Majestic mountain ranges rose up in the distance, and the blue haze faded to aqua purple against their black slopes. Far beyond in the other direction, the grassy fields and rolling meadows gave way to the wide ocean spanning the curving rim of Earth.
In the short time since she descended those stairs, Raleigh learned to shut down any questions on how this could be or where anything lay in relation to anything else. Wherever in this strange universe her home world lay, it wasn’t here. It wasn’t up or down or underneath her. It was nowhere and somewhere at the same time. She would never understand where it was or where she saw. She just was…somewhere, and that was Hinterland.
The zeppelin soared over the landscape. The boy chattered about everything he saw. His grandmother tried more than once to silence him, but Raleigh didn’t mind. He voiced all her excited emotions without an adult brain to inhibit them. She smiled at him. At least someone in this crazy machine could jump up and down and point and laugh over every fresh revelation.
Bishop disturbed her by murmuring in her ear. “That’s Pernrith over there.”
A sparkling glow stuck out of the hazy horizon in the direction he pointed, but Raleigh couldn’t make it out. The farther they traveled, the larger it grew and the more brilliantly it shone until it cast the sun in shade. It dominated the skyline with its pearly whiteness.
After several minutes’ travel, spires stuck up out of the glow. Then individual buildings appeared, but nothing like Raleigh ever saw in her life. White towers, gleaming marble domes, and jutting pinnacles raked the sky. She couldn’t understand this place after the brooding darkness of the place she called home.
Another half hour passed, and she saw the city in all its magnificent grandeur. Palatial edifices stabbed their spires into the clear sky. The same ants scurried through the streets. The whole city vibrated with life and prosperity and excellence.
The zeppelin glided between the buildings, and Raleigh peered down into the streets. Even from that height, she could see people dressed in rich brocades walking side by side with every species of outlandish creature imaginable. Her eyes darted here and there, but she couldn’t take them all in fast enough.
The boy fell silent, too. He leaned his forehead against the glass and stared down with his mouth hanging open. Bishop stood silently at Raleigh’s side and said nothing. Reverent silence filled the compartment, and the grandmother dozed until the zeppelin bumped to the ground in a wide open square between the buildings.
The crew didn’t scurry around to secure the vehicle this time. A man touched a button next to the door, and all vibration ceased, even when the propellers spun as dangerously as ever.
Bishop opened the door for Raleigh. They walked across the square until they passed the sweeping winds cast off the propeller blades. Bishop turned a corner, and the zeppelin and all its wonders vanished into Raleigh’s past.
Bishop straightened his coat. “Now then. We have a few errands to run before the election.”
Raleigh fell in at his side. “What errands are those?”
“I want to pick up a few supplies from a merchant I know. Then we might have time to do some hunting after the twen before we head to the Guild of Musicology.”
The curious inhabitants of this strange city enthralled all Raleigh’s attention, so she didn’t ask any questions following Bishop through the city. She couldn’t ask the name and nature of every new oddity they passed. There were too many of them. They lumbered on four legs or two legs or eight legs. They looked out at her with one eye or twenty eyes or no eyes at all. Some had feathers, some smooth scales, and others soft pink skin like humans.
Bishop wound his way through dozens of tiny alleys crowded with living creatures of all kinds until he broke out onto a main road lined with shops. Raleigh hurried to keep up with him in the crush of the crowd. “Are all the Guilds in this city?”
“The Guild of Musicology is here, as well as the Guild of Martial Arts. The other Guilds keep their headquarters in other places. That’s why this is the biggest city in the land—because it’s home to two Guilds. The Guild of Martial Arts being located here makes it the center of trade for hunters like us. Everybody comes here for supplies, and they have everything—absolutely everything. If someone comes out with a new invention, they sell it here first. The Army, the combat merchants, bounty hunters like us—they all come here first when they want something. It makes finding things very convenient.”
“Do you know a lot of these people?”
“Not a lot. The few I do know mostly belong to the trade, so I see them here.”
“The trade?”
“The combat trade.”
Raleigh lapsed into silence. The combat trade. She never heard it referred to by that name before. She added that to one of dozens of new ideas she discovered in Hinterland.
Bishop entered a shop on the main road. The bell jangled overhead to announce their arrival. Seven or eight people milled around between the shelves and displays. Well-dressed men conversed with the shopkeeper. A lady in a ruffled delaine dress steered her young son between the shelves in search of something.
Raleigh stuck close to Bishop, but she couldn’t help studying the goods for sale on every surface. Swords, guns, bows, and arrows stacked the shop. Part of the place reminded Raleigh of Bishop’s underground armory. The rest of it resembled his hidden weapons cache behind the secret wall in his bedroom.
The only weapon she recognized from those displays was the cube weapon like the one she carried in her pocket. The others looked like a jumble of metal, glass, wood, and even bone. She dared not touch anything.
The boy picked up a smooth cylinder from a table near the front counter. “What about this one, Mummy?”
She took it out of his hand. “You already have three of those, darling. You don’t need another one.”
“But Father says I’m to be well armed to go to the competition next weekend.”
