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Awareness came on the heels of horror, the fangs of vampires and other monsters she could not identify leering at her as she dashed sleep aside and awoke with a start. The echoes of her startled voice faded almost immediately into the padded walls of the room. The cot was uncomfortably firm beneath her back as she fought to orient herself. A pungent but not unpleasant scent filled her nose under the omnipresent acrid bite of skunk.

“Nightmare?" A warm, masculine tenor asked from a short distance away, lent a degree of flatness by the padding of the walls. That was when she noticed that she occupied the cot alone.

“Oh, fuck." She breathed, sitting up and rubbing both hands over her face, displeased to note that they shook. “Yes. Fucking hell, yes. Teeth and blood and no way out."

“Nothing prophetic about it, no dire warning or message?" The skunk, a short distance away on the opposite side of the room, asked. His back was to her, she assumed, by the long sweep of paler colors that defined the shape of his tail. Beyond that the brighter hues of life, unstable mana, and pain.

“Huh? No, why? At least I don't think so. Just… monsters."

“As one might expect, after what you went through." Something clicked on metal and the sound of boiling came to her ears as he stirred something on the cook top.

“What we went through." She clarified, rubbing her feet across the cool stone of the floor.

“We, indeed. I'm rather inured to it, I fear, and I've some protection in the realm of dreams. I no longer need nightmares to remember the warnings I am given. I will ask a friend to ward you from them, as well. I fear you will need that, for a time."

“What?"

“Never you mind, Ash, child. I tend to speak in riddles unbeknownst, much to the confusion of others." He chuckled, stirring the pot on the cook top.

“Whatever. Is that rhagash? Really?" She wrinkled her nose at the pungent aroma.

A rise and fall of the silhouette's shoulders and slow sway of the pale ghost shape of his tail accepted her dismay. “It stores well, and it's better for the body than simple ramen." Rhagash was a Lutin dried ration, for lack of a more complimentary term. Made primarily of a taiga grass with spices to lend it a modicum of flavor it tended to stink to high heaven but the flavor was palatable enough, for the desperate.

Her stomach very keenly made her aware that she was beyond desperate, not having eaten in well over twenty four hours. “I guess." Despite having the texture of well boiled hay it would fill her protesting gut well enough. “Can't say I'm a fan. And I've had the real thing."

“So have I, but I fear I lack the ingredients or hours necessary to make it from scratch." Kai said as he transferred the contents of the pot to another container and brought it over. It proved to be a large mixing bowl that was surprisingly full. A pair of traditional chopsticks slid along the rim of the bowl to settle against her fingers as she accepted it. “I take it something went a bit awry, judging from the state of my cleanliness without any memory of it?"

Settling the bowl awkwardly upon her lap she took up the chopsticks. “Yeah. You were knocked out cold and shit yourself." She turned up a length of limp, well boiled grass and shoved it in her mouth much to the relief of her stomach. The taste, as expected, was quite palatable and the skunk had added other ingredients to make it even moreso. “And puked. And pissed." She added after swallowing the slithering mouthful after only a few desultory chews. Cooked as thoroughly as it was she had no fear of choking. “I had to drag you into the shower and wash it off, and then scrub the floor so it didn't smell like an open sewer in here."

“Lovely." Kai sighed ruefully. “I am, once again, in your debt, Ash. I cannot imagine it was pleasant in the least."

Ash gulped down another mouthful and shrugged. “I'm used to it. I had to do that for my father the last three years of his life, so, nothing new." Other than the fur, and the fact it was not her father's junk she had to wash. There was just something awfully wrong about handling the genitals of one's own parent, even in the infirmity of their last days.

“Ah." Kai returned to the cook top and refilled the pot from the sink. “Sorry to hear. At least he had someone there for him. All too many do not."

She shrugged again, “The duty of the child to care for the parent in their dottage."

“Of love, child, of love. Embrace the memory of what he was before, not later."

“If you say so." She raised the bowl and sipped at the rich broth as he stomach finally lessened its complaining. “At least your fur was warm enough. I could not find a blanket."

Kai actually chuckled as he waited for the pot to boil again. “There was one. It's attached to my butt."

Ash sputtered a laugh in return. “That, too. I didn't use it."

“You were, when I awoke." The skunk chuckled softly in warm humor. “Clung to it rather tenaciously."

Embarrassed, Ash could feel a flush rushing through her cheeks. Better the tail than find her hands resting elsewhere. “Oh. Sorry."

“No need. At any rate, thank you. I tried to draw in too much magic and it backlashed on me. I'm glad not to have awakened in that state."

“You have before?"

The head shape atop the skunk's pain and life essence defined shoulders bobbed in a nod. “A time or two." Ash could see that his mana was still unstable, though it had ceased flickering madly as it had been before. Now it brightened and dimmed in chaotic, but sedate, pulses. “And it's still too unstable to actually do anything. I fear I will need to take extreme measures to remedy the problem, now that I've burned out whatever venom or toxin the baboon had. I just hope the condition is not permanent."

“And if it is?"

Kai sighed and leaned against the counter, clutching its edge with both hands. Ash saw that the injured arm still looked wan, but was no longer the greater source of the pain that lent his form definition. “I'm right straight fucked, if that happens. No longer that which defined my very existence." He pushed back, grabbed something down from the shelf over the counter, and began vigorously slamming it against the edge of the counter. The sound of crunching within a plastic package was like dried bones being crushed to Ash's ears.

“You can find another way to live, without your magic. Others do."

“I guess." He tore open the package and dumped the well crushed contents into the boiling water before repeating the process with a second. “But my purpose will be at its end."

“Vigilante?"

“Of sorts, yes. Over."

“Just like my life is over. Two peas in a pod."

Kai chuffed softly and stirred at the contents of the pot, the utensil he was using clicking loudly against the metal. “Your life is not over, Ash. I suspect it has only just begun, though the new path may be one you neither expected nor chose." He turned and leaned back against the counter, tail draping down to curl loosely about the shanks of his dog-like lower legs. “You're a strong one, you will do well in any course."

Ash scoffed, another bundle of grass dangling from the chopsticks. “So you say."

“So I know, lass. I saw you stand and fight, even after being felled. And you're smart, quick to accept a situation, understand the need to act, and act." One arm waved down across his body to use himself, and his state of cleanliness, as an example. “And prepared before you even expect the situation you are prepared for. The spray you used? Silver, garlic, pepper. Not something everyone just carries around in their purse. The device you used to defeat our foes? Again, ready and used appropriately. That anti-domination charm you wear that protects you from the gaze of a vampire? All prepared well in advance and used well when needed."

Ash's fingers rose to the pendant that hung around her neck, one of two. The other was a much stronger version of the common contraceptive charm. She cocked her head slightly and held up one hand, raising a finger.

“One, the device I used was something from my job I just happened to have." She raised another finger. “The charm is not because of vampires, and I'm blind besides." And a third finger, leaving two to hold the chopsticks. “The vamp-away was because of a bad dream that scared me so much I bought it the next day." She sighed inwardly a moment later realizing that, if what he said was true and there was no light, he could not see her fingers counting.

“What's your job?" Kai turned to stir the pot once more, though without as much vigorous force. He added a few other things from items set near at hand with some caution to pour them into the pot rather than onto the countertop.

“Mana-tech research, specifically the efficiency of energy use."

“Say on?"

“I can't say too much, trade secrets and all. But the department I work in is trying to increase the efficiency of manipulating mana for drive enchantments; levitation, thrust, and the like."

“And how does that relate to whatever that device you used was?"

“It was a tester, to amplify the input source and transfer it to a higher mana state. We've found that, in series, each amplification requires less energy to double the output, up to a point. We're trying to streamline that, to maintain or increase mana throughput while reducing overall energy use. I connected several testers in series and used your spray, and the vamp away, as input essences. Each tester doubled the input and then transferred that amplification through the next to double it again."

Kai retrieved another container, a second mixing bowl Ash assumed, from a higher shelf. Well, high for his meter and a half stature, at any rate. “Damn, no wonder they simply stopped breathing. That much of my spray was… wow, I fear to calculate. Why I was I not affected?"

“I pushed it away. When it came out amplified it stayed away."

“Pushed it? My spray? How?"

“The essence of your spray, not the spray itself. The raw life mana that made it what it was. The same with the vamp-away. I did not make more of it, merely increased its effect."

“Spectacularly so." Kai poured the pot into his bowl and set it aside after turning off the cooktop. Ash could see no electrical wiring but she could see magic. The skunk had things that most would consider wondrous and treated them as ubiquitous. Only the wealthiest, that Ash knew of, had magic driven utilities like stoves and washing machines. In this out-of-the-way storage unit the skunk had them as common appliances. “And that's why you carried around those test devices?"

“Yeah." Ash sipped the last of the broth from the bowl, somewhat surprised she had eaten it all. At least her stomach had ceased its complaining. “In Metamor it's just a kind of profit margin thing. More efficient drive systems mean better vehicles. But further away mana driven vehicles are catastrophic to local mana sources. In some places they're even outright illegal because there is so little ambient mana. They're still stuck using internal combustion or electric."

“Commendable, mana wise and business wise. More efficient mana draw from the local sources means more devices can be used."

“I guess. Not my department." She rose and crossed to put the bowl in the sink. Holding her hand toward the pot she found that it had cooled enough to wash. Kai moved a little further down the counter to eat his rhagash, giving her room to use the sink. That was only a couple of feet. “But I had a few testers to see if I could adjust the circuitry to increase their amplification without altering input mana or electrical drain from the batteries."

“Convenient, well prepared, as I said." Kai pointed toward her with the chopsticks which were little more than dim wood essence shapes to her Sight. “And the charm?"

Ash touched her damp hand to it again and shrugged. “Succubus."

A shimmer of surprise rippled beneath the pain and Ash could imagine him raising an eyebrow. If he even had eyebrows in all of that fur. “Oh? That's got to be a story. They're best avoided."

“Not for Hedonists." She said as she picked up the now cool pot and rinsed it under the tap. The sink was yet another bit of ubiquitous enchantment she expected only in higher tier households.

Another shimmer of surprise, though less so. “You're of the Church?"

She scoffed, soaping the pot with one of the rags she had found the night Before. It had to have been night, she figured, as it had not been terribly late when she got in that damnable cab. Seven-ish, eight? She had no way of knowing what time it was, now, nor how long she had slept. “No. They're a bit much, even for our circle." She shook her head and scrubbed the pot. “No, we were just a small circle from around my tenant block who enjoyed each other's company. We followed some of the practices of Hedonism, and Sensualism, but no doctrine."

“And the succubus?"

Ash rinsed the pot and felt about for the drying rack before placing her bowl, chopsticks, and the pan upon it. “He came more recently, when he found out about our circle."

“He?"

“Yeah, Seban. I think he was from Sathmore."

“Incubus. Succubae are female, Incubi are male." Kai said as he sipped from his bowl.

“He, she, it doesn't really matter much to them. Just which bits they decide to wear when not exerting their will on people." Ash groused, turning to lean back against the counter. “He fucked up all our shit, broke the circle in the end."

“That's why you got the charm?"

“Yeah. See, there was this tiger who would sometimes attend our gatherings. A nice fellow, from up north, Caralore. The suc- incubus had inserted himself into our circle and delighted in urging us to 'test our limits'" she sketched irritated air quotes with her fingers. “One day he gets it into Geralt's, the tiger, head and has him shift to his full tiger form; his feral aspect. We were all pretty up on that asshole's influence at the time, aroused as hell and pretty game to 'test our limits'. I was the center, as I usually was since everyone in the circle enjoyed how I touched them, saw them with my fingers and my Sight, saw how the arousal moved through them." She traced her fingers along the edge of the countertop behind her, feeling the almost imperceptible defects in its manufacture and nicks from use.

“So Seban, he gets Geralt into his feral aspect, and has him mount me like a damn animal." She shook her head at the dark experience, still unsettled by the sheer fierceness of it. “Thank the gods that tigers are not dogs, they don't fuck so… energetically." She shrugged and sighed. “So I've got all three hundred or so pounds of this feral animal pushing me down, having his way, and the others are getting off on the sight. Seban is drinking all of that energy in, and we were okay with that bit, his needing to feed from our arousal like that. After an hour or so I'm feeling pretty raw and spent from those barbs tigers have and I convince him to leave off.

“That's when Seban has him come around and stand in front of me, facing him, and then fucking spray me with tiger piss right in the gods damn face." She snarled the last, clutching the edge of the counter. “At the time none of us even blinked, barely even registered what he had done in our heightened state of arousal. We fucking rolled in it, had a ball, and Seban, see, he gets Geralt to release his feral aspect, to let the shifting stress transition him to full human."

Ash strode back to the cot, turned, and back to the counter, pacing the wide center of the storage room in anger, unconsciously counting steps, letting it all out and not knowing why she was. “Seban gets Geralt to go down on him, to suck his goddamn cock. And we let him! But Geralt was straight, completely, unwavering. He would not do anything in our circle with the men. Not until Seban pushed all of that incubus power at him, eroding his personal inhibitions, ramping his desire, until he was nothing more than a mindless sex toy for Seban's personal pleasure."

