The Hunter

Chapter 11 - Demented Monkies

Off in the distance, Tina heard the palace’s large bell tower ring high noon. The haunting tone sent her eyebrows back to their worried angle. Jack had been M.I.A. for eighteen hours now and they still didn’t have a clue to his whereabouts.

They were on foot, weaving through the crowds of Hell’s Kitchen. Top was in front of her by a good three spans--seemingly in his own world--while Mike and Kyle were to either side of her, also trying hard not to appear part of a group.

Her stomach tightened as she sent the hourly message, “Jack. Report.”

Nothing.

Her mind raced on all the possibilities again, and again the idea of interrogating ‘Hop’ reached the top of her list. Earlier, Ben had adamantly defended the boy when she had brought the idea up. To her surprise, Top had agreed with him, forcing them to believe the boy.

Since they didn’t dare enter the area, especially if Jack was still somehow undercover, they roamed the streets almost mindlessly.

“Plan?” Tina broadcasted to Top for the second time that day. It had been his idea to start walking the streets and that had been two hours ago.

She didn’t agreed with his decision to stay away from Jack’s last known position, and walking around aimlessly was eating away at her. While Jack wasn’t her ideal comrade, he was still part of the team, and they always looked out for their own.

He wordlessly plowed through the crowded intersection ahead of them.

I’m a bloody trained soldier! Tina vented to herself. I should be planning a recon mission. Hells bells, Mike could get eyes in there with none the wiser. We are blind here, and wondering the streets--blocks away from where Jack was last seen--isn’t going to make him magically appear!

Or maybe… “Failing in the confidence department”, that’s what Ben had said.

Maybe this is a test.

The idea was lucrative but Top had done similar things to her in the past.

“T…” Mike whispered to her. Tina looked toward his direction but she had to wait for a one legged beggar to pass between them before she caught his eye. He pointed with his chin to the man in front of them worriedly.

She turned back to scanning the crowds.

There was nothing they could do about Top’s lack of words. They would follow him until the day the paychecks stopped coming… or until they got smarter.


Hell’s Kitchen was a small city of poorly maintained streets that crisscrossed the back outer ring of Cohpa, well away from the main roads and the eyes of passing visitors. The grey buildings were all the same: tall, dilapidated, and built closely together for maximum utilization. Officially called the Lower Quarters, the community had been constructed just after the fall of the previous King, King Hugar.

It had been a way for any farmer or peddler to survive the cold winters by using the city’s built in hot springs and public baths. But when people didn’t leave upon the first winter’s end, the residents started making a home for themselves inside the city’s walls, something that had been limited to the wealthy.

Sadly, it took only a few moons for corruption to rear its head in the Low Quarters. Over the span of a year, all the different varieties of swine moved in and exploited the weak. Slowly the corruption took hold of the Peacekeepers as Rush and illegal slave dealers moved into the area. The following year after, the King had to fight just to keep his capital city from rotting away. Those had been dark times for Cohpa.

Over time the chaos became orderly as unofficial Guilds came to power, each holding a different territory of the Kitchens. While the guilds weren’t recognized by the Kalian government, it was a power to be reckoned with.

In the Kitchens they say, “If you didn’t abide by the rules and taxes, you’ll turn into a blue fish.” Blue fish, of course, meant being found the next week washed up on the shore, blue and bloated.

Now, as long as the Peacekeeper’s didn’t interfere, Hell’s Kitchen kept to itself.

To Kyle’s confusion, they had switched his uniform out with one of Sikes’s inventions. They all had taken jobs that lead them to the H.K. at one time or another and they all knew the dangers of entering such a place. A visiting peasant might think of the Kitchens as an unkempt, inferior part of the city but those people didn’t live long.

Her shoulders tightened when her eyes warned her of a dangerous pattern in the crowds. When she finally saw what her mind had unconsciously told her, she tried to look away. A man had gripped his stomach and was stumbling into an alleyway. She immediately recognized it as the ‘bump and take.’ Turning her head, she tried to ignore the two men who followed the dying man back into the alley. They’d steal his money and leave him for dead. Most likely the men belonged to one of the Guilds and the poor soul had angered them some how.

