Natural Selection

[Jasmina Apsara]

Jasmina was startled on two levels, and not pleasantly.

For one thing, the girl clearly hadn't noticed her, but she'd received a response from the other one. The... fox... thing. She would have expected that it had no more intelligence than any animal, given its appearance, but it seemed both sentient and aware of her.

Then there was the sneer. It was not a friendly smile, not at all. It was an expression of threat. Even Jasmina could tell that.

Which of course begged the question: why did people in Keltaris seem to have it in for her? Was it just her apparent connection with Salliniari? It had to be. There was no other reason someone would hate her. Certainly she didn't expect everyone would love her-- there was such a thing as a simple personality conflict-- but she just didn't get in anyone's way enough to be hated. She had learned that lesson from the death of the rest of her clan; the only way to be safe was to keep completely to yourself.

Now even that seemed not to be working. There was danger everywhere, whether from marginally skilled assassins armed with knives, or from strange fox-creatures randomly making angry faces in the street. It wasn't safe, not anywhere. Not for Jasmina herself, and not for her unborn child.

Jasmina turned and ran. She would return later, after things had settled down. When the other girl finally looked over in the bellydancer's direction, all she would see was a hasty retreat, with coins jingling.

[Dorcas Tansy]

Dorcas gaped at Chris and hardly seemed to hear his dismissal of her question. Her gaze wandered up over his shoulder and she saw the contained roiling of the mob shift momentarily to reveal the quickly retreating lady in black who, she realized, reminded her disturbingly of Udorl. The jostling shoulders of bystanders shifted again, and she caught sight of the high, scholarly forehead of the boy who had been buying her drinks earlier, and also the plain-faced, interesting girl. They were laughing. Dorcas's face stiffened to stone and she hastily brought her attention back to the matter at hand.

They made for an awkward little convoy as they scooted towards the alley: the battered man with his furry face, the shaggy cat that hunkered low along the filthy cobblestones, the shame-faced girl, and the wild-eyed older man. Dorcas caught a thick whiff of Chris's adrenaline-fueled sweat in his wake and found herself distinctly reminded of wet dog. For a split second, she recalled how Mydjeken's sweat, after chopping up an old banister, smelled of beeswax and sour milk. She had to swallow to relieve the urgent emptiness she felt in the hollow at the back of her tongue.

Silently, she nodded in response to Chris's instruction and walked ahead. The girl was indeed slightly relieved to have a bit of personal space away from the reek of blood and men. She strode forward and her cat skulked alongside her.

Several paces ahead, the alley grew darker and seemed more narrow. Continuing on, the alley opened onto a smaller street parallel to the one they'd escaped. Dorcas jogged along down the chilly corridor and stopped several feet short of the road. A man in a sharp uniform rode by on a tall horse. The clip-clop of the hooves echoed smartly in the alley. Just as the sound had seemed to fade and signal his distance, the rap of hooves became louder again; he passed by the other way. A brass plate fastened to the back of his leather jacket glinted with a stamped inscription: Constabulary Patrol.

Dorcas looked back down at Chris along the length of the alley. Her face was a sickly moon above her drab, disheveled clothing. She started back towards him and Cervantes and ran her hand along the left wall of the alley as she did. She stopped halfway back, startled, and looked at where her hand had rubbed right up against a door she hadn't noticed before.

She looked back at Chrishton and indicated with a jerk of her head the unsatisfactory escape offered by the opposite end of the alley. "Patrol," she whispered loudly, her oral movement exaggerated in order to make herself understood.

Her eyes turned back to the door, which was set so tightly into the wall of the alleyside building as to be easily missed. The hinges must have been on the inside, and where one would expect to find a handle, there was only a tiny iron protrusion shaped not unlike an anchor with its point embedded in an iron plate in the wood. Fascinated, Dorcas pinched it between her thumb and forefinger--the shape was about the size of her thumb--and attempted to twist it like a key. Her eyes widened in alarm and she had to stifle a yell as the thing began to glow red hot, and the iron plate seemed to emit a warning, ticking noise. As she withdrew her hand, the ticking faded, and the iron shape quickly lost its hot glow.

She looked back at Chris with a quizzical raise of her eyebrow and eyed the door with new suspicion.

[Chrishton Radu]

Things had gone well so far. Perfectly well, in fact. No doubt he would be joining the witty high-browed boy and his plain faced friend in laughing about the destruction of Salliniari's tavern, a place so over-hyped that few realized how mired in its own decadence it really was. The delicate, extravagant air of Keltaris had blossomed a place so fragile that it could not withstand the slightest outside perturbation. All because of the foolish undercurrents of racism and puradynic ideals that trickled under all of Eyropan society.

Times were changing. Chrishton did not remember things being like this when he was a boy. At least, not that he could remember. Anyone with an ounce of brains would have had that place crawling with magic and creatures more suited for quick defense than well dressed, albeit handsome, human men. Irrational aversion to magic was getting worse. Speaking of which...

