Hugo Brooke still felt the cold hardness of the cuffs biting into the soft flesh of his wrists long after they’d been removed by Special Agent Rain. He wiped the sweat from his brow and wondered where, during his trek along the path that was his life, things had gone so terribly wrong.

Was he being punished for leaving his father’s house? Was all of this the cost he now had to pay for trying to be something other than what he’d been told he was supposed to be? But who was doing the punishing? Most of the Shepherd side of his family claimed the Way-Maker as their patron god and during his youth Hugo had been tempted to explore the other, older religions described and, at least in some cases, preserved within the Archive. But the Brookes were never a particularly religious brood and over the course of his adolescence Hugo had comfortably positioned himself in the City’s large population of atheists. This had always seemed like the easiest, most logical choice to him in the past, but now he felt his lack of belief had robbed him of a scapegoat; if he couldn’t blame a god for his troubles, who the hell was he supposed to blame?

He tried to push these thoughts out of his mind and focus instead on his current situation. He was sitting in an interrogation room at BID headquarters. Thinking about this alone was enough to send Hugo into another existential downward-spiral, but he managed to pull up at the last second by focusing on sensory details. His wrists hurt. The cuffs had been shockingly cold against his wrists. This entire room was cold, actually; Hugo wondered if this was a tactic on the part of his interrogators. Were they trying to freeze some sort of confession out of him? The walls of the room were a dull, blank off-white save for the wall to Hugo’s right, which was mostly filled by a large mirror. Hugo knew on the other side of the mirror sat a room full of Biddies scrutinizing his every move, but dwelling on that only caused even more sweat to bead along his forehead.

Hugo wondered where Special Agent Rain had gone to. Hugo wondered why he hadn’t walked out of Micki’s storeroom the minute Aedus had shown up, and he wondered why he hadn’t run from that alley the second Aedus had stepped toward those fiends. He wondered what the Biddies would end up charging him with (aiding and abetting? Collusion? Hugo’s education in law, incomplete as it might be, assured him the possibilities were nigh-endless) and he wondered where he would spend his internment. If it were a facility nearby maybe he and Zeke would end up crossing paths again (it had never crossed Hugo’s mind that Zeke would, at some point, be picked up for possession or assault or something along those sordid lines). Hugo wondered about a lot of things while the room’s fluorescents hummed softly above him.

He tried closing his eyes and breathing deeply, as his mother had taught him to do during times of childhood stress, but every time his eyelids shut he saw the bodies of the goldfiends falling around Aedus. If Hugo had known… He decided there was no point in going down that road. If he’d known what the last two days had waiting for him, he, most likely, would never had returned Micki’s call after he’d gotten checked for midas.

He told himself there was nothing he could have done to stop Aedus back in the alley, but, no matter how true it felt, this did nothing to ease his tension. If he’d known what Aedus could do, would do… But how could he have known? He’d only known the man one night, after all, and during that time nothing he’d seen could have warned him of what was to come. This was what needled Hugo the most as he remembered the weight of the cuffs on his wrist; if that man, the man Hugo had seen cutting down fiends left and right, were who Aedus truly was beneath his warm and unsettling smile, why hadn’t Hugo seen it earlier?

He understood why Aedus hadn’t tried to hurt Micki; he needed her to heal his dog (and himself). But there had been no benefit to keeping Hugo alive, or letting him leave the storeroom with no resistance the next morning. If Aedus were a senseless killing machine, or, at least, if that’s all Aedus were, Hugo was sure he would not be sitting in this room at this moment. And then there was the way the man looked at his dog; Hugo was not an expert in psychology, but while he was going through his true crime phase everything he’d found in the Archive had assured him that sociopaths don’t have a lot of interest in the welfare of animals. Aedus didn’t just have an interest in Le Fay, he was absolutely and unshakably devoted to her. Hugo hadn’t seen enough of the man to justify feeling so sure about this, he knew, but he was sure just the same. And what sort of sociopath would get teary-eyed over birds?

Hugo could still see Aedus, also in cuffs at the time, sitting next to him in the dark, featureless BID transport. His eyes had been closed tightly and he’d leaned his inked forehead against the transport’s thick windows; Hugo had quickly deduced that car rides did not agree with his new acquaintance. Despite everything he’d just seen and everything else that had happened after, some part of Hugo had still forced him to check on the man.

