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Sadly I finished my dinner just before the show started. I suppose that was for the best, if I stayed for the start I knew I would end up staying for the whole thing. Alice's amateur nights tend to be well worth the price of admission, mostly because the dancers are trying really hard to impress. And if they don't then Alice would send an electric shock through their pole just to make things more interesting. Some nights things got very interesting...very, very interesting. With a sigh, I pushed back my plate and stood up to leave.

"Have fun." I called to Alice and the twins as I left.

The Sisters waved and blew me a pair of kisses while Alice just chuckled as she hit a button under the lip of the bar. Her crimson eyes glittered mischievously as the poor bastard checking the poles over let out a sharp yelp. It was obvious she was too busy entertaining thoughts of the show to pay me much mind.

I ducked out onto the main street and merged with the rest of the ever-present crowd. Anya lived uptown in a cozy little suite above her office. It was close enough to Alice's place that I could get there in less than a half hour if I kept up a brisk walk. Though with the way my luck has been going lately that was still plenty of time for a few bounty hunters to pick up my trail.

And so it wasn't much of a surprise when, about ten minutes into my walk, I noticed three figures slipping out of the mouth of a nearby alley. I sighed and began to run through my collection of spells and tricks, all because I didn't have my sword but that didn't mean I would be an easy target for them. I didn't want to just kill them either, after all they were just trying to make a few quick bucks, but I wasn't above embarrassing them a little. After all it wasn't their fault that they just weren't too good at choosing their targets. After a moment or two I had smoothed out the details for my little plan. I stopped and turned.

"Lovely night for a stroll." I grinned at the three surprised looking bounty hunters. "I've already been kidnapped once this week so can we please be a bit more original for this round?"

The hunters, three felines, quickly got over their initial shock and talked quietly amongst themselves. Trying to figure out a new plan no doubt. I used the time to study their gear. They were all dressed the same, loose pants with plenty of pockets for extra equipment and black body armor over black shirts. To my surprise they weren't armed, not with firearms at any rate, all I saw were pepper spray canisters and Tasers. That's pretty rare these days, most hunters prefer to bring their marks in dead, less paperwork and the pay difference really isn't worth the hassle of a live capture. I crossed my arms and leaned against the nearest building, politely waiting for them to sort things out. Finally one of them, a rather muscular tiger, stepped forward and cleared his throat. He also made a point to keep his hand near his pepper spray the whole time. Like that would intimidate me, really?

"Derleth..." He had a voice like a rock slide. Slow, heavy, and rough.

"Let me guess. There's a pretty good price on my head and you lot are going to claim it." He also didn't seem to be used to people interrupting, at least according to the grimace on his face.

"Well, I'm afraid it'll have to wait. I'm late for a meeting." I turned to leave.

As I expected I heard the soft metallic ringing of a half empty canister being drawn from a pouch and some kind of safety clicking off. The crowd had enough sense to start backing away at this point. A little smirk tugged at my muzzle. After a lifetime and a half of this kind of thing you really get a feel for how these types work. And it didn't take much to piss these ones off, got to love that short feline temper. Time to have some serious fun.

I spun around and slammed an open palm at the tiger, releasing one of my favorite spells as I did so. An invisible pillar of kinetic force shot up from the ground between us and nailed him in the side of his gut, knocking him off balance. As he staggered I rushed forward and caught him in one of the grapples favorites by the wolfkin berserkers. He snarled and struggled but as flexible as felines are he couldn't managed to break my grip. His partners scrambled for their weapons but before they could draw them I twisted around and sent the tiger stumbling head first into one of them. The two of them wound up in a tangled pile while the other one finally managed to level his pepper spray at me. I snapped out another spell and ice formed around his hand and the nozzle with a sharp crack.

He yowled at the sudden cold and tried to shake his hand free but the ice held strong. While he was distracted I slammed my elbow down on the back of the tiger's head as he tried to rise. He went back down hard. I found it pretty amusing that his weight was enough to keep the second one pinned down.

"Nap time." I told the third as I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and sent a strong shock through him. It was nowhere near enough to kill him but it would leave him feeling pretty woozy for a while. At least the ice would have melted by the time he comes around.

I left the incapacitated bounty hunters behind and continued on my way to Uptown, the high-brow part of the Heart, the place where the real business goes down. There money changes hands every minute and not always as part of a deal. It's the kind of place where shadowy folk in fine suites meet to decide on the rules no one knows of but everyone follows. I know Mr. Koch spent quite a bit of time here. Boring and asinine as he was, you don't get to be one of the biggest real estate barons in the Heart by sitting on your ass and collecting bottle caps. Personally, I can't stand the place but people like Anya can have a field day here. People in Uptown would give an arm and a leg, sometimes literally, to know what everyone else was up to.