The mother chuckled. “You’ll be well armed. Don’t you worry.”
Raleigh whispered to Bishop. “Do you know those people?”
He glanced over. “No. Why should I know them?”
She looked away. “Never mind.”
Why did she think Bishop knew them? He couldn’t be the only bounty hunter in the world to learn his father’s trade from a young age.
Bishop strolled between the displays. He handled this and that. A few things he kept. The others he put back until the glut of people cleared from the front counter. He approached the counter and set his purchases in front of the storekeeper.
The storekeeper said nothing, but ducked behind a curtain. He returned and set a large wooden crate in front of Bishop. “The price went up since you placed your order.”
Bishop nodded. “How much?”
“Five hundred thousand.”
Bishop didn’t even blink. “Take it out of my account.”
The shopkeeper pulled a book from under the counter and scribbled in it with a pen. He tore off a sheet of paper and handed it across. “Here’s your receipt.”
Bishop shoved the paper in his pocket without looking at it. “Can you get any more of those splatter grenades? I need another hundred if you can get them.”
“I can get them.”
“I’ll be back next week to pick them up. By the way, this is my new apprentice, Raleigh Douglas. She might be in here on her own sometime. I would appreciate you giving her the same service you’ve always given me.”
The storekeeper gave Raleigh the most cursory glance, and he met her gaze for only a fraction of an instant before he closed his eyes and bowed. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Ms. Douglas. Anything you need, you just let me know and I’ll be happy to oblige you. Any friend of Bishop’s is a friend of mine.”
“Thank you,” she replied.
Bishop stuck his purchases in his pockets, heaved the crate off the counter, and turned away. “Come on, Raleigh. Thank you, Pringle.”
He shouldered his way out of the shop. Another large square stood across the street, and he headed for it. He set his crate on a stone bench and set to work prying off the lid with a pocket knife.
“Don’t forget this place, Raleigh,” he told her. “That Pringle has his fingers in every pie in Hinterland. If he can’t help you, no one can.”
She eyed the crate. “Whatever is in that thing must have cost you a pretty penny, if he’s taking five hundred thousand whatevers out of your account.”
“The price didn’t change. That was just his way of telling me he had some information to pass on.” He stopped what he was doing to take out the receipt. He scanned the paper and put it away. “Just as I suspected. The man we’re looking for will be at the Musicology election.”
Raleigh studied him. “Did Pringle concoct all that stuff about charging you so he could pass you that note?”
“We have a system of signals worked out when he wants to tell me something. You never know who’s listening in this town, and Pringle knows just about everyone and what they’re up to. If you want to know something, he’s your man.”
Bishop went back to his job. He levered off the crate’s top slats and pushed aside wads of shredded paper. He lifted out a bunch of paper packets and inspected them. “These will have to go back to the house. I’ll have to put them in a safe place so I don’t have to carry them around.”
“Where will you do that?”
“I have a locker at the train station. We’ll put them there, and I’ll come back for them later.”
“What’s in the packets?”
“Just some ingredients for different potions and chemical experiments I do back at the lab. We won’t be going back to the house for a while, and these are just resupply items I already have, so there’s no rush.”
Raleigh wandered after him. “I thought you might say that.”
“Say what?”
“That we wouldn’t be going back to the house for a while. You didn’t say it before, but I had a feeling.”
He cast a sidelong glance in her direction. “Is there a problem with that?”
She looked away. “Not at all.”
He put the remains of the crate inside Pringle’s shop. He crossed the square to a building on the other side. It raked the sky with its ornate steeples and swooping balustrades. Bishop strode up the front steps and into a ringing hall lined with marble statues. “This is the train station.”
Raleigh never saw any train station like this, and she didn’t see any trains, either. Bishop entered a long side passage. Thousands of tiny numbered doors covered both walls, each with a small keyhole embedded in its surface.
Bishop walked halfway down the passage before he stopped to unlock one of the doors. It hid a chamber the size of a breadbox, and he stashed his paper packets inside, along with half the articles he bought at Pringle’s.
“Are those weapons?” Raleigh asked.
“Yes, they are. If anything happens to me, you take this key, and you can get into this locker and use the weapons. Look. I keep the key in this pocket sewn into the lining of my waistcoat. There’s another key hidden under the powder barrel in the armory back home. If we ever get separated down here, I’ll leave messages for you here so we can find each other again.”
Raleigh grimaced. “If we get separated down here, I won’t be able to find my way back to the house.”
“You’ll find people to help you,” he replied. “Pringle will help you. Niui will help you. Esmeralda will help you. Heck, even Fuki might help you if you give him the proper incentive. I’m sure if we got separated down here, you would be just fine.”
She had to smile at him. “I’m glad you think so.”
He laid his hand on her cheek. “You’re a slayer. Even if you never got back, if you spent the rest of your life in Hinterland, you would be fine. Hinterland was made for people like you, and it’s really a nice place in parts. It’s got some very good people and some very beautiful aspects. It’s not all horrible.”
She kissed his palm. “I’m beginning to understand that.”
