Shan-ri no longer heard the marching boot steps of the hunters or the steady pants of the dogs. And, if he had lived another life, perhaps that would be enough. But, even if they had ceased chasing him, he could never be sure, and he still felt the hot, sticky breath of those hounds on the back of his neck in his bouts of fitful sleep.
All he could do was stay low, and hide, which may have seemed easy in such a huge, sprawling urban area. But, Shan-ri had never left the confines of the building he was born and raised in, had scarcely been allowed to explore beyond the lower levels of the mansion they called his home.
That’s what they did. They called things by names he could not fathom. They called themselves family. They called their tests exercise. They even called him by different names- son, child, cousin, or brother.
But, what were they really?
At least he had understood how life worked there.
The city’s abundance of life and darkened corners worked both ways. Whereas it may be nigh on impossible for them to find him, he could just as easily get lost or walk into a trap.
He stayed on the fringes, not quite delving into the belly of the city, and not quite venturing into the light, where happy families and finely- dressed men and women strutted along the sidewalks. There he was not welcome- none of the others like him were.
Shan-ri knew next to nothing about how this city functioned, and what he did know he learned from experience. He had seen how his kind- demons- lived in squalor here, so different from how they, his ‘family,’ dwelt in comfort and luxury. Those who got too close to the horn-less, the tail-less, pleading for an extra coin or two, were trampled on. He himself had nearly been caught and thrashed by the patrolling humans with electric batons.
Only the others like him had helped him last this long, and it was nowhere near the freedom he had begun to hope for.
But, all he could do was blend in and survive. At least that much he had learned how to do.

For the third week in a row, Shan-ri scraped up the change from the café counter and slipped between the lines of patrons. He dropped the coins in his pocket and cradled a cup of steaming coffee in his other hand. A couple heads turned as he walked past on his way out the door, but others just sighed and shuffled their newspapers.
Not everyone hated demons, he’d learned. Or, at least not so much to beat them up where they stood. Apparently, the ones in the alleys and trash heaps were beyond compassion, because, on occasion, Shan-ri caught a whiff of demon and would turn to see the back of a well-coifed person with a briefcase in hand.
The café patrons had grown used to the sight of a dirty, street urchin getting a coffee at least once a week, and, though, no doubt they noticed his ears and tail, there were demons in this city and it was too early in the morning to care.
A warm tingle spread to the tip of his tail as Shan-ri took a generous sip of his coffee. He smiled at the sensation, banishing the cold for a short time, and took a seat outside where no one else was in sight. The clothes he’d gotten from Rosemary were almost threadbare now, and winter was beginning to sink its teeth into the urban sprawl. But, the only money he could get his hands on went towards food, and this one indulgence.
And, maybe today, he would see her again.
It wasn’t as nice as the café she’d taken him to, or perhaps he wouldn’t have been able to even enter, but it had the cozy, slightly eclectic atmosphere Rosemary had about her and that he’d noticed in her apartment. She was the only person he knew in this city, the only person who had shown genuine kindness despite appearances and circumstances, and the one person he hoped he could see once more.
It was possible he could find her apartment again. Though her scent would be hard to pick out from this many people, it wouldn’t take long to follow it to her place once he did. But Shan-ri couldn’t protect himself, much less a human woman, and he hesitated to bring that same danger with him.
“You again? Don’t you know better than to hang around here, demon scum?”
Shan-ri jerked up from his coffee and his thoughts, to see a gang of boys his age or a little older glaring down at him. They looked familiar and he soon remembered why.
They loitered around these parts, looking tough and acting mean, smoking and laughing rancorously. He’d seen them kick at dogs, cats and even small children, and now it looked like he was their next target.
“Hey, you deaf? Aren’t those ears good for anything?” the scruffy leader hefted a pipe, and took a step closer.
Shan-ri glanced around. Several street beggars and passer by littered the sidewalk, a few already turning towards the commotion. He couldn’t make a scene, so he did what he did best.
The coffee dropped out of his hands and he ducked underneath the outstretched arm of the leader as he swung at him with the pipe. Shan-ri hit the ground hard, and began to run.
He recognized some of the twists and turns and weaved between trash cans and jumped over fallen, rotting beams. The shouts of the gang of boys were close behind, a firm reminder to keep going until he found safety.
Except that, here, where the rules were different and humans and demons lived together in some kind of dysfunctional relationship, the demon boy could find no haven- at least, not yet.
His feet led him to a dead end, where the remnants of a burnt building still squatted upon a dirt- packed lot. Maybe he could risk the frail beams and try to reach the next roof…
“Don’t leave! We just want to play!” a voice called out.
The boys had surrounded him. He tried to slip between their ranks like he had earlier, but the leader stretched out his arm, catching him across the throat.
He was knocked to the ground, gagging. His hand was still around his throat, when a heavy foot cracked against his ribs.