Thinking of the former Blood and his new clothes, she spied Kyle from the corner of her eye scanning the people around them like she had been doing.

The legendary Blood. Who would have thunk it? And the Vanguard…

She turned her attention to Top’s worn down mass of soot covered coats that hid most of his features. One would have thought he stood out in the crowds with his multicolored rags but, in Hell’s Kitchen, he fit right in. They were all dressed like dirty court jestures. She herself was wrapped up in dark woolens that made her look like a hunchback. Tina had foregone going ‘ho,’ something Jack would have asked her to do.

A foreign feeling slowly crept into her and, when she recognized it, Tina hesitated in mid step. She missed Jack.

By the Sins, what am I thinking? she laughed at herself. Miss Jack? I really have lost it.

She had to stop her hand from unconsciously scratching the itch that had been pestering her neck for the better part of a city block. The H.K. was known for thieves and illegal slave runners--men and women who stole human beings and sold them on the black markets. And those people were the saints. There were even darker, more horrible people that invested the Kitchens than the slave runners. It was partly because of this that if anyone saw ‘fresh meat’, word had a way of mysteriously getting back to the Guilds and it got there like a brush fire during a five year drought…on a bloody windy day.

Ahead of her, she watched Top run into another man almost casually. Faster than almost the eye could see, she saw something pass between them. The mysterious man immediately disappeared into the masses before Tina could get a better look at him.

They followed Top as he suddenly veered off the road and into one of the many alleyways that littered the Kitchens. Kyle slowed behind her until he stopped at the mouth of the sewage invested alley. When she turned back to see what was stopping him she watched him lean casually against the wall, his arms crossed under his various colored coats.

Tina knew the pose he took for she had done it on many occasions. He was gripping his dagger.

Playing sentry?

“T,” Top’s voice interrupted her thoughts.

She turned back to Top and Mike who were squatting down on the balls of their feet. Noticing the alley continued on, her mind put two and two together.

“He gave you a com,” she sent the thought to Kyle accusingly. It was hard to describe how she could do it, whispering to someone. She just knew it would get to him and only him.

The only answer she got from him was a sudden sly smile.

“T,” Top repeated again irritably.

“Sorry,” she whispered. Briskly she walked to the duo and squatted down next to them.

Top had laid a map down on the wet cobblestone, presumably from the drop he had just received. An old anger flared up in her before she could register it. He always kept them in the dark. Even her, his second.

He pointed to a number of the streets that were marked with a small ‘x’. “A sudden flux in undercover Peacekeeper patrols in the Kitchens.”

“Jack,” Mike prompted.

Their boss nodded. “Aye. He’s gone dark because he can’t use it, but he can’t be overheard or pinpointed either.”

Tina’s blood went cold. She had thought of every explanation but that. Vaguely she recalled the time Sikes had given her the com she now wore, seemingly eons ago.

“If the com goes ice cold, and I mean colder than the coldest winter my dear,” Sikes said fatherly. “You stop all communication--not that you will be able to. I’ve made them do that when another mage locks onto your com. If they do, they could pinpoint your location and eavesdrop on what you say.

It will probably never happen but you know John. You will have to come in and get a new com if this happens. In fact, you can toss it away if you want. It will be rendered useless, even to another mage.”

It had been so long ago, and such an improbable thing, that it hadn’t occurred to her. Mages were passive by nature and kept to themselves--except the few who were like Sikes, or the ‘better’ ones as he put it.

“Why hasn’t he gotten out of the Kitchens then?” Tina mused.

“Because of the Peacekeepers,” Top said knowingly. “They must have something on him. Just bloody perfect.”

“They are starting to move into the Lower Quarters now…” Mike whispered. “But that’s good because they don’t have him yet, right?”

Top, as usual, merely grunted.

Kyle was suddenly at their side. Top looked at him expectedly and the man nodded. “We should start here.”

Pointing to an intersection not five blocks from where they were, it suddenly dawned on Tina why Kyle was with them. He thought like the Peacekeepers. Which meant Top had been wasting time walking around until he got the patrol information from his unknown source.

Mike peered at the marked spots on the map and then at the spot Kyle was pointing to. “That’s bloody well in the middle of it all.”

Top nodded to this. “And that’s where they are boxing him in.”

