Marotte made his silent way forward, accompanied by his ghostly, and at the moment body-less, companion Egon. He himself had opted for using his own camouflage to approach their designated area stealthily, mostly because his body had the unfortunate trait of being actual flesh and not ash. 

Speaking of ash, the look on the fox-lady's face when Egon had simply let his body dissolve, still made him chuckle. She was a cranky one, rivalling even Egon in that respect, but even her bitch-face had cracked when he had dusted himself, showing some genuine surprise underneath. It was a memory he would take with him for as long as he could, and though it made him want to laugh he couldn't afford to. 

They had been instructed to search the building where they had spotted the light being turned on, and this time Lily took extra precautions and sent Egon along. She had reasoned, that since her next opponent was almost certainly within that building – she had walked around the hotel a bit, and the drone she had with her turned enough that she claimed she she couldn't be wrong – there was no reason to take any chances. She had already seen magic, and now that she had someone who could sense it, she wanted to make use of his abilities. 

So Egon had been kindly told to hover his way forward, as only a good ghost could, and sniff out any magical trickery that he could. 

Marotte looked forward, toward where a potted plant marked the entrance to the building in question. Somehow he doubted there would be anything, but orders were orders, and they had been told to listen to what the lady-fox said. Funny thing that, foxes. So similar to dogs, even being sort of a canine themselves, and Lily was, unsurprisingly, female. The slice in his face that served as a mouth quirked to one side, humoured by his own little joke. 

"Yo̸u ́t͡h͟i̛n͏k ̨we'̶l͞l͘ ̀fin͝d͘ ͏a͠nythin͘g͜?̧" Marotte whispered into empty air, in the general direction of where he expected Egon to be. 

He received dry silence in return, an answer expected of someone like Egon. Had he possessed a body he might have even rolled his eyes. 

Satisfied with his response, Marotte focused forward again, trusting Egon to warn him should anything happen or appear. They were both as good as invisible, so chances of anyone getting the jump on them were tiny to begin with, but one couldn't be too sure. 

"Well, then tell m̶e̵ ͡if yoų sén͜se ̨a҉n͡y̴t͡hi͟ng," he whispered again, this time referring to the bit of Egon's ash he had hidden within his skin. One trick he had come up with, was to hide the ash like he hid his knives – within his own body – and for Egon to then tug on it if he noticed anything. So far, nothing. 

He looked towards the opposite side of the street, scanning the fronts of small stores crammed between concrete behemoths that passed for buildings. Everything was turned off, everything was abandoned, left alone after the mass evacuation, or whatever had happened to this place. He looked up and stopped, eyes narrowing in the direction of a particular window of a tall building. He thought he had seen movement, something moving rapidly past the window in an upwards angle. 

He waited a time, feeling his own heart beat, counting. At the tenth beat when nothing more had happened he started moving forward again. A small question mark formed from ash hovered in his peripheral, between him and the buildings on his side. 

"T͝h̢o͢ught I s͡aw̛ ̨some͝t̨h̕i̴n̶g̸," he said quietly, "b̀u͡ţ i̕t͏ ẃas n̴o͠thin̡g̷.͢ ̸F̵orwar͡d̨,̶ my grumpy̛ fr̶ie͞n̶d͞, t͡o search̢ ͠f̢o͝r̴ t̷h̷i͘n̶gs͡ ̀th̛e fox͡-la͘dy t̀h̴i͠n͞k̢s is͜ ͡th͠e̴r͘e͜." 

The question mark crumbled, falling to the ground like dust in a way that seemed almost disappointed. 

Not thinking anymore of it, Marotte continued forward. 

They reached the entrance within the next minute, Marotte being forced to move slowly so as to remain as unseen as possible. He was already walking towards the door when he felt the tell-tale tug from inside his body – Egon's ash. He stopped immediately and looked about slowly. Nothing moved, not even from the window he had previously been suspicious of. Still nothing. 

A small circle with intricate lines formed in the air, looking much akin to a spell circle. So there [i]was[/i] magic afoot. The small circle morphed into an arrow pointing towards the doors. It then circled around and pointed at Marotte, and then descended to make contact with the ground, tip-first. 

"Fine, ̷I'l͘l s͝taỳ he͢re̛. Y̶o͜u ͏go a̶h͏e̷a̢d ̶ànd s̶c̵out. ͜I͝f̶ any̢th͡i͠ńg̛ h̴a̴pp͜e͝ns,͞ m̸a̡ke͞ a r̡uckus҉ ́and ͜I͞'̸l͟l ̸d̢a̴rt b͞ack an̵d ̧i̶nf͠o̧rm͝ ̶La̸dy-Fox.͢" He stepped over to lean up against the wall, sighing. 

