Lenny and I walk out of the dormitory and along several turns. Along the way, we pass a courtyard full of varying stands, but the one that caught my eye the most was one that was full of pocketwatches and other antiquated time-pieces, including some contraptions that looked like a sundial was strapped onto a small metal cylinder, suspended on a chain. I try to keep the courtyard in my memory as we take a few more turns, onto a larger street.

The atmosphere here felt more realistic, for lack of a better word, as several buildings had faded paint, and the people that walked the street here were in more normal clothing than I had noticed back on the larger streets promoted in the pamphlets. Everything just had a more muted sense of grandeur here, as if those other streets were just an illusion from a fairy tale. Thinking about it, though, there was one detail about Halych that still felt like a fairy tale; cars were infrequent, not highly abundant like I’d have expected from such a thoroughly urban landscape.

We finally stop as Lenny turns and looks across the street. My gaze follows his, witnessing a humble wooden sign with blue, stylized lettering atop a doorway. “So this is the place?”

“Yeah, this is it. The Genn-Keele, one of the oldest sailors’ bars in Halych.” Lenny turns back to me. “I’ll go down the street and hide in one of the other buildings. Text me when he enters.” He turns to walk off.

“Wait.” I can’t believe the thought didn’t enter my head sooner, but my swords would give me away extremely quickly if this kid had any observational skills whatsoever. I pull my katana out of my belt, scabbard included, and hand it to Lenny. “This will get me ratted out if I keep it on me. Don’t drop it.”

“Holy shit, good thinking.” Lenny offered up a half smile. “Maybe you’ll really be somebody in this organization.”

I chuckle. Me, become somebody important? I wasn’t exactly convinced that it was a realistic aspiration to have. I was certain there were plenty of people more worthy of such a position than myself, and the Haracrein didn’t seem to have a very sprawling command structure-whether that would work for or against such an aspiration could be debated, though.

I look at the photo one last time, and stare at it for a little while, as to commit it to memory, and then slip it into one of my own jacket pockets, throwing my hood up as I entered the building.

I lean against the wall, letting my eyes trace the perimeter of the interior, as it almost seemed like a sailor’s bar, with as little of an idea I had of what a real sailor’s bar looked like-though it’s safe to say that the influence of a new era has left its mark on the bar. After some searching, my target enters the room, taking a seat at a table near the center. By sheer luck, I spot an open table not far from it, moving over.

I take a seat at the table, next to the one I was told to keep track of as I pull out my phone to covertly text Lenny about having found him. I let my secondary ears unfold within the hood, using it to hide my appendages as they picked up the extra sounds from all around the room.

My main mark is a young man, but the figure who sits at the table with him now- someone of middle age with unkempt hair and fingerless gloves, like a caricature of a crazy bum-is of more interest to me, because what I hear next is very, very interesting.

“I thought you were going to have the product for us. What the hell happened?”

“I almost did, I put it in the drinks, and I was about to get to bringing one over until… HE, showed up.”

“He? Who the fuck is HE, I thought you said you could handle yourself!” The bum was clearly agitated, acting more like a demanding businessman than just another hobo.

“Against another rook, sure, but there’s no way I was going to be able to put up a fight against him, he’s practically untouchable. I had to scram before I got grabbed.” I had a suspicion he might’ve been talking about Lenny. I didn’t get the idea that he was particularly powerful, but something was still definitely off about him, and there would have to be a good reason why the old man appointed him as the right-hand man of the operation.

“Well, aren’t you unlucky?” The bum tilts his head. “You don’t get your product until we get ours, remember that.”

The young man sighs in frustration. “Listen, just give me a little one now, to keep the edge off until I can figure out another way?”

The other frowns. “I don’t think so. Maybe you should work at it a bit harder, boot.”

“Damn it!” The young man drops his head into the table, groaning. “Weren’t you useful...”

“More useful than you, apparently. Find me at the Hanging Dutchman when you decide to not be useless.” He got up and left, as I did my best to commit his appearance to memory. I observe the young man, as he slams a hand onto the table, sighing, running his hands through his hair. I think it’s not much of a stretch to say that he’s under an appreciable amount of stress, but his stress seemed to stem from not completing his end of the bargain, much more than it was from having turned on his former friends. I had to wonder, what would cause him to do something like that?

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

The question was interrupted by the young man standing up, and leaving before a waiter could even get to either of them. I stood up myself after the turncoat left, but didn’t move until he went out the door.

I walk outside to see the turncoat walk down a nearby sidewalk, past a few spray-painted windows, and on the other side of my vision I find Lenny tailing him. I move over to Lenny as he hands me my katana. I give the saya a once-over and find that he hasn’t scuffed up the surface of the saya. Satisfied, I slip the sword back into my belt and adjust it so both it and my wakizashi were in their proper positions.

We trail behind him until we reach a local motel, and as he enters, Lenny picks up the pace. “Alright, let’s get him.”

“Wait, what will the receptionist think?” I was expecting an answer that went something along the lines of ‘she knows us’, but I just wanted to know for sure.

“I doubt the receptionist will say jack shit unless we threaten her specifically. Just trust me on this one.” Despite it sounding ridiculous on its face, Lenny seemed to be very serious when saying this, so I take him at face value.

We dart into the building together, and the traitor looks behind at the sudden noise, then immediately bolting for the stairs. I guess Lenny does have something of a reputation after all.

“I’ll make sure he doesn’t jump out a window or something, you go flush him up the stairs.” I simply nod as I follow his orders, running to the stairwell and opening the door to the sound of footsteps. As I begin to go up I hear the footsteps echo and a brief spot of sunlight hit the wall on the top floor, accompanied by the sound of a door being opened. I make my way up the stairwell, opening the door and drawing my sword, and finding the traitor up on the roof.

