It was less of a plan and more of a strategy really. The end goal was clear though—get out of the pub alive and without issue. The former part was probably the hardest, as the latter would probably follow naturally. The first step was, apparently, arm wrestling.

There was obviously a disconnect between Liam and Travis. While they looked similar, and perhaps had similar values, Liam seemed more outgoing and adventurous. Travis was the one that made Albert nervous. The man clearly thought things through faster than Liam did, assuming Liam thought them through at all. And while Liam seemed interested in exercising his brawn to solve all of his problems, Albert had no idea just how intelligent Travis actually was or how the man planned to take advantage of the situation he now found himself in.

Amid the animosity between Graham and the two men, and the jeering of the small crowd, and the intimidating presence of the two men that may well have both been contractors, Albert saw only a handful of things clearly. Foremost, they would punish Graham in whatever way they could, most likely by making Albert suffer and Graham fail at his job in the process. Underlying that, they seemed to be just as invested in using their two guests to their advantage. They wanted something. The determination in Liam’s stance as he stood ready to prove his strength spoke of both a sporting love of battle and also of a desire to accomplish a goal. Albert felt, in his gut, that that goal was his key to achieving his own goal of peaceful departure.

But Albert wasn’t going to learn anything about anything if all he did was stand there and size his opponent up. He already knew he’d lose. But what he wasn’t sure about was what would happen if he did. As Albert locked his hand into the grip of Liam’s much larger hand, he glanced over to the contract he’d signed that Travis still held in his hand. There had been nothing in it about stipulations on what would happen if he won or lost in a contest. But arm wrestling hardly even seemed like a contest of courage to begin with, which was why Albert had accepted it so easily. If it didn’t matter if he won or not, then why was he even doing it in the first place?

“You ready, kid?” Liam said, his face dominated by his eager smile.

“Sure, give me a countdown.” Albert responded evenly.

“Alright. On go. Three…” Liam began.

The small crowd picked up the countdown instinctively, and Albert could hardly hear Liam amid their voices. He only saw the man’s mouth move as he steadied his body.

“Two. One.” The crowd roared. “Go!”

Albert had kept his arm tense up to that moment. He had flexed gently against the might of Liam’s grip, giving the man the impression that he’d be trying his hardest. But as soon as the crowd said ‘go’ he had let his arm go limp. The impact against the wooden bar counter was hard. Albert’s knuckles felt like they might have splintered a little bit, but it was mostly just that sharp and cold pain that happens when you hit something as fast as you can, and then there was the dull warm pain and soreness that lingered afterwards.

“Wow.” Albert said with a chuckle. “You really are as strong as you look.”

The crowd had gone begun to roar in excitement as soon as they’d said go, but as soon as they had there was hardly a moment to spare before Albert’s hand hit the wood and they had all stopped. The pub had gone into a dead quiet, only Albert’s absent-minded laughter echoed through the space. And that space felt instantly smaller and deadlier.

“What?” Albert asked, a hint of laughter still in his voice.

That laughter was calculated though, he had to put on a good show or he wouldn’t be able to get away without actually trying to compete. And after that first show of force from Liam, Albert knew that applying any strength of his own would end badly. Liam would overpower him just as easily but also probably break something in the process.

“You didn’t even try.” Liam growled. His mood had immediately soured.

“I’d rather not tear anything trying.” Albert retorted. “And I doubt I could win anyway. Have yo seen my arms? Or your arms, for that matter?”

The veiled compliment was an intentional appeal to Liam’s ego, though Albert wasn’t sure how effective that would be.

“That’s not how the game is supposed to be played. You’re supposed to show courage, not cave at the slightest challenge.” Liam hissed.

“Sometimes it takes courage to admit you’re weak.” Albert said with shrug. “And besides, an arm wrestling match is hardly a game of courage. If you’re willing to try something with some real guts to it, I have a better option.”

Liam exchanged a look with Travis. The more careful man shrugged, as if to say I was going to warn you that your idea was dumb. Albert picked up that much at least, but there was something else there too that he couldn’t quite decipher. Something mildly affectionate, warning, maybe even a threat. It was an odd mix of emotions. None of them well concealed at all.