Sending Dorcas ahead was a tactical decision that had little to do with scouting. Chrishton trusted her as much as he trusted anybody, but he needed to divert her attention. With her back turned to him and Cervantes, he leaned the kitsune's back against the stone wall lining the alleyway.

"Change back t'a person. Do it now."

Cervantes didn't like taking orders, but he made an exception to listen to the burly man who had saved his life, beaten the shit out of everyone around, and who looked like every breath he took was done with absolute surety and confidence. He changed back, a feat that was over with by the time Dorcas was finished reading the letters glinting off the back of the local constabulary's plate. He became a young man again, looking no older than 30, with dark Setkhantian features and good looks that might have made Chrishton jealous if he wasn't busy being proud. He was wearing the same traveling clothes he had been when he snuck into Jasmina's room, although they were currently stained with blood and grime from rolling around on a cellar floor.

Everything else the same, his eyes looked different than the ones Chrishton had seen in the cellar. Down there they were dangerous, the glare of youth with a vicious temperament. Now they were more tamed. Surely a passing grace.

Patrol, mouthed Dorcas. There was something to watch out for. The city guard were sure to be soft and green. They were also sure to be in Salliniari's pocket, so they had to be avoided. To say that Dorcas, Chrishton, and Cervantes looked suspicious in this neighborhood was an understatement.

"Wazzat, a door?" Chrishton asked facetiously while leaving Cervantes to the care of the wall so that he could join Dorcas.

Or just a particularly opaque window. Useless had made another unannounced appearance over Chrishton's right shoulder. The fox spirit was making his presence known more often than usual. Chrishton ignored him deftly.

"Some kinda gnomish somethin're other. Trick is ya twiddle yer fingers like this." He raised his index and middle fingers, and waggled them about in the air. "Then make a cute girly face an' say Chrishton's a sexy beast, an' presto."

When he pinched the mysterious handle, he was able to open it without trouble. This was of course done with a sly wink passed her way.

[Jasmina Apsara]

Jasmina had gone about two blocks when her conscience started to get the better of her.

By the third block, she couldn't stand it anymore, and turned around, back toward the tavern.

Salliniari might be all those things she'd heard. He might be a criminal, a mob boss, a killer. Might. But she'd no proof of wrongdoing, just other people's accusations. And even if Salliniari was a terrible person... well, did that change her obligations to him? He'd been kind to her, sheltered her, looked after her needs. Surely she at least had the obligation to see if he was still alive? To see if there was anything he needed?

His needing anything that she could provide was unlikely. She knew as much about basic treatment of wounds as the average roadside traveler-- meaning probably no more than any of the others on the scene, and certainly far less than that doctor. She wasn't protective muscle, or magical, or an herbalist.

But shouldn't I at least try?

Jasmina couldn't help thinking that perhaps she was getting too detached. It was good not to be bound, but she felt no real tie at all to any living person except the child within her. That wasn't healthy, was it? That wasn't normal. It was the sign of a disordered mind. A person in a right state would be balanced, and she had become unbalanced by her lover's betrayal.

She felt little about Salliniari, truth be told. But she didn't have to feel it. She just had to do the right action, and in time emotion would return to her, like blood circulating again in a too-long-disused limb. Perhaps not emotion about Salliniari specifically, but he was here, and it was a good place to start.

Retracing her steps, Jasmina returned to the tavern area, which still seemed to be a swarming mass of confusion. She shyly approached a man that she thought served in Salliniari's retinue, though she didn't know the name of the one she addressed.

"Excuse me, sir? How has Mister Salliniari fared? He has survived this... incident... with no lasting harm, I hope?"

[Dorcas Tansy]

Dorcas was busy enough blowing a stream of cooling air from pursed lips onto her burned fingers that she hardly raised more than an irritated scowl to the sight of Cervantes's changed form. The alley was dark, but she could see his silhouette back there, against the light of the street they'd escaped: clearly, he had changed.

As Chris came to the door and began to decipher it, she reached for his sleeve and closed a surprising firm grip around his forearm. The intent wasn't to impede him, however, for she eased up when he moved to flip the latch.

She stared at him with searching eyes, and when he winked at her, a half smile tweaked her nervous mouth. At times, she could feel her trust for him wear thin, like the gradual awareness of the declining utility of a well-used jacket; when he did those things he shouldn't be able to do, she wanted to force herself to distrust him. His wink helped restore her affection for him, at least in that moment when her faith needed some bolstering.

As Chrishton began to push the door, Dorcas moved her hand to grip his wrist. Her index finger was extended and tucked against his palm. She dropped her gaze, turned her body to put her shoulder against the door and pushed it with her weight.

