Thief episode 5

[eva_02's soul]

"The time has come now! I tried to find him but could not, and now i fear it is too late to inform him. I must maintain a vigil..."

~Diary of brother Darius

In the center of the city, the 3rd municipal Bank and Trust buildings spired like glittering diamonds in a bed of useless stones. The two tall towers housed many of the wealthiest peoples wallets and other trinkets. The items inside the Hammerite temple may have been religiously priceless, but the items held in the Bank were real treasure. However, only the most foolish would even dream of breaking in there without detailed plans, and about ten thousand dollars worth of tools. Nevertheless on this pitch black night, an even darker shadow was inching slowly up the side of the first building, the one used for the normal accounts, the one with minimal security.
Garret swung the climbing pick into the wall, furthering his ascent ever so slightly, before taking a glance at his wrist. The LCD glowed green agains the black night, but was covered up by his cloak so as not to arouse suspicions. The number thirty blinked steadily into Garrett's face, showing that he still had a few floors left to climb. Cautiously, he sighed, furrowing his brow as he swung the other pick higher up, and kept going to his destination.
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Garrett swung his sword at the legs of the first assailant, incapacitating him, before letting his momentum carry the blade into the stomach of the second man. Emotionless, he pulled out a pistol and shot the man in the head, the force sliding the body clean off of his purple edge. "very good" Darius said, clapping his hands and turning off the simulation unit. Garrett smiled, turning off the blade and walking smugly over to where his mentor was waiting by the wall. "Thankyou Darius" he finally said "I may not know what this training is for, but I'm excelling in it all the same!"
Darius laughed " Yes, you are, Garrett! In fact its been remarkable so far, would you like to try it again?" he asked, gesturing over to the fighting area. Before Darius could reply, the oak doors to the room swung open, and Mephisto walked in, looking like he was in a hurry. "Brother Garrett, I ask that you wait outside until Darius and I have had a discussion" He huffed out, not waiting for an answer before shooing Garrett over to the doors he had just come from. Without a word, Mephisto shut Garett out and he could only try and hear from his side what they were saying.
"I think we need to slow down secondary training..."
Garrett heard something inaudible, and then Mephisto's voice responded.
"Acolytes are beginning to ask questions, we are meant to observe and write down they say, not kill"
The next thing he heard made Garrett's eyes widen, but it was so soft he could not tell who it was coming from.
"Yes, this is about Garrett... " Inaudible whispering was heard for a while, then when the voice rose a little bit higher Garrett managed to catch something about "written in the book?" It sounded more like a query than a statement, so Garrett took it to mean somebody asked a question about him. Nothing again for a long time, and then finally another question, this one as puzzling as the first :
"...Destroy us or save us?"
Garrett looked busy as he heard footsteps coming across the tiled floor to the doors he was eavesdropping at, and then Mephisto again hurried out, only this time he seemed a bit...angrier than when he walked in, or was it fear? Garrett watched as the older man walked away into the cloister as Darius placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Garrett, shall we continue?" he said gently. Garrett stole one last look at Mephisto, before heading back into the warmth.
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"it's freezing" Garrett whispered to himself as he reached the appropriate wall, firing the grappling dart with one hand and hanging on to a clibing pick with the other. When he heard the cord stop coming out, he pulled the gun back to his body, and using the excess cord tied it to a piece of piping jutting from the wall he was hanging from. He 'snapped off' the cord and put the gun back onto his belt, before reaching out to the wire he had just lain across the two buildings and easing his pick out of the wall. The taut feeling of the steel cord comforted him, the rest of his body sliding out from the wall to meet his arm, and he rapidly started to climb hand-over-hand to the other giant tower. He could feel some ice crystals forming on his sleeves by the time he finally reached the other side and hugged up as far as he could dare to try for against the wall. He peered to his left at the yellow light shining from out of the pastic window, before assessing the situation.