“Are you alright?” He’d whispered.

Aedus had turned to look at him through half-closed eyes. Hugo had seen the lines of dismay and frustration creasing the colors running along the man’s brows, but he’d simply nodded and turned back to the window. He’d stared out at the people milling along the sidewalks and coming and going out of the various homes and businesses they passed (everyone they’d passed had made a point to stop and gawk at the tank of a transport they were riding in) and, without warning, gasped and craned his head upward.

“Look!” He’d hissed, waving his cuffed hands in Hugo’s direction without taking his eyes from the window.

“What?” Hugo had asked, leaning over so he could angle his head enough to see whatever it was that had Aedus so excited.

Aedus had only pointed, open-mouthed, to the top of a low building. Hugo had seen a cluster of birds (macaws and cockatiels, mostly, with what had looked to Hugo like a few lovebirds wedged between their larger cousins) sitting together, squawking about whatever birds squawked about and occasionally preening or pecking at each other.

“They’re just birds,” Hugo had whispered, unsure of what exactly the fuss had been about.

“Say true,” Aedus had whispered. There had been a tone in his voice that had caused Hugo to look from the birds to the man’s face. He’d thought, as he still thought now, Aedus had sounded almost reverent as he’d watched the birds suddenly abandon their perch and explode into the sky, the colors of their feathers muted by the constant smog they flew through but brilliant nonetheless. He’d turned back to Hugo and asked, “Do they sing?”

Hugo had wondered if this day would ever start making sense. “Yeah, they do. I mean, they’re birds; that’s sort of their thing, right?”

The man had nodded and looked back toward the window, and Hugo had been sure his dark, bloodshot eyes had brimmed with tears as the transport continued to thunder its way through the City and the birds were left to their flight. Hugo had looked from the tears threatening to spill down the man’s cheeks to the blood, still not yet fully dried, splattered up his arms and across his chest, and tried to make up his mind about what sort of man he was sitting next to.

Now, several hours later, Hugo felt no surer of anything than he had been this morning. He told himself there was no need for the confusion tumbling around his stomach. The definition of a killer is someone who kills people, Hugo reasoned, so yes, Aedus was a killer. He had crossed into the City illegally and now the BID had its claws dug firmly into him. The entire situation was actually quite cut and dry, he knew, but even as Hugo did his best to drown out the confusion and doubt within him with solid, reliable logic, he couldn’t shake the memory of how the man had looked at him after the beatcops had come for them.

He told himself, for the hundredth time, that he couldn’t have known what Aedus was preparing to do as he strode toward the fiends. Even after he’d drawn that cruel, curved blade from his pack and unsheathed it, Hugo still couldn’t have known what was to come. All he’d been able to do was watch.

The first fiend Aedus had reached had been a young, light-colored woman with a shaved head and a deep scar cutting across her face. Even in the dim alley-light Hugo had been able to see the midas glittering in her eyes. She’d gripped a metal bar so tightly her knuckles had paled, and when she’d gotten close enough to Aedus to land a hit she’d raised it, her arm jerking and twitching as it moved. Before she’d been able to bring it down again the man had already slashed open her stomach. He’d moved onto the next before she’d collapsed atop her own spilled innards.

The second had clutched the crumbling remains of an old brick. He’d been darker in color than the first and taller, but he hadn’t looked any older. He’d seen what had happened to the first, Hugo was sure, but his slow, jerking steps toward the man hadn’t so much as faltered. He’d bared his broken, discolored teeth when the man was within reach, but in the time it had taken Hugo to blink his throat had been opened and Aedus was already onto the rest.

The final three had moved as a single unit, advancing toward the man as the second fiend clawed at his throat and fell to the pavement. Hugo had stared at him as the blood frothed and bubbled out of his mouth and his gold eyes glittered on. By the time he’d looked back toward the man two of the final three were already at his feet and he’d just reared back to cut down the last of them.