Shan-ri cried out in pain, causing the boys to chuckle.
The leader bent down, grabbed the collar of his shirt and yanked him up.
“Huh? What’s this?” he leaned in close, and Shan-ri’s sensitive nose reeled from the stench of liquor on his breath. “I’d heard demons were all scary, but you’re so pathetic!”
He brayed like a donkey, and his fist caught Shan-ri on the side of his head. Already dizzy and nauseous from the smell of the half-drunken boys and from their persistent abuse, Shan-ri nearly crumpled to the ground. And he would have if the lead goon hadn’t shoved him into the waiting arms of his followers.
They handed him back and forth, showering him with insults and jabs of their pipes and fists.
Shan-ri took their punches and their barbed words, until the lead boy leaned close- so close, he could see the veins of his eyes, and raised his fist for a final punch.
Shan-ri’s blurred vision only vaguely registered the danger he was in, but whereas his head and ears had been ringing up to now- the sound suddenly stopped. His mind felt clear again, his senses sharp and his eyes snapped open as the fist came bearing down.
Crack!
The boy looked down slowly, disbelievingly, as blood dripped down his arm and onto the dusty ground. His companions’ whoops and hollers faded as they realized what had occurred.
Their leader’s punch had been stopped. Not only that, the blood did not come from the demon boy they’d been bullying. No. It dripped from the crushed and deformed mass of flesh and bone the lead boy’s fist had become.
Shan-ri’s head hung, eyes shadowed and his own hand clenched. The boy howled in agony and dropped like a rock, sobbing and cradling his mangled hand.
For a moment, his bawling was all to be heard, until the other boys decided their numbers gave them an advantage.
They rushed Shan-ri, bats and pipes brandished high and shouting for blood. They got it.
The demon boy moved instinctively, lashing out and leaving bloody gashes on exposed cheeks and arms. His head was throbbing again, and his bruised ribs ached, but, somehow, someway, it didn’t dull his senses. His red- tinted vision was actually sharper and his movements more certain.
He didn’t think. He only fought- fought back these boys who wished nothing but harm on anyone and anything.
Until, reason crept up on him and he hesitated in attacking the last two standing. They had no such qualms and charged, only to split up and flank him.
He turned wildly, unsure who to attack, when a gust of wind blew through the ruins. Shan-ri froze as a whisper tickled his ears.
“Found you…” And then it was gone, and hands were grabbing his arms and pushing him along.
He blinked and saw the last two boys winging away as fast as their legs could carry them.
Then, he glanced to the side and saw the owner of the hands.
Another boy was tugging him away from the fallen boys, gesturing him impatiently through gaps in the precarious shell of the ruined building.
He paused, as if finally realizing that all Shan-ri could see was fuzzy shapes and all he could hear was white noise.
“Do you want to get caught, is that it? Because, if that’s the case, then I shouldn’t have bothered.”
His words were sharp and blunt, but Shan-ri was too overwhelmed to even shrink back.
“Y-you… you helped me?”
The boy cracked his knuckles and looked to the side. “Maybe I did. I was planning to beat up Gordan and his oafs earlier and just join in, but you seemed to be handling them just fine.”
His gaze swiveled to pin Shan-ri then- the boy’s hazel eyes fierce, almost feral.
Then, Shan-ri found his tongue again. “Is there someone else with you?”
The boy frowned, not that it made much of a difference from the scowl he already wore.
“No, why?” his voice rose in a suspicious tone, something Shan-ri recognized as predominant in the people of this city.
Shan-ri felt an uncomfortable tingle in his limbs. The voice he’d heard hadn’t come from this boy, so whose was it? He gazed into the shadows of the alleys fearfully.
“We done with the chit- chat? I’ve seen you about, so I was curious when those goons started chasing you. You’re not too bright to hang around a clean-cut joint like that, are you?” Then, he laughed bitterly. “But, of course, no one else was stupid enough to get involved to this point.” He stopped chuckling and glared at Shan-ri as if it was his fault he’d antagonized the local gang with his very existence.
He sighed and waved his hand. “Whatever. Screw it. I’ll get you away from here otherwise I might get killed as well, and that bastard would miss me too much.”
With that, the boy pushed an offending piece of metal away and crawled through an opening in the ruins. Shan-ri could see no other option but to follow him, no matter how gruff the boy appeared to be.
And, when a shadow flitted away from his last glance at the bodies of the unconscious boys, he shoved through the makeshift escape route almost eagerly.

“Hello there! It’s been a while!” a long-lashed woman cooed, draping herself around the boy who’d saved Shan-ri. “What do you have for me, darling? Surely, you didn’t forget!”
“Git off,” the boy grumbled, but it seemed to be a routine response and she just laughed and made sure to keep a hand on his shoulder.
