Chapter 10: Guild War Begins
The neutral house felt like a tomb.
Ancient wood creaked under the weight of decades worth of secrets and grudges as the two most powerful criminal organizations in New Orleans faced off across Persian carpets that had witnessed everything from marriage negotiations to blood oaths. Tonight, the mansion's elegant parlor had become a courtroom where the jury was armed and the verdict would be written in violence.
He stood in the middle of the no-man's-land between factions, feeling like a mediator in a powder keg. Jean-Luc's weathered face promised retribution for whoever had violated Guild security. Marius Boudreaux carried himself with the deadly calm of a man who'd spent forty years turning assassination into an art form.
"Let me understand this correctly," Marius said, his voice cutting through the tension like a blade. "Your thief breaks into our territory, steals an artifact from my family's collection, delivers it to your vault, and now it conveniently disappears?"
"Convenient has nothing to do with it," Jean-Luc snapped. "That vault hasn't been cracked in thirty years. Whoever did this had inside knowledge, Guild-level skills, and access to our security codes."
"All things your thief possessed."
"My thief is standing right here. Ask him yourself."
Every eye in the room turned to him, and his newly awakened precognitive sense screamed warnings about the emotional crosscurrents flowing between armed criminals with decades of history. He could feel the weight of expectations, accusations, and barely restrained violence pressing against him like a physical force.
"I delivered the artifact to Jean-Luc as contracted," he said carefully. "Haven't been back to Guild headquarters since."
"How convenient," Marius observed. "No witnesses to your whereabouts during the time of the theft."
"I was having dinner with Detective Chen of the NOPD." The words came out more defensive than he'd intended. "Public restaurant, plenty of witnesses."
Henri stepped forward from the Thieves Guild contingent, his usual easy humor replaced by protective anger. "You calling my brother a liar, Boudreaux?"
"I'm suggesting that coincidence and convenience often walk hand in hand."
Bella Donna moved closer to her father, but her eyes remained fixed on the protagonist with an expression he couldn't quite read. Concern? Calculation? The remnants of whatever they'd once meant to each other?
"What if neither Guild is responsible?" she said, her voice carrying just enough authority to command attention. "The original client knew details about both our organizations that aren't public knowledge. Knew which artifact to target, when to strike, how to play us against each other."
"Your daughter raises an interesting point," Jean-Luc conceded. "Anonymous clients with inside information usually mean trouble down the line."
"Bella Donna has always been perceptive," Marius said, his tone suggesting this wasn't necessarily a compliment in his world. "But perception doesn't change facts. The artifact was stolen from Thieves Guild custody."
"After being stolen from Assassins Guild custody," Henri pointed out. "Maybe whoever hired both of us decided to complete the job personally."
The argument escalated into shouting matches between Guild members who'd been looking for an excuse to settle old grudges. Voices rose in anger and accusation while hands drifted toward concealed weapons with the practiced ease of people who'd learned to fight before they'd learned to walk.
"Enough!" Jean-Luc's voice cracked like a whip, restoring temporary quiet. "This accomplishes nothing. The artifact is gone, and someone will answer for it."
"Indeed they will," Marius agreed with deadly calm. "The question is who."
"I propose we table this discussion until we have more information," the protagonist said, desperation making him bold. "Send teams to investigate the theft scene, interview potential witnesses, gather evidence before we start shooting each other."
"Evidence," Marius repeated with something like amusement. "How very... civilized. Tell me, young LeBeau, what evidence would convince you that the Assassins Guild was innocent of wrongdoing?"
The question was a trap—any answer would implicitly accept that guilt lay with one faction or the other, escalating tensions instead of defusing them. But before he could formulate a response, his precognitive sense exploded with warnings.
Danger. Immediate danger. Henri in the crosshairs.
The knowledge hit him like lightning—absolute certainty that death was approaching his adopted brother from outside the mansion, through windows that offered perfect lines of sight for someone with military training and high-powered weapons.
Three seconds.
He moved without conscious thought, charging a playing card while diving toward Henri. The Thieves Guild members around them scattered as pink energy flared in his hands, but his attention was fixed on the third-story window across the street where muzzle flash would bloom in exactly—
Two seconds.
The card left his hand in a perfect spiral, powered by desperation and guided by precognitive certainty. It sailed through the mansion's tall windows and across the narrow street, trailing energy like a comet.
One second.
The explosion lit up the night as his charged card struck the sniper's rifle at the exact moment the trigger was pulled. The bullet that should have punched through Henri's skull went wide, shattering a crystal chandelier instead of ending a life.
"Down!" he shouted, tackling Henri to the floor as both Guilds erupted into chaos.
"What the hell—" Henri started to say.
"Sniper. Opposite building. Had you in his sights."
"How did you know?"
"Lucky guess."
But Henri's green eyes showed he wasn't buying it, just as they showed gratitude for being alive to ask the question.