/doesn't seem to be any guards there, all down in the lower floors trying to look tough I suppose/ he thought to himself, placing his other wrist up against the window. He was about to test out something else he modified from Keeper technology. He tensed his wrist hard against the underside of the strange wrist-pendant thing, in such a way that the computers inside could tell it was deliberately done and not accidental, and a blade like a stiletto was generated from the nanomachines inside, punching a small hole through the material. Straining from holding onto the cord for such a period of time, Garrett slwoly jerked his wrist upwards and then, leaning over to do so, to the sides. After it was done, he turned the wrist blade off and placed his feet up against the wall, supporting his weight with both hands on the cord. Cocking his left leg to the side, he did a heavy kick to the nearest side of the reverse-C shape he had dug into the window, creating a hole just large enough for him to edge his way through. He crumpled onto the carpet of the corridor he found himself in, taking in large gulps of air as the adrenaline slowly worked its way out of his veins. He was finally inside, now he could grab The Eye and get out.
Garrett stuck close to the wall as he crept around the building, only having to knock out a few guards with his high-payload darts. When he got to where the plans referred him to, he observed for a few minutes from the darkened office he found himself in. A guard came back, cup of coffee in his hand and machine gun around his back, and took up his post guarding the door. Silently, Garrett took out a dart from his bandolier and fired into the guard's neck, adding to his knockout tally for the night. He then slipped out his ICEpicks and put the electronic lock through the normal routine. While the cards were doing their thing, Garrett did something he didn't normally do on the job, he yawned. His eyes half closed with boredom. Garrett had been doing this thing for too long and far too many times, he was bored, and he made a concious decision: He was going to get the money from Constantine and that was definately it, he'd have no money hassles ever again and he could back out from this boring job and all it entailed.
The door sprang open, and Garrett slipped inside. This room looked very metallic, like most vaults would. Hard steel floors, reinforced walls and finally, in the center of the room bathed in a cool light to contrast the warmth of the office was The Eye. Garrett smiled to himself, looking at his prize. It was triangular in appearance, and had three prongs coming from its three corners, in the point of the triangle was what looked like a crystal of some kind. His eyes closed, pondering the appearance of this "treasure" It didn't look like a valuable jewel, it looked like a hunk of rock.
He reached out to pick it up, it seemed cold to touch, and he sneaked it into one of the compartments on his clothing. He was all done when he heard the clinking of a metal floor being trodden on. He didn't care who it was, his secondary training took over. He whipped out a silenced pistol, spun around on impulse and shot the janitor in the face. He had no concern for stealth anymore, the silent alarm that he semi-carelessly tripped denied the use of it anyway. He felt the slightest touch of a wafer-thin beam pass onto his skin as he picked up The Eye.
The thief's face took on a hardened expression, that of a man using impulses to stay alive, as he hurried out into the corridor. Two guards were running down the corridor towards him, but skidded to a halt as the pistol arm raised and fired, both shots passing cleanly through the foreheads of the men, one shot a piece. Garrett started walking like the lord of destruction towards the guard's cooling bodies, towards the window he used to get in.
People were watching on the now active security monitors as a guard flew off of his feet, slamming into one of the plastic windows, leaving a splatter of blood as he collapsed lifeless to the ground. There was no compassion shown as the life in the eyes of the dead men seeped out, leaving them cold and dark and emotionless. Eventually, Garrett reached his exit point, only to see the floor indicator above an elevator at the end of the hall count down. Silently, he slid a satchel charge from his back pocket, throwing it to the foot of the elevator door while he slammed a smaller door charge onto the window. He waited at a safe distance for the door to open, and the people to spot the satchel before detonating both charges at the same time, the large explosion tearing through flesh and steel at once, destroying the elevator, while the smaller charge busted the window open. Garrett leaned out of the window, grabbing on to the cord with one hand while releasing the hook embedded into the outer concrete with the other. The wind swept at his face, threatening to loosen his weak grip on the cord that was cutting through the air towards the wall of the first mighty tower, and Garrett tried depserately to hold on strong. He knew that acting on his tense impulses, his secondary training too long would start damaging his body and affecting him mentally, but he had to keep going a little while longer, then he could let his adrenaline-soaked body cool down, AFTER he had recieved his money of course.
