Shorter Disclaimer –"Yu-Gi-Oh!" and all related characters, events, and concepts belong to Takahashi Kazuki and any other related owners/distributors/producers. "Rifts: Role-Playing Game," "Nightspawn/Nightbane: Role-Playing Game," and all related characters, events, and concepts belong to Palladium Books Publishing and related entities. I get no monetary benefit from this. My benefit is the enjoyment of dealing with beloved characters.

"Between the Shadows"
by DragonDancer5150

Chapter 10 – For Old Time's Sake

Hank sank back against the tree, watching and listening to father and son banter, once again remembering age thirteen, when he had left home in search of adventure. Damn, had that really been almost ten years ago already? No, wait . . . almost twelve. Shit. Twenty-six was coming up in a hurry, though he thought it was the face of someone already well into his thirties who stared back at him from the rearview mirrors of his Tarantula combat jump-bike. Samuel Munroe and his son Jonathan had been like family to him after raiders killed his own parents. But he had wanted more out of life than an operator could offer and, tried though he did, Sammy had been unable to talk his foster son out of taking a job on one of the merchant ships running up and down the east coast of North America. The old man had proven right, however. The seas were no place for Hank, if for no other reason than he liked both open space and guns too much, and carrying ammunition on a waterbound vessel was rather counterproductive at best. The captain had released him early from his contract but left him far from home, where a mercenary company soon picked him up. Things . . . well, things had gone steadily from there, though whether one would say for the better or worse was up to one's own opinion. Hank was happy with his life, appreciative of the men whose trust he had earned and honorable in his dealings with potential and repeat clients, but he had never tried to return home, feeling his "father" would not approve of what he had chosen to do with his life.

Now? Now, he was not so sure, not after listening to some of his "brother's" exploits and what Pops had put up with for the past decade. His own tale was practically tame by comparison.

"Well, that's interesting. Jonathan and I were just recently in Demon's Gate ourselves, as a matter of fact, until we had to stow away on that riverboat bound down the Mississippi – "

"I'm tellin' ya, I was framed for that one!" Jonathan reiterated for what might have been the third time, but Jack and Benjamin still were not buying the story of how he had earned the attention of this particular bounty hunter any more than his own father did.

Procurement specialist. That was the term Billy had stuck on him after the men grilled Jonathan over his skills and technical knowledge, trying to slap a label on him if only for their own amusement. More or less, it was a socially-acceptable term for "thief." At length, Jonathan had given in, announcing proudly, in spite of his elderly father's scowls, how he could slip into anywhere and obtain anything – be it goods, information, even people – at any time . . . for the right price, of course.

"That 'right price' is going to get you killed one of these days, Jonathan!" Sammy had snapped.

Jonathan just shrugged. "Yeah, maybe, but it's been fun in the meantime. Sure beats sittin' home gettin' old all safe an' bored."

"Need I remind you that we don't have a home anymore, thanks to – "

"Hey! No way you're pinnin' that one on me, Pops!"

Hank had heard the story twice already himself by that point – from Jonathan while they were digging Scraps' grave earlier that evening, then from Sammy who strode forward to "correct" the telling. Between the two versions, Hank guessed there was equal blame to spread between the two. Hank just shook his head, not surprised in the least. He had always known the bastard who functionally owned the local authorities had harbored an untold grudge against the older man, one Sammy was not himself innocent of aggravating on occasion, but Hank would be willing to bet it had been something of Jonathan's doing to tip things over the edge, even if it were true that he had not meant to. Since then, Jonathan had been doing the best he knew how to employ his varied talents, interests, and natural curiosity and propensity for working his way through challenges one way or another, thereby doing his share to support himself and his father.

"So, Samuel . . . " Fenris started, walking over from the far side of the fire and offering a clawed hand.

The elderly man groaned softly as he pushed himself to his feet, politely standing to meet the Dog Boy face-to-face . . . or as close to that as he could manage. At just under four-and-a-half-feet in height, there were not too many over the age of ten that the portly old man could look eye-to-eye. "No, no . . . no need to be so formal, lad. Just call me 'Sammy,' or even Pops if you'd like. I don't mind."

Fenris tossed Hank a toothy, lupine grin. "Ha! I like him already." He took the man's smaller, calloused hand in one big, long-fingered paw. "Name's Fenris. So . . . you an operator, you said? Hank, you talked to this guy yet?"

