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With Markus gone there was no point in keeping the veil up any longer. I dropped the spell and we stepped out from behind the cabinet. Dr. Greil's head snapped up and her eyes narrowed. Tall and painfully thin with icy blue eyes and unnervingly pale skin, she looked more lifeless then some of then things in the slabs. Also she wasn't too fond of unannounced guests.

"Just when I though my day was starting to get better." Dr. Greil sighed. "I doubt you two are here on a date, but I've been surprised before."

Alice wandered off and leaned curiously over one of the examination tables. A few seconds later she jerked back. She snorted and shook her head trying to clear her head of the stench of whatever was on the table. I smiled and leaned against the top of the cabinet, I tried to play it off but there's something about the doctor that puts me on edge. "Sorry Doc, you and I got different ideas on what counts as a fun night out."

The doctor frowned. Around the time she started to get into the black market gig some paparazzi got down here and ran a pretty nasty story on her. From the way they put it she did more than just sell the corpses. I'd read the article, I'd give the author credit in that it made even my skin crawl. All in all it was a very tasteless and crude article. Needless to say Dr. Greil had none of it, she hired a certain spellsword to make sure the reporter was dealt with appropriately. Well, more like in a gratuitously violent and over the top way; seems the good doctor couldn't stand having her reputation sullied. It goes without saying that the tabloids have stayed well clear of the morgue since then. And judging from the look she was giving me it was still a bit of a sore subject.

"Love to stay and chat but we have a meeting to attend." I gave her a polite nod and quickly reopened the way Markus had used. No point in over staying our welcome. Alice was through it before I was. Pretty impressive since she was still about half way across the room when it opened. I could tell by her grin and the gleam in her eyes that she was looking forward to this next bit.

We emerged somewhere on the outskirts of the Heart. One of the warehouse districts from the looks of it. Long low buildings sat in neat orderly rows. Each one was numbered and a few sported the name of their owners. There was everything from self-storage to industrial supplies, and somewhere in the midst of all of it was one that actually had what we were looking for. Fortunately there were two things working in our favor. First, Markus probably would have tried to get within half a mile or so of his home base; no point in wasting time hiking across a few miles worth of storage complex. And second, their warehouse would probably be ripe with magical defenses that the others lack. After all can't have just anyone walking in on your members only freak show. Unfortunately that probably meant I would have a bit of a hard time getting Alice and I in there quietly. Oh well, it probably would have gotten loud anyway, Alice isn't much for the stealthy approach and I wasn't about to try and talk her into it.

"Something's not right with that woman. I'd kill her off on general principle alone if I wasn't so sure she was already dead." Alice muttered as I took a moment to scan the rows and figure out which direction would make the most sense.

I shrugged, "She's creepy but she ain't dead, least as far as I can tell."

Alice gave me a look before drawing her shotgun and checking it over. She was muttering something about the doctor but I was too busy trying to figure out where to go next to pay her much mind. A close look at the ground showed me a very light pattern of scuffs in the dirt and debris that covered the pavement. Not having anything better to go off of at the moment I headed off in the direction they went.

"You sure this is right?" Alice asked, her voice quivering slightly with excitement and I felt the fur on the back of my neck rise.

"Mostly." I grew up during a time when most of the wolf-kin still preferred to hunt for their food and Mother was sure to teach me how to track game. This wasn't that different really, though I don't know of anyone that's ever been shot by a deer. Lucky for us it wasn't windy or raining. Though there were a few times I had to wander in circles to pick up the tracks again. Whenever that happened I heard Alice give an impatient growl and the grip of her gun creak under her steel fingers.

Finally I felt something grating against my magical senses. It was faint, not because of distance but because the spells were so subtle. If I wasn't actively looking for them I probably would have missed them. That didn't bode well. Whoever set these up had real talent, hell, even I have trouble being subtle with my spells. Though in retrospect that could be a personality thing.

