The Stray

Content Warning: Adult themes, depictions of violence
 
Dirty water dripped lazily from rusted pipes and metal girders into even dirtier puddles in the street below, as what was left of the rainstorm trickled its way down from New Caledonia. The air was heavy and humid, which made the piss, shit, and rot of the alleys reek all the worse. The sun never dared set foot this deep in the city, only buzzing neon signs and flickering lampposts with broken glass provided the denizens with light.
 
The woman skulked alone, pulling her jacket tight when a shower of the days-old rain pelted her. She moved with the self-assurance one could only have from growing up in the Lower City. The red-clad woman ignored the coos and invitations from the working women that called after her, and—with a single-minded determination—marched through the crimson-bathed doorway and into a smoke-choked lobby. The hostess behind the desk, a Gallian woman whose curved horns were studded with gaudy fake gems, gave the intruder a languid glance before returning her gaze to the magazine before her, “He’s in room fifteen.”
 
Without so much as a word, she prowled down the narrow, dimly-lit hallways towards her prey. Subdued music crackled from the ceiling, a poor attempt to mask the sounds of sex behind the closed doors. The huntress sidestepped half a dozen staff and their clientele before arriving at the door with the flickering “XV” projected on the door. The holosign above the doorframe stated very clearly that this room was “occupied.”
 
Good.
 
With practiced ease, she pulled at the crook of her thumb and a cybernetic wire flowed freely out and plugged into the lock on the door. Barely a second passed before the telltale mechanical click of the magnetic lock release. On cue she kicked the door wide open, pistol drawn. The courtesan shrieked, clutching at the sheets. The bulbous man's hand flew for a weapon of his own. But the trespasser was faster, her boot crushed his fingers against the grip of his sidearm, and he froze as the cool metal of her barrel pressed against his temple.
 
“Hello, Fly,” she said with a hollow smile.
 
“Ed! To what do I owe the pleasure!” The Fly choked out a nervous laugh.
 
“You know I don’t like getting toyed with.” Ed’s tone was even, but beneath her cool words was a temper flaring up, “You know what I do to people who play me.”
 
“I have no—“
 
“Zip it.” She barked, “you know how I feel about people who owe me and don’t pay up.”
 
“H-hey now!” The Fly stammered, his eyes trembling in desperation, “I’m always good on my word! You know me!”
 
“I know you ain’t worth a shit, Fly.” Ed spat, “Yet you’re still breathing because of me.” The pistol placed to his head gave a soft whir as it powered up, “You want me to take that back?”
 
“No!” He pleaded, his voice shook with his uncontrollable laugh, “There’s no need for that! I swear!”
 
Ed fell silent, the only sound in the room was the Fly quiet quivering. Sweat bead down from his thinning hair, and the greasy mustache above his lip twitched like a caterpillar. She turned her eye to the courtesan, who—upon realizing Ed wasn’t here for her—had started browsing the Net while she waited. Her eyes met Ed’s, “Do you need me to…like…leave?”
 
“This shouldn’t take long.”
 
She shrugged and turned her attention back to her mobile device, “Whatever, just don’t get any blood on the sheets. They’re 40% organic fibers.”
 
Ed leaned close to the Fly’s ear, and cooed in a sickly sweet tone, “Hear that Fly? We wouldn’t want to make a mess would we?”
 
“Ed!” He cried breathlessly, “Ed! Listen! I didn’t know! I didn’t know! I mean—I knew that Jona’d be in the area, but I-I didn’t think he’d try anything! I swear!”
 
“That’s curious.” Ed dug the pistol deeper into his pallid skin, “Because I didn’t even mention why I’m here. Did I?”
 
His words caught in his throat, as if they had wadded up and started to choke him, before his pleas for mercy grew all the more frantic. Ed stood there for a while neither moving nor speaking. Eventually the Fly’s fervent prayers sank to quiet sobbing. Ed rolled her eyes, relying on worms like him for information was always so tedious.
 
“You wanna be square?” Ed finally offered, “You wanna put water under the bridge?”
 
“Anything! Please! Anything you want; it’s yours!” He begged.
 
“Give me a real lead and I’ll forgive you for making me Jona’s machet of the day.” She crushed his hand harder underneath her boot, “send me down another kobold burrow, and I might have to stop being so polite.”
 
His sniveling, desperate countenance melted into an irritated resignation, as if the gun to his head has become a bothersome chore: “Do you know how hard it is to find a stray in Caledonia?” The Fly muttered, “It’s like finding scrap in the scrapyards; it all looks the same.”
 
“Tick Tock, Fly.”
 