The cord hit the wall, and Garrett slid off the end from the momentum and barrelled through a normal, glass window somewhere near the ground floor. A guard that was walking down the hall was surprised, spinning around to see what the noise was but only getting halfway before a bullet was fired into his brain. Garrett ran down the carpeted hall, looking out over the balcony to his right to find a good place to drop from. When he found a flat, level surface as a target, he vaulted himself over the balcony, pulling a second silenced pistol from out of his back bandolier. From outside, people could hear several mute sounds that sounded like gunshots emenate from the bank foyer, and then silence. As the doorman looked inside to investigate, a bullet broke through the glass panes of the revolving door, piercing his head and leaving a large door through the glass that Garrett could run through. People scattered as he made his way to his car, starting the engine and making an escape as employees and guards spilled out from both buildings, but too late.
Garrett noticed a little side alley, and pulled over. He slowly swallowed, and shut his eyes. Thoughts ran through his brain, slwoly and calmly, as he made another weak swallow and took in some air. Eventually the near overdose of his bodys natural chemicals caught up to him, and his third weak swallow turned into vomiting. After that was over, he cleaned his mouth, and dejectedly rested his forehead on the steering wheel of the car.
/okay, compose yourself/ he thought after a while /its only death, that's all! I've lived too long for it to affect me, so it isn't going to start now!/ He went on, trying to reassure himself. In the end, Garrett made his way out of the side-alley and drove to his garage, because it was possible for his car to be identified, and began the long trek along the thieves highway, or the rooftops as civilians called them, to the sector that Contantine lived in.
As he jumped on to another grey- cement rooftop, he was halted by a familiar voice shouting his name. His head jerked upwards, and he slowly and angrily turned around. "What do you want?" he spat out at Darius, who was emerging from the darkest spot of the dark roof. "I have heard a lot of noise and commotion from the Bank and Trust, lots of deaths. I take it you have been there!" He replied with a lack of sympathy for the dead. "Hey, i'm just using the skills you burned into my skull, and I got something to show for it too, so you can go get back to your secret book society now!' Garrett exclaimed, quickly interrupting Darius. Darius stepped closer, allwoing his face to come into the dimness. He looked worried, anxious about something. "So you have it?" he asked, almost biting his lip with tension. Garret showed Darius a glimpse of The Eye from within his robes, and nodded. "Yeah, i have it, and now i'm going to get paid millions for it. I-" Darius interrupted, stepping further towards Garrett, nearly reaching for him although not in the gentle manner of old. "You can't let him take it, We need it! It is much better with us! let us have it, LET US HAVE IT!" Darius stammered out, yelling the final words out with a lunge for Garrett's pocket. Garrett stepped back and immediately ran off into the darkness while Darius was stumbling, yelling behind his shoulder. "I'll never let you have this thing, I stopped listening to you when you lied to me!" Darius, got up and brushed off his dusty robes, before lowering his head down, and nearly punching the ground. "Damn it!" he said "Mephisto and I were wrong, the books...can not be changed!" He sat down on the dusty roof, and stared into the night.
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Garrett walked through Constantine's mansion into a chapel at the basement level, it looked very dark and depressing. Black onyx pillars surounded a black Onyx floor, the middle passage draped in a red carpet. At the end lied an altar of sorts, and a stained glass window depicting what looked like a Hammerite being hanged from a tree.The whole place seemed to have an underlying blanket of depression to it. Constantine was at the altar, showing glee amidst the sadness of his chamber.
"Welcome back, Mr. Garrett" he said "Do you have what I asked for?" Garrett nodded to the query, pulling The Eye from his hidden pocket. As soon as he saw the rock his grin became twice as wide, and he could barely speak his next words. "Excellent, Mr. Garrett. You are indeed worthy of being called a master thief, what you just performed was..."
