BLOODFIRE

Trea was up and dressed when Kal reached the room where she slept above the office.

“So she’s finally taking a look at your private life.” Trea said, pulling hard on a cigarette.

“So it would seem.” Kal replied, half mumbling. The fact that Mercy had went so far as to question Madame Broudeaux disturbed him. Everyone knew that what happened in her brothel never went beyond the bedroom doors. Even the workers there weren’t allowed to gossip about this or that lover they had spent time with. Did Mercy think that she could intimidate Madame Broudeaux?

“Well she certainly took her time getting around to it.” Trea said, sounding rather irritated, “If I was her I wouldn’t have wasted my time stopping your father from giving you your allowance, I’d just expose you for the filthy heathen you are off hand and let it go from there.”

Kal looked at her startled, “Well, gee, thanks. Remind me to never make you an enemy.”

“You’re just now figuring out that it would be a bad idea? You’re as slow as your sister.”

Kal yanked a cigarette from a brass case he pulled from his pocket, and put it in his mouth, not once reaching for his long filter. Trea raised an eyebrow as he lit it and pulled so hard on the butt that he burned half of it before removing it to exhale. He was mad. Mercy had pulled underhanded stunts before, always in an effort to discredit her brother as a capable heir, but never had she gone so far as to delve into his private life. A man’s private life had nothing to do with how he ran a business. So long as he wasn’t being extorted or somehow manipulated by an outside force who he slept with and where he drank had no bearing in his business.

Kal picked up the phone and began dialing a number.

“Who are you calling at this hour?” The clock had just chimed half past one a.m.

“A former client who owes me a favor.”

“Which one is that?”

“The one that got you put in jail.”

It was forty-five minutes later when Trea and Kal met with their client in the office of a dock-house. Behind the desk sat a dirty, unshaven, balding man who looked like he belonged scrubbing sewers more than officiating over dock business.

“You’re bounty hunters. What do you need me for?” He asked, seeming rather peeved to have been awakened at such an hour.

“Because I nearly went to jail for your greedy ass.” Trea shot back, staring him down the way one does an aggressive dog.

The man rolled his eyes, “Hazards of the job lady. Get over it.” As the words passed his lips, something sharp burned past his temple, taking a thin layer of skin with it. In the wood paneled wall behind him, a long thin needle wobbled away the last of its momentum. He stared at Trea in shock as the wound began to weep tiny dots of blood.

“Next time I won’t miss.” Kal said. Trea raised an eyebrow, when had he learned that little trick? The dirty man’s eyes doubled in size when he realise Kal had thrown the needle.

“What do you need, Kalwren?” He finally said after several minutes of speechlessness.

“Find out what my sister wants. Why she is asking around about my personal life. Keep an eye on her visitors and make sure no one is following Trea or I.”

Trea looked at Kal, “Why would she have me followed? I don’t go anywhere, don’t do anything and don’t know anyone.”

“You’re an unknown variable to her. She’ll want to know everything she can about you. Right down to who your parents are.”

“I don’t have parents.”

“Even so, she’ll find out, or at least try to.” Kal turned to leave, leaving both Trea and the man completely puzzled.

The man looked at Trea, “What the hell have we walked in on?”

Trea just shrugged, and before she could reply Kal called out, “Are you coming or are you just going to stand there gaping?” Trea and the man traded glances, the man gave her a helpless shake of the head and she walked out the door behind a Kalwren Meadowhart she didn’t recognize.

Sitting next to Kal in the auto, Trea attempted to gel the Kalwren she had known all this time with the one who had walked out of the dock-house. “Where did you learn to do that?” She asked finally.

Kalwren never took his eyes off the road as the dead, grey trees flew by, his countenance was just as hard and fixed as it had been when they first left. “I had been in the military for some time. I was sent to covert ops. I learned to throw needles from a Dragon Master from the Eastern Kingdom of the Desert Region’s Fourth Empire. They are easier to carry than knives and they look so flimsy no one would take them as a serious weapon anyway. It takes a very special hand to master it. I’m one of three in the entire history of covert operations to master it with such proficiency, and the fastest.”

Trea was now completely confused. “Who in the hell are you?”

Kalwren looked at her. His face softened into a smile that didn’t quite make it to his eyes. “I’m more complicated than I let on. Sorry for lying. I had hoped to put things behind me, but meeting you, starting the business, and now Mercy’s meddling…if I don’t nip it in the bud now it may become very ugly very quickly. No one can win this one.” His smile remained, but it seemed sadder. The sadness reached his eyes.

“You realise you’re going to have to tell me everything, don’t you. I need to know what I’m dealing with and how deep a pile of dung I’ve put my foot into.”

“Deal. But tomorrow. I’m exhausted. Mind if I sleep on your couch? If I go home I may murder my sister in her sleep, then I really would be out of my inheritance.”

Trea nodded, then asked, “Why do you care about the inheritance? You barely care about the business you started.”

“I don’t care about the family business. I’d rather not even take it, but I can’t deny it, Father won’t allow it. The plan was that once I was put into power at the head of the company, I would bring Mercy on and slowly give her more responsibilities until she had basically taken over. I’d be owner in name, but she would run it.”

“Did you tell her that?”

“Tried to. She said she didn’t want some pittance from me to ease my conscience. I could barely even explain the whole thing to her before she started yelling. I gave up after the second time. She seems to want to blame me for everything she went through, as though it were all my fault.”

“So what are you afraid of her finding out?”

“There are things I have done, things I was ordered to do, that I take no pride in. Things that I’d rather remain buried, now that I’ve finally moved beyond them.”

Trea nodded. For once, she completely understood.

Revelations