Contractbound - Chapter 42 The Morgue

“No, not yet,” said Graham, refusing Luuk’s invitation. There was one more thing that he needed to divine.

He looked at his lighter flame and concentrated while repeating a question in his head.

‘Where are the ritual sacrificial materials that I need?’

The flame showed an image in a similar manner to before; it was the morgue building but the walls were transparent. There was a red dot glowing inside one of the rooms, indicating the location of what he was looking for. The image then shifted closer and showed thirty-six mortuary cabinet freezers that they used for storing dead bodies with numbers on them. The cabinet drawer with the number thirteen and twenty-seven glowed red. That was where Graham could find his needed materials.

Luuk saw the divination and when it ended, he made a gesture with his hands allowing Graham to take the lead. He then followed behind.

Graham and Luuk carefully exited the storage room while making as little noise as possible. Their sneakers stepped on the hardwood floor lightly, creating a quiet tapping sounds. In the brightly lit morgue, the two men were prowling down the big corridor.

The inside of the morgue was very cold and had neon lights, giving a strong contrast with its classic architecture. There were high windows on one side of the corridor, the opposite side of the room they came out of, but there was nothing outside since the sky that night was dark and gloomy. It felt much livelier inside with the bright light, but Graham knew it was not the case; there was a danger watching every corner of the building.

The corridor was decorated with a lot of different things like posters and even cabinets. It didn’t feel like they were in a morgue, but rather, inside a university dormitory. The placement of the random objects made it easier for the cemetery guards to hide the mirrors behind them.

Graham signaled Luuk to stop. He remembered there was a red dot around that part of the corridor, so he started scanning the area with his Supersight. Luuk understood right away what his partner was doing and waited for a further signal.

“There is a mirror at our one o’clock about thirty meters from here hidden behind a poster,” whispered Graham to Luuk.

Ahead of them, there was a big poster with a slightly torn part located at the height of a tall child. From that angle, it was difficult for Luuk to see the mirror, but Graham’s Supersight enabled him to spot it.

“Do you think the mirror can also transfer sounds?” asked Luuk cautiously.

“I have no idea, but we should act as if it was the case,” answered Graham quietly.

The two men sneaked closer to where the mirror was hidden and from up close, Luuk could see that there was indeed a mirror hidden behind the poster. He couldn’t just steal the mirror because it would alert the watchers. Any object passing in front of the mirror would probably also alert them, so their only choice was not to be seen at all by the mirrors.

Graham and Luuk crawled on the floor quietly right under the poster, where the blind spot of the mirror should be. They only got back up after passing a distance away from the hidden mirror. People who didn’t know about the mirrors would surely be caught easily by the cemetery guards, but luckily Graham could divine it beforehand.

The duo sneaked down the corridor and passed three more mirrors on the way, all of which they crawled under. However, they were stopped by the fourth mirror which was placed on the ground level. It was a long horizontal one on top of that, so jumping over it would be problematic unless they could glide in the air.

“Can you jump across?” asked Graham to Luuk.

Luuk shook his head, “This mirror is too long. I can’t leap that far.”

Graham and Luuk thought hard of a solution before Graham finally looked up and spoke.

“How many more times can you steal today?”

“Should be nine times. I haven’t used any except for the deadbolt. What’s your plan?” he asked curiously.

“Can you steal parts of the wall to create holes for our hands and feet? We can then scale the wall,” Graham said imperatively, hoping Luuk would be able to do that.

“Uhmm… let me try,” he answered with uncertainty. He kind of understood Graham’s plan but was not sure how to go about actually doing it.

Luuk walked up to the wall above the mirror and started chanting while concentrating on a certain part of the wall while imagining the shape of the object he wanted to steal.

“I, in the name of the Deity of Theft, declare this part of the wall mine!”

He made a swiping motion with his right hand and a block of stone appeared in his hand, while the same rectangular shape was now missing from the wall, forming a hole wide enough for two hands to hold on simultaneously. He discarded the block safely.

Luuk repeated the process but now concentrating on a lower part, where his feet would be if he were standing there.

“I, in the name of the Deity of Theft, declare this part of the wall mine!”

His swiping motion caused a part of the wall to disappear. Now, there was another hole under the first one that was wide enough for two feet to step on at the same time. He discarded the stone block again and tried to climb on to the wall by inserting his hands and his feet in the whole. Luuk could hold on there without much difficulty, but both his hands and feet couldn’t be spread too far because of the lack of space.