This was when the woman had happened to glance up from her wireless. Maybe she’d heard something that had caught her attention, or maybe she’d caught sight of Hugo, standing alone near the alley’s entrance, out of her peripheral vision. Maybe both. Hugo hadn’t been able to decide what the stimulus or stimuli had been, but something had caused her to pull her head out of the sand and, of course, it had happened at the worst possible moment.

Hugo had heard the gasp behind him and spun around in alarm. The City had seemed to disappear around him while he’d watched Aedus work and he’d felt disoriented by this abrupt lurch back to reality. He’d seen her, still gripping her wireless and regarding the scene behind him with wide eyes, and he’d known a bad situation was preparing to get worse.

He’d looked back toward Aedus. The fiends’ bodies had been strewn all around him, and the man had breathed heavily with his back to Hugo. Then he’d fallen one knee and pressed a hand to the bandages Micki had fastened around his torso and Hugo had been forcibly reminded that Aedus was still recovering from multiple gunshot wounds and nearly fatal radiation sickness.

Imagine what he could do if he were – Hugo had begun to himself, but his thought was interrupted by the woman’s shrill, piercing screams.

From there things had, to put it mildly, gone to hell. The woman’s scream had caused more people to look up from their wirelesses, and their gasps and shouts of alarm had spread until a small mob had formed where Hugo had still stood at the mouth of the alley.

He couldn’t remember everything he’d said to the crowd and he was glad for that. His mind had been racing and he’d simply started talking, probably telling the people to stay calm or something equally as foolish, when the beatcops had arrived. They’d taken in Aedus, still on one knee but looking their way now, and muttered to themselves. Hugo had known how beatcops handled situations like this, and some part of him cried out to save the man before the cops could put more bullet holes through his technicolor body.

He’d introduced himself, hoping the Brooke name might earn him a little leeway, and explained the situation as best he could. They’d eased when they learned the victims were goldfiends, but they still had their sights set squarely on Aedus’ crouched, heaving form. They’d told Hugo they’d have to bring him and his ‘friend’ in for some questions, but they’d allowed Hugo to have a moment with him before they took control of the situation.

In hindsight, this was, possibly, the one good thing that had happened today. Hugo had no doubt Aedus would have seen the beatcops as a threat, and he now knew firsthand exactly how Aedus handled threats. He’d approached Aedus slowly and watched the man’s dark eyes follow each step. He’d had to step over a body as he got closer, but he’d told himself to worry about that later.

He still hadn’t gotten around to worrying about it.

“Aedus?” He’d asked quietly. The man had looked away, and Hugo was sure he’d seen the tattoos on his cheeks darken as he blushed. “Listen, Aedus, we’re going to have to go with these men now.”

The man had looked back at him and Hugo had caught the full force of his gaze. His awkward posture was the only thing that saved him from rearing back from the heat he saw smoldering in that stare.

“Listen, please,” Hugo had urged, forcing himself not to look away from the man’s eyes. “I don’t know what things are like back in... back where you come from, but there are laws here. This…” He’d gestured around them, doing his best to indicate the entire sordid scene. “This sort of thing isn’t allowed. And those guys –” He’d jerked a thumb toward the beatcops. “– are the ones who have to make sure things like this don’t happen. So now we have to go with them and tell them what happened, alright?”

The man had stood, more quickly and smoothly than Hugo had expected, and took the beatcops in. Hugo had noticed the man’s blade had been sheathed, but he still held its handle tightly. Hugo had felt the situation escalating around him and stood himself, his knees popping as he straightened, and positioned himself between Aedus and the alley’s entrance.

“Aedus, please,” he’d whispered. “There isn’t any other way, we have to do this.”

“We?” Aedus had asked, his eyes moving from the beatcops back to Hugo’s face.

“Yeah, I’ll have to… I’ll have to go, too.” This honestly hadn’t occurred to him before that instant, and he’d feared for a moment that the weight of it would crush him. But the man’s stare had softened, and Hugo had realized he’d somehow comforted him. “Come on, buddy, let’s go.”

He’d started back toward the beatcops, but Aedus hadn’t moved. He was still staring at Hugo, but while Hugo hadn’t been looking their entire dynamic had changed; suddenly Aedus had become the one full of doubt, and Hugo hadn’t known what else he could do to assure the man.

