Ortho and Stella put their backs to each other and kept their eyes on the new threats. The thin road separating tall, haphazard buildings meant they only needed to defend against two sides. Ortho doubted they’d achieve that. That wasn’t going to stop him from trying.

“See? This is why you should have given me my stuff back,” Ortho growled softly.

“You’re the dungeoneer,” Stella hissed back. “Why didn’t you use your awesome enma to sense them out?” She dropped the hessian bag containing Ortho’s armour and shield then clenched her fists at her side.

Ortho’s hands clenched also. “Because my gestalt sense is my smell and this whole city smells like metal and urine!”

Morder approached from Stella’s side, spreading his arms wide. The stench of the oil he overused to slick back his hair mingled with the odd and nonsensical scents of aftos, coming from all around, likely from Morder’s soldiers that now surrounded Ortho and Stella. If not for those smells, Ortho would have knocked Morder’s sparkling teeth out already.

“Forgive Morder,” the Buitre said with a hint of mockery. “He needs to introduce himself before,” he waved his hands around vaguely, “you two get a little too cosy.”

“So you’re Morder, huh?” Stella said.

The Cartel member’s eyes went wide. “How did you know? Is Morder famous? He shouldn’t be. That’s bad for business. Or…” he stepped in close enough to reach for Stella’s throat if he chose. “Did the Hero of the Fifty-third Floor tell you all about Morder?”

Stella closed her eyes, then opened them slowly. “It’s because you speak in the third person.”

Morder stared at her with his mouth hanging open. It went on like that for a few heartbeats. Knowing how temperamental Morder was, Ortho swung around to face him, leaving both his and Stella’s backs exposed.

“We met a few weeks—”

“Tsss!” Morder hissed sharply, thrusting a finger at him.

Morder maintained his weird stare for a few more heartbeats. Ortho ran an invisible flow of enma into his wadis, keeping the output low in case one of Morder’s men was using gestalt sense.

Then Morder’s features twisted into something resembling humour and he began to laugh. His soldiers picked up the cue and they laughed also.

The Buitre pointed at Stella. “Oh, Morder likes her. She has a sense of humour. Unlike some people who owe Morder money.” He turned to Ortho and all the mirth in his eyes was gone, replaced by a wild fury.

“Um, no,” Stella said, testy.

Morder spun to her. “No?”

Ortho turned also and gaped at her. “What in Gul are you doing?” he growled.

Stella jabbed a thumb over her shoulder to Ortho. “He owes you money. I want nothing to do with this. I’ll send him into the dungeon with my clients, but you can get your money from him once he—”

Morder reached up and clasped a hand over Stella’s mouth. He was a finger’s length shorter than her, but his demeanour made him feel overwhelming, as though Ortho was being watched again by a kelbeyu’s thousand eyes. As much as Ortho didn’t like Stella, he still had to bite down hard on his lip so that he wouldn’t throw a fist at Morder. Or at Stella, to shut her up.

“No, no, no,” Morder said, shaking his head. “It’s not a matter of who owns what, but of Morder getting what Morder asks for. You, as Ortho’s fence, have an administrative duty to ensure that your clients are not getting into trouble, yes?”

He waited for an answer. Stella didn’t give one, and not just because her mouth was sealed. Her fists were squeezed so tightly that her knuckles had gone white and whole body trembled with rage. She looked like she was one word away from lashing out.

“Yes?” Morder said more assertively. He jerked Stella’s head up and down in a nod. “Good. Then when Morder asks for his money, you give his money. Yes? Yes.”

He withdrew his hand and Stella hissed as she took a breath. Her tail was poking right out—a sign she wanted to fight, Ortho realised. Oh, how he wanted to join her. It would have felt so good. But he knew it was a losing fight.

He hated hiding. He hated running. He’d done enough of that and shamed his tribe in doing so. But that was the reason he was still alive today, not dead and burnt to ashes with the rest of them. Monsters were one thing, but humans… humans were terrifying, Morder most of all. So he bit his lip, ignoring the blood that was running down from it and matting in his beard.