Ash stopped pacing, staring toward the far wall where the unit's doors were, and could only see the dark hues of shame suffusing tiger's aura the next day when they all woke up and Seban was gone and the stench of piss was overwhelming. That and sex, two odors that did not compliment one another. “Geralt was utterly devastated the next day. We all were. I was humiliated that I let myself be used like an animal by an animal, and then let him piss in my face. That's when I went out and got this charm." She held it between two fingers, rubbing at the stylized union between two humans stamped into the face. “After that our circle was pretty much done. Geralt moved out a couple of weeks later, went completely silent and dark. No one knows what's happened with him and we can't find out. All of us had these charms the next week when Seban showed up. He went into a screaming rage when he discovered that he could no longer push his powers on us."

“Did you tell the Church? They have rather specific doctrine against that sort of behavior in its clergy."

“The Church? Suspira's? No. I don't think Seban was a member, or even a congregant. He was just a twisted fuck using his powers to get what he wanted out of people."

“The Church would be even more interested in bringing him to heel, or outright eliminate him entirely. The Lightbringers, too. With a story like that they would remove his head on the spot."

Ash turned her head to peer over at the skunk's shimmering silhouette. “The Lightbringers? What could they do, arrest him? For what, he didn't do anything with anyone who was not consenting, at the time."

“Incubi are infernal beings, outsiders. They do not have nearly the same rights as mortals in the Empire. Once the Lightbringers know that some thing, any thing, Inky, succy, vamp, or whatever, is using their powers to the detriment of the people their justice as summary, and immediate. They don't play games."

Ash sighed and shrugged helplessly, moving over to sit on the edge of the cot. “A bit late, now."

“If he's still there it isn't."

“For Geralt." Ash clarified, “For me, some of the others who also had their boundaries violated."

“The Sensualists can help you, them. Him." Kai moved to sit on the end of the cot, not quite touching. “Most of their recovery programs are state funded, free for victims like your circle. And they are not missionaries, regardless of their personal choices of Faith." He touched her forearm lightly, with only the tips of two claw adorned fingers. “Especially for Geralt."

“Which I can do nothing about, here." She sighed, glancing down at the two fingertips before he withdrew his hand. “And… what did you do?"

“Do?" Ash focused at his emotional spectrum but only saw a brief glow of confusion in his head and breast that quickly faded.

“Do. To me. To get me to unload all of that shit." She rasped, suddenly shocked at the bald, and rather overly explicit, description of her violation. A wound that she had thought secreted away, hidden behind her facade of bland inconsequentiality that made co-workers and passers by on the street completely overlook her, other than to note her blindness. Her co-workers still considered her less capable because she could not read their documents in mundane ink or sign her own paperwork without a mana-ink pen.

“I did nothing." Kai replied quietly, “I can't, my magic is completely wracked. Not even a witchlight, which is why it's still dark in here."

“Then how?" She waved a hand toward the counter and the cooktop he had so recently been using.

“Same as you. Nose and fingers, and already knowing where everything is." There was no duplicity in the hues that glowed behind the webwork of pain. “You were not wearing the robe. I thought it best."

Ash felt herself flush at that point, she had been too bone tired to find out where she had set it the night before after cleaning the floor and slept in the same narrow bed with the skunk clad only in her bra and panties.

Which was still all she wore.

“I didn't find the robe." He admitted with a helpless splaying of his hands. “And didn't want to stumble about trying to. I daresay you can find your way around better than I, right now." Ash expected that it was probably somewhere near the bathroom nook and would have to find it unless she wanted to remain almost naked with the skunk. “As for what I did, I did nothing but ask a question. You wanted to release what you held and you did."

“To you?" She scoffed, irritated at him for asking and herself for unloading that whole mess on a complete stranger. “I don't even know who you are, or which one of them you are. And as for the next question, about the vamp-away? Yeah, I had a nightmare about being set upon by vampire children after a mob of them visited the production floor the day before. Children, I mean, not pint sized vampires."

Kai chuckled softly. “The pint sizes can be the most deadly, you never expect it of a child. Just look at the pedomorphs that the police use for undercover agents, or that the Empire uses as spies."

“Yeah, that's not shady at all." Ash shook her head. “It was so intense, so real, that I went and got the spray the very next day."

“You had an Oracular Dream, Nocturna's demesne. Probably forewarning you so powerfully it would be remembered when you awoke, so you would prepare yourself. That's how she works."

“Why would the night witch concern herself with me?"

“Night witch?" Kai shook his head, sadness coloring his form briefly, at the appellation. “Nocturna as the shepherd of dreams. Of all dreams. And she is the source of warnings, often that are not heeded, dismissed as mere unpleasant dreams. You heeded the warning given you, and survived because of it. Don't discount Her so lightly, Her warning saved your life. Saved my life, too, through you."

“So you're hers, then, are you?"

“Hers how? A believer in Her, yes, though not clergy or congregant."

“Her consort."

The flicker of surprise that washed through the skunk was much more intense than he had shown earlier, tinged with unease and even a touch of actual cautionary fear. It was bright enough to actually overcome the glow of his pain, if briefly, as it throbbed in syncopation. “Me? I'm a skunk, not a marten."

“As if anyone ever sees her, or her consort." Ash pointed out. “But I can see them in their aerie, the same way I can see you, Immortal."

A bright flicker of surprise, full on alarm, once again flared brighter than the pain suffusing him. “Imm - what?"

Ash delved into the deeper levels of her Sight, the bright flare of his soul-level energy briefly blinding her before she rose back up, eyes squinting at the mana light. “Immortal. Which one are you? Whose consort? I can see the power, just at the edge of the numen, that makes them glow like suns whenever I look up at the top of the Magistrix's tower." She stood and moved a few paces away, turning to look back from the dubious safety of distance. “The war god's? His consort is a skunk."

“And female." Kai said softly with a resigned sigh. “How can you see that? I can't even see that, and my Sight has been one of the deepest other than a few elven elders and Lutin shamen."

“I can see the numen and everything above it. As far as I've ever learned the numen is the lowest one can See, unless they want to peer into uncreation and go mad at the dissolution they find."

“The numen." Kai seemed impressed though his colors shifted between pale caution and deeper fear and some sadness. “I've only met one who could see so deep, long long ago. And at its edge you can see the power invested in the gods, in their consorts?"

“And in you. Yes." Ash nodded firmly, crossing her arms over her breasts. “So who are you? What are you?"

Kai leaned back across the bunk to slump against the wall. “Truly, it is best you do not know, Ash. I am one of the immortals, but not like them. I am trapped, bound up by other powers besides those accidentally gifted to me. And what I know they can discover if I am not ever-vigilant."

“Such as when you're comatose."

“And that is when I know nothing and they can, perforce, learn nothing through me."

“So why are you slumming on the Street?" She unfolded one arm to wave at the room, “Or in storage lockers in the Mines?"

“Because I have things I must do. Dangerous things. Things that the other Immortals cannot involve themselves with." He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “You see, to them, and to many others, I am a monster. One that some of them, like the lord of battle, would like to simply remove from the world."

“Pissed him off, much, bringing justice to others?"

“Something like that." He did not elucidate further. “And why, once I am recovered and satisfied that you are safe, you must separate yourself from me, the very knowledge of me."

“Or what, you'll eliminate me, too?"

Kai scoffed a laugh, “Why would I see to your safety if I planned to kill you, Ash?" He retorted blandly. “No. A monster I may be, but not that kind of monster. I do not wish to see you harmed, lass, on my account or for any other reason. You've suffered enough. Of my noisome stink if nothing else."

“Shit covered fur and all."

Kai laughed self-consciously, “And, as for my questions, well." He sat up and stretched slowly, not flinching as the pain coursing through his body flared fitfully before dimming to its usual level. “We're stuck here for a while. Another day, at least, to see if I can stabilize it, before I have to consider other methods."

“Such as?"

“Removing it altogether, emptying my reserves to the last vestige, which I have never done before."

“How long was 'before'?" Ash returned to sit on the end of the cot opposite him, a comfortable body length away.

“The same time as the gods were cast down and their consorts chosen."

“That was… that was a long time ago." she breathed, aghast. “Even the history I was taught spoke of those times. A thousand years? More?"

“More like thirteen hundred years, yes."

Ash whistled softly past her teeth, not even capable of imagining such a length of time. “Must be great, having so much time to experience the world, and everything it has in it."

Kai scoffed, “It sucks." He chuttered morosely. “I've not been awake for a lot of it, due to my situation. Not like the others have been. I spend decades, sometimes centuries, in a comatose slumber. I wake up and everyone I've known, everyone I've loved, my wife, my children, their children and those children's children, all dead and dust. To me it is but the blink of an eye, a single night's sleep, and the world is different. These last centuries it has become an entirely different world each time I awaken, from the vast sprawl of the growing City to, overnight to me, monstrous huge towers. From horses and carts to steam wagons to chemical engines to flying carriages, computers that take up a room and the next day carried in pockets." He shook his head and sighed. “No, Ash, it is horrible. I would not wish it upon a foe, much less myself."

“Ouch." Ash agreed with a nod, barely comprehending how it must be to go to sleep one night when wagons drawn by horses are the norm to wake up and find vehicles that fly. She leaned forward and looked over at him. “Tell me, since we've got naught but time to piss away. Who's consort are you? And why aren't you at their side like all of the other consorts?"

“Ah, a complex story." He laughed softly, hues dimming into a melange of emotions; shame, sorrow, grief, and an emotional pain that was far different than the webwork originating behind his eye patch. Drawing his legs up and crossing those powerful lower shanks at the hock he took a breath to consider his words. “Artela, and it was an accident."

“Accident? How does one invest you with immortality by accident?"

“To save my life after my own folly doomed it, that's how. You see, soon after the gods began walking the earth others discovered that if they defeated them - well, to be clear, killed them - they would be invested with the powers of that god." Leaning back he rested his hands upon his splayed knees, the vague shapes of his hands moving as he spoke to punctuate his tale.

“Such as it was with the current god of battle, Rikkter, and the goddess of vampires, Talia. I had attached myself to the retinue of the goddess I clove to, at the time, Artela, mistress of the Wild and the Hunt. During our travels we were set upon many times by those who wished to claim the goddess' power. I became one of her chief guardians, as my magic was powerful even then.

“So I was among one of the few left standing when a veritable giant of a man, Luadran the Archer, who sought to become master of the Endless Hunt made his attempt. He felled many with his unerring bow and others with his great sword, Glamdarong. That was a true beast of a thing, as long as I am tall and probably weighing as much. Far too weighty for an average man to raise, much less do battle with.

“For Luadran it was no more than a longsword for he had the blood of giants in his line, he stood near three meters, towering over all. And Glamdarong had been enchanted so that its wielder was immune to all magic, much like that baboon that savaged me. He struck down Artela's closest defenders after scattering the others, until only she and he remained. I had been run up a tree trying to stay clear of that monster blade, unable to do anything against him while he held it.

“He and Artla battled through the small declavity into which the battle hand brought them, the mistress of the Wild able to turn aside his massive blade time and time again. The forest spirits sought to help but were quelled back into tree and stone by mighty sweeps of the blade and Artela feared bringing the mortal defenders of the Wood to her aid lest they be slain outright.

“Luadran, at length, shattered Artela's blade after sapping its magic, and shore through her mighty bow with naught but a flick of Glamdarong. She had fallen, wounded by a slash to her leg, and was in imminent danger of being vanquished, bequeathing her powers to the rapacious whims of the giant warrior. I had but one thing I could do, folly that it was."

Leaning forward he fixed Ash with his one good eye, the trio of stones upon the opposite patch glimmering in her Sight. “I could only act as a man, in that moment, unable to use the magic that had been my mainstay and has ever been thus. I cast myself from my perch in the tree overhead, intending to land upon Laudran's head and gore out his eyes with my claws and choke him with my spray." He held up one hand, fingers flexed, displaying claws Ash could not see but remember the feel of; stout, thick, blunt of tip and edge. Claws meant for digging, not rending flesh. “But, I miscalculated. Badly." With a dry laugh he leaned back and pantomimed a wide limbed sprawl through the air.

“As I descended Luadran brought Glamdarong up above his head for a mighty downward chop that would have ended Artela." He laughed, then folded over forward, curling his arms about himself. “I spitted myself like a coney on that huge blade, dragging the upward stroke further back over Luadran's shoulder. Artala took that moment to leap up and ram two of her arrows through the warrior's chin until they scraped the inside of his skull, dropping him where he had stood like a sack of bones."