“Okay! J-just! Gimme a break…hard to think with a gun to the dome.” The Fly paused for a moment and steadied his breath, “Geht recently had some new stray show up at the Hostel a couple days ago. Brat caused a real mess of things. Maybe that’s yours. I don’t know any more, but I swear I’m good for it this time!”
 
A pregnant pause filled the room as Ed weighed the choice before her. The gun woman gave a beleaguered sigh deep from her world-weary chest, and removed the gun from the Fly’s head. She kicked the Fly’s gun into the far corner of the room, and released him from her clutches. He gave a deep and rattled breath, convulsing from the stress. Ed took her leave with a huff: “If this checks out, your debt is cleared.”
 
As she stomped down the hall she overheard the working woman tell the Fly that still counted for his time.
 
•••
 
“No way, I ain’t no snitch,” snapped a voice that was hoarse and sharp, each hard consonant enunciated but a forceful snap of his jaw. Geht towered over Ed, he had a fragile frame compared to most drakkin—but that was in comparison to a drakkin. The red-scaled dragon man crossed his arms obstinately.
 
“Geht. It’s not snitching. You know me, mach.” Ed rubbed her temple with the base of her palm, “What do you think I’m gonna do? Haul a kid off to an Enth?”
 
Geht pursed his lips as best a lizard face could and gave a dismissive shrug.
 
“What kind of woman do you take me for?” Ed groaned. She stood at the doorway of the Old Hope Hostel, the nicest building on one of the worst streets. Light twinkled from behind the steel bars that guarded the windows, silhouettes of the Hostel’s residents occasionally darkened the light. Old Hope was a safe spot for anyone, located at the no-man’s-land that sat as the nexus of no less than twelve orgs. Thug, merc, prostitute, or bum—didn’t matter. Geht offered a warm bed and a warm meal to anyone and everyone. And if gangs wanted to use his Hostel for scheming or subterfuge, his lips were always sealed. Hundreds of disputes and treaties were penned under the roof of Old Hope. No one dared fuck with Geht, he had too many friends in too many places—mess with him and risk the ire of every org in Caledonia, new or old, “Listen, a kid is missing and her parents are desperate to get her back. It’s not snitching to tell me if the kid that started the brawl looked like this.”
 
Ed waved the glimmer in front of the drakkin’s face. On the holographic sheet flickered the image of a feyling. She looked like a fine enough kid; long black hair with a golden aumbre that curled like ivy, bright violet eyes—which, given what Ed knew of feylings, could’ve been completely natural—that stood out sharply against her russet skin, but most of all she had the stunning smile of a girl who hasn’t given up on this world. She couldn’t have been a day older that fourteen.
 
Geht squinted at the sheet, gave a huff, and growled, “Nope. Ain’t the brat who caused a true ruckus. That one was a boy.” He glared down his carmine snout, “happy now?”
 
Ed stuffed the glimmer back into her pocket, “You know me; I’m never happy.” She shouldered past the wiry dragonoid and into the hostel, “Can I still trouble you for a drink?”
 
Three whiskeys and Geraum know how many hours later, Ed spun the glimmer between her fingers and started into the mirror behind the bar. Her glowering yellow eyes bore holes through her own skull. She looked pale—even by her standards, and her electric blue hair was a mess. She hadn’t slept well in days.
 
She looked like shit.
She felt like shit.
 
This case has been a nightmare from the start, and Ed regretted that she even took the job—this wasn’t the first time. She still remembers the faces of the two mothers, faces red and puffy with grief and anxiety, and how they laid on layers of lamentation after lamentation. The girl was new, a recent adoption, so they didn’t even have glimmers of her, only a name and an orphanage. Turns out the kid was bounced around from foster to foster, and it took three days just to track down an updated visual description of her that the parents could verify was their daughter.
 
Then she chased every dead-end and Kobold burrow imaginable. She couldn’t help but begrudgingly agree with the Fly: finding a stray in Caledonia is like looking for scrap in a scrap heap. She pushed herself off the bar, she was definitely too drunk if she thought the Fly of all cretins held wisdom. The detective ordered the tender to put it on her tab, and strolled out of the Old Hope; she had standards to upkeep, a reputation to maintain.
 
She’ll find the kid.
 
Ed still needed more information. Her gut was telling her there was more to the story of the brawl. She came to rest over the huddled figure on the curb. The lump of stitched and re-stitched fabric raised and lowered in slow steady breaths. An old construct paldron sat in the gutter nearby a few glittering bars of brass sat in the oily dish. Ed fished out four brass and plonked two into the paldron with a dissonant tang. The pile of blankets sat up in a start, and began to mutter a curmudgeonly thanks.
 