They heard rattling of chain mail and the echo of horse hooves against uneven flagstone back behind them. People were angrily yelling out.

“We should get going,” Kyle whispered.

“Time to play angel, Fletch,” Top whispered.

Mike had already unbuckled the straps to his bow beneath the folds of his hunkering form. Looking at the map, and then back up to the rooftops, he ran up to the closest building and leaped up to one of the window sills. She wanted to watch the demented monkey climb, he was always a great city climber, but Top was already moving them forward.

Slowly they each filed out of the alleyway, making sure not to be seen together. People in groups greater than two drew suspicion to the locals.

She silently began to count down from fifteen as Kyle melted into the steady stream of people. When she reached zero, Fletch was no where in sight. The man would run the closely built rooftops and give them a bird’s eye view of the patrols.

Now that she thought on it, the streets did seem less crowded than usual. It was as if the residence of Hell’s Kitchen knew the Peacekeepers were out, even if they were undercover.

“Kyle you have point. Tina, with me. Fletch, give me a clear route,” Top’s voice echoed in her head as clearly as if he were next to her.

Kyle moved ahead of Top as Tina moved quickly to catch up with them. Meanwhile, Mike started reporting the movement of the troops. How he knew, she couldn’t begin to guess. Luckily the Peacekeepers were slow at boxing in the place they were to enter, giving them plenty of time to get in. Unfortunately, getting out would be a different story.

“Kyle’s right. They are indeed boxing that plaza in.” Fletch said to them as they crossed the third street. He was ahead of them but occasionally she saw a fleeting shadow jumping to another rooftop.

The former Blood lead them through a number of alleyways and crossed another two streets before he came to the spot Tina recognized as the one he had pointed to on the map. Four gambling taverns and a whore house dominated a small market square.

Of course, Tina thought as she took in the five buildings.

It raised a number of questions in Tina’s mind, like how they knew where Jack was and if he was okay. She didn’t think the gambler would stay in one place for very long, even if he was near (or most likely in) his two most favorite places to visit. Tina had watched him work his magic on the streets before and he was a master at disguises. Not to mention their best liar who could con his way into any place. Even Ben envied the man’s ability to think on his feet.

“We are entering the Thieves Guild territory,” Mike’s voice rang out as a reminder.

While the Thieves Guild wasn’t as hostile as the Snake Guild, they were far from holy men. Tina watched Top’s head surveyed the small square, half expecting he’d choose one of the four buildings to try first. To her surprise, his gaze stopped at one of the smaller buildings off to the side, almost completely hidden from the square. Frowning, he started muttering to himself.

“Kyle, make for that healer’s shop over there but loiter, don’t enter. Fletch, give me field of cover where I’m standing, we might have to fight our way out when the time comes. Tina, in three minutes I want you on the second floor from the alley.”

Immediately they were all set into motion. Kyle and Top slowly made their way toward the small building while Tina headed for the building two doors down from her mark--some type of warehouse.

Back behind the warehouse was an alleyway, long ago used for delivery carts. Feeling her three minutes ticking away, she double checked that she was alone before running up to the wooden fence that had too many holes in it to be called a fence.

Top always pushed her in breaking and entering--a hobby she was cultivating--but she welcomed the challenge.

Tina looked for a purchase to the second floor and immediately found it. Most of the buildings in the square had large window sills.

Sliding in between two loosely held planks, she scanned the dirt yard to find it empty of life. The curtains were drawn but, thankfully, it was a cloudy day, allowing Tina to make out candle light inside. Not wanting to waste any time, she sprinted to the first floor’s window sill. Silently she leapt to the ledge and used her momentum to propel herself upwards. Reaching up, she grabbed the next window sill in a move that would have made Mike nod approvingly. He’d been teaching her a thing or two.

Using her upper body’s strength, Tina pulled herself up to the ledge above her enough that her legs didn’t dangle in front of the lower level’s curtains.

Peering through the window, she saw the headboard of a bed and a shabby looking dresser. Seeing no one, and feeling the burn in her arms and chest, she pulled herself all the way through and lightly fell to the floor, sa’dka drawn.

Her eyes scanned for anyone in the small bedroom a second time. No one.