“Fine.” Liam assented. “What did you have in mind?”

“There’s been a game I’ve wanted to try out for a while now—” Albert began, before turning to Graham who had been glaring quietly from the inner fringes of the crowd. “Graham, do you have a knife on you?”

“Of course I do.” Graham said with a roll of his eyes as he produced a long straight bladed dagger from somewhere within his heavy coat. “I always have a few on me.”

“You wouldn’t happen to have a second identical one?” Albert asked, hopeful. It would make the game seem more fair if the knives were the same, but they didn’t have to be.

“Maybe.” Graham raised an eyebrow, now uncertain with how events were taking a turn.

“I better explain my game, first. Shouldn’t I.” Albert mumbled to himself, but loudly enough that everyone could hear. “You see, the goal is not to flinch. But the game is designed to make that very likely. In order to play, we each place our hands flat down on the table, palms down. And then we select someone we don’t know well and don’t trust not to hurt us, and they get the knife. Our strangers have to stab the knives down between our fingers—starting with the gap between thumb and index finger and moving back and forth—and at any time either of us can announce faster. When either of us does that, both strangers have to pick up the pace.”

“Ah…” Travis hummed as he took in the game in. “You want to play five finger fillet… with a twist.”

“Oh, we can make that happen.” Liam cackled. “We get to pick our strangers, right?”

“Yes. But they do need to be strangers.” Albert clarified. “You can’t pick Travis, for instance.”

“And you can’t pick Graham.” Liam said with a confident but slow nod of his head.

“Actually, I can.” Albert corrected, as he gestured to Graham to come back to the bar. “And I do. You see, I met Graham for the first time last night. We’ve hardly talked at all and I know nothing about the man apart from his most surface layer temperament and obligations.”

Travis narrowed his eyes at Albert, now fully aware of what he was playing at. Albert, acknowledging the glare, merely shrugged.

“I also have no clue if Graham is even good with a knife.” Albert added. “He could be very sloppy. Collectors can be like that, can’t they? Only relying on their durability to win fights and avoid being terminated.”

“That’s fair.” Liam assented easily. He wasn’t paying any mind to the look of concern on Travis’s face. “In that case I pick you.”

Liam had pointed, seemingly randomly, into the crowd that had gathered around and a large man that looked somewhat similar to Liam himself stepped forward. Albert gave a nod of approval and motioned for Graham to step around the bar so that they could face each other. The stranger from the crowd made his way over next to Albert and faced Liam. Graham produced a second identical dagger and handed it to the stranger.

“Now, remember,” Travis said carefully. “You’ve just added these two strangers into the agreement you’ve signed. They’re bound to do follow the same rules. So don’t either of you two go getting any ideas about hurting anyone on purpose.”

“And don’t break my knife.” Graham growled at the stranger that had accepted it and was testing it in his hand.

“Not a chance.” The man responded. “It’s nice. How about if we win I get to keep it.”

Graham looked to Albert, not for any kind of conscious confirmation but for some kind of reassurance. The collector was confident that he could play his part fine, but he was concerned about Albert. Even if he never actually nicked the young arbitrator’s fingers, there was still a good chance that he’d flinch from a close call. But the determined look on Albert’s face, which now mimicked the one that Liam had worn earlier, told Graham that there was little chance of that.

“Deal.” Graham said with a nod.

“And I’ll let you count off again.” Albert announced. “Start stabbing on go.”

“Three—”Liam began with little ceremony and the crowd picked up again.

The onlookers seemed much more excited this time around. There was genuine cheering mixed in with the countdown. “Two. One. Go!”

As soon as the crowd said ‘go’ Albert locked his jaw in place and he let his eyes go out of focus as he stared into the distance. He could still hear Graham and the stranger start tapping away as their knives clicked against the polished wooden countertop. Graham had started just a little faster than the stranger, so the stranger had a tough time matching pace.

As soon as both knife wielding strangers seemed to be going in sync, Albert spoke up.