“Wake up, Wick.” She gave the man a prod, “Were you here when that big brawl spilled out of Old Hope?”
 
“Wheh? Huh?” The grizzled derelict dribbled, “Come again?”
 
The human held a greasy hand to his ear, bewilderment colored the face beneath the patchy grey beard.
 
“The fight last week. Did you see it?”
 
Wick blinked slowly, before swallowing hard and nodding, as his memory cleared he began to nod with an earnestness, “Yurp. Hard ta miss it. Right ol’ racket. Scared the hair off my head!” He pulled off his hat to reveal his wrinkled bald head with a chuckle.
 
Ed flashed the remaining two brass, “Tell me what you saw and these are yours.”
 
•••
 
Investigators have a narrow wire to walk in their line of work, balancing the evidence collected, the reliability of testimony, with their intuition. Sometimes the evidence is clear, the dots line up just right and the case practically solves itself. Sometimes all they had was a hope and a prayer.
 
Ed had made many hopes and prayers.
 
She mulled over Wick’s words, running his ramble through her head like a broken record. Most write folk like Wick off as nothing but unfortunate fools, but Ed knew his mind was sharp and his eyes and ears were always open. But what he shared just wasn't making sense. She’s spent over a week now asking every information broker and stray-catcher in Caledonia and no one has seen the girl, like she up and vanished.
 
Ed sighed deeply, trying to cool the tension she felt behind her forehead and eyes. She stared up into the darkness above her, the crisscrossed metal, plastic, and glass that stretched endlessly formed a grimy kaleidoscope. The girl didn’t jump, did she? Ed shook her head, a street rat—especially one so young—can’t jump.
 
She paused.
 
Not without help. The odds were slim, and the prospect dire, but if all else failed; she could go see him as a last resort.
She ran through Wick’s words one more time, the upstart last week was a feyling—a detail her informants so generously neglected to share—but Wick said he didn’t match the glimmer. Wrong hair color, wrong eye color, and not even the same complexion. Oddly, the feyling entered the hostel, but never left. Not even in the chaos as the brawl spilled out into the street did Wick spot the kid. Ed dismissed him at first, a child could easily slip past even Wick’s attentive eye during such bedlam. Then again, he did notice someone’s dog running free, maybe the feyling boy was still hiding in—
Ed’s musing was interrupted by a sharp whistle. Instinctively her hand came to rest on her holster, and she turned to see who catcalled. Leaning casually against a lamppost was a goblin, short in stature with pale reddish skin that almost shone in the golden street lights. Two garish guns cobbled together from scrap sagged on his belt. His eyes were trained on the brass he rolled up and down his fingers. He had a star tattoo over his left eye.
 
Shit.
 
“Watcha doing in this part of town, babe?” He cawed, baring fangs in an insincere smile, “Lost?”
 
“I can ask you the same thing, swine.” Ed bit back, “What's trash like you doing outside your turf?”
 
The goblin shook his head and tutted in disappointment, “Didn’t ya hear? What you've been living under a rock?”
 
Ed’s grip tightened on his pistol, her eyes darted to the rooftops of the alley, shadows moved from cover to cover. The sounds of footsteps crunched against the glass and gravel behind her. She slowly glanced to see a burly fey woman brandishing a club made from a bat and welded nails. Stars were proudly displayed on her shoulders.
 
“I’ve been…busy,” Ed admitted.
 
“Oh, I bet. Miss PI.” The goblin snorted. His snark was really starting to get to her, but she remained steady. Her heartbeat slowed in her ears, and welcomed the comforting rush of adrenaline like a long lost lover, “well, just so you know: Alexias and Jona had some…negotiations.”
 
Ed’s body tensed, muscles coiling like a spring. She began to assess her odds. No less than six thugs surrounded her.
 
“This is our turf now.” Barked the woman, “and we got a score to settle with you.”
 
The detective’s eyes darted from building to building, until finally she gave a soft chuckle. She wasn’t sure if the laugh was true bravado or just her nerves, “hey, goblin…one last question,” she felt a wicked smile cross her face, “How’s Jona’s kid?”
 
His smirk darkened into a hate-fueled leer. In the blink of an eye, Ed drew her pistol and fired. The electric whistle of the laser struck the gut of the goblin. Before he even hit the ground, Ed sprung. A roar shook the alley and the fey slammed her club into the pavement, where Ed stood just moments prior. The rooftops erupted into gunfire and arcane blasts. She pounced around the alley, it took everything she had just to stay alive. A flash of silver from the periphery. She rolled back as the club swung by, the nails tore her shirt and sliced across her chest.
 