“I’m in. Activity downstairs. Bedroom clear.” she told everyone.

“Fletch?” Top asked.

“Been ready for a while now. Square is covered.”

Tina suppressed a smile. He always found a way to make their job a competition.

Not at all bothered by the fact that she had just entered into someone’s house--and by the plain woolen dress on the bed, a woman’s--without their permission, not to mention why she was doing it, she explored the rest of the room.

Most two story buildings in the Kitchen that weren’t housing related had a business below and a small bedroom above it. This one was no different.

There were two doors. The first one she checked was a door that opened up to a rickety old stairwell, leading downward to the first floor. Softly Tina closed the door and checked the other one. The second door was a privy. Two paces by two paces, the broom closet had a seat with a hole cut into it--which led down into the city’s underground sewage system and smelled of shit--and a bucket of fresh hay. Annoyed by Top and his ‘need to know’ policy, she backed out of the privy and found herself face to face with a boney elderly Kalian woman and her broom stick. The bristles waved dangerously in front of her nose.

You’ve got to be kidding me, Tina thought as she instinctively held up her hands in surrender.

“Did it come out all right?” the old woman demanded.

“Top… I found the owner,” Tina whispered in embarrassment. She hadn’t heard the woman come up. Not that the woman should have been able to move that fast up the stairway.

“I--uh.” She suddenly wished Top would have told her something of the building she was getting into.

“Martha, you old hag. I figure you’d be six feet under by now.” Top’s voice came from behind the elder woman. He had a finger pressed up against her back. The bedroom was starting to get crowded.

Tina blinked. She hadn’t heard him come up from the stairwell either.

First Jack, now this. I am loosing my wits.

The woman lowered her broom and a slow spry smile played on her lips. “Is that you John?”

Top’s voice was laced with laughter when he said, “You are getting dull, woman.”

Tina suddenly realized the Kalian woman was blind when the woman’s eyes glanced over hers without purchase.

I’m not going to hear the end of this.

“Dull?” she exasperated. Turning she pointed an accusing finger at him. “Dull! Why you…! Making all that noise coming in here… I want a rematch at Stones!”

Realizing the woman was talking about Tina, and that it had all been a game, sent scarlet heat to her cheeks.

“Where is he Martha?” Top said with a smile.

“Fine. Fine,” She said waving her hand. Tina backed away as the woman moved to the bed. “I swear, one of these days I will get you,” she muttered.

Top continued to smile, genuinely happy about something.

With a grunt, the mysterious elder woman pushed the bed toward the window Tina had entered through. To her surprise Martha moved the heavy oak bed without much more than the grunt. It must have weighed three times the woman’s weight and her boney arms didn’t give her much muscle.

There was a faint outline of some sort of handle but it wasn’t until the blind woman pulled the hidden latch up that Tina saw the door. The floor tilted upward as the hidden compartment was revealed. Jack was bound and gagged in the hidden hole that was just big enough for the man.

I take that back. Jack won’t hear the end of it, Tina thought as she smiled down at Jack. He was looking wide eyed at her and Top.

Martha produced a knife from out of her almost two sizes too big dress and expertly sliced away Jack’s bounds. Although she couldn’t use her roaming eyes to see, Tina got a haunting feeling that she could.

Immediately the gambler was up and out of the hole. “What the hell woman!” he bellowed.

“Oh quite you,” the elder woman said, waving her hand. “It was only a matter of time before he found you. Besides, you would have been killed if I hadn’t interfered.”

Jack made as if to say more but Top overrode him. “Thank you Martha. As usual, I owe you one.”

“Another game,” the woman promptly said as soon as the words were out of Top’s mouth.

He grinned. “Aye. A rematch.” Her boss moved his eyes just slightly to Tina before he said, “Anything new?”

What is he signaling?

The older woman made a display of thinking. “A thing here. A thing there. The White Council is out on the prowl. The Moore’s and Vincint’s are poking the fires and Tekal is starting to inquire.”

So is she a mage? The Council of Tekal is getting involved? And Jack seems to know her… how is this? She carefully tucked away each question that came to mind as the impromptu meeting unfolded.

“Moore and Vincint Houses? What have you heard of Dresden’s House?”