Graham saw what Luuk was doing and was amazed by his ability. He wondered what else his partner could steal.

Luuk repeated the process two more times until there were two sets of holes with some distance between them, but still possible for a person to reach. Judging from the distance, he would need to make only one more set of holes to be able to reach the other side of the mirror. However, the distance was too far for him to steal, so he had to climb on until the second set of holes and used his power from there.

“I, in the name of the Deity of Theft, declare this part of the wall mine!”

His right hand made a swiping motion and a block of stone appeared there. He then passed it on to Graham who was already climbing on the first set of holes. Graham then discarded the block safely without making a lot of noise.

Luuk did it one more time, making a total of six holes in the wall, and passed the block again to Graham who put it down safely. He then reached over to the last sets of holes and jumped down to the other side of the corridor successfully without much difficulty.

It was now Graham’s turn to cross. He climbed on to the wall, with his hands holding the edge tightly. The cold stone wall rubbed against his gloves while his shoes were trying to find even footing in the tight hole. He held on with all the power of his right hand and let go of the left. His left hand reached out to the next hole and once he had grabbed it, his left foot moved carefully there as well.

He was now holding on to two sets of holes that were not really far away from each other, so he was in no danger of falling. He stretched his body some more so that his left limbs were holding on to the far end of the holes to make room for his right ones. He held on tightly with his left hand and let go of the hole with his right. He then pulled in his right limbs and placed them in the second set of holes. He was halfway across.

Graham did the same thing one more time and safely made it across the wall to the other side of the mirror, albeit much more slowly than Luuk. Luuk was slightly confused by Graham’s lack of acrobatic skills because he was used to fighting alongside the agile Valentine.

It’s like this guy has a button to switch his mode. Right now he is on the clumsy brainiac mode, thought Luuk.

Once both of them managed to get past the horizontal mirror safely, they continued walking down the corridor. Up to this point, they had passed several rooms, but they didn’t enter any of those, because those were not the rooms that Graham’s divination showed him, and they didn’t know what awaited behind the doors.

“What if there was a room with all mirrors?” asked Luuk out of nowhere to the man in front of him without slowing down his pace.

Graham thought about it for a while and then answered, “There must be a limit to how many mirrors they can control.”

“Anyway, why do you think there is no guard at all in the building except those two watchers?” asked Luuk again in a quiet voice.

“Hmm… It’s probably because of these mirrors. I guess they need to eliminate any human activities, so if intruders came, they could know right away from the abnormality in the mirrors. If there were guards, it would make it more difficult for them.” Graham made some theory that sounded plausible.

They kept walking for a while until Graham stopped in front of a metal door, highly contrasted with the stone wall. It was the room where his ritual materials were kept in. He took out his lighter, lit it up, and concentrated on the warm flame.

‘Is there any danger waiting for us inside this room?’

He saw an image slowly formed in the flame. It was a big room behind the door with a lot of mortuary cabinets. Graham remembered the location of the red dot indicating the position of his required materials. He also remembered that there was a red dot for a mirror in this room. Inside the room, there was only one big mirror placed on the wall that glowed red in the image, but it was directly facing the cabinets, so stealing from them would be problematic. After that, the image slowly dissipated into nothingness.

Based on the divination image, the only danger in the room was the giant mirror that basically could reflect the whole room. Besides that, there seemed to be nothing else like a trap or an alarm.

Luuk also saw the image, and he got a headache trying to think of a way to steal from the dead body inside the freezer without being caught. He needed a line of sight with his target, so stealing it from outside was out of the question.

Graham thought about switching with Valentine and having him place anti-divination there, but then he would have no way of confirming whether it worked or not unless Valentine had his divination power; that was why he must think of another solution. Any alteration done to the mirror would garner the attention of the two Police Contractbounds, so he couldn’t do that either.

“Do you have any idea how to do it?” asked Luuk in confusion. He couldn’t think of any other way.

Graham shook his head, still thinking. His chin was rested in his right hand.

“Should we just risk it? We can cover the mirror. It would give us some time before the watchers come here to check,” he suggested in doubt.

“That should be our last resort. We really can’t afford to be noticed by the Police right now, let alone be caught, so stealth should still be our priority. I’ll try to do some divination.” Graham finally said.

Graham triggered his lighter again and the warm flame comforted him slightly in that cold corridor. He concentrated on the flame and asked his question in his mind.

‘How to safely steal the ritual materials without being noticed by the Police Contractbounds?’