Hank pulled himself to his feet, crossing to join the two. He had been sitting apart from the others due to a headache that developed during the makeshift funeral they had held for Scraps – Hank always got a headache when he had to say good-bye to a comrade. Thank Fate or whatever was out there that he did not have to do so nearly as often as their profession could potentially make him have to do. Reaching the gathering on this side of the campfire, Hank shook his head. "No, not yet. Listen, Pops, Jon-J-!" He swallowed back the old nickname. No way was he having his own childhood moniker become common knowledge among his men – even if he did already have less than their utmost fear-of-God respect as it was. Not that he actually wanted any such relationship with them, either. Still, if he wanted at least to attempt to keep the expected teasing and jokes to a minimum, it was up to him to make the first move. "Jonathan," he corrected, "you guys know we lost our operator today, and you can see the number of vehicles and other equipment that need keeping up. And since you guys don't really have a home to speak of . . . what do you say?" He swept a hand across camp, meager but comfortable as it was.

Oddly enough, Jonathan kept his mouth shut as he looked to his father. For all the surface banter and bickering, Jonathan Kyle Munroe still loved his father and respected his decisions – at least most of them. In any case, whatever life threw at them, they were all each other had, and they were in it together. Hank could read as much and more in the glances traded between them. Finally, Sammy looked up at him.

"You seem to have made quite a little niche in life for yourself, Henry James Hutchison. You have a company of men who look to you for support and guidance, just as you once looked to me. It would be our honor to be counted among them . . . eh, Jonathan?"

"Ya never write. Ya don't call . . . " Jonathan rolled his one eye in mock complaint, but then he met Hank's gaze – steady, trusting, and sure. "Hey, it ain't without reason you turned around today so I could knock yer teeth in, ya bastard."

Hank did not miss the twinkle of humor and brotherly competition in that dark chocolate eye. "Wait! Who had who pinned down on a table with a knife ready to take out that other eye for you?" The two clasped hands, pulling together in one-armed embraces to pat the other on the back, brothers in spirit separated for far too long. When they stepped back again, however, Hank frowned in concern. "Speaking of which . . . what happened to you, man?"

"Wha – ? Oh, this?" Jonathan rubbed the patch over his left eye, uncharacteristically self-conscious, then shrugged. "Eh . . . it's nothin'. Lost it in an accident on one'a my . . . procurement jobs." He traded a look and a laugh with Billy, rather liking his new title.

Heh, you would too, knucklehead, Hank thought fondly. He traded a handshake-turned-hug with his foster father as well, all the contract either needed to seal the new employment.

Fenris snickered, sounding almost like a cough coming from the lupine Dog Boy. He leaned in close to Jonathan. "So, Cool J . . . I heard you call Boss-man here something earlier this afternoon. What was that again?"

Hank scowled at him, knowing the Dog Boy's memory was as good as his hearing. "Drop it, Wolfie, or I tell him your nickname."

"Or better yet," Jack put in with a laugh, "we get you drunk and let you prove it yourself."

Fenris turned to the pilot with a growl that rumbled up from low in his narrow chest, but any reply he might have given was forgotten at a sudden motion from Jonathan.

The street rat thief was flinching back and down, waving one hand to parry a small, thin something thrown at him from off his left shoulder, glancing down as a playing card landed at his feet. "Whoa! Hey, what's the big idea?"

Hank, too, turned a mild glare on the culprit. "Gambit, what was that for?"

Gambit had been relatively quiet all evening. No surprise, really – as a rule he was the guarded, standoffish, observant type as often as not, especially around new people, plus he and Scraps had been pretty close friends, and Hank knew he blamed himself for not acting quite fast enough. Hank had figured tonight's silence had been due to grief. While it was that, too – Hank knew him well enough to see it in his alien eyes – it was more immediately the fact that he had seen something that had pricked his caution or at least his interest, and he had been waiting for the right moment to act on it.

Gambit shrugged, walking up to retrieve his makeshift missile. "My friend, we all have our secrets, but some keep them better than others. You should be more mindful of your body language."

Jonathan glared at him. "I dunno what you're talkin' about." To Hank's surprise, even Sammy had stiffened up.

"Well, for one, you shouldn't have had the peripheral vision to see that coming." Gambit waved his hand next to Jonathan's head beyond the point his good eye should be able to see it. Jonathan flinched back.

"I . . . wha- . . . oh, heh . . . oops. Yeah, guess ya got me." Jonathan chuckled almost sheepishly, one hand scratching at the back of his head. "Eh, well, if me an' Pops're gonna be hangin' around, I guess you'll see it sooner or later. 'Sides, you trust 'im, right, bro?" Jonathan had turned with hardly a hitch in his breath to shift attention from talking to Gambit to about him, addressing Hank.

