“There is this saying,” Yvlan said. “Keep your friends in sight, but your enemies next to you. I think perhaps you are taking this too literally.” She pointed to Red, who was sitting at the bar of the Clucking Hen, sipping tea, a content smile on her face. It was early in morning, just an hour after sunrise, and the bar was closed. Yvlan had let us meet there, away from prying eyes. Well, from the Guild or the military’s prying eyes. I had no illusions about Yvlan, but could you call it spying if we knew she was listening in? I’m not sure.

Anyway, we were all sitting at a table, half across the room from Red, while Yvlan and Char yelled at me for letting Red both live and go. I shrugged off the criticism and glanced at Char, who was glaring daggers at me.

“He did this with Xico, too,” Char said to Yvlan, pointing an accusatory finger at me.

Yvlan shook her head and sighed in disapproval before leaning over to me and asking, “Who is Xico?”

I said, “Xico is my landlady, she tried to kill me, but we’re fine now. But that’s not important.”

Yvlan laughed and poured Char another mug of beer. Char didn’t usually drink in the mornings, or much at all, but recent events made her sudden thirst for alcoh ol understandable.

“And why is she smiling?” Char asked, pointing at Red. “Fixers don’t show any emotion.”

“My Lord has told me that was ‘creepy as hell’ and that I should ‘knock it off,’” Red said from across the room. Char glowered at her but didn’t say anything.

Yvlan cocked an eyebrow at me and mouthed, “Lord?”

I sighed and rubbed my temples. Too much had happened to me recently, I didn’t like explaining this much. Life was getting too complicated. I never had to explain anything when I was on the road, killing monsters. The monsters never asked questions. Well, okay, they did sometimes, but I never felt obligated to answer.

“I’m actually a demon that thinks he’s Jonas Dreadstone,” I said flatly, “because of the Hunter’s Mark. So is Char.” I pointed at Char, who began pouring herself another mug of beer. “And the demon I was, or am, was a pretty big deal in Hell.” I turned to Red and said, “Didn’t I say to call me Jonas? None of this Lord shit.”

Red squeaked in excitement and nodded vigorously.

“Yes, Lord Jonas!” she exclaimed.

I put my head in my hands.

“She is a child,” Yvlan said. “Look at her. She cannot be older than twenty-five.”

Char nodded and said, “Even with the Mark, she has to be exceptionally young. But I wouldn’t mistake that for not being dangerous. Fixers are raised from birth, so she’s been trained to kill for her entire life.”

Red got up from the bar and walked over to us. She took the seat next to me and set her teacup down softly.

“This body is sixty-eight,” Red said, eliciting shocked expressions from Yvlan, Char, and I. I may have even gasped. “But I am, of course, older.”

“How does that work?” Yvlan asked, peering curiously at Red’s Mark.

“Red,” I said, “don’t answer that.” I felt a bit bad calling her by the nickname I’d given her, but when I told her about it, she’d taken it as a badge of honor and insisted quite emphatically I call her that.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Yvlan frowned but didn’t complain. It’s not that I didn’t want to spill Guild secrets to her, it was more that I know how the Mark worked well enough to explain it. I’d asked the same question and Red had spent over an hour talking my ear off about hexes and demonology and magic and so many things I didn’t understand at all. I didn’t want that headache again.

“So then, Red,” Char said, not masking the vitriol in her voice at all. “What’s our next move?”

Red shrugged.

“We weren’t told much,” she explained. “Fixers are expected to follow orders, under threat of soul-death. We don’t make decisions.”

The mood in the room deflated a bit. I sighed and rubbed my temples. Of course this wasn’t going to be easy. It wasn’t ever easy.

“What can you tell us, then?” Char asked. “Anything useful?”

Red shrugged. “I could take you to the woman I reported to, but that’s about it,” she said.

“And who was that?” Char said.

“I don’t know,” Red explained, causing me to slump even lower in my chair. “We just called her the Doctor.”

“What did she look like?” I asked.

“Like most of you,” Red said, shrugging. “Human.” I glared at her and she quickly added, “She was masked, she never showed her face. But she had no demonic soul. I mean, she had no Mark. She was not a Hunter.”

“Well, that hardly narrows it down,” Char said. I didn’t say anything, but she was right. For every Hunter in the Guild, there were at least five other, normal people. Well, normal was relative. But the point still remained: very few people had the Mark, even in the Hunter’s Guild. And that only got more true the higher up in the ranks you went.

Sure, there were people like Colonel Bridges or Char, who both started as Hunters in the field and then climbed the ranks to more managerial and administrative positions within the Guild, but there just weren’t simply enough Hunters to go around staffing the Guild like that. Nevermind that most Hunters weren’t particularly adept at that side of the job. For example, I was particularly terrible at paperwork. My paperwork abilities are so bad that they’ve been described on two separate occasions as ‘apocalyptic.’ When Colonel Bridges and I had traveled together, decades ago, she’d done all of my paperwork for me.

“Wait,” I said. Everyone in the room turned to me. “I think I know who we could ask. Colonel Bridges.”

Everyone at the table except Yvlan stared at me like I was crazy. Yvlan stared at me like I was crazy, but there was another distinctive glint in her eyes. Was she impressed or aroused? I couldn’t tell.

Red shook her head and said, “Respectfully, that’s not a good idea. The Guild higher-ups are the ones we should be avoiding. Did you forget you’re wanted by the Guild?”

Char nodded emphatically and said, “For once, I agree with Red. For all we know Colonel Bridges could have ordered the fixers after you.”

“She could have,” Red agreed. “We weren’t ever told who on high approved our orders, but it could have been her.” I sighed.

“No,” I said, “I know her. She wouldn’t have. She hated all that underhanded shit.”

“And yet,” Yvlan said, a slight smile on her lips, “she went into Guild politics.”

“Yeah,” I said, annoyance bleeding into my tone, “she got promoted. So did Char. That doesn’t mean they’re both dirty.”

Yvlan glanced at Char and blew her a kiss. Char blushed slightly and looked away. Clearing her throat, Char said, “Well, maybe it isn’t the worst idea to contact the Colonel. After all, it could only end with a total failure and all of us arrested.”

“Speak for yourself,” Yvlan and Red muttered in unison.

I shot them both glares and they shared a smile. Char sighed and put her head in her hands.

“I know Jala—I mean…Colonel Bridges,” I said. “If she decides to arrest me, she’ll at least give me a head start.” I stood up and said, “So here’s what we’re going to do.

“Char: get a message to the Colonel. Say that I want to meet. Be discreet about it.

“Red: try to make contact with the Doctor. Say you’ve captured me and that you want to hand me off.

Yvlan: I need some things done. Discreetly.”

Char sighed but nodded slowly. Red smiled and sat up a bit straighter. Yvlan just looked at me, a curious twinkle in my eye.

There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that this wouldn’t go to shit somehow. I got the feeling that a grenade had just been tossed into my foxhole. This was going to blow up, there wasn’t any doubt about it. But would it blow up in my face, or would I be able to get some distance between the me and the explosion?