Witch Hunt

My fists ball in anger as I pass the door's threshold. They've denied me my solitude, and denied me a dignified death, made a farce of my misfortunes. For what? To watch me dance like some pitiable puppet before they draw their blades? To string out my confession and force me to damn myself with my own words? How could they? How dare they?

I should tear them apart.

No! No. I seethe with my eyes pressed shut until the anger passes like a fleeting gale. I am still furious, but there will be no bloodshed today. As I open my eyes again, the three look at me, an array of suspicion and smugness. We stand in the foyer of a surprisingly well-decorated home. Knick-knacks, paintings, and photos line the walls, plastered with an ugly and peeling wallpaper, clashing hideously with the patterned carpet. Stairs to our left ascend in a tight file, and the rest of the home looks like it was rather well lived in, and fairly recently, though a few cobwebs gather at the corners.

Tegan is the first to break the silence. "Holy shit I really thought you were gonna make us break that door down."

"MAKE you-", I exclaim, "You dragged me here!"

The knight rears back like she touched a hot pan, face aflutter with guilt. "That's... yea, that's fair." She turns to the half-elf. "I told you he'd hate this, Allie."

"Give it a second, Stardust", Alabastra says, hand held in a pause. "Moodie. Or Oscar, if ya insist... you're among friends here. We were never gonna judge you for this."

Never going to judge me... there's something about the way she phrased that. "Why didn't you say anything?"

The blonde crosses her arms, almost in offense, as if I'm the faulty party. "What, today? C'mon. If we'd accused you, directly, what woulda happened next?" She waits a beat, and elaborates in response to my silence, "You'd have panicked. If this didn't work we'd have told you anyways, but either way, we wanted to... ease ya in; hopefully even getcha to come outta your shell yourself."

I look to her, deadpan. "You think hauling me halfway around the cliff downs to rib at my side was easing me in?!"

"It worked, didn't it?" She smiles, sighs, and puts a hand to her hip. "To be honest, Moodie, you can be a stubborn ass, and I dunno if you've noticed: these are desperate times. You needed the push... and we needed you to get there."

Tegan says, "And before today... well, we uh, thought you just didn't wanna talk about it? That it was, er, personal. Trust me; we get it."

Faylie interjects, "There was nothing wrong with taking your time! Just, y'know, the blood drinking was kind of a problem!"

Before today? "And just how long have you known?"

The faun winces. "... Pretty much forever?"

"Since the day we met", adds Alabastra.

An arrow of dread shoots straight through me. When Alabastra said right from the start, she meant... she meant the start. Seven years of circling each other's orbits, of begrudging one-sided friendship, of favors issued back and forth, ribbing jokes, barbed remarks, and she's known the entire time? I feel... lied to. Even thought I was the one keeping the secret. Did she tell Faylie and Tegan, too, when they joined her circle? Or did she not even have to...

I ask, almost to no one in particular, "How?"

"Moodie. You are joking, right? Your eyes glow."

"You're like, super pale", Faylie says.

Tegan crosses her arms. "You've got fangs, for fuck's sake!"

"I keep my fangs retracted!", I protest.

Alabastra looks down at me with pity, sucking breath between her teeth. "They come out when ya eat..."

"They do?!" My hands dart involuntarily to my canines. The three issue condolent nods. A sigh of bone-deep tired escapes me. "If you knew all along, why 'hunt' me?"

"Well, that's the thing...", begins Alabastra, "We knew you were a vampire..."

"But not the vampire", Tegan finishes her sentence. "You know, we didn't wanna assume or anything..."

Alabastra nods, and continues, "We had our debates, it sure woulda been the easy solution, but..."

Faylie hops up and sits upon the console table. "It just didn't seem like something you would do!"

So now they presume to know me well enough to make some claim toward my perceived 'goodness'? I've always taken them for naive, but, can they truly not see me for what I am? Not some bloodsucking fiend, sure, but what I truly am, down to my core.

The space where a person should be. Absent of an inner light or animating drive, the yawning void into which ambition falls and never escapes. Less than simply half-human; more like a necromancer's puppeteered corpse doll than the fanged manipulators of old. Someone stronger, smarter, wiser, more fundamentally moral would fight and win against any wickedness, even when bewitched from within. Despite my biting words, Alabastra, Faylie, and Tegan are not stupid. So, why can't they see what I'm not? What do they expect to find?

Alabastra says, "We thought maybe there mighta been some other vamp on the loose, but we put the pieces together after we swung by your place this morning. Obviously, the only way it was ever gonna be you is if you couldn't remember doin' it."

I narrow my eyes at her. I've never taken her for an overly trusting sort, but even with our shared history... "How did you know I wasn't lying? That I'm not still lying, and waiting for my moment to strike?"

She puts a hand to her hip, and grins. "You can't lie to me, Moodie."

"That's presumptuous..."

The others giggle. Alabastra shrugs toward them, and says, "So long as we're lettin' cats outta bags... No. I mean literally, you cannot lie to me. We've all got our tricks up our sleeves... I can, how do I put this? Read people. The way you read a book."

I'm not phased in the slightest. "Now you're claiming to be some kind of psychic?"

"Not... exactly? I don't read your mind or nothin', I can just... tell. If I focus in, it's like a sixth sense. If you're keepin' something close to the chest, if you're tellin' a bald-faced fib, or if you really believe somethin'. I. Can. Tell."

Does she expect me to just... believe that? I roll my eyes. Just another one of her little tricks. "Prove it, then."

"We're really doin' this?" She sighs, and says, "Pen and pad."