I quickly pulled a veil over Alice and myself and we worked our way closer to the suspect warehouse. The pressure of the defenses buzzed against my head like a swarm of bees. Though to my surprise I didn't sense any alarm spells, they were all persuasions to get people to avoid the place. It was all I could do to ignore it and keep my own spells up. Though that didn't keep me from trying to swat at the buzz once or twice. After the second time Alice hit me hard across the back of my head.

"You missed one." She told me, trying to give me an innocent look. She needs to practice that look. Practice a lot.

We went up one more row and our warehouse came in to view. At least I hoped it was the one, then again there probably weren't many on this lot with armed guards. The front of the place was comprised mostly of two massive overhead doors. Towards the side there was a normal-sized entrance flanked by a pair of spotted cats. From this distance I couldn't tell what clans they were from. As we got a bit closer I saw that one was rune-marked while the other wasn't. Interesting, they left a novice and an initiate to guard the place. They must have been pretty confident that their spells would persuade most people to keep away. The guards kept a low profile, you could only tell they were armed if you knew what to look for. Not a talent that your average person has.

I was about to lay out a rough plan when Alice rushed forward and practically nailed the rune-marked guard's head to the door with her arm blade. At the same time she kicked back and caught the other one in the gut. That bought her enough time to wrench the blade free and decapitate, mostly, the stunned guard. The one she pinned to the wall slowly slumped down, leaving a blood trail along the wall. The other just dropped. Other than the soft thump of the first one's head hitting the wall there was no noise.

"I've been practicing." She told me smugly as I dropped the veil and looked between the two guards. I wasn't about to ask her what or who she'd been practicing on.

A quick spell popped the lock and I slipped quietly into the room. One hand on the hilt of my sword the other holding a shield spell, I checked the corners before moving farther in. Alice followed, her shotgun at the ready. There wasn't a need for any of it. The room was dead empty. Nothing but a bog standard manager or overseer office. Paper work sat neatly in trays on the desk while current work orders were pinned to cork boards on three of the walls. On the forth there were a pair of large windows that looked out into an equally bog standard warehouse. Stacks of cardboard boxes sat on crates and all of them were labeled and sorted by content. It was all far too normal.

"Of all the fronts I've seen this is probably one of the most well put together." I said, impressed despite myself.

"So how long will it take to break?" Alice asked. She was starting to look very impatient and that was never a good thing.

"You never appreciate the amount of work and effort that goes into something like this." I grumbled.

She growled. I walked over to the door to the warehouse and opened it. As I did I felt a tingle of some kind of spell and once it passed, after less than a second or so, I was looking out into the perfectly normal storeroom. I closed it again and turned to Alice with a grin.

"You're going to like the way we break this one." I told her.

"Why's that?"

Rather than answering her I decided to show her. I turned back to the door and blew it off its hinges with a force spell. With the trigger object now in splinters across the floor, the illusion flickered and then shattered like glass. It was kind of like watching a TV screen break in the middle of a show. What lay behind it was far from normal.

First the temperature suddenly dropped, had to keep the corpses cool I guess. It also went dark, much like their feral cousins, the cats don't need much light to see. Fortunately, dragons and dragon-kin can see even better. I really should send Dad a thank you card. I peered out in to the darkness and saw rows upon rows of corpses hanging from chains looped around their bound feet. Ugly and brutal looking cybernetic enhancements rose from the cold grey flesh. The enhancements varied from corpse to corpse but they all looked very unpleasant. The rows stretched on for about half a mile and in the background I could hear the sounds of machinery humming.

Alice reached into one of her pockets and pulled out a few glow sticks, unlike me she didn't have the benefit of dragon's blood. She cracked them and gave them a quick shake before tossing them out into the room, being careful to bounce them off the walls to make it hard to tell where they were thrown from. Someday I really had to ask here where she picked up these tricks.

