When I woke up, Yvlan was still there, but lying next to me in bed, asleep. Carefully and painstakingly (emphasis on the pain), I got out of bed without disturbing her. Morning light streamed in from the windows and the grandfather clock by the bed told me it was 10 AM. Perfect.

My body protested my getting up with intense aches and jolts of pain, but it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle and frankly, it was far better than I should be feeling. I added “Figure out how you survived sure death” to my growing mental to-do list. Gods, this was getting out of hand. And here I thought I’d have a nice, cushy office job in the Capital with little action or excitement.

I saw myself in the mirror and groaned. The swelling and bruising were almost entirely gone but I still looked like shit. The bandages on my head were gone but the rest on my body remained. My hair was a bit greyer than before, likely a result of the physical trauma, but otherwise, I didn’t look much older. I had a short beard coming in and I wandered around the house a bit before finding a bathroom. Gods, Char must have been rich. Maybe I should take promotion seriously.

Her house was almost a mansion. From what I saw, it was a large and fancy townhouse more than twice the size of Xico’s. Looking out the window, it was in a nice part of town, only ten minutes from the Guild HQ.

Finally, I found the bathroom. It took me a while to figure out how to work the shower, and by a while, I mean a full half hour. Give me a break, we never had those things when I was a kid. Hell, I’d never had a shower. Showers were still cutting-edge technology, only available to the wealthy. Yet another display of Char’s wealth. I’d considered going to look for a bath, but some stupid pride in me refused.

While I puzzled over the shower, I examined the wound on my side. It was cauterized and had been sewn shut. Now, it was scabbed over. I pushed aside the surprise that hit me from that and reminded myself not to reopen the wound. I’d probably be fine doing most activities, but I should be careful not to push it. Would I? Probably not, but at least the intention was there at some point.

Finally, I figured out the shower and just enjoyed the hot water for a while. Carefully and slowly, I cleaned myself, watching dried blood flake off and red water circle the drain, and by the time was done, I felt like a third of a human. Hey, I’ll take what I can get.

Then, I wandered back to my room and tiptoed to grab a set of clean clothes that had been laid at the foot of the bed. Yvlan slept through it all, none the wiser. And mob bosses are pretty light sleepers. Go me.

Just as I thought I was clear, Yvlan sat up and wiped the sleep from her eyes.

“Going already?” she asked.

I nodded and carefully buttoned up my shirt.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“As long as it isn’t, ‘Will you marry me?’” I said.

Yvlan snorted and said, “Theatrics. The crowds love romance.” Then, she paused for a moment and asked, “Why did you fight?”

“I needed the information,” I lied.

“You could have refused.”

“No,” I lied again.

“Yes, you could have. You could have forced your way out or demanded a weapon. It might not have worked but you could have tried. It would have been less dangerous. You didn’t even try.”

“Maybe.”

“You wanted to fight,” Yvlan said carefully. “You knew you might die.”

“No one was expecting a minotaur,” I said, “not even you. The other side wasn’t playing fair.”

“No, but you knew it was going to be very dangerous. You went in there expecting to die. Wanting to die.”

I didn’t say anything. I just began to do up my bootlaces.

Yvlan got out of bed and walked over to me slowly. “When you thought you were going to die, you looked almost happy,” she said. “At peace.”

“I’ve lived longer than I should have,” I muttered.

I stood up and pulled on my jacket. Yvlan wrapped her arms around me.

“No,” she said, “only by Hunter standards.”

“And that’s what I am,” I said, slipping out of her arms and heading for the door. “A Hunter. That’s all I’ll ever be.”

“Nothing else?” Yvlan called after me, but I didn’t respond.

I headed downstairs and a servant let me out, locking the door behind me. The morning sun was bright, but warm on my skin. I breathed in the air and sighed. Back on the horse, Jonas. You can rest when you’re dead.

The street was crowded, though far from its rush hour peak. I slowly walked to the streetcar stop, my body aching. It hurt, but the movement felt good and soon the pain began to dull and fade just a bit.

I’d just wasted over half a week chasing a lead that went nowhere. The monster, or whatever killed those people in the alley, hadn’t escaped from a ring. I ran the case over in my head.

An employee for Trieste-Vellan and an unknown number of others, including one ex-Hunter, were killed in the Warren, the wrong side of town. But it wasn’t a standard robbery gone wrong, not at all. Their money hadn’t been touched and the way they were killed was brutal beyond belief. Besides, even a retired Hunter would pose a big challenge to any potential robbers.

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The Trieste-Vellan employee, Gerry Teralt, didn’t work in the Capital, at least officially, but the branch manager had recognized him and lied about it. That same branch manager, Dominica Wellstone, had connections to the defense industry. And we’d found a military issue pistol at the scene.

It had to be at least partially connected somehow, I just wasn’t seeing it yet.

I was so lost in my thoughts that I hadn’t noticed that I’d walked myself to the Trieste-Vellan building. As luck would have it, I saw Dominica exiting the building. I let myself melt into the crowds of people milling about and followed her. I wasn’t too worried about being spotted, Hunters learn to follow someone, or something, without being seen pretty early on in their apprenticeship, and I’d had a lot of practice.

I followed Dominica as she got on a streetcar and headed to the Warren. What was a nice, wealthy noble like her doing going to the poor side of town? Certainly, it wasn’t for a lunch meeting. She got off a stop away from the murders and after a second of hesitation, I followed her.

If she was going to see me, now was the time. The Warren’s small alleys and winding roads didn’t translate well to following someone from afar. Fortunately, she wasn’t paying much attention except to get to where she was going. She didn’t know her way, but she managed by consulting a small piece of paper with directions on it. Eventually, she arrived at a nondescript building, possibly a small warehouse, and without knocking, walked inside.

