I: Contact

It was a tavern in Obda, one old enough to have existed in a time when it was routine for men to bring their wives and even their children to dine as well as drink. Even in those days, however, it had catered to another kind of clientele. They were the ones who sought silence and solitude, even in what companionship they might find. So, they gathered gregariously at the bar, without more than muttered courtesies between them, or else sat alone at the scattered tables, unless one discretely sought another's attention. It happened that one sat alone, among others who pointedly looked away as another approached. It would have taken a little more than casual examination to confirm that it was a woman who sat at the table, until she looked up at the one who sat down across from her.

"Hello," she said. She was tall and thin, with hair almost platinum. A blue coat did not quite obscure her figure as she straightened and smoothed back bangs that had nearly hidden her piercing eyes. "I was told you were coming. What's your name… if you don't mind my asking?"

"You can call me Urtico," he said. "What should I call you?"

She crossed her legs and looked at him more intently. He was of medium height and deceptively muscular, with dark hair and a face that was reassuring yet unmemorable. "I go by Nightfall," she said. "So, are you the kind who does the small talk, or the kind who gets down to business?"

"There's talk you might have a name," said the man. A gloved hand squeezed into a fist. "It's a mutual friend."

"Business it is," said the woman. "What might you have?"

The man's hands clenched tighter. "We might know something about some friends of yours," he said. "We might be able to help a few get home."

"I see," the woman said. "We might think about it. It really seems like a lot, for just a name."

"We would like to meet our mutual friend," the man said. A smile emerged on his face. "We might help him get home, too, once we get to talk."

"We might think about that, too," the woman said. She rested her chin on steepled fingers. "So, what do you get out of it?"

The man's smile widened. "I'd like to know about our friend," he said. "They say you know him. I'd like to think I've gotten to know him myself. Maybe you could tell me how well. I just call him… Twilight."

"Then what do I get out of it?" the woman said. She smiled herself.

"Maybe," the man answered, "we should find somewhere to talk privately…"

It was the most notorious flophouse in the most disreputable part of the city. Even there, any passers-by would have looked askance at the hole punched in the wall beside the door. It was just as well that they did not see inside. There, the door to the tiny bathroom hung on one hinge. Beyond, a flickering bulb swung from the remnants of a light fixture. The light revealed blood on the shower curtain and a pool of less certain stuff accumulated around the still-gurgling toilet. On the floor lay the cracked lid of the tank and a plunger cast down in a final retreat. Further in, a chair lay in pieces beside a table that had clearly collapsed under a weight far greater than it had been meant to bear. A smashed lamp lay on the floor beside the bed. There was no sign of the nightstand that would have held it, though clues could be drawn from the fact that the glass of a shattered window had mostly fallen outward. In the headboard, there were three bullet holes. Another projectile had spider-webbed the other window. And on the bed, what seemed to be a single form lay obscured by the filthy sheets, every part turned at unnatural and mutually incompatible angles. After some time, one half of the mass shifted ever so slightly.

"Tell me," said Yuri Briar, "who is Twilight?"

Fiona Frost murmured, without raising her head from his chest, "You are."