'A Hunter and His Prey' Chapter Three- Trouble at Home

The next morning, Jonah wrote a lengthy letter to his sister, telling her about the last forty-eight hours’ events, and asking about her own daily goings-on. Eileen led a fairly simple life with their mother and father in Desanadron, where their father had a job as a night watchman.

Jacob Staples, their father, had never understood his son’s interests in the sciences, or his daughter’s fascination with animals. A man in his mid-fifties, he had always been Soldier Class, learning early the arts of warfare and combat. During the War of Vandross, he had served as a foot soldier in the army of the rebuilding city of Desanadron. Now, retired from the regular army with a nice pension, he needed something to do to kill the time at night.

The Staples children’s mother, Anna Staples, had never worked out of the home since marrying Jacob shortly after the war. Jonah, their first child, had been born several years into their marriage, when Jacob was out on assignment as a border patrolman. He had not seen his son until the boy was four months old, and hadn’t known that his brother, Allen, had spent most of that time helping Anna with the newfound venture of motherhood. Allen had four children of his own already. When the soldier had returned home from assignment he had been immediately assaulted with a barrage of hints, tips and examples from his older brother.

Uncle Allen had been an Alchemist and Engineer, both Scientist Classes. Growing up, Jonah had seen his uncle more often than his father, but he’d sympathized with the soldier. “He needs to earn money,” he had told his mother once when she tried to apologize for daddy not being around to help with his little sister. “Or we wouldn’t have a home.”

Five years separated the two siblings, making Eileen sometimes seem a tad naive to Jonah. Yet, the two had kept contact through written letters every few months.

As he finished his good-byes, Jonah looked at his timepiece. It was fast approaching midnight, and he needed some sleep. He was certain the Simpa would have another rigorous day planned for him.

Rolling the scroll up as small as he could, Jonah placed it inside of a carrier bird tube, which Nareena could attach to her bird’s leg. He resolved to start translating the ancient Cuyotai text the next day. If he had a chance, he amended mentally. Gods only knew what Portenda the Quiet would have in store for him.

Since returning to the apartment, the Simpa hadn’t said a word, and presently slept as soundly as a newborn babe. Sleep, Jonah thought wearily. Sounds good.

Jonah’s dreams were filled with memories of how life had been in the last year or so he had lived with his mother, father, and Eileen. He spent many hours slaving away in the laboratory that his parents let him keep in the basement, often receiving instruction from his uncle and the various textbooks that the man kept with him. Allen Staples, while intelligent and well read, didn’t have a capacity for memory. The man kept reference manuals and handwritten books of notes and diagrams on hand as a result, and Jonah had learned a great deal from them. The diagrams, for some reason, stood out boldly in his mind while he dreamed. He seldom saw them anymore, knowing that the knowledge of them was somehow secretive, sacred in some way. Why, he could not clearly recall.

Then, someone was shaking him. “Get up,” Portenda whispered, his face inches away from Jonah’s.

The Scholar/Alchemist had fallen asleep on the floor where he had written his letter to Eileen.

The look in Portenda’s normally emotionless gray eyes told him that something was terribly wrong. Jonah sat up like a bolt of lightning, getting to his feet and putting his hand on his long knife’s handle.

“What’s going on?” He checked his timepiece. He had only been asleep a couple of hours.

“Someone just knocked on my door. I don’t get visitors.” Portenda checked his broadsword. “Elven, female from the smell of her,” Portenda said, his tone flat once more. “Wearing some sort of expensive perfume. She’s slender, her heart beats almost right against her flesh. The knock had little strength behind it.”

Jonah tried to prepare for whatever might be on the other side of that door. He hoped they simply had a wrong address.

“Open the door.” Portenda took a position against the wall, weapon at the ready.

Jonah walked up to the door, and tried to look out of the peephole, but found that it was blotted over. This person wanted their identity to be a surprise. Jonah was almost certain that it was some drunken woman who had gotten her boyfriend’s address wrong.

He turned the knob and opened the door, and found Nareena standing there in all her glory.

Half-asleep and lacking in the proper judgment, Jonah found himself almost uncontrollably attracted to her as she smiled that coy smile at him, her rose-hued lips looking so inviting.

“Oh, Nareena.” He glanced at Portenda, who sheathed his weapon when the woman was identified.

A low growl escaped the Simpa Bounty Hunter’s throat, and Jonah woke up rather quickly. “Um, how did you find me?”

“I didn’t,” the Elven woman said, extending her arm, where her crow was perched. “He did. I needed to see you again, about that text.”

Her lie was rather transparent. Jonah could smell liquor and smoke on her breath and on her clothes. Gods, he had never actually seen her drunk, though he had heard stories from his peers in Ja-Wen and Palen. She became rather ‘friendly’, as they had subtly put it.

“Can I come in,” she asked, lowering her chin to her chest seductively.

Oh, how he wanted to forget their long-standing rivalry, grab her, and take her to his cot. But this wasn’t his home. For all he knew, the Simpa would be incensed and throw him out on his ear. He looked over to Portenda, who just stood with his arms crossed over his chest in a very paternal fashion.

“Um, look, Nareena, this isn’t even my place,” Jonah stammered.

The Elven woman poked her head in, leaning forward while holding the doorframe, exposing her ample cleavage to the Scholar/Alchemist.

He tried not to stare, but found his eyes locked on her bosom. She looked directly at Portenda, and smiled sloppily.

“Oh, hey mister,” she slurred, almost falling forward onto Jonah.  The crow fluttered up onto her shoulder, twitching its head this way and that, its eyes finally settling on the Bounty Hunter.

“Hello,” Portenda said in his slow, cold fashion. He moved away, toward the Gnome coffee maker, and then sauntered into his bathroom and started a shower running before coming out and clamping a hand on Jonah’s shoulder. “Get her inside. Get her into the shower, try to sober her up. There’s a spare towel tucked under the tub.” He started the coffee brewing as he kept his back to the Human and Elf.

Jonah stared at him with surprise: he wasn’t pissed off at this intrusion of his privacy? He didn’t mind that someone had followed him, and inadvertently found the Bounty Hunter? Jonah grasped Nareena softly by the hand, leading her inside and closing the door behind them. Her crow took wing out into the kitchen area with Portenda, perching on the counter just out of hand’s reach from the looming Simpa.  As Jonah turned to lead her to the shower, she threw him back against the door and pressed her mouth to his, kissing him roughly.

For a moment, he let it happen, but then he felt Portenda slip his huge, powerful hand between the two of them, pulling Nareena easily away from him. He gripped the Elven woman by the shoulders gently, giving her an easy smile. “Miss Nareena, you are heavily inebriated. Let Jonah help you into the shower.”

Jonah once again felt shocked to the core; the man was showing an impressive range of emotion and compassion for one so generally cold and unmovable.

“Sure, whatever.” Nareena brushed the huge, furry hands away and grabbing Jonah by the hand. “Lead the way, stud.” She gave Jonah a look that cried out to him in a primal, feral way.

He led her into the bathroom, where steam sprang up like mist from the warm, running shower.

“Get undressed and get in.” He tried to sound like the authority figure in the apartment.

She grabbed him by the crotch, and he went icy cold and still to the bone, paralyzed by the venom of sexual desires.

“You wanna help me with that.” She licked his cheek.

Gods that’s unattractive, he thought, genuinely disgusted at the damp tongue against his face.

“And I’ve got this spot on my back I can never reach.” She laughed drunkenly.

