Ley glared upon recognizing the familiar voice of owl Thorin. Vile memories resurfaced in his mind. Without uttering a word, he burst off into a sprint in the other direction. Another shorter agent with seven blades sheathed across his body blocked his escape.

He had appeared from thin air. “Why run and not stay to talk?” he grumbled.

Ley backed up slowly, bumping into the first one again. His enigmatic mood was unreadable. One moment, Ley felt fine. The next, he convulsed and frothed at the mouth as Thorin strangled him from behind with a rear naked choke.

No clawing or kicking would do anything against the man’s strengthening vice. The last thing Ley saw before flickering out, eyes rolling back, was the dumpster lid creaking open, revealing another unnerving set of eyes. Then yet another owl appeared from the shadows of nowhere to join the others.

Ley awoke in a dark field filled with mist, sparse spectral flowers, and trees emitting low light around him. A great blue full moon shone down in the distance as endless rain pitter-pattered.

This dream confused him like nothing else but, even so, it was far more soothing than home. Ley walked toward a cliff’s edge where a wooded throne rested. Seated there, a withered man with an elk’s head gazed out into a calm sea. Its horns sprawled out like branches.

“Where am I?” he asked.

Without facing Ley, the elk man spoke yet its mouth didn’t move. A gentle voice emerged from within his own head. “You’re in my realm. Quite the place, isn’t it?”

“It sure is.”

A flock of see-through guls, perhaps spirits, flew over Ley’s head toward something far out of view. “Then am I dead? Is this Yellen?”

“Not yet, but you’ve been brushed by death. That’s how we were able to meet. Those owls intend to kill you, Ley.”

“I don’t get how you’d know that. What exactly are you?”

“Once upon a time when gods ruled your world, I was one of them. Now I’m bound to the pathetic dagger at your hip. You may call me Major."

“Ah, I see. Then you’re a machina.”

“If that is what humans call us now, then so be it.”

Ley scratched his chin. So, I guess I’ll wake up and face them soon.

Major read his worries. “Yes, but right now, your probability to survive is zero.”

“Great. About what I figured.”

“I invited you here to offer a chance to change your fate though. Form a contract with me. Trust the blade. Perhaps it will give you the power to live.”

“Don’t have much a choice, do I?”

“It seems so.”

“But what’s in it for you, oh great deer man?”

Major tapped its fingers on the throne’s armrests. “I’m on a journey to restore myself through Convergence. I require worthy hosts to wield the blade and collect the others necessary for the ritual. Upon your death, your soul will be mine, and your eternity will be spent in this realm. Then whenever the next wielder happens upon the blade, you’ll aid their journey as an ancestor.”

Ley looked back behind him. He spotted several other spirits akin to Major. The mysterious figures sized him up curiously. “I’m not the first then.”

“There are many, Ley. Trust in your ancestors. Become their vessel. Their shell.”

Ley snapped awake on the hard cobblestone ground surrounded by owls and alleyway brick. Thorin now raised Ley’s legs up. The other owl who appeared from the dumpster waved air on his face with a grody tin trash can lid.

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When he came to his senses, the pleasantries came to a jarring halt. Thorin decked himself out in all the jewelry he’d stolen, ring on finger and everything. As the man went over the finds, the others surrounded and took turns beating Ley.

He took kicks to the stomach and throat, yanking of his hair from the scalp, and ringing smashes over the skull with bottles and metal bins. Ley couldn’t help but ball up and protect his vitals from the beasts.

Thorin held the amethyst ring up. “All of this amounts to roughly one gold regalia, most of it from this fine jewel here. Now taking that from your debt, you still owe us seventy-four gold regalia.”

Thorin squatted down to Ley’s level, forcing him to make eye contact with a fist full of his hair. “What the hell is holding you up? You’re on borrowed time. At this point, we might as well just whore you out or cut you up and be done with it.”

Ley’s left eye twitched as he built up the grit to argue. “Not even King Andre would be able to pay off something like that, you damn idiots. You’re all livin’ in Monestate of all places! You should know that nobody’ll ever get hold of that kinda money out here!”