Unfolding from his pose Kai laced the fingers of his hands over one knee to face Ash. “I would have, should have, perished on the spot with that huge sword through me like a fish prepared for the cookfire. Artela drew it out and used her power to heal my wounds, but my life was fast fleeing, drained by Glamdarong's enchantment, and Artela chose the only thing she had left to offer; her touch of inexhaustible Life, which any god could bestow upon but one mortal at a time, and brought me back from the brink of death."

Kai chuffed softly and perhaps smiled though Ash could not see his expression, his head was little more than a musteline shape defined by the pain that throbbed behind his eye-patch. “And, thus, I became her champion, for a time."

“For a time?" Ash asked, enraptured by the heroic tale like some history of old.

Which it was.

“Yes, for a time. We were never Goddess and Consort. We never even made an attempt at the relationship the other Gods have chosen their consorts for. In time I returned to Metamor to resume my duties as tutor, headmaster of my College, and advisor to Duke, who would one day be King, Hassan."

“I thought the gods could take back their boon. I've heard that Valena, the goddess of Love, has done that, given long lives to many consorts over the centuries, and taken it back when they lost the rapture of unending love and were weighed down by the sorrows of watching their mortal loves pass."

“She has, though I know little of her. We do not walk the same circles, obviously." One hand flicked to take in the room. Certainly none of the gods, and probably not most of their consorts, would humble themselves to reside in a converted storage unit. “I would have had Artela take back her boon, but unkind fate intervened."

“During one of my annual patrols overseeing the mages of the Realm I was waylaid and captured by agents of a powerful dark mage, the one who had created the Curses and saw them laid upon the Keep. Clearly, as you know and can see, his curses were powerful things, warping all those within several leagues into the forms you know today. The mages of Metamor countered, creating an unholy tangled mess of magic, balking the curses half way but rendering it irreversible without tearing the soul of the affected near in half."

“That's survivable?"

“Not very, but does occasionally happen. And some few became affected by two of them, though never three to my memory. But then, I've slept more than a third of the time since then so much of my knowledge is fragmented."

“So, your capture?"

“Ah, yes, to get back to that. Anyway. I was captured, my magic drained away, Severed from the touch of mana. I could do nothing and barely remember the journey north. I suspect I was kept heavily drugged and a mana sapping charm was used to keep my natural reserves from replenishing. The journey took some weeks, perhaps a month or more, before I was brought to the gates of the Black City which I give no name.

“That was where the dark wizard, progenitor of the curses, sought to steal from me what Artela had given. Though it is common practice today, the sharing of blood was considered necromancy in those days, barely understood and seldom practiced. The mage connected us with his magic, began to transfer my blood to himself." Kai stood and paced across the room, finding a drinking cup from one of the shelves to fill it from the sink. He filled a second and brought it over to Ash before settling back down on the end of the cot.

“Sorry, it's been quite a long time since I have spoken at such length or so openly, as you did. I can only share in recompense." He saluted with his cup before taking a long draught. Ash saluted in return, copying the motion of his arm, at least, before sipping her own. She hissed softly; the water was bitingly cold and tasted of alpine meadows and stone.

Quite the magic sink, that.

“But, you see, he had barely begun his dark ritual, sapped only a small portion of my blood and life, when Metamor arrived in force. The Brightleaf sundered the great black doors with but a few swings of his axe and the furious warriors poured in, sacking the place and turning the mage's attention from his ritual."

“The Brightleaf?"

“Yes, the original Hero of the age, Misha the fox; Brightleaf. Along with the Rat of Might, Matthias, the progenitor his line within the Empire. Rikkter, who was not yet the god of battle and a mage of terrible power, far greater than my own even to this day. Raven of the Lightbringes with Elamicil. The Sutt, consort of Nocturna then and now."

“You had mighty friends, indeed. You tell your story as if reading from a book of tales rather than a history lived."

The skunk let out a trill of laughter, “Who do you expect penned many of those histories, lass? Matthias, who was a writer of some regard, penned those that are considered most accurate. The Sutt made ballads of them, though those have faded over the centuries. Myself, well, I could only add a modicum because I was strapped to a table in some dark recess of the place." He paused to drink again, letting out a pleased rasp as the cold water hit his throat.

“Well?" Ash prompted, rolling a hand at him. “Say on, what happened?"

“They trashed the place without any regard that it be left standing. They slaughtered the defenders, mostly abominations created by the dark mage. But they did not find the mage quickly enough. He had another ritual that his acolytes told him was prepared even before he began on me. One that was quite a bit worse. Frightfully worse.

“He sought to bring unbeing into reality, to open a fissure into the very depths of the darkest places, to call up a being whose only goal would be to unbind the numen, to let the darkness of entropy spill into our world and consume it. The mage sought to harness that being, to make it a part of himself much as he sought to make me, the gift I possessed, a part of himself.

“And some part of me had already succumbed to his evil, had been sucked out and given him a modicum of everlasting life. The attackers of Metamor found him at the cusp of his unspeakably evil rite, after he had invested himself into the entity of darkness he had conjured and strove to bring it back into his mortal form. Rikkter and Matthias saw to it he had no mortal form to return to, destroying his body so thoroughly not even a bone could be claimed as trophy.

“Sutt and Hassan found me during their rampage through the keep and bore me out. Once those who had attacked, and survived, emerged they destroyed the place. Rikkter and the Lightbringer combined their considerable strength and tore it down, stone from stone. Utterly, until not one stone was left stacked upon another, collapsed every cavern from which survivors might escape." His voice drifted off and he sat, unmoving, for several minutes before releasing a long pent sigh. “But they failed."

“Failed?" Ash asked incredulously, surprised to find her cup empty. She unfolded her crossed legs, not aware of when she had turned on the cot to face him with them crossed, revealing the entirety of herself to his view but for a thin pair of scanty, rather immodest panties and equally revealing bra. She blushed furiously as she accepted his cup and went to the sink to refill them before returning. When she sat she did so demurely, folding her legs together to one side rather than crossing them in such a wonton display.

At least, to his claim, the room was still not lit.

“Yes." He said at length, reacting not at all to her state of dress as if the fact she was female was of no matter. Which it probably didn't she mused, to one who had lived a thousand years and very likely seen a great deal more than she could display even without clothing. “Because of me. And, to a lesser degree, Artela. You see, he did snatch away some of that gift she bestowed upon me. When his mortal body was destroyed he was consumed by the darkness he sought to control. And he still remains as such, alive but not, no longer even who he was. His sense of identity, his Self, has been subsumed by the thing he created. His desires for domination of this world remain within it, giving it purpose, its own Self, but not him any more. What desire that remains has its will bent almost entirely on the place he sought to conquer in life, Metamor Keep, now City." He took a sip and sorrow drifted in a slow wave through his form. “And my touch of immortality sustains it." He said at length with a soft sigh.

“After they brought me back to Metamor I recovered from my ordeal, but not entirely. As time passed I grew weaker and weaker, until I pretty much died five years later. While my heart did not stop they could not raise me from my comatose state. They kept me for years in the Temple, until they exhausted all avenues they could, until all of those Gods who were willing to help found they could not. My body withered to a mummified husk, but my heart beat on, my soul stayed bound. At some point they transferred me to the catacombs of the Heroes, though did not inter me in a tomb or sepulcher." He gulped down the icy cold contents of his mug in a few swift swallows, hissing at its bite afterward.

“I awoke two centuries later. And that, Ash, is why I tell you that being immortal is fucking bullshit. Everyone I had known; my wife, my children, their children. They were all gone and become dust. My friends; Matthias, Hassan, Brightleaf, all gone. Only Sutt, a consort, and Rikkter who had become a god and a couple of dragons I had known remained. Once they recovered from the horror of my resurrection they told me of the intervening two hundred years. How Metamor had risen in prominence, how the Hassan had become King and abdicated to the Magistrix and returned to the title of Duke.

“How my line had risen, fallen, risen again, and one had taken my name and become a scourge." He set the cup aside and, by the pitch of his head, stared into his lap. “That is why immortality is not for the faint of heart, because my distant descendant had, somehow, found the teachings of the Dark Mage, had discovered the darkness that had consumed him, and begun preparing to bring it through to this world.

“When you have to hunt down your own namesake, another who had taken the form of a skunk in tribute to a long dead ancestor, and kill them? It is a horror. Especially, as having known who I was and what I had done to ensure they were alive to practice such vile arts, they embraced the darkness. And I killed them. All of them, his entire circle of wizards, their apprentices, their retinue. Every last one of them." He stabbed a finger into his upturned palm to stress each word fiercely.

“And that is why I am a monster, Ash. I kill. I kill a lot, and I've become terrifyingly good at it. I kill without compunction nor remorse those who would reach out to the entity that I am bound to. When they find his dark teachings and reach out, when they lend him strength, I awaken. I awaken and I seek them out and I destroy them so that the entity weakens, withdraws its fell influence from this world, that I might sleep again.

“I went to Artela, after I had slaughtered the one who bore my likeness and my name." His voice hitched, sorrow pulsing slowly within his breast. “I asked her to withdraw her boon, that I might fully perish in my grief and find surcease in the Heavens with my wife, my children, and the friends who had gone before me. And she could not!" His voice rose in anguish, caught up more in his story than in the present, the memory pouring from his mouth as if freshly minted in his memory. “Because the gift had been shorn, a piece stripped away, and she needed to recover both or neither. And that other half, Ash, is lost in unbeing, unreachable unless it comes through.

“And if it does, our world is doomed."

They were both silent for a long time after he finished speaking. Kai lost in his thoughts and memories, Ash aghast at the tale. “That's what you've been fighting? For thirteen hundred years? Alone?" She spoke softly into the lengthening silence where the only noise had been a slow drip from the faucet.

His head shook slowly, “Not entirely, not always. Sometimes I am able to find allies to aid me. I've those I seek out who have the potential to aid me, or aid the enemy. One I foster, the other I kill. For it is only one of them who may bring the enemy through, to give it flesh and the flush of life so that Artela's boon can be yanked free and it might finally be truly destroyed."

“If Artela's gift is stripped from it then won't it be stripped from you, as well?"

“I would hope, yes." He sighed and fiddled with his empty cup, rolling it between his hands. “Finally."

“So, you'd just… die?"

Kai's shoulders rolled slightly, “I do not know, truth be told. I could drop to the spot, thirteen hundred years catching up to me. I would embrace that, wholly. I know where I would go." He sighed and lurched forward, rising quickly with a sweep of his tail that brushed across Ash's face and made her jerk back in surprise. He turned and held out his hand for her cup. “Or I might live out the normal span of the years my body has left and die a stinking old skunk. In bed, I hope; at peace. Either way, I know where my immortal soul will come to rest, and I have been looking forward to that for over a thousand years."

“You get used to it." Ash said as she held out the cup, claws brushing the back of her fingers as he took it.

“What? Certainly not living forever."

She chuckled with a shake of her head. “The smell. You get used to it. Unless I actually think about it I don't notice any more."

“That's because one of my charms is supposed to cancel it." He held something up from the collection about his neck. “But it's drifted out of phase over the years and I need to realign and recharge it." He raised his shoulders in a shrug before pacing back to the sink and setting the two mugs in the drying rack after feeling about for it. “Which means, as my friends have said, I'm leaking. You wouldn't want to be around me if I took it off."

Ash shrugged as well, “I was there when you blasted that baboon."

“And held it at bay, as you told me, by manipulating its very essence." He turned and leaned back against the counter, “How do you do that, anyway? I can't, not without resorting to my magic. When I have magic. It's just normal chemicals, nothing more than basic ambient mana."

“All things have an essential nature. I can see it and I can manipulate it, if only a little. I can only affect the strands that define its nature, its essence. I can't change them as you might with your magic. Your spray had a core essence that let me push it away, as did the Vamp-Away, though they're made up of many ingredients, each has its own unique core essence which I can sort of push or pull."

“No turning lead to gold, eh?" He said with a hint of irony.

“No." She said with a shake of her head, “Alas. Even magic can't do that reliably, or make it last, as you know. Whatever magic transmutes eventually wants to find its way back to what it was without magic being maintained to keep it from reverting." Kai scrubbed at his angular face with one hand and took a ragged breath before letting it out in a huff and pushed himself to his feet. The skunk sidled along the bed and awkwardly around her, using his tail along the wall as he passed, thankfully raising the lush plume up before it dragged across her face with all of its musky, furry weight. Once past her he continued until he found the shelves near the bathroom and, from there, navigated more easily into the space and pushed the door closed.

Her hearing, leant acuity by years experiencing the world through her ears more than seeing it, left little to the imagination in the heavy quiet of the storage bay. The door remained clothed for some minutes after she heard the toilet flush and finish filling its reservoir before he emerged again.

He let something warm, dry, and weighty slump into her lap as he passed. Her fingers told her immediately it was the robe. “Was on the sink." He said as he moved toward the center of the room, settled down on the floor, and crossed his legs. Resting his hands, palms up, on his knees he took a long, steadying breath as if preparing to fall into meditation and leave Ash with naught but the sound of the dripping faucet to break the silence. “I'm sorry, by the way."