Jonah almost lost control, but cleared his throat, and resolved to do the gentlemanly thing.

“I’ll help you undress, but that’s it.” He reached under the tub and found a yellow terrycloth towel, much softer than the one that Portenda used. Jonah aided Nareena as best he could, trying not to touch any one part of her body more than the others, and helped her step into the tub. Once she was in, he closed the shower curtain, and moved out into the main den, closing the door behind him.

“Leave it open,” Portenda said to him from his seat on his bed. He kept his eyes locked on the crow, which appeared to be smiling at him, as if it held some secret from him.  “You’ll have to check on her now and again, make sure she hasn’t drowned.”

“How are you all right with this,” Jonah blurted. “I mean, I apologize for letting her follow me, but I must say, you’re handling this much better than I am.” He flopped down on the edge of the bed next to the Simpa.

“Yes, well, I’m not attracted to her nearly as much as you are,” Portenda replied.

Jonah sat straight like a bolt. His heart hammered like one of those ancient Dwarven mecha tools. What did they call them, he thought. Oh, yes, jackhammers.

“Carnal desires are a natural part of the living experience, Jonah,” Portenda said. “So, for most mortals, are drunken stupors.”

Jonah heard, on the outside of his audible range, sobbing in the bathroom.

“You might want to go to her now. I think she’s coming around.”

Jonah cautiously crept into the bathroom, hearing Nareena’s moaning sobs over the running water.

“Nareena?”

She gasped, and swallowed hard. “I’m, I’m confused Jonah.” She turned the water off and threw the curtain open.

Jonah averted his eyes from her slick, slender frame. Like the road between Arcade and Palen, he thought, offering her the towel. Curves in all the right places.

She took the towel and wrapped it around herself.

“I’m covered,” she said.

Jonah looked to find that she was rubbing her blood-shot eyes.

“I’m so sorry about this,” she said, sobbing and laughing at the same time. “I, I don’t know what came over me.”  “I just asked Talonz to find you, that was all,” she said, referring to her crow.

“I’ll let you get dried and dressed.” He closed the door behind him. He had been handed the opportunity of a lifetime, and he’d blown it by being, well, Jonah. What the Hells is wrong with you, his sex drive shouted at him from the dark recesses of his mind. She was primed and willing!

I know, he answered himself. But it wouldn’t be right. “It wouldn’t be right,” he muttered, moving toward the cupboards and getting himself a drink from the icebox drawer.

“Jonah, what are you thinking.” Portenda barely fit on the small cot but Jonah saw that his eyes were already closed.

Did the Simpa plan on sleeping in the cot, letting Jonah have the bigger bed for the rest of the night? He could easily fit on that thing twice over, he thought. “I’m thinking,” Jonah said as he sat at the edge of Portenda’s bed, “that an opportunity was there, but it would have been taking advantage. And besides, I’m still not entirely sure how I feel about her.”

“You’re a good fellow,” Portenda said levelly. “Not the sort to do that kind of thing to a woman. She might have woken up to regret it. But you’ve spared her that.” He opened his eyes briefly to look at Jonah. “Had you chosen to, I would have told you to do what you would with her and get her out of here. For tonight, though, you can take my bed. The two of you.”

Jonah was touched by the Simpa’s empathy. A moment later, when Jonah tried to say something to Portenda, he heard the big werelion’s soft snore.

“Thanks,” he whispered to the Simpa’s back. He turned at the sound of the bathroom door opening, and saw Nareena walking toward the coffee’s aroma. She moved in a daze, opening several cupboards in search of a mug.

Jonah got up and crossed the room to her, locating one for her (searching all the while for booby traps). Finding no traps, he handed her the mug, and she smiled appreciatively at him. As he turned away, she set the mug down, spun him around, and locked onto him in a hug that nearly shattered his ribs. She said not a word, squeezing tighter until he returned her embrace, and then she let out a heavy sigh.

He patted her on the back, and pulled away, smiling at her in return.

“I’ve, uh, got to get some sleep,” he said. Forgetting the coffee on the counter, she followed him.   Nareena looked over at the massive Bounty Hunter, and wondered what he made of her pet perching on the head of the bed she would be sharing with Jonah.

Cradled together like a pair of spoons, they fell quickly asleep on Portenda the Quiet’s bed.

You’re very welcome, Portenda thought.

* * * *

Morning rarely takes so long in coming, Jonah thought as he was gently prodded awake. The aroma of cooking food, eggs, bacon and toast, filled his nostrils like a long awaited guest.

He rose slowly, and when he looked over for Nareena, found she stood at the Bounty Hunter’s stove. Talonz pecked at breadcrumbs she sprinkled on the counter next to the appliance, giving Jonah a dark stare every few pecks.  Portenda was nowhere to be seen, but the door to his library was slightly ajar.

Nareena looked over at him, freshly washed and looking pristine and lovely.

Wonder if she’s planning to poison my food, he mused. Sober and aware of the events of the previous night, the Elven Alchemist might have turned back to her old ways. Jonah didn’t want to be skeptical, but didn’t think he had a choice.

“So, who is he, really?” Nareena placed portions of food on two plates and brought one over to Jonah, sitting next to him on the edge of the bed with her own meal. “He wouldn’t say a word to me this morning. When I woke up, he was swinging that huge sword of his around. Nearly took my head off, but he stopped it an inch from my neck. How does he do that?

“He’s a Bounty Hunter.” He sampled his breakfast. Not bad, he thought, chewing thoroughly. And not a trace of poison. “His name is Portenda the Quiet.”

“Fitting. Well, after he stopped his sword, he set it next to our bed.”

“His bed, actually. He let us use it so we’d both fit.”

“Oh. Nice of him.” She finished her meal without speaking again. She got up, smoothed her dress, and set her dish on the counter by the sink. “Well, I’m off. Thanks for not, you know,” she stammered, but Jonah put up a hand to stop her short.

“Think nothing of it, Nareena,” he replied gently. He set the plate on the bed, and stood, walking over to the door out into the hallway. “I assume you’ll be on your way?”

“Yes, actually,” Nareena said, collecting her thoughts and her bird from his perch on the bedpost.

Jonah opened the door for her, and before she left, she turned and put her arms around his neck, pulling him close and giving him a soft, warm kiss. As she pulled away, she said, “You know, we could’ve been great together.”

“We might yet,” he commented with a wry grin. “I’ll see you about the book,” he said, nodding toward the Cuyotai text.

“Okay. See you then, Jonah. Oh, do you have that letter for your sister,” she asked, turning toward him fully and holding out the crow.

“Ah, yes,” Jonah spurted suddenly, tying the letter tube to the bird’s leg. “There we are. Well, tomorrow then,” he said, starting to close the door slowly.

“Tomorrow,” she replied, giving him another peck.

The crow cawed rather more loudly than need be, and Jonah got the sense that it didn’t approve of the intimate contact. Probably why the damned thing hovered over us on the bedpost.

She walked down the hallway, and Jonah shut the door. Knowing that Portenda was right behind him, feeling his presence more than actually sensing him by other means, Jonah spun and ducked down, keeping his hands up.

“Good.” Portenda said, his tone cold and hard. “I have an assignment today,” he said, hefting up his rucksack. “Keep an eye on things here. I’ll be back by nightfall.”

When Jonah had heard the word assignment, he had felt a tiny rush of adrenaline. But seeing as it was a contract taken by the Bounty Hunter, he felt disappointed.

“Oh, all right. So, you want me to stay here?”

