Chapter 4: Hide and Seek

The night was pouring heavy rain over Sant'Amaranthis. The poles with oil pipes suspended 12 yards apart to supply the lamps and diesel stoves in the houses, the trams crossing the tracks in the middle of the streets, the neoclassical buildings all around. The gutters were already carrying more than water, they were carrying poorly paid promises, the remains of failed plans and the dignity of those who gave to trust others.

 The Sa'Marhis Police Department was smoking yellow light through the bars of the windows, like a lighthouse too tired to guide anyone. Inside, old Ruy de Sagú was clutching a fedora between his fingers stained with accountant's ink. His neatly trimmed mustache was shaking more than he was.

 The clerk, a man with thick glasses and a soul diluted in cold coffee, pointed with his chin.

 — Detective Paiva is waiting for you.

 Ruy nodded, swallowing his pride along with his saliva. A hesitant step forward. Monfre, the baron, passed by, with eyes that said: you were useful until yesterday.

 Alex Paiva didn't look like a detective. He looked like the echo of one. His beard was well-groomed, his chin too firm for his age, his eyes like frosted glass: always hiding more than they showed.

 The office was a cavern of papers and smoke. A brass lamp shade casts lazy shadows across the walls. Cigarettes piled up in the ashtray like forgotten clues.

- Mister de Sagu. - Paiva's voice was sober, dry, and unhurried. - Baron Monfre gave us a heads up on the misfortune. Something about magic sand... and defaulting?

 Ruy coughed, embarrassed.

 - Sand from the World Tree... sold as a relic. But the plate... without ballast. Without a bottom. I was... cheated, detective. The Vermillion Order cannot let this go unpunished.

 Paiva took a drag on his cigarette, his eyes unmoving.

 - Does the Vermillion Order care about fraud now? - A wry smile. - Let's hear the story, then. In all the details.

 The morning sun barely touched the gravel of the dusty road. Paiva drove his old black carriage, the Suppression Sigil rolled up inside his leather bag. He was vulnerable. I needed this to think.

 He stopped suddenly. The world seemed to tilt for a moment.

 "Wine… hurry…"

 He closed his eyes. Images came to him like punches: barrels rattling, the panic in Ruy's eyes, a name burned into the back of his memory: Rogé.

 He put on the Sigil. A ritual gesture. A reminder of who he was.

 - Protocols. Always.

 The sea spat salt and rot over the Waste Plant. Paiva walked among the remains of the city, his eyes alert.

 An abandoned wagon. Old wood, peeling paint.

 -Too rustic… - he murmured.

 He touched it with his bare fingers. Visions: hands with leather gloves, rod, sealed barrels, names whispered in the dark.

 "Wandalen… Serge Wandalen."

 The name sounded like a nail driven into wet wood.

 Sector 5 of the Vermillion Order was teeming with magical bureaucrats in dark cloaks. Paiva found his old contact, an agent with sunken eyes and a shelved past.

 - The Sagú case has become a joke. But the rumors are different. - said the old man.

 - What rumors?

 - Sand was a facade. Behind it… something bigger is coming. And there's a name involved: Diane Rabbit.

 Paiva choked on his own silence.

 - The one from the highway patrol?

— That's the one. But be careful, Alex. It doesn't run on normal tracks.

 An alley. A trashcan. A crumpled note. "Sector 9: Fashion Quarter."

 — Rogé... he always had expensive taste.

 On the streets, shop windows and rehearse smiles. Paiva took off his Sigil. The lines on his face softened, until he completely changed his appearance. Now he was just another shadow on the parade.

 A faded sign: "Esper Syndicate."

 Paiva, with the sigil in his pocket, felt the psychic aura of the room. A signature stained in a book. Data, shell companies, absurd figures.

 — Almost... — he whispered, touching the paper as if holding a thread of memory.

 An expensive bar. Warm lights. People with expensive clothes and souls in pawns.

 Vaughn Ocean laughed into his glass.

— That Rogé was a fairground artist. But the plan... the plan was masterful!

 Paiva heard without hearing, the Sigil put away, his eyes alert.

 The ruined ballroom was where promises would die.

 It was raining as if the sky wanted to wipe Sant'Amaranthis off the map. Inside, the smell was of mold, betrayal and time.

 Rogé trembled in the shadows. Wandalen appeared like a predator. Ocean, in tension.

