forming a frame around my face and said, “New travelers, a half-Human and a half-Human child, enter the shittiest bar in shantytown, oh do relax, Otto, this isn’t going into the documentary.” This last was directed at the bartender, who growled something and moved away from us. “What are they here for? Why did the half-Human try the shittiest beer in shantytown, and what will be the outcome of same? What’s with the armor and the scowling and above all, the child?”
“Are you trying to get killed?” I asked, finally working past the shock of the newcomer’s appearance. Virgil just stared, his eyes and mouth wide open.
“Not this time. Hi there! Fraser Blodwyn.” He held out his hand until he could see that I wasn’t going to shake. “I’m doing a documentary of the shantytown way of life. Well, I am now. I started out trying to do one of the Cyclops way of life, but it turns out that they like trying to kill and eat documentarians. Safer here.”
I looked around the dark room at the forms huddled around the tables. None of them were staring directly at us but they didn’t radiate an abundance of good will. “Marginally.”
Fraser grinned. “Well done. So what’s your name? How about you, you little button?” He stooped down slightly to put himself on eye level with Virgil. Virgil took a half-step to hide behind me, peeking out at the brightly-colored small man with apprehensive eyes.
“I’m Ward. He’s none of your business,” I said. Most Humans puff up to be intimidating, trying to overbear the other person by sheer volume. I don’t have that option, so I’ve practiced a glare that I feel makes it very clear that I know how to use the axe on my back and have a tentative grasp on my self-control. Generally it works.
Fraser didn’t seem to notice. “Fair enough! Ward! Tell me absolutely all about yourself and I promise to buy you as much beer as you can drink. Alternately, if you’ve already tried the beer, I promise to refrain from buying any for you. Whichever is more attractive to you.”
He had a point about the beer but I wasn’t about to let him know that. “Fuck off, Fraser.”
He didn’t move, just kept that manic grin on his face. “It would be a true shame for the local gangs to hear about how much wealth you carry on your person, friend Ward. Say if my documentary fell into the wrong hands.” He patted the box at his belt. “It’s been known to happen.”
I stared at him a moment longer, hoping that the glare would work, but it continued to make no impression on him. Finally I sighed and turned back to the bar. He took the sigh as a sign that I was going to talk, and he hopped onto the stool next to me. I signaled for another beer.
“I’m here with Breakers Incorporated,” I said. I figured it didn’t hurt to tell part of the truth. “The fine, fine Humans of Aegis won’t let me or the boy into the walls of the city, so we’re out here trying to find a room for the night. Then this crazy whatever you are came up to extort information.”
In truth, I wasn’t sure of Fraser’s ancestry. He looked fully Human, but his eyes were a little large and from time to time he seemed to move with a jointless precision that reminded me of Birgitte. Fraser nodded, his head and shoulders joining in on the movement. “Fascinating, fascinating! So how are you finding this fair city of ours?”
Despite myself, I found myself wanting to talk. It had been a while since I’d seen a friendly face outside of Raine’s. I told the story of being captured by the Hags and then an altered version of our fight with the Naga. I didn’t mention Baran’s unexpected fire-breathing skill; instead, I spun a story about how we’d set the Nagas ablaze with brands from the bonfires.
“And now here you are!” said Fraser, delighted with the information.
“And here you’ll die,” a whispery voice said from the gloom nearby. I had drawn an audience during the telling of the story so it was hard to see who had spoken, but I wasn’t looking to make friends. I jumped sideways, pushing the stool over behind me as I went. Something big slammed into my shoulder and bounced off of the armor plate there to hit the bar with stunning force. Virgil squeaked and ran to hide behind Fraser, who looked more confused than anything. My audience scattered. I thought they ran kind of quickly for the tough guys who were supposed to frequent a place like this.
When I was finally able to focus I saw that I had been attacked by a Naga. This one had different colors than the others, with brilliant red and yellow stripes framed by black. I immediately understood why the others around us had drawn away. All Nagas were either venomous or constrictors, and it had become a matter of routine survival to be able to identify them after CERN. The Naga that was hissing to itself and trying to shake the cobwebs out of its skull after the collision with the bar was descended from a coral snake, one of the deadliest snakes in North America. I had run into two of them during my time in Arkansas, and while the snakes themselves were shy the same didn’t seem to apply to this specimen.
