The cleaning process took Kurt a bit of time. Once he had made sure that the construct's remains were inert, he blew them away via wind sorceries. Then, he had to find his scabbard, which took him a couple minutes. And finally, he had to deal with the family he had most likely traumatized for…nothing, in the end.

  He didn't regret what he had done, per se. At the time, he really hadn't thought he would be able to stop the thing before it reached them, and letting them see it and evacuate would have risked straining the Veil's hold on their minds, with the risk of total instanity that comes with it. So he had done the best he could think of under the circumstances.

  And then he had found a way of beating the thing anyway, making the whole ordeal for nothing.

  He hopped back into the house via the broken window, crossed it and the back yard hurriedly, took hold of the cushion the family was lying down, and then dragged it back into the house proper. Putting every family member back into their repective beds took him three or four minutes. He didn't bother removing the Glamour around their heads. He could already feel it unravel; it would be long gone by morning time.

  Which left Kurt just one problem: the broken window. If he left the house without leaving any proof of his presence there, then it was possible the Glamour would blur the family's memories enough for them to forget about him. But if he left such an outlandish proof of his intrusion, that wouldn't happen. They would remember, and they would be scarred for it.

  Any mildly competent user of alteration sorceries would find it trivial to put the glass back together. Kurt was not part of that group. He knew how to blast things away with sorcery, not how to repair them.

  He spent more time looking down at the glass shards than he cared to admit. Finally, an idea came to him: he didn't need to repair the window; he just had to make it look like something else had broken it, something that wouldn't trigger the family's memories.

  Kurt looked at the house with the burnt off lawn. There was a garage right besides it, a separate construction instead of an inbulit one like the Darwin's own. He made his way there. There was a lateral door that he had no trouble lockpicking. The sedan within wasn't different; he entered it, undid its handbrake, the pushed the car door's switch.

  The sound of the engine was deafening, and Kurt tensed thinking it would alert the owners. After two minutes of standing silently in the dark, he realized this wasn't the case, and so he got back to business.

  The Darwin house stood before him, its broken window perfectly lined up with the open garage. It was as simple as Kurt pushing the sedan through the driveway, then the street, and finally the Darwin's front lawn, with its front bumper hovering right above the windowsill. He had to push the back down a bit so that its tires would burrow on the dirt and it wouldn't just roll back in the street, but by the end of it all, it was perfect. By the morning, all everyone would think happened here was a case of chronically careless neighbors.

  With the cover up done, Kurt rushed back to the motel. The entire thing, from him going in Conrad's pursuit to his coming back, took roughly an hour and a half.

  So it was natural that Mila would look so terrified when he saw her standing by their room's open door. He saw her before she saw him, and when he closed the distance and called for her the girl nearly jumped out her skin. Before he could speak, she rushed him, pulling him into a hug. She was trembling.

  "You didn't hang up the phone," she said, before separating. She looked at him with red, puffy eyes. "Mr. Anderson told me everything." She paused, looking down, then continued. "You found Conrad?"

  Kurt nodded. "Let's go inside. I'll explain there."

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  They entered the room, closing the door behind them, and sat side by side on the same bed. There, Kurt relayed the events of the last ninety minutes to the girl.

  "I…" Mila began, before chocking up. Kurt looped his arm around her small waist, pulling her closer. She leaned into the hug, and continued. "I can't believe he would do this. It…just doen't make sense."

  Kurt grunted, nodding, but said nothing. He knew that the only things he could say about the blond swordsman right now would be venomous cursing. He also knew that wouldn't help Mila feel any better. So he stayed silent.

  "From the beginning?" she asked. Kurt nodded. "He…he saved my life. He almost got killed to save me. How could he be a traitor?"

  "I don't know, Mila," Kurt said. "I just don't."

  She turned to look at his face. Whatever she saw there, it made her calm her breath and bring her own arm around Kurt's waist, then turn and loop another around his neck, so that her nose was pressed against Kurt's cheekbone.

  "What do you want to do now?" she asked. "I got the change-hotels plan from Mr. Anderson, but what's your plan?"

  "I don't have one," he admitted. As he did so, and as if admitting it lifted a burden from his spine, he found himself relaxing enough to turn and bring his other arm around Mila, turning the half-hug into a full one. "I think we should do as he says. I'll call him now, so he knows I'm okay, then we can go."