All he could do now was wait. 

[hr]

The mental ping of nearby magic had alerted Egon to its presence, and a little closer searching revealed it to be a ward covering the entrance of the building. 

When it became clear that it worked based on physical presence, he passed over it and gave his message to Marotte, satisfied that he understood it, and hovered in. 

Inside he found only several mailboxes hanging on the far wall, and a door leading to what he assumed to be the stairwell. Invisible, he hovered forward, passing through the door and came into view of the stairs leading upwards. Another ping alerted him, this one coming from straight ahead. Sharpening his magical perceptions brought the faint glow of another ward to his attention, covering the bottom of the stairs, and was identical to the one at the main entrance. 

By the looks of it, whoever was housed here was as paranoid as Lily, perhaps more-so, if one were to judge from their use of detection spells. It did mean that he was on the right track, however, and that thought propelled him forward past the ward, and up the stairs.

There were two options worth considering, with current information in mind. One was that Lily's next opponent either intended for the wards to be a trail of breadcrumbs leading them into a trap, and the other that they were simply a warning system meant to alert the occupant, or perhaps remnants of the old inhabitants? 

The first possibility hinged on the assumption, that whoever was meant to follow them could even detect them in the first place. In such a case, an individual such as Egon was the target, but based on the information he had, there was no way they would know who they were to fight next. Were that the case, Lily would not be as cautious as she was, and would have far more information and thus not need them to go scout like this. Chances were she was as ignorant as them, which left the second option, that they were simply a defence mechanism, or proverbial alarm bells. Which one was the most likely, he was not quite sure of, as even the second, and most likely, one seemed perhaps too simple. 

That opened up the possibility of a third option: That the wards were a diversion, and a warning system at the same time. This way it would serve both functions: That of a warning system to the caster, and a wild goosechase for the victim. In the worst case scenario, the wards would lead someone like Lily astray, and in the best case it would alert the caster to the presence of their target, [i]and[/i] lead them on a chase. 

The appearance of a third ward brought him out of his ruminations. It covered the door leading out from the stairs, and into one of the hallways. Quirking a non-existent eyebrow, Egon found himself surprised that he had gone this far before any other wards appeared. He noted the large '1' emblazoned upon the door. The first floor, then. Adding a non-existent shrug, he dutifully followed the breadcrumbs, floating through the door. On the other side he was greeted by doors lining the walls, spaced evenly across the entire length, and until the dead-end a fair distance away. The window at the end was the only thing breaking up the monotony. 

He moved forward slowly, keeping his detection spell going, looking for anything that he could while making certain that the room with the light on in it, did not escape his notice. He was somewhat surprised to find several wards in this area, the first of which that caught his attention being the one placed over the window straight ahead. It was not one you could open, but nonetheless anything that entered through it would alert via both magic and the noise of broken glass. 

Paranoia on par with Lily's it seemed. 

Other faint tingles of magic came from several of the apartments, some where just the door into them were covered, and others with just the window, or both. Each and every one of them containing the same type of spell: Detection, and a simple one at that. A novice magician perhaps? Or again, a trick to lure them in. 

A few minutes passed with him lazily gliding down the hall, checking the rooms for any magic and finding only the wards. That is, until a certain room caught his attention. Or rather, the door to it. Like so many others, this one was covered in a ward as well, but he sensed faint traces of far more behind it. Cautiously, and looking inside confirmed what he believed, he pushed his ethereal head through and looked inside. When no traps activated her let the rest of himself follow, and immediately found himself astounded. The room held more wards than any of the other rooms he had looked at so far: Window to the back courtyard, entrance, and even between the doors leading from the kitchen to the living room, and everything in-between. 

Knowing his temporary superior would not be satisfied lest he be thorough, and because it was the natural thing to do, Egon set about scouring the room. It would have been difficult to tell if there had been any recent uses of the room, given the nature of the rest of the city and how everything seemed to have been abandoned from one second to the other, as if by mass teleportation. However in this case there were still a few things that stuck out as suspicious, and made him certain someone had been here very recently. 

