He had eyes that looked as though they’d been stolen from an eagle, and his neck was a mass of scar tissue on one side. I suspected a vampire attack. That he’d survived could still walk in the sunlight was testament to his toughness.
“Captain Linneman of Stronghold Aegis,” he said. His voice was rough, as if whatever had hurt him had gotten a fang into his vocal cords. “State your business.”
Ethan introduced himself and the Breakers in his typical mild tone. “We seek shelter in the stronghold, Captain. We’ve been hired to deal with the warlord and the dark cloud spreading from the Needle. We seek shelter and as much information as possible.”
Something glinted in the Captain’s eyes at Ethan’s words. “Really? You mean to go after him?”
Ethan nodded. “We do. We’re well outfitted and trained. Any information that your people could give us would be incredibly useful.”
The Captain nodded. “Very well. But we don’t need half-breeds inside the walls. You can just leave that and that outside in the shanties.” He pointed at Virgil and then me. I was surprised; people usually weren’t sure that I was half-Human upon first glance. I concentrated on the surprise rather than the surge of anger. It wouldn’t do to lose myself in the rage now.
Ethan looked at me and Virgil, his face unreadable. Finally he turned back to the Captain and said, “They’re part of our party, Captain. Will they be safe in the shanties?”
Linneman shrugged. “Safe as it gets outside the walls, I suppose.”
It wasn’t a ringing endorsement of the shanty way of life but it appeared to be the best that we were going to get. Ethan held up a finger and walked to me, pulling me further from the group to talk privately.
“Can you protect the boy?” he said, his voice still quiet.
I swallowed my anger and gave him a curt nod. I said, “Yes. Lynette will probably want to stay with him as well. I can protect them both.”
“Good. You’re the only one they’ve got tonight. We’re going to try to get as much intel out of these peasants as we can. Be careful.” He turned and went back to the Captain, me trailing behind. Some of the soldiers gave me looks of open hostility, and I just grinned at them. Ethan held his hand out to Linneman. “We accept your offer, Captain.”
Linneman turned and gestured toward the stronghold. “Then welcome to Aegis.”
The soldiers led our crew to the gates, where I took my leave of the Breakers. Virgil stayed with me, clinging to my leg, and Lynette looked torn. Finally she turned to me and said, “I’ll go in, find food for us tonight. Will you watch him? I’ll find you when I get back.”
I nodded and she turned to follow the rest of the Breakers into Aegis. I looked down at Virgil, who looked at me with a resigned expression. “Time to find a place to bed down for the night, kiddo.”
The shanty town was probably the size of Aegis itself but it was more spread out. It hugged the walls, spilling into the streets around Aegis. I was surprised that the townsfolk would let such a growth persist, especially when it grew to block possible access points and lines of sight, but then I saw evidence of massive fires that had swept through the town in the past. I suspected that they weren’t all of natural origins.
The shanty town bustled and stank, people going about their business as quickly as possible so as not to attract predators. Most of them seemed to be at least partially Human, but it was often difficult to tell thanks to the layers everyone wore to ward off the chill.
They lived in anything that would shelter them. I saw shacks built out of plastic bags, broken boards, and cracked asphalt torn from the streets. One home that appeared to house six was held together with bent and shaped street signs. Everywhere, I saw dull eyes and hostility. I deflected the hostility with my own empty gaze and made sure that the predators saw my weapons. I could be overwhelmed but there were easier pickings.
I didn’t know where I was going until I saw a larger building and headed for it. A sign had been made from old street signs, the building labeled Stop Zone In. Like the sign, the entire place had an air of good enough about it. Judging from the sounds and smells drifting from the open door, it was some kind of tavern. I looked down at Virgil and said, “Stick with me. Watch my back.”
He nodded and squared his slender shoulders, and we went into the strange building. I felt vaguely ridiculous taking a scrawny kid in with me but I hadn’t had the chance to pick my own backup.
The main room was dark and low-ceilinged, just my kind of place. Smoke from dozens of guttering candles and one large cook fire at the end drifted against the ceiling. A bar staggered along one wall, the top of it never the same level for more than a few inches. A dirty collection of tables and chairs was scattered around the room, many of them occupied.
