Arlo Pike sat back in his chair and looked at the two piles of work that he had put

together. Some of it would have to be handed off to Jason, and Tilda. He would have

to take care of the things they couldn’t do.

And the first thing he had to do was confirm if all the missing people from the

North Side had got on the Death Train before Jason had hacked its brain out. Once

he had done that, he could pass the word up that those people were dead and digested.

It would take some time and wandering around the city to make sure but he was

confident he could do it.

The other stack went to Jason and Tilda to look around the other neighborhoods, and

ask questions of the relatives. No one had found any missing bodies, and it was easy

to blame everything on the Train, but he didn’t believe that, and he knew Jason

wouldn’t. The hunting grounds were too wide apart for that.

Jason and Tilda came in. He gestured at their stack on his desk in their official Guard

office at the bottom of the building.

“I need you to go over the general areas of those reports and look for anything out of

the ordinary,” said Pike. “See if you can narrow things down to a street. I have to take

this other stack and cross all the names off myself. Once I do that, we can go back

over your stack, and hopefully put my stack in the solved filing for the Guard.”

“Have you thought about taking a break, Arlo?,” asked Jason. “You have been down

here for two days.”

“I plan to go by my place when I get done looking around,” said Pike. “Once I make

sure all of my victims are dead, I can take a bath and start thinking about how to find

the other people we’re looking for in your stack.”

“Do you think any of these people are alive?,” asked Jason.

“Not the ones in my stack,” said Pike. “I want to make sure so I can tell Captain

Munroe we’re pursuing all leads.”

“All right,” said Jason. “I will take my apprentice around and show her the ropes.”

“Avoid the dead man if you can,” said Pike. “At some point, we might have to talk

to him about his mission, but let’s save that until we have a handle on this wider

problem first.”

“There’s a chance he is looking for the same person, or persons, we are,” said Jason.

“We’re not in a race, and with this many people missing, it is either a lot of people

involved, or monsters,” said Pike. “If it is a bunch of monsters operating, we’re going

to look at what they are before we get too close.”

“The Alvas?,” asked Jason.

“What about him?,” asked Pike.

“Where do you think he fits in?,” asked Jason. “Does he fit in?”

“I don’t know,” said Pike. “If he shows up while you’re looking around, he has to fit

in somewhere even if it’s to watch whatever is going on. He might be the cause of

some of this. If he is, we might have to find a way to take him off the board to

simplify things enough to fix them.”

“The Alvas are not known for their inability to fight,” said Jason. He split his stack

in half and gave Tilda the top part.

“If he is the one causing all of this, we can’t let him run around,” said Pike. “That’s

just asking for him to pay us a visit when we’re not looking.”

“I agree with that,” said Tilda. She flipped through the small stack in her hands. “The

Alvas will want to kill us if we cross him.”

“That’s why I carry my sword,” said Jason. He tucked his stack under an arm. “We’ll

need bags to carry all of these.”

“All right,” said Pike. He stood up. He looked around. He found his coat and pulled

it on. He grabbed up his notes, and pencil and put them in his pocket. “Take the writ

and the gold in case you need it. I’m heading up to the North Side to look around.”

“All right,” said Jason. “You want to meet later?”

“Just bring everything back here to the office when you’re done,” said Pike. “I plan

to go home when I get done. We’ll meet here tomorrow in the morning to go over

what we have got done, and what we need to do for the rest.”

“Sounds good,” said Jason. He grabbed the writ and the gold and put it in his inner

coat pocket. “Come along, Apprentice. I will show you the fine art of beating people

in a back alley for information.”

“I already know how to do that,” said Tilda. “That’s how I found out my last

boyfriend was seeing another girl down the block.”

“I think I need to see your technique,” said Jason. “Maybe I can pick up some

pointers.”

Pike watched them go with a sigh. He hoped they didn’t send their quarry into a

frenzy of prevention before they knew what they were looking to find. He doubted

Munroe wanted them to hack their enemy apart without proof.

But if something jumped out at Jason, it was on the monster for what happened next.

The monster hunter was not one to run if he could cut his enemy down.

The finder and his partners worked their ways across the city. Pike traced each of

the victims on his list from their neighborhoods up to the North Side. Each trail ended

with the station where they had met the disguised worm on the tracks. He marked

off each name at the end of the trail.