“It really has been too long! You haven’t been playing around with other girls have you? I did hear there were some pretty wealthy demonesses dying of boredom while all the men lament about their incompetence-“
“Shut up, Drae!” His eyes flashed with real anger, and he tore his arm from her grasp.
And suddenly Shan-ri wasn’t as concealed behind the boy, his ears pricked forward curiously.
Drae’s eyebrows disappeared into her dark bangs. “Ohh… is this, what you brought me…?”
“No.”
“Then, I’m afraid-“
“Grey will want to see him.”
The woman still looked skeptical, but then sighed, “Hmm, I suppose so. He’s all for adopting strays, huh?”
But, the boy was already stalking away from Drae. Shan-ri glanced back at her uncertainly. She smiled coyly and wiggled her fingers.
He hurried after the other boy as fast as he could.
He was bursting with questions he was too afraid to ask. Who was that woman? What had she been talking about? Who was this Grey…? At one point, Shan-ri tried to speak to the boy, but a furious look in his direction silenced his wonderings once again.
No matter what he did, the boy seemed angry at him, and, as they continued through the pathway, his shoulders only got tenser and his expression only got darker.
Shan-ri hadn’t noticed the dark growing more profound, nor did he notice the slight angle of the ground, until the boy stopped suddenly and he fell into him, the decline abruptly stealing his balance.
“Watch yourself!” the other boy snapped and glanced forward again, before he faced Shan-ri.
He looked him up and down, before saying, “You’re lucky she didn’t eat you alive. Can’t you have some tact?”
“What do you mean?”
The boy stared at him, and then put his face in his hands. “Of course I get the one demon who can’t even transform…”
Shan-ri stared back in bewilderment.
Then, he pointed at him. “You don’t just go around flaunting… that.” He gestured at Shan-ri rather generally, before groaning. “Don’t make trouble.”
With that, he turned on his heel and plowed forward into a buzzing marketplace filled with humans and demons alike.
It was like a miniature city, a continuation of the slums he’d seen before, but bigger, grander. There were some decrepit buildings lining the edges, but the lower part of the slope was filled with tents and stalls constructed out of pieces of wood and cloth and assorted other found objects. And the place was alive.
Unlike the city he’d witnessed above, no figures flitted secretly along the edges of impossibly tall buildings at midday and who finally showed themselves as night fell. There seemed to be no wire fences and no sidewalks scattered with the select few people who didn’t have somewhere to be, in fact there were no sidewalks at all. Everything seemed to blend and mingle with each other until Shan-ri couldn’t tell where one stall overflowing with TVs and monitors with wires sticking out every which way ended and another began.
But, the most shocking part of this strange hybrid of a thriving marketplace and a beaten down slums, was the blatant differences between its demon and human counterparts. Even more so than in the city itself, both species parted around each other like the tide around shore rocks. While Shan-ri’s hair stood on end and he stood frozen in shock, no one else reacted. It was routine. These close-quarters living and haggling arrangements were just another part of daily life, and Shan-ri couldn’t understand it.
How did one live with humans? He had never been taught such a thing in his own brand of household, but society moved on and made modifications it seemed, and he had no choice but to be swept onwards by his impatient guide.
The fierce-eyed boy pulled up to a side of the path apart from the shoddy shops and empty entrances, where several large tents and tables piled high with assorted items squatted in a type of temporary base. Several people milled about and Shan-ri stuck close to his guide… until he turned sharply and disappeared, leaving him standing amidst a stack of wooden chairs, most with broken legs, and a glittering array of glass tubes and beakers.
Shan-ri cast a nervous gaze over the shiny instruments and sidled to the side.
“Hey there, you’re the boy Cain brought?” A voice suddenly materialized behind him and he jumped, letting out a yelp of fright.
He pivoted on his heels to face a tall, slender man, young and smiling sympathetically, that had emerged from the eaves of a tent open to the city air.
“Sorry, I must look like hell’s vanguard ran me over and hung me out to dry,” the man apologized, gesturing at the scrapes and dirt covering much of his body, even knotting in his rusty brown hair. His eyes, though lined with dark impressions, were a light green, alive with bright intelligence.
As he shifted from foot to foot, Shan-ri couldn’t help but see this strange person as a bird perched on a branch, watching and waiting for something particularly interesting to happen.
The smile had slipped a bit from the man’s face and suddenly he was composed and serious.
“Pardon my rudeness, of course you’re him. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
His hand extended to Shan-ri, bridging the gap between the two. Having been through this human custom with Rosemary, Shan-ri resisted the instinct to run, or give him something and run, and tentatively held out his own, smaller hand.
The man took it, and Shan-ri was struck by how warm his hand was.
He looked down at the boy, rust-colored bangs partially obscuring his warm-bright eyes.