  Mila nodded, scratching her cheek against Kurt's, and pulled away.

  Kurt observed her instead of standing up. A question burned from the back of his throat. "What do you want to do?"

  She winced, puffing her cheeks, then shrugged loosely. "I…want to by your side, no matter what. If that's in some hotel room while waiting for Mr. Anderson, then that's fine. But… if it is wherever those cultists are, bringing them hell together and keeping the Red Aura away from their paws, then I think that would be better than fine."

  "Mila…" Kurt said, taken aback.

  "They are doing their big ritual thingy tonight, according to the masked guy," she reminded him. "There's no time for the DSP to deploy a thing. If there's a chance to stop them…"

  "It would have to be now, right?"

  Mila nodded, looking down.

  "That masked guy might have been lying," Kurt said. "Luring us to do something reckless."

  "Maybe," Mila admitted. "But…Conrad ran away tonight. He must have known that we would call back to the order in response to that, and discover his treachery. He must have known this would put Mr. Anderson's contact in the DSP in high alert, and that they would flood the city with every agent and freelancer they could. The only way that sequence of events works for him is if he can get his bussines here done now and flee right after."

  "I…understand," said Kurt, feeling his stomach churn. He looked down, slumping. "But even if you are right, we still only have half the answer: when but not where. Without Conrad finding their specific location's gonna be…" He stopped, and tensed.

  "Kurt?" Mila called.

  "I think I might have something," he said, reaching for his inventory. Three silver cannisters appeared on his open palm. Mila's eyes widened.

  "You think we could…?" she asked, leaving the end open.

  "If Conrad's Aura can be used to trace the Red One because they used to be one," Kurt said, shakin the silvery trinkets. "Then it should be doubly true for these guys, right?"

  "It…should," Mila agreed, looking at the silvery containers. "Kurt, I-I want to try. Even if we are risking our lives and everything, we just can't let those guys get away with this. I-"

  Kurt put a hand on her shoulder. Their eyes locked. Both pairs smoldered with determination.

  "Let's go."

  They strolled out the motel, and didn't stop until they reached the spot where Kurt and Conrad had dueled.

  "Woah," Mila said, taking in the scenery. "Shit really went down in here, uh?"

  "Yeah," Kurt said, looking guiltily at the Darwin house. "We should get going now. You ready?"

  She nodded, approaching him. Kurt dropped on one knee, facing away, and Mila clambered up to his back in a textbook piggy back ride. Mila could run very fast now, but Kurt was still much faster, and time was of the essence with this.

  Kurt took one cannister from his pocket, and handed it to Mila. She pinched one end of it, then, with a quick breath, she screwed it to one side. Immediately blood-red flames exploded from that spot, flaring up for a moment before being pulled forward by an unseen force.

  Kurt ran.

  They were out the neighborhood by the time the first cannister sputtered out. By then, the flames had been straing to the left as much as forward. Another cannister was handed, then snapped, and the race continued. This one took them decidedly away from the city and into the wilderness. By the time that one died, Kurt was standing atop a hill taller than any non-skyscrapper in the skyline. The cannister's Aura had been pointing even further away from the city, and towards the mountains.

  The last cannister was handed out with trembling hands, and snapped by clammy fingers, but when the red flared above head, Kurt ran without hesitation, down the opposite side of the hill and towards the darkness-shrouded badlands.

  Suddenly, the flares lurched to the right, sharply and suddenly. A change so abrupt, in the span of a few seconds, it meant one thing. They were exceptionally close to the Aura. Kurt followed the arrow, climbing another, even bigger hill. Once he reched its top and looked down, he saw it.

  The hill overloked a small valley, and in that valley there were people: two cars and an autovan formed a circle around an encampment, with robed cultists scuttling from and into them. Atop each vehicle was an array of portable spotlights, raining light to the space between the them, centered on the object at the core of it all.

  A black, metallic box the size of a coffin lay in the ground, its surface decorated with golden filligre and symbols. A deep red light emanated from within it, and whiffs of crimson smoke rose from the space between the box's main body and its top.

  "Kurt," Mila called to him. Understanding, Kurt nodded and knel, letting the girl hop off. She kept herself low, kneeling besides Kurt. After a moment, she asked. "What now?"

  "Now?" Kurt repeated. "Now we blow these bastards up."