The cat darted in first. Dorcas turned as she entered, to put her back to the inward-swung door, and pulled Chris's wrist to beckon him in as well. The entrance was narrow, and had only about the length of four paces before a long staircase took over the forward space. The breadth was not enough for Chrishton and Dorcas to stand shoulder-to-shoulder. It was unlit, and the top of the staircase was not even visible from the foot.

Dorcas's grip held firm on Chris. She gazed at him imploringly, and her unspoken request was clear in her body language: Leave him behind. She couldn't see Cervantes from the alcove where she stood, and that was all the better. It seemed the proper time to leave the hindrance behind and recuperate.

A very low, almost imperceptible stirring sounded from the top of the staircase. It may have been a rat.

[Chrishton Radu]

Kleos had gotten his ass out of the tavern before the Xianian and homeless looking guy started fighting. He knew better than most of his 'friends' who worked for Salliniari. Years in the Eyropan military had taught him what real mages were capable of doing in combat, and suspected from the beginning that the Xianian wasn't the only one there with a trick up his sleeve. All the nonsense Salliniari's ilk spread about the purity of human will over magic did nothing but convince him that these pampered socialites would get stomped on the second someone like Chrishton got past their illusory external defenses, which consisted mostly of notoriety and politics. While everyone else was fretting over their dead and wounded, scrambling to get to safety or appease their boss, he shook his head and remained in the clear.

How many times had he insisted that they needed elves and mages in their ranks? Their poorly built house of cards was finally coming down. It was time to look for a new avenue of employment.

Excuse me, sir? A young woman's voice piped up from beside him, apparently addressing him. He looked over, and saw that it was the dancer from the night before - the one who'd had an attempt on her life. Her question was oddly phrased enough to make him grin. Foreigners.

"He's alive in there." He replied without an ounce of concern. His arms were folded over his broad chest while he looked over her impassively. One thing he did share with the other eastern Eyropans was his appreciation for a pretty figure. He appeared to be in his late 40's, with gray hair and a few hard wrinkles that complimented his suit to make him look too dignified to be just another bouncer. "I wouldn't count on there being no lasting harm though. He's really licked a centaur's balls on this one. Best not go in there, love."

* * *

When Chrishton saw the look Dorcas was giving him from the security of the dark hallway, he wasn't sure what to make of it. He knew from the beginning that she would be scared and that, despite everything he'd said about not being her father, she was relying on him to keep her alive through all of this. If anything was going to make him feel guilty for pulling her into the fire, it was that look. He really didn't like seeing it. Hadn't he warned her? Didn't she agree? What did she expect him to do?

Useless clarified, for a change: She wants you to leave him.

She what? His son? How could she even think that? He'd be dead for sure. The suggestion affronted him, and was met sternly. "Dun e'en think it. 'E's comin' with us."

To drive the point home, he called out the door in a voice just quiet enough not to be heard down the street. "Cerv. C'mon."

Hearing his name spoken by the big man struck Cervantes with a moment of realization. They knew who he was. Someone other than the Tarsis knew who he was, and had come specifically to rescue him. A nobody. A lowly rat stuck in a trap, worth nothing to anyone. Now a pair of strangers who could pull the impossible had said his name. Just hearing it drew him to them like a magnet with a face full of confusion.

As Cervantes struggled to reach the doorway with his injury, Chrishton followed his statement to Dorcas up with a sharp look aimed into her eyes. She had better drop her kind of thinking fast.

"Get th' door." He told Cerv, and turned his back on Dorcas to deal with whoever might object to their intrusion upstairs.

He barely made it five steps before he stopped, his full frame blocking view from the other two. It was suddenly too dark to see much at all.

A voice that sounded somewhere between a child and an adult piped up from above. "Who the frib are you?" Then, more emphatically, "How did you get past my door?!"

Chrishton held very still. "Put that shooter down an' I'll tell ya."

In the darkness of the tight hallway, Cervantes was breathing heavily. He'd gotten up close to Dorcas, as there was nowhere else to go. Beads of sweat crawled windy lines down his temple like a meandering fly. He had to keep holding onto things to ease the pain on his back. Neither of them smelled very good, but he was worse than her. His body begged him to get inside and lie down, yet his attention was dead set on everything around him. He wanted to know just as badly as she did what was going on above. Looking at her in the darkness revealed nothing but a dim reflection in her eyes.

"I'll blast you to giblets if you don't tell me what you're doing in here!"

"We're hidin'."

"What? Hiding?!" There was more shuffling from the top of the stairway, accompanied by a shift in the lighting that got past Chrishton. "That door's impregnable! I used fourteen dimensional weaves to set it in place! You can't just walk in here like that!"

Chrishton shrugged.

There was a lengthy pause during which squeaky grumbling illustrated the internal debate of the one upstairs. "Who are you hiding from?"

"Street gangs after m'friend. 'Es hurt real bad. We need a place fer th'night, an' we ain't goin' back out there lil' bud. They'll kill us sure as yer shooter. Whazzat, air compression?"