It was hard to tell which looked more alien in the pale greenish light: the butcher shop cyborgs or Alice. Her pale fur glowed an eerie and ethereal green color and her eyes seemed nearly black. The corpses on the other hand still looked like corpses, just in a weird green chemical light rather than the muted colors I was used to in the dark. After less than a moment of thought on it I decided the look worked better on her then them.

"They must have been at this for a while. I guess Malak's intel was a bit off. They already got the supplies ages ago, the meeting earlier today was just to finalize payment." I muttered as we carefully worked our way out of the office and into the storeroom. This whole situation was starting to feel a bit familiar but I couldn't quite place it. Not yet anyway.

"So what are they for?" Alice asked, give one of the bodies a prod with her shotgun. It didn't stir.

"Hard to tell but I have a feeling they're going to end up being hosts for something..." That's when it hit me and I almost burst out laughing. I had seen something like this before, in fact it even involved one of the same books that had been taken out from the library. About a century and a half ago a doomsday cult had tried to kick off a small scale apocalypse with an army of demon possessed golems. Unfortunately the clay used to make the golems dried out before the demons were bound to them. Once the rituals started, the golem shells crumbled and the magic backlash wreaked havoc. Did the easy half of my job for me.

Sadly these corpses would probably be a bit more robust then a dried out clay shell. The cybernetics were probably to enhance the demon hosts as well. Can't be over-prepared when plotting the apocalypse after all. On the bright side since I've never seen anyone actually try to make an army of cybernetically augmented demons it would be interesting to see the results of my meddling. I was about to share that thought with Alice but a quick sideways glance told me that that would not be wise.

Alice gave me a hard look and waited for me to get myself together. Once I was certain I wouldn't burst out laughing, I told her what I thought was going on. She didn't look impressed.

As quietly as we could we worked our way up the rows of corpses, drawing closer to the sounds of the machines. Along the way we encountered no guards, though I could have sworn I heard someone working their way down a few rows over at one point. As we drew near the end of the row, I began to pick up on the sounds of voices; general murmurings and the faint sounds of chanting. I guessed they were getting ready for a trial run, if not the main show. If we moved fast enough I could pull the rug out from under them and watch the demon rampage. Unfortunately, it sounded like the rest of the group was between us and the summoners. So I began to work my way towards the edge of the building, weaving diagonally through the hanging bodies. Alice looked a bit put off that we weren't rushing straight in, I swear she has some berserker blood in her, but she followed.

It seemed today was my day for getting lucky. Not far from where we were there was a stair case heading up to an observation catwalk. Not much past that was a series of partitions separating the group's living space from the storage space. We tried to be quiet but our nails clicked against the metal stairs as we climbed. Surprisingly, our luck continued and the sound didn't carry over the babble from beyond the partitions. Once we reached the top I was finally able to get a good look at what we'd be up against.

The first area was set up like a work shop. Various machinery for working with cybernectics, along with a handful of operating tables cluttered one half while the other focused on the magical elements. There six summoners gathered around a ritual circle. They muttered their various incantations as they finished laying out the delicate runes and candles. In the next chamber roughly two dozen more spotted felines milled about makeshift living quarters. Past that there was another office and the back doors. All in all the whole complex covered about another quarter of a mile. Gotta love those space distortion spells, the Heart would even be half of what it is now without them.

"They'll be more guards at the back, they're all yours but wait for my signal." I whispered to Alice.

"And that would be?" She cocked an eyebrow at me quizzically.

I gave her a wicked grin, "You'll know when you hear it."

Her grin made mine look soft. She nodded and scurried down the catwalk in an unnervingly spider-like fashion. My plan was to quite literally blowup the ritual to draw their most powerful members to the workshop, leaving the rest for Alice to have her way with. If anything went wrong, she'd probably be the one saving my ass. Mostly because it's hard to focus on casting spells and fighting when your sensitive bits are suddenly halfway across the room. And some people have the nerve to say I fight dirty.