Against all better judgment, the detective lunged forward and grabbed the bat. The pads of her palm clicked open and conjured lightning arced down the metal club and along the arms of the brute. She bellowed in anger, and dropped the weapon. Another spray of gunfire rained down, Ed rolled between the legs of the fey, and the magical beams pelted against the chest of the large woman, who tumbled backwards—faster than Ed could avoid. Pain raced up her leg as it was twisted unnaturally and crushed under the fey corpse.
 
Without a second thought, the private eye whipped her pistol around and fired fruitlessly at the elevated gunmen—desperate to buy enough time to wrench her leg free. Given the choice words she heard echo from above, it might’ve worked.
 
Ed ripped her leg free and dashed to cover, grimacing through the needles firing in her nervous system. She barreled to her ultimate goal: a boarded up window of what was once a very respectable cafe. With all her speed and might she crashed through the wood and glass, a cry escaped her lips as a new, dull agony numbed her arm. She laid on the broken glass and splinters for a moment, her breath catching in her throat. The ache in her shoulder didn’t abate. The detective hissed the most vile curse she could muster, she just dislocated it.
 
With her good arm she gathered her pistol, and pushed herself to her feet. The adrenaline was wearing down, she could barely manage a hobble. Jona’s men barked and yapped like feral dogs excited to continue the hunt. As she pushed through the free hinge door to the kitchen she collapsed, rodents and vermin scattered from the intrusion. She coughed and blood splattered on the floor. Panic flooded her system, did she get hit? Only once she felt the sting on the inside of her cheek did she calm down.
 
“Stupid bitch.” She chided herself, “I swear to Geraum you do bite your cheek every goddamn fight.”
 
Trying to keep her whimpers to a minimum, she pulled herself over to the far wall of the kitchen. Pistol in hand she waited for her pursuers to barge through the cafe doors. Her vision began to blur at the edges, Ed shook herself awake. It was then she noticed one of the rats slowly creep closer to her. She swore the rodent was making eye contact.
 
At the speed of thought, the rat rapidly grew. Ed drew her pistol, only to find it resting against the forehead of a young feyling. One that matched the culprit at Old Hope, “Please don’t shoot. Please don’t shoot.”
 
“Third’s Fires, Fey! What do you think you’re doing?” Ed snapped.
 
“You’re hurt—“
 
“No shit.”
 
“—I can help.”
 
“Yeah? Can you help with the thugs too?” Ed laughed, “treating wounds won’t mean shit when they flatline me.”
 
The feyling’s green eyes were kind, even behind the immature scowl, “okay, you wanna die like a bitch? Be my guest. I can go.”
 
Ed winced, her prodigious charm always puts a boot in her mouth, “sorry, kid. Sorry.”
 
She grabbed his wrist and said, “I appreciate the offer, you got a kind heart, but those men out there will kill you if they find you.” She gave the best smile she could “I’ll be okay, okay?”
 
A disappointed grimace crossed his face, evidently she didn’t evoke confidence, “Yeah…I’m not leaving you to die,” the fey’s eyes darted around, his hands nervously tapped the floor, as if he anxiously awaited someone’s help. Suddenly revelation brightened his face, “Got it!”
 
The detective was stunned from the sudden enthusiasm. The feyling quickly started scribbling in the muck and grime of the abandoned kitchen floor. Ed was of half a mind to stop him, force him to leave, when he slapped his writing and a blanket of dimly shimmering energy came to rest upon them. Some form of shield spell, Ed couldn’t tell. The casting method was foreign to her.
 
“Kid, what—” Ed cut herself short with a hiss as the hoots and hollers of the gangster returned. The door was kicked open by a gangly orlon. The orlon man’s eyes were wide and wild with bloodlust, two large tusks framed his gleeful smile. Ed raised her pistol, but the fiery-haired kid pulled it low, a finger to his lips. To Ed’s surprise the thug’s eyes passed right over them.
 
“Come out, little lady!” He cooed, slowly prowling the kitchen. More of Jona’s gang poured into the room, and not one noticed. An invisibility spell, or maybe some form of hypnotic suggestion. Ed marveled. The kid was a natural. The two of them sat there, too scared to even breathe, as the bandits stalked the entire kitchen. They threw open cabinets, pantries, damn near tore the kitchen apart.
After an eternity, one kicked a work table with a frustrated roar, sending the rolling cart across the room: “She ain’t here, ya idiots! She gave us the slip. Get off yer asses and find her!”
 
“Be sure not to be too rough on her!” One of the men damn near giggled, “Jona wants to settle things personally.”
 
