That night, and the next few after that, painted a rather sad but ultimately useless picture of what happened when two rival gangs clashed. Especially when one of their bosses was a regular tough guy, while the other was a specter with a taste for human hearts.

  Most of Alejo's crew got absorbed by Shadow's. Those few who had more loyalty than common sense ended up decomposing in damp basements, shallow graves, and abandoned mineshafts.

  Out of all the women Gaius has ever been with, Isabella was the first to consider digging around places like that to be quality time. And while Gaius has always been more of a wine and dine kind of guy himself, all those literal dead ends at least allowed him to convince Isabella first and then Esven that Alejo was out of the picture for good. Without betraying his foreknowledge of that.

  His concerns about alefs being at the center of all of this were met with significantly less enthusiasm. Neither of Gaius' partners in justice took him seriously. In part because he himself couldn't believe the words coming out of his mouth.

  A gangster hiring assorted rabble to sabotage Siembra's defenses that primarily existed to protect the town from mindless abominations flooding the surrounding mountains every full moon. It made no sense. There was no angle, no way to gain anything tangible.

  Even so, Gaius' position as Isabella's lover and Esven's friend allowed him enough room for eccentricity to turn the store's kitchen into an improvised war room come next alef night.

  First things first, the imp was told to monitor demonic activity and sent off to his lava pool so as not to annoy the living hell out of everyone else.

  Others donned their best combat gear and moved the shelves to reinforce the store's doors and windows.

  Esven and Isabella were hunched over a map of Siembra spread on the kitchen table. They discussed strategy, potential weak points, and theoretical juicy targets.

  When asked about his decision to visit Vasily's Emporium on alef night, Esven reassured Gaius that Siembra's perimeter was restored and reinforced. Everything was double-checked. His men were warned about a potential attack. There was nothing left for him to do but wait, and that he could do anywhere.

  Slightly off to the side, Victor was standing with his axe in hand and brow furrowed. He was nodding with utmost certainty from time to time, pretending very hard he was an integral part of the strategy discussion.

  Alessia had no interest in strategy. She occupied the store's cleared-out main area. Dressed in all black as usual, the only difference from her casual attire was a dozen of pouches and poultices hanging off a sash she had over her shoulder. The witch was busy tinkering with a mortar and pestle, whispering guttural incantations as she did.

  "Would you stop that already?" Alessia interrupted her chanting to snap at Gaius who couldn't keep still and was pacing between the store and the kitchen, endlessly rattling the beaded curtain that separated the two.

  "I hope to be wrong. For the first time in my life, I don't want to be right. It's an irritating feeling."

  It was hard to tell what Alessia was thinking at any given time, but if Gaius had to guess, right then she was considering calling him an idiot.

  "You're paying us either way, so I don't care if you're right or crazy," the witch said. "I just can't concentrate with you running back and forth like a meat pendulum. If things go down, I want to be ready."

  His mindless pacing cut short, Gaius joined Alessia by the counter. He peeked inside the mortar, saw a mess of green and brown, and shrugged.

  "Sorry about that," he said.

  The silence lasted for but two breaths when Alessia said, "What's going on between you and that beacon of righteousness?" The way she said that, it was definitely an insult. "I thought the idea was to keep her away."

  "She was way too good at drinking, and things kind of snowballed from there."

  Oblivious to all the secret plans and on the fly adjustments Gaius had to employ just to keep his head above water during his stay at Siembra, Alessia shook her head.

  "What do you even see in her? Apart from what everyone else can." The herbs inside Alessia's mortar felt the brunt of her frustration.

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  Already on edge, Gaius wasn't having any of this.

  "Right, you go ahead and be judgmental about a bit of skin. But first, pray tell me, what were you about to do with all those demons when Victor stumbled upon the lot of you?"

  Alessia glanced towards the passage to the kitchen. She lowered her voice to a hiss. "Those were very select demons."

  "Trust me, I get it." Gaius put an elbow on the counter and leaned in closer to the witch, also lowering his voice. "But that's exactly my point. The most unlikely of pairings can work and you two are the biggest proof of that."

  With how cold Alessia's glare got, Gaius was worried for a second she was about to hex him. Then, instead of sensing a burst of arcane energy, he heard the witch say, "That's different and you know it. Your Isabella? Even if we forget what she represents, she still dresses like a harlot in training."

  "Alright, cut it out," Gaius snapped. "Sure, we're not exactly a perfect match as far as our values go. But do make sure you keep that catty talk to yourself. It's beneath you."

