Raze appeared in the center of the room, and for a moment, the two simply stared at each other. Raze’s eyes caught the lamplight, reflecting bright gold as he locked gazes with Tom. A predator in the night.

“You don’t seem surprised to see me.” Raze rumbled.

“Saw you coming a mile away,” Tom said, his heart climbing into his throat in a bid to escape his ribs. He was terrified, but he couldn’t afford to show any fear. The animal in him knew it.

“Saw me coming?” Raze asked, letting the question hang in the air unanswered. “You didn’t before.”

You know,” The towering man said as he sat down, a chair appearing beneath him. “Some people nearly die and come back all the stronger for it. Some people crack and eventually crumble. I wonder which kind you are?”

“I noticed you aren’t trying to kill me. You must want something.” Tom said, resting his finger on the trigger. I’d like to see you dodge this. Teleporting was one thing, but human reaction time was entirely different. Tom was willing to bet he could put a bullet in the asshole before he could blink away if he had to.

“I notice you haven’t tried to kill me, if that lump of metal under your desk is anything to go by.” Raze responded.

Tom shrugged inwardly and pulled the pistol out from under the desk, settling it on the table between them.

“Doesn’t mean I won’t,” Tom said.

“You won’t.” Raze said, holding out his palm, and allowing six forty-four caliber bullets to tumble out of his palm and thud into the wooden table.

“Damnit,” Tom gritted his teeth. Even with his enhanced sense of space, the bastard had pilfered the bullets with a magician’s sleight of hand.

“Smaller object, shorter distance, smaller ripple,” Raze said by way of explanation.

“Don’t bother,” Raze continued, holding up a hand as Tom reached for a letter opener. “One way or another, there won’t be a fight.”

“Do tell,” Tom said, trying his best not to run like a bitch. His body still remembered the vacuum of space.

“I’ve recently been given an opportunity that would allow me to end the war between the Vith and Kinzena.” Raze said. “I just need you and your lump of metal.”

He nodded at the now empty revolver.

“I will take ‘your head’ to Vendrith Kinzena, whereupon your body will riddle him with bullets, putting an end to the suffering of both our people.”

“What happens after?” Tom asked.

Raze considered for a moment. “What do you want to happen after?”

Tom thought on his feet. “Obviously I want my daughter. And not to be betrayed the instant after Vendrith stops breathing.”

Tom was less than enthusiastic about being in the same room as the man, let alone stranded in the middle of the capital with him.

But this is what I hoped for isn’t it? Put enough pressure on the enemy and sooner or later some of them will begin to offer me terms.

“Your daughter…is in the possession of the En’hol. I cannot guarantee her…but I could lend the voice of Kinzena to the call for her return.”

That all hinges on not being stabbed or ‘ported into space the instant I do your dirty work.

“I can’t accept that,” Tom said, shaking his head. He knew of nothing that Raze cared about enough to act as collateral to ensure he didn’t betray Tom. Except maybe his unspecified vendetta against well…everybody. Tom included himself in that category.

“Well, let me know anytime you grow tired of the slaughter. Maybe we can work out an arrangement that satisfies both of us.” Raze said, standing and reaching into his vest pocket to produce a business card, causing Tom to do a double-take.

“It’s Curse-paper, Raze explained. “Anything you write on it will be transferred to its mate. If you wish to contact me, that will be the way.”

“Yay, a magical pager,” Tom said, sliding the card aside.

Space warped around the giant, enveloping him and in the blink of an eye, he vanished, leaving nothing but his business card on Tom’s stolen desk.

“Welp,” Tom said, taking a breath as he opened the cylinder on Jacob’s revolver and began sliding the bullets back where they belonged. “He’s terrifying.”

Tom paused mid-reload.

There is one way I could make sure he’s on the up-and-up.

***DREAM***

“I want your word,” Tom said, his conversation with the featureless mask going much differently this time. “The when this is over I get my daughter and we go back to Earth. That shouldn’t be too hard if you become Chief Kinzena, should it?”

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

Raze digested that, his body language different this time around, now that Tom was showing a willingness to bargain. He leaned forward almost hungrily, his breathing slightly heavier.

“I give my word that I will press for the return of your daughter to the best of my ability, and once you have her, return you to your home planet. Easily.”

“That’s as good a deal as I think I’ll get,” Tom said, extending his hand. “Alright, I’ll do it.”

They clasped hands for a moment, their grips equal in size, yet a vast gulf between their strength.

“Reload your gun.”

Tom did just that.

A moment later, Tom arrived in the center of an opulent office.

The old man that had kidnapped Ella stood behind his desk, brows furrowed, and to Tom’s right –

BOOM!

Tom reeled away from the withered old woman with what appeared to be a glock, his ears bleeding from the sudden explosion right next to him.

Raze was stumbling backwards, a hand slapped over his ear, where the bullet had grazed his scalp.

The old woman was staring at Tom, wide-eyed and slack-jawed. Tom couldn’t help but notice how similar her features were to Grant’s, and by extension, Tom’s.

Rather than welcome a distant relation with open arms, the woman screeched and tried to orient her gun on Tom.

Tom was younger and faster, whipping the forty-four up and squeezing off a shot despite his ruptured eardrums.

BOOM!

The gun bucked in Tom’s hand and the frail old woman was propelled backwards, following the blast of blood spattering across the bookshelves in the back of the office.