It wasn’t long before they trickled out of the cafe. Ed finally let herself breathe again, which only made the unrelenting ache in her shoulder flare up all the worse. Through pained pants she turned to her rescuer, “How did you do—“
 
“No more talking until I fix you up,” he ordered. Ed rolled her eyes, but it’s not like she was in any position to squabble. The detective rested her head on the wall beside her—desperately trying to forget the pain of her shoulder, only for nothing to come to pass. She cracked open one eye to see the fey biting his lip.
 
“What?”
 
“Uh…what hurts? Where do you keep your bandies? Why does your arm look like that? Why did those guys wanna kill you? Are you a criminal? Why are you bleeding from your mouth? Who’s Jona? How painful is it?”
 
Ed shot a withering glare, “I thought you said you could help, not interrogate me. Do you even have any idea how to dress a wound?”
 
“Why would I dress a wound?”
 
Ed groaned, “you’re killing me, kid.” All of a sudden the pain behind her eyes almost drowned out the pain everywhere else.
 
Almost.
 
“Alright. I’ll walk you through it.” Ed announced, “the worst one is gonna be my shoulder. It looks weird because it’s dislocated.”
 
Her de facto doctor nodded with naïve confidence.
 
“We’re doing that one first.”
 
The confidence melted immediately. Ed walked the feyling slowly through the process, “First get my knife from my belt—“
 
He scrambled along her belt until his hands clasped her knife. With far less care than was warranted, he brandished the blade, “okay, got it! What do I do with it?”
 
“Set it to the side,” and as a hasty afterthought, “Gently!”
 
The feyling did as instructed.
 
“Unclip the sheath and hand it to me.”
 
Once more, the feyling obeyed, “what’s that for?”
 
“To protect me from myself, but that’s for me to worry about.” Ed reassured, “Okay, listen to every step before we start, alright?” Ed did not continue until the kid nodded, “you’re gonna pull on my arm, pretty hard too, and wiggle it up and down slightly as you rotate it up and towards the wall. And don’t stop until I say so.” With her good arm she demonstrated the motion.
 
The boy nodded. Good enough, Ed thought. Not like she had a choice.
 
The detective placed the sheath in her mouth and bit down hard. She inhaled deeply, and gestured for the kid to begin. The dull agony of her shoulder caught flame the instant he started pulling on the limb, and a deep grunt slipped unwittingly through her lips. The kid hesitated, but she shook her head: continue. The child continued his timid arcs, the pace was excruciating.
 
“Go faster!” Her demand was muffled by the pleather in her mouth.
 
Spurred on by fear, her healer increased the pace, until finally—graciously—the sickening pop announced the bone’s return home. That agonizing dull pain near-instantly faded as her arm was flooded with an unbelievable sense of “rightness.” She gave her arm a few test runs, which hurt like hell, but were nothing compared to before.
 
“Keres fuck!” She gave an exasperated laugh, “You did good kid.”
 
He gave her a stunning smile filled with unending pride. Ed couldn't help but gawk in disbelief. She knew that smile. The detective didn’t wish to risk anything, and decided to keep the thought to herself. She focused on teaching the child the basics of wound treatment, and was impressed with the speed the feyling picked it up, even mixing in a few healing spells to hasten her recovery. It didn’t take long for her to be fit enough to walk.
 
Ed wasn’t sure what to make of the kid’s sorcerous talent, she’d met natural born practitioners before—they weren’t exactly uncommon—but certainly rare enough that the feyling was only the third she’s met in the flesh.
 
“How do you know so much about healing?” The kid pressed.
 
Ed paused, her mind turning elsewhere for a moment. She debated what the kid could handle, before settling on: “When you get hurt a lot, you start to pick up lessons on how to make the hurt stop.”
Ed rocked herself to her feet and dusted herself off, and felt her face pinch with disappointment as she assessed the damage to her clothes. A trip to a tailor was in her future, but the torn fabric would hold for the moment. She noticed in the corner of her eye that the kid just parked there, evidently unsure what to do next. The private eye couldn't help but relate—she needed to be certain. With a practiced fluidity Ed activated one of the cybernetics in her eyes. A wave of particles pulsed along the surfaces in her vision, mapping along her environs. The HUD in her eye assessed for nearby arcane signatures; and as she expected, the kid was cloaked with a glamour. Without a second thought her enhanced vision tore away at the illusion, revealing a feyling with curly black hair that was hastily cut, and round violet eyes underneath.
 
“How have you been surviving on your own? You’re, what, thirteen?” Ed said with effortless nonchalance.
 