I waited outside, just out of sight from any of the windows. Ten, then fifteen minutes went by, with some people passing by, none taking much notice of the warehouse. I didn’t hear anything from inside or see Dominica come out. Taking a chance, I checked if the building had any other exits, but there was just the one. I continued to wait.

Another fifteen minutes went by and no one entered or exited. Most stakeouts were like this, I reminded myself. Lying in wait until something happened. This was better than lying in the mud, waiting for a band of goblins to pass through. I got a bit more comfortable and waited some more.

An hour later, Dominica emerged, flanked by two women. I spied a Hunter’s Mark on one of the women’s necks. She had curly black hair and olive colored skin. The other one was pale, even paler than Dominica, which would have made her look a bit sickly if she wasn’t built like a brick wall that lifted weights for fun.

Curly was explaining something to Dominica when two people dressed in wool suits stepped out of an alley.

The taller one, a short woman in a black suit, said, “Dominica Wellstone?”

Curly turned and pulled out a knife, with Pale pushing Dominica behind her.

Curly said, “Who wants to know?”

The other woman, who was in a green suit, turned to Black Suit and pulled out a photograph. I leaned over to see it a bit better. It was a photograph of Dominica. Black Suit nodded and glanced at Dominica. Then, she began to undo her tie.

Curly asked again, “Who are you?” a bit louder this time. The women ignored her. Pale stepped forward, hesitantly. I reached for the knife that I kept in my jacket pocket and found it wasn’t there. Right. I’d been searched at the Clucking Hen, where they’d taken all my weapons. I guess they hadn’t returned that one. Great.

Black Suit was taking off her jacket and unbuttoning her shirt while Green Suit stepped forward and said, “Give over the banker and you won’t have any trouble.”

The way she barked that out almost made her sound military. She had the distinctive tenor of someone used to giving and receiving orders. The two women in suits both had the short, cropped hair that the army hairdressers specialized in. They both also stood like soldiers, with rigid and uniform posture. If I was a betting man, I’d put a small fortune down on these women being enlisted at some point in their life. I’d put another small fortune down that these two served together.

I flattened myself a bit more against the wall of the alley. Why were two soldiers here?

As Black Suit unbuttoned her shirt, I saw the glint of steel dogtags from around her neck. I wasn’t sure why she was stripping, but she was definitely military.

Green Suit began slowly stepping toward Dominica and her bodyguards, keeping her hands up. Pale was glancing between the two women, unsure what to do about the one undressing and more unsure about the one advancing.

“She’s just some noble,” Green Suit said, calmly but forcefully, “no need to throw away your lives over her.”

“Walk away, now,” Curly said, taking a slow step forward.

Black Suit was fully naked now and in an instant, she began to change. Fur began to sprout from her skin like grass from the mud after a rain. Her hands stretched and contorted into claws. Her her nose began to elongate and snap itself into a snout. Muscles ripped and stretched and within a few seconds, she was over six feet tall and probably weighed more than 300 pounds. She was completely unrecognizable from what she’d been before. She roared and everyone except Green Suit flinched. Green Suit didn’t even look back.

My instincts were telling me to run and honestly, I agreed with them. I’d never seen one of these, but I’d heard of them. Everyone had, they were a fairytale. It was a Kurtadam, an accursed hybrid between wolf and human. My mother had told me about them in hushed tones before I went to bed. She warned me that if I was bad, one would come and steal me away in the night.

Pale and Dominica were frozen by fear as Green Suit began to transform, ripping through her clothes. Curly, for her part, managed to get her hands up and try to block the Kurtadam’s charge. With her jaws, Black Suit just took a big chunk out of one of Curly’s arms and cut deep slashes into the other one before she could even scream.

I found myself running toward Green Suit, who was almost fully transformed. I’d grabbed an empty bottle from somewhere and purely by instinct, I smashed it over Green’s head. I caught it by surprise, shattering half the bottle over it’s skull, and before it recovered I stabbed the jagged edge of the broken bottle into its neck.

“Run!” I shouted. Pale and Dominica snapped out of the spell they were under. Pale drew her own knife and grabbed Dominica by the arm, and they both ran.

Blood, thick and so dark it was almost black, poured out of the Kurtadam’s neck. The Kurtadam screamed and tried to bite me, but I manage to dodge out of the way as it’s jaws snapped inches from my face. I fell backwards onto my ass and began to scramble backward as the Kurtadam yanked the bottle out of its neck. There was a spurt of blood, but nothing else came out of the wound, which I could see was already closing itself up.

“Oh come on,” I muttered, struggling to my feet. My body was aching in protest and the wound at my side hurt. It hadn’t opened yet, but it would if I pushed it further. I gritted my teeth and threw myself out of the way as the Kurtadam charged at me.

I landed on my arm and a sharp jolt of pain went through my body. I got to my feet just in time to see the other Kurtadam claw a chunk out of Curly’s neck. We locked eyes for just an instant and she collapsed to the ground. She twitched for just a moment and then the light was gone from her eyes. The other Kurtadam turned to me and its mouth twisted into a demented smile, its teeth the size of daggers and dripping blood.

Great. Now I had two wolfmen trying to kill me.

Both Kurtadams began to slowly pace toward me, one of them licking their lips in anticipation. They were enjoying this. God, my side hurt. My Hunter’s Mark burned. I was sweating buckets. Why did I get out of bed this morning? Why did I have to play the hero?

The two Kurtadams began to circle me, making it nearly impossible to keep my eyes on both of them at the same time. I tried to step in the direction of an alleyway out, but as soon as I did, one of the Kurtadams stepped forward, its teeth bared.

I was trapped.