Petyr opened his eyes. He blinked slowly, hoping his eyes would focus. Awareness came in small bits, like puzzle pieces being lazily put together. He could still hear the rain, but it was muted. His surroundings were gloomy, but a single light shone. He remembered the Jungle, and the Hounds. He remembered the damaged house, and leaving it. He was also in a whole lot of pain, which could only mean one thing.

“I seem to be alive,” he said. It was a rather weak little croak, but it was a start.

“Yes, you certainly are,” said a familiar voice he couldn’t immediately place.

“Good to know.”

“There’s water on the table.”

He turned his head, realised he’d turned it the wrong way, then found the table in question. He moved his arm slowly and experimentally, and got his fingers around the mug without too much hassle. His addled mind put up an image of dried, cracked earth in a flowerpot being watered, as he greedily poured the contents down his throat.

“Oof.”

He blinked a bit more and managed to focus on Ana. She was sitting with her rear up on a sofa’s back and her feet on the cushion, lit by a nearby table lamp.

“Oh, hey,” he said. “Am I in Sanctuary?”

“You are in my home,” the woman said. “It was closer.”

Petyr sat up. Various aches competed for his attention, like small children all pulling on the same doll. But everything worked. It dawned on him that he was barechested, and sporting a bandage right below his right pectoral.

“How... uh... how did I get here?”

“I found you unconscious,” she replied. “I dragged you a bit of a distance, before I found some people I know who helped me move you the rest of the way. Then I patched you up. That was yesterday.”

“Thanks,” he said, examining himself. “I hope I’m not giving your neighbours fodder for gossip.”

“I doubt they consider me interesting enough for gossip.”

He lay on a couch in a small living room. There was a beat-up radio on a table, a painting he couldn’t quite make out, a window covered by drapes, and the two sofas. That was about it for anything to see.

“Yesterday, you say?”

“Yes.”

“And you did the initial moving yourself?” he went on. “You’re stronger than you look.”

“I must be.”

He found some more bandages and tested the soreness beneath each one.

“I’ll admit, I really thought I was in worse shape than this.”

“So did I, when I found you,” Ana said. “I must be a good healer.”

The continued dullness of her tone finally caught his attention and he focused on the woman. He didn’t think she’d actually moved at all since he woke up. She simply sat there, slightly hunched and hugging her knees, and he realised she wasn’t even looking at him. Her eyes were lost in deep thought.

“You seem a bit vague regarding yourself,” he commented.

“I am unsure about a lot of things,” she said, still in that distant tone. “Tell me something: Have you ever heard about tunnels and chambers existing far beneath the city? And I am not talking about sewers.”

“I...”

Petyr scratched his head, finding some new sore spots.

“I don’t think I have.”

She nodded slowly.

“You do realise I have to ask why you are asking, right?” he said.

“What is the largest land animal you can think of?” Ana asked.

Petyr stayed silent as he evaluated whether he’d misheard.

“What?” he asked flatly once it was clear that he hadn’t.

She finally moved just enough to turn her gaze his way.

“What happened to you?”

“The Hounds,” he told her. “They’ve been gunning for me. Caught up with me in the middle of that storm, led by Wolf himself. I fled to an empty house but they caught up. I had to fight.”

“You must have fought like a beast,” she commented.

No. He’d fought like a warrior. As he worked to restructure the fight from memory he found himself more than a little astonished at his own performance. Hardly his first brawl, but he couldn’t recall ever having been pushed like that. And yet he’d fought as if it was all second nature to him. Like some mythic warrior with a sword, rather than a limping journalist with a hardwood cane.

The cane...

It was his own turn to look away, at the emptiest spot he could fight so nothing would distract.

What the hell had happened with that bastard Wolf? That figure he’d glimpsed in a flash of lightning... surely it couldn’t be real. But when had he ever been one for wild imaginings? And those strikes he’d landed on the gang leader...

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“How... uh... how did you find me?” he asked. “Was it just dumb luck on my part?”

“I was heading home,” Ana said, and he immediately picked up on there being much more to it. “Then I saw blue flashes in the distance. They drew my attention, and a lightning flash then let me see you.”

“So you saw those too?” he said, and felt that the full importance of this fact would only dawn on him slowly.

“I did,” Ana said. “And I get the impression there is a significance to that. Did they have something to do with you and the Hounds?”

He hung his head.

“I don’t know what happened. I mean... I think I know, to a degree, but I don’t understand it.”

“I know the feeling,” she said, and as he looked up he found the woman staring earnestly at him. “And that’s just about all I’m certain about at the moment.”

“Well, aren’t we a pair?” he commented, but didn’t have the strength to follow with a chuckle, even a weary one.

“Something very strange is going on in this city,” Ana said, and a hint of passion finally came into her voice, born of conviction. “And I don’t think I am the only one to have noticed.”

He stared back, and felt her conviction seeping through his fatigue, bolstering his own.