“I’m fifteen!” Then after a few silent seconds, “and one fifth! And I’ve been eating rats!” Their voice had the self-important smugness that only a child could muster, and they puffed up their chest.
 
Whatever the woman planned to say next was immediately lost, “…rats?”
 
“Yeah!” The young fey lept as their body morphed into the form of a mangy dog, gave a few excited barks, then once more the child returned to normal, “I’ve been chasing them down! And when I need to hide I turn into one!”
 
“When was the last time you had a proper meal?” Ed‘s question blurted against her will, and she was shocked by the sincerity of her concern.
 
“Uhhhhhh…” the fey child scratched at their scalp, “I dunno. I was gonna have some food at the one hotel place, but some jerk knocked it on the floor!”
 
Ed pinched the bridge of her nose, “and you proceeded to start a fight with them?”
 
“Yeah! How’d you know?”
 
“I’m psychic,” the detective’s words were dripping with sarcasm, “alright, that settles it: I’m getting you some actual food.”
 
•••
 
Frankly, Ed had seen better table manners from wild dogs than the Kid. Food splattered all over the feylings face and clothes, threatening to attack the detective at any moment—who decided to scoot just slight down the bar from the splash zone. She’d describe the speed at which the child ate as “inhaling” if it weren’t for the slight pause they took each bite to ensure more of a mess was made. If Ed wasn’t careful the Kid could eat her bankrupt.
 
Eventually, the plate was empty. The bar top, however, was not. Ed immediately knew what was going through the child’s mind, and she grabbed them by the scruff before they could start licking the food off the bar, “Don’t you dare think about licking a filthy bar top, Kid.”
 
The bartender let out a quiet snort at that, obviously enjoying the surprise performance art. A sigh rolled all the way up Ed’s body as she grabbed a handful of san-towels and began to clean up the mess. She handed one to the Kid, “Wipe your face,” then to the bartender, “sorry ‘bout the mess.”
 
They shrugged, “no skin off my nose, half tempted to give him another plate on the house and time it.”
 
“Don’t,” was all Ed warned. She turned her attention back to her ward, she figured the job about finding a kid meant some degree of babysitting, but she felt well outside her depth with this one. For fifteen years of age, the child had the impulses of a wild animal. Unfortunately, that meant the feyling was just as skittish as a rat, Ed couldn’t risk spooking them, “so, Kid, what’re doing on the streets alone? Not got any family?”
 
They shook their head emphatically, curls bouncing back and forth, “nope! My parents either died or ditched me when I was, like, just a baby. Then I kept getting tossed from foster to foster. And all of them sucked! So I left.”
 
“Every single one? Damn,” Ed feigned indifference, nursing her drink.
 
“Oh, absolutely. The last one, ugh! They were the worst! They tried to kill me!”
 
Alcohol sputtered back into Ed’s glass as she choked on that comment, “Kill you?”
 
“Yeah, they had these cats! Devils they were, just staring at me all day and night, like this!” The kid’s round eyes turned into saucers as they stared with full intensity, “and kept laughing at me.”
“Cats laugh?”
 
“Sometimes, yeah. Most are super lazy and just have this snobbishness to them. But all of them mean. You would be surprised how many swears they pick up from people,” the kid took long gulps of their water.
 
“Oh, I follow now. You know beast speech.”
 
“Whats that?”
 
“The language of animals, not many people know it, at least not many in Caledonia.”
 
“Ohhh, yeah. Never knew it had a name.”
 
Ed tried to steer the conversation back towards the information she needed, “so the last place you stayed had evil cats?”
 
“Absolutely! One night I woke up to find one of them right in front of my face, they had this strange smile and said ‘it’s going to be so fun to watch the mistresses devour you, g—” the kid paused suddenly, before skipping ahead, “‘Enjoy your last night of rest.’”
 
Ed took another sip of her drink, “so, that’s when you ran?”
 
“Yeah! Wouldn’t you?” The kid implored, “I knew the cats would warn the two ladies that I was running away, so I didn’t even pack anything. I just dogged my way out of there!”
 
The detective nodded, still maintaining a passive ambivalence. Her mind pulled back the image of the two weeping women, they didn’t look like killers in the slightest, let alone cannibals. Years of investigation has led her to never discount any scrap of testimony, no matter how far-fetched. The feyling’s words rang with honesty, they genuinely believed those mothers were going to eat them. Still, the testimony is a child’s interpretation of a cat’s threat—hardly anything to stake a life on—but she learned what she needed to know: the kid would bolt if they knew Ed’s true intent. Though, it might be possible to lean into the child’s tall-tale, help them feel more comfortable with her. The circuits in her mind were rudely interrupted by a sultry voice, “Are you Sharpe?”
 