"Air compression? AIR COMPRESSION!? The THERMAL ACTIVATOR is right HERE you moron! It's a twin oscillatory thermochemical expansion mechanism! Are you flibbin blind or something? Theo almighty, how do you tallies tie your shoes in the morning? How did you get past my door?!"

"Listen. I'll show ya if y'let us in, alright? Kid's bleedin' all o'er yer floor."

"You'll show me? I've got a prototype with fifteen..."

"I'll show ya, fer fuck's sake."

"... Alright. But you'd better show me."

There was more movement, and Chrishton motioned for Dorcas and Cervantes to follow him as he climbed the rest of the way upstairs.

[Jasmina Apsara]

Jasmina was initially stopped in her tracks by the phrase 'licked a centaur's balls,' which she took literally. Not that there was necessarily anything wrong with that, but it was a rather startling admission, especially phrased so casually and in the context of such a fracas as had erupted in the tavern.

A beat later, she realized the man just meant that Salliniari had made a huge mistake. That didn't make her own position any clearer, though. Jasmina had determined to act as though she was attached to someone, and she wasn't inclined to be stymied so quickly. On the other hand, she suspected that Salliniari might be a shoot-the-messenger type, and if he was blowing off steam at anyone and everyone, a smart bellydancer wouldn't be anywhere nearby.

Besides, if he truly had 'licked a centaur's balls,' would he really want Jasmina there to witness his humiliation?

She decided to take a slightly different tack. "Are there many wounded? Perhaps I could help them, or bring them to safety?"

Unless the ceiling was about to cave in on her, surely there was something she could do. She had no training in medicine or healing, but it didn't take a genius to press a cloth to a wound, or clean the shards out of a gash. Or if not that, she was strong from years of dancing, and could help carry them to a place where a real doctor or healer could examine them.

"I do not wish to be a bother, but Mister Salliniari has done much for me. I would like to make myself useful, if I can."

[Dorcas Tansy]

Dorcas was more accustomed to losing the loyalty of men to coquettes, not brutes more unkempt than herself. She couldn't fathom whether this felt the same, as he sternly avoided her wishes in favor of the interloper. Her gaze on his was scrutinizing, for a moment or two, but she dropped it as Cervantes entered their small foyer.

She glanced with mild surprise--the objection of an occupant wasn't entirely unexpected--when the indignant gnome started shouting at them. It was at Chris, really, as she couldn't see the man and presumably he couldn't see her.

In the silence between Chrishton and the gnome's retorts, Dorcas eyed Cervantes as he eyed her. Her utter resentment may have shown in the dim bowls of her irises, but she averted her gaze quickly when a column of light illuminated the foyer from the top of the staircase.

She turned and started up the stairs after Chrishton. Her cat waited by the foot of the stairs and stared placidly at Cervantes.

Upstairs, in addition to the footsteps of the gnome, there came a steady pattern of hard wood against hard wood--scrape-tap, scrape-tap. A woman appeared from an open doorway and came to the landing as Chrishton arrive.

She leaned on two canes, and moved forward with a geriatric hobble, but her face would seem to have her be younger than her posture. The bottle-brown skin of her forehead and temples was smooth, and the line of her jaw soft and youthful, but even in her face, her age was distorted: an inch below each of her unusually large, brown eyes, from the rim of her nose to the edges of her ears, ran the seam of a scar that cut a slightly jagged line between the upper and lower halves of her face. The pinkish skin around the scar looked puffy and somewhat ill; below, her upper lip was swollen to almost twice the size of the lower.

"Calm down, sweetness," she intoned to the gnome in a gentle voice marred only somewhat by the lisping of her upper lip. "He must have found his way here for a reason."

She lifted her broken-heart shaped face up to Chrishton and offered him a nod that served as a smile. She she realized he had brought others with him, she backed up to offer more space on the landing. This process was slow, for her hips seemed unwilling to move with much precision, and she had to scrape-tap her canes carefully as she inched backward.

Between the wide, angular shape of her face, her big, buggy eyes, her brown skin, the strange articulation of her hips, and her overall thinness of limb and waist, the young woman very much gave the impression of a giant arthropod. However bent her stature was, though, she gave no actual evidence of being anything other than human. Her shoulders were draped with a gauzy purple shawl, and her possibly mangled hips carried a floor-length skirt of black crepe.

While the gnome fumed impatiently and waited to receive more attention for his impressive inventions, the woman took her time turning back to her doorway and calmly introduced herself.

"I am Berbiezu." (She may have said Bubyju or Beldesue, but her lisp muddled her consonants enough that proper nouns could be hard to decipher) "You have probably come to see me, because my roommate was apparently not expecting guests . . . but I am not surprised to see you."