“For what?"

“This." He waved a hand before returning it to his knee. “Getting you dragged into this."

Ash shook her head and puffed a breath past her lips. “You didn't get me anything. You weren't driving that damn cab. Asshole put me there, not you." She cocked her head and grunted a short, rueful laugh. “Unless you're saying you made him do that."

“No. Saw you down here, wearing clothes that weren't Street. Didn't even get a chance to figure out if I wanted to bother helping you get out of there or leave you behind when the vamps and their goons stepped out of the walls." He shrugged and rocked his neck side to side, ameliorating some of the pain flowing down from his head, ever so slightly. “After that it was moot."

“I never even heard them until they were right there. Magic, I guess? Illusions?"

“Yeah, decent ones effectively used. Illusion walls masked with mana graffiti to conceal their magic, and screens to muffle sound."

“Figured. My ears were telling me something was off but my Sight just saw mana infused paint."

“You held up better than I would've imagined, though, given that shock. Held your own."

“So you told me last night. I think it was last night."

“Near enough. I figure it's late afternoon right about now, probably closer to evening."

“So I've not shown up for work, not called my friends, no one from my circle, for more than a day. I lost my crystal in the fight."

“Communication device?"

“Yeah."

The skunk nodded, his tail sweeping around to drape across his crossed shanks below his knees. “Last time I was awake people still used phones plugged into walls. Must be convenient now to have a telephone company in your pocket."

“Telco, maps, video, translator. It's a computer that makes calls. How long ago was it you were awake last?"

“Late seventies. Computers weren't a thing then, either. Just big bulky things hidden away in large rooms making noise. I think the most advanced thing I saw was a calculator someone could put on their desk."

“Wow, that was a while ago!"

“This last sleep was very short, as such things go. Before that it was almost a century, eighteen nineties, I think. Labor movement was big, then. Before that, maybe seventy years, and before that over a century. It's disorienting. One period everyone's using bows and arrows, then I wake up and they're using muskets. Then I wake up and they've got guns that let one man replace an entire company of musketeers. Now you've got pocket computers, carriages that fly, and even scarier guns."

“None of those goons used guns, though. Why?"

“They wanted me alive. I guess to take to their vampire Lord." Kai barked a short laugh. “If they'd just asked nicely I may have gone with them, willingly. Long enough to get close to the master and dust them."

“I doubt you could've. One bite from that baboon and you'd be their plaything to have fun with." Ash pointed out.

She saw Kai wince, a dark throb of negative emotion pulsing outward from his breast. “Ah, you are right. I totally overlooked that little snag." He held up his hand and Ash watched his mana grow, flicker, brighten, and then stutter and fail as he let out a pained grunt. “Yes." He wheezed, dropping his hand. “I can't even summon a witchlight, damn acolyte level stuff."

“So… well? What's to be sorry for? You saved my ass, I saved yours. Now we're stuck with each other."

“That we are." Kai nodded. “We'll just have to make the best of it."

“Maybe later." Ash said with a yawn. “My brain has been pushed to its limits and I'm for more sleep."

“Probably a good idea. I'm going to meditate for a time, see if I can center myself and stabilize a bit."

“Oh, gods, don't be knocking yourself out again." Ash protested as she turned to stretch out on the cot, drawing the robe up over her as a blanket.

Kai merely laughed. “No, lass, I'm not going to try to harness any magic at all, just try to get control of what I've got. I'll be able to properly heal myself once I get whatever's wrong fixed."

For a few moments they both let the silence linger. The background noises; the soft plunk of water in the kitchenette sink, their own breathing, and the muffled rumble of the distant forge kept a greater silence, a greater emptiness, from gaining hold.

“Who was your wife?" Ash asked as she felt sleep stealing up on her, lulling her into a relaxed half-meditative state somewhere between awake and asleep.

“Hmm?" The skunk replied with a quiet, inquisitive churr.

“Your wife. When did you have a wife, with your strange awake and asleep cycle?"

“Only had one." His voice was a level, calm tenor as if he were still deep in his meditation and simply allowing his body to respond while his mind was otherwise occupied. “Kozaithy. No surname before mine, a commoner. Became a skunk, like me, but pretty much solid white, only two spots of black fur. Eyes of the most arresting hue of emerald I've ever known." He drew a slow breath and let it out in a measured sigh. “Married before I went walkabout in Artela's train. Before I became… what I am."

“And that was it? No one since? In a thousand years?"

“Like that? No." She heard the slow slither of his tail as it curled about his crossed ankles though she did not sense any other movement. “But there have been others, of course. Many, very many. It has been, after all, more than a thousand years. There were times when I was awake for centuries. It's somewhat difficult to remain abstemious that long." Another measured sigh. “But none so precious as my Kozi."

“Cozy. Nice name. Women, then? No one else?"

“Hmmm. Mostly, not always. I've experimented, tested my boundaries, like you have." A pause and then a breathy chuckle. “Not with the Hedonists, though. My unconscious defenses would destroy a Succubus almost instantly. Why?"

“The silence." She muttered, then yawned. “It stretches, and it's heavy. I've never been without something; a book, a tablet, a crystal, even a holo. This silence is… a bit unsettling."

“You read books?"

“Braille, and the rare one that's been printed using mana infused ink. Devices with mana displays."

“Ah. More advances. Sometimes I feel more ignorant than a child. I have to learn the world all over again, and quickly, each time. And these last few times I have had to learn far more, and more swiftly, than ever before."

“Yeah, even I feel that way sometimes." Ash yawned and chuffed at herself for fighting off sleep like a petulant toddler at nap time. She fell silent and settled back as comfortably as she could on the firm cot. Soon enough she felt herself sinking and gave into the pull.

She awoke some time later, awareness of the quiet plonk of water and distant growl of refinery machinery leaking into the peace of her slumber. She blinked and yawned, not truly feeling rested enough to be awake but too perturbed by the nearer noises to continue sleeping. She turned to put her feet to the floor, feeling the subtle vibration through the soles of the machines not so very far from where she resided with the strange little immortal. While she was not particularly familiar with their names she was relatively sure none of them were called 'Kai'.

That personage was no longer seated cross legged in the middle of the floor. He had retreated to one corner of the room, where the counter met the wall nearest the door, propped in a seated position with his arms loosely crossed over his stomach and head bowed. Shuffling over to the sink she twisted both of the handles, finally putting an end to its annoying drips.

Turning she approached the skunk and knelt, reaching out one hand tentatively, not knowing exactly how close she would be before touching fur. She was just about to close the last inches and speak his name when he burst into motion, a blinding flash of one arm coming up to grasp at her wrist. He missed the first attempt but, like the batting of an irritated cat, his hand drew back and snatched a second time before she could jerk away. The second attempt found what it sought, fumbling only briefly at her forearm before finding an iron grip upon her wrist. She felt stout claws dimple her flesh as his other arm came up, hand cocked and fisted but for two apparent fingers held together and pointed toward her rigidly.

She could picture equally stout claws aimed at her throat and froze where she was, not trying to pull away beyond that first reflexive flinch. She saw pain flare from behind the eyepatch with the three mana glows, racing down through his neck and swirling about the skunk's breast, belly, and groin; his mystic centers. The skunk's magic flared bright for a moment before fading in fitful, staccato bursts as he sucked a loud breath through his teeth.

His fingers unclamped convulsively from her wrist and he shoved himself back to sit more upright in the corner. “What?" He snapped, voice an animalistic growl.

“S- sorry." Ash gasped quickly, jerking back her wrist and clasping her other hand around it, feeling to see if his blunt but stout claws had pierced her skin.

He flicked one hand and sagged back, “You ought not sneak up on sleeping animals, child." He growled, though without rancor. “We tend to wake up fighting when we sense intruders near."

“Sorry." She said again, deriding herself for doing just that with an immortal who, by his own testimony, had spent much of the last millennia fighting some sort of constant shadow war. A stone cold killer by his own assertion; a monster. “I just saw you slumped there. It can't be comfortable."

The skunk's head turned slightly side to side and he heaved a breath and then stretched slowly. “I've slept in worse places." He was silent a moment and then chuckled in that strange churr-trill of his. “And woke up in far more dangerous situations."

Ash flexed her uninjured, though perhaps bruised, wrist and laughed lightly in kind. “I can tell. But when there's a bed to use?"

“For you to use."

“You're not so big, skunk. Come on, we shared it earlier." Reaching out again she let her fingers touch his upper arm then slip down to grasp his hand as she stood. His claws skittered quietly on the polished bedrock floor as he stood at her urging.

“And you'll end up smelling like me." He let her lead across the room, finding the cot easily by simple location memory. Eleven steps from corner to bed, directly. Ten from the sink, seven from the bathroom.

Ash scoffed as she sat and turned to stretch herself out on the cot, her back to the wall. The padding, for whatever its purpose was, at least kept the chill of the stone at bay, as did the robe she drew over herself again. “As if there's anyone here to notice."

“There is that." He sat on the edge of the cot and swung his legs up to stretch out, his back to her. Ash shifted back to let him get comfortable, observing that he drew his tail forward between his thighs and then up to rest his head on the voluminous fur tip like a pillow. She had been using a folded towel and that served the same purpose, even if it was rather firm. The only problem she had was where to put her arms because folding them against her chest was neither comfortable nor convenient. One she folded under the towel and, after some trepidation, she draped the other one over her furry cot mate.

He did not seem to react overmuch to that rather familiar embrace, patting her hand once before putting his own hands under his head and letting his breathing slow. It took Ash far longer, conscious of the thick, dense coat of warm fur against her from chin to waist, and jealous of his easy descent into slumber, to let sleep steal over her again.

She was awakened when he sat up later, once again lost as to how much time she had slept. She did not feel the pull of sleep wanting to drag her immediately back down so she assumed it had been some considerable time. Kai shifted and sat up carefully, as if not to disturb her, his freed tail brushing across her legs and side before he twitched it up higher. The heavy brush did not distress her until he drew it away and only the longer strands brushed her side and tickled. She brushed her hand down to chase away the twitching of her side and he stepped away.

“Morning?" She yawned as she watched his silhouette move away, chaotic magic and pain lending definition to it.

“Somewhereabouts." The skunk mumbled before his lengthy word was cut off by a waking yawn. “Probably close to mid day, I imagine. Food?"

“Please." Ash admonished as she swung her legs around and sat up as well, feeling a few bits of stray fur clinging to herself and brushing them away. “Rhagash, even. I'm famished." She stood, orienting herself by the expedient brush of her leg against the edge of the cot and finding one corner to her right with the side of her foot. Eight steps to the left, caution of the shelf at shoulder height on the wall. She spied the metal framework and navigated around it to the bathroom so that she could answer the morning demands of nature.

Upon returning she fished the robe up from the cot and swung it on, belting it loosely about her waist. It only came to just below her knees but served to preserve the modesty she lacked in only lacy panties and equally far from demure bra. “Need some help?"

Kai, standing near the cooktop that glowed a steady hue of fire element nearby, was waiting for the pot to come to a boil. “I don't think there's room, nor anything to do other than tear open plastic packages. I forgot to ask before, but you do eat meat, yes?"

“Damn straight." Ash laughed as she moved over to find the sink, felt out the cups in the drying rack and filled one from the tap. “Anyone who doesn't I swear must be more than half elf, even without the pointy ears."

“I've known many an elf who enjoys a nice piece of seared flesh." Kai admonished humorously. “I do have dried meats we can add to the grass, dried vegetables, and spices too."

“With those teeth of yours you would probably forgo the grass entirely, eh?" Ash asked between sips of delightfully chill water. Filling the second cup she slid it across the countertop carefully. She watched his hand fumble a bit before finding it. “And how do you know what's in the packages without light?"

“Nose." He tapped the side of his tapered muzzle with his empty hand and drank. “Plastic can't mask everything, and the factory smells linger too." He set the cup down and hovered his hand over the pot for a few seconds. “And what about my teeth?"

“They're sharp. Not dog sharp, more like cat sharp. I'm not familiar with the physiology of your template species, so I guess carnivore?"

“More or less, yes. And I didn't bite you last night, at least I hope I didn't, or when I was knocked out?"

“You didn't." Reaching out she found his arm, splaying her fingers into the dense, shorter fur there. “Have to go by feel, I can't See people clearly, just the shape of their Life mana and emotions. I have to use my fingers to learn their shape, features, texture, all of that."

“You felt my teeth?" He asked laconically as he reached up to fish about the shelf and brought down a few other containers that were merely plastic shapes to her Sight. She saw each held before the skunk's face a few seconds before being set aside in a purposeful arrangement.

“Of course." Ash replied as she picked up one of the plastic objects, the container firm with a screw top plastic cap. Raising it to her nose she took a cautious sniff. Pepper, she assumed. “Pepper, right?" She set it carefully back in its place.

