Prologue

Alexander Tennyson had not been scared once in the twenty years he had run Outsiders, Inc. That had all changed six months ago. The attempt to tie up loose ends in the Ferris O'Carrick case, eradication of the Genovesan team he had recruited from the former president of Araluen, had failed. Miserably. All four Genovesans had survived, and Genovesans were notorious for their intolerance for insult.

Attempted assassination of a team of assassins would certainly count as insult in their book.

He had thought it would be simple. Hire one assassin to shoot the rest, then have an unfortunate accident befall the fourth.

Bacari Herrera wasn't supposed to have missed.

Now, he was seeing things everywhere. The reflection of the sun on a windowpane could have been the glint of a sniper's rifle. The oily surface of his coffee could be poison. The slight teenagers that passed him in the street could have been one of the assassins, watching his movements, waiting to strike.

Even in hiding, in Picta of all places, there was a shadow looming in his mind. His days were coming to an end. He had already cashed out of Outsiders, Inc, leaving the company in ruin and almost a hundred thousand bankrupt. There was enough money in an offshore account for him to live rich for the rest of the century. Besides, Picta and Araluen had been negotiating an extradition treaty for more than ten years and nothing had come of it. The odds were on his side. But he still couldn't shake that fear.


Even though the air in Araluen City wasn't that healthy, it was still outside air, not the too-sterile hospital air Trobar had been breathing for the past twelve hours. A recent rain had washed the city clean, and the light evening breeze was cool on the giant's face. He was happy.

Trobar was about to go back inside when he heard a faint voice. He turned his head slightly, thinking the voice had come from inside the hospital. Doctor Malcolm Malkallam, the only family the giant had ever known, could have been calling him for supper. But that wasn't it. The voice had been female.

He set out for the treelike, massive strides carrying him there with only a few steps. The voice called again. This time, he could understand what the girl was saying. "Help me!" It was coming from the small stone courtyard a few meters away.

"Hello?" Trobar called, but because of his cleft palate deformity, it sounded more like, "Ha'o?"

A soft grunt answered him. He rounded a large oak tree and found the girl leaning on the other side, her eyes closed.

He cautiously reached out and shook her shoulder. The girl didn't respond. Perhaps he should have gone to get Malcolm.

He shook her again, a little harder. Her body, slack already, was deprived of its support and collapsed. Trobar was barely able to catch the girl before she hit the ground.

Malcolm would definitely want to see the girl.

As gently as he could, Trobar scooped up her legs and carried her into the hospital.

Malcolm, who had, in fact, been about to call Trobar in for supper, met him at the door. "Trobar, supper is-who is she? What happened?"

To the best of his abilities, Trobar related hearing the voice, then finding the unconscious girl. Malcolm nodded periodically, showing that he understood the giant's half-intelligible speech.

"Take her to examination room five on the third floor," the bird like doctor said when Trobar was finished, "then go get yourself some dinner." Trobar had already set off towards the stairs, as he didn't fit in the elevator very well, when Malcolm called something else over his shoulder. "Send Seth up there, if you can find him. This might be a long night.

Trobar broke one of Malcolm's rules after he left the girl in Malcolm's care on the third floor; he ate in one of the hospital's many hallways. The gentle giant had never seen a patient first, and he was incredibly concerned for the girl, so he sat in the hallway outside examination room five, listening, hoping that the girl was going to be okay.

He had finally dozed off when Malcolm reached a diagnosis.

"Seth, give me your phone!" the doctor sounded more urgent than usual.

"What's going on?" Seth, Malcolm's assistant asked, even as he handed over his phone. Malcolm was dialing the moment his fingertips made contact with the phone.

"We need to alert the president. A strand of weaponized KALKARA has been released."


"The stage is set. The curtain rises. We are ready to begin." -Sherlock, "The Abominable Bride"


A/N. Welcome back.