“The fire escape’s fucked! You’ll have to get him yourself!” I can hear Lenny ring out from the street level. The thought of handling him on my own without actually killing him was something I was dreading.

I could see the panic in his eyes, as I slowly approached.

“Just come with us. You don’t have to die for this, just tell us what’s really going on and we’ll do what we can.” As nervous as I was, I made a concerted effort to keep my voice steady, calm, controlled, which was in considerable contrast to how much control I felt I had of the situation.

“No, no, I have to do this, you don’t understand.” His voice trembles, and he’s clearly in a panic.

“Would you at least try to find a way out other than treason?”

I see his eyes literally go black. “You can’t help me, and your friends will kill me anyway! NOW STEP ASIDE!”

He charges forward, right at me, as I set my point forward and hope I ward him off. I don’t, and as I feel my point sink into his ribcage, I look down, away from him as I set my hilt further forward. He’s skewered, his hands grabbing at thin air almost madly before he slumps over. I pull the blade out and let him drop, barely having enough time to realize I had to look away as I killed a man who wasn’t really trying to kill me first before I hear footsteps coming from the stairwell.

I keep my eyes low to the ground, taking in the gravity of what I’ve just done, that same reality reflected in the growing pool of blood in front of me. Why did he run himself into my point? I didn’t understand. No, that’s not the right question. Why didn’t I just step aside and wait for a better time to capture him without killing him? I feel my chest tighten as I huffed; this feeling was exactly the kind of thing I wanted to get away from when I fled from home.

Lenny finally makes it onto the roof level, stepping through the doorway. “Good work. I see you’ve handled it just well on your own.”

“Good work? Really?” I grab one of his suit jacket’s lapels, pulling him closer as I stared right at him. “We could’ve taken him in for questioning just fine if you had come onto the damn roof yourself!”

He’s practically unfazed. Lenny sighs as he leans his head past me, looking at the body on the floor behind me. He didn’t look angry with me or even satisfied at my ‘good work’, just disappointed. “June, I think it was too late for him.”

Too late, what the fuck is he talking about? I take a moment to look over my sword, and it’s coated in black, tarry blood, just like with the last two hoodlums I’ve dispatched before setting foot in this place. That would explain his rather erratic behavior, and why he ran himself into my sword, but he still seemed different from the others. What changed? Was he still recoverable?

I force myself to set the questions aside, as I quietly accept that it probably was too late for him.

Lenny walks over and checks the dead man’s pockets, drawing a key from them. It was well that he drew a key and not a wallet, or my faith in the Haracrein would’ve been rapidly crumbling at that point. “We can check his room for any clues.”

“But what about the body?” It seemed so obvious to me, and the fact that Lenny just brushed over it was both surprising and concerning to me.

“The cops here are useless pricks, that’s kind of why we do what we do anyway. We won’t be found.”

I sigh as I wipe my katana off, before seeing it into its scabbard. I follow him down the stairs, and to the second floor, in a corridor with a flickering light and a stained rug in the middle, contrasting against aging wood flooring. We eventually come to a room labeled ‘206’ and he unlocks it, stepping aside.

“Go on in, I’ll watch for anyone suspicious coming along.” Lenny leans against the adjacent wall and looks down the hallway.

I simply nod and step in, finding a relatively barebones room, complete with a bed with unkempt sheets, a small flatscreen TV, and a nightstand plus a small dresser. Looking back to the area near the entrance door, I find a small pantry and a mini-fridge. I look into the dresser first, and find it empty. Clearly, he wasn’t expecting to be here for very long. I suppose I shouldn’t have expected any different.

Then I open a nightstand drawer, and see a slightly crumpled sheet of paper peering out from underneath various other clutter. I pull it out, and look at it.

‘The cravings, the edge, the pulsing beneath my veins… what the fuck did they put in me!?

If I don’t figure something out soon, I think I’m going to become one of those fucking monsters running out on the streets, God help me!’

All scrawled in a hasty manner, from what I could tell of his handwriting. It was starting to click now; this man wasn’t making some Machiavellian scheme for simple material gain like we’d been thinking at first, no, this guy was hooked on something bad. Then, my thoughts shifted back towards the black blood that came out of him, and the others before him. Perhaps it was related...

I sweep the rest of the room with my eyes and find nothing else of interest for the moment.

I walk back out of the room, and hand the paper over to Lenny, as he looks through it. “Not bad. At least you’re not completely clueless like some of the grunts I get handed.”

“Let me guess, lack of initiative on their own part?” I rose a brow, not expecting this to entirely be a problem with the recruits, except some of the younger ones that still had the mark of traditional schooling on their minds. Traditional schooling was good for making factory workers, but not great at teaching people to actually think.

“Actually… that’s a good way of putting it. Yeah, I suppose that’s a better way of phrasing what I experience with them.”

He looks over the paper one more time. “I don’t like this. It’s starting to look like he took the really bad shit, the same stuff that gave him a case of black blood, but why would he?”

“If I really had to guess…” I had to pause a second, to try and think up a reason that someone would seek it out. “It’s possible he sought some sort of power from it. Maybe he just didn’t have the confidence in himself to go without it.”

“I’d find that surprising, but not impossible. Guess we’ll go with that.” Lenny sighed, frowning, clearly not very satisfied with not having a clear answer. “Maybe we could catch that one guy you caught talking to him later, get some answers out of him. That’ll be for a later assignment, though.”

“Then what do we do now?”

“You’ll be headed back to the church. I think the old man wants to give you some training.”