Alex, Marius, and I ran to the bleeding wall. Marius examined the bullet holes while Alex produced a vial from his jacket and collected some of the blood. That left me to ask the wall, "Hey, is anyone in there?" There was, to no great surprise, no reply. 

Marius frowned. "The Master should not be in his quarters now, but I can't see light through these holes."

Alex finished his collection and replaced the vial in a smooth, fast motion. I saw, while his jacket was opened, a number of other vials that suggested nefarious purpose, and filed that away for a question to ask later. 

"Marius, go to the Master's chambers. When you get to where we are, knock on the wall. I'll help you from this side." The man got up and did as asked, which, since the wall was blown away to the hallway, took only a few seconds. A rapping on the bamboo could be heard from the wall, but it didn't sound right.

"Muffled," I mentioned to Alex, as he nodded. 

Just then, the big goon returned with someone else, decked out in what appeared to be magical symbols. I never quite understood what the purpose of that was except to impress other people. Maybe it was a subtle "glamor" magic to make people see them as better than they were. 

"Ah, Alex," said the new guy. "My, what a mess you've made." He took a moment to take in the rubble-strewn scene. 

"Not my doing," said Alex, matter-of-factly. The mage gave him an incredulous look. Alex shrugged. "It was Marius and the big guy this time."

The mage looked up at the big orc, who only smiled, proud of himself. The mage shook his head and stepped over the broken bamboo. That was when he saw the blood. "Hmm. A casualty?"

Alex turned back to the wall. "Looks like." 

Marius returned from the other side. "Bullet didn't go through. There's no blood on that side."

The mage grinned. "Please, stand aside, all of you." We obliged. He stepped up to the wall, running his fingers over the bamboo. "Yes, as I thought. Shoddy work." He abruptly pushed his hand against the wall and hummed, a high, almost imperceptible sound. Suddenly, it felt like my skin wanted to crawl off him bones and I scrambled away even more. I saw Marius do the same. Alex just stood there, grimacing. 

Magic, if you're not ready for it, feels weird. I mean, if you're doing it, it probably feels great. But when the mage in the room is telling the Manna in the room to do something and the Manna in your own cells is trying to burst forth and respond--it kind of feels like little insects crawling over your skin, but they are IN your skin. 

I scratched my arms. I couldn't help it. Magic isn't my forte. Alex saw me and grinned, holding there stoically, knowing that I knew he felt it exactly as I did but could control himself. Yeah, point, Alex. Freak.

Purple energy traced along the wall, making a person-sized rectangle. The mage nodded, triumphantly. "There's the cuts. We'll repeat them and remove this section of the wall." Alex just gave a short nod and steeled himself for the magical onslaught. 

Once again, the high keening sound. I wasn't sure if it was the sound that was more disconcerting or the feeling that my arms wanted to fly out of their sockets and rip that wall apart. The fact is, most mages could do this level of work, but good mages didn't make everyone in the room feel like their body was being ripped apart. 

The wall cut along the lines and in a moment, fell forward into the puddle of blood, which obligingly coated the wood. 

The gleam of metal caught my eye, but Alex was there in a heartbeat. "We've got a body. Marius: doctor. Now! Tellis, can you...?"

The mage was already pulling out a bottle of Manna dust. I doubt the entire economic output for Northwatch for a week could pay for that much Manna, but he popped it open and poured it on the wounds as Alex lifted the body out of the space in the wall. 

When the body was lain on the ground, Tellis started his keening. Alex reached into the hole and grabbed what looked like two scabbards, then backed over to me to give the mage room. 

"Well," he smiled grimly, "we got the swords back." 

"Yay us. Who's the corpse?"

"I'm guessing he's our thief. Found himself stuck here and so buried himself in the wall, hoping for a chance to escape. Tooo bad he picked that wall, though. He must have seen that there was always traffic here."

I nodded. It was not a good idea, but in a pinch, I'd done similar things. 

Our skin crawled again as the mage tried to repair the damage from the bullets and bring the poor sap back to what was probably a temporary life. I wasn't sure if I should hope he lived or not. Probably not, for his sake. Call me sappy, but I always root for the thief.