First on his were the pieces of paper strewn about, and knocked from the desk, second was the blood on the floor; dry, but not so much as to have been very old. He hovered closer, ethereal eyes narrowed. A smattering of ash materialised at his command, grinding against the blood on the floor. When he pulled it away it stick to the ash. No, not old at all. He was no physician, but he knew that it took a fair amount of time before blood dried to the point where it didn't rub off anymore. He looked up, at this point spotting the mirror. A curious thing, as none had been in the living room before, but nothing to rouse his suspicion. What was in the mirror, however, did catch his attention; boxes made of something like extra thick parchment. Flat, and wide, with remnants of some sort of foodstuff within, he found out upon closer inspection, flipping one open with a small ball of ash. 

This place had definitely been recently occupied, he decided. The blood alone was evidence enough, but the foodstuff in the flat boxes, still gooey and slimy, further proved it. Whoever had used this room as their temporary base of operation, was very likely their quarry. There were still the other rooms to check, as well as the papers on the floor. He had seen writing on one of them, and had a feeling it was no accident it was left there. 

He looked out the window and surveyed the area and other windows facing him for a time. To his satisfaction, none seemed to be there, let alone pay attention to him. He turned and, allowing himself a moment of rare comfort, conjured a new body and started looking through the papers.

There was one with writing on it, and reading it snuffed out any comfort he might have had. His thing lips pressed together to become even thinner, the cigar in his mouth flattening with them. 

“Congratulations. This is where I spent the night," he muttered to himself, reading aloud from the note. If there hadn't been proof before, there certainly was now. This was their hiding place. "Was it the wards at the door that led you here? If so, let me commend your ability to detect such a feeble presence. Follow them, then. They shall lead you to the one you seek."

Egon grunted and pocketed the note. So their target wanted to play hide and seek? Well, he wasn't going to play along. It all just brought him back to one of his possibilities, that this was a trap; following the wards certainly seemed to be, if they had anticipated them being magic users as well. He glanced up towards the ceiling, to where the fourth floor was far above. No more chasing bread crumbs, it was too risky, now he did what he was told. 

He let his body fall to dust again, leaving only a pinch of ash to hold the notes, letting them trail close to the ground behind his ethereal form, heading to the stairs again.

[hr]

Lily forced her tails to cease their violent, rapid movement, and refrained from tapping her nails on the table beside her. Marotte and Egon had been gone for a while now, and though it was expected that they wouldn't be quick due to the need for stealth, she still found it difficult to remain patient. She was close, [i]so[/i] close to getting another one of the 'souls' to fuel her wish. She just needed to know who and what her opponent was, and where they were, so she could plan accordingly and get the jump on them. 

"It's taking too long," she grumbled. "I thought your people were better than this, Carreau." 

The owl-man's head turned towards her, the movement not unlike the one of a lighthouse. His eyes narrowed slightly behind the visor of his helm, meeting Lily's stare unflinchingly. "They are experts at what they do, Lily. Have faith in them, they will be back shortly, and successful I'm sure." 

She looked away, his assurances only mildly comforting, and did nothing to quell her anxiousness. Her tails had started moving again. 

She was about to voice her displeasure again a few minutes later, when a loud gunshot rang out, followed almost immediately by the muffled roar of fire, similar to the exhale of many dragons she had fought with, and against. 

"Something happened," I.O said unhelpfully and hurried toward the door. The sound of his steps did not drown out the sound of a series of other shots following. 

Lily was by the door to the outside by the third one, Carreau at her heels with his sabers drawn. She slammed open the door and flung out her power to create a smokescreen. Egon had beaten her to the punch, ash covered the entire street and halfway between her and the apartment complex, Egon was helping a bleeding Marotte toward them. 

"Where did it come from?" Lily demanded, throwing her voice toward them with a push of her magic. An ash-made arrow formed over Egon's shoulder, pointing in the direction of the building immediately opposite the apartment complex. [i]"Curse them!"[/i] she snarled. They had had a lookout, or was watching them as well. Regardless, Marotte and Egon had screwed up. She barked an order to get inside, telling Carreau to keep watch, and for I.O to help Marotte. 

She didn't let go of the smokescreen she had created until they were all inside, and even then she only let it fade slowly, trying to mimic the natural way it dissipated without looking at it. She hoped it could fool their assailant. 

"What happened?" It was Brucie who asked, still holding Mouse who seemed frightened. Understandable. 

"Wards all over the building," Egon grunted. "Entrance, stairwell, doors, windows. Everything. I followed the trail while Marotte waited outside." 

Carreau lifted a finger, looking as if he suddenly remembered something. Knowing him, he had known all along but played it off casually. "Speaking of Marotte," he began, looking at Lily, "you have a healing elixir of some kind, no?" His head turned meaningfully towards her tails, where she kept one of them curled around the bottle. "Would you be so kind as to heal my friend with it?" 