The detective turned to meet the gaze of another woman. She looked human, but the horns poking through the holes in her brimmed hat betrayed her fiendish lineage. She had no less than three guns strapped to her body. Bounty hunter if ever Ed saw one, “Who’s asking?”
 
The hunter slapped a glimmer on the bar, it was Ed’s countenance no doubt, below it flickered the text “Reward: 10,000b”
 
Ed turned her gaze back to the hunter, and barked out a laugh, “Really? Jona’s bounty? Every crook and creep in this city knows Jona ain’t got the money to back that bounty.”
“Yeah? How I heard he’s come into a recent windfall,” the Gallian woman smiled, but her eyes maintained the ferocity of a predator.
 
Ed’s smirk melted, “Alexias.”
 
“Now.” The fiendish hunter rested her hand on her sidearm, “Why don’t you come along easy. Jona said there’s a bonus for catching you alive.”
 
The detective nodded slowly, as she took another sip of her drink. While her body was languid, her mind was electrified with panic. She set her glass down, and finally spoke: “If Jona wants me so bad…”
 
Her arms a blur, she threw the whiskey glass into the face of the bounty hunter, and without missing a beat, followed it up by shoving the bounty glimmer into the alcohol. The electronic paper immediately caught sparks and the huntress screamed in agony, “…he can come hunt me himself! Run, kid!”
 
The feyling didn’t move, frozen with fear. Ed was forced to grab them by the collar and started running them out the diner. It took only a few steps before the kid’s freeze was broken; they quickly shifted into a dog and bolted down the alley. The detective kept pace with the dog at full tilt, once again grateful for the cybernetics in her legs—saved her ass twice in one night. A shout bounced off the walls of the alley as the hunter gave chase. Ed stole a glance back to see the gallian woman racing to a speeder parked down the way. They didn’t have much of a chance. The alley broke open into a boisterous street; people milled about the sidewalks, and cars and speeders roared down the streets. They needed wheels. Fast.
 
Ed shoved her way through the crowd, “Kid! This way!” And slammed into the side of a parked car. It wasn’t much to look at, but the pattern in which the security light blinked indicated it was secured by a medium grade Lightsec system. Ed groaned internally, but wasted no time connecting her lockpick into the car’s door. Seconds passed like eternities, she felt the kid press their trembling, canine body into her legs. Terrified.
 
The door popped open.
 
Ed dove across the passenger seat and plugged her lock pick into the ignition. The dog jumped into the passenger seat, the door closing automatically behind them. In a blur of anatomy, once more a feyling child sat beside her, “Uh… isn’t this stealing?”
 
The carjacker was focused on bypassing the ignition key, but absently replied, “don’t think of it as stealing. Think of it as…borrowing.” The car roared to life, and Ed gave the kid a smirk, “permanently.”
 
People shrieked as the speeder peeled out of the alley, ambivalent to the pedestrians, and the hunter opened fire on their newly acquired car. Not waiting for permission, the detective floored it.
Swerving in and out of traffic, the car raced down the street. Ed did everything she could to shake their tail, blowing past red lights, sending the car shrieking though cross traffic. She spun the car hard to the left and rocketed into an alley barely wide enough for the vehicle, only to slam the brakes and slide the car across a derelict courtyard and into another narrow side street. The Kid was sent tumbling onto the floor, but no matter what Ed did the hunter was still on their ass.
 
“You drive like a lunatic!” The Kid wailed.
 
“I’m driving like someone who wants to goddamn survive!” Ed snapped, the way the car felt under her control, the weightlessness and pull it put on her as she screeched down the streets of Caledonia brought back bad memories, “Get back in your seat and buckle in.”
 
The kid screamed in terror when a few impacts from the hunter’s gun reminded them just how little distance she’s earned them. Ed glanced at the Kid, who was scrambling to buckle themselves in. The feyling’s eyes met hers, wet with fear. Ed felt a weight well up in her throat, they didn’t deserve this. Ed turned on the child lock, and turned her attention back to the road. She plowed into a tunnel, tires squealing as she wove through the protesting honks of the other drivers, “Kid. Listen up and listen good.”
 
It took a lot of effort to keep her breath stable, the fey child just stared in silence, “I’m gonna come clean about something,” Ed fished out the glimmer in her pocket, “I was hired by your latest fosters to find you and return you.”
 
They looked at the flickering page and bluffed, “T-this doesn’t even look like me.”
 
