Nathan felt a surge of strength accompany the flames as they were absorbed into his body. An Echo. A soul.

His soul. Thief or not, did I just consume his soul? Nathan grimaced, his stomach feeling sick. For some reason, that feels quite different from simply killing him. I’m not sure I like it.

He pushed the feeling to the side as he had been trained to do, as he had done so many times. Nah, he came for me first. I’m not going to let his poor decisions make me feel guilty, whether I took his soul or not, dead is dead.

The bolt fell to the dirt, stained dark with blood. It had been pushed from his body, like a rejected prosthetic. The hole knit itself back together, and Nathan breathed in a deep breath as if he’d been plunged into frigid water. His mind was shocked to lucidity.

Down below, Cleo’s eyes flitted open with a sharp intake of breath. She sat up, feeling at her chest. “What did you do?” she asked, looking up toward Nathan, mouth stunned open.

“I’m… not really sure,” Nathan said, watching as the cloud in the sky split, letting the sun cast its rays down on the earth. One such ray illuminated the burning corpse lying at his feet.

She looked at Nathan, trying to see if he was joking or not. “Well whatever you did,” she said, getting up from the ground, her cheek covered in a thin layer of dirt. “It worked. I’m feeling much better now.”

“I am too. Something about my ability seems to heal me.” He looked toward Cleo. “And unfortunately you too.”

“Tough. If we can’t kill each other, we should at least get moving.” The assassin touched at her chest where the phantom wound had been. She sniffed and then looked toward the city. “I don’t like the idea of being caught standing by a dead body. Rotting in a prison cell isn’t how I plan to spend this new shot at life we’ve been given.” The corner of her mouth tugged up in disgust. “Although that might be preferable to spending it near you.”

Blood stuck to his leather chestpiece, a smooth hole in its center, but no hole in the skin beneath. There was a dark, knotted scab there instead, a lattice of thick, broken skin placed over his heart. Like an old wound, long since healed over. The pain still lingered. It probably would for a long time.

“Agreed,” he said. “Let’s go.”

***

Sometime during the killing of his friend, the gold toothed man had run off. Nathan had been rather distracted with some other, more present, things – namely the killing of the man’s friend.

It wouldn’t have been difficult to track him down. Even without their decades of tracking and killing targets, they would have been able to follow him, his steps standing out clearly on the ground. But they had more important things to do than chase down a random thug. Nathan didn’t want to just kill people for no reason, though the man probably deserved it.

Their walk was silent, the both of them doing their best to take in their new surroundings. The place was nowhere like any city on earth, that was for sure. Its imposing stone walls and towers reached high above them, strange birds took flight from buildings that looked pulled straight from the middle ages. They passed beneath a great stone archway, and soon found themselves within the city.

A small crowd of people milled about. A guard nudged at a drunk man sleeping in an alley. A shopkeep hawked their wares, selling a candle that supposedly never went out. A young child, dirty from a life on the street, darted through the throng of people, bumping into nearly all of them. Nathan spotted the kid poke their fingers into the pockets of more than one person they passed, but didn’t say anything.

“I’m gonna get a drink,” Nathan said, spotting a hanging sign with a tankard painted on it.

Cleo grabbed his arm as he tried to walk away from her. “It’s barely midday.”

“Do you know what time it is back on earth?” Nathan grinned, pulling his arm away from her. Cleo didn’t respond. “Me neither. I’m drinking.” He turned back toward what he assumed was a tavern and strode toward it, pushing his way through the crowd of people until people seemed to get the message and started getting out of his way.

“God, you’re frustrating,” Cleo yelled after him, causing a few people to look their way.

Nathan ignored her, feeling her glaring at his back as he wrenched open the door to the tavern. He gave one last look behind him, expecting Cleo to be gone already, but she was right behind him.

Did she get quieter? I didn’t even hear her approach.

Nathan grunted, eyeing her.

“What?” she spat. “Thought I’d just leave you alone? Like it or not, Nathan, we’re stuck together for a bit. So stop moping like a child, and look at this like just another job. You’re over ninety years old for heaven's sake.”

Nathan frowned. “I’m not moping. When I was picturing my first drink, I was hoping to enjoy it. Kinda hard to do that with you next to me. ”

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She glared at him.

Nathan shrugged “A beer is a beer,” he said, and then walked inside, Cleo following close behind.

There were half a dozen circular wooden tables scattered throughout the tavern. Almost all of them were packed with patrons. They ranged from people that barely looked over the age of twelve to men that looked older than Nathan when he’d died on earth.

A heavy-set older man with a bald head and a short, gray beard sat on the other side of the counter. He had a towel laying over the shoulder of a stained white shirt and was surprisingly not cleaning a glass.

Several eyes in the establishment watched them for a short time before losing interest and finding something better to stare at. Nathan sat down at the counter with a slouch as Cleo found her way toward a small table in the corner.

“Rough day?” the bartender asked, eyeing Nathan. His eyes narrowed as he noticed the bloody hole in the middle of his leather chestpiece. He would have to get that fixed, or at least find a shirt to wear over it.