  "Hit a nerve, did I?" Alessia purred. "Wonder what would happen if she learned how that fiend she banished a while back managed to get here."

  The two of them were the only people in the room, and that afforded Gaius a shred of freedom.

  For a brief moment, he dropped the act and looked at Alessia with the eyes of a master thief, eyes that weren't colored by the merchant character he perfected over the last months.

  His features, movements, manner of speech, were all completely different when he hissed, "Keep this up and you'll find out real fast what happens when you cross me, witch."

  Spending a lot of time around the unsavory types and thriving in that environment taught Gaius how to appear threatening and downright scary. When all else failed, this was his last line of defense against the world.

  Going back to his usual warmer, and slightly aloof expression, Gaius looked up at Alessia, waiting for her response.

  Avoiding his gaze and focusing on the contents of the mortar, the witch said, "You know, I still can't figure out what your deal is. Who you really are."

  Gaius shrugged. "We all have our pasts. And very few of us are fine with others knowing all about them. There's no deal. Just a question. Will you try to be stupid or will you at least pretend to be cool around Isabella?"

  "I'm not good at pretending," Alessia said. "And I'm not sure she'd even be able to tell the difference between friendly me and angry me."

  "I don't need you to be friendly. Just not actively malicious."

  "That I can do. As long as you keep paying for our services and providing the roof over our heads, you can be a duke of hell for all I care. The same goes for your new sweetheart."

  "Duke of hell? Any of those among your sweethearts?"

  That question was a mistake. It gave Alessia an opening to grace Gaius with an eerie half-smile.

  "If you'd like to find out you need only to cross me," she threw her version of his own threat back at him.

  After Gaius' outburst put Alessia in her place, things were returning to the normal everyday uncertainty that loomed between them.

  Going along with it, Gaius said, "I still maintain that being ogled by peasants is less provocative than seducing demons for their arcane knowledge."

  "Just keep her away from my Victor and we won't have a problem."

  Gaius absolutely had to raise an eyebrow to that. "This can't be simple jealousy. Can it?"

  "It's not," Alessia said.

  Gaius didn't have a chance to find out whether she wanted to elaborate on that or not. Siembra's wail of a siren announced the beginning of another alef night.

  Readying himself for just about anything, Gaius joined the others in the kitchen.

  The first minutes of anticipation filled the store with a heavy silence. While Gaius was the only one with genuine concerns there, traces of his anxiousness spread to his companions, putting everyone on edge.

  To pass the time and keep others from leaving, Gaius fetched a cask of his best Trogsmasher ale.

  If someone was to peek inside the kitchen's window that evening, they'd see a merchant nursing a foamy mug as he listened to his friends' stories. A guard captain chasing after a crafty counterfeiter. A northerner hunting an elk that turned out to be touched by the swamp spirits and put up quite a fight. A knight dispatching a ship full of pirates.

  These were all nice stories that slipped right through the sieve that was Gaius' attention.

  When it was his time to share, Gaius got up without saying a word and looked out the window. The only not shuttered-one in the store. Siembra was still, its residents laying low, waiting for the night to pass.

  "Hey, captain," Gaius said, his head sticking outside. "Shouldn't we be getting the light show by now?"

  Esven joined him.

  "Mallia's tits," he cursed.

  The pylons that usually greeted any alef that dared approach Siembra with a deadly burst of color were just as still as the rest of the town.

  "Any chance those bastards managed to sabotage the pylons again?" Gaius asked.

  Esven shook his head. "Can't be. Mallia's call rang true. This means the pylons are engaged."

  "So why aren't they firing?" Gaius asked.

  "You want me to say I don't know? Well, I don't."

  Esven's eyes betrayed a man on the verge of panic. Caladonian to the core, the captain was a true believer. He had faith in his goddesses and their divine protection. Witnessing their fallibility took a heavy toll on the boisterous constable.

  "What's going on here?" Alessia made an appearance.

  "Nothing good, but we're not quite sure what it is just yet," Gaius replied without looking away from the window.

  This allowed him to be the first to fill the kitchen with the sound of a curse so profane, even the seediest taverns back in Mystlund would have asked him to leave right on the spot.

  A single alef shuffled into view. Seemingly harmless, the creature was dragging its metal leg as it sniffed the air, occasionally jerking its frame in random directions.

  Roughly at the same time, a jagged column of earth shot up above the houses in the distance. Then, on the other side of town, it was echoed by a bolt of lightning.

  Story Facts - Chapter 25