“Come on, Aedus,” he’d said, desperate as he’d been. “Have a little faith.”

The man had seemed almost taken aback by this, but he’d nodded and Hugo had led him toward the beatcops. Unfortunately this confusingly touching moment had quickly been ruin; this was when the Biddies had arrived on the scene. Hugo had barely any recollection of this at all; one moment he and Aedus had almost reached the beatcops, the next the cops were gone and a dozen besuited BID agents had surrounded them. No one had spoken to them or answered Hugo’s (admittedly few) questions while they were being loaded into the transport, and this trend continued as they entered the massive, dark compound occupying most of the heart of the City.

Hugo didn’t know where Aedus had been taken to. They’d been split up as soon as they were inside the compound, and Hugo had been placed in this room to be uncuffed and interviewed by Special Agent Rain. The questions asked had, of course, dealt with Aedus almost exclusively. He’d done his best to answer as honestly as he could; no, he hadn’t known Aedus before last night. Yes, Aedus had been out of his sight since they’d met. Yes, Aedus had mentioned a place called Roundtown. No, he didn’t know if anyone else from Roundtown was intent on entering the City. This had gone on for what had felt like at least an hour, and then Rain had thanked him and left.

That had been hours ago now at least, Hugo was sure, and yet nothing else had been done with him. He’d simply sat in his uncomfortable chair and fidgeted with his uncomfortable wrists while he waited to be told his fate.

There was a knock at the door which nearly gave Hugo a heart attack.

“Come in,” he said reflexively.

The door opened and in walked the most beautiful woman Hugo had ever seen. Her skin was so dark and rich it seemed to glow under the room’s fluorescents and she wore her thick, curly hair tied back so tightly that the black curls seemed to explode out from the back of her head. Her cheekbones could only be described, at least in Hugo’s opinion, as regal, while her wide nose seemed to have been painted by some ancient artist from the Archive. She wasn’t noticeably tall or especially wide, but somehow she seemed to fill the entire room while she was still only standing in the doorway.

“Alright if I come in?” She asked with a (slightly nervous?) smile. Her teeth were brilliantly white and perfect save for a slight gap between her incisors. Small, delicate dimples blossomed deep in her cheeks when she smiled, and when he saw them Hugo knew he was as close to being in love as he’d ever been.

“Oh, uh, yeah,” he finally managed to stammer. He blushed, embarrassed by how he’d stared at her, but she only nodded and disappeared. A moment later she was back, pushing one chair in front of her and pulling one behind. The chairs glided silently over the room’s tile floor, the hum of the fans keeping them slightly off the ground sounding incredibly loud to Hugo after he’d spend so long in silence. The woman let one chair rest across the table from Hugo and pushed the other around the table to Hugo’s side. Her nails were long, Hugo couldn’t help but notice, and painted a deep crimson color. She wore a suit, as all Biddies did, and the dark fabric clung tightly to her muscular arms. Hugo was tempted to inhale, as he might catch a hint of her scent, but he resisted the urge. Today had been bad enough on its own; he didn’t need to make it worse by being a creep.

“Be right back.” She said, walking briskly back out the door.

Hugo exhaled a breath he hadn’t known he was holding and waited for her to return. She wasn’t the one who reentered the room a moment later, however.

“Aedus!” Hugo exclaimed. The man had been cleaned up a bit, the blood and some of the dirt cleaned from his face, but his eyes were more bloodshot than Hugo had ever seen them. A look of relief spread over the man’s face and he walked toward Hugo. The woman was right behind him, and this time when she entered the room she closed the door behind her.

“Have a seat, please, Mr. Belle,” the woman said, gesturing toward the seat she’d placed next to Hugo. Aedus did as he was bid, and the woman sat opposite the both of them.

“Well, Mr. Brooke, let me explain things a bit,” the woman said. Hearing her say his name, even only his surname, sent a thrill up Hugo’s spine. “First of all, my name is Special Agent Odessa Grant. I’m part of the Anthropology Department here at the Bureau. I’ve been educated on both unaffiliated societies, such as Roundtown –” she nodded respectfully toward Aedus as she mentioned the town “– and pre-Resurgence culture. I’ve been assigned to work with Mr. Belle today, and I’m going to do everything I can to make sure that when we walk out of this room we all feel a little better about our situation. How are you feeling so far?”