 And Diane Rabbit... slipped through the shadows with the elegance of someone who has already destroyed better men. The sigil on her neck pulsed.

 Paiva did not hesitate.

 — The party is over.

 — Who are you? — Wandalen spat.

 —Alex Paiva. Vermillion Detective.

Silence.

The rain drummed on the worn roof of the hall like impatient fingers. Inside, the silence weighed more heavily than the echoes of the footsteps that had led everyone there. Paiva remained standing, the Sigil still hanging around his neck, his eyes fixed like daggers on his four accomplices. Diane's revelation hung in the air like the scent of ozone before lightning.

Rogé hesitated, his bulging eyes jumping between the damp floor and the woman who had betrayed him without blinking.

Serge Wandalen growled softly, fury coming out of his nostrils like steam from a boiler. His knuckles were white beneath his leather gloves.

-You knew. - He murmured, his voice scratchy. - You knew he would come, Diane?

She didn't back away. Her cold eyes, two broken mirrors, reflected the chaos with a meticulous shine.

- Yes, I knew. - And I also knew that you would fall right down. Every show needs a last act.

Ocean grew impatient. He was not a man of words. Anger pushed his body forward like a blind bull and it was with this brute force that he threw himself at the detective.

- This ends now, you snoop!

But Paiva was already moving before the attack had finished coming. Ocean's fist cut through the empty air, and before he realized his mistake, he felt the dry crack of air pressure hitting the base of his skull. The giant fell like a tower, inert on the floor soaked in time by psychic powers.

Serge tried to sidestep, his body leaning like a hunting beast, but Paiva's eyes followed him like those of a lynx. A translucent aura, thin as the veil of dawn, enveloped the detective. The union leader struck once, twice and saw his fists bounce off an invisible barrier, useless like wind against glass. 

Paiva did not respond to the violence. He turned to the weakest of them. Rogé was trembling, his knees about to give way.

—The barrels. The wine. Where are they?

Rogé swallowed hard. He looked for some trace of compassion in Diane and found only marble. His voice came out in tatters.

— No... There was no wine. Just... material. They took everything to the Ogilvy Auction. It was her idea. Washing... with the carts. The plaque, the bids... just a facade.

Paiva's reasoning closed in his mind like a bear trap. The wine was the bait. The auction, the gear. The money, the substance hidden behind the magic sand that he now knew was nothing more than glamorous dust.

Diane felt the trap closing. Her eyes sparkled. Her hand slid to the sheath hidden under her cloak. The metal gleamed in the pale reflection of the rain as she drew her machete. She advanced like a hungry bolt of lightning, but Paiva was already the thunder.

In a single impulse, he threw himself at her, one hand going straight for the necklace that glinted under her chin. A tug. A dry crack. The sigil fell onto the rotten boards.

For an instant, everything stopped.

Paiva's eyes met hers. There were no more words. The clash was now of will, of mind against mind. The void enveloped them. There, where no one could see, a war was being waged.

Diane resisted. Her mind was forged steel, sharp, trained in silence and discipline. But Paiva was a wall. Each thought of hers pushed, each memory pressed, each conviction imposed itself like a tide. And in the center of the clash, he found the crack. Small, almost imperceptible. But enough.

She screamed a scream that was not heard. A silent echo of pain and loss. She staggered. Her eyes lost focus. The machete fell from her hands, hitting the floor of the hall with a dull sound. 

Diane collapsed.

The aura of power that had once surrounded her disappeared like vapor in the breeze. Vanderlei took a step back. Rogê fell to his knees, the last mask dripping with tears held back for years.

Paiva took a deep breath. Every muscle aches as if he had been fighting against time itself. His eyes scanned the scene: a dead hall, defeated souls, truths torn out with iron and fire.

- The barrels have been found. - He murmured. - The so-called 'sand from the World Tree'... well, now it's just sand. But the lie behind it... that, yes, had a price.

The rain outside was getting heavier. And with it, it seemed to come a breath of cleansing, as if Sant'Amaranthis, for one more night, could sleep with a little less rot. Paiva picked up the necklace from the ground, wiped the mud off with the sleeve of his coat and fastened it back around his neck.

There was more to come. There always was. But for that night, at least, Detective Vermillion had done his job.

And the party was finally over.