What it was doing in Seattle was anyone’s guess but I didn’t have time to think about it. I pulled my axe out as the circle around us widened. I realized my mistake when the Naga stood up and struck at me; the thing was just as fast as the others that we’d fought the night before, faster than I was. I blocked its first strike and felt its fangs skitter off the gauntlets that protected my fingers. I didn’t know how much longer I could count on luck to keep it from finding a gap in the plates; I would only last a few seconds after an accurate bite pumped me full of its venom.
The Naga reared back for another strike and paused, a strange expression crossing its face. It half-turned and took a swipe at something behind it with one hand, and then it collapsed to the ground and started to writhe. It kept thrashing for a few second before shuddering and falling still. A small hole leaked blood from the middle of the back of its neck.
Fraser stood there, looking surprised and innocent at the same time. I trusted neither expression, but when he spread his hands and shrugged I could see that he wasn’t carrying anything that might have put the hole in the Naga. He said, “So! You were saying?” He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped at something on his hand; I thought that I saw a spot of blood but he moved too quickly for me to be sure.
The crowd resumed its original state of surly indifference as I slowly put my axe away. Virgil stared at me from behind the downed stools. I said, “I think we’re going to take a walk before bed.”
Fraser shrugged again. “I’ll come with! Remember to stay in the lit areas. Makes it easier to strip you of your possessions once they’re done killing you.”
“Great. Thanks. I just need to see if there’s news about the Breakers, if you don’t mind.”
“Sounds perfect! I’ll be right along.” He set the stools back up, gave them a light polish with his handkerchief, and then led Virgil over to me. I wasn’t sure that I wanted Fraser along but I had to admit that whatever he’d done to the Naga had been effective. I preferred to have him on my side than otherwise. I resolved to keep him where I could see him.
The tavern wasn’t far from the main gates. The streets were largely deserted but for those who didn’t have anywhere else to go. I got hostile stares from behind fires burning in garbage cans and circles of rubble. I didn’t envy them the cold and exposure to the creatures that came out when the sun went down.
Fraser kept up a whispered commentary as we walked. “No less than six Ogre-kin huddle around the makeshift campsite in the middle of shanty town. Are they here for food, for work? Will they come to a violent end, or are they among the few who eke out a life here in savage Seattle? And there we see a young minor Wendigo, separated from its tribe and no doubt trying to figure out how to make more of itself out of the creatures around it. Oh, someone figured out what it is and now he’s in real trouble from the Ogre-kin! Life is cheap here in shanty town, even if it’s unlife.”
Finally I said, “Who the hell are you talking to?”
He pointed upward and it took me a moment to realize that he was indicating the sphere floating above his head. “My camera. I call her Millicent.”
r /> “Millicent? Why?” said Virgil, his first spoken words since we’d entered the tavern.
“An excellent question! She just looks like a Millicent, doesn’t she? Totally indestructible. I’m told that one of them was caught in that nuclear exchange three years ago, didn’t get a scratch on her. Her operator was a blackened skeleton by that time, of course, but she was unharmed. Inspiring.”
Neither Virgil nor I knew how to respond to that one. I just let it go.
When we got to the gate I had Fraser and Virgil stand back while I went to talk to the guards. No one was going in or out as far as I could see, and the guard tower was warded with magic inscriptions in salt, chalk, iron, and silver. None of it did anything to me, of course, but I kept a respectful distance anyway. Never knew when a well-made inscription might be set to launch lightning at an intruder.
“Hello the tower!” I called. I was sure that the guards were already watching me, but I figured that it wouldn’t do to let them know that I knew. They probably knew already anyway.
A door opened in the side of the tower, a shuttered nook no larger than a man’s hand. “What do you want, half-breed?” I didn’t recognize the voice.
“I’m trying to find out if the Breakers are doing well in there.”
“Breakers? What’re Breakers?”