The magic stopped and Tellis the mage turned to us. "I've got his heart pumping and lungs breathing. But there's a lot of damage in there that I can't visualize...."

Yeah. Mages specialize. It's one thing to imagine a little flame. Any schoolkid can, has, and was promptly reprimanded for doing that: "No fire magic. It kills the Manna. Do you want another dark ages?" But if you wanted to use magic to actually heal wounds, you needed serious medical training. 

Marius arrived with a wizened old elf with a wispy beard as long as I was tall. He had to be hundreds of years old, but he moved like a young adult. "Hardly the first GSW I've seen. He moved to the body and Tellis made room. "Let's see...sealed the wound, good. Restarted pulmonary and cardiac function. Very good. What's it look like in there?"

Tellis gave a far more gruesome and clinical description than I could follow. Tissues torn, organs punctured, blood, blood blah blah blah. Sorry. I don't do wetwork. I get hurt, I go to a doctor. This is SO not my jam. 

The doctor made a low hum that was far more comfortable than the mage's screech. With a scalpel, he cut open the skin, poured in a bottle of Manna, and in seconds, the man's ribcage seemed to dissolve, leaving a lot of bloody tissue--and at this point, I turned away, because that is just not right. The doctor hummed away for several minutes, while Alex led me outside. We certainly weren't needed. 

"Blood get to you?" Alex asked, gently.

"Oh, I can handle the blood. But dissolving bones--that's not...." I shook involuntarily. 

"Yeah. I've seen a few operations, so I'm kind of used to it, but I agree--that's not right." He snapped a finger and someone young came over. "Two waters, ice. Fast." The blue-haired kid ran like their life depended on it. Maybe it did. In a moment, they returned carefully carrying two glasses of water. The cold water was refreshing. I practically felt color returning to my skin. 

"You were turning blue." Alex looked at me seriously, as though trying to determine just how ill I was.

"I felt blue. And green. And kind of yellow." I mimicked retching but I was laughing.

Alex made a face. "Eww! Stop, stop, I'm sorry I said anything!" 

We laughed, and, as they say, laughter is good medicine. It really did help me feel better. 

Alex gave me a hard stare. "Don't tell me you've never hurt someone before, or been badly hurt yourself. Or are you so good at what you do that you've never faced a blade?"

I explained that, yes, I had hurt people--badly, sometimes--and yes, I had seen my share of doctors, but I tried to never pay attention to what they were doing. Then I asked the question I'd been wanting to ask all day, "How about you? Do you kill people often?"

Alex's mouth twitched a little and he got a far-away look in his eyes. "This line of work places death next to you all the time. Sometimes, death is your friend, saves you from a worse fate. But ultimately, death will turn on you, too. I harbor no illusions about that."

I poked him in the chest. "That was the biggest bunch of bullshit I've heard that didn't answer the question. Out with it."

He looked into my eyes, searching them, wondering, perhaps what answer I wanted to hear. His light blue eyes sparked in the daylight and really were shocking against his darker skin. A girl could get lost in those eyes....

"Yes. I regret none of them." His eyes never left mine, but he furrowed his brow a bit, as though expecting some kind of rebuke. 

"That's pretty intense," I replied, thinking about it. "I mean, to not regret any--that must have been life or death."

He sniffed. "Yeah, well, like I said, death...."

"You okay with that, though? Like, could you be happy with a decent job farming or carting or something that doesn't require a gun?"

He looked away and I followed his gaze. A dwarven man, not much larger than myself with deep red skin and almost glowing pink eyes approached, surrounded by a number of burly bodyguards. The Master, I presumed. Alex stood up and offered me a hand, which I took. A gentle tug was enough to bring me to my feet. 

"Alex!" the man called cheerfully. "I'm told you apprehended the thief. Is this she?" He gave me an appraising look, which, given everything else that had happened today, was unsurprisingly disapproving. "Doesn't look like much."

"Ah, no, sir. This is the woman I thought might have been the thief, but it turns out, the actual thief is over with the doctor." We all looked where he pointed. The doctor was on his way to us. From the look on his face, it was bad news. Alex continued, "This woman has offered her professional services to help us and it has been fruitful." He snapped his fingers and a guard brought the swords over. How did he do that? "The swords, sir."

