I opened the door and motioned for Lionel to get into the cab. He hesitantly moved his hand towards the open door and said "Are you sure this cab isn't connected to some dark and sinister plot?"

"Why would it?" I said blithely in reply

"Because everything else we did so far was either weird like the restaurant with Fallen Angel meat or needlessly bloody like when you killed those people or when we nearly got burned alive by the flames from the Don's bodyguards," he said with worry fraught in his voice. A sign characteristic of a man that was quickly acclimating to Avalon's dangerous, and sometimes almost silly, daily events.

With a warm smile I said while putting my hand on his shoulder "There won't be anything that'll kill you in this cab at the very least and it's just a cab that is as normal as anything can be in Avalon,"

"I hope so," he said while still eyeing the cab seats for any potential dangers.

Shaking my head with mirth, I gently pushed him into the cab and climbed in after him. While the seats were yellowed after years of use and negligence, they were a welcome feeling after the constant running around we had done today. Ignoring Lionel's grossed out face when he noticed the rat that scurried on the floor, I said to the driver of the car, a giant eye where the steering wheel should have been, "Take us to the Galahad quarter of the Round Table, and if you manage to get us there safely I'll give you a tip,"

Wordlessly acknowledging my directions, the eye closed its eyelids and the cab started moving at a speed not relative to its shoddy appearance down the street.

Leaning back into the seat, I turned around to face Lionel and asked him brightly "So how are you finding Avalon?"

Closing his eyes and letting out a huge sigh at the question, he opened them back up and said with a serious look "Well no matter how plain weird my day has been so far, it still beats a Monday at the school,"

Chuckling at his joke, I punched him lightly on the arm and said back to him "Ain't that the truth, ain't that the truth,"

Still laughing I looked to my left so I could see where we were and saw a gaggle of animated lawn gnomes frantically running for freedom from a mage that had a panicked expression on his face as he tried to catch them. "Probably just an experiment gone wrong," I thought idly.

After a awkward pause, Lionel meekly tapped my hand and said "You said something about offering up our blood to a goddess?" like he hoped he simply somehow misheard what I told him earlier. Smiling at his brittle expression, I said to him "Indeed! It's a time-honored tradition! Besides, even if we didn't have to do it so we could find your sister quicker, I would like for us to do it together just so we could appease the Gods even a little bit! It's always a good idea to have an auspicious start to an daring adventure!"

Looking at me in horror, he said to me "You must be senile. You are one crazy, old loon if you believe that somehow mutilating ourselves would appease nonexistent gods. I don't know why I didn't ask you this before when you first told me about this but are you possibly a lunatic?"

"In any other place I would be crazy but here in Avalon where the past still has a foothold, the Gods are still very much real and they have an even realer power. They still walk among us like they did your legends. They still have priests and pretty young things to cater to their every whim. They still have champions and are anointing more everyday. And let me tell you, more than one adventure has been ruined by a not suitably satisfied God," I said matter-of-factly back to him.

Deciding to let that matter drop, he said to me out-of-the-blue "You know, when I first met you I thought you were just an old psycho but now that I've gotten to meet you I don't think you're all that bad,"

"And my heart grew three sizes too big," I replied to him with a grin.

"No seriously, you aren't as bad of a guy I initially pegged you for. While you do kill people, you do it for all the right reasons. And even though you would never survive back on Earth because you'd probably kill everybody around during your first airport check-in, you are as good of a man as you can be after the crazy things you've probably gone through. So I guess what I'm trying to say is thank you," he said while looking into my eyes.

Not knowing how to respond to this, I simply turned my face away from him and looked back out the window. I simply didn't know how to respond to this because while I had enough people that hated my very existence and that promised to kill me in a million different ways to form a line to the moon and back, I have never had someone thank me with that sincerity. Even my clients just paid me the predetermined amount of money and left without a word or a word of gratitude. I was confused.

I asked the driver how long until we would arrive in a gruffer voice than normal to mask my suddenly too touched heart.

Since he couldn't reply verbally since he was just an eye after all, he sent a series of mental images that while I couldn't quite express properly in words that still managed to convey when we would arrive in a way that was both vague and precise.

Apparently he had projected them into Lionel's mind as well, since he blinked rapidly and muttered to no one in particular "The surprises never end with you Jack, do they?"

Cackling at his rhetorical question, I said "As long as I live and breath, me and the people around me will have a day that will always be eventful at least. Safe? Probably not. Exciting? Absolutely,"

Smiling at my answer, he said to me "You know, if things ever go south for you here in Avalon which I sincerely doubt, remember that I'm the head of a rapidly expanding company that'll be grateful if you could bring your particular expertise to it and which will always have a place for you in whatever capacity as long I'm in charge,"

Amused at his gesture, I replied with a wave of my hand "If things ever get bad enough for me here in Avalon for me to run to Earth and become an employee, I doubt I'll be alive to take you up on that offer,"

"Well, just in case you managed to get out of alive out of whatever shitpile you've managed to dig yourself in, know you still have one bridge left after burning all your old ones," he said with persistence.

Answering him with only a smile, I noted that we were close to our stop and said "Get ready to disembark and get ready for that self-mutilation!"

