The claw guided him. Gradually, Asher left the shopping district behind. The clusters of modest adobe homes gave way to the sweeping drives, the wrought-iron fences, and the clockwork-run mansions of the well-to-do. Gas lamps spread dim circles of light on the cobblestone streets, their timers ticking softly, interspersed with towering purple peppercorn trees, their scarlet berries and feathery leaves shining in the mingled moonlight and gaslight. The wind had died down, leaving everything still and quiet. He slowed his pace to make it easier to distinguish, from his own footsteps, a sound that shouldn't be there.

There it was. A door slamming, the dismally muffled bang swallowed by the night. Panicked footsteps, small and insignificant. A woman's short, quick gasps. The scratch of talons on cobbles. A faint screech, hungry but not yet triumphant.

Asher dropped his seabag into a concealing peony bush. He then scaled a spike-topped fence and let himself down onto a smooth lawn. He made a detour through one of the mansions' gardens, emerging in a back alley that was little more than a soot-blackened gutter, enclosed by the brick walls of kitchens, laundries, and sculleries. Tarnished brass clockwork puffed, cranked, and spun, keeping the mansions cool so their occupants could sleep dreamless.

Except for a maid, her stockings torn and her ruffled white cap askew, who burst from an intersecting alley, tripped on a loose cobble, and went down in a skid of garbage slime.

Asher had seen no hint of the Vigilante Corps since leaving Mareh Trading Post. Not a good sign for the people in this neighborhood, but no skin off his nose. He wasn't here for them, anyway. Obscured by the ticking, huffing bulk of a clockwork engine, he slipped a Zini Card from his pocket and sliced into it with his saber to activate it.

The Nightmare ambled into view, sure of its kill. This one was built like an ape, its knuckles hanging low to the ground, its head sitting nearly against its chest. It opened its jaws, the human-like pair as well as the insect-mandible pair, revealing its segmented, birdlike tongue. It breathed out a blast of steam as hot as any released by the clockwork engine.

The woman, who seemed to have given up twenty feet from her door, shut her eyes so that her tears squeezed out in a flood and drew in a ragged breath.

"Don't scream!" Asher shouted at her, making her jump a foot in the air, which smeared her crisp uniform and caked her fingernails with slime. The Nightmare hissed, tongue lashing and spit flying, but Asher looked only at the woman. "Show no fear! Not even a little! Your terror – that's what the Nightmare feeds on!"

There was no way to tell if the woman had understood him. Her glazed eyes were fixed and staring behind the lenses of her spectacles. She shook from ruffled cap to patent leather toe, apparently too terrified to breathe. The Nightmare, however, screeched with a sound reminiscent of clashing gears.

"A—ali—aliennn," it gargled, and Asher grimaced. Not all Nightmares remembered speech, and those that did were far more cunning than those that didn't. "Dessstroy you!"

Asher readied his saber, now alive with Zini's flickering flames. "Not much of a vocabulary, Nightmare," he sneered. "Don't you bore yourself?"

For an answer, the Nightmare's screech ripped into the supersonic, which, unfortunately, Asher's long and sensitive ears could detect. The Nightmare launched itself at him, skinless ape arms reaching for their prey like twin anacondas. He struck twice with his flaming blade. Zini scraped along the bone armor of the left arm, but gouged a deep, bloody valley through muscle, sinew, and veins in the right. The Nightmare stumbled past him and fell, howling in pain. Vile-smelling, pus-colored blood ran into the gutter.

Supremely in control, Asher turned to face his foe. The Nightmare writhed on the ground, almost licking the cobblestones as it keened over its bleeding arm. He angled the point of his saber down and wrapped both hands around the grip, preparing to thrust the blade through the Nightmare's neck. A clean kill, a quick end. Better than any Nightmare deserved.

A cloud obscured the shattered moon. It plunged the alley into darkness. He shifted his feet for a more balanced stance. His bare heel, the one the bottle had pierced just that morning, accidentally met the same loose cobble the maid had tripped over.

Asher flinched, concentration and stance broken.

The Nightmare reared up, screeching. The ape-like arms whipped toward his unguarded chest, intending to crush the life out of him.

He lunged to meet his foe, Zini crackling and burning hotter than ever.

A two-handled wok spun out of the shadows. It cracked the Nightmare full in the face, its force smashing the wok flat and throwing the Nightmare into a brick wall.

The Nightmare sagged against the bricks. It spared the newcomer one look of deepest contempt, casually spat out a bloody fang, and then leaped over Asher like a bird taking flight. It touched down on the shingled roof of the mansion and bounded out of sight.

The cloud moved on. Visibility in the alley improved.

Asher bit back a frustrated snarl. "You?"

"Mr. Asher!" Keon-hee called. She ran up to him, Sang-eo bouncing against her back. "Are you all right?"

