Inquisitors! Here?

I faltered in my step.

These men should not have been here. There should at most have been some bored clerk from the administrative branch, someone so old or incompetent they couldn’t be trusted with a serious job. Actual Inquisitors never came to the more remote corners of the country, not unless there was something major that needed their attention.

Something horrible.

Like a vampire.

Like me.

I could be the thing that had brought them here. They might know. Someone from Birnstead might have sent word ahead, somehow. Or something else could have given me away. They could be here to kill me.

No. Relax. They were all aggression and dominance and excited worry to my nose, but they were still behind the counter. No taste of freshly wetted steel on my tongue. No hum of charged Tonaltus in the air. Simply three Inquisitors hunched over a table, arguing. They must be here for an entirely different reason. Nothing wrong at all, and I had interacted with Inquisitors before, in far more tenuous circumstances.

Sarding awful monasteries, always built on natural Tonaltus fields. Thank the divines this is merely the side room of a city temple.

I turned my brief slip, the short, hesitant falter as I entered the room, into an act. Everyone would startle if they came across a full Inquisition team, and so I did too. That I recovered faster than most people was part of my act as well, the young hunter girl whose dad had been an Inquisitor.

When I stepped up to the counter, and rapped it to grab the attention of the three Inquisitors huddled around the table behind it, they studiously ignored me. Far too engrossed in their little strategy meeting to bother with an insignificant kid hunter.

Huffing, I flipped my hair over my shoulder in a perfectly childish act of pretend-annoyance, turned my back on them, and leaned against the counter. Aiming for an even more impressive display of casual boredom and utter disrespect for the stuffy adults, I raised myself up onto the very tips of my toes — stupid child body — so that I could rest my elbows on the awkwardly high countertop.

Craning my neck to look up, I faked studying the beams that held up the ceiling of this little side-room while I strained my ears and listened in. Meanwhile, because no real ten-year-old kid would be able to handle the tedium of waiting, I tapped a foot on the floor in emulation of a nervous tic. Without any apparent rhythm to it, of course, for maximum annoyance.

Hate this!

Hate hate hate hate acting like a little brat.

I was an adult. I despised this childish act I was engaging in. But I needed to know what was going on. Whatever had them so captivated, I intended to be in on it. For that, I would need to be impertinent. They would only accept this kind of behavior from a child. I would simply have to endure.

I did not need to wait long to get an impression of why they were here. Names were mentioned. Names of places, settlements, and towns all along the Maru river. They were cross-referencing them with requests for a monster hunter to plot a timeline of attacks.

When the name Birnstead was dropped, I took that as my cue. Without even looking at them, I rapped the counter. Once. Twice. Waited until they resumed their conversation. A third, more insistent knock. Still they ignored me.

These three men were not mere peasant militia. They were better than any knight. They were the Inquisitors. Recruited almost exclusively from the nobility and gentry, schooled in the arts of warfare and magic, they were the joint elite force that united all of mankind against inhuman threats. They were accustomed to being treated with the utmost respect. Perfect deference when they were on obviously important Inquisition business.

They were unused to interruptions from insolent street kids, and incredibly bad at dealing with them. They stopped talking every time I knocked. And I in turn rapped the counter as soon as they started talking again. At my fourth knock, I glanced over my shoulder at them and shouted out along with it.

The Fibrous-limestone-beetle tasting one with his back straight towards me bravely continued his explanation for another half a sentence. Then he lost track of what he had been saying. He stared up at his two colleagues on either side of the table, who had long ago stopped pretending to pay attention and were already looking my way. Then he looked further up towards the rafters as if beseeching divine aid.

“Impatient little thing,” I heard him mutter, so quiet I probably wasn’t supposed to catch it — everyone always underestimated how good my hearing was. With a loud sigh he turned around, took one large stride toward the counter, and slammed his hands down on it. “What do you want, Girl?”

To keep up my act I let a startled, high-pitched squeak slip past my lips as I ducked down out of his sight. Perfectly feigned childish fear. I could probably even afford to be a little cheeky. Head peeking out from cover, I gave the Inquisitor an embarrassed, cutesy smile, careful not to accidentally show any fangs.