There were not going to be any bodies for the Guard to hand back to the families

waiting for the news of their loved ones. He was glad he wasn’t going to have to

deliver those words.

Jason and Tilda’s work was more convoluted. None of their victims had been

anywhere they needed to use the train. Instead they had vanished close to their haunts,

almost within sight of others. Some of the witnesses and the local Guard told them

that the sound of a bell had been heard at the time their victims had gone missing.

There was another thread visible to the monster hunter that he didn’t like. Some of

the people had disappeared close to a local hotel. He had looked the place over and

he didn’t like it. He wasn’t the finder his partner was, but he was sure they would

have to go in there and sort things out eventually.

He relished the chance to do that.

“What do you think?,” Tilda finally asked. They had decided to take a break and get

something to eat not far from Rowena’s school.

“I think we’re going to have to kill a lot of monsters in the next few weeks, maybe

months,” said Jason. He inspected his johnny cake and bacon with a critical eye.

“Arlo was right about that.”

“I thought there was something wrong about that Love Hotel,” said Tilda.

“I did too,” said Jason. “I think that was separate from the rest of the problem. It’s

something we’ll have to suss out with Arlo.”

“You’re not going in there on your own?,” asked Tilda. She had cheese and fried ham

on two pieces of bread.

“I would love to, but I don’t think it’s that important compared to these other sites,”

said Jason. “When we have the majority of our missing accounted for, then we’ll look

at that hotel and see why it looks bad to us.”

“I can see that,” said Tilda. She dug in. “What do you think is going on?”

“I think our dead man is here chasing after whatever is causing the monsters,” said

Jason. He cut the cake and bacon up and used a fork on the mix. “If we found him,

and could track him to his targets, we might be able to shortcut all this searching.”

“I can see that,” said Tilda. She sipped her lemonade. “We don’t have any way to

check with him about who he’s chasing. He might be here after something else. He

is a finder after all.”

“That would be one more problem on our plate that we would have to take care of

eventually,” said Jason. “I’m hoping he finishes his business before we can get to

him. If he solves our problems while he is doing that, I am more than willing to give

him a hearty thank you and farewell.”

“You ever run into one before?,” asked Tilda.

“No, but there are stories,” said Jason. “And the stories are bad enough on their own.”

“Tell me one,” demanded Tilda.

“I’ll tell you while we’re walking,” said Jason. He hastily finished his meal and

downed his tea. “Let’s go.”

Tilda stood and sipped her lemonade. She put the cup down as she hurried to catch

up with the monster hunter. She ate her sandwich as she walked beside him. He

seemed intent on something down the street.

“You promised a story,” said Tilda. “What are we doing?”

“We’re walking,” said Jason. He smiled at her. She noted that his hand rode on

his sword as he walked.

“A story,” said Tilda.

“You’re very single-minded,” said Jason.

Tilda made a gesture for him to get on with it.

“All right,” said Jason. “Let me think.”

They walked along. Tilda noted they were following a group of girls from the school.

She didn’t know who they were, but felt Jason would tell her when he decided to

do more than walk behind them.

“Several cities had engaged in battle,” said Jason. “This was before they had

consolidated into what we have now. Magic and powers were being thrown around

like balls. It looked like it was something that would drag on for years as each power

jockeyed for position.”

The pair walked along slowly. Jason had his eye on his surroundings and thought he

had seen his Alvas moving behind them. He said nothing. If the vagrant approached

they would have words.

“It was said that things had come down to a mad magician and his wooden dog

blowing things up,” said Jason. “Before that, a dead man got involved. The story goes

he cut his way through two armies to get to one of the magicians throwing spells. He

supposedly killed hundreds with arrows made of fire, and a sword of light. Once he

killed the magician, one side dispersed and left most of their magical equipment

behind. Then the magician got involved and blew everything up to keep people from

using what was left.”

“Do you believe that?,” asked Tilda.

“They say that’s where the Crater came from, and why the Rhiem and Alvas are south

of Bern,” said Jason.

“You’re kidding,” said Tilda.

“Don’t look at me like that,” said Jason. He smiled. “The story says the explosion

created the desert and pushed most of the survivors out, but the sandworms are all

that is left over from that war.”

“I know you’re pulling my leg now,” said Tilda. She would have laughed, but had an

image to maintain.