“The six who went in there earlier with Captain Linneman.”
“Oh!” The voice suddenly got more enthusiastic. “You mean the warriors and their guide?”
“That’s them. Are they doing well?”
“They’re doing great. In fact, there’s a feast going on right now.”
“Is there.” I tried to keep my enthusiasm up but I wasn’t fooling anyone.
“Yep! Just about to finish my shift and head over there. I heard they roasted a dozen boars and deer, and there’s mead.”
“That… that sounds great.”
“Yep. Good luck out there. Stay away from the gates and the tower unless you want to get riddled with arrows. Cheers!”
The small shuttered door closed and left me alone with my thoughts. Most of them involved creative uses of fire.
“Ah,” said Fraser, giving me a sympathetic look when I reported back to him and Virgil. “Well, that’s sort of a kick in the teeth. Still, it could be worse! There could be wasps.”
His efforts to cheer me up did not succeed. He noticed this and prattled on as we turned back to head for the tavern. “There’s a species of wasp that’s so dangerous that they’re one of those kill-on-sight species. You know how some bees have a barb on their stinger and it rips their guts out when they sting? Same with these wasps, but they heal so quickly that they just regrow the stinger and sting you again, and leave that one you, and so on. Terrible. The corpses look most unhappy.”
My thoughts of fire grew and deepened to encompass Fraser. I was just imagining him running around in a circle with his ridiculous shirt engulfed in flames when Virgil said, “What’s that?”
He pointed back toward the wall. I turned to look, and then I squinted to see. Something was climbing down the wall, heading for the ground from a high window.
“Beats the shit out of me…let’s go check it out,” I said. I relished the opportunity to do something.
We moved closer, staying out of the firelight as best we could. I frowned when we got closer; the figure was jumping from handhold to handhold as it scaled the wall in reverse, moving much faster than a regular Human. We stopped in a pool of darkness and watched as it came closer.
“The mean woman,” Virgil breathed, and I felt a thrill of surprise when I realized that he was right. It was Birgitte. I’d recognize that ass anywhere. Her face was covered, but other than that she wore her usual light armor.
“What’s she doing? Who’s the mean woman?” said Fraser. I jumped; I had forgotten that he’d followed us into the shadows.
“Shut up,” I snapped, glaring at him and then back at Birgitte. She didn’t appear to have heard; she was embroiled in her own affairs.
“She’s wearing the same sort of armor as you, though she wears it much better. Is she one of your Breaker people?” he said, his voice so quiet that I could barely hear it.
I nodded, not trusting myself to the same level of stealth. Birgitte was perhaps twenty feet above us and twenty feet closer to the gates, and I didn’t want her to spot us. It crossed my mind that she was here to consult with me but I quickly dismissed it; there was nothing that the Breakers needed from me outside of being able to hurt things with a pointy stick. If things were going as well inside the walls as the guard had said then there would be no need to sneak out the way she was doing. She was doing something secret and I wanted to know what.
“I’ll send Millicent to follow her,” said Fraser. Before I could protest, he spoke a few words to the sphere above his head and it zoomed soundlessly into the darkness.
“What if she sees it?” I said, risking discovery.
He shook his head, his grin still in evidence. “She won’t. Millicent will stay far away enough to be safe. And even if she does see her, she won’t know what Millicent is. She can’t hurt Millicent, so who cares?”
I couldn’t think of a good response so I just turned back to watch the wall. I managed to turn in time to see her drop the last fifteen feet and land on the balls of her feet with no more noise than a gnat fart. I was starting to face the fact that Ethan’s Breakers had me seriously outclassed.
Fortunately, Birgitte moved away from us. I thought about following her but I knew that there was no way that I would be quiet enough to avoid detection. If Fraser’s camera thing was good enough to follow her, I would just have to trust him and keep him nearby until I could find out what was going on.
I ground my teeth but held my peace. He hadn’t done anything to make me think that he was in it for anything outside of curiosity. “How long is it going to take?” I said.