There were risks in being this insolent to Inquisitors, but these three clearly weren’t looking for me and did not suspect my true nature at all. That made them just like all the Inquisitors I had interacted with before. A little surly. A dash of typical high-birth haughtiness, dampened by their time in the field interacting with us ordinary people. But in the end, still very much human, with all the same weaknesses I could exploit.

This Inquisitor’s taste in particular wasn’t anywhere near as angry as he carried himself. In fact, hidden behind the annoyance and the limestone and the beetle there was even a hint of… something. Perhaps amusement. I wondered what would happen if I prodded at that. Straightening up, pulling my head out from between my shoulders, I risked a little giggle.

“Well?” the beetle-blood Inquisitor insisted. Despite the growl in his voice and the dark look he gave me, the corners of his lip showed a little upwards twitch of their own.

“Hiiiiii,” I grinned, letting all of the childlike cuteness that I usually scrubbed from my voice slip in again. “I might have heard you talking about Birnstead?” I strained my neck to glance past him, in the direction of their map. “Just got back from a job over there. Think it might be related?”

“You were listening?”

“Yes.” I half-grimaced in a display of guilty innocence.

Yes, simply guilty innocence. Not at all self-loathing and a desire to drown in my own embarrassment. I was an adult and being mistaken for a child disgusted me, especially when I had to demonstrate how good I was at acting like one. Still, looking like a little kid had its perks. If I had tried this looking two to three years older I would have received a trashing. Instead, I was being classified as too young to receive the full brunt of his fury.

The Limestone-beetle Inquisitor straightened his shoulders and pulled himself to his full height. “Should be more careful who you listen in on, Girl.” The tone of his voice and his posture still carried all his belligerent superiority. Yet there was also the half-step away to grant me my personal space, and a hint of compassion in his scent.

Really far too used to this kind of childish behavior.

Guy sooo has a kid.

Let’s have some fun with that.

Playing into that compassion of his, I shrugged and then fidgeted like a child caught stealing food from the pantry.

The Inquisitor’s shoulders slumped, a clear sign he did not know how to deal with my complete disregard for his authority. “You’re not the least bit intimidated, are you?”

I shrugged once more, then glanced away. I spoke softly, morosely, as if my words were something forbidden. “Dad was an Inquisitor.”

He stopped focussing on me, his eyes instead drifting down towards his hands. “My condolences.”

“He’s not dead, you know, just retired.” I chuckled, a little childish laugh to disguise my elation.

Some clever guesswork in regards to his fatherly instincts, accompanied by sufficient amounts of childishness to trigger them, while maintaining enough mature indifference to be elevated above a mere annoying nuisance. Then a pinch of inexact phrasing, and a bit of subtle body language to accompany it, and I had gotten the exact reaction I had been aiming for. Hunters and Inquisitors. Deadly professions. As soon as you mentioned someone was one of them, in the past tense, everyone assumed that person was now dead. I had my fun with it. Yes, even against Inquisitors.

Now that I had him unbalanced, all I needed to do was capitalize on this opportunity. While the Inquisitor acted all kinds of flustered, I turned my back to him. Similarly pretending to be embarrassed at the misunderstanding, I rummaged through my stuff as if looking for something. When he least expected it, I filled the intervening silence with an offhand mention of my name. “Valentina, by the way.”

After so long not using it, the very sound of my full name grated in my ears and twisted my gut. Yet I still had to use it, ugly bits and all. With my dad an Inquisitor, these men would expect a proper noble name, not a commoner bastardization.

“Ah... um... Lowe, Grantandius Lowe,” the Inquisitor responded automatically.

And just like that, I had managed to acquire the Beetle-blood’s given name, something he would otherwise have been reluctant to let slip. Being on a first-name basis would make him even more compassionate towards me.