“I know you’re using a glamour; I’m not stupid,” Ed pressed, “I know who you really are, I know your name is—”
 
“DON’T YOU FUCKING SAY IT!” Ed nearly flinched at the sudden aggression, “Don’t say that name! It’s not mine!”
 
The kid fought with the door attempting to open it, “Let me out! I’m not staying here! I’m not letting you force me back there! I won’t go!”
 
“Girl, calm y—“
 
The child growled, “I AM NOT A GIRL.”
 
“What? But you…” Ed fell silent, the duo tore out of the tunnel. The Kid just huffed, clearly holding back sobs. He fought pitifully against the door lock.
 
“I’m sorry,” Ed spoke softly, almost drowned out by the revs of the engine, “I didn’t know.”
 
“Whatever. Stop talking to me.”
 
“Yeah, that part isn’t happening—also duck,” the detective spun the car fully around and raced towards the pursuing hunter, the whites of her eyes reflected the car’s headlamps. She fired wildly a few times—cracking the window—but ultimately was forced to swerve, “Maybe that’ll teach her to give up.”
 
Ed hoped it was true.
 
She’d hoped for a lot of things.
 
“It’s not safe for you to stay with me—“
 
“Good! Let me leave then!” He demanded.
 
“I can’t do that kid.” Ed sighed, “I have a job to finish, and I can’t let a boy…” she waited for a moment, expecting another correction, “…eat fucking rats for the rest of his short life.”
 
“Why do you even care? There’s thousands of starving kids in the city.” The boy sank into the car seat, “go save one of them instead, I was fine on my own.”
 
Ed couldn't answer that question, she didn’t know why either. Still the conviction gripped her heart, “you’re right: I don’t really care. I have a job to do. Simple as that. You wanna run away? Do it after I collect my pay, I have a reputation to uphold.”
 
“Yeah.” the kid spat, “Stunning reputation. Being hunted like a dog.”
 
“That’s…new,” Ed grimaced. She looked in the mirror and didn’t see the speeder in tow. She let off the gas, body still tingling from the rush.
 
“Why does that Jona guy hate you so much, anyways?” The boy sat up.
 
“Do you really care?” Ed evaded.
 
The feyling shrugged, “not really.”
 
“Then let’s just leave my business, my business.” The woman huffed, “I’m taking you home now.”
 
“I said I’m not going.”
 
“You don’t have a choice.”
 
“You think?” The boy snarled and flashed fangs that continued to lengthen, “I’ll kill you if I have to!”
 
Ed pulled the car over and parked. The investigator stared directly into his eyes, “Then do it.”
 
“What?”
 
“Kill me.” Ed prodded, “Go on.”
 
“You t-think I won’t? Cause I will!” The kid implored, voice faltering.
 
“Times-a-wasting,” Ed toyed.
 
The boy balked, his fangs shrinking back to normal, tears welling up in his eyes, “Just…just let me leave. I don’t want to go. Tell them I died! Tell them whatever! Who cares!” The boy lunges at Ed gripping the sleeve of her jacket in desperation, “just don’t make me go back!”
 
Ed remained stonefaced. She sat there for a while, the kid sniveling and sobbing into her arm. A mild twinge of annoyance crept up the nape of her neck.
 
“I’ll make a deal with you, kid.” The detective relented, “I’ll investigate your mothers—“
 
“They’re not my moms.”
 
“—the ‘whatever-they-ares,’ and if it turns out they’re evil cannibals you don’t have to go back.”
 
“And if they aren’t evil?”
 
“Then you might have a safe place to sleep and eat food better than sewer rats.”
 
“Why would I take that deal?”
 
Ed recoiled slightly, “pardon?”
 
“Why would I take that deal? As soon as you unlock the car I should just run.”
 
The detective’s next words caught in her mouth. The kid was right, he could just leave as soon as the car that caged him was opened. It was exactly the kind of irrational thing for a feral boy to do.
“Are you seriously saying you’d prefer the streets to a warm bed? If they’re killers, you can go right back to the streets like you want. I’m offering you a shot at something better.”
 
The feyling smeared snot over his ratty sleeve.
 
“I promise you won’t have to go if I find even a trace of danger for you.”
 
The boy just sat there, eyes red, puffy, and vacant. He sniffed, “Fine.”
 
“Thank Geraum.” Ed melted into the driver’s seat, “I was worried I’d have to knock you unconscious.”
 
“You were gonna do WHAT?!” The boy exclaimed, “you’d knock out a child??”
 
The woman shrugged and wavered her hand.
 
“You’re insane! You’re a monster! A Devil! I’ve signed my soul to a devil!” The boy continued to wail deep condemnations. Ed just ignored them and started the car back up.