Category: Pawn and Storm

Chapter Eight

I’d seen Saori use one of these grenades before. I hadn’t gotten a very clear look at it then, and I wasn’t watching at all right now, but I could make a pretty good guess at what was going on behind me. There would be an immediate blast of flame, and then waves of choking, disorienting black smoke. The flame wasn’t normal fire, though I wasn’t sure what the difference was, chemical or magical or both. Whatever the means, the result was terrifying, fire that clung to flesh, that refused to go out, accompanied by smoke that scrambled vision in a way smoke usually didn’t.

Within a second, I could hear screaming behind me. I could smell charring flesh, noxious and disgusting, and that spoke volumes about just how intense the fire was. Normally, flesh took time to burn, and in the process it smelled like roasting meat, appetizing regardless of my feelings on the source. This skipped cooked and went straight to charred, and it smelled vile.…

Chapter Seven

I met Saori in Fox Chapel. Which really wasn’t something either of us was a huge fan of; I didn’t like it because the borough reeked of conspicuous consumption, and she didn’t like it because it was a joke at her expense. Giving the kitsune a house in Fox Chapel was just…her benefactor had a terrible sense of humor. And there was also the fact that it was associated with Saori’s benefactor.

I didn’t know much of anything about that whole topic. Didn’t know what situation she’d needed out of so badly, didn’t know who she asked for help, and didn’t know what she paid for it. But favors like that usually came with a serious price tag. And, really, the fact that she hadn’t talked about it at all was a statement in itself. I highly doubted she liked to be reminded of them.

But it was where her house was. And, as a result, it was where her connection point was. My understanding was that Otherside portals could be opened from anywhere, but the destination point had to be somewhere you knew very, very well. Otherwise, they had a tendency to fail, and that apparently did Very Bad Things to someone. So, Saori only had a limited number of places she could travel to this way, and she only had one in Pittsburgh, which she’d learned to use as soon as she moved here.

I got there early. It was still distinctly morning, and I wasn’t thrilled by that. But I was also already awake; the nightmare last night had made sure of that. And I had no particular reason to stay at Derek’s for a few hours longer. Raincloud and I just left once she’d woken up properly, and went to wait on site.…

Chapter Six

Derek lived east of Pittsburgh proper, around the border between eastern Pitcairn and Monroeville. This, in and of itself, would be enough to make it an unexpected place for me to be. Pitcairn was an odd mix of abandoned and stuck-up, and Monroeville was worse, the kind of suburb you’d hold up as an example of why suburbia is a diseased phenomenon. I liked Derek enough to visit his place, but I sure as hell wasn’t prone to dropping in because I happened to be in the area.

But I could cope. I had the rideshare driver drop us off several blocks away outside a Chinese restaurant, just in case someone had both the ability and inclination to trace it, and we walked the rest of the way. It was significantly less pleasant than earlier. It was solidly night by now, and it was cold, and “walkable” was not an adjective I could apply to Monroeville with a straight face if I tried. By the time we got there, I was feeling drained as hell, and even Raincloud looked a bit bedraggled. I told her as much, and got a flicker of amusement from her at how specific the adjective was in its mood.…

Chapter Five

Saori left a few minutes later. The innuendos and public display of affection hadn’t exactly been a joke; I knew from experience that she wasn’t bluffing. If I’d expressed interest, she’d have been absolutely fine with ignoring an urgent situation in favor of hedonistic indulgence. Caution and prudence were not on the list of words anyone sane would apply to Saori, except perhaps to use her as a bad example. Safety wasn’t first for her, and was generally lucky to come in a distant third.

But it was, ultimately, a relatively urgent situation. I wasn’t sure when the next attack might come, or from what. I didn’t know how much said attacker would know about me, but my address was hardly a secret. I wasn’t going back there until this was done, and while that didn’t fuck with me like it would some people, it was inconvenient as hell.

So I wasn’t terribly interested in delays. And Saori was reckless, not stupid. She knew this needed done. She only lingered a few more minutes, and then she was off to start reaching out to her contacts. I’d offered to come with, but she said it would be likely to cause more issues than it solved. Her contacts were not fond of strangers, and given that she seemed to be expecting strain on those relationships already, I was forced to agree it was smarter not to bring me along.…

Chapter Four

Things with Alice hadn’t taken as long as I’d expected, and it was still relatively early when I walked into Softened Dreams. I’d thought about going somewhere else first, but even if I could have thought of anything useful to do, I probably wouldn’t have. The coffeehouse had a number of good qualities, but right now the one I was most interested in was that it was pretty damn safe. Nobody in their right mind, and few people who are out of it, will start shit in that building. The consequences of ignoring Hope’s policy of neutral ground and peaceful conduct are just too immediate and scary.

Normally, that only really mattered to me in that I liked the quiet. It was a very low-stress, lowkey kind of environment, and I appreciated that about it.

Today, though? I mean…someone tried to kill me last night. Granted she hadn’t done a great job of it, but as the ache in my left shoulder was happy to remind me, I’d gotten pretty damn lucky. And worse, I still had no idea whatsoever who she was, why she wanted me dead, or whether she had friends who felt similarly.…

Chapter Three

The laceration in my shoulder was, as I’d expected, fairly minor. It was noticeable, sure, but it wasn’t a serious impairment. And while I didn’t heal as quickly as a werewolf, I was still significantly better than human baseline. I was guessing it would only be a few days before it was completely healed, at most. I didn’t even bother bandaging it, just washed it in the shower and put a clean shirt over it. Infection wasn’t a huge risk for me. Like poisons, infectious diseases seemed to have little effect on me for some reason. I did not get colds, hadn’t had one since I was a teenager.

It took time, though, and energy. By the time I was done, I was feeling tired. I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep yet, though, and ended up at my computer instead. Raincloud came and curled around my feet almost immediately, and she was absolutely capable of sleeping. I could feel her dreams flickering in the back of my head, half-formed presences much more pleasant than mine usually were. Even the tree spirit cohabiting with her seemed to be asleep, or something like it. I wasn’t entirely clear on how that worked, but he did seem to go dormant most of the time when she was asleep, and that was definitely the case now.

I spent a while working on a logo design I’d agreed to do for some Australian guy who owned a ranching supply store. He’d had a hard time finding someone to do that work, and now that I was halfway through the project, I could understand why. I wasn’t making much progress, but I was too worked up to sleep still, and too distracted and tired to do much of anything well. It was something to do with my hands while I calmed myself down more than anything.…