Portenda opened the door, rummaging through one of his many pockets and producing a key.

“I had this copy made this morning. If you decide to go out, lock up. Remember, lock, unlock, lock. It sets the security traps.” Portenda left without another word.

Jonah suddenly felt very alone, but he found a little satisfaction at being left to his own devices. He could work on the text translation, which in truth would only take a few hours. Then he could make some more potions and powders, maybe peruse Portenda’s library once more.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor, Jonah took out an empty notebook, purchased several weeks ago for this sort of thing, and the Cuyotai textbook. Pouring over the text, he translated as best he could into the blank notebook. Often, when he translated languages, he wrote down the meanings of the foreign words without thinking about their meaning. After a half an hour, and an entire chapter of translation, he read over the notes he took. The first chapter of the Cuyotai text read like a long, exhaustive list of Alchemical ingredients and natural plant life. No wonder Nareena took an interest in it. Those ruins must have belonged to pre-Fall history, back before mecha even rose to the forefront of society. Back in those days, centuries before the Age of Mecha, only a few Races were bold enough, or foolish enough, to experiment with Alchemy. The Cuyotai had been one such Race, willing to try anything, provided there was some merit or fun to be had in it.

For three more hours he slaved, translating every last word, until his stomach grumbled and he knew he needed to eat again.

His feeding habits hadn’t been all that great, and having a large meal at the diner the day before, along with a decent breakfast, complements of Nareena, combined to give him an appetite again. He got up and rummaged through the icebox, finding some fresh fruit, some cheese, and in another drawer, not chilled, were three untouched loaves of bread. He used his long knife to cut out a nice hunk of bread, closed the drawers and sat back on his cot.

As he ate, he read over the notes. Even translated, the words were jumbled. Water, iron, zinc, sodium, urea, proteins, carbohydrates, and a host of other ingredients were listed in the second chapter. The last chapter he hadn’t translated so much as copied, as it was a collection of diagrams and symbols, all drawn roughly with side notes. He had translated the side notes as best he could, but they too were jumbled.

On the final page on which there was anything written or drawn, Jonah found splotches of rusty stains. Blood, he knew from the look of it. The notes were scrawled, and the diagrams were unfinished. Whoever had written this tome had either been murdered, or blown himself up halfway through his final report. The symbols all seemed so familiar, however.

A revelation struck Jonah like a bolt of lightning. Those symbols were used in the rearrangement of molecules and energy. They were the basis of the quasi-magical powers of Alchemy. Jonah shoved a piece of cheese in his mouth, took out a piece of chalk from his rucksack, and drew the simplest of the symbols on the floor— a simple box with a slash mark in each corner of the box, diagonally through the corners.

He pressed his palms against the symbol and a flash of brilliant white light filled the room. Thrown back by the sudden force, he fell on his rear end, and found himself shortly looking at a short sword made of steel.

While he considered the sword, he heard a loud crash as the mattress of his cot crashed to the floor, the frame half-gone. He had succeeded in art of molecular and energy rearrangement. He had finally accomplished what he previously could not for years.

But Portenda was going to be furious about the destroyed cot. The smell of rotted meat filled the air as smoke curled up from the symbol on the floor.

That’s it, he thought. I’ll make another sword, and let the mattress lie on the floor. Pressing his palms to the symbol once again, he closed his eyes and felt and heard the whoosh of air and energy. When he opened his eyes, he saw another short sword, though this one had some serious flaws. He darted to his notebook as the bed mattress flopped onto the floor behind him. One of the side notes he had translated stated, quite clearly, ‘A symbol should not be used more than once, as the second result will be flawed in some essential way. Weapons symbols especially suffer this side effect.’

Damn, Jonah thought. Should have read everything over again before I tried anything.

Pleased in any event at his achievement, Jonah reached once more into the icebox, and took out a single bottle of amber-colored ale. Portenda didn’t keep a lot of the stuff around, probably wanting to keep his senses as sharp as possible.

Jonah now had an edge over Nareena, though he tried to dismiss the thought as unwarranted. He had shared something with the Elven Alchemist the night before, and that very morning. It was as though all of their time as rivals had melted away, leaving them in the almost romantic relationship they had been in before discovering their competitive natures.

When he heard something slide beneath the door, Jonah spun and looked. A manila envelope, sealed shut but weighted with something metallic, lay on the floor.

Jonah took a swig of ale and opened the envelope. The front just said ‘Roger’ in bold, crudely written letters. Inside was a single gold piece.

He set the envelope, the coin still inside, on the counter of the den/kitchen, not giving it a second thought.

* * * *

Portenda sat patiently in the corner of the Flaming Tongue, awaiting his contact. The letter had said that the man would arrive at about four hours past noon. Not wanting Jonah to get curious, and thus have to explain himself or his lie, he had set out early, wandering somewhat aimlessly about the city until about three.

At a little past four, the contact sauntered into the tavern, already smelling like booze.

The man was a barrel-chested Simpa, his dark, golden fur matted in unclean patches. Staggering slightly to the counter, the Simpa ordered a pitcher and a pair of glasses, took them without paying, and set them down on the table between himself and Portenda.

“Why have you come again, father,” Portenda growled, unable to contain his quietly building fury. His father had come to visit once again—unwanted and unbidden. He had, at least, written his son this time, but that didn’t change the fact that Portenda the Quiet hated the man with a passion unmatched by the brilliance of the sun on a clear day. In the desert, he amended. The scent of cheap liquor stained his father’s labored breathing, and the man’s shabby, tattered pants indicated that his father didn’t care a wit of other people’s opinions.

“Is that any way to greet your old man?” The habitual drunk poured himself and his son each a glass from the pitcher. “Come on, have a drink with me. S’the least I can do for taking care of me last time I stopped in.” He pushed the second glass toward the tense Bounty Hunter, who knocked it to the floor with a loud clinking, shattering tinkle.

“Oi, you gonna pay fer that glass,” the Dwarf shouted. He came up short when he saw which customer had dropped the glass. He had first-hand knowledge of what the Bounty Hunter was capable of, and had even hired him on a few occasions. He knew that Portenda the Quiet was good for it, and knew further that aggravating the man could mean certain agony and probably at least a hospital stay.

“I don’t want a drink with you, you bastard,” Portenda growled at his genetic forbearer. “Just tell me what you want. Is it money? Did you already spend what I sent you last year?” He slammed his heavy fist on the table.

The older Simpa sat there, grinning like an idiot.

“No, it’s not money,” his father said.

Why couldn’t he keep his emotions under control when he was around this infuriating man, Portenda wondered? His father had an eerie ability to break down people’s willpower, their mental and emotional barriers.

The old drunkard never revealed the secret of his ability to anyone, least of all his own flesh and blood because he knew the boy would then find a way to negate the effects. And he enjoyed watching the little freak squirm. Neither man had much of anything good to say about the other, but whereas Portenda openly hated the old man, the father himself loathed his son more quietly, more discretely.

“It’s about the clan,” the father said. “They’ve decided to let you back, if you ever want to come back to their village in the Allenians.”

The Allenian Hills, Portenda thought with mild disgust. Home. The place of his birth and banishment. He hadn’t been there for years, when he had taken a contract that led him right in. He had been harassed by clans of Khan and Simpa both, the dominant Races who warred over ownership of the region. But none had tried to stop him, knowing what the now grown man was, and what he was capable of.

