He was holding a gun aimed right at my head.

  “Show me your hands,” He said.

  Despite the earlier jab, my eyes were fixed on the gun. I’d never seen one before, not while it was out of the holster anyways, and definitely not one aimed at my head. I didn’t know enough about guns to know what it was. Just that it gleamed dangerously and the mouth was pointed in the general direction of my face.

  I raised my hands and he hissed in sympathy as my arm came out into the light.

  “Are you a police officer? If you are, I’d like to report a crime,” I started lying off the bat, “I think I got mugged. I need help.”

  “Nice try.”

  “Wol,” I muttered and my feline familiar bounded over to me.

  “Uh uh,” He said, “Don’t talk to your familiar.”

  So he could see Wol. A member of our side of the world. A preternatural? A practitioner? Dabbler? Were practitioners even allowed to use guns? A shapeshifter? More questions.

  He wasn’t wearing a badge, not that I could see. He was dressed casually. Leather jacket, jeans, white t-shirt with looks that made most insecure teenage boys want to keep their girlfriends at least half a mile away. He was what girls would say ‘devilishly handsome’, but there wasn’t a super natural quality to it. Quite the opposite, he felt like a normal person.

  “Now, turn around slowly.” He ordered, nudging the air with his gun. I flinched when he did that, almost losing my balance.

  “My leg is numb,” I said, purposefully keeping my tone between friendly and uncaring. “I can’t move it well.”

  “Try,” He ordered.

  I grit my teeth and did as he said. The tingling sensation grew, spreading from my toes to my ankles. Heat started to flare up and I hissed, nearly falling down.

  “My name is Jain Shin Hallow. I've been sent here by–”

  “The Intellect Transit. I know,” he muttered, slightly annoyed. “You can face this way now.”

  “Practitioner, he’s–”

  “Familiar, another word out of you and I will shoot your Contractor.”

  Wol stopped speaking, silently glaring at the man.

  “What’s in your back pocket?” He asked.

  “Knife,” I replied. Fuck. That should’ve been the first thing I said.

  He didn’t seem to care. He wore a baseball cap, which hid most of his face. But his gaze was mostly on Hwari and Wol, trying to keep both of them in sight.

  “Say your name again, slowly this time.”

  “Jain Shin Hallow.”

  “No, introduce yourself. Say you are Jain Shin Hallow, and don’t get funny with me.”

  I grit my teeth. “My name is Jain Shin Hallow.”

  “Last time. You know the drill.”

  I definitely did not know the drill and my fucking ankle was starting to flare up. I’d been walking and putting weight on the damned thing, forgetting that it was broke and dragging it all over the place. With the numbness dissipating, there was a dull ache that was growing in force and I just knew it would be the worst pain I’d had yet except maybe the burn.

  “My name is Jain Shin Hallow.” I said a third time.

  He lowered his gun a fraction. “Good. I’m here on Ms. Valstein’s orders.”

  It felt like he had purposefully avoided saying his name and frankly, I didn’t care at the moment. Both relief and annoyance flooded my body, but I kept it down. “You’re late. By a lot. Like a lot a lot.”

  “No, I was outside,” He said, “Watching your back, as Ms. Valstein ordered.”

  That bitch. I knew it.

  “Then why are you here now?”

  “Because my orders were to take care of you if you survived,” He replied. He finally holstered his gun, walked over, and lent me his shoulder. “I had to check if you’d been taken.”

  I was too tired to keep up pretenses and when I put my weight on him, my body agreed. Fatigue broke through the dam and flooded everywhere, if not physically, then mentally at least. “Taken?”

  “Possessed. Charmed. Bewitched. Enthralled. I had to make sure you were still you,” He said.

  He did most of the walking for both of us. I tried to help, which mostly meant flopping my feet like a fish. My abs were sore again.

  “The three introductions,” I mummured, “That’s protocol?”

  “For people like me? Yes,” He said, “There’s not a lot of other ways to tell if someone’s been taken.”

  Wol was leading, shooting furtive glances to make sure I was still following.

  “What would have happened if I’d been taken?” I asked.

  “I would’ve shot you.”

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  “Ha,” I said, “Cute. Can I ask a question? What are you?”

  “Human.”

  “No, I meant what are you as in your role. A dabbler? Henchman A? Thrall? I don’t see a staff or trinket on you.” I was already fighting to breathe.

  I saw a black sedan parked at the end of the dock. Only twenty more feet to go. I flopped my feet harder, and he hauled me faster.

  “Someone who’s been bestowed. My sight’s open, just enough to see, but not enough to practice.”

  “A soldier. A guardian, protecting this side from mortal threats,” Wol added. “A separate ritual than yours, my Practitioner.”

  “What your familiar said.”

  “So… you basically guard her casket and go grocery shopping at the local bloodbank when the sun’s out?”

  That earned me a smile. He wasn’t much older than me. Maybe just in college.

  “Kind of. But Ms. Valstein can walk in sunlight.” He said that then slowly turned to look at me. “Did you just fish for information?”

  I gave him my best smile, crumpled by my lips trembling from the pain. “No?”

  He grunted and opened the backdoor of his sedan, bumping it open with his hip. He shoved me in.

  I fell on my face and groaned, letting my right arm just hang off the seat. My knuckles dusted the carpet flooring and I let another pained groan.

  Hwari and Wol filed in after me, and the door shut behind them.

  “Wol, how dangerous is he?” I quickly whispered before the man could get on.