“No,” he said after a while. “There IS something being hidden. I’ve been feeling out for the puzzle pieces, but mostly I’ve been finding that the image is bigger and stranger than I previously thought. I honestly don’t know if I should assume anything at all at this point.”

She absorbed his words silently, then waved her hand at him.

“You know, all that, patching you up, it felt familiar.”

“I suppose I’m not the first person you’ve had to scrape off a sidewalk,” he said.

“Oh, certainly not. But that’s not what I mean. I mean you specifically. It feels like I’ve worked on you before. But for the life of me I can’t place a date, or the circumstances.”

Petyr couldn’t either. Nor could he tell if the woman had just triggered a very faint memory or simply put an idea in his head.

“Well, neither can I,” he admitted after a bit of mulling. “And I don’t know what to say.”

“No, it’s very frustrating, isn’t it? But let’s move away from the facts. We seem to be missing all of them, anyway. I would like to hear your opinion on something.”

“I can hardly deny you that, all things considered,” Petyr replied.

“Someone has been skulking about in the Jungle, scratching people quite badly with what I’ve been assuming are metal claws,” Ana told him. “And I noticed some scratches on you.”

“I-I was attacked,” he said. “A few days ago, near Elm Park.”

“By whom?”

“I don’t know, damn it,” he replied, swearing out of exasperation with the situation rather than anger with her. “It was so dark. But there was a whole bunch of them. I brawled with one, in an alley. It was strong, fast, dangerous... if the rest had caught up with me, I’d be dead for sure.”

The woman just made some small noise in her throat.

“You said it.”

He shrugged, and discovered yet more sore spots.

“It just... didn’t feel like a man. Or sound like one either.”

He still felt like a bit of a fool saying this out loud, but Ana’s reaction was a soft nod.

“I have been hearing things like that, from the homeless,” she said. “I didn’t take it seriously at first. But regardless of who is doing this, they are hurting people badly. They ambush them in the dark, or attack while they’re sleeping, equipped with whatever makes those cuts. But do you want to hear the strange part?”

Now he did manage a weak chuckle.

“Sure, lady. Let me hear the strange part.”

“In spite of all that, and the victim always being alone, I don’t know of a single fatality. I am hardly complaining, but here is the opinion I wanted from you: What do you think that means?”

Petyr mulled things over for a few breaths, before arriving at what seemed like the most logical conclusion.

“Perfect hunting ground...” he said. “Perfect timing for those attacks... I would guess... that the aim isn’t to kill at all, but to torment and terrorise.”

She looked away and again nodded very slightly.

“Torment and terrorise,” she repeated. “Yes. And you spoke of a whole group, so this isn’t the work of some lone sadist.”

“At the same time, here is no practical benefit to terrorising the Jungle,” Petyr went on. “So it feels like cruelty is the whole point.”

“Yes. Yes it does.”

After a bit of a silence she got up and walked out of sight. She came back only seconds later with an object in each hand.

“Do you have any idea what this is?” she asked, and handed him a flat diamond-shaped plate of some sort.

“Is...”

He turned it around in his hand, twisting it this way and that, seeking some other reality than the seemingly obvious one.

“It sure looks like some kind of reptile scale,” he eventually said.

“Yes,” Ana replied. “Only far too large to make any kind of sense.”

“Well,” Petyr said with a loud exhale. “That does make sense, because nothing makes sense anyway. Everything fits together in a stew of mystery and nonsense. But I see you brought two treats. What’s the other one?”

“Does this mean anything to you?”

She handed him a book jacket. It was torn, old, and water damaged. Judging by the warmth it had just been resting on a radiator.

The City That Was.

“No,” he said. “I... no? What is this?”

“There is a chance it’s a lead,” Ana told him. “All I know for certain is that it was important to a man who seems to know more than either of us. I would just ask him, but he’s vanished.”

“So you don’t have the actual book itself?”

“No. But there is an antique book store I want to check out. In fact, I want to check it out tonight.”

“I’ll go with you,” he said. “Two heads are usually better than one.”

“Are you up for it?” she asked.

He sat up more straight and did the one thing he’d been dreading most. He moved his bad leg. There was an ache there, but much less than he’d been expecting.

“You have healing hands, Ana,” he mused in wonder as he moved it again.

“So it seems. But yes, please.” The woman hesitated. “I would feel safer,” she then added. “And I’m really, truly tired of mysteries.”

“Yeah,” he said, then looked around for his things.

“I’ve been drying your coat and shoes,” she said. “Your shirt had some blood on it, and a cut, but I have some charity clothes here in a box. You can borrow a shirt from it.”

“Alright, thanks.”

“I also have your cane. Your hand was clutched around it.”

She stood up.

“I’ll get some bread and porridge ready for you. Do you think you’re good to set out within an hour?”

“I survived the war. I’ll survive a stroll.”

“Good to know.”

“Also, I really need to use your bathroom.”