The master motioned for the guard to take the swords back to their ceremonial altar. "Well done, Alex. Well done. And I understand Marius played a role as well?"

"Indeed, sir," said Alex, motioning for Marius to join us. "Marius here apprehended an assassin that we believe attempted--and may have succeeded--in killing the thief, who had botched the job."

Marius bowed and continued. "A happy coincidence, sir. Our leads brought us back this way and we happened to intercede as the murder was attempted. Both men are your brother's, I am afraid."

The doctor arrived. "The internal damage was too much. Perhaps if we'd gotten here sooner, but I'm afraid we lost him." 

The Master nodded gravely. "Perhaps not much of a loss, but still a loss. Marius, apprehend my brother. "Bring him to me. Bring his whole house. Take whomever you need. We finish this today." 

Alex looked at me. "If the Master's brother has turned against us, there's no telling the damage they could do. They know everything about our operation, our defenses, our safehouses and storehouses. In the wrong hands, this information could cripple or even finish us."

Marius ran off, calling for guards and others as he did, to join him. No one hesitated. It was almost eerie how in-tune they all seemed to be. The doctor went the other way, back to, I presumed, his office. I noted that Tellis, the mage, was also gone. However they ran things here, people sure seemed to go where they were supposed to go and do what they were supposed to do, and Alex seemed to have a psychic way to communicate with them. Weird. 

The Master looked at me with deep brown eyes and smiled, a genuine, large smile that made me almost forget that he probably just ordered the death of his own brother and the entire family. "Alex, where are our manners? You have not introduced us!" He extended his hand which I took, so entranced by his eyes was I, until he bowed to kiss it and broke the enchantment. I yanked my hand back.

Alex coughed. "My deepest apologies to both of you. Sir, this is Hero. Hero, this is my Master and the Ruler of Kinden House, benefactor of Northwatch."

The Master snorted at the last part. "Please, Alex. Nobody cares about how we keep the town alive."

Suddenly, my interest was piqued. "Actually, I'm just passing through, but the thought had occurred to me earlier. What happens here to keep Northwatch viable? It ought to be ruins and a few farms by now but the marketplace this morning was bustling with activity."

The Master smiled again and I got the distinct impression that he wielded that smile like a weapon. Alex's gun might pierce your skin, but his Master pierced the heart. I gulped at the realization. "So glad you asked! As you note, Northwatch is not much to look at and no longer the manufacturing center that it once was during the war. However, it still holds a valuable place on the trade route between Landfall and Eastdale."

"I expected so, yes."

"What you might not know, however, is that the mining and manufacturing facility that was left to rot and molder could be repurposed. During the war, they made siege engines, today, we make--"

"--Sir!" Alex interrupted, and The Master's smile wavered. 

"What, Alex?"

Alex lowered his voice, but I could hear anyway, "It might not be advisable to share this information with this friend at this time."  

The Master blinked. Frowned, and looked at me again. "But you said she was a professional."

Alex coughed once. "She's a professional thief, sir." 

Now, I'm not used to be calling a professional anything, so it was very nice to hear the praise, but it was clear that Alex was trying to harsh on my payday. "Now, Alex," I said sweetly, "Your Master was just getting to the good part. I promise: if I want to know, I'd know anyway. Better to just get it out there. After all, you can always apprehend me again if you think I did it."

The Master nodded and smiled. "Ah, see, Alex? She's a reasonable professional thief. We understand each other," he said, turning back to me. "That if any of this information gets out, we'll come looking for you." 

"Of course. Do go on."

"As I was saying," The Master continued as if uninterrupted, "We now manufacture weapons. And we're able to smuggle them to all the kingdoms. This allows us a great deal of income to spread amongst the citizenry."

"Wow. So this quiet stopping place ends up actually being a secret arms factory. How come the government doesn't notice?"

"Oh, they do," grinned The Master. "We pay a pretty penny to the Federation and the Queen, in kind."

"You mean you supply them with weapons for free?"

"I mean they end up paying us more than we owe in taxes." He winked.

Alex was looking increasingly distressed. "O-okay," he interrupted. "I think that's enough exposing our family's secrets for one outing. Let's go check on Marius."

As if on cue, we heard a yell and then an explosion made my whole world go dark and silent.