"Bol, Bol. Are you sure he was here? There's no one here."
Cheryl said it like a child, her face nothing like it had been outside the bar the night before; the creepy smile, it seemed, only came out when she was causing trouble. Beside her, Bol scanned the room in silence.
They had come on orders from far above to investigate the disappearance of Makun's signature, and the place gave them nothing. The room was old and in poor shape, and it was empty.
"Do you think he knows about us, Bol?" Cheryl went on. "Does he know we're coming?"
Bol sighed. Working with her was a strain, honestly, but what could he do? She had skills they needed. "This is where his signature disappeared. The higher-ups never said he was aware of anything, so he should have come back here."
Cheryl giggled. "And if he left? Is it going to be a hunt?"
"If he left, we search for him. It hasn't been long since the signature vanished, so our chances are good."
He walked around the room, touched the wall and closed his eyes as if feeling for something. "We should investigate," he said, opening them again. "Once people are up, we get what we can from the neighborhood, the people who live here, the landlord, anyone we see. Tonight, I'll try reaching into dreams."
"That works," Cheryl agreed. She could feel the chase closing in. It was what she lived for.
Then the two of them were gone, and the room was empty again, as if a man and a petite young woman had never stood in it.
At seven on Sunday morning, at Hope's Rest, Makun stretched and woke, with no idea of the people hunting him. He knew nothing of Zack using a demonic mirror to track him, or of the darkness that had swallowed Zack when he tried. He didn't know that two strangers had stood in his old apartment a few hours earlier, looking for him. He knew only that he had a book to read and information to gain.
There was nowhere to wash in a place like this, so he picked up his bag and went outside, hoping for fresh air; the smell inside was something else.
The area around the shelter looked worse in daylight. Cracked concrete stretched in every direction, with yellow, dying weeds pushing up through the gaps. The building sat at the edge of the industrial zone, surrounded by empty lots and rusted chain-link fences: an abandoned factory to the left with its windows broken and its walls covered in graffiti, a storage yard to the right with shipping containers stacked like forgotten blocks.
The street was too quiet, no cars and no people, only the distant hum of the city somewhere beyond the decay. A few other homeless people lingered near the entrance, one man sitting against the wall and staring at nothing, another pushing a cart of plastic bags down the empty road. No one looked at Makun. Everyone here had their own trouble.
The cold morning air bit through his jacket, but it was better than the stench inside. He kept walking until he found a bench at the edge of the lot, half hidden by dead bushes, the wood warped and the paint peeling, but empty. Good. He sat and took out the book.
Looking at it, he knew that if he let himself get too absorbed, he would collapse again like last time. He still hadn't eaten; the beer was the only thing he'd had since Friday. But information about this world was what he needed most right now. Food could come later.
The Goal of a Mystic, in faded gold on the leather. He opened it where he had left off. Last time the page had refused to turn and he had fallen asleep, and this time he hoped it would let him through.
He activated his Sight first, with some effort, and turned the page slowly, paying close attention, so this time he saw it happen: streams of energy left his body and flowed into the book, and only then did the page turn. Then he watched the words etch themselves onto the paper.
THE GOAL
So what is the true purpose of mysticism? Not wealth. Not power. Not dominion over others.
The goal is simple: return to the Source. Break the chains that bind your soul to flesh. Transcend the divisions that separate you from wholeness. Ascend the tiers not to rule, but to remember. To become, once more, what you were before the fall: complete, infinite, free.
This is the path of the Mystic. This is why they fear you. Because you seek to undo their design.