[Jason Lance — Soul Integrity: 81%.]
The Flesh Bishop's dominion over its own flesh had an extraordinary reach.
Even across several kilometers, Raphael could feel the severed hand, a faint, distant awareness, like knowing which direction your shadow falls.
The hand moved.
Fingers pressed together, the hand flattening into a blade shape aimed at the sky.
Then the arcane energy started flowing through the channel from kilometers away, feeding into it, building up inside with nowhere to go.
Ten seconds. Twenty. Thirty.
It didn't expand. The pressure just kept climbing, the arcane packed tighter and tighter, the whole thing vibrating with contained force.
The helicopter moved directly overhead.
The hand released like an arrow off a bowstring pulled past its limit.
The sound it made wasn't a crack. It was a concussion, a shockwave that flattened every tree within a hundred meters, stripped the branches bare, sent leaves spinning outward in every direction from the point of launch.
The pressure front expanded in a ring, silent at the center, deafening at the edge.
The tendril hit the helicopter before the pilot had time to register what was coming.
Clean through the middle. The aircraft came apart in two halves, the rotor assembly shearing free and catching in the treetops, still spinning, chewing through branches until the momentum died.
The pilot went dark on impact, no drama, just lights out.
The tendril didn't stop. It pulled back into the air, split, and went two directions at once.
One half wrapped around the section with the unconscious pilot, carrying it away from Keynes, drawing any potential response team in the wrong direction, buying distance.
The other half reached into the remaining section and found Eva.
Her weapons were already gone, confiscated, but she didn't fight the touch, she let the tendril coil around her and pull her clear of the wreckage.
The empty rear section dropped into the trees.
BOOM.
The fuel tank went up orange, the fireball lighting the sky in a warm pulse, and Raphael saw it through the tree line.
The light it threw was the particular quality of early morning, the kind that came just before actual dawn, when the darkness was already losing its conviction.
He'd been fighting since nightfall.
The tendril lowered Eva to the ground in front of him and withdrew.
She rubbed her arm where it had been, her expression caught somewhere between relief and something she didn't want to name.
The sensation on her skin wasn't wet, wasn't cold, just a texture that her brain kept insisting shouldn't be there.
She shuddered once, shook it off, and told him what she'd seen. Vigo. The Mirror of Self. The swap mechanics. The mole.
"Vigo," Raphael repeated, turning it over. "She called herself that."
He filled her in on his side, the Inquisitor, the werewolf, the dying word. They stood in the grey pre-dawn light and looked at the picture it assembled.
He shrugged off his jacket, tore the white shirt underneath into strips, pulled the jacket back on.
Then he closed his eyes and let the Profiler ability work, organizing the sequence, mission intake, equipment issue, the missing healer, the Tribunal tip, the Mirror of Self, the arrest order, and handed the written account to Eva.
"Listen. Here's what happens now." His voice was measured. "You leave this District. I go back near the university. I have something I can try for Evelyn, no guarantees, but it's the only option I can see."
Eva's lip moved.
"I'm coming with you. We're partners. Evelyn's situation is partly on me, I was supposed to be watching, I should have caught the signs earlier. I'm not letting you go alone..."
"No."
He shook his head once.
"This next part is dangerous in a way where having you there makes it worse, not better. IFSA will have the city locked down already.
The moment I stop moving, I'm walking into a direct confrontation, and there's a real chance they take me.
If we both go, if we're both caught, Evelyn stays where she is. Permanently."
He held her eyes. "Someone has to know where she is. Someone has to still be free to do something about it later. That has to be you."
Eva's jaw tightened.
"What if I stay and you..."
"You can't do what I need to do there. I can." He said it plainly, no softening. "You're the one who needs to run. That's the assignment."
She was still looking for the argument that worked. He could see her finding them and discarding them one after another.
"If you get caught..."
"Then you're the only one who knows. Which is exactly why you have to go."
He put his hand on her shoulder briefly, then held out two keys. One for the car. One smaller, older, a physical key for a physical door.
"Evelyn's car is at junction 13 on the outskirts. Her own vehicle, no organization tracking on it. Take it to the 22nd District, dock quarter, building 22. I kept a safe house there from my Black Gloves days. Wait for me."
He didn't give her time to respond. One hand on her shoulder, a single light push in the right direction, and he turned and walked.
Eva stood there holding both keys.
Her grip tightened until her knuckles went pale, until her nails were pressing into her palm hard enough to sting.
"Raphael." Her voice caught. She tried again. "Partner. Acting commander. I'll be there. Bring her back. Just, at least you have to come back too. You have to."
He raised one hand without turning around. The gesture was easy, almost careless.
"I'll try. Don't worry about me, I have options." A pause. "If you have time, find me a replacement hand. Something mechanical. There's a card in the safe house mattress, use it."
Then he was gone into the trees.
Eva stared at the space he'd left.
She turned and ran.
The streets in the early grey light were almost empty, just the occasional person stopping to stare as she sprinted past, her breath ragged, the keys cutting into her palm with each stride.
She thought about the first mission. The three of them in the car on the way to the Lance house, Evelyn suggesting something from the passenger seat, Raphael making a face about it that wasn't quite a frown.
The cafeteria the morning after, the argument about what counted as food. Small things. The kind that only feel significant once they're behind you.
A team she'd thought she'd have for years.
Gone in one night.
The tears came without her deciding they would. She didn't stop to wipe them.
She'd heard what Raphael hadn't said, underneath the steady voice and the clean logistics.
I'll try. No guarantees. Even him, especially him, couldn't be certain he was coming out of this.
She didn't know when she'd see either of them again.
She ran harder.