“Tell them I don’t care about their welcomes and traditions, father,” he replied, mouthing the word ‘father’ like it was the foulest of curses. “Tell them they can blow me. Tell them the son of Makira does not want anything to do with them.”

“Why not the son of Telroke,” his father said, speaking his own name.

“Because you’re not my father,” Portenda said, getting to his feet. “You’re just some drunken idiot who had his way with a naive young woman when she was vulnerable! Now stay out of my way, and get out of my life.” He grabbed the pitcher and tossing the ale on his father’s face.

Telroke closed his eyes and giggled.

“And what will you do now, you stupid little freak,” his father growled low in his throat. He too rose to his feet, standing nose to nose with his son. “What do you intend to do, hmm? Spend the rest of your life in this city leaving whenever there’s a contract out on someone’s head? Will you remain a drifter, a stranger to everyone you meet? When will you come to your senses and take up the responsibility of every Simpa of the Allenians? When will you acknowledge your heritage?” Telroke shoved Portenda as hard as he could. He barely managed to move the boy, though. A moment of clarity advised him against taking any further sort of aggressive action against Portenda. He isn’t a boy any more, the little voice of reason warned him. He’s a fully-grown man, and he’s more dangerous than anyone you’ve ever met. But the voice of alcohol and old regrets surfaced once again, drowning out that tiny voice of reason as it usually did. Don’t just stand there, it called out to him. Slap the boy a good one, he deserves it. Telroke took a step forward and swung.

His arm was almost immediately clamped in an iron grip, twisted to an uncomfortable angle that forced him to his knees rather more quickly than he thought possible. Portenda stood silently, holding his father’s palm and wrist turned upward. His sterile, steely gaze fixed on father’s eyes, and Telroke Manewa, of the Allenian Hills, heard the Sacred Visitor, as his Race referred to Death, in Portenda’s voice.

“You will leave when I let you go. Or I will kill you where you kneel. Your choice doesn’t matter to me. I will not join you or the others. I will not wage war against the Khan. Mother wouldn’t have approved.” He let go of his father, who tucked and rolled away with surprising agility, considering his blood alcohol level.

“So what, you’re going to fight for them?”

“I fight for no one, except my current employer at any given time. And don’t think I’ll accept any contract from the Allenians. I’m not that much of an idiot.” Portenda took two steps toward his father, drawing his pistol and aiming it at his father’s forehead. He cocked the hammer back, his trigger finger on the circular guard.

“All because of your bitch of a mother and your love for her. Whatever,” Telroke said to his only son. “Do what you like, traitor!”

When his father stormed out of the tavern, Portenda put the pistol away and approached the bar, placing several gold pieces in front of the Dwarven barkeep to pay for the drinks and the broken glass.

The Dwarf gave him a curious look. “What did he mean by traitor? And how could ‘e say such things about your mum.”

“He calls me a traitor and calls my mother names for the same reason,” Portenda said, pulling up one of his leather sleeves, revealing faint, gray stripes. “Because she was a Khan.” He rolled his sleeve back down and left the establishment and the bewildered Dwarf, behind him.

* * * *

It was nearly eight in the evening when Jonah heard the door open and looked up from his book. He had set the swords he had made on the floor between their two beds.

Portenda raised an eyebrow as he walked in, closing the door and locking it behind him. He then stopped as he saw the symbol drawn on the floor. He would have commented on it, but didn’t yet trust himself to remain detached. Instead, he simply pointed to the symbol, the swords, and then looked hard at Jonah, who peered timidly over the cover of a book. Not one of Portenda’s, the Bounty Hunter noted, but a notebook of some sort.

“I used that,” Jonah said, indicating the symbol on the floor with a tilt of his head. “To make these,” he said, touching the short swords.

One of them was quite ragged, Portenda noted, while the other was expertly shaped and weighted. Resisting the urge to slam it into a wall, he looked down at Jonah and noticed that the frame of the cot was missing. He raised an eyebrow again.

“Oh, it’s an Alchemy thing. When rearranging molecules and energy through the art of Alchemy, the saying nothing lost, nothing gained really comes into play.”

“And that would explain the cot frame’s absence.” Portenda pulled his weapons off and arranged them around the room in the usual places. The only weapon he didn’t put back where he’d gotten it from, was the spear. Each night he changed its position, so that when he awoke the next morning, he would know a brand new day was starting outside. He had covered almost every inch of the main room, upside down and right side up with that spear. He had laid it every which way he could think of in his waking field of vision. Pretty soon, he would be out of options, have to set a spot aside for the spear and move on to the auto crossbow.

“This is an Alchemical symbol,” Jonah rattled, “known as a Focus Site. These symbols come in thousands of types—I believe.”

“You believe? I thought you knew what you were doing with all of this Alchemy business.”

“Chemical compositions and the making of potions, I’m very, very good at it. But the art of Focus Siting is something that is reserved for only the best and brightest, very secretive and well-guarded information. Most Alchemists give up after a few years, and settle into the routine of making potions, tinctures and powders. A select few, however,” he whispered, clearly admiring the power of the Focus Site as he stared at it. “A select few master the Focus Sites. And they go into the annals of scientific history. The first firearms were invented and produced by Alchemists. They had no idea how they would work, but their imaginations, and the power of the Sites created the first of the mecha weapons.” He wiped the symbol away with his sock. “Anyway, how was your job today?” He flopped onto his mattress with a heaving sigh.

“It wasn’t a job.” Portenda removed his leather armor and leaned against the wall next to one of the windows, looking out into the torch-lit streets of the city. “It was a meeting with a very trying man. A man I never want to speak to again.” He turned to ask Jonah if he wanted a new bed-frame the next day, but the Human was already fast asleep.

I’ll get one anyway, he thought.

Leaving Jonah, Portenda found the envelope from Roger resting on the right hand counter next to the sink, with the old, deaf Jaft’s one gold rent payment inside. He took the coin, and walked silently out into the hallway.

Moving on cat’s feet, he climbed to the roof of the apartment building, moving in a crouch to the edge of the roof. Taking the length of rope he kept tucked in a hidden compartment in the roof’s edging out, he tied it securely to an eyehook, one of many he’d had installed, and slowly descended down the side of the building. When he came level to Roger’s window, he looked at his pocket watch, pulling it out of his pants with one fluid motion. Nine thirty—Roger would be in bed. Portenda cranked the window open, peeked in and found Roger fast asleep on the other side of the room, opposite the window.

The Bounty Hunter eased himself inside the room, moving in a Ninja-like crouch. He had learned many of the techniques of the mysterious Ninja Class warrior-thieves, and found that they were best used in non-combat situations. Portenda preferred other martial arts systems, most belonging to the Monk Class, for confrontation. Ninjitsu just wasn’t suited for a man of his size and power and speed.

Stalking through the room, he knelt down next to old Roger’s dresser, and slipped the gold piece under it. Roger would wait patiently for three days, and then check under the dresser for his rent money. A few years ago, when the deaf Jaft elder had moved in, his grandson had helped him, and told Portenda that he wasn’t sure if his grandpa could continue to pay the rent for long. Portenda had said that he understood; the elderly Jaft had ten or eleven years left before age claimed him, and was too frail to work. He had told the young Jaft warrior that he could make arrangements.

For three years, Portenda had taken the same gold piece, and had secreted it back into Roger’s apartment each month. Often he left it under his dresser, but when Roger wasn’t home, he would slip it between the old man’s mattresses. Roger was a scavenger, and constantly checking his apartment from top to bottom for signs of intrusion. He always managed to find the extra gold piece and, his memory shot to Hells, he would wonder if his grandson had sent him money that he had simply forgotten.