I made it to Anya's place without any more distractions. Her office door sported her name and business, all in flashy gold letters on dark hardwood. Pretty normal for where we were, you don't have to rely on flashy signs and barkers in Uptown. But it was the door next to it that I was interested in. A narrow and plain door set back in the brick wall, a single stone step leading up to it. It was so plain and unassuming it might as well have been invisible. I peeled off from the crowd and rang the bell.

After a minute or so I heard the soft sound of paws pattering down a flight of stairs. The door creaked open and a single deep grey eye peered at me from the crack between the door and the frame.

"Mr. Derleth? ... Well this is a pleasant surprise." Anya opened the door and stood aside to let me in, "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

I smiled, "Business, I'm afraid."

"Ahh, want to know if I know anything about Mr. Koch's death that you don't already?" She asked, her catlike eyes sparkling in the streetlights.

"Would you believe me if I said I didn't do it?" I asked, giving her my best innocent look.

She chuckled. "Come on, no one would blame you if you did." At the same time she motioned for me to follow her up into her suite proper. Made sense, it would be too easy for someone to overhear us this close to the door.

Everything in the suite was much like the woman herself; soft, warm, and inviting. Though there was something else in the air as well, a certain feeling of regality and refined culture that you usually don't see in a place as deprived as the Heart. I've never been able to confirm it but I'm fairly certain that her feline side is from a royal line.

The rich light of gas lamps cast deep and shifting shadows across the walls as we passed and the neutral colors of the walls gave everything an odd kind of muted look which helped take the edge off the colorful throw rugs and overstuffed pillows that were scattered everywhere. Anya flopped onto a couch and stretched out, the tip of her long fluffy tail idly twitching back and forth as it hung over the arm rest. I settled down on a pile of pillows and promptly fell over as my weight caused them to shift about beneath me. Anya hid a grin behind her hand and waited for me to get myself sorted. Once I did I told her my end of the story.

By the time I finished she was giving me and odd look. I had a feeling I already knew what question she would ask first.

"How do I know you're not the shapeshifter?"

I could have given her a rundown of one of our previous escapades but there was something else I knew about her that few others knew. I stood up and walked behind her and leaned against the back of the couch.

"What are you doing?" She asked, glancing up at me.

I just smiled and slowly reached down to rub a spot just behind her ear.

"Dammit, Alex! I told you not to... do... that..." Her voice trailed off and was replaced by a rich, contented purr. Though her looks came mostly from her wolfkin side, there were plenty of other things that came from her feline side. Her eyes were half shut and she leaned into my hand. A few minutes later she began to try and swat my hand away, though she kept her claws retracted (another of her more feline traits). I stopped and returned to my seat. Anya flicked her ear a few times before smoothing her fur and trying to look indifferent. The catlike expression looking adorably out of place on her wolfish face.

"Jackass."

I laughed and she tossed a pillow at me. "I think that proves that I'm me."

"You're right. I'd have thrown something heavier but I know you'd enjoy it." She tried to sound put off but a slight touch of laughter gave her away.

"But you said you were here on business so I'm assuming you want to know if there's anyone making a power play against Reaver, right?"

"Got it in one. It's almost like you do this for a living."

She threw another pillow at me.

"You're going to owe me for this. Stay here, I don't want to have to replace my computer again." She warned as she got up and headed for the back of her suite.

Last time I went to her for information my magic burned out her computer while we were... um, negotiating a payment. I lay back and listened to the clattering of keys until I got bored. By the time she came back I was stretched out on the floor and bouncing a tiny ball of light across my fingertips.

"Oh come on, I didn't take that long." She mock grumbled as she sat beside me. I felt her tail curling around my legs as she settled.

She passed me a small notepad and I quickly skimmed through it. Then I went back and went through it again. Then a third time.

"Well, this is interesting."

Anya frowned and nodded. "Yeah, seems they got themselves a sorcerer."

She had given me a list of names. I was familiar with all of them in one way or another, anyone who did business in the Heart was. They were all heavy hitters, and they were the top enforcers for one of Reaver's old rival syndicates. Their group has gone through many names over the years but that meant little to them. In their business it's better to remain nameless and let people keep guessing. Unfortunately for them, I don't care much for company names either.

Then there was the last name on the list, not one I recognized but they had to be the one pulling the shifter's strings. Probably pulling the enforcers' strings as well.

"You got anything else on this one?" I asked tapping the mystery name.