“I’m Grey and the boy who brought you here is Cain,” he pointed to their right, where more tents and shanties were erected and where Shan-ri’s impatient guide was engaged in conversation with a gangly man wrapped in layers and layers of clothing.
Grey shook his head and massaged his temples, sighing, “I assume he told you nothing including his own name. It’s impossible to instill manners in kids these days…”
Manners? Shan-ri wasn’t sure what the man meant, or what to say. He began to nod his head in agreement, but then hesitated. Was he supposed to agree? He settled for half-way between a shake and a nod.
The man gave no indication he noticed, and instead asked, “He didn’t ask you for yours either, huh? Or he just didn’t tell me, the brat…”
By this time, Shan-ri had decided that this Grey meant no harm. He seemed decidedly different from other humans he’d met, excepting Rosemary, but it wasn’t a bad different.
“I-it’s Shan-ri.”
Never had the boy seen someone so happy to hear his name. Grey beamed, making his youthful face seem even younger.
“So you do talk! I’m glad. If I had another Cain to deal with…” Grey had bent down secretively and now made a cutting motion across his throat. Shan-ri shrunk away, eyes wide, when Grey suddenly chuckled instead. “Anyway, Shan-ri, don’t worry about him too much, he’s just the unfriendly sort. I have some spare time to show you around myself.”
“O-okay,” Shan-ri agreed. He was already here and there was nowhere else he could go.
He began to follow Grey as he led him out of the clearing of tents, when something, or, rather, several something’s, caught his eye.
It was another rickety table filled with more broken objects, but these objects swung, rotated and ticked as if they were alive. Shan-ri paused at the table, looking at all the different sizes and shapes of the noisy, moving devices. Their faces were etched with numbers and Shan-ri’s eyes followed the path of the thin black line as it circled around again and again with the same methodical tick.
Overcome with curiosity, he stretched out his hand to touch the nearest one- an intricate, carved piece with gold metal bits around the edges. It was mesmerizing, so beautiful in its strangeness… Shan-ri’s fingers brushed the face, and instead of touching the ticking lines his fingers met cold, hard glass. His hand slipped and the object tipped over, falling to the ground with a tumultuous crash.
Cain and his companion glanced over at the sound, but quickly resumed their own conversation.
Shan-ri could do nothing but stare at the broken mechanisms, shiny gears and shards of glass scattered in the dry grass.
At the crash, Grey had hurried over, afraid that his guest had injured themselves. When he did arrive at the boy’s side he couldn’t help but heave a sigh of relief.
But, Shan-ri wasn’t so nonchalant. He reached out to pick up a tiny gear, only to come up short. He looked up at Grey.
“I’m sorry… I, I didn’t mean to break it-“
Grey felt a pang of understanding shoot through his body at Shan-ri’s heartbroken expression and smiled.
“Don’t fret about it. It was just a piece of junk anyway.”
He bent down and picked up the front of the wooden base that held the glass face and the ticking lines.
Shan-ri glanced at the tiny gears on the ground and then at the face in Grey’s hands. His brow was furrowed in confusion and distress.
“But, it was so beautiful!”
Grey paused in examining the broken “piece of junk.” Upon closer inspection, the thing had probably been a hand-crafted antique from some bygone era. It would have probably fetched a pretty penny on the market… but he didn’t have the heart to tell that to the boy.
He glanced sideways at Shan-ri; one brow rose quizzically, “Haven’t you ever seen a clock before?”
Shan-ri frowned.
“What’s a clock?”
The young man tried to quell his surprise and probably only met with partial success. He pointed at the table covered in clocks of all different types from all different time periods.
“Those are clocks. They tell time.”
Grey set the broken pieces of the antique clock back on the table. Maybe it could still be fixed, maybe not. Either way, he would have to make sure the collection was better appraised and better taken care of in the future…
He placed a hand on Shan-ri’s head, right between his two, downy ears and ruffled his hair as he had with Cain before he had grown big enough to shake him off.
Shan-ri recoiled under his unexpected touch, and at Grey’s surprise, looked down and seemed to realize he’d made- another- faux pas amongst humans.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, and then the words seemed to spill out of him. The words that had been frozen at the tip of his tongue for so long. “I don’t know about a lot of things and I’m not used to people like you… I’m sorry!”
He braced himself, ready to be struck, or at least cursed at, for such a bold outburst.
Instead, Grey huffed and folded his arms across his chest.
“I’m not too surprised. Not many people are used to people like us, some never do…” he muttered with a pointed glance to Cain, who had moved on to a shoddy shop and was haggling with the droopy eyed owner. He stiffened as if he felt the dirty look aimed in his direction, before going back to business.
Shan-ri shook his head violently and waved his hands in front of him. “No! No! I’d- didn’t meant just you guys, you’ve been really nice. I meant humans in general. I’m… not used to living with them…”
He trailed off. He sounded so pathetic, so helpless. Shan-ri’s hands curled into fists at his side. Frustration coiled in his belly, he was tired of being so weak, but it was all true- what he had said. He did not understand this world, and he was beginning to wonder if he ever would.