The money planted, Portenda took a good look around the rooms, the bedroom, the kitchen, the den, and the empty spare bedroom. Portenda took a mental note to do some repairs on the apartment, seeing a good number of improvements that could be made. He had learned sign language from the old man over the course of a few months, and would come knocking and explain that it was about time to do inspections the next day. For now, though, he left the apartment silently, ascended the outer wall, and put the rope away. That accomplished, he sauntered to his apartment, and slipped into bed.

* * * *

Jonah awoke from his deep slumber, and found that he was looking up into darkness again. “Oh, Hells,” he muttered. “This again.”

He got no response.

Oh shit, he thought. He isn’t even going to give me a clue. Jonah stood perfectly still, trying to hone in on his sense of hearing. Without a sensory enhancement potion, he had difficulty.

He reached down for where he’d left his chemical belt lay at the foot of the mattress, and discovered that it, along with his rucksack, were gone. Or at least moved from where he’d left them.

One thing, however, remained to him.

He reached for the chalk in his pants pocket, grabbing it like an ice pick, and kneeling next to the mattress.

He tried to recall one particular symbol in the translations, hoping that he could draw it properly without his eyes to guide him.  He tried to concentrate, thinking back on the translations. The symbol he considered had been mentioned as an ‘extension creation’, though no explanation had been given except that the Alchemist should stand directly in the center of the Focus Site while activating it.

He used the chalk and, with great care, drew the Focus Site from memory.

He knew that Portenda had to be watching, but he didn’t care—this wasn’t just an exercise for his perception skills. It was testing of his capabilities and his ability to adapt to the situation.

Finishing his drawing, Jonah stepped into the center of the Site. He clapped his hands together, and pressed his palms to the Site, kneeling atop the symbol.

A harsh wind of force blew over him, feeling like a thousand dragons had just got together and decided to blow him over a cliff. His hair flew up over his head, and he had to hold the blindfold over his eyes to keep it from flying off as well.

Whispers echoed in his ears, voices that sounded thousands of years old, ancient and secret. The scent of burning plants swirled through his nostrils, flooding him with a sudden sense of dread. What had he done?

Pain ravaged his body, and Jonah dropped to the floor in a twitching writhing heap, his body convulsing back and forth. Drool slopped over the sides of his mouth, and from some faraway place he heard Portenda shouting his name.

Something coiled and grew in his arms, and he flopped onto his back, still shivering and shaking like a dying chicken. Something sprang forth from his flesh, spouting gouts of blood all over the apartment, the agony of the transformation nearly knocking him out.

After a long moment, he felt better, more capable. Jonah got to his feet, feeling the extensions in his arms as they slithered about.

Portenda, meanwhile, had pressed himself into the corner of the main chamber. He’d watched as Jonah had dropped to the ground. He had, an hour earlier, woken up and moved Jonah’s belongings to the library. He had known that something was in Jonah’s pocket, noting the lump when he removed the Human’s long knife. He had carefully removed it without waking Jonah, and decided to let the man keep it. After all, he had taken every other tool available to the young man, and Jonah had seemed so eager to try out these, what did he call them? Ah, yes, Focus Sites. Now the half Simpa watched in fascination and concern as verdant, spiked vines grew from Jonah’s body. When Jonah’s face contorted with pain, he called to the alchemist.

“Jonah,” he had screamed, trying to make himself louder than the rushing force that howled through the room. He failed, miserably, and watched as Jonah got to his feet.

Jonah, meanwhile, was amazed. His vine extensions received new sensations of touch, taste and smell.

He forced the vine from his left arm to extend further, and felt along the floor and eventually the far wall. Good, the wall near the counters and sink, he thought. He concentrated his will, focusing on that vine, and making it snake its way along the wall, touching the sink faucet and moving on. Metal had a strangely eerie, hostile feel when experienced through the senses of a plant.

“I never could have imagined,” he whispered, awed by alien sensations.

Portenda stood there, stunned into paralysis.

A minute later, the vine that Jonah had forced out made contact with Portenda’s right arm. Out of instinct, he spun away and brought his broadsword down through the vine.

“Haaaauuuuugh!” Jonah screamed. He dropped to his knees as green fluid and red blood flowed from the severed vine.

Portenda’s mind raced, and he realized that the vine was now essentially a part of Jonah.

Enough of this, the Simpa Bounty Hunter thought. He rushed to Jonah’s side, removing the blindfold and holding the frail Human on his feet.

“Jonah, come back to me,” Portenda said, his emotional control once more shattered. “Come on Jonah, snap out of it.” He slapped the alchemist lightly.

There was another whoosh, and the thorny right-hand vine lashed out, slashing Portenda’s leather armor open, tearing through even the lead plating that lined the interior of the armor.

Blood spilled over his front, but Portenda ignored it; it would heal over in a few minutes, though not as quickly as would a purebred Simpa.

The vines then retracted back into Jonah’s body in a flash of green and white light. Jonah opened his eyes and stood wobbling to his feet, clutching his forehead. “Incredible,” he whispered. “That was, incredible!” Then he noticed the Simpa had turned away from him. “What’s the matter? Portenda?”

“I should not have let you keep the chalk,” the Bounty Hunter said flatly.

Jonah was out of harm’s way, now, and he could think clearly. “Or at the very least, I should have left the blindfold off. I meant for you to find your belongings while avoiding the traps.” He went to the front door deadbolt and deactivating the traps in the apartment. “I don’t think I can train you any further.”

“Nonsense.” Jonah waved his arm in a dismissal. “You and I simply have different ways of doing things. Portenda, I’m an Alchemist. I always have been, and always will be. You’re, uh, I’m not clear as to what your Class is, but you’re obviously a warrior.” He took a seat on the edge of Portenda’s bed. “We cannot change what we essentially are. For example,” he said, grabbing one of his short sword creations. “I know how to use one of these, but not very well. I could be instructed further, certainly, but the point is, I’ll never be as good at this sort of thing as you.” He tossed it lightly to Portenda, who caught it deftly by the hilt. “Being a Bounty Hunter, I think, is not so much about Class and skills and training! It’s about the techniques of information collection, tracking, and tracing. Negotiation, deliberation and stalking. Those are the things I want you to show me, to teach me.”

There was a long silence, which Portenda finally broke after he retrieved a hunk of bread from his drawer.

“You know, most in the business would say that’s a load of shit,” he said coldly.

His eyes were unreadable to Jonah, whose senses were still taking a rocky trip back to normality.

“But you have a point. Some of my more capable colleagues are mages and clerics, or even thieves. But tradition, though traditions for Bounty Hunters mean little and have only been around thirty or so years, states that you need fighting skills.” He ate his bread silently, and slid the short sword back across the floor to Jonah.

“So where do we go from here?” Jonah asked.

“We go to the bookstore.” Portenda went into his library.

Jonah sat confused, and waited patiently for the Simpa to return.

Five minutes later, the bounty hunter came out with Jonah’s things and several dozen pouches of money tied to his waist. Jonah found himself staring at the regenerating wound, horrified that he had actually harmed the Bounty Hunter.

“I didn’t hurt you, did I,” the Human Alchemist asked sheepishly.

Portenda looked down as the wound finally closed shut, leaving a permanent scar behind.

“Just wounded my pride a little,” the Simpa replied with a wry grin. His eyes danced for a moment with life, and then returned to that ashen frost that Jonah had become accustomed to.