“Faster.” He announced.

Graham picked up the speed of his stabbing immediately and the stranger had to struggle again to keep in time with the clearly more practiced collector.

“Go faster, you ape.” Liam hissed.

“Okay, you heard the man.” Albert let himself the slightest smirk as he intentionally misinterpreted Liam’s words.

Graham understood the strategy immediately and sped up again before the other stranger could even catch up to the first increase in speed.

Throughout this first exchange, Albert didn’t dare look at Travis. He knew the more intelligent of the men wouldn’t be taking the underhandedness of the game well. Liam’s arm wrestling challenge, while unfair, hadn’t been underhanded and that clearly wasn’t the spirit of the game. But Liam had agreed. Still, Albert was concerned with Travis’s silence. He could hear Liam growling in frustration at the incompetence of his stranger, but Travis was dead silent and still in Albert’s periphery.

“Faster!” Liam demanded as soon as his stranger caught up to Graham again.

This time the increase in speed was more balanced. Both strangers were tapping away with their knives in lock step, but the pace had increased drastically from the first round. And after the first rotation of fingers, Liam spat out a curse and leapt back from the bar.

“You absolute gorilla! You nearly chopped my finger off!”

Graham stopped one tap after the other stranger did and Albert let himself refocus on the room around him. Liam had the web space between his thumb and index finger in his mouth and there was a small splatter of blood on the bar top where his hand had been. Apart from signaling his victory, the blood told Albert something else important about contractors in general. They could bleed. Albert tucked that piece of information away for later.

“Looks like we win.” Albert said with a confident grin. “And you get to keep your knife.”

“And it’s cut Liam.” Graham said with an even bigger grin. “I’ll treasure it forever now.”

That concerning statement and Travis’s disappointed glare aside, Albert was still happy with his victory. Graham had to snatch his dagger back out of the stunned stranger’s hands, but no one did anything to stop them. In fact, the crowd around the bar seemed quite pleased with this outcome. It had seemed to be a much fairer match than before, and with the spilling of blood the onlookers were even more invigorated.

“Come here.” Liam hissed as he held out his good hand to towards the stranger he had plucked from the crowd.

Hesitation evident on his face, the man slowly reached out and grabbed Liam’s hand. The second he did, he vanished from sight. Liam seemed much more content after the display, which Albert couldn’t quite make heads or tails of, and when he removed his hand from his mouth there wasn’t a trace of blood or injury to be seen.

“Alright. I’ll concede that was well done.” Travis said flatly. “Underhanded, but you still didn’t even get close to flinching.”

“That’s twice as gutsy.” Liam cackled, his mood instantly improved. “To try and trick us in our own den and make a good show out of it too. I can respect that.”

“I’ll at least say you’re worthy of the prize we have in mind.” Travis said. Albert could still see the trace of displeasure on his face, but the conditions of their competition had been met and that was all they had asked for.

“Work it out with them, will you? I want to go make sure the rest of these dolts don’t get any ideas about me after that loss.” Liam said with a huff as he swung his massive body back over the bar top.

Graham moved back around the bar to sit next to Albert, his posture still defensive but more relaxed now. The collector seemed to feel safer after the exchange, though perhaps a bit bewildered by how things had gone down.

“What’s this prize, then?” Albert asked frankly. It was hard to keep a straight face at that point as the adrenaline that had slowly built up in his system over the course of the knife game was now in full swing and he had nothing to do with it. His heart was racing and he had to force himself to stay calm and still.

“The privilege of helping us settle a dispute.” Travis answered as he leaned down to produce another sheet of paper from below the bar. “Regardless of who it is you’re working for, you’re a third party. You wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

“Third party?” Albert thought out loud.

Graham grabbed the paper first, just before Alert could lay a hand on it, and began to mutter the words to himself. Albert could only make out a few of the phrases as the collector read quickly and without clear enunciation, but he was getting the gist of it.

“Looks like this is already disputed territory.” Graham announced as he handed the page to Albert. “So we could probably head back and deliver a report that this isn’t a good place to migrate to.”

