Generally, monsters are only a problem in rural areas. But they still find their ways into urban areas from time to time. How? Well, sometimes nobles or burghers try to get a nixie for their pond or a dryad for their garden. Then, something goes wrong, like it always does, and the monster gets out. Happens more than anyone would like to admit. But that probably wasn’t what happened this time. Firstly, most nobles don’t keep things that could do the damage I saw in the alley. Secondly, if it was a monster from a noble’s yard, it would’ve had to travel a hell of a long way to the alley. Usually, those kinds of incidents caused chaos locally, in rich neighborhoods, not the Warren, on the complete opposite end of town.

What is more likely is that a monster escaped from an illegal fighting ring. There’s a ton of them in the Warren and almost none anywhere else. Rich, poor, and the middle class all flocked to the Warren to enjoy seeing a unicorn gore someone. Fun for the whole family.

Places like that were usually locked down tighter than a bank vault, but sometimes things escaped. I’d only been back in the Capital a short while, but I was a Hunter. It was my job to know about these places in case anything got out.

I headed to the largest ring I knew about: a place less than half a mile from the crime scene called the Clucking Hen.

I’d never been, but when I got to the place, I knew its kind immediately. The first floor of the ring was a tavern: a legitimate front to hide the stuff that actually went on behind the scenes. This early in the day, it was mostly just a few people drinking and eating, but I could see a doorway that led downstairs. Tonight, crowds of people would pour through that doorway to see some good old-fashioned violence.

I sauntered over to the bar, feeling the eyes of the patrons and employees on me.

I sat down directly in front of the bartender and said, “I’m going to need access to your records about what you have downstairs.”

The bartender ignored me, so I repeated myself.

Then, I slammed my Guild ID on the table and said, “I’m not looking to shut you down, just chase down a lead.”

The bartender muttered, “I’ll get my boss,” before scuttling off into the back.

This was when I made a fatal mistake: I started to think that this might be easy. Maybe it would just be in and out, simple as pie. And then I heard the footsteps approaching me from behind.

Four people, all “patrons,” were trying their damnedest to sneak up behind me. I turned around and saw three women and one man, all wielding knives, slowly advancing toward me.

The woman to my left lunged at me and I dodged out of her way, grabbing her by the back of the head and slamming her down into the bar. I heard the bar and her nose crack as I dodged the man’s knife, which cut the air an inch from my nose.

I grabbed the man’s arm and twisted it until I heard a pop, a snap, and a scream, and then I shoved him away. He went tumbling into a table.

One of the girls was a bit smarter, she tried to stab me in the side while I was breaking her friend’s arm. I managed to mostly dodge out of the way; her blade only cut a shallow wound an inch long in my side. As she tried to swing her knife back, I punched her in the throat. She fell to her knees, grasping at her neck, gasping for air.

The final woman whistled and I heard a storm of footsteps coming upstairs. Within a couple of seconds, at least a dozen thugs, armed with knives, swords, and clubs began pouring out of the stairwell.

I sighed and held up my hands in surrender. Someone shoved a bag over my head and tied it around my neck. I felt my hands being tied behind my back with ruthless efficiency as I was led downstairs. As I went down the stairs, the groans of the people I’d injured slowly faded.

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After about a minute of stairs, I was shoved down a hall and then through a doorway. A door slammed behind me and someone shoved me down onto a chair. Then, the bag was yag from my head.

I blinked as my eyes adjusted to the dark. It didn’t take long and I quickly saw that I was in a small, stone prison cell. My hands were still bound and I was being tied to a chair. The woman who’d whistled for all the goons stood in front of me, leaning against the door. She was holding her knife in one hand, twirling it around her fingers. The man tying me up finished and quickly skittered out behind her.

It was dim in the room, but I could make out her features perfectly. She was a bit shorter than average and had curly brown hair that hung just below her chin. Her skin was the color of honied mead and she had a small scar on the left side of her jaw.

“So,” she said in a thick Urelian accent, “what is your name, Hunter? And why are you here?”

The cut at my side had already stopped bleeding and I could feel it stitching itself up. By tomorrow, there would hardly be a scar. But she didn’t know that.

I pretended it hurt a lot and said, “My name is Jonas. Like I said, I just need to look at your records. I’m not looking for any trouble.”

“Easy to say that after injuring three of my people,” she spat.

I rolled my eyes and said, “Boo hoo, that should teach them not to attack a Hunter. You’re lucky I didn’t kill them.”

Anger flashed in the woman’s eyes but it was quickly replaced with amusement.

“I suppose that is true,” she said. “Just as it is true that you could have fought your way out, but you didn’t.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“I’m old and tired,” I said. “That would be a lot of work. Plus it would probably hurt.”

“It would,” she said, before relaxing a bit, some tension melting out of her body. “I cannot let you go now, though.”

“No,” I said, understandingly, “your subordinates would start to think you were weak.”

“But…” she said, before trailing off.

“But?”

The woman pulled out my Guild ID and showed it to me. Then, she threw it at my feet and spat on it.

“But, once, Jonas, in the motherland, you saved one of my husbands.”

Huh. Didn’t know I’d done that. I was meeting a lot of people I’d helped today.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“You may call me Yvlan,” she said. “I suppose you think I owe you a favor for saving my husband.”

“Do you owe me a favor?” I asked, hopefully.

“No,” she said, a sadistic smile spreading on her lips. “I never liked him.” Then, the smile faded and she sighed. “But he died of the plague not a year later, so it is okay. And besides, he was only a kobyla.”

Kobyla: the Urelian term for a partner chosen specifically to have children with. We called that a sire here. It meant he hadn’t been that important, emotionally at least. As interesting as the inner workings of this mob boss’s marriage were, I was growing a bit impatient.

“So you’ll let me go?”

“Yes,” she said, and I smiled. “If you fight for me.” My smile dropped. “You have injured one of my best women. She cannot fight. I will lose a lot of money if I cancel tonight’s fight. So, you will fight in her stead. A Hunter on the ticket, even a male one, will bring a lot of buzz.”

I groaned in boredom and felt against my ropes. They were strong, but not strong enough. I took a deep breath and strained against the ropes. They snapped apart around my wrists and body. Before I could raise my arms more than an inch, Yvlan had her knife at my throat.

Even faster than that, I wrapped my hand around her knife and ripped it from her hand. Blood began to flow down from where the knife was cutting my hand, covering my sleeve.

I tossed the knife across the room and said, “Calm down. I’m not trying to escape. I was just getting comfortable.”

Yvlan rubbed her wrist and winced in pain. She licked her lips and took a step back. She had a desperate look in her eyes.

“Very well. If you fight, I will tell you what I know. I cannot lose tonight.”

The cut on my hand stopped bleeding. I flexed my fingers a bit and they felt okay. There was something she wasn’t telling me. Go figure: a mob boss, keeping secrets? Shocker. But this fight was important, more important than she was letting on. First Char, then Dominica, then her daughter, and now Yvlan. All keeping secrets. I missed the days when I could just impale a gargoyle or fight off a pack of dire wolves. I’m not made for detective work.

My Hunter’s Mark throbbed and I pressed a finger to it, willing it to settle down. It ignored me.

I nodded to Yvlan and said, “I’ll fight. I’ll do my best, I promise you.”