Instead of laughing at him, or even calling him a liar, Grey’s eyes scrunched in disbelief. And then his expression became merely thoughtful.
He leaned against a rocking chair with paint peeling off its edges and tapped his pointer finger against his chin. “You’re saying you’ve had little to no interaction with humans and human society…”
Shan-ri nodded eagerly, relieved that he didn’t have to try- unsuccessfully- to explain the details of something even he couldn’t grasp.
“Then… you must be from one of the demon clans.”
“Y-yes, how did you know?” Shan-ri knew his ignorance was obvious, but Grey was so quick to make the connection to his background that even he was uncertain of, he couldn’t help but ask.
Grey pushed off from the table, dusting off his already hopelessly grimy trousers.
“There aren’t many demons left who still keep the ‘no contact with humans’ law. Since the existence of demons is already common knowledge, I guess it’s not worth it.” The young man shrugged. “But, there are some clans left that keep mostly to themselves, and some who-“
He broke off suddenly, as if remembering something important. Shan-ri glimpsed a deep shadow of anxiety and concern cross his face before he smiled again.
“Why don’t you tell me more about yourself, Shan-ri, as I show you around this little piece of heaven?”
Shan-ri glanced at the disorder of everything, the people and the buildings, in this part of the city. The caution that had kept him alive and on the run since he had escaped squirmed in his chest- it was not going to be something that was so easy to get rid of.
But, Shan-ri allowed himself to be reckless just this once. “I don’t know much, but I’ll tell you what I do know.”
“Fantastic!” Grey’s childish delight lit up his face as he clapped Shan-ri’s shoulders and led him into this underground culture in the bowels of the strange and intimidating city.
Shan-ri only felt marginally guilty as he stuck close to Grey as they wound through the shoddy streets of the underground slums. What he had told Grey about not knowing much about his clan was half-truth and half-lie.
It was true that he had not gleaned much outside of the lower levels of the mansion where he lived and was raised by his “brothers and sisters”. But, it was more an issue that he couldn’t tell Grey more than what meager scraps he’d already offered.
Some extra sense of his kept his mouth clamped shut and his blind panic and sharp pain from that night… the emotions were still too raw for him to remember much of importance, scarcely more than fleeting images beyond what was just there, before Rosemary had found him in the alleyway…
He instinctually knew that if they found him again he would not go back willingly. Shan-ri had been on the run for a reason.
Grey had accepted his comments on living with a demon clan, and, in the way of much of the people of this city, traded with some of his own.
“A portion of this place is subterranean, with ancient sewage routes and abandoned mine shafts leading to the upper city. But, some of them also lead nowhere, so don’t go wandering anywhere without someone who knows the place…” Grey trailed off and he glanced at Shan-ri.
Purposefully, hidden under a false easiness, the man went on, “Shan-ri, Cain mentioned that you didn’t transform.”
“He mentioned something like that too. What do you mean?”
“Well, uh…” Grey blinked, surprised that he had to explain this to a demon of all people. “Most demons will transform into a more… human appearance.”
“Why?”
“So, they can, uh… blend in better with humans in certain situations. It’s easier for them at times.”
“Oh…”
Shan-ri thought back to the figures decked out in finery he’d passed in the street. They appeared human in all sense of the word… but for the scent of a demon wafting from their pores. From their own kind, they would always be recognizable, and it seemed they even took on a human appearance when humans already knew what they were. It was to make them more comfortable…?
Meanwhile, Grey’s bright- bird eyes had narrowed and he was considering Shan-ri as one might consider a particularly unique specimen they had recently caught.
“Could it be…? It’s possible that you’re-“
SHREEE! SHREEE!
A shrill whistle, so high- pitched that Shan-ri clamped his hands over his sensitive ears, wound through the rows of booths and decrepit apartment buildings, rising and falling in tandem as it bounced off the far walls of carved limestone.
Grey’s head jerked up and his mouth moved. Shan-ri could barely catch what he said over the racket and those words weren’t directed at him.
“Not again.”
Suddenly, the young man seemed to snap out of his stupor, tearing his gaze away from the right and the direction they were headed. He seemed to remember Shan-ri’s presence and placed a hand on his shoulder.
“I’m sorry, but I need to care of something. Just… stay here, Shan-ri.”
And then he was off, striding briskly through the milling clusters of people, most of whom looked utterly unperturbed by the shrieking that had lowered in pitch, but persisted all the same.
Shan-ri stood in the middle of the path, staring after his second guide and the second one he’d lost that day.
“Whoa!”
A man carrying a huge, bulging burlap sack, nearly as big as he, swerved around the boy, nearly dropping his burden in the process.