“Uh,” was Hugo’s only immediate response. Special Agent Grant spoke quickly and concisely, almost rushed, even, and he needed a moment to process everything she’d just dumped on him. It didn’t help that her voice was husky, which happened to be Hugo’s favorite flavor. “I’m alright.”

“I’m glad. Now, Mr. Belle and I have been speaking for some time now, but he’s informed me he doesn’t feel comfortable continuing our discussion without you present.”

“Really?” Hugo asked, glancing over at Aedus with raised brows. The man nodded.

“Really.” Special Agent Grant assured him. “Mr. Belle and I have already discussed how he came to be in our fair City, and what led to the altercation a little while ago. So, we don’t need to dwell on any of that.”

Hugo was taken off guard by this; he’d been prepared to launch into a speech about self-defense and the BID’s inability to control the growing population of fiends terrorizing the City, but Grant, with her ample hips and her husky voice, had taken the wind right out of his sails.

“Mr. Belle has explained that he came to the City because his people are curious about what’s outside their borders. That’s completely understandable, and just goes to show that our two peoples really aren’t that different. What we still need to figure out, however, is what happens now. Let me assure you, Mr. Belle, Babylon wants nothing more than to be on good terms with Roundtown. We want to be on good terms with everyone, as a matter of fact, but we feel it’s especially important that we form a mutually beneficial relationship with your town; after all, as you yourself pointed out, we probably wouldn’t even be here right now if your ancestors hadn’t been as kind to ours.”

Hugo felt his eyebrows shoot up as he glanced over at Aedus again. The man’s face was a stony, colorful mask.

“However, you must understand that we cannot allow an unknown outside influence to roam about the City unattended. I don’t believe you meant any harm in the Wall and I know you were only defending yourself against those vagrants, but in the –” she pulled a wireless out of her jacket pocket and glanced at its screen. “– 20 hours, approximately, you’ve been in this City you’ve injured two BID personnel, killed three vagrants and critically injured two others.”

Hugo couldn’t help but wonder which of the fiends had been lucky enough to survive.

“So, we have to make some choices. The easiest thing for us to do would be to send you to an internment facility, but we’re not going to do that.”

Hugo noted no guarantees had been made about his own internment.

“That leaves us with very few options. First, we could send you back out into the Wastes. We believe this would negatively impact our relations with Roundtown in the future, and, to be frank, Mr. Belle, with your health in its current condition I’m not at all convinced you would survive the trip back home.”

Hugo was sure Aedus sat straighter as the agent said this. He could practically hear the man’s teeth grinding as he clenched his jaw.

“Our second and, again, just my opinion, much better option would involve you coming to work with us. You would be a sort of liaison between the BID and Roundtown; we could teach you a bit about what we’ve been able to rebuild since the Resurgence, and you can help us better understand your people and way of life. Your dog would be welcome to join you, of course, and all of your needs would be met. Food, shelter, whatever clothing you might be interested in; we’d take care of everything for however long you decide to stay. I don’t want to make this personal, but I have to admit as a student of anthropology the chance to get to know more about you and your people would be a dream come true, and we would do everything in our power to make your stay here comfortable, as well as informative.”

Hugo heard sirens ringing through his head; the BID might feed Aedus and clothe him, but they would also own him. They could put him somewhere no one would ever think to look and do whatever they wanted with him. Hugo remembered the buff, tattooed woman he’d seen in his head last night. He’d been so caught up in the night’s drama that he’d almost forgotten the entire experience and throughout the day he’d been telling himself the whole thing had been some sort of fever dream, but now he felt sure Aedus was able to… do something. Something with another person’s mind or memories or… something. He still had no idea what it might be and, apparently, Aedus had been able to hide it from the Biddies so far, but Hugo knew if they caught wind of it they would tear the man apart until they understood how he worked.

“How does that sound, Mr. Belle? Do you think we might be able to work together?” Grant asked expectantly (hopefully?).