“Yes. Strong aroma, leaks through the plastic. Try this." He handed her another container before setting to one of the packages of rhagash and crushing it noisily. The container, to Ash's nose, smelled of nothing more than plastic.

“I don't smell anything."

“Dried chicken. Not much to smell, unless you've got a lot more nose than a human." Crunching up another package he tore them open and poured both into the pot before taking the container back from her. “So, why did you feel my teeth?"

“To learn more about the creature I'm dealing with, beyond that musk. That's how I learn about people beyond their words and their scent." She held up her hands by way of example until she remembered he probably could not see them. “For the blind the hands are our eyes on the world. That's why you never lead us around by the hand, but by the arm."

“So you've said, which I understand, more or less. I've encountered the blind before, but not in that manner. I have to be cautious around them."

“Why?"

“I use illusions to hide in plain sight, have done for millennia. I can veil my appearance, my smell, even the sounds I make. The blind pretty much ignore visual illusions as they don't encompass touch. Most mages just mask sight, or sound, doing both requires more skill that is often neglected for more showy magic. I usually mask my scent, too, when I'm not leaking. But changing how I would physically feel to someone like you, who is blind, requires a completely different type of magic; transmutation."

“Such as the Curse?"

“Yes. Transmutation allows the changing of most anything. Lead to gold, for example, for a time as you pointed out earlier."

“And your own body?"

“Much more difficult, considering I'm Cursed. Changing the body of the Cursed is… a monumental task."

Ash paused, feeling herself blush a bit as she listened to the skunk stir the pot and shake a few extra ingredients out of various containers. “Like your legs, or other things?"

She saw his head-shape turn, tilting slightly. “The Curse made my legs the way they are, out of a necessity at the time. I've never felt the need to change them. Other things?"

“Yeah." She said without elucidating. He colored subtly with confusion for several long seconds before a flash of understanding washed it away and faded.

“Ah, yes. That? Really?"

Ash blushed even hotter and could not stifle a self-conscious laugh. “I bathed you, remember? After you soiled yourself in all the ways I think someone possibly could."

“And examined everything. From my ears to my paws, I take it?"

“Well, yes."

He took a long breath and let it out in a deep sigh. “Yes. I was… let's just say dissatisfied with what nature gave my template species. So I changed myself, as much as I found I could. Could not get rid of my scent, or make myself taller. But less pronounced changes I could make, so I did. My ears, my fingers, my teeth, my remaining eye. And that."

“You are short." Ash observed, grasping for more firm ground to stand upon before the discussion took to wild a tangent. “Mostly."

“Believe it or not, in the days when the Curse was first created, my height was average, for most. Now I'm stuck while everyone else gets taller with each passing generation."

“Immortality sucks." Ash reiterated his complaint as the pungent smell of the rhagash mellowed to a more heady aroma thick with spices and meat. “Though that rhagash probably doesn't." She leaned over slightly to take a deeper breath of the warm steam. He felt the coarse pad of a fingertip tap her cheek, then her chin, before finding the tip of her nose and tapping once, lightly.

“Give it time to simmer, the meat will take a bit before it's anything more than leather, and the vegetables."

Ash returned to her position a few feet away and laughed at his admonishing tap, or attempts at it. “Yeah, yeah. Oh, and I think I realized something, right at the cusp of sleep. I think I know how your enemy keeps finding the teachings of your foe time and time again."

That got the skunk's attention and his stirring ceased. “Oh?"

“Yeah. Scriptoriums, probably, at least until the fourteen hundreds and the invention of the printing press. Your enemy's works were preserved, somewhere, and copied by scribes who may or may not have known what they were working on."

“Undoubtedly they did. Those books were pretty dark. No one could copy the text without having embraced their own evil, first."

“Likely, yes. And, not considering magical means of recreating the books, with the invention of the printing press in the fourteen hundreds it would have been child's play reproducing them by the dozen."

“That would explain why it has been regaining power more swiftly each time I awaken. More idiots with more access to a larger number of printings." The skunk mused darkly before taking a cautious sip of the broth.

“And now it could very well be digital."

“Digital?"

“On computer, on the worldnet, freely available to anyone who knows how to search for it. I've seen compendiums of magical lore, even outright spells, on the web. The normal, legal kind, so it's not much of a stretch to have illegal ones out there too."

“Even more idiots and easier access for those idiots."

“Pretty much. Anywhere in the word, instantly." Ash found the drying rack near the sink and picked up the bowls, handing them to the skunk while he ruminated on her discovery. “But limited." She continued while he gave the pot another more vigorous stir and raised it to pour the contents, with extreme care, into each of the bowls. “Why continue to attempt whatever it is they've been doing for a thousand years right at the doorstep of the one who's been stopping them the whole time. They must need incredible amounts of magic to make it work. Magic only someplace like Metamor has."

“Even with the power available in Metamor, they can't just draw upon it willy nilly. The Magestrix would notice almost instantly and put an end to it. No, they use Metamor and other places of considerable power to hide their own magic against the background. They also use death attuned mana, created by necromantic rites." He set the pot aside and turned off the cooktop. To Ash's Sight there was no change in the surface, merely a sudden lessening of the heat it produced. A slight twist in the fire element within the spell and, voila, on or off.

“But Metamor is closest to where it was first summoned, and first defeated. Also, the will of the mage consumed summoning it was ever bent on conquering Metamor so it desires the same." She pointed out, following her thread of logic. It was far easier to focus on than their earlier awkward topic. “That means that its influence is possibly weaker the further away they go, requiring even more magic."

“That was what drew me to them when they tried elsewhere. In Metamor they can… their magic gets lost in the noise. But they still need an incredible amount, more than they can simply gain by normal means. So far that has pretty much required necromantic rites to produce large stores of death attuned mana."

“Death mana?"

Kai shook his head and moved over to sit on the floor, crossing his legs and setting the bowl in the hollow between them, at the foot of the cot. “No. Vampires are and use death mana, which is the antithesis of life mana. The life mana they consume when they take someone's blood is converted within them to death mana which sustains them. These practitioners use the mana liberated when someone dies, usually under extremis. The more sentient they are, the stronger their spirit, the more mana is created when they perish. The more protracted, torturous, and terrifying their death the more mana they release in a vain hope to survive. This last time around they did that by draining their blood and using that as a storage medium. Great big mana batteries of blood."

“That's pretty sick."

Kai nodded as he dipped his head to suck a hank of the limp rhagash into his muzzle. “That's an understatement. The victims can be drained quietly, stealthily, and easily escape notice as it did this time. But when they start tapping those macabre batteries the spike in focused death magic is pretty damn obvious."

“And draws you like a moth to flame." Ash sat more conventionally on the edge of the cot and used her thighs to support her own bowl. The dried meats, spices, and vegetables had actually made the boiled grass quite tasty.

The skunk chuffed a dark, sinister laugh after swallowing. “More like a monsoon deluge to a match."

“Violently, I would assume." Ash said after sipping some broth and using the chopsticks to guide the food into her mouth. “The attacks in the city a few months back? Murders all over the place, among every social class, all in one night, was you?"

“No. Others, but on a parallel course. Old targets, same group."

“Unsuccessful, since you're still awake?"

“Ultimately. Too many escaped, they're continuing the effort elsewhere that was put down here. I have yet to determine where, which is why I am still awake."

“What now, then? Back to hunting for them?"

Kai spent a few seconds chewing a muzzle full of food and nodding as he swallowed. “Nothing else to do. A key player in their agenda is in the wind. I can't use my magic to seek them out, lest my efforts be sensed by the entity. Their leader survived so I expect they'll resume what my allies and I disrupted shortly before others struck at their targets." He ate some more and Ash listened, savoring her own meal while he talked. “Find their loose piece and remove it from the board, if I can. Once I get my magic stabilized."

“How did that go? Since you were asleep rather than sprawled face down on the floor I gather it did not go badly?"

“Oh, it went badly enough. I cannot get it to stabilize, even the mana I produce naturally is immediately sucked into the chaos. Grasping magic feels like trying to hold onto a lightning bolt while standing in a fire." He sighed and stared into his half emptied bowl. “I fear I will have to take the more drastic route and wipe out my mana entirely; purge myself."

“None of your items seem to have been affected."

“They weren't. Whatever that baboon had got into my blood, and from there all of my mystic centers. My charms and other pieces were not affected, but if I try to draw mana from then it is instantly corrupted."

“How will you… purge your mana?"

“With your help. I will need you to go get items and ingredients for me. Since I've never actually done it to myself willingly before I don't have anything I need."

Ash blinked and almost spilled her bowl, “You want me to go out? Shopping?"

Kai merely nodded, “You must, I've no other choice. I can't blend in, I can't use magic. I'm fully exposed and vulnerable if I leave this room. I can give you my charm against divination magic and scrying so they won't be able to find you."

“All they've got to do is use their eyes!" She protested.

“In a city of more than ten million? And during the day, at that? You won't have anything to fear from the vamps, and all of the thralls that actually saw you are dead." He swallowed the last of his bowl and pushed himself upright. “You should bathe, though, the soaps will neutralize my scent. There's a grooming kit beside the toilet." She had found the case there, but had not opened it to find out what it was. “So you can tame your hair. But,"

Ash, in the process of setting her bowl aside, paused. “But?"

“Finish your breakfast, first. Stale rhagash smells no better than fresh." She nodded and sat back to finish the last strands of rhagash, chunks of reconstituted meats and vegetables, and broth. He took her bowl when she stood again and felt his way along the counter to the sink.

Six steps from the end of the cot to the bathroom, three to the shower. Clearly illuminated 'H' and 'C' to her sight with 'Dry' beneath. If a sighted person had been watching her in a well lit room they might not have even realized she was blind by the confidence of her movement. She had grown familiar with the room soon after entering it, mapping her steps and touches with the same facility a sighted person might do with a glance. Granted, she did have the advantage that she could see the rough essence of the landscape, from wood to metal to plastics, so she was not truly blind.

Just visually handicapped.

She washed with her bra and panties on before removing them to rinse while she washed the rest of herself, frowning at the stubble making the curve of her mons rough to the touch and chafed between her thighs. Shaving when she got out of this mess was going to be unpleasant with the hair growing back in. Usually a few quick passes with an electric razor, supplemented by cheap and simple magic, left her skin silky smooth.

Now she felt as much the vagabond as the skunk had appeared when she had first sensed him walking behind her on the Street.

Two days ago. Not even that! Such a short time ago and yet so achingly long.

After the dry cycle had once more turned her once luxurious locks into an obnoxious frizz and dried her underclothes she slipped them back on and used her foot to find the box that held the skunk's grooming kit. She set it atop the sink and opened it feel among the collection of brushes, trimmers, and lotions, but no razors. Nothing had braille on it nor mana inks so she could only go by the shapes, leaving the lotion bottles as unusable.

She found a brush with longer bristles and began raking it through her hair, wincing at tangles made painfully tight by the drying process. “Kai!" She called out as she found the brush entangled in a particularly recalcitrant snarl and yanked it free. “Is there a hair moisturizer in here? Fur tonic, or something?"

She heard something thunk, the squeak of the cot's feet moving, and a series of sharp, chuttered curses that were barely intelligible as words. “Fuck!" He hissed as he groped his way to the bathroom after unsuccessfully navigating around the cot. Orienting himself in the door frame, one long shanked leg lifted with a sharp rosette of pain throbbing just above the front of the hock, he sniffed. “Where are you standing?"

“Sink. To your right." Bracing one hand on the door he reached out, grazed her elbow, used that as an initial reference and reached again only to bump her smartly below one breast. She grasped his questing hand before he fumbled any further and he stopped moving to reorient himself. She lowered the hand to the edge of the sink and then to the opened box. She had to brace it with one hand before he knocked it to the floor.

“Hmm, okay. Rakes, no brush. Lotion, detangler. Detangler, hmm." He picked up each of the three bottles and shook them with one hand, then extended one to smack his knuckles against the wall behind the sink. “And wall." He grunted in discomfort, bringing his hand back and slowly sweeping it toward her until she captured it. “Don't know where the brush ended up, but this should help with your hair, in case it knots."

“Oh, it's well and truly beyond 'just knots', thank you." Ash groused as she poured a generous dollop onto her hand and began working it vigorously into her hair.

“Yeah, I know. Fur knots, too. Tail, mostly. Mats, tangles, burrs, you name it I've probably rolled in it or had it dumped on me. Dryer cycle is hell on fur." Kai moved to lean down and rub his bruised shank only to bump his muzzle into her elbow. He quickly retreated from the confined space to nurse his injury in the relative safety of the room beyond.

“Hell on hair, too." Ash pointed out. The detangler, slightly oily and smelling rather strongly of sage, did its job passably well. She was able to free the brush after a bit of work and resumed managing her wild hair until it fell naturally, if frizzily, across her shoulders and upper back. She made sure to put all of the items back in the box properly should the skunk desire to avail himself of them later.