“Believe what you want,” said Jason. “Some of my forebears killed sandworms that

weren’t confined inside the desert. The reports were of a bloody mess.”

“Monster hunters were there?,” asked Tilda.

“Some of us,” said Jason. “Perseus Macri was the one to report the dead man on the

field.”

The girls formed up in front of a small house in a shabby neighborhood toward

the southeast of the city. They seemed to be undecided on what they should do next.

Jason stood down the street. He watched the neighborhood. He thought he saw the

Alvas down the street in a reflection of a window. He wondered what the interest was,

and where it really lay. Was the Alvas watching the girls, or him?

An older man in a plain shirt and pants opened the door. He smiled at the girls as he

waved them to come into the house. He looked across the street at Jason and Tilda,

and then further down toward where the Alvas lurked. Then he shut the door in their

faces.

“What do you think?,” asked Tilda.

“He’s an adventurer,” said Jason. He frowned as he examined the neighborhood

again. He almost fit in with the clothes around him, but he had been picked out almost

instantly by the other man. He knew the people who should be there, and the two of

them shouldn’t be. “I think we should ask him some questions about what’s going

on.”

“Do you really think we should just butt in?,” asked Tilda.

“That’s part of our job,” said Jason. “Just watch for an Alvas in rags so he doesn’t

come up behind us.”

He started toward the house. He spotted the warding almost immediately. If you

weren’t human, you weren’t going to live to get to the door from what he could see.

Maybe the other man was a monster hunter like himself.

“I saw your man,” whispered Tilda. She trailed behind Jason. “He’s hiding in an alley

down the street, on the left, next to the little alchemy shop.”

“Don’t step off the marked path,” said Jason. “We don’t want to start anything by

accident.”

Tilda nodded. She stayed behind him in case she had to use him for a shield.

Jason knocked on the door. He tried to look less of a threat. He had the bag with the

files in it, his coat, pants and boots. His sword rode at his hip. He might look like a

traveler if he tried enough.

Tilda didn’t look like much of a threat with her slim frame, black clothes and hair

long on one side of her head and gone on the other. Anyone seeing the marks of the

Rhiem on her cheek would think different. The Fae didn’t have a good reputation

in Bern.

The door opened. The adventurer looked at them. He smiled, but he was ready to

fight. Jason could see it in the way he held himself. And he was ready to punch Tilda

first from the way he looked at them.

“Hello,” said Jason. “I’m Jason, and this is Tilda Crass. We’re finders. We wondered

if we could ask some questions of the young girls that came in a few minutes ago.”

“I don’t see why I should allow that,” said the home owner.

“We’re trying to find the monsters,” said Jason. “We think they are involved

somehow.”

“Really?,” said the home owner. Jason knew he was going to lie. He could see it in

the way the man’s face shifted.

“Let them in, husband,” said a woman from inside the house. “We might need a

monster hunter before this is over.”

“Welcome to my home,” said the ex-adventurer. “I’m Pavel Konstantin, and this

is my wife, Sonya.”

The woman indicated wore various bracelets and rings, a yellow dress with pink

flowers sewn into it, and a ribbon to tie her graying hair back. Her eyes were dark and

a little irritated at the intrusion.

“Hello, girls,” said Jason. “We meet again.”

Tilda waved the fingers of one hand at the group.

“I think we should have dinner, and then we will talk,” said Madam Konstantin.

“Take them into the dining room, husband. I will get the plates ready.”

“We already ate,” said Tilda.

“You can stand to eat a little more as thin as you are,” said Madam Konstantin. “Now

go. Afterwards, we will talk business.”

“Come with me,” said Pavel. “She has been slaving all day in the kitchen. Refusal

will cost you an arm and a leg.”

Jason hoped he meant figuratively and not literally.

Pavel led them into a room lit by lamps hung overhead. A massive table dominated

the space. Places had been set for the girls and the Konstantins. He waved Jason

and Tilda to empty spots.

“I will be right back with your plates and silverware,” said Pavel. “We hadn’t

expected more guests.”

He bustled out of the room.

Jason looked the room over. It seemed bigger than the house. He leaned back in his

chair and unbuckled his sword. He laid it down beside his chair where he could

get at it if he need it, but it wasn’t poking him while he sat for dinner.

He doubted it would do him much good against Pavel’s wife in any case.

“This is kind of awkward,” said Tilda.