She hobbled into the doorway from which she had come. It was draped with a curtain of beads and silver coins on strings. The windowless room smelled of ash, incense, and body odor. Berbiezu made her way past a long, low couch with fat cushions and stood at the end of it. She stared at Chris and the emerging form of Dorcas, waiting for them to come and make their audience.

[Chrishton Radu]

The dancer asked to get inside, as if she needed his permission. Perhaps she thought she did. Or, he thought while looking her over again, maybe she was looking for an escort.

There were of course wounded and dead inside. Kleos didn't know how many - he was out of there before he ended up among them - but he guessed anywhere between five and twenty casualties. Most of them would be people he worked with. Fortunately he didn't like most of them.

He did not plan on going back inside. Standing out here, among the crowd, he'd evaded not only injury but the inevitable fallout that would plague everyone who worked for Salliniari. None of the other security guards had the nerve to tell him to do something, but that wouldn't last forever. He wanted to get out of the province.

He took his eyes from her to watch the trickle of panicked looking people move in and out of the tavern's sole main entrance, and said "they have a doctor in there if he's still alive. You can help him."

Kleos was self serving and jaded, but not completely without conscience. Besides, maybe she would repay his kindness later. With a body like that, she could do more than dance on a stage.

He nodded his head in indication for her to follow, and then cleared a path through the crowd to get to the door. Even before entering, they could see bloody footprints in the dirt. A grayish brown fog of dust seeped out of the darkness at waist height and got heavier inside. The air had a smell of crushed mortar mixed in with the usual booze, spices and tobacco... But as they went further in, a more putrid odour became apparent as well. The Xianian had spilled his guts somewhere under the rubble.

It was a mess inside. The caved in ceiling consumed a third of the floor space. To the left, a pool of blood was smeared into a long streak where a body had been dragged away. There were several men standing around it speaking quietly to eachother about the incident. One of them was holding a bloody rag over his left eye.

To the right, Salliniari was pacing back and forth over an empty stretch of floor. He was having an argument with Guido - a rather one sided affair due to the fact that Guido couldn't interrupt him. He was fuming, and busy blaming the incompetence of his staff for the ordeal.

"He makes the decisions and then blames it on us." Kleos just barely spoke quietly enough to prevent Salliniari from hearing him. "Now you see why I was outside."

The gray skinned doctor emerged from behind the rubble and headed straight for them. He was wiping blood from his hands with a rag. There was more on his robes, but their red colour hid it well. "I did not expect to see you again."

* * *

Cervantes returned the cat's placid look before following Dorcas up the stairs while remaining silent.

"Eh?" Chrishton responded to Berbiezu's lack of surprise. He smiled at her. There was nothing judgmental in the way he looked at her physical situation. "Thanks fer yer understandin', 'Zu."

"Oh of course you're not surprised." Miffed the four foot gnome who was standing beside a twin-barreled weapon that was nearly as big as he was. He was balding, with a ring of brown hair surrounding his shiny pate, and looked to be somewhere near middle aged. A pair of greasy overalls were all he had on. Apparently bitter at Berbiezu, he went back to talking to Chrishton. "She has no appreciation for how impervious that lock is."

The room they were standing in was quite large, however the sheer volume of gnomish junk that filled it meant that there was barely any room. He was using it as a workshop. No surprise there. Chrishton was uninterested in any of it, and Cervantes was hurting too much to notice where he was.

"I'm hopin' y'know a bit a'medicine. It'd make things a lot easier." Chrishton adressed Berbiezu still while Cervantes' hobbling figure made it into the room. He kept holding onto things to keep himself up. His forehead was wet with sweat. The undersides of his eyes had shadows that couldn't be blamed on the lighting of the room. Still, he tried to look tough and managed admirably.

[Jasmina Apsara]

Kleos was right about one thing-- Jasmina did feel like she needed his permission to do anything. Perhaps because she had been raised in a culture where the decisions of the leaders of the clan went unquestioned, and Jasmina herself had always been a follower. Or maybe because it was easier not to take responsibility. To have someone else to blame if you slipped up.

He was, of course, wrong that there was the slightest chance he would receive any sort of payment for his trouble other than a few grateful words and a pleasant smile.

As they entered the building, Jasmina was apprehensive. Why had she picked this moment to stop being an island? She should have eased into it, not jumped feet-first into a crisis!

And crisis it was indeed. The place was a shambles. Jasmina knew that she wasn't going to be working here again anytime soon. She should have been worried about that; after all, she was losing the potential job security she had been offered. But all Jasmina felt was a dark stab of relief. The decision had been made for her. She was leaving because her place of employment had been abruptly demolished, not because she had emotional problems.

She didn't have emotional problems.

Well... maybe a little.

Jasmina immediately settled into work mode. It was just like dancing on stage. Her feet would move, her arms and hands would move, and she would pretend an emotion she didn't feel. All business as usual.

She avoided looking at Salliniari or approaching him, lest she become a target of his wrath. Instead, she made a beeline for the doctor. "I am here to help. I am no physician or healer, but I will do as I am told. Please, show me how I may assist you to care for these people."