Thorin thought to himself for a bit. Ley could almost see his dumb grin under the mask. “I’m not that inept. I’d go as far to say I’m quite well-educated too. Top of my class, even. Don’t lump me with this cesspit. Not everyone in this kind of work is poor. But, yea, I know you can’t pay, but that doesn’t matter.”

Ley’s voice became hoarse. He refused to cry in front of the owls though. “I don’t get it. What’s the point of this shit if you don’t really expect anything outa me?”

“Not everybody needs a reason or some deep meaning. We’re just doing our jobs. People who can’t pay are punished. Hey, loosen up a little. This isn’t personal.” Thorin hesitated as if contemplating stopping there.

Instead, though, he continued. “But I say rats ought to stay in the slums. There needs to be an exterminator. A gatekeeper. That’s me. You people are rabid animals; the lowest of the low who spread their stink everywhere. I’m going to do whatever I want to you, and nobody will care. What’s wrong with having a little fun with it?”

Ley stared at him in silence. Then the tears broke, which he at once wiped away. Thorin chuckled and dug deeper. “This city’s a prison. We can’t let retards like you ever leave it.”

Ley stared off with an unsettled face. “Your parents ever let you outside? Ever seen how bad it is everywhere? I did before things went to shit.”

He motioned to the other owls who’d taken a break from breaking him. “I’m startin’ to suspect this captain of yours is some spoiled brat with soft hands. A milk drinker. He’s never worked for anything. He’s only in this because he gets off to it, right? Ain’t that right?”

His comment hushed Thorin to deadpan stillness. At first, this brought Ley gratification. Then it brought fear once the air chilled. Ley read from Thorin’s partners in crime that he’d probably stepped on a bear trap. Their demeanors shifted stiffer as they awaited their leader’s reaction.

Thorin drew the steel sword from the scabbard on his back. He twirled it around a bit before taking a firm grip. The orange cat's eye on its hilt opened. Ley stepped back from the machina until his shoulders touched the wall, the hairs on his arm sticking up.

Thorin addressed Ley bluntly, now devoid of his usual casualness. “Truth be told, you’ve been marked for death for a year now. Master Al Yara stamped you himself. I’ve only kept you alive so long because you’re fun to fuck with.”

Ley held his hands up. “Come on, man. Calm down. I don’t want to die.”

“Organs fetch high prices with all the anatomy practices sprouting up. A New Age of science, aye? Helps our budget.”

There wasn’t much Ley could say to that. A rattling overwhelmed him. It took a frigid, everlasting moment for him to realize that his body wasn’t the cause. The object tucked into his belt shook violently. It shook as if beckoning.

Thorin reared his arm to cut him down. “It’s a shame that we can’t play cat and mouse anymore, but there’s always someone new.”

Ley drew Major's dagger, holding it out in front. The blade radiated blue spectral light as the elk’s eye flickered open on the hilt. Antlers sprouted to replace the hilt and handle, bringing life to the dull knife.

He recalled Major's words in those ethereal woods. Trust in your ancestors. Become their vessel.

Thorin swung but hit air. He stumbled over himself as Ley made space between them. “Kid’s got a machina?”

A new initiative overtook the owls. Every agent drew weapons and lunged to slay Ley. To their surprise, he met the challenge with confidence. Ley dashed and danced around grazing strikes as if he was forged for war.

His resistance wasn’t perfect though. Slashes and bruises slowly branded across his body. For every blow to crush his bones, he struck back with threefold animosity.

One owl rushed forward in desperation only for Ley to roll across his back, shoving him into another. After the collision, the man collapsed to reveal several deep punctures in his spine that no one saw inflicted.

The partner to see this yelled at Thorin. “He’s too good for some twerp.”

“Must be the machina's power. Just got to disarm him,” Thorin shot back.

Ley’s eyes glowed blue, his hair flowing up as if attracted by static electricity. He became a passenger to his own body, driven onward by the demonic phantom of a swordsman long dead.

Showing off an eerie smile, he spoke to the owls. “Ghost in the Shell. Etch the name of our power into your souls.”

Thorin took a step back as he sized up Ley’s new mannerisms. “Who the hell are you?”

“I’m Kafka Briar of The Westwinds. This is a great opportunity. I’ve craved owl blood.”