Hank grinned, teasing on his turn. "I don't know, bro. I have only known him a fraction as long as you, and probably about as well."

"My gods, Hank, you wound me!" Gambit laughed. "And after all we been through together, too. How many times have I pulled your ass out of the fire?"

"About as many times as you started 'em," Billy piped up, snickering. Gambit gave him "the finger."

"Hey, I seem to remember you were the one unconscious when we first met," Hank chuckled at the same time.

Gambit waved him off. "Details, details . . . "

Hank crossed his arms, looking each of his men in the eye even as he was still chuckling. "All right, you jokers, I'll say this only once. You guys already know I've known these two for almost as long as I've been breathing. They have my complete trust. I hope they'll have yours as well." He turned to look at his "father" and "brother." "That goes for you guys, too, Pops, Jonathan. I been running with some of these guys longer than I care to think about, and not a one of them I don't trust with my life."

"Wrong answer, Chief!" Jack chortled. "Never turn your back on this one. He'll shoot ya!" He pointed at Lucky Eddie, whose seemingly phenomenal good fortune had saved the company more than once but, precisely because of that, would never live down the time a jammed double-barrel shotgun had unjammed at just the right time and angle to make life miserable for Hank, Jack and three others of their company for about a week until the buckshot wounds had healed.

"Finicky Fate and Mother Nature aside," Hank groaned, rubbing the previously-offended hip and buttcheek even as Eddie whacked his pilot friend upside the head with his empty dinner plate. Ignoring them, Hank refocused. "Really, though, banter and bullshit aside, you can trust these guys."

In spite of assurances, Jonathan hesitated a long moment before shrugging as nonchalantly as he could manage. He pulled off the eye patch.

Hank choked. "Holy shit . . . " he breathed.

"Crap," Fenris muttered, "that looks just like – "

"I know." Hank swallowed, not wanting to believe what he was seeing.

8 8 8 8 8

Cool J looked back and forth between Hank and the Dog Boy, glancing too at the rest of the group as they slowly gathered for peeks of their own. Self-conscious, he touched the gold embedded in the skin, fingertips brushing the stylized eye design molded thickly off the surface of the sphere within, which completely filled the eye socket. He could not close that eye anymore, suspecting the lids to have gotten folded under when the object invaded his skull. To this day, he shuddered to think too much about what had become of the original organ, remembering only the agony and the amount of blood running down his face . . .

Angel, one of only two women in the present company and a damned good pilot from what Cool J had been told, cocked her head, a wry grin tugging at her lips. Cool J remembered her being one of the few still standing at the end of the bar fight. "Didn't know you could get cybernetics in gold plating these days."

Cool J shook his head. "I dunno either, but this ain't cybernetic. S'not bionic, either. T'be honest, I'm not sure what it is. Magic'a some kind." He chose to keep to himself the fact that he could hear surface thoughts and even get images and impressions from the minds of those around him if he concentrated on doing so, though too much of that gave him a headache and left him feeling weak and exhausted. Magic items took energy to operate, and he was no spellcaster to have a lot of innate mystic energy to be spending too freely. In fact, before acquiring the golden eyeball, he would not have suspected himself of having any at all.

Benjamin gazed at him askance. "You had that implanted, and you don't even know what it is?"

Cool J grimaced. "I didn't 'have it implanted.' Damn thing implanted itself." Of course, it might have had something to do with the tripping fall he had taken when he stole it, dropping it so that it hit the ground close to his head, but that did not explain how it actually wound up in his skull. He had blacked out for just a moment when he fell.

Gambit held out his hand for the eye patch. "May I?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, sure."

Gambit turned it back and forth, holding it up to gaze at from eye level. "Interesting. I think I've heard of this kind of material – looks like a mirror from one side but see-through from the other."

"Yep, sure is. And ain't cheap, lemme tell ya!" Cool J accepted the patch, slipping it back in place to conceal the valuable "implant." He turned to Hank with a grin, meeting warm brown eyes under a brunette crewcut. "So anyway, bro, you was offerin' me an' Pops some employment."

8 8 8 8 8

Hank could hardly help but gape a moment longer, but finally he shook himself. "My mistake," he laughed, if a little forced, his mind still tripping over the undeniable similarity to . . . He shook his head. Deal with that later. "Yeah. Eddie, cough me up some of those extra sleeping bags we picked up in El Dorado, will you? Put one for Jonathan in the tent with Jack and Tinder, and Pops's in with you and Benjamin." He looked again at Jonathan and Sammy, his eyes meeting the latter's for a significant span of breaths. "Grab any valuables, and I'll show you where you can put them if you want." Sammy cocked his head, then nodded.