Around them, Guild security moved with military precision, weapons appearing from concealment as both factions prepared for siege warfare. Through the shattered windows, they could see the building across the street—dark, abandoned, perfect for someone who wanted to escalate tensions through targeted violence.
"Sweep that building!" Jean-Luc commanded. "I want whoever took that shot brought back alive!"
"Already gone," Bella Donna observed from her position by the windows. "Professional wouldn't stick around for capture."
She was right. By the time Guild enforcers reached the sniper's position, they found only an empty room, a few shell casings, and evidence of someone who'd planned their escape before taking their first shot.
"This changes things," Marius said quietly. "Someone wants us fighting each other badly enough to kill for it."
"Or someone wanted to make it look like they want us fighting," Jean-Luc countered. "False flag operations aren't exactly unknown in our business."
The protagonist watched both patriarchs calculating angles and possibilities, and realized they were still thinking in terms of Guild politics and traditional enemies. They couldn't conceive of threats that operated on different scales, with different goals.
But I can. Because I know what's coming.
"What if this isn't about the Guilds at all?" he said. "What if we're just collateral damage in someone else's game?"
"Explain," Marius commanded.
"The original client knew too much about both organizations. The theft was too clean, too precise. And now someone's trying to start a war by killing Guild members." He paused, letting his words sink in. "That's not Guild tactics. That's military thinking. Corporate strategy."
"You think we're dealing with government agents?"
"I think we're dealing with someone who collects things. Artifacts, information, people with useful skills." The words felt like walking a tightrope between truth and suicide. "Someone who doesn't care about Guild politics because Guilds aren't the real prize."
The silence that followed was broken by Henri's phone ringing. He answered with the wariness of someone expecting more bad news, and his expression confirmed those expectations.
"Young Tommy Boudreaux," Henri said after ending the call. "Found dead in Thieves Guild territory. Poison, with a Guild dagger left next to the body."
"No," Bella Donna whispered, all color draining from her face. "Tommy was sixteen. He wasn't even sworn in yet."
"Someone's escalating," the protagonist said, his own danger sense screaming at the implications. "Forcing us into war whether we want it or not."
Marius Boudreaux's face went stone-cold with fury that promised death for whoever was responsible. "The dagger will have fingerprints. DNA evidence. Trail of breadcrumbs leading back to someone in this room."
"Planted evidence—"
"Evidence is evidence," Marius cut him off. "The boy's blood demands justice, and justice will be satisfied."
"Marius, think about this—"
"The time for thinking is over." The Assassins Guild patriarch turned to his daughter. "Bella Donna, gather our people. Traditional rules are suspended. Someone just declared war on our family."
"Father, if we could just—"
"Now."
Bella Donna met the protagonist's eyes for one brief moment, and in her expression he saw regret, resignation, and something that might have been an apology. Then she was moving with her father toward the exit, followed by Assassins Guild members who were already reaching for phones to mobilize their organization for conflict.
"Jean-Luc," he said desperately, "this is exactly what someone wants. We're being played."
"Maybe," the patriarch agreed. "But the boy's still dead, and that blood's on Thieves Guild territory." His weathered hands gestured helplessly. "War is here whether we accept it or not. Question now is whether we fight it smart or let them pick us off piece by piece."
"Choose your side, boy," Jean-Luc continued, his voice carrying the weight of absolute authority. "Because neutrality just became a luxury we can't afford."
The meeting dissolved into organized chaos as both Guilds prepared for open warfare. Phone calls were made, weapons were distributed, safe houses were activated across New Orleans. Within an hour, the city's criminal underworld would be divided into armed camps with orders to shoot first and ask questions later.
He found himself on the mansion's roof an hour later, watching the lights of New Orleans spread out below like stars fallen to earth. From this height, the city looked peaceful—unaware that ancient organizations were mobilizing for a conflict that would leave bodies in the streets and blood on French Quarter cobblestones.
Henri joined him in the darkness, offering a hip flask filled with something that burned on the way down.
"You can't save everyone, Remy," Henri said quietly. "Even with whatever's different about you now."
"Different how?"
"The sniper thing. Knowing exactly where the shot was coming from, exactly when to throw that card." Henri studied his profile in the dim light. "That wasn't luck. That was something else."
"Henri—"
"I don't need to know what. But I need to know you're still my brother."
The question hit deeper than any accusation. Henri was offering acceptance without understanding, loyalty without explanation. The kind of family bond that didn't depend on shared blood or complete honesty.
"I'm still your brother," he said, and meant it more than any words he'd spoken since waking up in this world.
"Good. Because things are about to get very ugly."
In the distance, across the city where abandoned buildings provided perfect observation posts for patient watchers, a figure with red eyes lowered his scope and smiled. Phase One was complete. The Guilds were mobilizing for war, the artifact was secured, and Subject 013 was developing exactly as projected.
Soon, it would be time for Phase Two.
And Mister Sinister always enjoyed the testing phase.
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