I headed up the stairs and found my room, which was small even by Marine Corps’ standards. There was a twin bed with a pitifully thin goose down mattress, a worn set of drawers, and a chest. On top of the drawers was a vase filled with dried pussy willows, and over by the window on a low table was a porcelain washbasin with a pitcher of water, a stained rag, and a chipped silver mirror.

Jeez, if this was the top of the line, I didn’t want to know what everyone else was sleeping on. Hay? Straw? The floor?

I carefully laid my weapons and leather pouch on the bed, then pulled Renholm from my satchel and placed him gently on the nightstand. The pixie was still asleep, and alive based on his soft snores. His belly was almost back to normal, but he looked bigger than the last time I’d seen him. Could be my mind playing tricks on me, but I would’ve sworn he’d grown an inch at least since consuming the scale.

“He has grown,” came a voice from behind. I spun, pulling my Colt from the bed and leveling it at the intruder.

“Shit, Cal, I thought we’d talked about this?” I lowered the muzzle and tossed the pistol back onto the bed.

“Hey, don’t get butthurt about it,” he said with a shrug. “I wasn’t even trying to scare you that time. Do you have any idea how hard it is to not scare someone when you’re a ghost? Trust me, if I just materialized out of the air in front of you it wouldn’t make it any better. Maybe you’re just jumpy.”

“Yeah, I’m jumpy,” I snapped. “I’m starting to think this isn’t just some crazy morphine trip, which means that I died and I’m in another world, and oh, did I mention that there’s a serial killer monster I’m supposed to hunt down? Then add on the fact that I have a drunk pixie on my nightstand and a dead friend who bails on me whenever I actually need help.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” he said, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Turns out, the daylight is a real son of a bitch on ghosts. I tried to follow you out of the cave, but my body just unraveled around me.” He snapped his fingers. “Gone like that. My ass got booted back to the Etheric Realm until I could manifest enough mojo to pop back into existence. Took some doing, believe you me.”

“I guess that isn’t entirely your fault then.” I dropped onto the edge of the mattress with a groan. “That also squares with what Renholm said. He told me about these things called Mortka, which basically encompasses all of the crazy-ass monsters that apparently call this world home sweet home. But he also said there are different families of monsters, and purely spirit-based ones survive entirely off of Raw Affinity. Here, give this a try and see if it doesn’t help.” I reached into the leather coin purse and plucked out one of the lesser Hunger Scales. “Eat it slowly, though,” I said. “I gave one to Renholm and he’s been passed out since.”

I dropped the Scale into Cal’s extended hand and was momentarily surprised when it didn’t just phase through his ghostly palm. He looked at it for the briefest moment, then popped it into his mouth like it was a potato chip and bit down. A flare of crimson light washed through the room, so bright it was blinding. When the flash dimmed and vanished a second later, Cal looked more solid than he had a few moments before, and the majority of the burns and scars covering his face and hands were gone. He reeled uncertainly, stumbling around for a beat before taking a seat on the edge of the bed beside me.

“Balls. What was in that?” he asked, sounding dazed.

“Ghost food, I guess?” I replied with a shrug. “You okay?”

“Yeah, but what a rush. Remember when you went home on leave right after we hit the Fleet?”

“Sure. Carlie was getting married.”

“Well, while you were gone, me and Castro hit up Tijuana on a long weekend. Someone slipped me something in a drink and even that didn’t hit as hard as whatever you just gave me. I’m lightheaded and I have the worst case of munchies.” There was a dark glint in his eye as he looked at me, here then gone in a blink.

I stood and gave him some distance. I vividly recalled how hungry I’d felt after consuming one of the scales, and I damn sure didn’t want to be on the receiving end of that hunger.

“You learn anything useful while you were cooling your heels in ye olde spirit realm?” I asked.

“Bunch of stuff, actually,” he said. “Apparently, I’m here because you asked for me to be your spirit guide. Practically begged for me to tag along is the way I heard it.”

“What?” I said while pulling off the clunky armor. It reeked just like everything else, and the leather didn’t breathe for shit. “That doesn’t sound like me. Also, you’d make a terrible spirit guide. Why would I pick you?”

“Wow, I’m standing right here, dude. And, though it should be obvious, the reason you picked me is because of the power of friendship. But you’re not definitely not wrong about me being a terrible spirit guide. Don’t tell anyone,” he whispered conspiratorially, “but I have no clue what I’m doing.”

“Yeah, I gathered as much.”

“Hey, you can’t be pissed about this, Boyd. I’m telling you, dude, you brought this upon yourself. Do you vaguely recall a weird cosmic being of unimaginable power with five faces?”