Wondering how many more of the restaurant owner's pots the fish had swallowed, he bypassed her question for one of his own. "How did you get out of there?" The pile of dirty dishes had been taller than she was, and about five times as wide.

"Huh?" She tilted her head, momentarily confused, and then she grinned. "You mean the restaurant? I finished the work."

"Finished? That fast?"

"You kidding?" Keon-hee giggled, proudly holding up her arms to show off a swimmer's muscles. "That was nothing! You should try working on a pirate ship."

Pirates, now? He'd thought mermaids hated pirates. Except Keon-hee wasn't a mermaid. Asher shut his eyes, hoping that when he opened them, she'd be gone.

"Um."

How do I get myself into these messes? Reluctantly, Asher opened his eyes.

"You're an alien like me, right?" Keon-hee asked with some hesitancy.

Zini's effects wore off. He slung his flame-less saber from his belt and folded his arms, scowling. One Ephemeral Card wasted. "Evidd tell you that?"

"I sort of figured it out for myself," she said, coming closer in her earnestness. "I must ask you a favor. I'll do whatever you want if you'll let me travel with you."

"I don't need a valet."

Keon-hee bit her lips, looking as though he'd struck her. Her meekness was starting to piss him off.

"What?" he asked harshly, fists clenched. "You think I can help you get home?"

"You want to get home, too, don't you, Mr. Asher?" she burst out.

Their voices were getting louder. They were no longer within the Nightmare's aura, which deadened sound to outsiders, made encounters with them feel like inescapable dreams. Lights flickered in the rooms of the mansions which overlooked the alley.

"I don't need anyone's help!" Asher said angrily. "Listen up, because I'm only going to say this once. I have one goal. To find my enemy and kill him. I don't care about getting home!"

Then, before any natives could investigate the noise, he spun on his heel and took off, leaving a bewildered Keon-hee and the slack-jawed maid behind.

..::~*~::..

Asher lost the Nightmare's trail near Market Square. He climbed the bell tower to get a better view of the city below. Crouching atop the cupola, he waited while the desert wind combed through his hair, longer in front than it was in the back, and tugged at the tails of his sash. Every once in a while, the two large gold rings sewn into the ends of the sash clashed together with a musical sound.

Then, just as he was about to give up the hunt, something interesting caught his eye. A flash of teal and white in the shadows of a nearby street: Keon-hee, returning to Mareh Trading Post with Evidd at her side.

Asher narrowed his eyes, his gaze trained on the swinging "Closed for Business" sign.

Had Evidd gone searching for Keon-hee? A nice gesture, but not one that would ordinarily have benefited a Card trader. Keon-hee had nothing to offer other than a bizarre ability to wash dishes like a clockwork engine. Besides, how had Evidd known where to look for her? Asher was sure the girl had tried to run after him back on Posh Hill, and he'd purposefully taken a serpentine path through the streets to shake her.

He deliberated for perhaps a minute and then swung himself down the tower far enough to leap the gap to the nearest adobe building. As quietly as he could, he hopped over wooden stall awnings and shop rooftops until he reached Mareh. He perched on one of the exposed wooden logs that protruded from the wall close to the roof. The window of the guest room below him was open, its lacy curtain blowing outward. He didn't have to strain to hear what was being said inside.

"It's much too dangerous out there, Miss Keon-hee." Evidd, convincingly solicitous as he opened the door and ushered her into the room. "A Nightmare is on the loose in this city. It's already attacked six people."

Asher let out a silent breath, cursing his refusal to see what had been right in front of him from the get-go. They'd talked about it earlier, he and Evidd.

"You're having some trouble with Nightmares lately. They're all over town. Five dead at last count, was that it?"

"Yes. It's a shame."

Five people, at last report. Not six. There was no way Evidd could have known about the maid in the alley. Unless . . .

"Well, if you have nowhere to stay, you might as well stay with us," Evidd went on.

"But, Mr. Asher—"

"He'll be back soon," Evidd said, lying so smoothly, so easily, that Asher knew Keon-hee would relax, thinking herself safe and in the company of a friend. "He'll want to claim the Cards he left with me. There's no way he'll leave town without seeing me first."

"Thank you, Mr. Evidd."

Far too late, Asher heard the Vigilante Corps strike up a warning, whistles blaring, torches flaring. Hobnailed boots pounded the cobblestones as men in homemade uniforms flooded Market Square, waving halberds and battle-axes.

"Secure the city gates!" they hollered, blowing their whistles. "Stay in your homes! A Nightmare has been spotted!"

Asher watched them pass two stories below his perch. Evidd's dark head appeared at the window as he peered out with seeming interest. The curtain fluttered, bringing with it the perfume of flowers.

Keon-hee's blue head appeared next to his. "What's all the excitement?"

"A Nightmare," Evidd said quietly. "The one that escaped the Vigilante Corps a few weeks ago is back in the city."