Acting as if I had finally found what I was looking for, I pulled out the proof of slaying. With my back still turned to him, I held it high over my head, probably somewhere close to eye height for the Inquisitor, and waved it back and forth. “Birnstead. Three ahuizotl and a nest. All taken care of.”

This was the riskiest part. Physical contact with an Inquisitor was dangerous for me. Every single one of them might be trained in the detection of hidden monsters. If he touched my gloved fingers while taking that proof of slaying, he might notice my claws hidden underneath the leather. If he touched my skin, and bothered to check, he might even sense I had a Metzus vessel instead of a normal Atlus one.

At the same time, people were weird about touch, so I wasn’t worried too much. I could hand people things all day long and have no one even come near to brushing my fingers. I could cover that slip of paper with most of my hand, and this man would go out of his way to pry it out from between my fingers without touching them.

Sometimes, to successfully pretend to be human, you have to be bold. If I was this young and cute, this callous in front of an Inquisitor, if even my dad was part of the Inquisition, then surely I could not be a monster. I barely needed to do anything. People classified me as harmless and human all on their own.

Inquisitor Lowe snatched the slip of paper out of my hand. “You? Take out three ahuizotl?” He sounded absolutely incredulous.

I turned back to face him, leaned on the counter, and grinned my childish grin. “Like I said, Dad was an Inquisitor. I know how to take care of myself.”

“Right.” Inquisitor Lowe stared a hole through the proof of slaying, then turned to the two men behind him, who were now eyeing me with a strange mix of concern and disbelief as well. “Looks like Birnstead’s taken care of,” Grantandius explained unnecessarily.

“What’s all this anyway,” I seized the moment of confused skepticism to gesture towards their map.

“Birnstead’s not an isolated incident. There’s been a number of ahuizotl sightings, all up and down the Maru. Birnstead was the furthest one south though.”

“The floodings?” I asked. When I had taken down those three ahuizotl I had guessed they had been brought downriver with the rainfall and the floodings from last winter. Now it seemed like that guess was being confirmed. “You’re here to scour the riverbanks?”

“Yeah.” Inquisitor Lowe sighed. “All the way from here to Garn.”

“Mind if I take a look?” I nodded in the direction of the table they had organized their impromptu strategy meeting around, deliberately directing the question toward the two silent Inquisitors.

“The point of this is to not get little kids killed trying to take on ahuizotl,” one of the two growled in response.

Ignoring the man’s refusal, I slipped past the counter anyway, pointing towards the proof of slaying I had handed over. “Think I proved myself already.”

The thing about ‘may I’ questions was that the answer did not matter. Even a negative answer was engagement in the conversation. From there on I could simply continue as if I did have permission.

The third Inquisitor, the mud-drenched-eal tasting one with his fat fingers plastered all over the map, protested my approach to their table anyway.

His loud offended grunts came too late. I simply ignored his objections, shimmied in between his massive bulk and the table, scooted his hand away from the western edge of Thysa, and hummed in contemplation as I studied the various markers they had placed on top of the depiction of the Maru river. “Really a lot of ground to cover so close to their hatching season, isn’t it?” I tilted my head towards Grantandius.

“Yeah, and we’re the only team assigned to this as well. Will probably take us the better part of a month to take care of this,” he shared.

I admired their optimism. Garn was a solid two weeks upriver from Birnstead, and that was over relatively well-maintained roads. When following the banks of the Maru, and when paying close attention to every mound of dirt and pawprint, the journey would take significantly longer. Then I wasn’t even counting the Brinehall Marsh, and all of the little eddies, side-rivers, creeks, and ponds. Or the simple fact that a river has two banks you need to check.

“You setting out soon then, I suppose?” I asked, ignoring the dread bubbling up inside me, and showing myself sympathetic to their plight instead. “I’ll probably head back in the direction of Birnstead. Could show you guys where the nest was?”

I intended to stay in Birnstead. Inquisition hunting parties showing up could ruin that. Worse, everyone there knew what I was. If anyone told the Inquisitors… If Onar—

“That... would be helpful actually,” Inquisitor Lowe said. “No pay though.”