All three were the Traditionalist High Houses of Cohpa. While they were usually at odds with the Imperialists, it sounded to her that they were doing more than their usual ruckus.

“As quite as a whore in a Temple,” the elder woman said with a smile.

“So what happened,” He asked more to Jack than to Martha.

“As I told Tina, I found the recruiter,” Jack said irritably. “We got to talking and before I knew it we were going to see the Archmage. I should have known something was wrong right then. He started to tell me how they were going to bring Cohpa to its knees, and soon. Before we even crossed the street I felt the com go cold. And I mean freezing cold. When I put two and two together, it was too late. Four Peacekeepers jumped me. I’m almost positive they were from the Vincint House. By the time I had the third one down, ten more were coming.” Jack suddenly smiled, “Decided to tactically relocate myself. The two remaining men didn’t think it was necessary to chase me. Remembered Martha and thought I had found refuge. Was about to send a pigeon to ya boss but she clubbed me from behind.” Jack started rubbing the back of his head in remembrance and sent a dark look to the woman.

“It was just a love tap,” the woman scoffed, her eyes lazily glancing over Jack.

A loud creak from the stairs announced Kyle’s entrance and Tina became acutely aware that neither of the two in front of her had made a sound before.

Top looked at Kyle expectedly just as he entered.

“Peacekeepers are starting to search the square, building by building. I figured it was best not to be seen outside.”

They didn’t need any more encouragement and were all out the back window Tina had climbed through. Martha quickly closed the curtain as they left the dirt garden, hiding all trace of their visit.

“What was that all about?” She asked the two men ahead of her who walked silently toward the end of the alley. Kyle was right behind her, keeping tabs on the other end of the alley.

“Later,” they both said as one. Jack looked at Top who did the same. They both grinned.

The men’s club, Tina sighed. And then the investigative side of her corrected herself. No… Those two have always had something in common… something I could never put my finger on. Top always treated Jack slightly differently and not because of the knife fighter’s colorful hobbies. It’s subtle but it’s there. What’s the connection?

Fletch’s voice came to them as they reached the end of the alley.

“Boss, patrols are closing in on your alley. Head across the street and you should be out of the woods for the most part.”

Top frowned but nodded. “Keep your eyes open. Something’s off.”

They’d been in the square a long time. If they did know of Jack’s location, she knew they would have closed off all exits first. The key word, however, was ‘if’ they knew.

As they crossed the street in pairs, Top with Jack and Tina with Kyle, she caught a face in the crowd. A face that tugged at her memory.

Just when it clicked, Tina saw Top twist to the right, as if evading a punch. One moment no one was there, the next heartbeat a man dressed in gold and black appeared right next to Top--eyes wide in shocked, his dagger thrusting out uselessly into nothing.

She didn’t see much more of Top and Jack as the crowds around them suddenly screamed and scattered. Behind her she heard Kyle engaged someone. As she turned, her sa’dka coming free, a black fletched arrow came down from the heavens and passed a scant inch from her neck, into the throat of a man behind her. Instinctively she dropped and rolled just as another man came out of the swarming mass of people, sword brushing past her ribs.

It was chaos.

Parrying another attack, she ran the man through with a dagger she’d produced from the folds of her disguise. He had underestimated her, an advantage she exploited in battle more times than she could count.

As the man slumped down next to his dying comrade, the stampede of people slowly thinned out until her eyes began catching men dressed in grey.

Fifteen grey men. And they had them encircled.

Top’s calm voice drew her attention to him. Three bodies decorated his feet, but the mysterious man who had attacked first wasn’t among them.

“Twos. Kyle to me. Jack to Tina. If you see a break in their defense, make a run for it. Meet at the mansion. That’s an order. Mike, shoot no more than once before relocation. If you get company, bail. Ground team close communication.”

As they moved into their new positions, an arrow was fired from one of the buildings across from them. One long heartbeat later, Kyle grunted as the arrow harmlessly bounced off his chest.

“Firing.”

Tina looked up to see a black fletched arrow dart across the street and into the window the first arrow had come from. A scream followed shortly afterward.

Two arrows answered Mike’s shot from back behind the ring of men in front of her, up toward Mike’s location. A loud clink echoed their failure.