I reached up and used a small spell to sever the tip of one of my horns. It would grow back before the shit started flying. Then I settled down to wait. I watched as two members of the cult emerged from the storeroom dragging one of the cadavers. They carefully placed it on a chair in the center of the main circle and hurriedly left the workshop. Markus entered shortly afterward carrying another body. This one was struggling quite a bit and I could clearly see the hint of runes amidst his fur. Guess someone had been stirring up trouble and had been "volunteered" as a test subject. Now that's just cold.

The poor bastard was tied to a chair, this one outside the circle, and gagged. Markus then lit the candles with a muttered word and the summoning began. It was rather boring to watch at first; they always are. The air was filled with the low hum of synchronized chanting and not much else. Though after a minute or two a noticeable tension began to form in the circle. It was accompanied a few seconds later by a soft shimmer that gradually grew brighter until it looked like there was a column of dimly glowing mist obscuring everything within the circle's boundaries. It began to churn and writhe as the chanting grew faster.

And just like that, it reached the most sensitive part of the summoning. The point where the gate was open and the entity was beginning to cross over, not yet bound by the sorcerer's will. The point where you really don't want anything to be out of place, or have some jackass suddenly throw a bit of himself at one of the candles and knock it over, smudging one of the delicate lines of salt and silver dust.

The summoners continued, oblivious to what just happened even though everything in the circled suddenly went still. Then the mist and lights abruptly surged towards the ruined part of the circle, sensing the weakened area. Ever see a fireworks display and wonder what it would look like if the firework exploded ad head height, inches from your face?

The result was something like that, just not as pleasant. The demon broke loose with a deafening roar and tore into one of the sorcerers. Like many other entities, demons require some kind of host to survive in this world. Normally that host is provided or created during the ritual, but when things go wrong... A magic rich mage is much more appealing as a home then a dried out corpse.

The mage in question let out a bone-chilling scream as the demon tried to burrow into his consciousness. They struggled for a moment but the mage lost. His face and limbs contorted horribly as the demon entered his body and burned out his mind. With an utterly deranged chuckle the possessed feline rose until his paws were hovering slightly above the ground. A pair of grand bat like wings made from hellfire burst from his back. Shadowy flames flickered coldly amidst the skeleton of black smoke. Similar lights burned in his eyes. Ugly horns of blackened bone split the skin of its forehead and curled back like ram's horns. It spoke in the language of angels, colored with an eternity of hate and rage, and three of the seven summoners crumbled to dust along with the poor bastard tied to the chair.

In hindsight perhaps fucking up a ritual without knowing what was being summoned was not the best of ideas. This certainly wasn't a lesser demon. It wasn't a baron or general of Hell either but still... I really shouldn't let that run about for as long as I had hoped to. Well, time to improvise. I drew my sword and leapt from the catwalk.

I brought my blade down on the demon with enough force to drive it to the ground and bury close to a foot of the enchanted steel in the concrete. I conjured up the same enchantment I had used when dealing with the thugs a few days ago when this whole mess started. Corrosive red light began to pour from the runes etched into the blade and eat away at the demon's host. I left it there as the creature began to howl and convulse. Once my spells destroyed the body the demon wouldn't be able to stay in our world. Not even a demon can do much when its host's spine is cut and a spell is burning away its body. Now to deal with the cultists. I conjured another blade and turned to face the sorcerers.

All but Markus fell within seconds. All were accomplished sorcerers but they weren't much for combat. Already shocked by the failed summoning and my sudden appearance, they reacted very slowly. The one closest to me found his head rolling across the floor before his friends could even react. I dodged around one of Markus's spells and cut down a second cat. The last one was a bit faster, he was already halfway across the workshop by the time I turned towards him. Rather than chasing him down I abandoned the conjured blade and gathered energy at the tips of my fingers. I shouted a vicious spell and a bolt of lightning arced from my fingers to the fleeing mage. The bolt hit him square in the back then leapt to a nearby machine, overloading the delicate electronics. The mage convulsed and dropped at the same time the circuit blew, leaving only the dim glow of a handful of emergency lights.