“Hey, I know you’re a big shot and everything, Morder,” he said, smiling to cover up the bite in his words. “But she’s a fence. She works for the city, doesn’t she? Even the Cartel doesn’t want to push too hard against the city itself.”

Morder raised his eyebrows and his head whipped around to Stella. “So she is! Then tell Morder, young lady, which guild do you work for?”

Stella answered only with a fiery stare. Ortho cursed inwardly. She was going to get them both killed. It was hard to tell who was worse, Hawthorn, Morder, or her.

He put a hand between them instinctively, enma flowing into the wadi on his wrist just in case. “She’s a freelance—”

Morder’s gloved hand raced towards Ortho’s chest and stopped just shy of it. His glove lit up in a multitude of colours that ringed around his hand. The scent rolling off that glove was like burning rain, and the intensity of it nearly strangled him. To add insult to injury, Morder’s soldiers all drew a little closer with their hands tucked under their coats, grasping at concealed weapons.

Ortho gritted his teeth and said nothing. The only thing stopping him from lashing out right now was that he was naked without his armour. No, even then, he couldn’t have done anything. He put that afto at about level twenty by its scent, and Morder definitely had more on his person. Morder was strong. Overwhelmingly strong.

Slowly, Morder withdrew his glove. He shook his hand and the glove winked out, plunging the street into darkness once more. Its strangling scent disappeared and Ortho gasped in relief. Then a grin returned to Morder’s face.

“So, the fence is a freelancer, hm?” Morder hummed. “And, tell Morder, why should he be afraid of some nobody with a…” he picked at Stella’s calcite badge pinned to her skirt. His face twisted in confusion. “Kin ranked fence? Huh?” he dropped the badged and approached Ortho, pressing his face so close that their noses almost touched. “It seems like the foreigner doesn’t understand how things work in this city. Allow Morder to demonstrate.”

He snapped his fingers. Two of his thugs grabbed Stella by the arms. She thrashed and tried to fend them off, throwing untamed spikes of enma at them which merely bounced off their armoured jackets. One of the thugs pressed a rod to her exposed midriff and her whole body went slack.

Despite how furious he was, Ortho couldn’t help but smile internally at how weak Stella was. High levels or not, poorly melded enma was useless. Well, seeing that her gloating amounted to nothing was the fresh water at the end of the march.

“See that?” Morder said. “Even if Morder killed her, nobody would care. She’s a Kin ranked fence. She’s just dregs at the bottom of the pot. Now.”

He turned to Stella and raised her head with his ungloved hand. Stella’s eyes rolled about before settling on Morder. In the faint light coming from the nearby apartments, Ortho could make out the black vulture tattoo on Morder’s hand.

“You say you want Ortho to pay his debts,” Morder mulled. “But Morder is wondering, who is going to pay the debt that your toothless idiot client owes Morder after what he did to Morder’s turf?”

Stella blinked then her eyes slowly bulged in realisation. Morder’s mouth split into a wide, mocking grin.

“That’s right. Morder already got the fence’s details from AdminHub. Very helpful, these SIN towers are. What would anyone do without them? Have to talk to each other face to face like in Morder’s country of Lagoseco?” He faced Ortho, looking for common ground.

Ortho only growled back. “The only reason we don’t have SIN towers is because the monsters in Huhl Hadem will destroy them before the sun sets. If you think I’m going to see eye to eye with a man from a dungeon-free country, whose people spend their spare time killing each other over land, you’re more insane than I thought.”

Morder’s face dropped in disappointment, then he turned to Stella once more.

His face twisted instantly into a snarl and he shook Stella’s jaw. “Three dead, forty-two of the Cartel’s soldiers injured, and lots of property destroyed. No, you won’t hear about that from the news because Morder,” he growled, “had to clean up that stupid”—he yanked Stella’s violently head to one side—“greedy”—he yanked her head harder the other way—“double-crossing bastard of a grupp.”

