Arlo Pike looked out his window. He didn’t have much of a view. It just allowed him

to think about what people were telling him. He didn’t want to look at their faces, or

gestures. Those caused a connection that he didn’t like.

“The Guard say you can find anyone in the city, Mr. Pike,” said the potential client,

Marvin Remora. “My girl has been gone for three days. That’s unlike her. I need to

know if she is all right.”

“I’ll need specifics, Mister Remora,” said Pike. “I’ll also need some kind of picture.

I need to know what I’m looking for to find it.”

“Of course,” said Remora. He had a bag with him. He picked it up off the floor and

opened the top. He pulled out several portraits of his little girl. He handed them over.

“What do you need?”

Pike took the top portrait. He looked at his client. He looked at the portrait. The two

of them didn’t look anything alike. He handed the portrait to his partner, Jason. He

didn’t have to look at the crusader to know the same thought was going through his

brain.

Remora had stood two heads shorter than Pike when he entered the room. He had a

round face, with sunken eyes. He carried a lot of weight in a ball shape in a cheap

suit. His hair had acquired streaks of gray among the brown.

The girl in the portrait was slim, even in the face. Her eyes did not rest so far into her

skull. Her hair seemed to be the same shade of brown as her father, but that was the

only thing they had in common.

“She takes after her mother,” said Remora.

“Where did you last see your daughter, Mister Remora?,” asked Pike. He put the

portrait down on his desk.

“She talked to me right before she was supposed to see some traveling minstrel

show,” said Remora. His face twisted at the words minstrel show. “She was supposed

to meet some of the other girls from her school. They said she never showed up. I

don’t want to think they are witches, but they have to be witches.”

“Not necessarily,” said Pike. “It could just be that your daughter never made the

meeting. Where was it supposed to be?”

“They were supposed to meet in front of the show,” said Remora. “Rowena said she

was going to take the train down and then meet them there. They were supposed to

go out to a club afterwards.”

“Then she was supposed to come home?,” said Pike. “Not go back to the school?”

“Rowena lives with us, and commutes to school, Marsh Excellence,” said Remora.

“So she would have had to take a taxi, or the train, home after the show.”

“All right,” said Pike. “Where was the show? That will tell us which train she had to

take to get there. We’ll work our way along until we find her.”

“You’ll bring her home?,” said Remora. The hope lit up his face.

“We’ll look for her,” said Pike. “Things are going on in the city right now. There’s

a chance that she might be seriously hurt, or has run into something in the dark. I

don’t want to get your hopes up.”

“But you’ll find out?,” said Remora. The fat face sagged in despair.

“We will,” said Jason. “We will find out what happened, and if something needs to

be sorted out, we will do that too.”

Remora nodded. The promise of justice didn’t lessen his grief, but someone would

stand before the bar for what they had done.

He couldn’t ask for much more.

“We’ll find out what happened,” said Pike. “That’s our profession. We’ll be able to

tell you more by tomorrow, or the next night depending on how things go. Do you

know the names of these girls your daughter was supposed to meet. We might need

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to talk with them before this is over.”

“Debra Shrike, Leticia Falcon, Laverne Gato, and Maureen Kelpie,” said Remora.

Pike wrote the names down on the top sheet of a pack of paper with a quill. He waited

for the ink to dry before he folded the paper up and put it in his carry bag.

“Go home, and wait,” said Pike. “It will take us a little bit of time to trace things

down. As soon as we know something, we’ll send a messenger, or the Guard, to

notify you what we found.”

“Thank you,” said Remora. “Is there anything else I can do?”

“What was the name of the band?,” asked Jason. “We might need to talk to the people

at the venue in case someone saw something there.”

“The Pelicans,” said Remora. “They’re from Lobster Bay is what my daughter said.

They like to use some kind of new string instruments.”

“If we have any more questions, we’ll come by to talk to you,” said Pike. “This

should be straightforward and well within our ability to solve for you.”