To Kleos, she gave a grateful look. "Thank you for your help." Then, as always, she moved on.

[Dorcas Tansy]

Dorcas found her eyes to hurt, either from building stress, or else from some irritating factor in the ambient incense smoke. She brought her hand to her eyes and rubbed them to relieve the pain--and then, as she glanced around, to clear her vision and take in the strange sight.

She hardly could have imagined an odder assortment of objects or an odder couple of roommates. The double- and triple- barreled weapon-like devices that leaned against virtually every available vertical surface were certainly the gnome's belongings. Gauzy scarves were draped like imperial flags over the couches and cabinets that Berbiezu seemed to claim as her own. Some items--glass bottles of oily fluids, a folding changing screen decorated with small mirrors mounted on levers--were admittedly of uncertain ownership.

Berbiezu shuffled over to a tall stool and turned to prop her bum up on its seat. The stool was customized to her particular need: a padded block was affixed to a single vertical strut, so that she could avoid the need to bend at the waist, and still lean some of her weight against the canes. She gestured with her fingers to the couch, and Dorcas's cat didn't hesitate to take her up on this.

Dorcas followed her cat and plumped down on the couch. With nary a thought in her mind, she stared up at Berbiezu's strange face and imagined the choking fumes of incense to have a accompanying sound--a faint buzzing or ringing played in her mind's auditorium. The woman's lisp slipped into toneless sibilance, to Dorcas.

"Please, there is no sense in standing around. For I do believe I could offer some medical assistance." Berbiezu tipped her head this way and that as she spoke, a bright-eyed orchid on a thin stem. The gnome coughed, and then Dorcas coughed too. The incense was irritating her throat now.

The woman went on. "I've been waiting for someone to come and assist me, too." She lowered her long lashes and inclined her head graciously before looking up directly at Chrishton. Of the group, he seemed the most alert at the moment. "I'm sure I knew you were coming," she repeated more emphatically, "and we will cooperate."

Despite her apparent frailty, Berbiezu got up again, restlessly, and paced in her slow, plodding way over to a tall cabinet. As she waited for Chrishton and Cervantes to take a seat on her couch, she pulled open one door of the cabinet. Its contents were hidden from their view, but something inside jingled lightly. Dorcas's cat purred with surprise.

She pulled something small from the cabinet and clutched it in her palm, which she curled back around one of her canes. As she shut the cabinet door, the jingling sounded like a muffled shower of coins.

Her approach again was slow, and she gazed expectantly at Chrishton with looming eyes as she scraped forward and waited for his explanation of their circumstances.

[Chrishton Radu]

For all his bravado, Chrishton was too distracted by a combination of survival instinct, professionalism (as much as can be ascribed to his lifestyle, at any rate) and mixed emotions about Cervantes to give the potentially attractive, if strange, Berbiezu a second look. She was lucky to be spared his usual crude advances and shameless eyes. It wasn't until she said in a particularly emphasized way that they would cooperate, that Chrishton eyed her a second time in the hope of figuring out what she meant. She was a bit odd, although he'd had stranger women.

That, and she was obviously hiding something gimpy under that dress.

"Right. Just take a look at 'im, make sure he dun blead t'death or get infected, an' we'll see 'bout the rest later."

Cervantes couldn't help but notice what a keen interest Chrishton had in his personal welfare. Chrishton was a brawler, not the type of man to give two shits about a stranger. Yet this brawler's first order of business consistently remained keeping him alive, and he put more concern into it than was necessary. Why? And his name. He knew his name. How?

Someone must have sent him. Maybe there was a reward out on his head. As Cervantes clambered onto the sofa, it was all he could think about. This guy was some sort of mercenary. A bounty hunter. The girl was his little fuck toy groupie. Maybe she could be handy where his muscle wasn't.

Cervantes rolled onto his side on the sofa and laid there awkwardly, trying to keep pressure off the wound on his back. He draped an arm over the side so that his knuckles touched the floor, and hugged one of the loose cushions close to his chest to keep his back more comfortably arched. The smoke didn't bother him at all. In fact, he didn't notice it. Nor did he give a shit what this bounty hunter was going to do with him later. He just wanted to sleep.

"I still need him to test that lock!" Piped in the gnome. "Don't go making any deals without that!"

Chrishton rolled his eyes for Berbiezu's benefit, but he didn't sit down. He was plenty restless himself. Trying to decide what this oddly shamanistic woman was all about, he decided to go with honesty. Some people were suckers for it.

"Salliniari's guys 'ad 'im locked up." Chrishton explained while watching her. "Looked like they were ready t'kill 'im fer somethin. Prolly 'cause 'e was sent in 'ere from th' gangs out west. We busted 'im out..."

"Why." Cervantes' voice came out half muffled by the cushion. It was more of a statement than a question.