Mock-shuddering, he said to me jokingly "Can we still go back to that nightclub and get shot at again?"

"Well, we'll probably will again when the Don's men find out where we are,"

"God no, I completely forgot about that," he said glumly.

Hopping out of the car after throwing money at the driver which was absorbed by the seats and moving on without him, I called out to him "If you want to, you know, find your sister stop dallying and follow me,"

I could hear him scrambling to get out and catch up to me "Wait up!" He shouted at me as he rushed on after me.

After he managed to catch up, he asked me why we were getting off when we weren't any where close to my apartment since we were surrounded by stores and no housing.

"I don't trust the taxi with where my home is located because he's probably telling where we are the Don's men right now," I explained to him.

"And you trust me? I'm genuinely touched," he said happily and with a smile.

"Well, not really but I could kill you easily enough even if you decide to betray me," When he heard that he stop walking for a while as that soaked in and with a sigh he started walking again until he was at my side again.

"While I can't say I'm happy to hear that, I can understand where you're coming from,"

"As long as you don't fuck up too badly, you'll be fine!"

Not knowing what to say to this, Lionel instead elected to ask me where we were going.

"Well, Avalon is divided into multiple districts from The Round Table where I live to Camelot where all the aristocrats live, and each district is divided into multiple sectors. Where we are going now is Lamorak where my home is located,"

Nodding his understanding, Lionel followed me through the back alleys and turns of Galahad until we reached Lamorak. Pulling through the throngs of people around us into my apartment, I turned and said to him "Whatever you do, don't hesitate. If you want to find Sandra then you must do so with all your heart, do you understand?"

Showing that he understood, I pulled him into my living room and got butcher's paper from my closet and placed them all around my floor. I grabbed a cold-forged silver bowl from my kitchen table and laid it in the center of it. I finally took some bandages from the first-aid kit and tossed them relatively close to it.

I quickly took off my jacket and laid it on the couch while motioning for Lionel to do the same. After he finished, I pulled him to the floor with me and sat next to each other cross-legged.

I said to him "This is probably going to hurt like Hell for you but you'll have to power through it, okay?"

"I understand,"

Starting the ritual I chanted out loud "Oh Selene, Goddess of Avalonian Night and Wretched Hunt, Mistress of Haunting Winds and Deserted Lands, Guardian of the Blood and Knife accept our offering of freely given blood," at the end of that I grabbed my athame from my pocket and used it for what it was meant to be used as-as a sacrificial knife-and slit my wrist longways from my wrist to five inches up and let the blood flow freely onto the bowl. Still hanging my wrist over the steadily filling bowl, I passed my still blood-stained athame to Lionel. To his credit, he didn't flinch at it and slit a cut just as deep and long as mine. He held his wrist over the bowl and let his life force mix with mine.

Grabbing the bandages I had prepared before hand just for this, I wrapped them around my arm methodically and passed a roll to Lionel when I was finished. He was quiet as he bandaged himself.

I imbued my magic into the blood and the blood started thrumming violently, threatening to spill over, until it started to drain to nowhere and then suddenly like the wind Selene appeared over us like a looming mountain and said "So why did my favorite blood sac call me this time," purring like a satisfied cat.

"We need you to find Lionel's sister," I said not wanting to mince words with a Goddess that I didn't really like.

"Oh? Something so mundane as that? That actually kind of disappoints me, I would've thought you would ask me about the other thing running at you like a hound but if you would want to spend your last days like this I won't say anything,"

"What do you mean! What hound! My last days?" I said in a rush as I tried to figure out what she was hinting at.

"I bet that I would tell if you would just give me more of your delicious blood, My Darling," she continued in that disgusting purring voice.

Struggling with my urge to ask for more and spill my blood, I took ahold of myself and ignored her. "Just tell me where Lionel's missing sister is and only that. Nothing more. Nothing less,"

Sighing, she lazily twirled her hair like a bored cheerleader that just found out that she had to babysit her little brother, she said "Really, if this is the last time we ever see each other I would want to end things on better terms but oh well. What can a Goddess do?"

"Where. Is. Lionel's. Sister," I grated out like two rocks rubbing on each other and glared at her. I was tired of her fucking games.

"She's at the Dragon's Den in The Holy Grail district. About to get herself into a mess of trouble too so I would hurry up and get to her if I were you," she finally told me as she could tell I was about to snap.

She then got sucked back into the bowl like a ship in a whirlpool and left us with an unnatural silence.

"So. That was a Goddess. Not quite what I imagined," Lionel finally said as he processed it.

"And what did you expect,"

"Well. I expected her to be more Grecian and Noble and Majestic and stuff like that. Not like she was a rich stuck-up heiress waiting for daddy to die so she can play around with his money," Lionel said in disappointment.

"Personally, I thought she sounded a bit more like a cheerleader after a football game,"

"That too.,"

We sat in silence for a while more, until he started talking to me again and said "It seems like there really is a bigger picture that neither of us know about, Jack. Should we be worried?"

Not knowing the answer to that myself, I just stood up dizzily due to the blood loss and said "We should hurry up. You heard her, your sister is in trouble,"

He wordlessly stood up as well, knowing I only said that to evade his question. We both walked out of my apartment and into the streets again like men walking to unknown but certain death.