Had it been a more precious resource, Lily would have refused, but given its nature... She grunted and took it from the midst of her furry appendages. She eyed Marotte, seeing his injuries for the first time. A gunshot wound to the stomach had pushed clean through, though it only hit the far side and would only be life threatening if left unattended. Another wound was on his arm, the bullet having graced him there. 

"Drink this," she said and held it to what passed for his mouth. 

"L̸ik̶e a̴ mo͟t̢h́e͟r ͏an͘d b͏ab͢y," he said, and the cheerful tone of his made her almost want to not heal him. 

She resorted to instead silencing him with the bottle, and drink he did. Before her eyes, and like had happened with herself multiple times by now, his wounds healed. The blood remained, but slowly his flesh knit itself back together under the influence of whatever magic this flask possessed. 

When the wound had fully closed the flask was nearly empty. She said nothing about it and instead passed it to Brucie, who dutifully filled it up again, using his magi-tech water cannon. When full, he returned it to the embrace of Lily's tails. 

"Any more details to share, now that you are healed?" Carreau asked, poking his head over Lily's shoulder to look down at Marotte. 

"Su̸re. ͜I҉ wąi̡t̕ed͏ ̢o͡utside̛ w͝h̡i͏le E͞ģo҉n̸ ̨went inside, ҉s̡t̕e͘a҉l͝thil̴y͜ as ́Ì cou̶l̵d̴.͞ ̡I ̢di̸dn͝'̢t m̶o͢ve ̵d̸ur͏i͟n̕g̡ ̨it,҉ ͞ju̢s̛t ͞l͢oo͝ke̷d aro͜un͠d.̴"

"Meanwhile," Egon said, continuing where Marotte left off, "I was inside, as I mentioned, following a trail of detection wards. All simple stuff, really. The trail lead me to the room you pointed out, Lily. There were signs of recent activity, and some blood on the floor. As well as this." He handed her three pieces of paper. "The first one I found in a room facing the middle courtyard. It was in the middle of a trail of detection wards." 

Lily glanced over the first note, her jaw clenching at the words written upon it. "You didn't fall for the bait," she pointed out, looking him over. He shook his head "Good. This stinks of a trap." She flipped to the second paper, asking while reading, "and this one?" 

Egon blew a small cloud of smoke from his cigar. "Room 4.D, the one with the light on." 

Lily nodded, muttering the words to herself as she read it over. “To you who seeks a wish. Your prey is not here, nor will you find it unless you follow these instructions. Disregard them at your own peril.

The entrance, under a potted plant. Go there.” She tore the paper apart and burnt it, summoning a small flame to aid her. "Bitch." She looked to Marotte who was, at this point, wiping off the remaining blood with a little help from Brucie and his water cannon. "So that is how he got hurt?" She asked, earning a nod from Marotte and Egon at the same time. 

"He̢ c̀àm͏e̕ d̵own ͟w̴i̸t͢h͜ ͠th͡e n̸ót̀es̴, still ̡i͢n̢v͠i̵sible ̸óf cou͡rs̀e, 'cept͘ a̶ ̴li̛t͟t͠l̀e ̕a̵sh̷ ̛to͠ ͝ho̢ld͞ ͡th͠e ̢n͜ote̸s̡.̛ ͞N͠o ͟h͘a̴n̷dś, ̕y'kn̕o̶w." 

Egon sighed. "The point he is trying to make, is that I came down with the notes and showed them to him. He then had the brilliant decision to start moving the potted plant and retrieve the last note that you're holding." He blew out another cloud of smoke, this one aimed at Marotte. "That is when the first shot was fired." 

"So they know we're here," Lily grunted and read the third, and final, note. "The bookstore?" She looked up, eyeing the others with a quizzical look. "She wants to meet me at the bookstore and fight me there. What kind of blithering idiot announces where they will be, and pretends like they will somehow [i]elude[/i] me if I don't come alone?" She tapped the still hovering drone with a knuckle. "Especially with these?"

Carreau laughed. "Either your opponent is supremely confident in their ability to deceive and elude, or they will be easily proven wrong. Eitherway, should prove interesting, no?" 

She blew a few errant strands of hair out of her face, ears and tail flicking in annoyance. She gave Marotte a sidelong glance. "Seems like we have a fellow trickster to track. I hope your willingness to help has not been shot?"

The fleshy jester let out a warbling laugh. "N͞e̢ver̴!̕"