He caught his rucksack and belt as Portenda tossed them at him, strapping both on. “Come on. We’re going to go get you some books of your own.” Portenda opened the apartment door and waiting for Jonah to follow.

As Jonah exited, he cringed at the long holes that his vine extensions had torn in the walls.

“I hope your landlord isn’t too angry about the noise or the damage to the apartment,” Jonah said as Portenda locked, unlocked and locked the door again.

“I am the landlord,” Portenda replied simply.

Jonah spun on him, arms at his sides and his face wide with surprise.

“You own this building,” he nearly screamed. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Didn’t think it was worth mentioning. Besides,” Portenda said quietly. “It never came up.” The two stalked down the hallway, down the stairs, and out into the waking city of Ja-Wen. Jonah never noticed the eyes that watched them like a hawk.

* * * *

“Ah, good day again Mr. Portenda.” A creepy, raspy voice echoed through the dimly lit store as the Simpa and Jonah entered.

Jonah searched for the source of the voice, and a moment later, a little Goblin poked his head over the counter.

The Greenskin wore a fabulous tunic and robe, each decorated with yellow stars overlapping purple fabric. On his head, sat a strange, square cap, with a red, frayed tassel. Thick lenses made the little man’s eyes as large as an insect’s, and Jonah felt ill at ease under that stare.

“What can I do for you and your little friend?” the Goblin asked.

“Tell him.” Portenda pushed Jonah forward then stalked off to peruse the fiction section.

Jonah rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. Was Portenda going to pay for the books he wanted? He certainly hoped so, because Alchemy books dealing with Focus Sites were expensive.

“I need some textbooks on Alchemy,” Jonah said. “Focus Sites, mostly. Actually, that’s all I need—books on the art of Focus Sites.” He rushed his words in the hope that rushing would make the books appear faster.

The Goblin smiled and shook his head. “Those books are very, very expensive sir. Frankly, you don’t look like you can pay.”

“I’m paying.” Portenda slammed a stack of books on the counter. “Put his with these, Marvin.”

The Goblin grinned from ear to ear.

“Of course, Mr. Portenda.” He darted into a back room. A minute later, he returned, half a dozen tomes thicker than Portenda’s entire stack floating directly ahead of him.

A Goblin mage, Jonah thought with wonder. Now I’ve seen everything. The tomes floated down onto the counter and came to rest a full foot above the top of Portenda’s pile.

The two men looked at the stacks side by side, then to each other.

“I think we’re going to be busy for a couple of days,” Jonah said.

“Perhaps,” Portenda replied as the Goblin took out a sheet of paper and started calculating the total cost.

Portenda leaned in close to Jonah. “We were followed.”

“Three hundred and twenty-five gold pieces, Mr. Portenda,” Marvin said.

Portenda took six pouches off of his waist, and emptied another half pouch onto the counter.

“No need to count it,” the Goblin said, as Portenda prepared to open the first pouch and count it aloud. “I know you’re good for it.”

Portenda opened his rucksack, which he had emptied prior to coming, and shoved his fiction novels inside. Jonah opened his own rucksack, and found that he only had room for three of the alchemy books. By the time he’d figured that out, Portenda had already put four of the Focus Site tomes in his own rucksack, slinging it over his shoulders. Jonah took the remaining two and packed them away, also slinging his rucksack.

“So who’s following us?” Jonah asked.

“I’m not certain. But he’s tense. The smell of sweat is all over him. And his leather boots creak with every step he makes. His heart rate is threateningly fast right now.” Portenda headed slowly back toward the apartment building.

Jonah’s eyes were glued, at the moment, to a flower shop and its lamenting owner, an Elven man whose entire stock of plants were mysteriously missing. My god, Jonah thought, looking at his hands and then back at the flower shop. Is that where the vines came from? Transference, he thought. Nothing lost, nothing gained.

Portenda listened carefully, hearing the distant and slow sound of a mace clearing its holding loop. “Jonah, get ready. He’s making his move.”

Portenda walked toward an apple cart. The Gnome proprietor smiled at him brightly, revealing the few teeth in his black-gummed mouth.

“One silver piece, sir,” the Gnome said, then quickly tried to apologize. “Oh dear, sorry sir. I forgot your people don’t touch silver.”

Portenda gave the man a gold piece.

“Keep the change,” he said.

Jonah ducked as Portenda spun in toward him, hurtling the apple at full speed into the face of a charging Human.

The fruit exploded against his forehead, and he spiraled through the air feet first in a full circle, landing heavily on his face and chest.

Sprawled out on the dirt ground, Jonah recognized the man as the Human strong-arm thug that had accosted him with the half-Orc from the Flaming Tongue. These people just didn’t learn.

Portenda kicked the mace away from the man, who got to his hands and knees and touched his nose. His hand came away slick with blood.

Portenda hauled the man up into the air by his suspenders, holding him like an animal by the scruff. The strong-arm thug thrashed around, kicking and spitting, but Portenda grabbed one of his flailing feet and spun him around by it like a child’s toy.

When Portenda grabbed the same leg again, the man came to a stop and vomited.

“What are you doing,” Portenda asked.

Jonah looked around and saw that they had an audience.

“Um, Portenda, perhaps we should leave.” A few toughs in plaid work clothes came to the front of the audience, one of them a Sidalis, judging by the single horn protruding from his otherwise Human face. The other was a Minotaur with a woodcutting axe in his left hand. Lumberjacks, Jonah thought. Strong men, and I don’t want any part of them.

“Not yet,” Portenda said, a trace of menace in his voice. “Why were you attacking us?”

The man stammered as he tried to speak.

“I, uh, I just wanted the little guy,” the man said. “He, uh, he, uh, he threatened me the other day, yeah, that’s it. He’s a freak.” The man pointed an accusing finger at Jonah.

Portenda tapped a spot on the back of the man’s neck with a single finger.

“Hey, what the heck was that?”

“I’ve struck your min-nori key point. Pressure is going to start building in your spinal cord.”

The man felt a sudden inflammation at the point where Portenda had struck him.

“The fluids have been cut off from your brain. If I do not release the pressure in a few minutes, you will have an uncomfortable experience. It is a rather painful way to die. I have done this because you are lying. Your nervousness, the stammer of your speech, and the sudden intake of air before you spoke gave you away. I don’t like being lied to.”

The Human shook as the min-nori key point swelled further with blocked fluids.

“All right. Me and my buddy, Tugot tried to jump the little nerd the other night. He set my buddy on fire and he was gonna kill me!”

“Fitting. You’d have done the same to him, had you been given the chance.” Portenda struck the min-nori key point again and let the man drop to the ground, alive.

The Human rubbed his neck and stared at the Simpa in awe.

Portenda brought one heavy foot up, and sent it crashing down in a violent thrust kick, breaking the man’s kneecap.

The Human screamed, and the spectators all stepped back from the Simpa and the Alchemist.

Rolling over and trying to hug his leg, the broken Human just moaned and congealed on the ground.

Constables came running toward them, and Jonah feared that these people, more afraid of him and Portenda than anything else, would accuse them of starting the fight.

One of the constables, a stalwart looking Dwarf, stopped only two feet shy of Portenda.

“Oi, wot’s all this den,” he asked the crowd as a whole, hefting a battle-axe toward the Bounty Hunter.

Jonah stepped forward to explain, but the Sidalis with the horn in his forehead spoke first.

