I awoke in my bed. I blinked a couple of times and looked around, in a bit of disbelief. Maybe I was dreaming? No, my body hurt so bad I was reasonably sure I was awake. I looked around my room and breathed a deep sigh of relief.

I checked my wounds and they were stitched up. The wound on my side had opened up, but just a bit, and had gotten new stitches. It was starting to scab up. My other wounds were also beginning their way to healing.

I tried to get up but immediately collapsed back down on the bed, woozy from blood loss. How long had I been out? Judging from how much my wounds were healing, I’d been out for half a week, maybe more. I shook my head, trying to think. Again, I really shouldn’t have survived. This was starting to become a pattern. Well, it had been a pattern since I’d become a Hunter and hadn’t really stopped. But I’d never cut it this close, this consecutively, before.

I tried to get out of bed and found success by steadying myself with the bed frame. I limped my way to the kitchen and found a man sitting there, facing away from me.

He turned around and I nearly fell over from surprise. He looked like me, but everything was wrong. He looked a lot older than I did, he looked like an actual 55-year-old. He was clean-shaven and had peaceful, tired eyes. He didn’t have any visible scars, and he didn’t have a Hunter’s Mark. He was wearing a simple tunic and pants, which made him look like a farmer.

“Wake up,” he said. “You’re dying.”

“What?” I asked, leaning against the wall so I didn’t fall.

He took a step toward me and I flinched. He chuckled and shook his head.

“I mean no harm,” he said.

He took another step toward me, and then another, and another until he was inches from me. He reached his hand up and gently brushed my Hunter’s Mark.

“You’re dying,” he said. “Wake up.”

In an instant, I was back on the street, my head lying on the cobblestones. Blood was pooling below me.

My Hunter’s Mark started to itch, then burn. Then, it became scalding. I screamed and pressed my hand to it, before jerking it away. A burn in the shape of my mark had been seared onto my palm.

The burning sensation spread through my body and I could feel my wounds burning closed, cauterizing themselves. It felt like someone was pressing molten iron into my skin.

My vision went white with pain as the hole in my side burned itself close. When my sight returned, the burning had subsided just a bit. I struggled to my feet, leaning against the wall, and tore off my makeshift bandages.

I threw up, which was dyed crimson with blood, and it burned as it came up. Not in the normal way vomit burns, but in the it felt like I’d thrown up some hot embers with the blood and bile way.

Wiping my mouth, I took a deep breath and stood up straight. I ran my hands over my body, feeling only burn scars where there had been gaping wounds. As the pain subsided, I took a deep breath in.

I took a moment to steady myself and took a few hesitant steps down the alley. Then a few more. I ripped the dog tags off the Kurtadam’s corpses and broke out into an all-out run. Someone had left their laundry out to hang on their balcony. I jumped up ten feet, snagging the end of a shirt, and ripping it down with me. As I ran, I pulled the shirt on. My muscles screamed and my wounds ached, but I was alive and the pain was just proof of that.

I knew where Pale and Dominica were. Well, I know where any bodyguard worth their salt would bring a client in this situation. If not a safe house, then a church. When you’re being pursued by a monster that may have supernaturally heightened tracking senses, safehouses become less useful. So you go to neutral ground and beg for sanctuary.

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Churches were holy sites, anyone could ask for shelter there and receive it for 48 hours. It has to do with some myth of a saint seeking refuge from an army, but hey, I never really read the scripture. All that matters is that anyone can seek shelter in a church and very few people will challenge that.

Beyond the legal protections, churches held a power of faith that even criminals and monsters didn’t like to break. Faith was a powerful thing and stepping over the threshold of a church to kill someone seeking shelter in one could incur that god’s (or those gods’) wrath. It was a dangerous thing.

So I headed for the closest church, the Mercy of Saint Toliver. It was only half a mile away and I could see it from the street, towering over the Warren.

The Mercy of Saint Toliver is one of the largest churches in the Warren. Hell, it was one of the largest churches in the entire Capital. It’s old, too. Thousands of years ago, it was a small shrine to Saint Toliver, the saint of travelers and wanderers, built a couple of miles outside the Capital. When the saint of travelers, Toliver became the god Toliver, god of travelers and wanderers, her shrine was upgraded.

As the Capital grew, so did the Mercy. I’d never been to it myself, but I’d prayed to Tolliver many times. I did a lot of traveling and a lot more wandering, so it didn’t hurt to be careful.

The Mercy of Saint Toliver was a towering stone building, with four entrances that corresponded to each cardinal direction. They met in the middle of a large prayer area, centered around a statue of Toliver, built to resemble her when she was just a lowly human, like the rest of us. Of course, it was also twenty feet tall, so not exactly like the rest of us. Gods are gods, after all.

I came in the South entrance and blew past a priest giving advice to a wayward traveler. I raced to the statue and found Dominica there, her head bent in prayer.

I slowed to a walk and said, “Dominica, we keep meeting.”

Pale was standing next to her, her head also bent in prayer, and she turned while Dominica ignored me.

Pale said, “We have sought sanctuary at this temple, you may not harm us here.”

I raised my hand and glanced upward, checking for any smiting that might occur.

None happened, so I smiled and said, “I’m not here to harm you. I’m here to help you.”

Finally, Dominica turned and said, “In my line of business, you hear that so much that you stop believing it.”

I shrugged and sat down next to Dominica. Pale kept an eye on me but didn’t say anything.

“I killed those two people after you,” I said, quietly. “Nearly died doing it, too. You could be a bit thankful.”

Dominica eyed me and shook her head.

“No. For all I know, you were in cahoots with them. You come here, after having followed me, apparently unhurt, and ask me to trust you? Surely, you know how that sounds.”

That was a fair point.

“I can explain the unhurt thing,” I said, pulling up my shirt to show my closed wounds, “I did some battlefield medicine. And while I did follow you, you should trust me. I just want to solve a case.” I didn’t add that if any more of those things came after her, I’d be the only thing standing between them. Pale certainly wouldn’t be much help.

Dominica didn’t respond, so I took her silence to at least acknowledge.

“First,” I said, “who were they and how did they do that?”

Dominica stayed silent again. I exhaled sharply and shook my head.

“Fine, second question. What were you doing in that warehouse?”

Dominica again, didn’t respond. I looked over to see her shaking softly, a single tear rolling down her cheek. Sometimes, I forgot people weren’t used to being hunted by terrifying monsters. Sometimes, I forgot there were people who didn’t sleep with knives under their pillows. Sometimes, I forgot everyone wasn’t as much of a basket case as I was. I envied them a bit. But not in moments like these.

Pale was looking away, politely, so I gently patted Dominica on the back.

“Buck up,” I said, “you’re alive. Curly isn’t, but that’s the job.”

“Curly?” she said, before saying, “You mean Junea?”

Sometimes, I forgot the people I gave cute little nicknames to had real names. I felt like an asshole.

“Yes,” I said, “she died protecting you and fighting with me. Now, unless you want more people to die, you have to help me.”

Dominica wiped the tears from her cheek and sniffled.

“Fine,” she said, her tone resolute. Pale flinched and whispered something in her ear but Dominica waved her away.

“I’ll tell you what I know.”