“An interesting one for sure,” Nathan said, flashing a grin. “Some very high highs, and some very low lows.”

“Can’t say I can fix that,” he pointed to Nathan’s chest, “but I sure as hell can make you forget it.” He slid a full tankard of something dark down the counter toward Nathan. Nathan caught the sliding drink, a bit of it sloshing out onto his hand. “First one’s on the house. The name is Arnold.”

“I appreciate it, Arnold,” Nathan said, raising the tankard in thanks. “But I’m afraid I won’t be paying for anything.”

Arnold frowned, his hand reaching for something underneath the counter. “Is that a threat?” he said, eyes narrowing.

Nathan held up his hands. “No, just a fact. I don’t have much in the way of… uh… coin at the moment.”

“Then what did you come in here for?” The bartender asked, leaning down across from Nathan.

“A drink.”

“And how were you planning on paying if it weren’t on the house?”

“I guess I’m lucky it’s on the house.”

Arnold cracked a grin and smacked the countertop with his palm, splashing a bit of liquor. “That you are, my friend. That you are. What’s your name?”

He nearly lied. That’s what he’d done his whole life when asked that question. But he was on an entirely new world – giving his real name out wouldn’t do any harm.

“Nathan,” he said, taking a hearty gulp from the tankard. A bit of liquid spilled out the corners of his mouth before he wiped it away with the back of his hand. “Young man, this is the best beer I’ve had in years.” And it was. Rich, delicious. Okay, now Cleo could kill him.

“Young man?” Arnold said, a confused grin on his face. “I’ve got to be at least three times your age.”

“Er… yes, just a slip of the tongue. My apologies.” He drank down another gulp from the tankard. Behind him, Cleo had found herself a table in the far corner and was watching the patrons like a hawk.

Like she’s going to learn anything about this place by glaring at anyone that gets within twenty feet of her, Nathan thought. He scoffed and turned back to his drink.

***

The rest of the day passed quickly in the tavern. Patrons came and went, the establishment growing noisier and more crowded with every passing hour. Nathan had no coin with which to pay, but Arnold kept the drinks coming either way. And after either drink nine or sixteen, Nathan felt the urge to piss.

He stumbled out of his chair, drunk as shit, walking the waviest straight line toward the bathroom that he could. The tavern was a bustling maze of chairs and people and he ran into more than one, including a child that would definitely have been too young to be in a tavern back on earth. Different world, different laws.

Cleo wasn’t in her seat anymore. Or was that Cleo’s seat? Maybe that was a different corner? They were all looking the same right about now. Right angles and wooden walls.

After several tries, Nathan finally found his way into the bathroom. It was one of those fancy, open-air bathrooms that had no roof, toilets, or sinks. Just two long stone walls that led out to the street on either end.

A frown crossed Nathan’s face. “I’m not in the bathroom, am I?” he mumbled. Although it certainly smelled like the bathroom. Lots of piss and alcohol.

“Afraid not, friend,”a voice said from behind Nathan.

Nathan spun around to face the voice, but he spun a bit too much and ended up facing the same direction as when he began his spin. He repeated the motion again, this time much slower, and succeeded in only turning around once.

“Now get back inside before you hurt yourself,” the voice said again.

Nathan could now see who it belonged to – a lanky man with a face that was perpetually in motion, like looking at a moving fun-house mirror. He blinked, steadying his sloshing vision. The man’s face stilled.

As his vision cleared, Nathan noticed more. The lanky man had a short blade pressed against the neck of a much younger, terrified looking man. The dagger glinted silver in the starlight as the three stood alone and still in the alleyway. Voices drifted from inside the tavern, people passed on the streets on either side of the alley, some even glancing down before hurrying away. No one came to help, no one cared to help.

“Are you deaf?” The man gestured toward Nathan with his blade. “I said git!”

Alone. In a dingy back alley. Nathan was no stranger to situations like these. Usually, however, he was the one holding the knife. The irony wasn’t lost on him, a twist of fate that made his stomach churn – or maybe that was just the ale.

He’d been a pawn before, a loyal lapdog that had been pointed in a direction and told to run. It gnawed at him, a bitterness that had been fermenting at the depths of his soul, now bubbling to the surface.

No more.

“My terms,” Nathan growled, taking an uneasy step forward. The lanky man shoved the young man back, turning and pointing his blade at Nathan.

“What?” the cutthroat spat, caught off guard by Nathan’s audacity. “Don’t do something you’ll regret, kid.”

“My terms,” Nathan repeated, stronger this time.

He pulled both of his fists up before his face, swaying back and forth. His stomach lurched, threatening to expel the last eight hours worth of ale. The ground beneath him felt like the deck of a ship caught in a storm.

“From now on,” Nathan said, holding back a burp. “When I kill, it’s going to be on my terms.” He stumbled. “No more being told who to kill. I get to choose.”

“What the hells does that mean, you drunk bastard?”