I turned to face Markus, wondering where the backup I had been expecting was. I paused to listen and heard frantic yelling drifting through the partitions and the occasional shotgun blast. Seems Alice was busy entertaining them. Good, that left just Markus, and whoever was in charge of this fun house. I walked over to my blade and wrenched it free from the concrete with a roar. The charred and decaying shell was flung across the room, the demon's presence having vanished in the short time it took me to deal with the sorcerers. It hit the ground and shattered, scattering charcoal and bone fragments across the floor. What was left of the deformed skull rolled to a stop by Markus's feet. He picked it up by the horn and shook his head. To his credit he didn't flinch during any of my antics.

"Never thought the Boss would go out this way." he growled. Well, that answered the question of what I'd do with the man in charge.

"Saved you the trouble of doing it yourself?" I asked.

"Perhaps." he grinned. Then he hurled a fireball at my head.

I sheathed my sword and pulled the moisture from the air around me, focusing it in to a curtain of water. It had been a while since I had a good magical duel. The fireball hit the shield of water and the whole thing exploded into a thick cloud of steam. I focused that into a handful of razor sharp ice shards and hurled them back. He crossed his arms in a defensive gesture and the shards shattered against an invisible barrier. His next spell was a lightning bolt similar to mine. I stomped the ground with a yell and a tangled mass of rebar burst up from the floor. The lightning hit it and was grounded out in a most spectacular fashion. It also threw up a lot of dust. Something that Markus was more than happy to take full advantage of. A blast of air blew a cloud of concrete dust right into my eyes. The pain and discomfort sent shivers down my spine. Unfortunately, there wasn't any time to enjoy that at the moment; I felt his follow up spell rushing towards me, a wave of kinetic energy though this one was tapered into a sharp wedge and aimed at my throat. I smiled and tilted my head back, making it even easier for the spell to hit. A while ago I came up with a bit of a novelty spell, a sort of puppeteer spell that used my body as the marionette, and found that it had some interesting uses in combat. Especially given my condition.

I caught myself by the horns as my head tumbled through the air. Without breaking stride I hurled my head at Markus. Even if he knew I was immortal he probably wouldn't have expected this. He caught me almost as a reflex. Guess he must have played a sport of some kind in school. He stared down at me with a predictably surprised look. He pretty much jumped out of his skin when I gave him a cheery wink and stuck out my tongue. I tried to laugh but all that happened was a gut churning gurgle and a gout of blood gushed from my body. A panicked shout sent me flying across the workshop, again at the same time the rest of me surged forward. I caught my head in one hand and grabbed Markus by the face with the other. I stuck my head back on and smiled.

"For my next trick..." I said, and blew his head to pieces.

I kind of felt bad to be honest. Markus certainly had a fair amount of natural power, which had been amplified considerably by the rune-flesh ritual, but he was lacking in experience. His spells were certainly powerful, hell, he might even have been the strongest I've gone up against in a while. But he was a bit unimaginative and predictable. Also, he wasn't too good at adapting to unexpected or unconventional tricks. Though to be fair I don't think many people would expect their opponent to willingly get decapitated and then keep fighting. Oh well, back to the business at hand.

I quickly searched the workshop and found a satchel with the books missing from the library. I made sure they were all there and slung it over my shoulder. Might be able to get a reward for recovering them and even if I didn't it would still be another favor that they owed me. I also noticed that things in the other room had gone quiet. There were numerous holes in the partition walls along with a considerable amount of blood seeping underneath the panels. I pressed my ear against the door and listened closely. It was hard to tell but I thought I heard the sound of sobbing.

I tried to open the door only to find something holding it shut. I grunted and slammed my shoulder against it a few times. Eventually it began to open and I saw what had been blocking it. Bodies of the cultists had piled up against it as they tried to flee. On the other side of the walls I clearly heard sobbing and saw movement on one of the tables near the center of the room. Seems she left one alive. Personally I was a bit jealous, this is when she tends to get real creative, however the feline was probably wishing she killed him. Though looking around the room I saw that she hadn't been particularly quick or clean with many of her kills.