Shan-ri skittered to the side and just in time as two men pushing a wagon full of barrels and crates clattered his way.
“Watch it!” one yelled as Shan-ri ducked underneath the wagon in his haste to get away. He managed to make it to the sidelines intact, only to bump into a wall of flesh.
He shrunk, expecting another angry complaint, but no one gave any indication they had noticed him. Straightening, he stepped to the side and realized that a loose string of people had gathered just off the main path where the limestone wall of a tunnel now rose formidably before them.
It was a small crowd, but one alive with titters and murmurs, each and every person either too taken aback or too absorbed by the scene taking place in front of them to continue the activities they had frozen in the midst of doing.
Furious voices rose tremulously from the center of the crowd, where a group was clearly divided into two opposing sides.
Shan-ri squeezed between two older women to see that several of the participants were most definitely demons.
If their distinctive scent didn’t give them away, the loudest one, a man of sturdy build and a scruffy two day beard, had small horns rising from the top of his head. And, as he gesticulated more passionately with each passing moment, Shan-ri saw curved claws in place of finger nails as well as the faint pattern of scales on his hands.
“You’re trying to steal our business, and using our routes to boot! We get to the meeting place and our client is nowhere to be found!” he snarled.
An older man, human, along with his two tough looking companions, twitched and a vein pulsed in his forehead. His crossed arms tightened as he replied, “We may be merchants, but we aren’t so underhanded as to try and steal the scraps of you demons.”
He spoke evenly, without the outright anger and hostility of the demon man, but there was something about the way he said demon- a cold, contempt in his tone- that made Shan-ri’s skin prickle uncomfortably and his ears flatten against his head.
This enraged the demon man as much as it disturbed Shan-ri. The man’s hands trembled at his sides.
He spat, “You calling me a liar? Nothing is sacred here, especially deals. Only those in our business know where the market makes its rounds and there was blood scent. What do you make of that, but sabotage and thievery?”
“You smelled blood? Two good men went missing just yesterday thanks to your kind!” the human man’s hooked nose was practically in his opponent’s face. “All that was left were a few pools of blood and leftover pieces!”
His men shifted uncomfortably, the younger, a youth of seventeen, had lightened two shades of color.
Now, the demon actually smiled, though it was more like a malicious smirk.
“Ha!” he barked. “There goes your old wives’ tales! You say you don’t steal the trade of others, even your competitors? Well, I say demons don’t resort to eating their competition! Unless…” he paused and his grin grew wider. “… They look particularly tasty.”
A ripple of laughter moved through the watching knot of passerby. The other man’s face became an angry red color, splotched with purple around his neck and ears.
“Dead! Honest men are dead because of you! Don’t get cocky just because a few barriers have been lifted allowing you to live with us. “
His bulging eyes swept over the crowd, and then they landed on Shan-ri. “You!”
Shan-ri flinched. There was no mistaking that the merchant was talking to him. His finger pointed accusingly.
His men rushed forward, grabbed Shan-ri by the arms and pushed him between the two factions.
“He has nothing to do with your money-grubbing hands and desperate efforts to kill our trade,” the horned man huffed brusquely as Shan-ri staggered to a halt in the dust.
“We did no such thing, what with our own clients actually showing up,” he sneered back. “However, look at how bold you demons are becoming? I do believe we can make an example out of this boy. That is, if you don’t confess your crimes and give the dead’s kin their proper due!”
The man lunged forward, clawed hands outstretched, his face a mask of soundless rage. His companions fought to hold him back, actually tackling him to the ground.
The other man looked down at his fellow dealmaker, or deal breaker subsequently, and gestured to the two at his side.
“Hold him.”
Shan-ri thought he meant the three demons struggling in the dirt and so had no time to react when one of the men grabbed his arms again, this time pulling them behind his back.
He was penned in, with no means escape.
Someone screamed, “Murderer!”
The man’s fist came down, bearing a length of corded rope folded over, and Shan-ri thought he saw Cain’s tawny eyes staring at him from the ranks of the rumbling crowd, his sandy brown hair not quite obscuring the bruise-like shadows under his eyes.
Shan-ri’s body was taut as a cord, braced for a stinging, searing blow. He did not close his eyes, for he was too engrossed with the path the makeshift whip carved through the air to shy from his fate.
But… the pain never came.
Grey held the outstretched arm of the human merchant high in the air, stopping the vicious arc of his clenched hand and rope. As Shan-ri watched, he thrust the man’s arm back, bending it at an angle sharp enough to make him cry out. Just as quickly he let go with a final shake.
The large, calloused hands holding Shan-ri’s wrists had also vanished, and there was Cain. He must’ve not imagined seeing him because the boy kicking the youth’s legs from under him, hitting behind the kneecaps quickly, precisely and almost casually, was most certainly real.
He spared the young man one last glance before sauntering up to Grey with his hands shoved into his trouser pockets.