Everyone turned to see who had come through the door. A few stared, most of them with expressions that said that they couldn’t care less about us or the world around them. One or two had anger or predatory interest scrawled across their faces. The bartender had his hands below the bar; if I knew anything about places like this, he had them on a weapon of some kind.
No one was fully Human. The bartender himself had the look of a Naga about him but he didn’t have the snake’s lower body. I lifted my chin and stumped into the main room, glad for once that I wasn’t taller; I would have had to duck and twist to keep from braining myself on the uneven roof if I’d had another six inches. Virgil followed along, clutching at my belt.
Interest waned and most of the patrons turned back to what they’d been doing before we entered. A few kept watching us, trying to be subtle about it and failing miserably. I decided not to take issue.
“Beer,” I said to the bartender.
He sneered at me. “Money first. Bullshit walks.”
I put a dollar bill on the bar and he turned his sneer to it. He worked his mouth and spat on it, the liquid burning a hole through the middle of the dollar and then eating into the bar. “Something valuable, not that shit.”
It had been worth a try. I considered what would work, and then I pulled my shotgun around into the ready position. The entire bar went silent. Staring into the bartender’s eyes, I racked the gun. A single shell popped out of the side and tumbled toward him. He reached out and snagged it from the air before it landed. He looked at it, saw that it was unfired, and reluctantly nodded. “Good enough.”
He filled a dirty mug and set it on the bar in front of me while I re-slung the shotgun. I reached out and grabbed his wrist. “Good enough for a beer… and a little info.”
He glowered but didn’t make an issue of it. I said, “Where can I find lodging for myself and one more tonight?”
He shifted his glower to take in Virgil, who was attached to my leg and staring around the room with those wide eyes. “Swing that way, do ye,” said the bartender, his tone saying that he wasn’t surprised.
“None of your damn business,” I growled back.
To my surprise, he nodded. Apparently he was aware that it really wasn’t any of his business. He got to polishing a mug with a filthy piece of cloth, pushing the dirt around a bit so that it could see new parts of the world. I sipped at my beer and was pleasantly surprised again. The alcohol content was high enough that my taste buds simply crisped and died, expiring before they could send messages of bleak horror to my brain. The bartender said, “Might be a room or two here, in fact. Ten more of those shells should reserve it.”
I almost spewed out my latest mouthful. “Not unless it’s got hot and cold running gold, bucko. Three.”
He rolled his eyes. “Sure, it’s not the prettiest, but it’s clean and safe enough for someone like you. Eight.”
“For eight I’d want the prettiest of everything. Still, here’s something to be said for clean. Five.”
“Aye, and what’s to be said is that it’s worth more’n that. Seven.”
“Six.”
“Done.”
Bargain struck, we both relaxed a bit. Virgil carried on staring at everything around
him. Without a word, the bartender took my mostly-empty mug and refilled it. I nodded, satisfied that I’d the best deal I was going to get in that shithole.
I thought about spending another round to get us some food but I had my supplies and I trusted them a lot more than I did the grill in this place. The grill, actually a car door laid flat and pounded into a semblance of a grill, was caked with burned grease and the remnants of poorly-cooked meat. I didn’t want to know what they ate here.
“Ah, new travelers!” said a voice behind me. I turned my head to look at who was speaking. Then I turned the rest of the way, intrigued by the speaker’s appearance. He was only slightly taller than me, and I was short compared to the average Human. Where I was broad and stout, he was slim enough to be called slender or even fragile. I would have been shocked to learn that he weighed much more than ninety pounds. He wore the brightest clothing that I’d seen since entering the city limits of Seattle: his shirt was a tie-dye color wheel of primary and secondary colors, and it was in a raging war for visual dominance against his plaid flannel pants. Neither of them looked as though they’d ever seen dirt. His hair was long and the color was hard to tell in the gloom, but it was dark. He wore sandals made of wood and rope. On his belt he wore a large black plastic box. Above his head, a crystal sphere the size of an orange floated serenely. He held his fingers up as if