Her clothes had not moved from the hook she had hung them upon over a day before. They were a little stiff for lack of fabric softener and coarse against her skin. Her hose were already ruined and she had no desire to try even if they hadn't been after three days without a shave. From crotch to calf she could've sworn someone had wrapped her legs in coarse grit sandpaper.

Her bag was on the floor just inside the door and she dug through it until she found a note pad. She also found her tablet inside the bag, which she had completely failed to remember even existed since getting out of that cab.

Unfortunately it did not seem to have survived the fight or subsequent flight because when she depressed the power button she was rewarded with absolutely nothing. Not even the steady dim mana glow of a standby indicator at one corner of the case. With an irritated sigh she jammed it back in the bag and dug a mana pen out of an inner pocket.

“Tell me what I need to find. And how I'm supposed to pay for it." Using the countertop to steady the notepad she jotted down the list of mostly incomprehensible items, some of which she knew were rather rare and quite expensive, possibly even illegal or at least restricted.

“Most, if not all, of what I need can be found in the Mage's district on the third skyway level of Hassan Tower, you may not find them all in one shop. The more esoteric items are probably only in one shop at the corner of Artela's Walk and… I don't remember the cross street."

“Spells something or other, yeah, Duke's Square. Or, at least it was. It might not be open any more, I haven't been there in months and there was some news that the owners had skipped town because of legal issues."

“Doubtful he's left the city. If it's not open I'll have to make some of the mixtures myself, though I don't look forward to that in the dark."

Ash let out a short bark of laughter. “Kai, I can buy a lantern while I'm out. And whatever equipment you'd need to make whatever needs to be made, so long as I can carry it."

“Fair point, fair point." Kai agreed, his head bobbing atop his mana silhouette. “I get so used to being able to create light without thinking I tend to forget there are other means."

“Mage." Ash teased with a sardonic laugh.

“Guilty." Kai chuckled in return. “As for payment, tell the vendor to look up Monochrome and remit the bill there."

“The technology company?" Monochrome was a broad conglomeration of companies but it mostly dealt with technology, even cell phones. While they were not a world leader in that area, by far, they were one of the few who made good mana based displays for them, as well as other applications. That was her only familiarity with the name, though she knew it was considerably larger than just mana displays.

“I'm not sure what they're into, these days, truth be told, I've only visited the Chateau briefly since I awakened. Monochrome has managed my holdings for centuries."

“And they'll just… cover all of this?" She tapped the notebook with the butt end of her pen.

“Yes. If anyone should call a vendor to verify the purchase just say it is at the sleeper's request."

“That's not cryptic at all. Is this everything?"

“Yes, that should cover all of the bases." He had her add a few other things in a sidebox just in case the one shop was closed. Taking something from around his neck he handed it toward her. “Wear this. It's the charm against scrying that protects me, and you while you wear it, outside of this room. It will also unlock the door." He felt his way to the end of the counter and dragged his hand along the wall as he moved toward the door. “Just place it against the locking plate." He paused, hand finding the door handle and resting on it. “And wear the robe. After that scuffle and gore I would imagine your clothes are pretty ragged. With the hood up it'll pass well enough for the robe of an oblate to Akkala's temple. Even blind, since Akkala accepts all sorts."

Slipping the sheets of notebook paper into her pocket Ash pulled on the robe and tied it loosely about her waist and drew the hood up over her head. Kai pushed the door open and shuffled aside to let her out. “Be careful, stay aware of your surroundings, stay public. It is not likely the vampires have been able to gather more muscle so quickly, and certainly less likely they could convey your likeness to them sufficient to let them recognise you. Return here well before dark, even if you cannot secure everything. Face me."

Ash turned to face the skunk framed by the doorway, a portal of far less potent ambient mana that gave the appearance to her Sight, with his brighter form occluding it, of a portal directly into the darkness of the metaphorical abyss. “Now, to your right, perhaps thirty meters, you will reach a junction. Turn left. In another fifty meters you will find another cargo elevator. Take that up to the second skyway level. That will be a maintenance adit from the main commercial road. Once you reach the main road the sidewalk to the right will go to the entrance of the Mink's Legacy Natural History Museum. That's where you can find the transit station that will take you anywhere in the city, or beyond." He straightened slightly. “I'm counting on you, Ash. Everyone is, because among all of Us I am the only one who knows the shadow and how to keep it at bay. If I cannot, the outcome will be catastrophic."

“So don't run, you mean." Ash replied, fighting down a flutter of nervousness in her stomach. Without him, without that can of vampire defeating chemical agent, she felt horribly vulnerable.

“I would appreciate it if you did not."

She turned to her right and then paused. “And if I did?" she challenged softly.

“You're free to it, until the shadow arrives. I will hold no anger toward you, merely disappointment, and wish you the best, Ash."

With a nod she drew the hood of the robe closer down around her face and began walking, her cane tapping lightly on the floor in front of her and one hand tracing the wall as she began counting.

Making it to the transit station in front of the natural history museum proved to be not difficult at all, but for the distance. It had taken her the better part of an hour to emerge onto the sidewalk along a busy roadway. The roaring sound of the cars painted the rough carven stone of the mountain wall towering high above and, beyond the road, far below starkly to her ears. In the distance she heard the somewhat less loud sound of the city itself and felt the cool breeze of an early autumn day.

At the transit station she listened to the conversation around her, undisturbed as people of all sizes and species flowed around her. Somewhere a group of kids laughed and yowled in merriment as they milled around the base of a ten meter statue of some sort, their voices echoing from its carven form and the walls of the Mine, and Museum, entry. That reminded her of the unpleasant dream that had prompted her to purchase the vamp-away but she shoved it aside.

She made her way onto the platform, identified a bench, and settled down to wait. After a few moments she sensed someone settle beside her, their mana form human, not cursed and wearing a charm, with no hues of distress or duplicitous, tinged with slight curiosity possibly imparted by her wardrobe but otherwise merely comfortable with their own existence. They were potent in magic but there were no active spells around them that she could See. She put them out of mind but for the normal peripheral awareness of their presence lest she bump into them later.

The train arrived with a squeal of brakes and hiss of air and she boarded with several dozen others, either workers or visitors, after a similar crowd departed. She found an empty seat and sat down to wait, listening for the warm tones of the conductor to read off stops. There would be one transition from the spoke line, one of those that spread outward from the relative center of the city, to a line which would circle the city, and then a shorter hop into Hassan tower. Luckily the train servicing the third skyway passed completely through the tower allowing several stops within, one of which was Duke's Square.

She noticed that the person who had been seated next to her on the bench was also aboard the transit car seated some distance away. That was not out of the ordinary as many others who had been waiting on the train were also in the car.

When she transferred to the inner line, however, they were again in the same car, seated at its opposite end, but Ash had the distinct impression that they were fully aware of her. She saw no immediate magic, no spells lingering to be cast at a word or gesture, but the person was there. A male, of a height with her and somewhat heavier, but with an unsettling degree of ready mana at their beck.

Impetuously she moved to disembark one plaza stop before the Duke's square and moved as quickly as the crowd allowed to the stairs leading up to another platform for buses. Looking back, over the crowd from a few steps of height, she could not see the man or his signature aura of mana. She waited for two more trains to come and go before boarding the third and continuing on to her final stop.

She did not see the man in the crowd there, either, but it was a crowd and she was not especially tall so that was expected. Moving with the flow of people away from the platform and into the huge open atrium of the square she ambled aimlessly through the carefully maintained green space for a time, watching for anyone following her. Satisfied that she had given the man the shake she oriented herself using the huge mana display floating several floors above and set out for Artela's Way.

When she approached the shop, though still on the opposite side of the street which circled the park, she could see that there were no mana glows in the windows typical of a magic shop. No sign above the door that she could read, another anomaly among magic shops, and a single placard propped in a window.

“Closed until further notice." Printed large and bold in powerfully enchanted mana inks. Under the bold print though still visible from across the street were more words: “By order of the Ministry of Ignorance. You can find our wares elsewhere, if you look carefully."

“It's closed." Ash heard a voice close behind her and to one side speak. She stepped away with a panicked sweep of her cane to ensure her path was clear and turned on the speaker. She had nothing, no defense, if the agents of the vampires had somehow found her, nowhere to run. “The shop you were looking at. It's closed."

The mage who had sat next to her at the Mine's station and followed her several stops was a mere handful of steps away, his posture looking relaxed. The most prominent emotion she could see was curiosity and, after days with the skunk, the absence of pain was stark in how unfocused his life mana silhouette was.

“Who are you?" Ash snapped, turning her gaze toward him but not directly. No sense letting him know how well she could see him as she considered how best to get away from him. Considering his stance and distance a quick upward swing of her cane would put him on his back foot with the unique vulnerability of males everywhere. “What do you want?" She shifted her grip on the handle of her cane slightly, angling herself for a quick upward swing.

“Jon, ma'am." The man said warmly but smartly did not offer a hand. “I was told you would be here."

“By whom?" How had anyone known? Had Kai, the skunk, been able to contact someone the entire time they were trapped in his dark little lair? He was the only one who would have known she would be where she was.

“The proprietor of that shop across the street, ma'am." One arm waved toward the dark, empty storefront.

“The shop that's closed."

“Yes, ma'am. Closed but not unable to do business." A warm hue of humorous pleasure washed through the man, though the softer hue of curiosity remained. “He said you would be looking for something only he had to sell and sent me to invite you to his current place of business."

Wary, Ash did not relax. If some mage could scry her out despite the skunk's assurance that no one could -

“He did not scry, ma'am. He merely… foresaw that you would be on the platform at the Mines, or be disembarking the eleven-oh-nine at Duke's Square, that was all."

A mind reader, as well? Ash took a slow step back.

“Nor that, ma'am." Jon actually laughed. “He advised me before I left to locate you that you would assume just that. Even had me attempt to locate you via scrying and laughed at my rather pronounced headache when I failed."

“And he told you to follow me?"

“Not so much, no. Me merely told me to look for someone wearing the white robes of Akkala and smelling ever so slightly of skunk. That was why I sat near you, to verify I had found whom I was told to find. I did not want him to think me lazy, merely waiting for you to disembark the train." Again that warm laugh, a bit self-deprecatory. “Until you completely gave me the slip a few stops back. I had not expected that."

Not mollified by the off-hand compliment Ash swept her cane in a slow arc about her feet, feeling sidewalk, curb, grass. Throughout her gauging the surface she kept the muscles of her arm prepared to bring the cane up smartly if she needed to. “Now what, then, if you know so much?"

“Not so much, ma'am. Not even your name or gender until I heard you speak, nor your purpose in coming to the old shop. Merely what my master told me, which was exactly that; not much. And that you sought uncommon merchandise." He paused, shifting in place and, Ash assumed, by the change in the shape of his silhouette, placing his hands loosely behind his back. “What is your name, if I might ask?"

“Sebine." Ash lied.

“Awkwardly met, Sebine." The young man replied with a touch of humor. “Would you like me to convey you to the current location of his shop, or would you like to wander the Mages' District hoping to find everything in an afternoon?"

While his magic was readily apparent his demeanor, thus far, had not been entirely as off putting as being followed had been, Ash weighed her options. She could do exactly as he said, wander from shop to shop in the local district hoping to find everything on the skunk's list, run back to the shelter of the storage bay and potentially lead some foe directly to it, or go along and hope for the best.

Because, Sight or not, she was still far too blind to flee from him with any expectation of getting far. “Okay." She said at last. “How far is it?"

“Three stops and a transfer to the second skyway, toward the skyport. We'll be out in the open and in the public eye the entire way, miss Sebine." One arm unfolded from the man's back to wave toward the distant transit platform.

“Lead the way, I guess." Not that she had much choice but to follow. Someone had discovered where she was and if she fled they would not have difficulty finding her again. The man, Jon, made a slight bow and turned to walk ahead of her. “Do I really smell of skunk?"

“Slightly." Jon said back over his shoulder, not hurrying, looking at the statuary that decorated the park. They were just obscure shapes to Ash's Sight, a general hint at something in the various elements of earth and a few metal decorations or placards. She had heard they were of the original nobles from the age of Heroes, the Duke and Duchess and their line, commissioned when the park was established during the tower's construction.

Or growth. There were arguments that the city had been quite literally grown, and still continued to grow, by the magic of Metamor while others disclaimed that entirely and put everything down to the industrious nature of the inhabitants. Ash had to lean toward the latter assertion, hearing the construction equipment and the spidery metallic shapes of cranes towering above or jutting from the sides of the huge megastructures above the second skyway.

“But this is a city of marvelous variety, miss Sebine, and holds the largest population of theriomorphs on the planet. It would be rare to see them beyond the City, even within the Empire. There are many in Quinhardya, so I understand, but even there they are still uncommon. So we are a city of scents. Skunk is hardly a standout, there are a few thousand in the city, and not all of them mask their musk."

