Chapter 2: The Apprentice and the Alleyway

Chapter 2: The Apprentice and the Alleyway

The vision had left a psychic stain, a splinter of another man’s terror lodged deep in Corbin’s mind. It was a breadcrumb, and he had no choice but to follow it. Pudge’s tip about the "wrongness" near the cannery district now had a name and a location: the Sterling-Vance tower, a monument of sterile glass and corporate ambition that scraped the clouds. A place where a man in a tailored suit had his soul ripped out.

Corbin found himself in the alleyway behind the tower, a narrow canyon of stained brick and overflowing dumpsters. The rain had eased to a persistent drizzle, clinging to the air like a shroud. This was where the city’s facade cracked. Here, the Echo was thin and twisted, raw magic bleeding from the ley line the tower was built upon. It was a wound, and it was close to the murder.

He pressed a hand against the cold, damp brick of the tower’s foundation. The mundane world saw grime and decay; Corbin felt the psychic screaming. He closed his eyes, filtering out the cacophony of the city—the distant sirens, the rumble of the subway, the collective anxiety of millions—and focused on the immediate residue.

There it was. A lingering cold spot in the Echo. A void. It felt slick and oily, the spiritual equivalent of an industrial chemical spill. And beneath it, a faint, agonizing memory of a life being… unspooled. The scar on his temple throbbed, a phantom limb aching with a five-year-old memory. The Hand’s signature was unmistakable. They didn’t just kill; they erased.

“What were you after?” he murmured to the empty space, to the ghost of a ghost. The man in the suit was likely a corporate player, someone with access, power. The Hand didn’t kill for sport. Every victim was a key to a new lock.

A crisp, clear voice cut through the gloom behind him. “Professor Pierce?”

Corbin froze, his every muscle tensing. He didn’t turn around. He’d recognize that voice anywhere. It was the same one that had relentlessly questioned his interpretation of the Athenian hoplite reforms last Thursday.

“This doesn’t seem like a typical adjunct faculty activity,” the voice continued, closer now.

He finally turned, his face setting into a familiar mask of weary annoyance. Elara Vance stood at the mouth of the alley, a practical raincoat zipped up to her chin, her dark hair pulled back in a messy but efficient bun. Her inquisitive eyes, usually focused on textbooks and historical timelines, were narrowed with suspicion. She was the scholarship kid, the one who sat in the front row and whose questions were always two steps ahead of the lecture.

“Miss Vance,” Corbin said, his tone flat. “Bit off the beaten path for your evening studies, isn't it? The library is twelve blocks that way.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder, a blatant dismissal.

She ignored it, stepping further into the alley. Her gaze flickered from Corbin’s hand on the wall to his tired, rain-slicked face. “I saw you leave campus. You weren’t heading for the bus. You ran. And you jumped a fence. I was… curious.”

“Curiosity is how people find themselves in alleys with strange men,” he retorted, dropping his hand from the wall. “It’s a bad habit.”

“My habits have gotten me a 4.0 GPA,” she countered, her chin jutting out slightly. “I’ve seen you, Professor. Not just tonight. The way you look at the city, like you’re listening to something no one else can hear. The way you sometimes just… disappear between classes. You’re not just a history teacher.”

Corbin let out a humorless laugh. “Kid, I’m barely a history teacher. I’m a glorified babysitter for people who need a humanities credit. Now, go home. This is not a place you want to be.” He tried to inject a note of finality, of genuine threat into his voice. For her own good, she needed to be scared of him.

But Elara wasn't looking at him anymore. Her head was tilted, her brow furrowed in concentration. Her gaze was fixed on the exact spot on the brick wall he had been touching.

“What is that?” she whispered, taking another step forward, her suspicion replaced by a look of profound confusion and wonder.

“It’s a wall,” Corbin said, his patience fraying. “They’re common in urban environments. Go home.”

“No… not the wall. On it,” she insisted, her eyes wide. “It’s like… graffiti, but it’s made of light. Faint, silvery-blue patterns, like glowing circuits running through the mortar. It’s beautiful.” Her eyes traced the invisible lines, the faint traces of the building’s own spiritual energy. Then her gaze fell upon the spot of the murder’s echo. Her expression soured. “Except for that one spot. It’s… dark. Not just dark, it’s… empty. A hole. Like the light is being sucked into it. It feels… wrong.”

Corbin’s blood ran cold.

He had heard those words before, from people born with the Sight. The latent ability to perceive the Echo, to see the world behind the world. It was rare, unpredictable, and in this moment, it was a death sentence. His desire to be alone, to keep her safe by pushing her away, had just slammed into an insurmountable obstacle.

His cynical mask crumbled, replaced by a deep, hollow dread. He looked at this bright, stubborn young woman and saw not a student, but a target. A witness.

“You can see it?” he asked, his voice now a low, serious rumble devoid of its earlier sarcasm.

She finally looked away from the wall, startled by his change in tone. “See what? I don’t know what I’m seeing. It just… hurts to look at that dark spot.”

Corbin scrubbed a hand over his face, the stubble scratching his palm. He was trapped. If he let her walk away now, ignorant of what she’d seen, The Hand’s hunters would eventually sense her awakened Sight. They’d find her, and they’d do to her what they did to the man in the tower, all to tie up a loose end she didn’t even know existed. His solitary mission just gained a very vulnerable, very unprepared partner.

“A man died here,” Corbin said, the words heavy and stark. “A few hours ago. Up there.” He gestured up the sheer face of the tower. “What you’re seeing is the… residue. The stain it left on the world.”

Elara paled, her academic curiosity instantly evaporating, replaced by genuine fear. “He was murdered?”

“Worse,” Corbin said, meeting her eyes, forcing her to see the grim reality he lived in. “They didn’t just kill him. They unmade him. That black spot you see, the one that feels wrong? That’s where his soul used to be. They harvested it. Ripped it right out of him.”

He saw the cascade of emotions on her face: disbelief, then revulsion, then dawning horror. She understood. She might not have the context for magic or spirits, but she understood the violation he was describing on a primal level.

“And the people who did it,” Corbin continued, pressing the terrible truth home like a knife, “they are very, very thorough. They don’t like people who can see the messes they leave behind. They don’t leave witnesses.”

Her breath hitched. The implication was clear, cold, and absolute. By seeing the glowing runes and the soulless void, she had signed her name on a list she never knew existed. She had looked into the abyss, and the abyss had taken note of her.

Corbin leaned against the opposite wall, the weight of this new complication settling on his shoulders like a shroud. His past was no longer just his own problem. He had dragged this kid into the line of fire.

He pushed off the wall, his expression a mixture of resignation and grim resolve. “Congratulations, kid,” he said, his voice laced with a bitter irony that did little to hide the gravity of his words. “You just got drafted.”