Chrishton turned his eyes to glance at the couch without turning his face and became unusually tense. Cervantes wasn't even looking at him. Thankfully.

* * *

Kleos was disappointed but not surprised. He lingered for a few seconds after Jasmina started talking to the doctor, and then turned to leave. He didn't make it far.

"Kleos!" Salliniari spotted him. "What are you spinning around in here for? Your head's lost in the fucking Serpant's Coil?"

Kleos answered with a challenging gaze, but no words. To him, Salliniari wasn't worth wasting words on any more. Instead he walked out. Slowly. Nobody did a thing about it. They were afraid of the old vet.

Meanwhile the doctor took Jasmina by the arm and pulled her out of sight behind the inverted hump of the collapsed ceiling. With all the dust and poor lighting around, it wasn't difficult not to be seen.

"I really did not expect you to come back here." His lack of prescience was significant to him. "You made your choice to go. Now something is happening here and I do not understand. Salliniari is a cornered dog. He will ask you to stay but it is not safe with him any more. There is blood in the water now, and it's full of sharks."

[Jasmina Apsara]

Perhaps Jasmina should have been frightened. The doctor's words certainly seemed heavy and dark. But the only emotion she could manage at the moment was irritation.

She was trying to help! She was trying to do the right thing. Yet he was acting like she was some sort of wayward sheep. Even worse, she was sick to death of the cryptic utterances. Couldn't he just speak plainly, for once? What did it benefit either of them for him to circle endlessly around his points, instead of just cutting to the chase?

Jasmina's hands instinctively settled on her hips, and her expression was rather fiercer than the doctor would have seen before.

"Why do you speak in riddles to me? I said I would go when you wished me to stay; now I have returned and you would have me gone. You warn of things that have no substance. You speak as though the enemies are phantoms and dreams. I cannot make my decisions because of your words. I do not understand them. I do not know that of which you would speak. Please, either talk clearly to me without pretense, and tell me whatever it is you wish to say, or allow me to make my own choices and keep your peace."

[Dorcas Tansy]

Berbiezu batted long lashes at Chrishton and then at Cervantes. The swollen corner of her lip hitched upward in a smile aimed at the heavy space between them.

"Oh, I'm not concerned with why these things happen," she crooned. Her lisp was sibilantly sweet, like a child's or a granny's. "Sometimes great misfortunes befall us, and then fate intervenes to bring the right people together."

She was scooting closer to Cervantes, and her bent posture had her at a suitable height to tend to the worst of his wounds, on his back. The small object she had concealed in her palm turned out to be a crystal bottle with an atomizer nozzle. She supported the bottle against the handle of her cane and aimed the nozzle at one corner of Cervantes's visible wound, then squeezed the rubberized bulb of the atomizer, releasing gray mist onto his back.

The substance settled like a thin, tarry web. It clung to the surface of his wound and would act to numb the pain locally and also to seal the open area from contaminants. His flesh could begin to proliferate and heal, rather than expend more energy in inflammation.

"Feels nice, doesn't it?" Berbiezu asked as she continued to spray the fine mist along his wound. She continued to speak as she eyed her work and spritzed a bit more cover here and there.

"We can help each other. The lock-work, for Shivshin--" She glanced up to meet Dorcas's puzzled gaze at the unfamiliar name. "Mister Fairscales. My roommate? He must have forgotten his manners and failed to introduce himself . . ." The gnome rubbed his eyebrows irritably and gave her a pointed look. "I would venture he might even have more devices that would enjoy some of your attention," she added, so as not to close the clause at that.

"As for me, dears . . . Oh, I hardly know where to begin. I'm quite excited that we've met, because I don't even know your names, and it is clearer and clearer to me that this meeting was appointed by fate." She didn't sound very convincingly excited; rather, she was subdued and calmly confident.

"You," she said suddenly, and she swiveled her bobbly head towards Dorcas. "It's probably your coming of age that's got you so like an overripe fruit?"

Dorcas blinked in surprise and clutched at the couch cushion. She was a bit puffy today, true, and a keen nose would pick up on her menstrual smell even above the fresher blood in their midst. But did Berbiezu know it was her birthday?

"Mm." Berbiezu turned her gaze on Cervantes and Chrishton both and bobbed her chin. Her long lashes swayed as she looked downward humbly. "You two, so alike, were brought together by a different string of fate."

As her pause settled in, she inhaled and gave the group a faint, strained smile. "Most importantly--you have come from Salliniari's. I knew it, most certainly. He has something I seek."

The gnome, Shivshin, cleared his throat in anticipation of the monologue.

"He attracts many types, doesn't he? Salliniari? He's sort of a collector, I think. A people collector . . ." Berbiezu sort of pursed her lips--with great difficulty, since her upper lip was so swollen. "Thinkers, fighters, entertainers . . . some of them more special than others. Some of them stand out, I'm sure he must like that . . . when people notice how his people stand out . . ."