I carefully picked my way across the room, stepping over bodies and trying not to trip on the numerous shell casings that littered the ground. Along the way I found quite a few that weren't completely dead, I finished them off quickly with a jab from my sword. In the dim glow of the emergency lights I saw Alice straddling a leopard that she had bound to a table. She was hunched over his chest and seemed to be concentrating pretty hard on something. Her pale fur seemed to have been dyed scarlet and her clothes were tattered, other than that she seemed fine. The guy on the table on the other hand...

She had bound and gagged him with what looked like part of his shirt, and he had been completely stripped. I got close enough to see what she was doing. She was carefully and slowly carving insults and curses into his flesh with the tips of her claws. They weren't just scratches either, she made sure to cut deep. Judging by the way he squirmed and the occasional sob that slip through the gag, he wasn't enjoying this even half as much as she was. Looking him over, I noticed she had also torn out his nails and cut almost half an ear off. She was so focused on her toy that she didn't see me standing off to the side. After a while I cleared my throat. She growled and leapt off her plaything, driving her blade through my chest.

"Oh... done already?" she asked. She may have been a bit surprised to see me.

"Almost, just need to clean up a bit. You mind taking this back to the bar for me? I'll catch up once I'm done here." I held up the bag and she took it in her free hand. I bit back a moan as the movements jostled the blade still lodged in my heart. She kissed me then pulled it loose with a savage twist.

"Don't take too long." She purred, giving me that wicked smile and turned towards her toy.

She whispered, stroking his neck with a claw. He whimpered the tried to scream as she bit down hard on his ear. At the same time she buried her claws in his neck and tore out his throat.

She gathered up her gun and left. I waited until I heard the back door open and shut before I returned to the storeroom. Now for the hard part, how the hell do I get rid of all of these bodies?

Unlike golem shells I couldn't just smash them with a spell. I took a closer look at one of the bodies. The cybernetics didn't seem to be of the highest quality, most of it looked like your usually back alley hack job. That gave me an idea. I walked to what I thought was the center of the store room and began to plan out a spell. Magic requires energy and if it needs more then you have or more then you could channel it would kill you. This spell would probably require more than I could handle. Though, unlike other mages, I'd get over it.

Shrugging my shoulders, I drew in energy until static crackled through my fur and I started to get a vicious headache. If one lightning bolt could overload the breaker I wondered what a whole storm could do. I released the spell and stayed conscious just long enough to see massive columns of electricity and fire burst from the ground and arc towards the hanging bodies, and the rails they hung from, and the frame of the building... might have overdone this one a bit but I died before I could be sure.

I came to a short while later and what was left of the bodies were still burning. The cybernetics had been completely destroyed by the overload as well as every other electronic device in the place. Well, that solved that problem then. I strolled through the burning wreckage and eventually wound up at the door. Being burned alive had always been an odd one for me. It's absolutely exquisite at first but it quickly get to the point where the nerve endings have been burned away and you stop feeling anything. Hardly any fun when you can't enjoy it.

I startled a few firemen on the way out. Due to the more than slightly magical nature of the fire there wasn't much they could do other than making sure it didn't spread.

"Evening, you mind putting me out? I'm running late." I asked the one closest to me. He gave me a shocked look and murmured several things at once before finally dousing me with the hose.

"Thank you." I gave a cheery wave and left before they could start asking questions.

I quickly found a set of bloody paw prints that lead off into the distance. It wasn't hard to guess who they belonged to. I followed them for a bit and found the spot where they vanished. A while ago I gave Alice a simple talisman the would open a way that lead as close to the bar as my protections allowed. I opened my own Way and stepped out on to the sidewalk. A few more paw prints littered the pavement but they had been mostly worn away by the constant foot traffic. I got plenty of shocked looks as I walked through the crowds. My fur hadn't quite started to regrow yet and there was a considerable amount of burned flesh that still clung to me.