“Not all of us do this for the money, Grantandius.” I frowned.

“Grant’s fine.”

I had risked the use of his full given name, instead of addressing him with the much more respectable ‘Inquisitor Lowe’. In return he had given me his common name, yet another sign of his trust in me.

The acquired trust wouldn’t carry me much further though. Any second now, their minds would catch up to the speed I was rushing through this conversation. One of the three adults would recognize how I had forced myself on a common name basis with them, or that we were chatting amiably, hunched over an expensive map that perhaps contained military secrets. It would register that they had dropped their guard and had been done in by a child. I needed to be gone before that happened.

One final push though.

My next step was not likely to succeed. Once something became Inquisition business, it was never outsourced. I still felt like I needed to try, for Onar’s peace of mind. Shae’s dad had run away from all things Inquisition and vampire. My presence in Birnstead had already forced the man to confront some very unpleasant memories. If these Inquisitors passed by Birnstead, it would get so much worse for him.

No, that was a lie right there. I did not care about Onar. I was steering this conversation in this direction for my own safety. If these three passed by Birnstead, they would talk to Onar. If they spoke with Onar, he would tell them what I was. Other people might as well. After that, it would make no difference whether I returned to Birnstead now or chose to run instead. The entire Inquisition would be after me, and then I would be dead. No matter what, I needed to keep this Inquisitor team out of Birnstead.

I measured on an expression that was equal parts worried and excited. Slightly worried, because I was making an offer that even a child knew was madness. Stupidly excited, because being able to work alongside legendary Inquisitors would be every ten-year-old hunter’s dream come true. Then, I let a mischievous smile crinkle my eyes. “If it saves you guys time I could probably scout the part of the Maru from here to Birnstead for you?”

For a moment, Grant seemed to consider my offer.

Inquisitor Lowe’s consideration was interrupted by his mud-covered-eal colleague. Almost as if he was swatting at flies, the man brushed away my suggestion with a sweeping gesture of his arm. “Out of the question!”

At first, it looked like I could still power through the refusal, but then Grant took a step back. The Mud-drenched-eel crossed his arms, and the third Inquisitor placed his hands on his hips.

Quick as that, I lost control of the conversation and was forced to drop the subject. I shrunk down in a display of meekness and slunk out of the circle they had formed around me and the table. “Yeh, figured as much. To be honest, three ahuizotl was plenty dangerous enough. I’ll gladly leave this to you guys.”

There was no point insisting, or begging, or looking the least bit excited or passionate about my proposal. A child, hunting ahuizotl, taking over an Inquisitor's job was preposterous on its own. Trying to force this in any way was more danger than I wanted to risk. Despite how callously I had treated this conversation so far, these men were still Inquisitors. We were still in an Inquisition building. If I overstepped too much, they would start questioning my motivations, maybe even begin wondering why a child of an Inquisitor had become a monster hunter. Them coming to Birnstead was bad enough without them growing so wary of me that they would start asking everyone there pointed questions about the suspicious monster hunter girl.

With little left in terms of excuses I could use to stretch the conversation or sway them, I simply reminded them that I would be in Birnstead to point out where the nest had been, and filed out.

The remainder of my errands, new gloves, a farrier for my horse, and a cobbler, happened in a miserable blur. Back at the inn, I could not even find any enjoyment in my usual nighttime misdirection. There were so many fun ways to make people not notice that the person sleeping next to them had claws and talons. Unlike all the other times I had done it, it was no longer a way to toy with the meat. It was just a chore now, a desperate and pointless way to avoid discovery for a few days longer.

The slow torpor that was my closest approximation of sleep did not bring me any solace that night. Instead, I remained painfully alert for hours and hours, thoughts churning, considering the consequences. So much for happy memories, and weeks of bliss. Dying suddenly and violently had always been a certainty for me. I had been perfectly fine accepting that I would be killed somewhere in the next couple of months. It was nice and vague enough to seem a long way off if I did not think about it too much.

Now however, if I returned to Birnstead I would be lucky to last the week.