Fraser shrugged again, that shrug that I was getting tired of already. “Millicent has enough memory for about twenty minutes of taping before she has to download it into the storage unit. So she’ll come back to me then, and we can see what she saw. Until then, how about another beer, buddy?” He slapped me on the back and led the way back to the tavern. Virgil followed him like a besotted puppy, obviously glad to have made a new best friend. I followed along, torn between needing a beer and wanting to keep my head clear.
Once we returned to the tavern I could tell that Virgil was feeling the hour; his head drooped and he wasn’t focusing on much beyond staying upright. I went to the bartender and got the key to my room, and then I took Virgil to it. Fraser followed along, apparently just as happy to be there as anywhere.
The room was small, almost cramped, even for someone my size. There was only the one bed, so I tucked Virgil against the wall and sat down on the edge of it to wait with Fraser for his sphere to return.
Fraser was not content to wait in silence. He went back out into the tavern and returned with a pair of bottles that proved to be drastically better beer than what was on tap.
When he settled in the room’s only chair I headed off his questions by saying, “What did you do to the Naga, anyway?”
“Me? Hardly anything, really. I mean, the silly thing was threatening an exclusive with one of the most interesting stories to come through shantytown in months, so I had to do something.”
“Yeah, but what did you actually do?”
“Me? Hardly anything. Now tell me about yourself! Leave nothing out, because I’m bored. Oh, all right, um… tell me how you met this little creature,” he said, nodding toward Virgil.
I did so, starting with seeing the Hag’s eye in the sky and ending with meeting Lynette and Virgil next to the Cyclopes lair. Fraser was rapt. When I finished, he said, “Holy crapI wish I’d recorded more than like the last five minutes of that. What a good story!”
I blinked and checked the time readout on my gauntlet. “Your camera’s back?” I saw that it was so: the sphere was flo
ating above his head again. I’d been so caught up in talking and beer that I hadn’t noticed.
He nodded. “Millicent came back a few minutes ago and caught the tail end. I’ll have to ply you with beer and my own unthinkable charm to get the story again sometime so she can hear it all. But! Until then we have a clandestine meeting to watch, right? Right!”
Without waiting for an answer he pulled the box off his belt and hit a catch on the side. The box unfolded, revealing a screen and a small keyboard, and he started tapping away. In response to his commands, bright images flitted across the screen until he touched one. It expanded to fill the screen, an image of someone in the dark.
“Ah, hang on a moment, just have to throw the right filters on there and hah yes.” The image became lighter, until it was like the scene was taking place under a full moon. I clearly recognized Birgitte walking away from the camera. The view shifted and flew along with her, remaining about fifteen feet away as she went.
Fraser made a low whistle. “I wonder if she does modeling shoots. Probably not. Probably get a fist in the snoot for asking.”
“At best, man,” I said. He sighed and we watched.
It wasn’t until she was stopped by a shout that I realized that there was sound as well as audio. I didn’t recognize the language.
Neither did Fraser. “Sounds awful, though, like someone trying to crap out a fistful of nails.”
I was about to laugh at the terrible image when Virgil said, “Goblins.”
Fraser paused the video and we turned to look at the boy, not having realized that he was awake before now. Virgil nodded, his eyes big and serious. “That’s Goblin talk.”
“Can you speak Goblin speech, little fish?” said Fraser. Virgil shook his head, going back to being silent. Fraser shrugged philosophically. “Well, it was worth a shot. We’ll have to find someone who can speak it, I suppose.”
We settled back into watching the video. Birgitte stood her ground as a small group of Goblins approached her. She didn’t seem afraid; Birgitte hadn’t looked anything but pissed the entire time that I’d known her. When the Goblins got within about five feet, they stopped. Neither side drew weapons. The Goblin at the front of the group bowed slightly and said something in a meek voice. He and Birgitte started talking; she spoke the Goblin language as if born to it, sounding like someone with a serious throat infection.
“What the fuck?” I muttered as they went on. They spoke for perhaps five minutes. During that time, Birgitte never changed her defiant stance or looked even slightly uncomfortable. The Goblin leader did both, waving his arms and jumping up and down at one point until she cut through his histrionics with a single spoken command. Finally the Goblins backed