The old man with the long white beard, the one whose ‘expedition’ to Earth had ruined Tom’s life…brandished a porcelain-white cloth, seemingly torn from a woman’s dress. It was covered with some kind of blackening at the edges, as if it had begun to mold.

“Raze! Kill that-“

Tom set his sights on the asshat he’d failed to put out of his misery months ago.

The old man’s eyes widened.

Tom saw space warp.

BOOM

The gun was faster.

Tom’s hasty shot caught the Kinzena in the gut, staggering him backwards.

The warped space unraveled, creating violent eddies in the surrounding space that scattered papers and threw desk supplies across the room.

Tom saw space warp again, and decided to nip that shit in the bud.

BOOM!

The next shot caught Vendrith in the lower chest this time, disrupting his concentration a second time and causing him to cough up a mouthful of blood.

The old man hadn’t let go of the odd piece of cloth though, holding onto the lacey fabric like it was a lifeline.

“Raze,” Vendrith gasped, holding out the cloth. “Kill him,”

In front of Tom’s eyes, the cloth degraded even faster, tendrils of black spreading to the center.

“I think not,” Raze said, taking his hand away from the side of his head to reveal a band of lacerated flesh where the En’hol had grazed him.

He knelt in front of the wounded old man and closed his hand around the cloth in Vendrith’s fist, bits of ash fluttering out from between his fingers as he did.

“I’ve been waiting for this for a long time, old man. I’ll have my memories back. I am free.” Raze opened his hand and scattered the blackened bits of cloth over Vendrith’s body.

“Fool,” Vendrith chortled, wincing in pain. “The cursemark to suppress your memories was fueled by your memories. Whatever chance you had to know who you’re killing for was consumed with them.” He glanced at Tom with a sneer as he spoke.

Odd. Tom thought, frowning. That last part really seemed like it was directed at Tom.

“Now you’re just an emotionless cripple whose very identity has been hollowed out by a Morkel curse.”

“It’s true, I feel nothing. I remember nothing.” Raze said as the last of the ash left his hand. “No anger, nor happiness…”

“But I made a decision. And it does not require memories nor anger to execute.”

Raze’s hand snaked out and seized the old man by the neck, who looked positively frail compared to the behemoth.

“Gaurk!” Vendrith Kinzena let out a croak as he was lifted off his feet by a single hand. Space warped and thrashed around them, leading to a shimmering heat-wave effect as Raze pinned Vendrith in place.

With his other hand, Raze waved in front of him.

Hundreds of portals opened in the air in front of Tom’s gaze, each of them showing a men, women, and children, who shared features with Vendrith.

A myriad of faint voices expressed confusion and concern as they processed the picture of their leader in the hands of his second-in command.

“Greet The Omnipresent,” Raze rumbled, placing his free hand on the back of Vendrith’s neck.

Then, in front of thousands of witnesses, the heir of house Kinzena tore his father’s spine from his body.

***AWAKE***

Tom lunged out of bed, sweat pouring from his icy body. It had been a long time since he’d died in his sleep. Not since he’d been playing chicken with Carol had he felt so utterly outclassed and helpless.

“Something wrong?” Nema asked, sitting up in bed and rubbing her eyes. “Did your ‘Information gathering’ go poorly?”

“He killed them all,” Tom whispered, visions of children torn limb from limb surfacing in the dark spaces of his bedroom.

“What?” Nema asked blinking the sleep out of her eyes. “Who killed who all?”

Tom’s heart slowly recovered, his breathing gradually calming as the aftereffects of dying in his dream faded.

“To answer your first question,” Tom said, as he recovered his breath, “The ‘information gathering’ went very well. Possibly too well.”

From that one exchange, he’d been flooded with new lines of inquiry.

“To answer your second question,” Tom said, throwing off the covers. “We need to get our hands on a Morkel.”

The Raze bomb exploding wasn’t a matter of if, but when, and when he did, everyone on Orsoth was in danger. He needed some answers from the family responsible. Maybe there was a way to defuse it.

Because killing him seems damn near impossible. Tom could try to shoot where he thought the man’s head would be on the end of a teleport, but if he missed…that was it for him.

The old lady being a case in point.

Who the hell was that old woman? Why did Vendrith look at me? Tom started pacing back and forth in the cold room, the chill and the movement helping him collect his thoughts.

There was something more going on here, and Tom had only scratched the surface of it, and only because he put himself in a situation where people in the know were gathered together, dying left and right.

Can I get more info if I do it again? Tom thought, spinning on his heel when he reached the end of the room. Tom still had Raze’s ‘Curse-paper’. If it did what he said it did, he had a way to trigger the same exchange at least a couple more times…didn’t he?

Until he loses his patience or the cursemark degrades.

The cursemark was a piece of women’s clothing, wasn’t it? Tom thought, spinning on his heel in front of the bed and heading back toward the wall. Is there some kind of symbolic significance there? Vendrith said ‘who’ and not ‘why’ Raze was killing.

“I feel like you didn’t answer my second question at all,” Nema said sourly, leaning on her elbow. “I’ll excuse you for the nice view though,” She continued, raking her eyes across his body.

Nema’s words went in one ear and out the other as Tom spun on his heel again. It was only when her hands secured his waist in front of the bed that he was broken out of his thoughts.

“You make me breakfast?” She purred, looking up at him.

“Ummmmm…” Tom's brain took a moment to translate from Vith to English, then from English to Innuendo, but by then he already knew exactly what she meant.