. I know where you have to come down now."
Rias kept Gloamneedle between them and shifted her attention to the guards closing from both sides.
The wounded guard forced himself upright while the one at the controls left the sealed stair and began circling toward the other end of the cabinets.
Rias stepped over a glowing formula shard. As the guards closed in from both ends of the row, she pressed her forearm over the recording crystal at her belt and watched Raze advance.
Not yet.
—
The red line inside Martin’s visitor token snapped toward the closed storefront, and the distance between him and Rias changed so quickly that the numbers blurred. Her message opened a moment later.
He dropped the reinforced flask charms into their open case and ran. The clerk called after him, but the staff who had watched him play the awkward boyfriend now had no trouble remembering exactly who he was.
One attendant stepped in front of the paneled wall. "Sir, you can’t go through there. That corridor is staff only."
"My partner is inside, and she called for help. Move."
The attendant held his ground. "Your partner entered a restricted area. Security is already on the way. Step back from the wall and wait here."
Martin raised his wrist. The red line inside the couple token pointed straight through the man and into the wall.
"You can report both of us." Martin moved around him and pressed his token against the staff seal. "I’m not waiting while that number stops moving."
Red light flashed across the panel.
[Access denied.]
[Two Hearts, One Flask Visitor Pass does not grant staff-corridor access.]
The wall remained shut, but the red line still pointed through the panel. Between Rias’s shared route and his memory of where the attendant had pressed the black case, Martin could pick out the hidden door’s edge.
Martin summoned Robert’s Crystal Warhammer and forced its head into the narrow seam. He gripped the handle with both hands and braced his shoulder against the panel, but the internal track held while metal groaned behind the stone and the attendant shouted for him to stop.
Martin planted his feet and pushed until the panel opened far enough for the hammer to sink deeper. He hauled the handle sideways, forcing the hidden door back along its track.
A medicinal draft rushed through the opening.
"Call whoever you need," Martin said without looking back. "If Rias is wrong, you can charge me for the wall."
He squeezed through before either attendant put a hand on him.
Rias’s attached route led him along the same staff corridor. The token’s red line remained angled ahead while he passed the marked storage bays and reached the divided shelf at the end.
The divided shelf had sealed the route as well.
The distance reading between them held steady. Rias was no longer moving away.
Martin wedged the warhammer into the center split and forced the shelf apart. Empty bottles shattered inside as both halves scraped across their tracks. He tore an iron shelf brace loose, jammed it between the closing sections, and pulled the warhammer free before taking the service stairs two at a time.
Heat struck him near the bottom. The lower door stood open, revealing copper coils, sealed cauldrons, and glowing formula shards scattered across the floor.
Rias was trapped at the far end of the cabinets with Gloamneedle raised. Two Just Die players were closing in from opposite sides.
Raze Dawg stood between her and Martin.
Raze held Deadmaw in one hand, with Gravefang still across his back. Then Martin noticed the hyena-shaped pauldron on Raze’s left shoulder and recognized Ashjaw.
Raze followed Martin’s gaze. His grip tightened around Deadmaw, but he did not look surprised.
He turned away from Rias and faced him fully.
"Been waiting for the rematch, Emperoar."
Martin ignored Raze’s challenge. One of the Just Die guards still favored the shoulder Rias had split, but both were already moving again.
Behind Martin, the iron brace groaned inside the divided shelf. It had kept the staff route open this far, but every impact shuddered through the old mechanism. If it slipped, Rias could reach the stairs and still find herself trapped below the public quarter.
The cramped laboratory left Martin no safe place to pull Angel out of her pocket dimension. He would have to reach Rias without putting Angel within Raze’s reach.
Without taking his attention off Raze, Martin sent her a message.
[Emperoar: What still needs securing?]
[Flash Fang: Recording intact. The bonded-beast blood vial is beside the central cauldron.]
[Emperoar: Take the vial and use the stairs behind me. The upper shelf is jammed open.]
Rias glanced from the central table to Raze and the two guards.
[Flash Fang: That route is still blocked by Raze and both guards. Which one are you moving first?]
Rias held her position. She wanted a route she could trust, and Martin had not given her one yet.
Raze let the guards keep closing around Rias. "Plan all you want. My people aren’t waiting."
The unwounded guard shifted closer to the cabinet row, cutting Rias off from every large patch of shadow.
[Emperoar: I pull Raze toward the measuring table. You use the cabinet row to cross behind him, take the vial, and pass me on the stair side.]
[Flash Fang: Both guards can close that lane before I reach the stairs.]
[Emperoar: Then I move them first. Wait until the whole lane is open.]
Rias dipped her chin once, the only signal she risked giving him.
The wounded guard lunged for the crystal at Rias’s belt.
Rias turned sideways and let his hand pass her hip. Gloamneedle’s pommel struck beneath his jaw, snapping his head back, and her boot knocked his wounded arm into the cabinet. The rest of him slammed into it hard enough to shake the formula slates on the shelves.
The second guard rushed in before she could finish him.
Martin moved at the same time.