This Grey was different then the reliable, interested and somewhat eccentric person Shan-ri had first seen him to be.
His pale green eyes shone with anger as he bellowed, “What’s going on here?”
One of the demons sidled up to him, whispering rapidly in his ear. Their leader was getting to his feet, shaking the dust from his hair and brushing off the aid of his other companion.
Grey glanced at him as the demon finished his retelling of the episode and backed away.
“Someone messed with your deal?”
The man nodded reluctantly, but the fire seemed to have leaked out of him like the air out of a popped balloon.
“I heard there was blood.”
“Aye, I smelt it.”
“Human or demon?”
He scratched his stubbly cheek. “A bit of both I reckon.”
Grey nodded, and then turned to the narrow-eyed man who was still cradling his arm.
“What about you? You found blood as well?”
“And other stuff,” he grimaced, sending a hostile glare at the demons’ leader.
“Human or demon?”
“How would I know? I don’t have a freak’s sense of smell like some!”
The other demons snickered, while their horned leader huffed again.
“Let’s assume it was the same as with Marik here,” Grey responded diplomatically, referring to the demon. “Then there was probably a struggle between at least one demon and at least one human.”
“There were two of my men,” the human merchant grumbled.
Cain was the one who sent him a death glare this time, “Shut up, Quinn.”
“Excuse me, Quinn, but, by any chance, were your goods missing as well as your men?”
Quinn appeared surprised. His brow furrowed in a moment’s thought, before he replied, “Yes, it was all gone. Gregory and Oliver were keeping watch until we arrived…”
He stopped as he realized at the same time as Marik, what Grey was getting at.
The young man smiled and raised his hands. “I’m afraid this was all a misunderstanding. A night patrol must’ve gotten wind of Marik’s location and arrested their client that was waiting there. At the same time, they stumbled upon Quinn’s men, who fought back and were unfortunately killed, and then proceeded to confiscate the goods.”
The few bystanders still watching, with nothing better to do, muttered in agreement.
“Makes sense,” Shan-ri heard a woman whisper behind him. “The night patrols are always on a look out for someone to arrest.”
With their conflict “resolved”, Grey managed to talk to both Quinn and Marik for a moment more.
He broke off his hushed exchange with the tense pair, to raise his voice and ask:
“Did anyone set off the alarm?”
Shan-ri thought back to the horrific shrieking noise from earlier. It had faded without him noticing, what with the furious dispute between Marik and Quinn driving it to the back of his mind.
He listened curiously as Grey spoke after the ensuing silence.
“It’s fine if it was an accident, or even a prank. Sorry for taking up your time,” he waved off the bewilderment of the remaining people, and hustled Shan-ri and Cain away from the scene.
When the tunnel wall was but a haze in the distance, Grey finally slowed down.
And, he no longer looked as self-assured as when explaining the root of the two rival merchants’ troubles.
It had been almost too simple, yet everything appeared to fit together. Well, everything except, the demon blood found at both sites. Even Shan-ri had learned, from his close encounters with the coppers in the city’s alley streets, the patrols were human only. If Marik’s client was human… and so were Quinn’s men… where did the demon blood come from?
Shan-ri wasn’t the only one who had questions.
“It wasn’t the night patrol,” Cain broke the silence with a quiet observation.
Grey’s eyes narrowed and he ran his hand through his scruffy mane of hair, shaking with nervous energy.
“I wish it was.”
“And the alarm?”
“It’s not a prank or an accident. Something set off the alarm, maybe even deliberately. It was all too convenient…”
“They’re just lying,” Cain replied stoutly.
This made Grey smile, amused if only for a second. “You need to view others in a better light.” Then the darkness passed over his face again, leaving him grey and haggard. “Something else is stirring other than the night patrol. Something much worse…”
Cain’s face contorted and he scratched at his arms as if recalling something of the past.
“It’s them.”
Grey could only nod, while Shan-ri could only wonder if his desperate flight had led him into even greater danger and more impenetrable darkness than ever before.
* * *
He glanced at his nails, picking them occasionally with a pen knife as he only half listened to the reports of the one other figure in the room- forced to stand as he occupied the only, decidedly uncomfortable, chair in the room. It was very dark in the room, the heavy curtains drawn in heavy, depressing folds, letting just the most meager glimpses of sunlight through.
The man in the chair found this as another flaw in their accommodations. He was so used to the underground life that he’d rather skip the extra years required to completely adapt to the bright human world.
Finally, the topic he knew would come to surface broke the frothy waters.
“Sir,” the man finally turned his face to look up at his superior. “Is it wise to allow him to continue to wander and live among humans in the city like this? Letting him escape was one thing, but-“
“It’s not your job to worry about the particulars,” the man picked at his thumbnail with a furious flick.
“But, sir! What if something happens-?”