Tina’s eyes scanned from right to left, trying to judge the five men in front of her. They looked nervous, as well as they should be. It was safe to say that they hadn’t expected them to survive the first attack, and to have lost so many lives to it.

When she saw the look of hesitation in their posture, she thanked the stars that they valued their own lives. They had fought men in the past that had such blind faith in their superiors that it surpassed their own survival instincts--making it a bitch of a fight.

But they had numbers on their side and that fact made men cocky.

As if reading her mind, they charged.

Bracing herself, Tina pulled up her sa’dka just in time to parry a mighty blow. She felt Jack whirling his blades behind her as he held off two others simultaneously. Her assailant’s face was peppered with scars and frozen in an angry glare. Using her advantage of speed, she counterattacked and tipped him off balance in two blows. The extremely light weapon in her hand danced from sword to dagger as she closed the distance between them. Blocking his sword arm’s strike with her forearm, she ran him through with her sa’dka. It grew inside of him until a whole pace of mage steel stuck out from his back. The grim face slowly turned to shock, and then went slacken as he toppled back--gasping for breath.

She turned just in time to block another’s attack. Jack laughed behind her and said, “Two!”

Tina returned her attacker’s blow with a quick jab to his thigh and followed it up with a horizontal arch that drew a red line against his neck.

“Two!” She yelled back, feeling a smile forming on her lips.

“Three!” Jack immediately replied.

As her second dying body fell to the ground she glanced back to Jack who had indeed three bodies at his feet. And he was already engaged with another. Everyone was leaving her alone.

A bloody men’s club!

She knew that there was a gap now in the circle, even though it was small. She also knew more soldiers were coming from the distant sounds of horses.

And I’m turning into one.

Leaping she caught a man--who had been joining another’s fight against Jack--off guard. Slicing at the back’s of he knees, the man cried out as he fell. As he looked up, over his shoulder, she brought her sa’dka down across his shoulders and back. A heavy push against her palms told her success.

“Three!” she said with a grin.

Yeah, they were sadistic.

“Four! Come on love. Is that all you got?” Jack yelled, smiling. No others were paying attention to them but there were many more left. Fifteen had grown into twenty before they had realized it. Most of the men were trying to attack Kyle and Top who hadn’t killed any since the start.

She watched as Top slide between two arching swords before he clothed-lined a third with his elbow. Another black arrow came down from a different rooftop from before, sending an archer below to the ground, dead. Her eyes found more corpses with black fletched arrows around them. Fletch had been busy.

A lot more than fifteen.

“Come on,” Jack said, pulling at her shoulder. “Let’s get going while they have them busy.”

“Hell no,” Tina growled back. Pulling her shoulder away from his hand, she pulled up her sa’dka and charged. There were still a good seven left and more were coming down the street.

Kyle held back four of them, dancing amongst them as if they were the one’s at the disadvantage while Top seemed to play with three others. It suddenly occurred to her that they were stalling them for their escape.

“What in the Sins do you think you are doing?” Top demanded. He immediately killed one of his three opponents--and then another. The third started backing off, suddenly hesitant at the change of pace.

Not hesitating, Top gutted him from piss to stern. Kyle immediately started killing his opponents. One by one. It was incredible display of swordsmanship.

Blood and clumps of tissue could be found everywhere and, if it hadn’t been for the three other bloody fights she’d been in, Tina would have hurled. “Saving your ass, boss. Let’s go.”

His head suddenly turned to his left where there was no one. He pushed her back violently and the sky tilted into view as she fell back. Tina cried out as she bounced twice against the uneven road before skidding to a halt.

What in the Seven Sins?

She lifted herself up with her elbows and looked back at Top. No one was there. In fact, the whole street was a ghost.

Kyle ran up to her, wide eyed and face as white as snow. He had been deathly calm during his carnage earlier. It was one bit of insight that made her skin crawl.

“He’s gone.” Kyle whispered. “That God--he took him.”

An alarm sounded in the distance. And then horses--perhaps twenty or so, it was hard to tell--came to their ears. They were closing in on them.

Jack appeared at her other side. “We leave. Now.”

The face that had tugged at her memory came back to her.

“Willie.”