Aedus looked to Hugo and the look of confusion in the man’s eyes almost broke his heart. Part of Hugo told himself to look away, to let the man make his own choices and then Hugo could wash his hands of this whole mess. He felt reasonably comfortable he wasn’t bound for an internment camp, as Grant seemed satisfied that Hugo hadn’t played a part in Aedus’ rampage beyond being in the wrong place at the wrong time, so all he had to do was keep his mouth shut and his head down and he’d be out of this freezing building in no time.

But Aedus continued to look at him and, as subtly as he could, he shook his head.

“No.” Aedus said immediately.

“No?” Special Agent Grant asked, looking from Aedus to Hugo and back. Hugo was willing to admit it was just his imagination, but he could have sworn an ounce of panic leaked into Grant’s expression. “Well, that’s unfortunate, Mr. Belle. We… uh, we’ll arrange to have you dropped off beyond the range of our scanners and –”

“Wait,” Hugo said. Aedus’ eyes had grown wide as he’d realized he would be forced to leave the City, and an idea had sprung into Hugo’s mind. “There’s another option.”

Aedus and Grant both looked at him expectantly and Hugo felt himself blush.

“Well,” he said, clearing his throat and trying to sit a little straighter. “You said Aedus couldn’t roam around the City unattended, but he wouldn’t be unattended. He’d be with me.”

Hugo heard his voice as it filled the small, cold room and he saw Grant’s and Aedus’ expressions change, but in his mind he couldn’t make sense of the fact that he was the one saying this. It was as if he’d become dislodged from his body and he were only spectator watching a stranger ruin their life.

“Excuse me?” Grant asked, a brow cocked.

“You see,” Hugo began, clenching his hands in his lap to stop them from shaking. “I’m a detective –”

“We know who you are, Mr. Brooke.”

“Oh, right, of course. Well, I’ve just been given a case and Aedus, here, has offered to help me out a bit with it.”

“Help you in what way?”

“Oh,” Hugo’s mind raced. What answer would Spade or Marlowe give to a question like that? “I’m afraid that’s confidential.”

“Confidential?”

“Yeah, you know, detective-client privilege and all that.” Grant opened her mouth to protest, but Hugo powered through. “So he’ll be with me and I can make sure he doesn’t get into any more trouble. That way he can stay here and learn about the City and the BID doesn’t have to get on Roundtown’s bad side.”

Hugo had absolutely no clue what the dynamic between the Biddies and Aedus’ people was, but he’d gathered the BID had a special interest in the town and he’d decided to use that to his advantage.

Was this his advantage, though? Did he even want this? Did he want to be chained to this man he’d known less than a day?

“You’re sure you’d be willing to take on this responsibility? Any further incidents would be on your head, Mr. Brooke.” Grant looked as unsure of Hugo as he felt of himself.

He looked toward the man at his side. He looked back at Hugo, and in his eyes Hugo saw hope and doubt and confusion and a hundred other things Hugo wasn’t sure he had a name for. He thought of the sick dog lying on one of Micki’s tables and knew she wouldn’t survive the trip home even if, somehow, the man did. He thought of Aedus, vivisected by the BID until they knew every secret he had to keep. And, finally, he thought of himself and how much his life had changed overnight.

A few days ago you would have killed for something exciting to happen to you, a voice reminded him. Well, here it is.

“Yeah,” Hugo said quietly. He cleared his throat. “Yes. I’m sure.”

Grant looked completely befuddled.

“Well, we don’t feel that –” The agent cautiously began, only cut off abruptly as Hugo heard a dull buzz. Grant pulled her wireless out again and glanced briefly at its screen before standing. “Excuse me, please.”

With that she moved to the door and had disappeared before it had time to swing shut behind her.

Hugo felt himself begin to shake again as he processed what he’d just done. He stared down at his hands and tried his mother’s breathing exercise again, but suddenly one of Aedus’ inked hands came into view and settled atop one of Hugo’s own. Hugo looked up and saw the man staring at him with a look of absolute solemnity.

He leaned toward Hugo and said softly into his ear, “You are everything I’d hoped you’d be. I thank you, Hugo, say true.”

And then he withdrew his hand and leaned back in his chair, and Hugo was left to wonder why the man’s words had made him feel quite so proud.

Next Chapter: The Assignment of a Lifetime