She had trailed off, and Dorcas patted her cat in the uncomfortable pause. She nearly scooted closer to Chrishton, but she saw how he seemed a great deal more unsettled than she, and instead prodded some more at her cat for comfort. The creature suddenly uttered a trill of feline delight and jumped away from his master. With paws outstretched, he knocked a nondescript, murky quart jar off the end table.

The jar fell on its side and rolled a few feet. Now the light shone through the glass of the jar and illuminated its contents. Suspended in some clear, viscous fluid were two tiny bodies, their posture long and twisted as if caught in a jar-sized cyclone. They looked like females, but their heads were plucked bald. Their dead mouths were stretched into downward, fishlike grimaces. Each wore a flimsy skirt, but no bodice over her distended ribcage. Even their nipples, like grains of millet, were blanched ashy white. The fluid appeared to have leached most of the color from their garments as well. The only spots of color in the jar were two dingy clouds of rust, frozen in a billow from beneath the females' skirts, some last fluid of life expelled. Also, there was a touch of pigment barely visible behind the translucent fabric, just where the mons pubis should be--one girl with a shadow of black, and the other with auburn.

Berbiezu glanced for only a moment at the hideous jar and then back at the group. "Salliniari has got a girl with lovely, muscular hips." She shifted her own jutting posture. "I am something of a collector myself."

She batted her long, long lashes at Christon again. They really were unusually soft and long, those lashes, and a closer look would show them to be composed of a striking combination of auburn and black.

[Chrishton Radu]

Sometimes great misfortunes befall us, and then fate intervenes to bring the right people together.

She's not so dumb, eh fatty? Useless was still hanging around.

Chrishton grunted an acknowledgment to both the fox spirit and Berbiezu. Her spiritual beliefs were aligned with his own. It was something he could understand. He remained otherwise quiet, preferring to do nothing but observe. Now that they supposedly had her help there was no reason to risk screwing things up.

Glancing at Dorcas, he realized there was no way to know how the change in surroundings was affecting her. More than likely she was putting up one of those odd mental blocks of hers. This place was a little strange, but he'd lost the ability to gauge what was normal for Dorcas. He figured that everything outside of that drama infested brothel was strange to her.

Cervantes remained hunched even when the pain subsided, and followed his father's silent lead. It felt good to stop hurting, and even better to know that he might actually live another day, but he was shamed in other ways and torn by his apprehension that Chrishton and Dorcas were devilish bounty hunters destined to take him from one hell to another.

The odd woman said something to Dorcas that Cervantes didn't bother trying to figure out, and then to him and Chrishton.

You two, so alike, were brought together by a different string of fate.

A string of fate was a pretty glamorous way of saying there was a price on his head. And how were they alike? They were nothing alike. The statement annoyed him. Meanwhile Chrishton nearly flushed at the revelation. He didn't want to think about it and certainly didn't want Cervantes to clue in.

When the jar fell to the ground Chrishton could barely see what was inside. They weren't big, and the room wasn't particularly well lit, but he saw enough to know what he was looking at. Faeries were often sought after for one reason or another. Collectors indeed.

He bent over and picked up the jar before Dorcas could get at it. There was no need for her to see. It would only freak her out. It did not appear to bother Chrishton at all. He held it hidden in his hand and casually put it down on the nearest table without paying much attention to the details of the vial's contents.

Chrishton wasn't someone to beat around the bush.

"Alright, I know where yer goin', an' yer askin' a lot fer a lil'. Why'd we go'n do somethin' risky like that? Y've already done that diddly shit t'is back," he said, nodding to Cervantes. "I'll play with 'is lock, but I ain't yer personal collector."

* * *

"Riddles? Oh you've no idea what a riddle can be. Or where a riddle can be." The doctor took a breath and calmed down. He needed time to take a better look and read the situation. Fortunately he was very good at giving in to fate. "Things changed since I asked you to stay. It's not safe to stay with Salliniari now. He's a dethroned king and all the other would-be kings in this rotten rose of a city will come for him. Unless..."

Fate's waylines converged before them as the doctor's mind made sense of all the possible courses of action. Which ones seemed more likely, which ones were more desirable, which ones did he have control over. It didn't take more than a few seconds for him to feel his way through the tangled mess that was the temporal ocean he lived in. The further ahead he saw, the more distant the gaze in his white eyes became, until he was looking right through her.

Salliniari's voice piped up again over the ambient sounds of the ruined tavern. He was yelling at someone else about how long it would take to fix the damage. Nothing anyone said was acceptable to him. The doctor snapped out of it. He looked content.

"You came back why? Because you're lost, yes? You're going to have to let yourself be found, Jasmina. It's very difficult to do when you trust nobody. If you want to trust me, go and help Salliniari from destroying himself. What that man needs is someone to temper his rage."