He turned back to the locker. “Sometimes I wished I could stay here. Sometimes I wished I never had to face people who didn’t understand. Life would be so much simpler if I stayed here. People know me here. I don’t have to explain or hide anything. I don’t have to pretend to be something I’m not.”
“Do you wish that still?”
“Not anymore. Not since I met you.”
He started walking out of the station. Raleigh strode at his side, but they might as well still be there, standing in the passage with her cheek cradled in his hand. He said those words, and they pierced her heart.
He said she would be fine on her own here, and him saying it made it true. She wasn’t his apprentice anymore, not really. They were equals. She could stand up to him. She could make her own decisions. She could hold her own. She didn’t need him and his magical weapons.
She wanted him, though, and he wanted her. He made the world make sense for her, and she made it make sense for him. He could face the surface world, the so-called normal world, now that one person understood him. She gave him comfort. She gave him peace he couldn’t find anywhere else.
Chapter 6
Bishop paused outside the train station and checked his watch. “I think we have time for one more stop.”
He marched all the way back along the main road, back the way they came through the alleys to a much poorer part of the city. Crumbling tenement buildings crowded overhead, and the stench of human habitation assaulted Raleigh’s senses.
Voices shouted, women screamed, and babies cried on all sides. Dogs scratched themselves in the allies. Bishop walked past it all until he came to a particularly disgusting building. His boots clanged on a metal ladder rising to a shattered window frame without glass.
He climbed inside, and Raleigh followed him into a dank bare room. Bishop looked around, and his hand went to his pocket where Raleigh knew he kept his cube weapon.
He crunched across sprays of gravel littering the floor to a hollow doorway. He peered around it, but didn’t pass through. He whispered under his breath, “We’ll just wait here a minute.”
“What are we waiting for?” Raleigh whispered back.
Before Bishop could answer, a tiny boy no taller than Raleigh’s waist scampered in. He ducked behind the doorway and cowered in the corner. He gasped for breath and cast frightened glances toward the door through which he just passed. He looked back and forth from the door to Bishop. “Is he there? Did he follow me?”
Bishop cocked his head and listened before he whispered back. “I don’t hear him.”
Raleigh couldn’t stop staring at the boy. He couldn’t be more than five or six, but he was so small and spindly her heart went out to him at once. Half his face looked like any ordinary human boy. The other half looked like something out of her worst nightmares.
Five big eyes clustered where his one eye should have been if he was human. The left side of his mouth twisted into a hideous maw full of curved teeth sticking out every which way. Sandy curls clung to the right side of his head. Heavy curved horns covered the left side in a solid mat of bony armor. A spray of horny spiked scales disfigured his forehead, but they stopped at an invisible line drawn down the center of his face.
Bishop drew back into the corner. He laid his back against the wall next to the boy and whispered down to him. “Are you all right? Is there anything I can do for you?”
The boy shook his head. “Just get out of here as fast as you can before he sees you. If he sees me talking to you, I’m finished.”
“Do you know anything about Rekworth’s death? Do you know who’s taking over the wolf people since he died?”
The boy’s one human eye gazed up at Bishop with a pleading expression that didn’t translate to the horrible side of his face. Even as he spoke, Raleigh noticed black and blue bruises on his neck, arms and the s
ides of his face. “His brother Horeck is taking over the western band, but his cousins are all fighting amongst themselves for the big Alpha spot. Horeck wants to come after you to get revenge for you killing Rekworth, but he can’t do that until he knows he’s Alpha. If he loses, the new Alpha might decide to do something else. If he made the first move before the Alpha challenge, the new Alpha could punish him for seeking revenge without permission.”
“What about Rianne? Has she said anything about Rekworth dying? Maybe she wants to take over, too.”
The boy nodded. “She wants to fight her cousins for the Alpha position, too, but Horeck won’t let her. If it comes to that, she’ll defeat him to let her fight. No one can stand up to her. I hope she does become Alpha so you’ll be safe.”
Bishop entertained a sad smile. “Don’t wish that. She’s the cruelest of them all. I hate to think what the wolves would be if she took over.”
The crash of something breaking echoed down the hall. The boy lurched forward to run out of the room, but Bishop caught him and held him back. “Listen to me, Yafik. Do you see this woman? She’s my new apprentice. Her name is Raleigh. If you ever need anything, you ask her, and she’ll help you. Understand?”
The boy took one glance at Raleigh, wrenched himself out of Bishop’s grasp, and raced out of the room. A moment later, terrible shrieks ripped through the building to set Raleigh’s hair on end.
Bishop closed his eyes and turned away. “Let’s get out of here.”
Raleigh didn’t say anything until they gained the safety of the ground. “What was that all about? Who was that boy?”
“He’s just a street urchin, but he hears and sees things you wouldn’t believe. I only wish I could help him somehow.”
“Who was he so afraid of?”
“His father is hammaslahti.”
“What’s that?”
“You just look at the other half of Yafik’s face, and you’ll know. His father captured a human woman and took her for his mate. He had five children, and Yafik is the last one left alive.”
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