Keon-hee looked at him. "Mr. Asher was fighting it."

"You saw the Nightmare?" Evidd asked, as empty of emotion as though he were talking to himself. He turned from her to tie back the curtain. "We don't know where they came from or what they want, but they are the most terrifying creatures in Ephemeros. And we know one thing for sure. Nightmares hate aliens like you."

"Huh? Wha—"

Keon-hee's voice suddenly lost all backbone. Evidd had held an Ephemeral Card up to her face. Asher smelled a brief tang of heated iron, heard a discharge of magical energy, and then two heavy thuds; Keon-hee had fallen first to her knees, and then her side.

"M-Mr. E-Evidd?" she asked weakly.

"Sorry," Evidd said in a monotone. "Metal-type Kage Card. A low enough level that even a non-Card Master like me can activate it. You are paralyzed. It will last for quite a while." He moved away from the window. "I am sorry, Miss Keon-hee. We just can't tolerate aliens around here."

Asher closed his eyes. Evidd was one of the few natives he had called a friend. Apparently, no matter how many times he tried to beat the lesson into his brain, he never learned it. The consequence of spending too much time around humans and their endless capacity to hope, he supposed.

There was no hope. Not for the dragon-kin.

A sensation passed through him as he brooded, centering in his stomach. He felt briefly nauseated at the upsurge of magical energy. Someone had just used a shadow-type Black Hole Card to pass instantly through space, traveling from there to here with a single step. Someone powerful.

Someone for whom he had been searching for a long time. Someone who wanted him, the last of his people, dead. The dragon claw twitched against his chest.

Jackpot, Asher thought with relish.

An entirely new voice spoke, young, feminine, and amused, as dark and sensual as black silk.

"This is quite new for me. I've never before been this close to a mermaid," the Nightmare said. She paused, and then gave a disappointed little sigh. "I've examined you and I do not sense any power awakening within you."

"Wh-what are you talking about? Who are you?" Keon-hee demanded.

She had partially broken through the paralysis. Asher raised his eyebrows, mildly impressed by the kid's strength of will.

"Let's just say I'm a very hard-working lady. You don't need to know more than that," the Nightmare woman said with a girlish giggle, which set Asher's back teeth on edge. "I could eliminate you, but I believe you will serve as bait."

The statement was so ridiculous that Asher decided to make his move. He laughed and dropped to the windowsill so that the lighted lamps in the room threw warm golden light full in his face. He smirked. "Bait? What do I look like, a river trout?"

"Mr. Asher!" Keon-hee cried, her whole aspect lighting up in childish trust and relief.

"Ash!" Evidd's face registered shock and guilt. "But – you were chasing the escaped Nightmare—!"

"Aw, what would be the point?" Asher asked, making himself comfortable on the sill. "Why should I go running after a Nightmare when one could just come to me?"

Evidd clenched his teeth, and the grinding of molar against molar was loud enough for them all to hear. "You used her as bait for us?"

Asher's gaze slid over the form of the Nightmare as though she were made of oil, an unremarkable and indistinct shadow. A small corner of his mind wondered why he could not focus on her. The larger part took stock of Keon-hee, who had pushed herself to her elbows but couldn't yet command her legs.

"Oh, Keon-hee, you are a silly little haenyeo," Asher said in the most patronizing tone he could muster. He knew it was cruel, but even if he couldn't remember the lesson, he would make damn sure this kid never forgot it. "I warned you about the Nightmares, and you still got caught."

His barb slid home. Keon-hee's face paled further. He hopped into the room, already dismissing her from notice as he cracked his neck, loosened his shoulders, and drew his saber.

"Now," he said, "I believe I have some business to finish. You said I left Cards here, Ev? Maybe I should help myself, then, now that I know what sort of clientele frequents this place."

Evidd seemed to be choking on his tongue. With a weak human imitation of a snarl, he pounded the side of his fist into a closet door, which swung open to reveal several serviceable but plain broadswords, the kind the Vigilante Corps equipped. The Card trader slid one out of its sheath and charged.

It was an untrained, uncoordinated charge. Asher dodged the sword easily. Before Evidd could recover, Asher's fist smashed into his cheek. Evidd fell back with a grunt, losing his grip on the sword. When Asher stepped up to him, he raised his head, his black eyes wild with fright and his hair covering half his face.

"Traders shouldn't mess around with toys too big for them, Ev," Asher crooned. "You should have stuck to your books. It's what you're good at."

He raised his saber, preparing to stab his one-time friend through the heart.

A/N: Sometimes, I just don't feel like moderating my adjectives and adverbs. That is all. X3

Reviewer Thanks! St4r Hunter, third time's the charm! I appreciate it and the fave/follow. Makes me so happy, so that's why I keep posting!

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Ever Yours,

Anne