“That man,” he pointed at the broken Strong Arm Thug, “attacked these two with that mace.” He pointed now to the weapon that Portenda had kicked away. “But the big fella here pegged him with an apple before he could swing, took him down pretty easy.”

The crowd, on the whole, muttered their agreement. The Dwarf looked up at Portenda and gave him a scowling grunt.

“Roit, then. Boys, haul this one to jail,” he said, indicating the man on the ground with a bob of his head. He took a step closer to Portenda, standing only up to the Simpa’s waistline. “And as fer you, Bounty Hunter.” He spit the words as though they left a foul taste in his mouth. “I’ve always got an eye on you.”

“Must make it difficult to do your job then,” Jonah said before he could stop himself.

The Dwarf whirled on him, and Jonah stumbled backward, tripping on his own feet. As he got to one knee, the Dwarven constable gave him that same withering glare as he’d given Portenda.

“Don’t go gettin’ woise wif me, boyoh.” The Dwarf patted his axe handle in his free palm. “You wouldn’t loik spendin’ a week in lockup fer bein’ a woise arse, would ye?”

Jonah shook his head fervently.

“I’ll be watching out fer you too, boy.” He walked away with his two men in tow, the unconscious Human between them.

As soon as the constables disappeared from view, Jonah heard hands clapping, slowly at first, and then gaining momentum as the crowd joined in. He was confused, but Portenda just stood there, raising an eyebrow of inquiry.

“I don’t get it,” he whispered to Portenda.

“Nor do I,” Portenda whispered back.

The Sidalis extended a hand that each took and shook in turn. “Geez, it’s great to finally have someone who’s willing to stand up for people around here.” The mutant flickered in and out of view for an instant.

“What do you mean?” Jonah asked.

The Sidalis looked around at the crowd, most of whom were going back to their business.

“This is Ja-Wen, man. Nobody stands up for the common people. The police are a joke, and half of them are in the pockets of the brigands and gangs that actually control this city. And you guys just took that guy down like it was nothing. Well, you did,” the mutant amended, looking up at Portenda the Quiet’s ashen eyes. “Is it true? Are you a Bounty Hunter?”

“I am the Bounty Hunter, Portenda the Quiet,” the Simpa whispered.

He turned to Jonah. “Let’s head back. We have studying to catch up on.”

The pair walked away, and Jonah turned back to wave good-bye to the Sidalis, finding that the man had disappeared again. Sidalis and their mutant powers fascinated Jonah, but for now, he had other things to be curious about.

When they got back to the apartment, Portenda emptied his rucksack on his bed, handing Jonah his tomes one by one, so he could stack them against the peeling paint of the wall next to his mattress. “You really ought to think about redecorating,” Jonah said. “This place is so barren.”

“I’m a minimalist. Besides, I need the room to practice.”

“I understand, but some more decoration would add some flavor to the place. I mean, this is your home.” He spread his arms wide to indicate the apartment as a whole. “You own the building, so why not fix the place up? Maybe get yourself some creature comforts. A couple of chairs would be nice, for instance, instead of always sitting on the bed or the floor.”

“They would just take up space,” Portenda retorted. “I’m not going to waste money on things I do not require.”

He sat on his bed, put on his reading glasses, selected a book at random, and started reading. “Now leave me be for a while. I’ll get another cot frame from the basement this evening.”

“Oh, all right.” Jonah selected the first tome in the series, and opened it.

Each page in the first book he had opened had a large drawing of a Focus Site up top, with an explanation below, written in fine cursive handwriting.

For most of the rest of the day the two sat like that, occasionally getting up to grab food or use the bathroom. Near evening, Portenda set his book aside and put his glasses down, rubbing his eyes as he left without a word.

Jonah, ever the speed-reader and having a keen knack for retaining information, had finished the first tome after eight consecutive hours of reading. He too rubbed his eyes, and resolved to go with his translations of the Cuyotai text, to the diner where he had agreed to meet Nareena.

He glanced at his timepiece; he had a half an hour to get there, and would have to leave right now. He scribbled a quick note for the Bounty Hunter, and left it on his bed.

Curiously, he didn’t see Portenda on his way out of the building, but remembered that he had gone down to grab a new cot frame.

He probably had to assemble it yet, Jonah thought, whistling to himself as he made his way through the dusty, mostly uninhabited streets of the city.

Odd, he thought, that so few people were out this evening.

Shrugging it off as just an early night for most people, he walked all the way to the diner, and entered the building without halting.

The torches were unlit as he stepped into the reception area. He looked over to the left, expecting the bubbly girl to be waiting for the next customer, but nobody was there. None of the serving trays at the buffet had any food in them, either; it was as though the whole place had just been very quietly abandoned.

Jonah crept through to the main dining hall, where a single figure, dressed in a shimmering purple dress, sat waiting for him. At least Nareena had shown up.

But the look on her face told him right away that she was troubled by dark thoughts.

He sat across from her and inhaled. The scent of her jasmine perfume warmed him in a way he hadn’t felt since they had parted the day before. “I have your translations for you.” He pulled out his notebook and the yellow Cuyotai text.

She gnawed at her lip nervously, casting a suspicious glance around the room.

“What’s with you,” he asked in a whisper. “What’s going on in this town?”  Talonz let out a series of short, sharp caws like mocking laughter, shaking his head knowingly. 

“It’s collections night,” she rasped at him. “You haven’t been here long, and neither have I, but I have friends here. They told me this would happen.” She held out a small tube that had been attached to her crow’s foot. “Oh, and this is yours. I think it’s from your sister.”

Jonah simply pocketed the tube, and looked around the dining hall.

“What the devil’s collections night?”

“It’s the night when the gangs all come out of hiding and collect money from anyone they see, and any business they can get into.” She pulled a vial out of her sash, filled with a bubbling yellow liquid. “Jonah, I wish there was enough of this stuff for the both of us. But I have to look out for myself. You understand, don’t you?” Tears ran down her cheeks.

“I’ll just head back to the apartment,” he said, just before he heard a woman shriek outside in terror.

“You don’t understand, Jonah. Even the guards stay inside on collections night.” She uncorked the bottle and drank its contents. A moment later, she vanished. Her crow cawed again in mock laughter, and took wing out of the building.

Invisibility potion, good one, he thought.

“Jonah, if they find you, they’re going to kill you.”

His heart sank. These brigands would just kill a man for a few gold coins? He had to think of a plan, and think of one quickly, because a moment later, he heard Nareena push open the diner doors, and leave.

Oh gods, he thought. What am I going to do?

* * * *

Portenda re-entered the apartment, adjusted the cot frame and set the mattress.

He scanned the main room—no sign of Jonah. He walked over to the doorway into the library—still no Jonah. And the bathroom door was wide open.

He decided that the Human had simply nicked off for a quick walk. Until he looked outside of the window, and saw that the streets were empty. Ah, that’s right, he thought. “Collections night.”

Portenda the Quiet didn’t even bother to close the door behind him as he burst out of his apartment.

* * * *

A window somewhere nearby shattered, and Jonah cowered behind the diner’s check-in desk.

How could he get himself out of this mess? He had left his vials and chemicals back at the apartment! All he had was his long knife, his wits, and a piece of chalk. If he attempted a Focus now, however, he would be under attack before he could take a second step toward getting home.

His real home, he thought, was a little house in Desanadron, where his mother, father and sister would be more than willing to take him back. Ja-Wen and this whole Bounty Hunting business was starting to look terminal.