“We do get used to it, don't we?" Even Ash had to acknowledge that. Even in the labs and on the production floor there were theiromorphs and their varied scents, not to mention her own circle that accepted a couple of canids, the late tiger, and a mated pair of male rat and raccoon. The theriomorphs, for the most part, tended to drift in and out, appearing only occasionally. The core of the circle was primarily human or elven.

Or, rather, had been before Seban shoved himself into their midst.

When they boarded the next arriving transit train Jon sat on the opposite side of the car so they could face each other. He did not pry into her business and she did not engage in any further conversation. She did put her nose to the fabric of the robe, however, and noticed the subtle but unmistakable musk of skunk clinging to it. No one disturbed them, each passenger caught up in their own bubble of existence and letting the world pass them by without concern that one of their number might be the target of vampire gangs and, by the simple association of proximity, made them targets as well.

After three stops Jon stood and offered a hand but she acted as if she did not see it as she rose and, cane thwacking loudly against the center poles of the car, seats, and the frame of the door, stepped off ahead of him. He smartly stayed back lest his ankles fall prey to her cane. Others hastily stepped aside or pulled their legs out of the way as she passed in sensible caution as well.

Jon led down a set of escalators to an elevator bank and rode the lengthy downward trip to the second skyway level listening to the unremarkable musak that cursed elevators everywhere. The car discharged into a thick, milling crowd that were distinctly less well dressed, groomed, or bathed than those who had been in the Duke's Square. The odor of close pressed bodies smacked Ash's nose stronger than Kai's scent even when he was pressed close against her on the small cot.

She felt a light touch at her elbow as the man came up beside her. “We'll be moving toward the left. There's an escalator up to the market quarter." He said close at her ear.

“Where are we?"

“South quarter of Matthias tower, second skyway level." Jon managed to shoulder his way through the crowd pushing to or from the elevators.

Ash tried not to be jostled too strongly by the mass of humanity and others milling around them, her cane useless with so many shuffling feet. A heavy tail struck her side and staggered her into Jon. “Crowded!" To her Sight the tight pressed bodies were a single amalgam of countless nebulous hues and no distinct, discernable shapes to maneuver around.

“Always is, and it's approaching mid day so the lunch crowd is out. The market is more open, but still pretty crowded." They found some space further from the elevators and, shortly after, he warned her of the escalator directly ahead. She found the moving surface easily with her feet and stepped onto it smoothly, Jon's light touch at her elbow never drifting away.

At least no one was trying to run up the escalator behind them so the interminably long ascent offered a respite from the jostling. At the top Jon steered her sharply to the right. The crowds were less dense but still considerable as they made their way down a walkway between vendor kiosks and storefronts. At length Ash saw signs of shops sporting more mana in their window displays and actual mana inked signs. Jon led her to a large storefront with two broad windows on either side of the door which he pushed open with a chime of perfectly mundane bells.

“Here we are, miss." The man said, removing his hand from her arm and stepping forward through the tight aisles of magical nick-nacks and tchotchkes. Nothing stood out as particularly powerful or of commendable magical quality to her Sight and she wondered if this was, indeed, the shop Kai had suggested. The sign above the door had read 'Seasonal Sorceries' which offered no indication of its quality. “My master should be out shortly." Other than herself, Jon, and a couple of customers perusing the shelves off to one side the shop was more or less empty. “Was there anything in particular you needed?"

Ash dug the paper from her pocket and set it on the counter behind which Jon had retreated. The door bells rang merrily as the two browsers left.

“They'll be in for a surprise." Came an irritated, elderly male voice to one side drawing Ash's attention toward a door through which the speaker had emerged. To her Sight his life mana showed the typical fading of age, though not so much as to indicate the speaker was reaching the end of their days. He also shone with considerable magic, both in his person and upon his person in the form of various enchantments. “They never bother to take the instructions!"

“They did not purchase anything, Master Artax." Jon pointed out.

“That they paid for." The man, Artax, shot back. “Nicked a couple of potency amulets right out of the packages and left the instructions behind." The man tutted irritably as he moved up behind the counter forcing Jon to retreat. “Ah, you found them. Her, it seems. Interesting choice in costumery."

“Yes, he found me." Ash quipped, dubious at the old man. “Stalked me like a good spurned boyfriend."

“Hah. Subtle as a brick to the head, as always, boy." Artax shot at his apprentice. “You could've just waited for her at the shop rather than follow her halfway across the city. Eleven-o-nine train, I told you."

“And the Mines platform, too." Jon protested in his own defense.

The elderly man made a disgusted sound, “Where she would be coming from, not where to find her, dolt. Now, miss Ash, you have items to purchase. This is the list?" He stabbed it with one finger and dragged it across the countertop.

“How did -" Ash started but Artax merely held up an arm, his finger taking on a distinct shape as its mana drew inward sharply to define it, pointing up and to one side. Ash followed the direction he pointed and, mounted upon the back wall, among countless minor enchanted items, was a placard painted with bright mana that read, simply; Because I'm a Wizard, that's how. “Oh."

“She's blind, Artax." Jon pointed out only to receive another disdainful snort. Artax picked up the sheet of notepad paper and waved it at him.

“Alas, youth, not blind but still can't see what's right in front of you. Observe, boy, and learn wisdom. If she's blind how, then, did she write this, hmm?"

“Did she?"

“Boy, you test my patience. Of course she did. Can you not see the words on the paper? Just because she does not see as we do does not mean she does not see at all. Does the ink tickle the couple of brain cells you've got? Or are they still out looking for each other?"

“Ah, oh!" Jon said after a moment of staring at the paper. “Mana ink! She has mage sight?"

“Duh." Artax grumbled.

“And she can hear just fine, too." Ash added flatly. “Do you have the items or not? I haven't all day."

“Yes, dear, yes. You'll be back before the sun is near the horizon, even on that side of the valley. Boy, I need you to go across to Parcival's and pick up a few things." The man tore off a bit of the notepad paper and jotted a few things on it, using perfectly mundane ink. “Can you manage that, at least?"

Jon took the scrap of paper with a quiet, petulant sigh. “Yes, Master Artax. I should be back shortly."

Throughout the biting exchange between master and student Ash had not seen even the slightest hint of irritated or angry hues in Jon's mana. Indeed, if anything, she could've sworn they were brief, flickering hues of humor. Taking the paper Jon left the shop with a chime of bells.

“Well, Ash." Artax's voice mellowed considerably. “Let's see what the monster has need of." He turned his attention to the remaining length of paper as Ash gaped at his use of her proper name. “Hmmm, dangerous, dangerous. Mana purge is a controlled substance, at the very cusp of being outright banned were it not a useful therapeutic. The quantity needed is a bit much, even for him. And a kilo and a half of caged silvaril in iron? What he intends is risky, is he so far gone?"

Ash, confused, could only stare for several seconds. “I don't know what he intends. You know him?"

“Of him, lass, and his reputation. And it is a reputation of being extremely dangerous. You should exercise extreme caution around that one, or simply avoid him entirely." He began fishing about on the shelf behind him, setting items on the counter. “But you can't, I know. You should be okay and he probably needs you, if he's asking for things like this. Mana purge can kill entirely magical beings, and even mortals in a dosage this high." He put the items he had retrieved into a large tote bag. “Now, wait here, the silvaril and purge are secured in the rear." He disappeared back through the door he had come in by.

While she waited Jon returned and set several plastic sacks down by the tote. “Where'd the old codger get to this time?"

“The back." She waved toward the door. Presently he reappeared carrying a large block that shone utterly black to Ash's sight and a smaller bundle that was pretty much ambient. He shoved them into the first tote and looked through the bags Jon had brought. He produced a second tote from beneath the counter and set the sacks in it.

“Good, good. Now, don't worry about payment. I've taken care of that with his, hmm, let's just say his associates." Artax waved a hand toward the bags. “Both of them, child, worry not, so long as that bumbling simpleton got everything."

“You wound me, Artax." Jon grumbled good naturedly and shook his head, or it appeared he did from the motions of his nebulous life mana. “Yes, I got everything you asked for."

“Of course you did." The old mage, or wizard, snapped back at him, disbelieving. “Now, see that she returns to where you first found her, boy, and hurry yourself back here. No flirting with the matrons on the transit again."

“Me? Flirt with them? Posh! I can't help it if they admire the flush of youth."

“The energy of, if certainly not the looks. Now go so she will have time to get back to wherever her companion has hidden himself." He turned his attention back to Ash. “And remember, child, when the bait is in the trap don't frighten away the prey." With a final dismissive wave of one hand he turned and strode back into the rear of the store.

Jon picked up the remaining sack and held a hand out toward Ash, “I'll carry these. If my irritable master is correct, and he usually is, you'll have enough trouble lugging them the last leg of your trip. No sense hauling them the entire way." At least he was not offering to carry them all the way to the door of the storage unit which Ash had feared he might. As paranoid as the skunk appeared to be there was no sense dropping an unannounced visitor on him.

The trip back to the transit platform and train was spent in relatively relaxed silence, companionable if not chummy. “How does he know so much?" She asked once they had settled into a couple of seats on the moderately crowded train.

“He's a wizard." Jon replied with humor. “No, really, that's just what he does. I guess you could say it's his specialty, knowing what people want before they appear to purchase it. Oh, and since he didn't tell you, be sure to read the instructions carefully. And I do mean carefully. He's very conscientious about his directions and gets irritated whenever a customer takes shortcuts and comes back complaining that something went wrong."

Ash chuckled, “Shouldn't he know they're going to fuck it up before they ever leave the store?"

“Probably." Jon conceded as the train slowed for their stop. “But he lets them live and learn - the hard way. I guess if it would actually cause lasting harm he simply does not sell whatever they're after. It mysteriously is not in inventory."

“So, is that how he teaches you?" They managed the thinning crowd and made their way to the outbound train that was just pulling up along the platform. “The hard way?"

“It's often the best teacher, and yes, sometimes he merrily lets me faceplant. I've learned to read the instructions, at any rate. And heed his warnings, which I'm sure he gave you."

“He just said the person I am picking these things up for is exceptionally dangerous."

A flush of alarm colored Jon's mana form as he turned on his seat to face her. “And you're going back?"

“I don't really have any choice. We've a common foe that is far more dangerous to me than he is at this point, and he's the only one that can keep me safe."

“Artax could, and would."

“Probably true, but he's not the one I need to help, who is going to help me, I hope. But if things go south and I can get away I'll come back to your shop."

“It won't be where it was, or under the same name." Jon took a breath and steadied himself as the train shuddered over a bit of uneven track and lurched them together briefly. “But go to the first shop. He'll… well, I would hope he would send help. He knows when people are looking for his business and arranges that they find their way to our current location. He's sly like that."

“What'll happen to the two shoplifters?" Ash did not want to pursue that potential avenue of discussion, hoping that whatever Kai intended would work out. “The ones he was harping about?"

Jon let out a loud, short laugh. “They'll come hobbling back complaining about the charms they stole over-endowing them with everlasting priapisms." He let out a low, sinister chuckle. “Even if they weren't built for them."

“Because they didn't read the instructions."

“Exactly so! Oh, and they stole from him. Never a good idea." The outbound train finally began to slow and the androgynous voice of the conductor announced their arrival at the Mink's Legacy Natural History museum and Metamor Mines. When it stopped Jon let her disembark into the crowd waiting to board that parted when they saw the sweeping cane and low cowl of her white robes. Once through he led her to a bench where he set the totes down. “Well, this is where I found you, miss Sebine. I would offer to carry them the rest of the way but I also know you would refuse. No divination needed."

“Thank you, Jon, and your master Artax. You made a fearful day far less so." She watched him turn and fade into the sparse crowd leaving the platform before picking up the totes.

They were surprisingly light, considering how much they seemed to hold, and bulky but not something she could not manage, even with her cane. Luckily they were more than large enough to sling upon her shoulder, easing her burden considerably. Taking a moment to orient herself she began retracing her steps down the sidewalk away from the entrance of the museum.

She found the maintenance entryway and had to pull heavily against it before the door squealed open, the difference in air pressure thumping out in a gust of wind that stripped the hood from her head and made the robe flutter madly. With the heavy totes and recalcitrant door she could do nothing about that until she got through and the wind slammed it behind her with a heavy metallic boom.

Thanks to her decent memory for mapping the world around her she was able to find her way back without any false turns and, rather exhausted, came to the storage unit door. Taking the skunk's charm from around her neck she pressed it to the small plate next to the door latch. It clicked after a few seconds and she pushed the door inward with her toe.

“Kai?" She called out as she turned to ease her ever more cumbersome cargo through, leading with her cane. She could not immediately see him as she sidled through the door.

“Still here." Came the tenor voice of the skunk not far away, out of direct line of sight from the door, his claws clicking as he crossed the floor in a careful shuffle. She raised the tip of the cane and let his hand find it before using it to draw him closer. His hand worked up the cane to her hand, then wrist, and upward until it found the tote on her shoulder. She stifled a groan as he lifted the dead weight free and she shoved the door closed with her heel. Following his careful retreat she unslung the second tote and found a place for it on the countertop.