“Barely,” I said, screwing up my face as I thought. Fact was, I did sort of remember having a brief run-in with something… vast was the only word my mind could conjure up. But the details were all hazy and jumbled in my head, like a dream half remembered from the night before.

“Yeah, they told me you probably wouldn’t remember much,” he said, “which I thought was weird, because it seems like coming face-to-face with a weird cosmic being of unimageable power would be a tough thing to forget. Turns out the human brain isn’t really equipped to handle the complexities of ultimate reality, which is why you have weird amnesia. But spirits like me are transcendent, so we don’t have the same physical limitations as someone still attached to a meat suit.”

“Not sure how I feel about the phrase ‘meat suit,’” I replied. “That aside, are you telling me that you’re some kind of liaison between me and the cosmic space gods?”

“Pretty much! And like I said, you requested me by name. Apparently, they wanted you to have a more experienced ghost to show you the ropes, but you were like ‘suck my balls, interdimensional space gods. Either Cal comes or I’m walking.’ Super cool move, dude. Really appreciate you going out on a limb like that for me.”

“What the hell was I thinking?” I said, rubbing at my temple. “I mean, I’m glad you’re here, but you don’t know anything more than I do, and you failed Land Nav three times in Infantry School. You couldn’t guide your way out of a goddamned barracks room with one door.”

“That hurts, Boyd. I mean, you’re not wrong, but it still hurts. I may not have a body anymore, but my feelings are still completely intact. And for the record, it’s not my fault that I’m a terrible spirit guide. It’s not like they gave me a user manual.”

I sighed. “Well, is there anything useful you can tell me?”

“Uh yeah. They told me to tell you that you’re supposed to find a priest.”

“Wait. That’s it?” I asked. “They didn’t tell you why I’m here or what I’m supposed to do, or why I woke up naked in a monster cave with a magic gun?”

“Hey, man, they don’t tell me shit. It’s worse than being a lance corporal. They kept going on about cosmic games and rules and how they can’t interfere directly and free will and a bunch of other stuff that sounded way above my pay grade. What it boiled down to was, we aren’t going to tell you shit, and the shit we do tell you is going to be super vague and pretty much useless. So go find a priest to explain everything.”

“Great, so it’s just like dealing with officers,” I mumbled. “The bartender downstairs did mention there was a priest hanging around these parts. Some guy named Arbitrator Arturo. Based on your very unhelpful information, I’m guessing that’s the priest I’m supposed to find. I’m just going to get cleaned up and then you and I can go pay him a visit. Give me ten?”

“Hey, you don’t have to ask me twice,” Cal said. “After today, I’ve seen enough of your pasty ass to last me a lifetime. I’ll be down in the common room—that bard chick is hotter than a car fire.”

I gasped.

“What, too soon?” Cal said with a smirk. “It’s my face that melted off, I can joke about it if I want to. See you in ten.” He shot me a wave and winked out of existence.

Finally by myself, I untied my rope belt and peeled off my stinking trousers. I had to laugh. I was ankle deep in rabbit’s blood and dirt from the road and I smelled like the inside of a sweaty gym shoe. It was no wonder everyone and their mother had been looking at me as if I were a psycho killer recently escaped from the psych ward. If I saw someone wandering through a grocery store covered in blood and carrying a machete, I would’ve had concerns as well.

I poured a couple of handfuls of water from the pitcher into the basin and splashed some across my face and neck. I’d only been on the road for a day, but the grime was a quarter of an inch thick. The water was dirt-gray in seconds. There was nowhere for it to go but out the window. When in Rome and all that. I checked before I slopped my water over the sill, but there was someone down there grumbling and swearing and shaking their fist at me. Whoopsie.

I poured a second round of water and hunted for a toothbrush. Soap, I could do without, at least for now. Toothpaste wasn’t an absolute necessity. But a toothbrush is a thing of great beauty and my only weakness. Naturally, there wasn’t anything close to a toothbrush to be found. I gingerly snapped off a small branch from the decorative pussy willows, frayed the stick, and made a feeble attempt to brush my pearly whites.

I checked myself in the battered mirror. Oh shit. What the hell? I dropped the stick but held onto the mirror.

My irises were red and smoldering like burning coals. That wasn’t natural. Then there was my hair. It was gold. Not yellow or blond. Gold. Like shimmering gold, spun by Rumpelstiltskin himself, which caught the feeble candlelight and reflected it back. And splashed across my forehead like a neon sign was a golden tattoo. Some weird symbol I’d never seen before. I ran my finger over the image, waiting for its meaning to come to me. Honestly, I was hoping for a pop-up or maybe some sort of character screen, but none were forthcoming.

Perfect. I’d just add that to the ever-growing list of bizarre questions I needed to have answered. I was marked. But by whom and to what end?