"Exquisite!" Viktoria said, stepping from one of the corners of the room, her delicate skin glowing eerily in the dark. She walked up to to Garrett and took The Eye into her hands. "Constantine and I are very thankful for all your work, even though The Eye is...defective!" her sing song voice said in a calming tone, before she headed back to Constantine. Something struck Garrett as being off, he had the gift of being able to see things that normal men could not see easily, but Viktoria just walked out of nowhere. It was the one time in life Garrett had been one hundred percent taken off guard and he didn't like it. Now he was being told the thing he risked his life for was faulty! "What?" he asked, getting a little impatient. Constantine spoke up before Viktoria got a chance to. "i'm afraid Viktoria is quite right, Mr. Garrett. This eye is completely blind!"he smirked. Garrett was getting edgy, he wanted out of this place. "Look, it's just a rock!" he said, his tone raising "Its what you asked for! Now am I going to get paid or not?" Constantine and Viktoria both smiled vicously. "Of course" Constantine said "Please give Mr. Garrett his...Compensation!" At the word Compensation, Constantines voice fell into an echoing boom, and before Garrett could react Viktoria threw her arms forwards as hundreds of vines flew out at Garrett. He felt them impact into his chest, knocking the wind out of him, before he was pciked up off of his feet and slammed into the pillar directly behind him. As he made contact, the vines wrapped around it, pinning his arms where they could not do damage, and covering his body in a rich green wrapping. For the first time since he left the keeper's, Garrett could practically see his life collapsing into pieces around him. Surveying her handiwork, Viktoria had changed into her natural form, her piercing eyes completely red. Her skin while still being pale, had begun to resemble treebark :cracked and rough. She was still beautiful, but definately in a different way.
Constantine had changed too.
Two goot's hooves slammed around the alter, as the third eye embedded in his head came out of hiding, looking at the captured thief. He shed his human form, jutting out to twice the size, and grew thick hair to cover his now rippling muscles. Finally, horns had jutted out of his head, completing the image of some sort of demon. "He thinksies me a man-fool like himsies, But I shows him wrong!" he yelled in his now god-like voice. "Viktoria, gives me what I require!" Viktoria nodded, and her long fingers formed two razor-sharp 'tongs' of bark. "Now, man-flesh!" she said, walking towards Garrett, who was just staring in abject terror "your compensation is at hand! Gives me your flesh-eye so that my masters eye of stone may see!" She finished, flicking out with her tongs. Garrett felt a sharp searing pain, his vision went red partially, and then he felt a sense of loss for something important. Viktoria held his right eye in her claws, which formed back into a hand, giving Garrett's eye to Constantine, who laughed. "Yes! Yes" he shouted in relish as the blood from the thief's eye splashed onto The Eye, the tongs from the rock nestling the fleshy orb snugly on the point of the pyramid.
Garrett was now overwelmed in pain and terror, and the vines slacked a little, letting him crumple at the bottom of the pillar. With his remaining eye, he saw the large hoof of Constantine slam down in front of him. "Look at me! Look at me, Man-flesh! I am the devourer of Man-fools, the Trickster of Legend!"
Garrett searched through his numb brain for things he remembered from his time as a keeper. The Trickster was a god, reportedly from another place in time, but that was all that was really known about him, the rest of it merely rumor. Looking at him, Garrett saw that a lot of the rumors were true. That was all Garrett saw, though. He had resisted it for several minuted but finally he couldn't take it anymore. His eye rolled up into his head, and he blacked out.

To be continued

[Cetacious]

Those keepers are definitely giving me the kreeps, I love the way you ended up tying them together with The Eye, Garret shows every time more to be a solid human character(secondary training and so).
Constantine, on the other hand, is not that scary, specially not in the last scene. Esential rule of scary tale everybody seems to forget these days: Don't get funky! Having him grow horns and talk like retarded just makes the whole thing sound too fake to be frightening. It also does not fit the atmosphere you've built up this far, at least not in my opinion. But then again, it's your story, and you pretty much seem to know what you're doing here.
Keep it up, straight forward!