He grabbed Stella’s head with both hands and squeezed. Stella’s eyes screwed up in pain. She let out a whimper. Morder’s fingers dug further and further into her face.

“And when Morder finds the one who went behind his back, he’s going to do far worse things to him than even your toothless idiot client.”

Unable to take it anymore, Ortho channelled enma into his wadi and grabbed Morder’s wrist. He squeezed hard. Under normal circumstances, his grip enhanced by the wadi would have been enough to crush a rock. Morder’s wrist was somehow harder than that. The Buitre faced Ortho, not letting up his grip on Stella.

“Is there a problem, Ortho?” Morder spoke in hushed tones. His expression was calm, not angry, but the way his hands trembled in Ortho’s grip told another story.

Ortho’s jaw was clenched so hard he thought his teeth would shatter. “She can’t pay you if she’s dead.”

Morder stared at him with his eyebrows raised. Ortho’s heart pounded in his chest. He squeezed even harder, pumping more enma into his wadi. Morder’s thugs drew weapons and were about to strike. Tears streamed down Stella’s cheeks from the pain.

With a snicker, Morder released Stella. His soldiers dropped her and she collapsed to the floor, clutching at her face and whimpering. The Buitre spread his hands wide, dragging Ortho with him as though he wasn’t even holding him.

“Oh, Morder will get his money,” he said, flashing his speckled teeth. “Morder always gets what he wants. Now let go.”

Ortho held the Buitre’s wrist for a few more heartbeats, for all the good it did him. Cherry-sweet amusement rolled off of Morder, barely perceptible beneath the stifling funk of steel and sewage that was everywhere in the Shanties. Then Ortho finally released him. He stared hard at Morder with his face set to stone. If it were anyone else, on any other day, he would have beaten them to a pulp.

Morder shrugged and began walking away. “Two weeks, Stella. That’s when you make your first payment.” He glanced over his shoulder at the fence, who was still grappling with her pain. “On seventy million kin. Sixty for the damages, ten for your special little party member. You know, the one with the glowing hair?”

He pursed his lips, then shrugged, and walked back into the alley. Then a whiff of spiky hostility caught Ortho’s nostrils. Morder turned around.

“Oh, and beat the dog.”

Ortho took the initiative and struck the nearest of Morder’s soldiers. He felt a satisfying crack as his fist landed on the man’s rib. The soldier was sent tumbling down the street. At the same moment, another soldier whacked him in the chest with the same rod that had poked Stella. Ortho’s whole body went wobbly. He tried to stabilise himself and threw a lazy punch. It struck air.

He was clubbed over the back of the head and stumbled to the ground. Then the beating began. No aftos were needed to hurt him; without his armour, he was as fragile as a pup. The soldiers kept stomping him until the pain passed into semi-consciousness and he was left dazed on the floor.

He wasn’t sure how long he laid there. The soldiers were gone. Nobody had come out of their homes to help him, or to steal his few possessions. After a while, Ortho managed to prop himself up into something resembling attentiveness. His body hurt like Gul, but nothing was broken, thankfully. The only reason he’d got through it with just bruises was that his wadis fortified his body. Without that, the enhanced strength he gained from them would have caused his knuckles to break every time he tried to hit something.

When Ortho looked up, he saw Stella standing over him, rubbing at her heavily bruised jaw. She glared down at him with eyes burning with fury.

“Tomorrow,” she mumbled. “You’re going into the dungeon. If you don’t, I’ll make your life so miserable that you’ll be begging for another beating from Morder.”

She turned on her heels and stumbled down the street, leaving Ortho groaning in agony on the cracked, cobble road. The hessian bag with Ortho’s equipment swung against her back, banging against her every time she limped another step away from him. There was no way he was going to get his stuff back tonight.

Wonderful. Just wonderful.

With a loud groan, he pushed himself up and stumbled back to his crappy apartment. Good thing it was only a few blocks away.