Lenny and I enter an undecorated two-story building and into a dimly lit room with mostly bare interiors, except for sleeping bags and padded mats on the first floor, filled with people either already passed out or high out of their minds-all this being cordoned off by what appears to be little more than a hallway up front. There was another recruit with us, but he split off at the hallway and went up a set of stairs instead. A pervasive smell litters the room, and I don’t think I like it very much-though it was at least kept out of the entry room as it was separate from the ‘crash room’ we were currently in, which forms the actual drug den. There’s a conspicuous-looking steel backdoor that I’m not sure you can even get back in from once you’re out.

“These are the people we’re expected to protect?”

“Well, they’re clients, so yeah. While we’re at it, if we could capture one of the attackers alive, that’d be a huge help from an information perspective.”

“Do we really have such a hard time of identifying the gang after us? I can’t imagine this Teneb substance is too common.” I’d never heard of Teneb or its… products, until I ran away to this city.

“Yeah, that’s the thing; Teneb is actually extremely rare from a global standpoint. I don’t know if I’ve ever heard of any major drug routes for Teneb outside of Halych. Inside of Halych, though, it’s not all that hard to get your hands on some. We’re basically the Teneb capital of the world.” Lenny lets out a heavy sigh. “Thankfully, it’s still not all that much more common than the standard hard drugs even in Halych, but that’s just a cold comfort.”

I hadn’t thought before about the crime rate of this place, mostly because it hadn’t been brought to my attention before. It also clicked with something else Lenny mentioned to me earlier. “So the crime got so bad the police more or less gave up, solely because of Teneb?”

Lenny seemed to offer a half-smile as he looked over slightly, though it was hard to tell for sure. “Clever girl. They tend to drop the hammer pretty hard on any of ‘em that step into the nicer parts of town-the parts that the tourists tend to mill about in, in short. As for the rest of us? Well, they didn’t give up due to the volume of the crime as much as they did due to the sheer ferocity of it. You’ve already faced one of these roided-up shitbirds before, haven’t you?”

My thoughts trail back briefly to the second night I was here, and the two crazed men I had to fight against the same day. The one with the bat and the tentacle was not something I’d be forgetting anytime soon. I shudder as I ponder the possibilities of what this terrible substance was really capable of. “Yeah, I’ve had a small taste of what these guys are potentially capable of. They don’t seem to react to pain the same way normal thugs do.”

“Like wild animals, right?” The response came out a little faster than before. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have thought that Lenny was actually getting invested into the conversation for once.

I feel myself smile slightly. “Yeah, that’s a good way to put it. Have you fought any yourself?”

“Well, I’ve had to slug a few in a barfight here and there.” Lenny lets a hand up to his face. “They’re a real goddamn headache, sometimes I need a barstool to ward ‘em off.”

“You wouldn’t just pull out a gun at that point?” I inquired sincerely, knowing how dangerous they could be up close.

“Guns are not easy to get in this city. That’s probably one of the few things the cops in this city get right, actually. So, no, I just deal with them the same way I deal with everyone else.” Lenny stated this almost matter-of-fact, like it was just another Tuesday to him.

“Really? I know how bad these things can get, and even I don’t like fighting them up close.”

“Maybe I just haven’t gotten the worst ones of the bunch yet-I have heard some downright eldritch shit about these guys from a few secondhand accounts, but I never bought into it very much myself.” This would certainly explain his relative indifference towards the ‘afflicted’ Charles spoke of earlier. Still, given that Lenny doesn’t visibly carry weapons, the fact that he could handle them himself-even the weaker ones-gave me pause. Was there some trick of his that he was hiding? “Well, now we just wait here for our guy to meet us.”

Two minutes pass, before a man in a dress shirt walked into the den proper. He walks over to us, crossing his arms. “So, that attack’s due today, yeah?”

“That’s what we were told. We’ll hang here and let another rook hang up in the business room with you, if that’s alright?”

“I don’t have much of a problem with it, so long as he knows to stay out of my shit.”

Lenny holds up a half-smile.“Well, good, because I already sent him upstairs.”

“Sheeit, really, Lenny? Forceful as ever.”

“Sometimes it’s best to just have an iron grip on the situation, Nick.”

“Oh well, guess I’ll-” It’s at this point I see a small, green, and heavy ball fall into the room from an open door, rolling towards the center, loosely resembling...

“SHIT, DOWN-”Lenny wastes no time in driving us both into the ground, followed by a deafening explosion and a flash of heat.

My ears are ringing, and I’m guessing that those of everyone else in the room are as well. Lenny gets off of us as Nick and I scramble to our feet after him. We can’t hear what’s coming, so we seem to instinctively stick to the nearest wall to not get flanked as we try and get our bearings, as I move my sayas to one side to better conform to the wall. At a glance, none of us are wounded, though there are multiple ‘clients’ who are now bleeding from multiple areas of their bodies.

