I’m scratching an itch. Really casually. And I’m touching the amulet.
Yeah, that crow is not a crow. It’s some kind of shapeshifter. One of the dragon’s spies. And you don’t know how long it’s been watching you.
Can I reach my bow?
Roll for it.
Okay … ah … well, that sucked.
It’s not that bad. I’ll give you a bonus because you were on watch. I’m going to say that your bow is just out of reach, and your quiver is past it. You can get to them, but you’ll have to move.
I want to jump over, grab my bow and an arrow, and shoot at the shapeshifter. I still have one heroic action point left.
Spend it and roll dexterity.
Made it by two.
You would have hit, but the shapeshifter made its dodge. Before you can get another arrow, it’s gone. You see the dark wings disappearing into the forest.
Well, shit. Aufganir’s going to know we’re coming.
Yuli has been losing weight. He hasn’t changed his diet or started exercising, but in the last six months twenty pounds have melted away. When someone asks, he makes it a joke and says it’s because God loves him, but he thinks it’s probably cancer. Or maybe his thyroid. He knew a woman once with thyroid problems, and she lost a lot of weight. He knows he should go see a doctor, and he will. He just wants to drop a few more pounds first.
There are problems that come with his fat going away. There was a winter he was working private in Chechnya when there was snow on the ground for three months. When it thawed, the courtyard was full of bottles and cans and dogshit. All the things that didn’t get cleaned up when it was cold that had waited and been revealed. It turned out bodies were like that too. The acid he’d dropped and the weed he’d smoked, maybe some of the heroin he’d used for the pain when he hurt his back outside Kabul, it wound up stored with his fat. Now, with that going, the drugs are getting dumped back into his bloodstream. Dogshit blood.
Most of the time, it’s nothing. A little unexpected mellowness, a shift of mood that doesn’t relate to anything. Sometimes, though, there’s a little synesthesia. His fingertips tingle first, and then noise starts having colors to it. One time, when his hands were like that, he brushed against a wall, and the texture was a deep note, played on a viol. He didn’t like it. Another time, he scratched an itch on his elbow just where it got dry and scaly, and for a moment, he was certain that there was a new, different skin underneath. He’d scratched himself bloody trying to peel himself like a snake. At times like that, he tries not to drive, or if he does, he’s careful.
When he first came to the United States, he had a sports car. A Porsche. It was a sexy little car, but it leaked oil and there wasn’t any room for groceries. He sold it and got a hatchback. It isn’t as sexy, but it does what he wants better.
Maybe it’s a sign he’s getting old. It isn’t the money. He has all the money he wants, if he decides to dig it up and spend it, but he doesn’t. He keeps his where it stays safe. He’s been poor. Living in a shitty house and driving a housewife’s car isn’t so bad when you know you don’t have to do it. And there are reasons not to be so showy.
In the morning, he drives the boy to school. They talk a little, but not about anything. Then Yuli does whatever. Groceries sometimes. Laundry sometimes. He takes himself to a movie if something good is on. He likes action films because they’re easier to follow, or at least if he doesn’t catch everything, it doesn’t matter as much. Lunch is back home if he doesn’t want to see people, or Café Gurman if he does.
Today, he does.
Café Gurman is in a strip mall between a musical instrument shop that sells violins to pretentious white parents on one side and a payday loan on the other. The windows have a thin film on them that no amount of cleaning will ever make clear. The booths are red leather, cracked some places and mended with red tape. The walls have pictures of famous people, as if they have eaten there. Maybe they have. It is the home of the expatriate community. Or one particular expatriate community, anyway.
His.
Doria is at the register, doing something on her cell phone. She is the owner’s daughter. She doesn’t make eye contact with anyone, even as she takes their money and talks to them in Russian. She’s a good kid. She’ll go away soon, hopefully to college, and then he won’t see her again. He orders his usual shawarma, nods to the familiar faces in the other booths. As soon as Wrona comes in, he knows something is wrong.
Yuli has known Wrona longer than anyone else in the United States. They were on the same detail the first time Yuli worked private. He’s a tall man with long hands and a face as craggy as tree bark. When he sees Yuli, he lifts his chin in greeting, steps over, and sits in the booth across from him. Yuli frowns. This isn’t how they are to each other. Not normally.
“You’re looking good,” Wrona says, and it is as close to an apology as Yuli will get. A little acknowledgment that Wrona has crossed a boundary, and that he’s about to cross others. “You’ve been going to the gym?”
“No. I don’t like those places.”
“Me neither,” Wrona says, scratching his neck with his long fingers. When he speaks next, it is in Polish. “There was something I needed to ask you. That thing. You know the one?”
Yuli’s frown deepens to a scowl. If there was any doubt what Wrona meant, his discomfort clears it away. There is only one subject that would make him this nervous, and it’s one that he shouldn’t bring up. Not even vaguely and in Polish.
“I know,” Yuli says.
“Do you still have it?”
“I know where it is.”
Wrona nods but won’t meet Yuli’s eyes. “Yes, I thought. I mean, I assumed. But I heard something about people coming into town who shouldn’t be here. People from Zehak.” Now he turns his eyes to Yuli. “You know what I’m saying.”
Yuli’s mouth is dry, but he doesn’t let anything show in his face. He takes a last bite of his shawarma, lifts a hand to get Doria’s attention, and signals her for coffee. They’re quiet until she brings it. He likes it black, roasted dark enough to hide evidence. That’s the joke.
“All right,” he says.
“If you have that much money,” Wrona says quietly, “someone’s going to be looking for it.”
“I know.”
“If you need a gun …” Wrona spreads his hands.
“No, it’s all right,” Yuli says. “I have guns.”
After a long journey, you reach the township of Tannis Low. It’s not a big place, but it’s seriously defended. A stone wall that goes up thirty feet and then bends backward into the town so that people can hide in the overhang. The gates are bronze, but they’ve been charred badly over the years so that they look almost totally black. The valley around it is all stone and dirt. There are no trees. Almost no plants.
You know what’s weird?
What?