“Thank you,” said Remora. “Thank you both.”

He pushed himself to his feet and picked up his case. He headed for the office door.

He didn’t look up from the floor. That wasn’t a good sign in Pike’s opinion.

“Do you want to talk to the girls, while I retrace Rowena’s steps?,” asked Pike.

“They might know something they didn’t want to tell Mister Remora,” said Jason.

“There might be a boy in the picture somewhere.”

“Or she might be dead in an alley and the girls didn’t want to get involved, or killed

her for whatever reason of their own,” said Pike.

“Both valid theories, but she might have been set on by a predator that we will be

bound to hunt down and kill,” said Jason.

“I know,” said Pike. “I hope it is a monster, and not anything the girls did.”

Pike had seen enough of both things not to like either option. There were too many

weird things going on in Bern, and mixed in with that was the normal human

craziness.

And then you had the visiting other races like the Rhiem and Alvas sometimes

starting problems.

Pike stood. He looked down at the portrait. He knew that whatever else they might

stumble on, the girl was already dead. He could feel it like a memory that hadn’t

happened yet.

“No matter what we do, I don’t think Mister Remora will be happier at the end of

this,” said Pike.

“We’re not here to make him happy,” said Jason. He went to his desk and opened the

top drawer. He pulled out a sheathed sword and strapped it on. “We’re here to inflict

a little justice on this world before we pass on.”

“I’m not so sure about that,” said Pike. He looked out the window as he felt the

twinge of wanting answers start yanking on him.

“I am,” said Jason. He smiled. “Before this is over, we might put at least one monster

out of commission. That will make the world a safer place.”

“I’ll leave the monster hunting to you,” Pike said. He pulled on his old coat over the

tunic and breeches he wore. He took one last look at the portrait before picking up his

carry bag.

“Marsh Excellence is an all girl school,” said Jason. “Even the staff are female. If it

was boy trouble, it wasn’t within the school.”

“It might have been girl trouble,” said Pike. “See what you can do with those girls.

Maybe they can give us a shortcut.”

“Better look after yourself,” said Jason. “I can handle school girls. Where do you

want to meet?”

“I don’t know,” said Pike. “I don’t know what I will see.”

“We’ll meet at the Toad in two hours,” said Jason. “If you’re not there, I’ll come

looking for you.”

“Better make it three,” said Pike. “I don’t know where I’ll be once I get started.”

“All right,” said Jason. “You’d better have something when you get to the Toad.”

“Maybe,” said Pike. “I don’t know. If I can’t make the meeting, I’ll try to leave you

a message.”

“Right,” said Jason. He left the office, whistling some song about working.

Pike shook his head. His partner had been touched by the gods. It had made him a

little strange.

Pike shook his head. He didn’t have any room to talk. He had been touched by his

mother. She had given him a gift that made things hard for him as a boy, but allowed

him to make a living as a man. And here he was about to earn that copper as best he

could.

He hung his bag across his body as he stepped out of the office. Jason had

disappeared as silently as a cat in the space of time it had taken him to cross the room.

He headed downstairs.

Pike hit the street. He knew a guy who knew a thing about singers and bands. He

could figure out where the show had been from there. The rest would be selecting the

right train and following it to Rowena.

The decision to ride the local train to the show bothered him, but he thought it was

because Rowena was trying to be independent. All of her friends went to school with

her. If they lived on campus, and she didn’t, they might have said something about

her using a cab, or private carriage, to get to the show.

He followed the street to the club district. He knew some people who could tell him

where any singer worth their salt would be playing. Once he knew where the Pelicans

had set up, he could move to the next step of the plan.

He doubted Jason would get anywhere with the girls. This had the feel of something

dark hiding in the shadows. They would have to yank it out by the roots if they

wanted to report a solution to their client.

If they dealt with the threat, Jason would be happy. Protecting the city was his calling.

Stopping a monster was part of that, and the part that made him smile the most.

Pike walked on, while avoiding looking at people as he went.