“It might be, if you’re willing to help us carve out some hard territorial lines.” Travis objected. “You see, Albert, we only deal with a select sort of contract here. And our neighbor, the one we’d like you to talk to on our behalf doesn’t have any overlapping business interests. We could hypothetically share the geographic area without any problems; which is something we’ve been able to manage before. But this other contractor doesn’t seem interested in that for some reason.”

After a short scan of the document he’d been handed, Albert looked back up to ask the most obvious question that came to mind. “What are the two types of contracts being written here, then?”

It seemed the most sensible question. He still didn’t want to give away that they were working for Death, and if he could mislead Travis by misrepresenting Death’s business interests it might behoove him to know what kind of contracts were already being written in the are.

“We deal in self-improvement.” Travis gestured to the clientele of the pub around them. “Physique, beauty, and confidence mostly. We help people be who they want to be for a time and then we collect on our investment. Our patrons are also fond of paying by proxy, which we don’t object to.”

“Paying by proxy?” Albert asked quietly to Graham.

“Don’t let it fool you, it’s scummy as hell. They let people pay for their contracts with other people’s souls. Proxy payments are usually coerced.”

“And there’s no rules against it.” Travis countered defensively. “An agreement is an agreement—”

“Is an agreement.” Graham finished the catechism flippantly.

“And our neighbor deals in a sort of wish fulfillment. It’s hardly real contracting work at all, but they take small payments from living people or half-deads to act as a communicator between them. Their shop’s set up like a psychic’s place. That’s the real scummy kind of work, in my opinion.”

Albert took the information in calmly. There was no real substantial benefit to working with the McClellans. The work the medium was doing even infringed on Death’s work somewhat, so there was very little chance he’d want to cooperate with the two factions if they reached an accord. But the concept was intriguing. It was possible that working with either of these factions might give Albert a hand up in escaping Death’s influence. They were all likely just as dangerous, but they didn’t have any immediate leverage over him. The only thing they knew about him was his name, and he was far enough away from home that it’d be nearly impossible for them to find him based off of that.

Looking to Graham for advice was useless. The man seemed about as interested in doing anything as a rock. Albert knew he’d probably say not to pick sides or help anyone that didn’t benefit him directly, but wasn’t learning information from other sources a direct benefit?

“And what would happen if we visited this other contractor and they tried to kill us or enact some other kind of violence against us because of the association with you?”

“There’s no language in that contract for it.” Travis nodded coolly as he thought through the problem. “I’d be willing to addend that you can abandon the effort should unreasonable threat be made against you.”

“In that case I, at least, am willing to sign.” Albert handed the page back to Travis and fished out his own quill to sign with. He had been skeptical of the validity of the last agreement, and he wasn’t going to be taking any chances now.

Graham took a deep breath and shrugged, giving his non-verbal compliance. The collector looked down to the floor of the bar to where Pincushion had sat silently throughout the whole ordeal and looked down at the spirit.

“This kid is going to get us both killed.” He lamented to the cat spirit.

“Who are you talking to?” Travis asked, confused, as he leaned over the bar to look down where Graham was. “Huh. How long has that been there?”

“It’s haunting me.” Albert muttered.

“Want me to banish it?” Travis held out his own quill in the direction of the cat as he asked. The prospect was intriguing but Albert still felt as though there was some use to the cat.

“Nah. It’s harmless.” Albert answered casually. “And my employer adores her.”

“Ah, so you really must not be working for that bald git.” Travis chuckled. “One look at that stray and Death’d have a grand time mangling it.”

After a short scrawling, Travis handed back the page, now complete with his own signature on it. Travis McClellan. The family relation made sense, but Albert still wasn’t entirely sure what kind of family relation it was.

“Well then, one third party negotiation coming up.” Albert announced as he flourished his quill over the bottom of the page.

It felt easy to write his name out, but there was still a nagging doubt about the arrangement. And if he’d focused more, if Albert had just thought a little harder about the situation, he might have realized that it was a terrible idea.