“The shop said that's everything."

He shuffled through the tote he had recovered and she heard him sniffing and turning items this way and that. Some shown with minor mana, little more than the mana essence that revealed them to be a plant or material with some magic properties. He must've been using his fingers and nose to tell him what they were. She began rifling through the bag she had set on the counter and found an item of slightly stronger magic among the random oddments within.

“This will probably help." She slid it over until it touched his arm and he picked it up,

“Ah hah, yes, it most certainly will." Ash heard a quiet click and a brighter magic began to glow from the item. It did nothing to improve how Ash saw the chamber but Kai began moving with much more confidence. “Thank you, Ash, you're a lifesaver." He quickly emptied both totes, putting things on shelves, to one side or another, until they were roughly organized to his liking.

One object, a box shaped object twenty five centimeters tall and maybe ten on each side, sat to one side offering not a trace of mana to Ash's sight. “What is that?" She finally asked, trying not to get distracted by enticing smells that were neither rhagash nor skunk musk.

“A mana sink, an alloy of silver and mithril with some trace elements though mostly silver, in a cage of cold wrought iron. Mana goes in, and does not leak out."

“A mana battery, then? And an expensive one in that size."

“Not a battery, no. The mana can be utilized, of course, so in that sense it's a battery, but only by the person who invested it, unlike a typical battery or other storage methods. The silvaril will also hold hundreds of times more than a conventional battery this size." He tapped a claw tip against the featureless hole in her mana Sight with a quiet, hard click. “I am going to purge my mana and will need to put it somewhere, otherwise it'll just flow back to me. This will hold it until I actually take it back purposely. If the baboon's venom tainted my magic that taint should be taken into the vessel as well."

“With luck."

“With luck, yes. Here's hoping." The tapped one of four small plastic vials arrayed near the black thing.

“How long will that take?"

She heard a rustle of paper being unfolded and saw the flash of mana inked words but not close enough to read except for the bold, large font at the top. “Instructions: Mana-Purge READ FULLY!"

“Two days for the full course." He said as he read. “One vial every twelve hours, exactly." He set the paper behind the vials, letting it prop itself up with the folds giving it rigidity. “It's going to wrack me pretty good, which is why all the other potions as well." He swept a hand along another line of vials, their sizes varied but their labels printed in distinct mana ink. Each had instructions affixed to them, likely by rubber bands. “And then probably another for it to work out of my system before I will begin recharging. If that proves stable I should be able to draw on the local ley lines to replenish myself fully."

So, perhaps three or four days, Ash groaned inwardly. Four days in the skunk's austere little storage unit apartment with nothing to do but watch over him. And probably haul him into the shower another few times. Oh, delightful.

“But there is more, here too, things not on the list." He waved a hand over another assortment of less organized items. One he slid toward her, flat and slightly magic, the other a taller metallic cylinder that looked familiar. “This is probably for you, and this. And food, lots of food." He began sorting through the other items as Ash picked up the flat. The other item she knew without closer examination; another canister of Vamp-Away. “No rhagash, then, thank you. Fresh meats, fruit, even eggs." He was inordinately pleased at each discovery. The only thing that seemed to give him pause was a three meter length of half inch thick tightly woven rope. More interested in the food, however, he laid it aside without question.

The flat object he had slid toward her was, on initial feel, a tablet or similar in size, with braille across its face. Ash was surprised to discover that it was a braille reader! It's techno-magic, like the display on her dearly departed crystal, would adjust to offer words in braille that she could more easily read with her fingertips. After powering it on and running her fingers through the menus she was heartened to find that it was already loaded with a surprising number of titles.

Most titles were dry treatises, as if loaded for a college seminary student. The Origins of the Church of Merai, Juxtapositions of Elvmere, Ethos of the Ancients, and several others along a similar bent. Reading those, she mused, would be like taking a sleeping potion through her eyes.

The only ones non-scholastic in nature was a trilogy she had heard of, and heard snippets from over the years, enough to know they were pretty erotic in nature. One was Blind Faith, about a blind human Sensate from Pyralia, and the other was Touch of Desire, about a blind Metamoran raccoon aristocrat who was a member of the Church of Hedonism. The third book in the trilogy, Desire of Faith, bridged the two characters together during the heyday of the women's suffrage movement in Suttivasse shortly after the peerage was cast down.

She wondered if the enigmatic Artax or his student had anything to do with the choice of reading material, or if it was simply already on the device when it was purchased. Considering the dozen or so theological treatises, covering almost the entire gamut of global religions, she suspected the latter.

“When do you start?"

“In the morning. First, let's stuff ourselves. I need to up my calories a lot and get it through my system before I take the purge because, well, it will do as the name implies. The first dose will confine me to the bathroom, I fear."

“Oh, delightful." Ash muttered.

“Indeed. Well, what would you like? We've got fresh eggs, some dried fish, dried shrimp, fresh poultry and elk venison from the northern districts. And fresh vegetables, pre-diced for salad or soup."

“What do you think would be best? I've never learned to cook, for obvious reasons." She waved a hand in front of her face.

“Three courses? Shrimp Salad, fish soup, venison with mushrooms? It looks like the only dessert offering is a rather large quantity of chocolate, in a few varieties for plenty of quick calories."

Ash scoffed lightly and crossed to the cot to set the braille reader down. “I'm surprised I made it with that much stuff." She rolled her shoulders that were still stiff and sore from the load. “I will leave food up to you, Kai, or maestro chef."

“A few hundred years of living, from pampered to rough, has taught me many skills, cooking being but one."

True to his word, he was quite skilled at it. He threw together a hearty salad that was not heavy but filling with crispy dried shrimp and fish to offer accentuating flavors and textures. The soup was delightfully light and rich, and the venison cooked to perfection along sauteed mushrooms. The ingredients were not what Ash would expect of an upper skyway restaurant, but far superior to anything she would've found at a vendor near her office complex.

What must they be thinking now, she imagined as she savored the tender, subtly spiced venison. Two days without showing for work, not at her apartment, no calls nor messages from her crystal or through her social media. She had simply dropped off the face of the planet after a single panicked call to a bank operator who probably went home at the end of their shift without a further thought.

She imagined wrong, however, for the First Empire bank had not only notified the police of the event when it took place, but continued to politely harry the police once or twice a day. The teller in question was the one to make those calls, surreptitiously on the side during their work shift. While she did not know the woman who called, not in any personal way, the thought of her falling prey to vampires had unsettled her to the very core.

One of her childhood friends had been taken by a feral vampire and found not an hour later, or what remained, only a few hundred meters from their home. The teller had been terrified of the night denizens of the city ever since, working only where there was ample light and little to no risk of untoward beings from the bowels of the city suddenly popping from hidey holes to slaughter the innocent.

At precinct two the mass murder on Street Level had created quite a stir due to the strange nature of the killings and the equally queer creature found disemboweled there. But it was precinct two, so they took the report, assigned a couple of detectives to lead the precinct three investigation, and then went about their normal activities above the second skyway.

Since the murders had, ostensibly, happened in precinct two's zone of operations it was their resources being utilized to investigate, though the manpower outside of forensics was being supplied by precinct three. The nineteen recovered bodies were currently slabbed in two's morgue and the animal had been transferred to the Brightleaf College of Veterinary Husbandry for a necropsy.

None of this went over well with the bean counters in two's hierarchy and they groused about it at length and often to their chief and the upper ranks of precinct three but to no avail. Three and two were on uneasy terms, at best, because three felt they were wasting resources and manpower patrolling two's lower level zones. They would have much preferred that those assets be transferred onto two's budget and free up their own.

It was a years old argument that never seemed to gain any traction with the city comptroller's office, for whatever reason, and merely spun the tires uselessly until they were bald.

“Morning, Tripp." Precinct two special detective (detached) Vicktor Firren said as he ambled into the morgue two days after the bodies were recovered. “Anything new?"

Barvin Tripp, a spectacularly ugly androgyne, looked up from the splayed body on the polished steel examination table before him. “Na'much." The burly man rumbled as he set an internal organ, it looked like a kidney, on a scale and noted its weight. “Tox came back. Traces of Rain, cannabis, alcohol, and a few other trace narcotics but none in lethal levels." He tapped the corpse, that of a heavy set male Breed of middle years covered in gang tattoos. “Physiology indicates extensive addiction to Rain and Opioids."

“But cause of death?"

“Oh, could've told you that without opening this reeking puss heap." He flicked a finger at the breed's forehead where signs of an earlier cranial exam were roughly stapled together. “Asphyxiation brought upon by extreme chemical exposure and aspiration of digestive fluids. In other words, he drowned in his own vomit."

“What chemicals?"

“Oleoresin capsaicinoids; Pepper spray. Also garlic, silver, and complex organic thiols."

“Primary school lingo, Tripp. You know I speak bang bang, not cut sniff, okay?" Vick said as he stopped a few paces away, nose wrinkling at the stench of poor hygiene and decay wafting from the corpse on the table.

“Dude's lungs look like he took an up close and personal gulp of a skunk's spray, point blank. That, and the pepper spray mix. At about the same time. Caused nearly instantaneous histiminic anaphylaxis. " Tripp made a gurgling, rough edged growl that passed for laughter that was surprising for an androgyne since they could change pretty much everything about their physiology between states. Tripp, however, always appeared in his dominant masculine aspect to Vick's memory.

Tripp seemed to have simply chosen to both look and sound ugly. The man turned and picked up a small clear plastic vial from the corner of the exam table beside the breed's head. Vick noticed that the eyes had been crudely sewn closed. “Nothing in stomach contents and only traces in the lungs, though. They've been right fucked by respiratory petechiae, though, filled with blood and vomit. It's like he got hit with the 'feeling' of an extreme chemical exposure, without being actually exposed."

“But the thiowhatsis?"

“Organic thiol compounds, like that produced by skunks, mink, civits. A whole lot of critters with defensive musk."

“The report did state that the scent of skunk was present at the scene, powerfully so. As well as those other things; garlic and silver and such."

“So you're looking for a skunk with a can of chemical agents, perhaps a garlic bomb or two. Probably a mage or alchemist. Thralls jumped them, they popped a vamp chaser, sprayed, and lit out before they could recover." Tripp looked back down at the corpse. “Or, in this case, died."

“Could they have somehow made the chemicals stronger? Increased the potency of their effects?"

Tripp shoved the organ back into the open void of the breed's gut and fished out another, frowning at the nasty, unnatural discoloration to it. He flopped it heavily onto the scale and noted the weight. “Would have to, if it took out twenty goons. Mage, then. Doesn't take much to make a penny work like a ten mark note, for them."

“They did find a chemical agent dispenser at the scene, too."

“Yeah, I read the same report, Vick." Tripp grunted, shoving the abused organ back into the cavity and jerking the flaps of flesh back over it. “Pretty new brand, and pretty pricey. Not something you'd find sold Street level. So a skywalker got themselves wrangled downside. Again, likely a mage. Maybe more than one. Footprints, women's flat, size eight found alongside paw prints moving away from the scene. Scrying and back-sighting came up blank." Referring to methods police mages used to find people after a crime or roll back a slice of time to see the events as they unfolded, in Tripp's guttural short-hand. He finished indelicately stretching the skin back over the breed's torso and began laboriously stapling the cavity closed. “So your best bet is material forensics and that dispenser, not down here with the trash."

“How many was that?" Vick nodded toward the breed.

“Eleven. Horace and Victoria can finish up the rest when they come on. Not that they'll find anything different. No bite marks other than vamp, no claw marks, no defensive or offensive wounds. Just lungs filled with fluid from histamine response and aspirated vomit." The stapler made loud, harsh clicks as it drove metal claws through the flesh to hold it together. “Now let me finish up society's cast off here and end my shift. You have a safe day, detective."

Dismissed, Vick gave him a mock salute with two fingers and wandered out of the morgue. The headless corpse had been among the first autopsied and actually laid out a pretty decent timeline of events. The man had no chemical agents, or their effects, in his lungs and only residue on his skin, weaker than any of the others. The wound track of his neck had, as expected, turned up shreds of the cardboard that had, somehow, been used to decapitate him. So whomever the mystery mage, skunk, woman, or someone else had taken him out before turning their spray on the rest. Understandable, as a mage would be the most distinct threat other than the vampires.

The can of vamp-away had clearly done its job, even hours later when a feral charged into the crime scene hoping to nab one of the techs. The shambler had stopped suddenly ten meters away from the nearest body as if it had run into a wall. Before the Lightbriner's providing security could begin to react the feral vamp had spun about, hacking and coughing violently, and fled back into the darkness.

The time of event had been determined to within a few minutes' accuracy by the coagulation, or lack thereof, of the headless human's blood and a few basic divinatory spells. Anything more than basic, however, became hazy and fizzled out when any attempt to narrow in on the actual events. Someone, perhaps multiple people, had been using powerful divination disrupting spells, charms, or other enchantments.