Ross glanced over at me as I ducked through the door to the bar. The place was pretty busy so he just bowed his head to me and gestured towards the door to Alice's apartment. I gave him a warm nod and headed down.

What was left of Alice's clothes sat in a pile outside the bathroom door. Alice herself was fresh from the shower and already asleep. Guess the fight took a lot out of her, no surprise... she ended up doing most of the work really. She had curled up like always but her fur had puffed up from the shower and it made her look like a giant cotton ball that someone had stuck a pair of wolf ears to. If I hadn't had seen it, and didn't know her very well, I wouldn't have believed she had been absolutely soaked in blood not too long ago. I figured Alice wouldn't be too happy if I got soot all over her bed so I quickly showered before joining her.

I woke up around noon to a sharp pain in my shoulder. No doubt a love bite from Alice, and sure enough when looking around I got an excellent view of her getting dressed. She gave me a look that made it clear that she wanted me to come back after I had escorted Mr. Ward home. Guess she was still buzzed from yesterday.

Before dealing with Mr. Ward, I gave Dr. Greil a quick call. She didn't seem to appreciate the interruption but she assured me that she hadn't seen anyone or anything strange yesterday after her business with Markus was finished. In addition to easing my concerns about losing a valuable contact, this also helped confirm that the cult was effectively dead. Given the lengths they had gone to in order to try and kill off my client there was no way they would have let the doctor live after they were done with her. I was sure Mr. Ward would be happy to hear that he was going home.

After a hearty breakfast I tracked down the kid and gave him the good news. His face lit up as if I had told him he won the lottery. He hurried off to gather his things from the living room and was back fast enough to make me wonder if he had bothered unpacking anything in the first place. But of course I couldn't just let him leave without having a bit more fun.

"I'm guessing we won't be seeing you around much anymore, huh?" I asked.

"Most likely not." he answered."

"You sure? The Sisters will miss you." I grinned.

He glared at me.

"Well... you at least want to see some sights before you go?" If my grin got any wider it would start peeling off my face.

I could her him grit his teeth. "Just get me out of here."

"Fine, let's go." I made a big deal of sounding put off.

I lead him to the nearest station and before long we were back in the main city. Along the way I kept my senses sharp but there were no more curses or assassins. Made the whole trip rather boring to be honest. With nothing to worry about, we hopped from one train to the next and made it to his apartment building fairly quickly. The guards and the receptionist all looked rather put off and reeked of forced politeness when they greeted us, well mostly when they greeted me. I guess their run in with the silencer put them in a bit of a bind. I escorted Mr. Ward the full way to his apartment, much to his annoyance. The carrion rats had done their job well and you would never have known there had been a sword fight in his entry. The kid was quick to get me the rest of my payment and then all but shoved me out the door.

Before I headed back to the Heart I stopped by my office. There was nothing but a bit of hate mail and a few bills. Oh well, seems I'd have a bit more downtime. I debated on grabbing a set of clothes or just sticking with the conjured set. Since Alice would probably just tear off whatever I wore I choose to just keep the conjured stuff. A quick jaunt back to the Heart and I was at the bar in just a little over an hour. I leaned against the bar to greet Alice.

She gave me a passionate kiss.

"You took your time." she growled.

Before I could protest she slammed my head against the solid wood counter hard enough to knock me out. I was dimly aware of being dragged down the stairs and being hoisted onto a bench. I felt heavy straps binding my legs to the thing at one end and Alice bent me backward before binding my arms together underneath the bench. I woke up in time to see her running the business end of a cat-o-nine tails through her hand. I tried to speak but she slipped a few heavy leather straps around my muzzle and pulled them tight. She said something but I didn't hear it as the flogger lashed out and delightful agony blossomed in my chest...