Hank led them into the new hover tank, into which they had relocated the "treasure chest." It was a large footlocker with a wizard's lock on it, keyed only to Hank and Benjamin, who had ensorcelled it. He saw both raise eyebrows in question at the small hard plastic box sitting atop it, which read in crude painted letters, "Haz-Mat Retrieval Kit." It certainly was not built to store or dispose of hazardous materials. Hank rolled his eyes. "Don't ask." He turned to Sammy. "Pops, you still have that family heirloom thing you used to keep in your bedroom?" He suppressed a small grin at the memory – Jon-Jon had pulled him into his father's room when they were children to show him the "cool gold key" he had found a few days before, only for them both nearly to get the beatings of their lives when Sammy came in just in time to hear them finalizing the plan to hock it for spending money.

Sammy gazed back up at him, deep amethyst eyes contemplating. Then, he leaned down, kicked off a boot, and pulled up the pant leg to reveal a stylized key of wrought gold, some ten to twelve inches in length, strapped to the inside of his calf. "I've managed to hang on to it."

Hank nodded. "If you want, we can hold it in the chest. I keep the company's mutual funds and other important valuables in here. I trust my men, but that doesn't mean that we don't see our share of pickpockets and worse, both in town and out in the wilderness. Most all of us have something in this trunk."

"What'd keep the trunk from gettin' swiped?" Jonathan wanted to know.

"A modified Carpet of Adhesion spell that Benjamin recasts as needed. Only way this trunk's getting stolen from where it's sitting is to cut the floor from under it." He looked again at Sammy. "You don't have to, of course, but it's an option."

Sammy shrugged. "Thing's always been uncomfortable." He pulled open the straps around his lower leg that held the key in place as Hank set his hand to the lock, "thinking" it open. Hank pulled a sack from the collection of boxes and bags, and Sammy dropped his key within. It tapped something as it settled, a muffled ring of metal-on-metal meeting their ears.

Hank stiffened slightly as an odd sensation coursed through him at that, faint but distinct – a welcoming re-acquaintance, much like he had felt upon first laying eyes on his adopted father after so many years and suspected he might have felt with Jonathan if he had not been in the heat of a brawl just then. Only this was more, something much deeper. He looked up to see that Sammy must have felt something as well, and Jonathan had pulled up the patch to rub at his fake eye. Hank groaned. Knew I shoulda tried dumping that cursed thing off in Dante's.

Hank put the sack down in the trunk, the sound of small chains jingling a bit inside with the movement, and he shifted both hands to the trunk lid to close it, but Jonathan 's quick hand darted in to snatch the bag before he could do so. "Hey! Jon-Jon!"

"C'mon, Hanky, I know you felt that too! Whatcha got in here?" He pulled open the bag . . . and froze in shock.

Hank knew what it was that Jonathan saw – the decorated fulcrum. With a sigh, he took the sack from Jonathan's limp fingers, reached in and lifted the surprisingly lightweight artifact into view, setting it on the ground between them. It was a solid gold weighing scale, the fulcrum a sphere with an eye design on each side that precisely matched the one under Jonathan's patch. The questions hung unspoken in the air for several heartbeats before Hank finally went ahead and answered them, gazing at the unwanted thing. "About a year ago, we were paid by a guy from the Pecos Empire for a job we ran for them. He paid us in gems, precious metals, and a handful of other stuff instead of cred chips – harder to trace. This was in the pile. No one else claimed it, so I threw it in here to try to sell later. I've yet to find a buyer. No one wants it. I don't want it, either . . . but I can't seem to get rid of it. Hell, I can't lose the damned thing to save my life! Believe me, I've tried."

"Do you suppose it's cursed, Henry?"

Hank glanced at Pops and shook his head. "Not that anyone can determine, though I have to wonder. It does seem to be attuned to me, though. God only knows why. I've had it read by three different spellcasters, including one from the Federation of Magic and one up in Lazlo. It's definitely a magic artifact, harbors a sense of evil deep within but has no sentience of its own nor a possessing entity, and – " Hank pulled a face. " – and turns up back in my tent or vehicle or something no matter what cliff I drop it over."

"Bummer," Jonathan murmured.

"You're telling me." Hank pulled a breath, putting the scale in the sack and replacing it in the trunk. "Come on. It's getting kinda late, and we need to get an early start. I want to be back up in Tolkeen in two weeks, and we have some stops to make on the way."

Author's Note: Please be sure to check my bio page for any updates, etc. Thanks!