  “Very,” Wol said. “Their rite of bestowing is different from a practitioner, and I could only imagine a vampyr family would have a ritual of their own that’s been enhanced over the decades. Anything that didn’t go to their practice would help them to be better at dealing with the preternatural.”

  “How?”

  “They might be able to hit harder. Faster. Luckier. They paid a price by not being able to practice, and gained other abilities as a result. Karma will favor them when acting to enact their oath. Perhaps to protect a certain person, perhaps protecting the supernatural community at large, or hunting specific creatures. It varies."

  “So Valstein has a personal Steve Rogers on her payroll?” I continued, not expecting an answer to the pop culture reference. “What’s the historical context? There’s always a historical aspect to this.”

  “They started as monster hunters for hire, usually working in tandem with practitioners. There was a pair of brothers who started the tradition in Europe. These days, it depends on the oath they swore during their ritual. They seldom work alone, always in threes,” Wol said, “He might not be working for the vampyr. He and others might be agents of the Table.”

  “Even if he went through a ritual devised by the Valsteins?”

  “Perhaps he was awakened using the vampyr family’s circle, while the other two were awakened through a ritual of other table members. That would depend on the Table’s dynamic and bylaws. It does not matter who he works for, or how he was awakened. He’s dangerous, Practitioner.”

  The driver’s side door opened and he sat down in the driver’s seat. He pushed a button and the engine roared to life. Unfortunately, that meant the minute vibration rubbed my arm against the carpet.

  “You’re going to need to get that l looked at,” He said, fixing the rearview mirror so that it stayed on me.

  I avoided looking directly at it. “How bad is it?”

  “Bad,” He looked at the time on the car console, “You need medical treatment.”

  I squirmed, touching my left hand to the back pocket to make sure the knife was still there. It was. “Can you take me to the Intellect Transit first?”

  “I can,” He said.

  I was starting to grow tired of Valstein’s style, which this man had inherited to some extent. “Will you? Do you want to? Are you going to tell me exactly what the scope of Valstein’s orders were?”

  “My orders were to secure you, which could go a number of different ways depending on the situation you’re in. You are not taken, which means elimination is out of the picture.”

  “Geez. That’s awfully nice of you,” I snarled.

  His expression remained neutral, speaking in the same tone that Mr. Sussman read off differentials. “You have second and third degrees running the length of your arm. You have a broken ankle. There would be other wounds. There is also reason to believe you are in shock.”

  “That’s not from shock, that’s just who I am,” I said. “Ask Valstein.”

  He had startling blue eyes, more ice than sky or water. “You’re just a kid.” Another pause, then, “I should take you to the hospital.”

  I think he meant well.

  But I didn’t have time for this.

  “The Intellect Transit is expecting me,” I said quietly.

  He lifted a brow.

  “I’m not a kid, I’m a practitioner sent here by members of the Table. I don’t have a staff, I don’t have trinkets, I don’t have an instrument. But my familiars are here with me and I have successfully bound a creature that the Intellect Transit, Rosefinch Valstein, and the Wickerman tasked me to do.” A lot of talking meant a lot of torso movement. That meant more movement to my arm and leg. I fought through the pain, looking in the rearview mirror with half my face on the backseat. “I know you mean well, but you can’t treat me like that. Not if you came here because of Valstein. Not if you’re someone who works for the Table.”

  He broke off eye contact first.

  “The Table has called an emergency town hall,” he said, “The Intellect Transit is there. From the rumors, it’s not just the Table. Everyone else who matters in some way or another has been called. More will show up than the number called. Too many ears on the ground.”

  I frowned. “Town hall? Like announcements and budget stuff?”

  “The same. But for members of this side,” he glanced at me through the mirror again, “Everyone is heading there.”

  “And Valstein wanted to… keep me away?”

  He shrugged one shoulder. “Not my place to say.”

  I was still laying on my stomach. “Wol?”

  “I…” I felt my familiar hesitate. “You are hurt, Jain. Badly.”

  “If I wasn’t hurt, what would you recommend?”

  “That a place like the one he’s describing would be the perfect chance to make allies. Make bargains, pacts, trades. Rack up debt and favors.” Wol leaped off the seat and sat near my arm, careful not to get too close. “But you are hurt, Practitioner.”

  “I am,” I agreed, “Hwari? I want to hear your thoughts too.”

  Hwari swam over. Her tail fins had returned to normal, and they trailed behind her beautifully, drawing brush strokes of shadow.

  ‘You are hurt, Caller. The path you wish to walk is full of thorns, but you have already bled once tonight.’ She paused. ‘But it would be an opportunity.’

  “I like how neither of you guys gave me a real answer and reversed each others,” I sighed. “Ok. I think I know what to do. Uh... Mister?”

  “Beta,” He said. "Call me Beta."

  I so badly wanted to make an alpha-beta male joke right then but chose to bite my tongue. “Beta, I want to head to this Town hall.”

  His eyes lingered on my arm and my ankle. “Here’s my proposal. There's an urgent care center nearby, run by someone in the know. We’ll stop by then go to the Town Hall. Final offer.”

  Damn.

  “Part of his oath might have been to protect the community,” Wol whispered. “Especially those who has done a service.”

  I looked at Beta's expression. No change. Neither a confirmation or denial.

  "If he's not there?" I asked.

  "There's a first-aid kit in the back."

  “Ok,” I said. “Let’s do that.”

  The car’s consoles lit up and I felt the AC unit start blowing cold winds on my right arm. It was blissful. I lost consciousness soon after.