Suddenly, the pen knife stuck out of the thick carpet right between the man’s legs, still quivering from its virgin flight. A new letter opener would be in order.
The man’s eyes, even shrouded in the dim light, shone warningly behind the stout, mahogany desk. “Did you think we were leaving him unsupervised? One of our spies recently reported back. He is fine- more than fine, actually.” A dark smirk spread across his face, unseen by the other man. “After all he is our precious son…”
Bam!
The door shook in its frame and both men turned to the source, finely-honed senses and wiry muscles abruptly as tense as a coiled spring.
Bam!
Something heavy hit the other side again, and, for a moment, even the man in the chair entertained the thought that something had gone terribly wrong.
He was only half right.
This time, the door- it had been unlocked the entire time, albeit posted with guards and the expressed warning that no one was to be permitted unless they had arranged a meeting- opened, slamming into the wall with a shuddering heave.
A decidedly flustered, short man stumbled through the door, his face slick with sweat and his barrel chest heaving with effort as he gasped, “S-sir! There is someone here to see you! S-she says- cough- she says you called on her specifically-?”
His message ended in a question, because at that moment a tall figure clothed all in black materialized from the hallway and her arm moved, more like slid, through the air, and the unfortunate messenger, he had been a low-ranking member of the household, but hopeful about his prospects in the future, fell to the floor with a dull thud, eyes rolled back into his head.
Blood leaked from a ragged whole torn in his vest, pooling and sinking into the carpeted floor. The man groaned aloud. There would be no repairing that much damage.
After the figure’s hand retreated, they briskly strode into the room, stepping over the body and facing the host.
“You are the one who wishes for my services,” the voice was deep, but obviously female, rich, with a peculiar foreign lilt at the end of her speech.
She cut a striking figure, even in this place with little light and even less warmth. Her cloak flowed down to her boots, covering the belts and buckles upon extra durable fabric and just barely obscuring the literal arsenal hidden underneath her black garments. Only the glinting weaponry strapped to her thigh as she entered the room gave any hint to what surprises she might have in store for them.
But, most unusual of all was this woman’s face, or, her lack of one. It may have been dark, a dark that wasn’t much to inhuman eyes, but the man could not miss the blindfold covering her eyes and half of her face, the finely woven material ending at the bridge of her sharply cut nose.
He smiled, despite the shivers this blindfolded, shadowy woman may have elicited in another. It was the smile of a man who knows how to deal with the devil.
“Yes, and you must be the one who is so highly in demand and so impossible to find information on,” he spoke lightly, almost teasingly, as a boy might test a strange dog to see if it snaps. Yet, his guest gave no reaction at his insinuations, nor, even any indication she’d heard him at all.
He persisted doggedly. “Nevertheless, it is a pleasure to meet you, Lady of the Hounds. I do apologize that you couldn’t bring your pets into this room.” His hands formed a steeple across his desk. “I’m afraid dogs don’t agree with my assistant here.”
The man who had delivered him his report earlier had sidled to the edge of the room, uncertain whether he was dismissed. Now, at being called out, he nodded and snapped to attention, although, having the woman’s gaze suddenly upon him did no wonders to his complexion.
She replied as neutrally as she’d begun, “It’s no matter. My hounds can take care of themselves.”
The man raised a querulous brow as he peered down from his desk.
As if on cue, there was another bang as something solid and heavy hit the door that had swung closed upon the Lady’s entrance. His eyes widened only slightly.
“Ah, so that’s what it was,” he remarked casually as a muffled growl, ferocious and wild, penetrated through from the other side of the door. The other man squeezed his eyes shut and covered his pointed ears.
Now, down to business…
“Enough of the formalities,” he declared and leaned forward, excitement pulsing through his veins. “I’ve heard plenty of rumors about the unparalleled tracking and hunting skills of the Lady of the Hounds and her loyal… familiars. But, I have no need for rumors. How do I know I am hiring the real thing?”
She stared back at him, or at least he assumed she was. On account of her blindfold, she could be gazing off into space and he would not know it.
Then, her lips moved, “I can only say that I am who I am. I train my hounds as well as you would train your own fighters. I serve no one but myself and the employer who pays best. If you give me someone to hunt down, I will find them or they will find me.”
The man nodded. Her answer satisfied his unruly doubts, and silenced the complaints of the older, more cautious members of their clan.
“You will take any job and do whatever I ask. Even kill a child.”
“If that is what you wish.”
He grinned. “Oh, I’m much greedier than that! But, I’ll accept your services. I have high hopes for you… my Lady of the Hounds.”
Snarls and screams echoed from outside and the assistant closed the door again with a squeak. The man sat back and thought about his new pawn, a mythical figure from the Underworld, a mercenary, an assassin, and…
…At this rate, I’m going to need to replace the entire staff to keep her pets “entertained.”