So far, I’d been trying very hard to hide my… peculiarities, the most obvious marks I had to show that I was most certainly not like the others. It was another question that briefly passed my mind earlier, but I’d been putting it off. Now, though, I knew we were in an ambush and if I couldn’t hear, I might not be alive to live down the embarrassment anyway. It’s a difficult decision, but I let my secondary ears flip up, unaffected by the grenade as they were previously shut, as I hear footsteps from outside the window nearest us. For but a moment, I remembered this exact drill from my brief training with Lariat, and before I’m even fully able to mentally actuate the fact I shove my wakizashi’s saya up, and unlock the sword with my left hand’s thumb. As an arm wielding a hatchet breaks through the window closest to us I’m already drawing my sword, and as he begins to swing towards where I was previously standing I slice into his wrist, my blade completely stopping his swing before I rake the blade against his wrist, further opening it to produce a spray of familiarly black blood as the hand drops its axe and a blood-curdling scream issues from the other side of the window, a scream that didn’t sound entirely human, either. The hand retracts and I turn around as I hear another man cannonball through the window on the far side of the room.

He stands up, wielding a kitchen knife and looking over with crazed, blackened eyes. He’s only got a tank top and jeans on, as I see him charge at Nick-who had drawn a collapsible baton when I wasn’t looking-stabbing forward as Nick sidesteps and crack the baton across his forehead, hearing what I assume to be a minor skull fracture. Nick’s footwork is a little twitchy-typical of someone who’s startled from not being used to life or death fights, but fundamentally his technique is good. I spot movement from the main doorway and dart towards it, as Lenny seems to still be gathering himself huddled down.

Stolen novel; please report.

I spot one of the Haracrein’s recruits with his sword drawn squaring off against another thug armed with a machete. The thug swings downward with brute force as the recruit blocks with his own sword for dear life. The thug winds up and swings sideways savagely. This time, the recruit’s training finds him and he catches the attack against the strong of his sword, and with the point on line he stabs with a covered thrust into the thug’s ribcage as yet another near-human yell rattles upon my ears. The recruit only pauses for a second before ripping the sword out with yet another wide spray of black blood. The afflicted stumbles forward with a wild swipe that catches nothing but air as his other hand clutches his chest, falling to his knees and then onto the floor. His yell lowered to a mere gurgle as the recruit shook his head, coming back to his senses.

Then, another one comes in the door. This one’s completely shirtless, intimidatingly tall, and… his left hand was hanging off of his wrist, only a few inches of flesh from being completely severed, and out of the cut sprung three blades forming a claw-like appendage, of solid black, oily mass resembling the tentacled appendage I encountered earlier. Before I could do much he charges in, catching an overhead stroke with his claw-like appendage and ramming his fist into the recruit’s guts, sending him back and leaving him reeling before cocking his left arm back for a swipe of the claw, scraping the recruit’s arm and sending him toppling over whilst blowing through his not-yet-recovered guard.

I had also noticed that my primary ears were no longer ringing, so I fold my secondary ears back down. I was secretly glad that I had found an opportunity to conceal them again so soon.

Then, he turned to me, and looked at my wakizashi, and the black ooze that stained it now. I could see his eyes looking it over as he put the pieces together in his mind. “YOU.” The word came out as a growl, and he began walking towards me. I’m sure this was about me almost lopping off his hand.

After seeing him floor the last guy, I knew I couldn’t let him hit me. I feign a thrust, keeping my weight balanced as he swipes at my sword with his claw, no doubt trying to ensnare it as I quickly pull it back, pivoting on my lead foot to elude the fist that followed it while ducking, slashing at his shin as he let out another growl. Almost at a panic at this point, I roll through the doorway back into the room where Nick and Lenny were, looking back to see a very angry brute and noting that my arm was bleeding, no doubt nicked on the way out of that encounter.

I scramble back to my feet to find that Nick has finally dispatched his assailant-who now lies on the floor out cold-and find Lenny fully standing, walking over to eye up the newcomer like a prize fighter eyeing up his next challenger.

“Holy shit, I’m surprised June didn’t just take off running from some big, ugly bastard like you!”

This seems to have gotten his attention. He turns and approaches Lenny with a steady, relentless walk, and Lenny… gets into a fighting stance. He hasn’t even drawn a weapon yet.

“Lenny, where’s your weapon?”

“What weapon?” Lenny focuses intently, calmly, as if this was entirely normal for him. The beast of a man lunges forward with his claw, but Lenny beats it aside with an open hand and slams his other fist into the beast’s face before it could follow up with its other hand. The beast is driven two steps back as it shakes its head violently, growling.

He lowers his stance slightly, seizing Lenny’s jacket with his right hand and making a thrust at Lenny’s torso with his claw, but Lenny deflects it forearm to forearm, using his other hand to unhook the beast’s thumb from his coat and pulling it off, before whirling around and throwing him over the shoulder, dropping his own weight to fling him over back-first with an audible slap as he hits the floor. Lenny wastes no time following up by ramming the heel of his boot into the man’s head, leaving him in a daze.

Speaking of which, I was almost in a daze from Lenny handling the man like we were living in a martial arts flick.

“Yeah, he doesn’t look like he’ll be of much use. JUNE! Finish him.”

