Children of a Lesser God

Chapter 242: A Visitor

On the walk back to the house, Laz was quiet. Julia kept looking his way though, wanting to ask him questions, but she held back since he looked deep in thought.

And Laz was deep in thought.

The facts that he found out tonight didn't really give him anything more than an address. Although that was a start, it wasn't much else. The building would need to be watched, the people there checked out, etc. It wasn't like Laz couldn't guess who was responsible for the missing people. He had talked with Madam Cal and knew that she wasn't involve. He had also talked to the sleeping goddess and found out things from her which meant the Heaven or Hell wasn't involved. Just by the process of elimination, that only left the church.

Form what Laz had gathered, they were truly the enemy. On top of that, from what Laz had gathered, they had the help of the government as well.

'This whole thing is getting more and more tricky. I either need Freya's help or I will have to do something about that council... that reminds me."

Laz turned over to look at Julia and noticed that she was staring at him. She turned away and blushed a bit at his sudden stare.

"Tell me a bit more about that council you are a part of?" Laz figured he should ask nicely. It seemed like Julia was an ally, but who knew how long things like that lasted.

"Well... once the groups got together, every group with a member at the late stage of condensation realm got a spot on the council, originally. Once some of the council members started breaking through to the foundation realm... well, things got dicey. See, the first one to do it felt that he was special and should lead the council from that point on. Due to there being so many members, around twenty four groups in total, he couldn't just take control even with his realm. He wasn't strong enough to fight the entire council by himself. In fact, most of the members don't even know how to fight. It pathetic. Anyway, that's when the politics started. He just needed to get a majority of vote him as leader and that would be that. While he sucked at fighting, he was still the most powerful one on the council so eventually, he was able to get enough support with promises of benefits to those who sided with him. Eventually, the group of twenty four would turn into a group of twelve, or so he promised. The day that he was going to declare a vote for his nomination, another member of the council, one that wasn't a part of his group, showed that he too broke into the foundation realm. After that, it was chaos as more and more members broke through. Eventually, it just turned into a constant fight. The whole reason for the council in the first place was to allow us to compete with the much stronger Vodun and the Vampyres, but with things the way they are now, no one is acting serious. Not that there have been many problems. If an infected acts up somewhere within the limits of the city, either the Vodun or the Vampyres have taken care of it. The less attention we get, the better off we are. But despite that, there have been times when members of guilds have gone missing and they can all be linked back to the church. When it comes to them, the members of the council just act like nothing happened. It only took a year and a few months for the entire goal of the council to be forgotten. It's sad really..." As Julia finished her story, Laz finally understood what the problem was.

There were too many chefs in the kitchen and none of them wanted to be ordered around by others. Even with Laz's limited knowledge of politics, he knew that this usually would spell the end of an alliance.

"So it's not just been normal people disappearing, but also infected?" Laz asked, hoping to get more info.

"It's much less rare, but yes. When we tracked those people to the church, the council decided to not pursue it. But once we found that normal people had been going missing as well, we started to fear that something really bad was going on. After all, normal people should have no value to the church. And when normal people start going missing, everyone blames the infected. The only way to keep ourselves out of the spot light was to do something. And yet those idiots refused to act, again."

"So that's why you blew up?"

"Yeah. But since I'm still only at the late stage of condensation realm, who would take me seriously? The council just figured that since the numbers weren't too high, the missing people would be ignored like the missing infected. But then the number missing started increasing and we started taking the blame."

"So, to appease the non leading members of the council, they assigned the whole thing to you to figure out?"

"They made it a condition of our group to continue to be on the council since we lacked a foundation realm member."

Laz couldn't help but laugh at the stupidity of this council. Why was there even a point of joining it? As though she had heard his thoughts, Julia answered him.

"I know. You must wonder why we would even place any value on being a member of this council? Well, as bad as it is, at least we are part of a stronger unit. Less of our members are targeted because the church knows about us and doesn't want to get into a full scale war. Even though our power can't match with either of the big three, it's not something to be ignored either. It's the only safety net we have right now..."

Laz understood after hearing her explanation. It wasn't a hard concept to grasp. As long as they remained together and there was a hint that the entire council would move, then it would mean a bit of trouble that the church didn't want right now. When they finished with what they were doing though, Laz could see them focusing on eliminating the council as soon as possible.

"We're back!" Laz noticed that while they had been talking, they had returned to the apartments. The street was deserted and whatever things had happened with the cops was now over, no surprise considering how late it was.

Laz finished his conversation with Julia and agreed that he would talk to Freya before going to their own sides of the building.

As Laz walked in, he noticed that Benny, Eddy and Abraham were waiting for him in the living room. They jumped when he walked in..

"You're ok?"

"Are you ok?"

"You're back?"

The three young men spoke in quick succession as Laz waited until they were done to answer. He briefly explained how he had chased one of the men halfway around the city before losing him and then it took him a while to remember his way back. The excuse sounded lame, but since they knew that Laz was from out of town, it didn't sound too crazy.

After that, the guys explained that all of the attackers had been arrested and they were assured that the police would get to the bottom of the matter. After all, a group of locals attacking working out of towners was a really bad thing for this city during the festival. No one, be it business owners or politicians wanted to see that and the guys couldn't wait for the results as they had gotten tired of encountering this shit.

Laz couldn't help but laugh at how much they seemed to trust the police. Laz knew better. But since the three with the deepest connections were now gone from the group, it was just a question of how rich the other parents were to get their kids out of this. Laz doubted anyone would get punished for real unless they needed a scapegoat, which they didn't.

After the excitement of the night wore down, everyone went to bed as there was still work in the morning.

Laz got up early like normal and did his exercise and as was the new normal, Julia joined him. She didn't talk much this morning, just going through he normal routine. Afterwards, they both took the chance to spar with each other and Julia went as hard as she could, surprising Laz. But he fought back as well, causing them both to improve. Laz had the strength and some training while Julia had trained for much longer. In Laz's case, he had fought more life and death battles and his style proved it. Thanks to that, they both were able to fight at a higher level of intensity with Laz polishing his style while Julia could familiarize herself with blows meant to kill.

Just as Laz and Julia were finishing up, something tickled Laz's senses and he jumped back, reacting quickly. A small hole had buried itself in the ground right where Laz had been standing. These were quickly followed up by another and another, forcing Laz to retreat. He knew the shot wouldn't hurt him, but he didn't want to reveal that just yet. At the same time, he dragged Julia out of the way and under some cover.

Just as Laz hit the ground the last time, he suddenly sprung forth, leaving a shocked Julia still hiding behind a tree with her hands covering her head.

His speed was immense and he ran like a shadow, vanishing from sight.

"Hmm?"

As the mysterious gunman looked around, they noticed that they couldn't find where Laz had disappeared to before a shadow appeared at their back. Laz was standing there holding a simple gun in his hand pointed at the masked figured.

"Who are you?" Laz couldn't sense an ounce of hostility from this person and got the bizarre impression that this was just a greeting.

"Has it really been that long?" The strange yet familiar voice responded to his question while Laz was forced to jump back again. At some point, a strange blue being had appeared and attacked him with a sword, forcing him to retreat. As hard as Laz's skin was, he felt a sense of danger from this being that wasn't human.

As he got a closer look at the being, the assassin stood up and faced Laz before slowly removing their mask.

"Malene?"