Anya shook her head, "I'm afraid not. They're either new to the game or they're a slippery one. Either way, watch yourself." She sounded a bit worried.

The night wore on as we discussed the possible reasons and implications of this sudden move for power. Things only got grimmer as Anya went back to double check some info and found that the head of the rival syndicate, a withered old man known as the Red Baron, was found dead only a few hours after my "meeting" with Reaver. It seems my new friends weren't just interested in over throwing a rival, they wanted a full scale takeover. After a few more hours we managed to gather as much as we could, it wasn't much more then what we already had, and smooth out the details of a simple plan: find them and kill them. The deaths of Reaver and the Red Baron had already left a pretty major power vacuum so it wouldn't make that much more of an impact when I took this lot down.

"Call me once this is over." Anya told me as I left.

I promised her I would and she kissed me on the side of my muzzle before disappearing back into her suite. June and Anya now, I may not be getting any money from this case but it was starting to seem like I would still get a pretty good pay off.

Well, now that I knew who got me into this mess there was only one thing left to do. Unfortunately, in order to make sure things went smoothly from here on in, I would need to pick up a few things from my apartment. If it were just the enforcers I wouldn't have much to worry about but their mysterious sorcerer friend complicated things a bit. And I knew from experience that it would pay off in the long run if I took a few simple precautions now.

Oh well, no point standing around, so I headed for the nearest train station. The Uptown station was pretty posh for a Heart station. That is to say it was a bit less run down and foul then most of the others. Hell, there were even clean places to sit while you waited for the next train to roll in. Not that I was waiting long, a fairly normal looking subway train slid smoothly up to the platform and a fair number of important looking people, or at least people that tried to look important, filed out. Must be some kind of big deal going down tonight. I paid them little mind and picked a comfortable spot in one of the front cars.

In keeping with the Uptown feel this particular tunnel was cleaned out fairly regularly so the business folk could get a nice calm ride in. Calm in the sense that nothing tries to peel the train open like a tin of beans. There's no such thing as a normal subway tunnel in the Heart. This one was known for having phantom images from other planes of existence drift past the windows from time to time. Today I saw great obsidian pillars rising into a noxious sky while skeletal creatures scurried between them over the basalt ground. They didn't notice the train, which judging from their claws was probably a good thing. The visions faded fast and were soon replaced with the usual dark concrete of the tunnel.

Right before we crossed the boundary between the Heart and the rest of the city I pulled up one of my old spells and conjured a set of clothes. The main parts of the city are not quite as... liberal as the Heart. It would be pretty embarrassing to have escaped the Heart prison and get this far only to be arrested out here for walking around naked. I was off the train before the doors finished opening. Now that I knew my targets I was eager to begin. It's been a while since I've been this excited for a job, but then again, it's usually not this personal.

I wove between the dim glow of the street lights, it seems I just missed the sunset. Eventually I wound up at my office/apartment and found someone waiting for me. A tall and slender dragonkin woman was leaning against the weathered brick. Various charms and talismans littered her person and I could tell just from her aura that she was a skilled mage.

"I'm surprised I beat you here, it's not often I come into these parts of the city." Well, she wasn't trying to kill me so things were off to a good start.

"I'm surprised anyone but me is here."

The dragonkin woman laughed. "Our friend got in contact with me not long ago, she said you were interested in the whereabouts of the Red Barron's enforcers."

Ah, that explains it then, she one of Anya's contacts. Still best be a bit careful.

"I may be, depends on who's asking."

"I never took you as one to fall back on clichés."

"Maybe I'm just not in the mood to be clever, got a lot on my mind after all."

She laughed again. "Then perhaps this can help ease you're thoughts." She stood up and walked by me. As she went I felt her press something into my hand. Before I could look, or even say anything, the mage vanished in a flash of purple-white light.

Well that was strangely convenient, but then again, Anya always liked to stay a few steps ahead. I glanced at what she had passed me and found a neatly folded piece of paper. I shook it out and skimmed over it. I felt a wicked grin spread across my muzzle. There's a reason Anya is the best in the business, if she doesn't know something she knows someone that does.

I went inside and quickly got dressed, rather than my usual clothes I dug out my one remaining suit. After I stuffed myself into it I paused to stuff my pockets with various talismans. Most were old tricks but there was one that I was particularly proud of and eager to try. The charm itself resembled a miniature pewter wolfkin paw and was covered in miniscule runes that flickered and glowed softly in the dim light. As far as the spells went I had only just finished them and they still needed a bit of work but it should be enough for what I want to do. With everything ready, there was no sense in waiting any longer.