This took me firmly back into the moment, and I step forward again, pausing for a moment. He was stunned, maybe I didn’t have to kill him. I take a breath in, and a breath out, as I’m forced to admit to myself that mercy was just too dangerous as an option right now, despite my reservations. I stab the beast’s torso twice with my wakizashi before looking it over; it was now almost solid black with the blood of the afflicted near the point. I wipe it off with a rag from my pocket, and let it back into its scabbard.

“What a fuckin’ mess...” Nick grumbles as he collapses his baton against the concrete floor below him.

“We’re not exactly done yet, Nick.” Lenny walks around the room, eyeing how many were injured on the floor “We need a goddamn head count, and some medical attention.”

“Shouldn’t we just call emergency services and leave it at that?” Despite my fixation on how Lenny muscled one of those things barehanded, the thought popped into my head, ever obvious.

“That would be fine if this happened out in the open.” Lenny turned and looked back over to me. “But, this happened in our drug dens, and we don’t want to be attracting attention to this place, so we can just take our ‘clients’ and drive them over to the hospital ourselves, proper procedure be damned.” He then looks to Nick. “You don’t happen to keep first aid kits around, do you?”

“What, you think I actually obey health code ordinances?” Nick let out a short cackle, and Lenny seemed to smile at the line as well. “I do keep some supplies on the second floor.”

“Better get to work before your customers bleed out.” Lenny pulled out a flip phone(seriously, a flip phone?) and swiftly dialed a few numbers, stepping outside for what I presume is a call.

All I know to do is to take a knee momentarily, looking over the cuts on my arm. Looking closer, it wasn’t so bad after all. It wasn’t even freezing up like my shoulder did from that black tentacle. It’d probably handle itself in under a day, but I know the others here aren’t nearly as lucky. Suddenly, the other recruit from earlier pops into my mind, and I walk over to the front room, where he’s still on the floor. He opens his eyes, and looks at the walls first, and then me.

“Where am I? Am I dead?”

“You don’t look very dead to me.” My eyes suddenly gaze over the alarming amount of blood coming from the two slices left by the claw. “You’re not out of the woods yet, though.”

Nick comes down the stairs with multiple bandage rolls. “Care to stop this joker from adding to the mess?” He throws a bandage roll towards me, and I catch it, after a little fumbling. Looking closer, he looks a little on the pale side as I throw a bandage wrap around his cut arm. He’s still in a little bit of a daze and I swear he looks paler than he was when we first walked into the building. I admit, it looks bad, but I’m not exactly seeing bone, so I have high hopes that the recruit will make it through.

I realize that I don’t have a way to cut the bandage roll, so I simply make do with my wakizashi before entering the other first-floor room and moving over to the brute’s body. I sigh. It didn’t feel right to stab a man when he was incapacitated like that, but I suppose it had to be done. My brooding is interrupted by Nick, however. “Heyyy, maybe you should plug yourself before you end up being the one to go all pale like our sleeping beauty in the other room.”

I turn to him suddenly. “Who, me? I’ll be fine.” Perhaps my record of being staunchly resistant to injury would reveal my true nature sooner or later, but for now I could write it off as the cut not being deep enough.

Nick and I get to work strapping up the others, spare for the intruders themselves. It’s probable a few will die, but a pair of people in black suits stroll up, collecting the wounded ‘clients’ to be taken away to a hospital. I can only assume they’ll bring someone else over for the bodies of the intruders.

“Hey, how much experience do you have with Lenny fighting barehanded?”

“I don’t get to see too much of it myself, mostly just him handling some punks who puffed their chests up too much. I still consider his performance today to be a bit surprising, and I’m starting to think this man stuffs his gloves, ‘cause he deflected that claw like it was made of plastic.”

“Huh. You think there’s a bigger secret to it?” I tilted my head.

Nick paused what he was doing, turning to face me with an exaggerated look of comedy. “After the shit I’ve seen today, anything’s possible, even the fuckin’ Easter Bunny’s existence!” Nick let out a short cackle, and I had to admit, it was kinda funny.

Though, maybe the irony caught up to me first, instead of his joke. “Well, you have a point.”

I walk back over to check on the recruit. He’s sitting up against the wall, having finally found his katana among the aftermath of our most recent battle.

“You forget your blood rag?”

“Y-yeah, actually...” I could tell, because he hadn’t scabbarded his sword yet.

“I’m not giving you mine, but we’ve got some spare bandages that should work for you. Might scratch up the polishing, though.”

“I guess that works.”

I toss the bandage roll to him, and walk towards the entrance to find Lenny, walking back inside.

“Our other guys should be arriving soon to get us all out of here.”I follow him as he walks along to inspect the assailants, writing off two as dead and then stepping to the one that Nick knocked out. “I think this one’s still alive… we’ll bring him with us.”

“Assuming Nick didn’t beat all the answers out of his brain first, of course.”

Lenny tilts his head and chuckles lowly. “We’ll see.”

“Anyway, that guy, how the hell did you manage to subdue him bare-handed?”

“Confidence, good gloves, know-how. That’s mostly all there is to it.” Somehow, I’m not entirely sure if I should believe Lenny at this point.

Our getaway car arrives. It’s time to go.