Then he heard something else, a sound he hadn’t expected to hear from the gruff, uncaring voices of the brutes in the streets. “Holy shit! Andre, Andre! Get some backup over here, this guy just tore Vinny in half!”

There was a loud crunching noise, followed by the vague tremor in the air that Jonah had started noticing whenever there was violence in his vicinity.

He slunk out from behind the check-in booth and crawled to the door of the building. Opening it ever so slightly, he peered out into the dark streets to find Portenda standing there, his broadsword soaked in blood.

A pair of bodies, one bent in ways Orcs weren’t meant to be bent and one cleaved cleanly in half on the diagonal, lay at the Bounty Hunter’s feet.

Jonah watched as the vicious, efficient Bounty Hunter sniffed at the air. His eyes caught Jonah’s for an instant before another thug, a Jaft in chain mail armor, flew at the Simpa out of the shadows. The two went down in a frenzying heap, rolling back and forth, struggling for possession of the sword.

Jonah’s heart skipped a beat; he had distracted Portenda by catching his eyes. He had to help.

No sooner had Jonah stepped outside than a thick, splintered baseball bat slammed him in the chest, sending him coughing and sprawling back inside and to the floor of the diner.

A smush-faced Illeck entered after him, bat in hand. The dark Elf brought the wood up over his head, ready to strike.

Before Portenda had arrived, Jonah had prepared a number of Focus Sites on the diner floor, for defensive purposes.

Rolling to his right, avoiding what could have been a skull-splitting strike, Jonah hefted himself up to one knee and clapped his hands together. He then slammed the palms down hard on a Focus Site that was little more than a triangle with a circle inside, and another triangle inside of that circle.

The basic effect, he had read in the tome earlier, was to create a barrier capable of being used as a weapon.

Jonah had used the chemical symbol for iron, writing it in small letters at the north-facing point of the outer triangle. The now familiar rush of force and energy filled the room, and Jonah suddenly stood behind a large, rolling iron cage wall covered with spikes.

The Illeck slowly backed away.

No use, Jonah thought with a grim satisfaction. A second set of spikes was moving toward the dark Elf man from behind. He was going to be crushed.

But Jonah wasn’t certain how long that would take, and he now couldn’t see Portenda, thanks to his own clever trap.

“To Hells with it,” he muttered. He sprinted to the wall to his right, where he had already drawn another Focus Site, this one generally referred to as the ‘Blasting Focus’. Jonah pressed his left palm to it, and as the force blew his hair back over his head, the concrete wall exploded open in a shower of meteor-fast debris.

Several goons were struck and knocked to the ground by bits of flying wall. Without waiting to see whether the blows killed them, Jonah raced around to the front of the diner, and found that Portenda now stood over the Jaft who had tackled him.

The man had been clawed and torn apart, so severely that even his Racial regeneration wouldn’t keep him alive. A set of wicked tooth marks pocked his throat where Portenda had bitten him, tearing his throat open and killing him. Thick, foul-smelling Jaft blood ran down Portenda’s leather armor and his arms and face. He had the appearance of a maddened killer on the outside, but the sparks in his eyes told a different story: he was disappointed. Then he looked over and spotted Jonah, just as an earth-shattering shriek of agony exploded from the diner, accompanied by the sound of metal scraping on metal. Ah, Jonah thought, the spike walls.

“Jonah, are you all right?” Portenda asked as the frail, skinny Human approached.

Jonah rubbed his sore ribs. “Nothing a little rest and a potion can’t cure. Can we go home now?”

When they got back into the apartment, Jonah asked why the door hadn’t been shut.

“No time,” Portenda said flatly, removing his armor and walking into the bathroom for a quick shower. Jonah was fast asleep by the time he got out, clutching his pillow like a child would a stuffed animal. It must have been quite an ordeal for him, Portenda thought, rubbing his face with his rough towel. The Simpa read a little bit, then hit the rack himself.

* * * *

Jonah sat up on the cot, rubbing his temple. A nagging feeling that not all was right with the world hit him like a ton of bricks.

The letter, he thought, half-asleep still. He reached into his pocket for the tube, and popped it open as he watched Portenda go through some sort of unarmed movement exercises. Jonah opened the letter, which appeared to be very short, and written in his mother’s handwriting, not his sister’s. The contents of the letter woke Jonah up faster than any coffee or exercise ever could.

Jonah’s family had always been caring people, open and inviting. His father, though a Soldier for most of his natural life, was a fair man, and often allowed drifters and adventurers passing through Desanadron into his home for the evening. His mother had never questioned the intentions of young people who wished to stay with them, only keeping a closer eye on Eileen, who was young, naive, and given to ideas of romance.

Several days before Jonah’s letter reached them, the letter said, a man dressed in sky blue robes and smelling of sea salt had asked to stay with them. He was familiar, Jonah’s mother had written hastily, though they didn’t know why. The man had taken the bedroom that had been Jonah’s. The extra room in the attic had been made into a storage room for his father’s things collected from the battlefields over the years. In a frantic scrawl, the letter said that when Jonah’s parents woke the next morning, the stranger and Eileen had both vanished. Eileen’s room had been in tatters, and there was blood on the bed and the floor leading to the window.

His sister had been abducted.

Jonah sat in stunned silence, his hands shaking so bad that they made the parchment sound like a maraca.

“Jonah,” Portenda looked up from cleaning his armor in the sink. ”What’s the matter?”

Jonah just sat there, tears rushing down his cheeks unbidden.

“Jonah?”

The dam burst, and Jonah wailed like an injured child, covering his face with the letter as he crumbled forward, folding himself in half. His body was entirely wracked with remorse and fear.

Portenda gently negotiated the letter from his grip and pored over it before folding it neatly and setting it on Jonah’s pillow. Then the Bounty Hunter disappeared into the library for a few minutes, and Jonah started to pack his things. He had to go home, now. Forget about training, forget about Alchemy, just get home and start looking for his sister.

A minute later, Portenda returned into the main room with an odd, yellow rucksack. He tossed it at Jonah, who caught it more out of reflex than anything.

“What’s this,” he asked, drying one eye with the back of his hand.

“Enchanted bag. Holds anything. Pack your things.” Portenda strapped the last of his weapons, the ancient mecha pistol, into its holster. “We’ve got a job to do.” His gray, ashen eyes shimmered with anticipation.

“What the devil do you mean?” Jonah grabbed the letter and waving it in Portenda’s face. “I have other things to do right now! I have to leave, I have to go—”

“Home. Desanadron. I know.” Portenda opened the door to his apartment. “We have to get your sister back.”

Jonah couldn’t stop himself from throwing his arms as far around the Simpa as he could in appreciation.

Portenda just stood there, cool and calm as an iceberg, holding the apartment door open.

After a moment, Jonah, more than a little embarrassed about his response to Portenda’s offer of aid, took a few steps back and rubbed the back of his head awkwardly.

“Um, look, about that,” he stammered, but Portenda put his hand against Jonah’s face, covering it entirely with his huge paw.

“Forget it. Let’s go.” He gently shoved Jonah out into the hallway, then stepped out himself and locked up. Finally, Portenda pulled a piece of parchment out of one of his many pockets, and jammed a throwing knife through it, pinning it to the door.

The parchment had a skull and crossbones drawn on it, with the words ‘Back Whenever’ underneath.

Together, the Human and the Simpa darted out of the building, and into the streets of Ja-Wen. Portenda led the way, and Jonah followed, unsure where they were headed, and not really caring, as long as they got to Desanadron as quickly as possible.