I rubbed at the golden mark, but it didn’t budge. I hunted for a cloth or a towel, anything I could scrub with, but the drawers were filled with scrap papers and bits of leftover crap from someone else’s life. I grabbed my dirty trousers and dipped the waistband into the bowl of water, held the mirror up to my face, and scoured the gold mark as hard as I could. The harder I scrubbed, the brighter it got. This was totally not going my way.

Just what I needed. How was I supposed to keep a low profile with a golden mark like the beacon of Gondor burning right on my forehead? A sharp rap at the door drew me away from my thoughts and from the mirror in my hand.

“Yeah, just a second,” I called.

The knock came again, sharper and more insistent this time.

“Hold your horses.” I headed for the door and pulled it open—Maggie was waiting for me with a parcel of clothes in her hands. She gave me a long appraising eye, head to toe. It was only then that I realized I was buck naked. Again.

She smirked before turning and swaying away. She was cute in that medieval cosplayer kind of way, and the look she gave me said she was interested in what I was offering. That interest went both ways, but at the moment I had bigger concerns than chasing tail, even if it was a cute tail. I needed a priest, and then I needed to figure out how to deal with the monster hunting the streets of Ironmoor. After that, maybe she and I could revisit the subject.

The clothes she’d brought me didn’t fit particularly well, too baggy in the legs, the shirt too tight in the chest, and the boots felt about half a size too small. They were leaps and bounds better than the dirty linen pants I’d pilfered from the Crave Ghouls, though. My armor was still stained and gross, but I used the ratty trousers to wipe down the leather as best I could. By the time I was done, the washbowl was filled with muddy red water and bits of gristle.

Gross, but nothing I could do about it. Out the window that went too.

I checked my K-Bar, still in good shape—the edge actually seemed sharper than before if that was possible—and slipped it through a rough belt that went outside my armor. Next, I inspected the Colt. I pulled the clip and popped the slide, ejecting the round in the chamber and clearing the gun. I’d spent ample time on firing ranges, and I knew a lot about guns and a lot about bullets. As a result, I knew that the Colt wasn’t a gun and the round wasn’t a bullet, at least not in any way I was familiar with.

When I tried to disassemble the pistol, I got stuck almost immediately. I didn’t even know where to begin with everything that was wrong with the Colt. No guide rod, no recoil spring. There was an extractor, but no firing pin. A lot of the external properties of the weapon looked legit, and even seemed to function identically to a regular service Colt, but the interior was a nonsensical mess. Aside from the missing pieces, there were runes, crystals, and a series of odd glass lenses. Even at a casual glance, I knew there was no way this weapon should work or fire.

I also knew from experience that it did both.

The rounds were just as bizarre.

No cartridge case, gunpowder, primer, or even bullet. It looked like a round, but it was all one solid piece and as far as I could tell it was made entirely out of energy. I could sense the arcane thrum of Hunger Affinity radiating from the round in my hand. Slowly, I popped rounds out of the mag. A max load should’ve been seven rounds—eight including one in the chamber—but this mag held thirteen. Which was as impossible as the gun itself. The weapon looked like a Colt, fired like a Colt, and acted like a Colt, but it was something completely different.

With a thought, I pulled up the weapon’s stats.

>>

Peacemaker

Type: Planar Colt 1911; Soul Bound

Class: Fatemarked

Ability: Soul Summon

Primary Effects:

Upgradeable; See Soul Vault Arcana Foci: This item acts as a metaphysical focal point allowing you to channel raw Arcana into deadly force projectiles. Affinity Consumption: Consume Affinity Scales and channel their primary affinity into force projectiles of the same type.

Temporary Effects:

Hunger Affinity Rounds (13): Upon impact, force projectiles eat through an additional portion of the target’s passive life force, healing your wounds in the process.

>>

Arcana Foci, I read. This item acts as a metaphysical focal point allowing you to channel raw Arcana into deadly force projectiles. I hated to admit it to myself, but it sounded like my gun wasn’t a gun, but rather a magical wand in the shape of a gun. This is that Harry Potter thug life, I thought. Dollars to donuts Voldemort wouldn’t have lived so long if Harry Potter had come at him with a magical gat instead of the power of friendship.

Honestly, as long as it killed things, I didn’t really care about the how.

I reassembled the pistol, reloaded the mag, and slipped it into the small of my back. At some point I’d need to find a holster, but that was way down on the list of priorities. For now, I had clothes, boots, basic body armor, a place to rest, and I wasn’t covered in the fetid blood of a cave monster anymore. A thousand percent improvement compared to the situation I’d woken up to. Now it was time to collect Cal and find myself a priest.