I wait for her to crack, to reveal the joke. She waits back. Fine, then. I'll play her game. I pull out my notepad.

"Write down... anything. A number, let's say. Then either lie to me, or be honest about what it is."

She intends to "prove" to me that she's some... humanoid lie detector... with a cheap parlor trick? This should end quickly then, at least. I write down the number 7, and say, "It's six."

She stares intently, and says with a head nod, "That's a lie."

I raise a brow. Lucky guess. "It's actually seven."

"True." Her arms cross, and she grins.

She's just winning coin tosses. "Let's go again." I'll be more creative this time. I'm trying to disprove her claim, not play Twenty Questions. I write down... 'yellow'. That should trip her up. "It's four."

"Lie."

"Three."

"Lie..."

"Nineteen."

"Super-lie. Is it even a number?"

That makes me double take. Not that it proves anything. "It is..."

She smiles wide now. "Ohh, no it ain't."

I scoff, and retort, "Well, what is it then, if you're so sure?"

"Oh, yeah, lemme just look inside your brain real quick." She closes her eyes and wiggles her fingers at me, then opens them again with a sarcastic shrug. "I told you, that's not how it works. C'mon, what is it?"

"... It's blue."

"Nope."

"Yellow."

Alabastra leans forward. "There we go." She dusts off her bicep. "Believe me yet?" She acts cocky, as if she's proven her case. Then again, that is her default state.

But her little tricks don't mean anything. If she truly had this ability, it seems unbelievable that it wouldn't have come up in the years I've known her. Especially since she's... her. She can be subtle, sure... when she isn't being an unbelievable braggart. There is simply no chance I'm learning of this for the first time now. "Maybe you just watched the pen move, or... read the reflection off my glasses."

She groans, like she didn't ask for this. "Ugh, fine. Tell me three things I'd have no way of knowing. Make one of 'em a lie, I'll tell you which."

Three things she doesn't know... I'll just have to make them facts about myself. Things she can't possibly have known without having been there. And, better yet, I can trick her. Refuse to play the game the way she wants. Slow and steady, I say, "I can't swim... My adoptive parents couldn't have kids of their own because of the Runeplague..." I think hard, digging deep for something truly unreadable. "And... I've only ever told one person before that I'm a vampire."

Alabastra thinks for a moment, then beams wide. "You little cheat. All true." I back up, wide-eyed. That's...

"You can't swim? Oof", says Tegan.

I look to the other two. "She's... she's not joking?"

Faylie nods, enthusiastic as a proud parent. "Super cool, huh? It's not even that uncommon where I come from... but Allie's the first non-fae I've ever met that could see lies. She's special..." Faylie adds jazz hands for effect.

Alabastra looks back at the faun. "Hey, I'm like, 1/16th fae! Doesn't that count?"

"Not when the only fae that can see lies are like, archfae... and hags! You're not a 16th hag!"

"You dunno..."

My eyes lock with Tegan. If any of them will pull us out of this ridiculous spiral... "Tegan. Is. She. Serious?"

The knight nods, almost solemn. "Unfortunately... yea. It's why she's so good at lying...", then realizing what she just said, panics and stumbles, "Uh... not that there's anything, uh, wrong with that! Lying can be good... sometimes?"

Alabastra chuckles. "Thanks for the vote of confidence, Dusty." She turns back to me. "She's right, though. I know what it takes to spin a good yarn... Most people flat suck at it."

"Myself included, I assume?" I draw inward, suddenly rethinking everything I've ever said to her.

She tilts her head. "You're actually better than you'd think. Without the leg up it probably woulda taken me a hot minute to figure out the whole..." She brings her index fingers to the sides of her mouth to mimic fangs, and clicks her tongue. "Thing. You've actually had to keep secrets... lying ain't so life and death for most people."

That is true. Though it seems those little coverups didn't help at all with hiding from the ones I wanted in the know least. I shake my head. We're wildly off-track. "So, then... the interrogation, at my apartment..."

"Right. When you said you didn't remember the other night, that you didn't know what happened to the girl... I could tell that was the truth. To be honest, the evidence that it was you was pretty damning... but you couldn't remember. It's clearly more complicated than it seems."

Faylie says, "Plus, it kinda lines up with some other stuff we're dealing with, so..." I raise a brow at that. Lines up...

I think back to the sewers. "That dwarven mother, with the half-dragon child..." What had she said? Her daughter was experiencing urges she'd never felt before... This whole time, was my condition just one piece to a larger puzzle?

"Oh, right! That's another one!"

"Another one? Elaborate."

Faylie taps her fingers together, wincing. "Oh, um, well..." She looks to Tegan, grasping for words.

The human looks agog. "Uh. Y'kno, uh. Just like... general... weirdness? Ah... We don't really have to talk about this, right?" The energy of the room has thoroughly shifted, taken a sharp edge. There's a caution in the women that wasn't there before. A strange turn toward elusiveness.

"Your choice, Stardust", Alabastra says to Tegan. Her tone is uncharacteristically serious.

For all her brash demeanor, Tegan looks rather sheepish. Embarrassed, even. "Can we just, uh, ask Bromley some questions first? We've probably stuck around here too long, anyways."

Faylie adds as an aside, "Yea, who's house even is this, Allie?" Admittedly I'm a little off-put that they've jumped straight back into their usual eccentricities, but they move too fast to get a word in.

"Old man Herbert Welchershman's." Alabastra shrugs. "He died last week."

"Aww, Mr. Welchershman died?"

I speak up, "Questions. You had questions for me."

Alabastra turns to me, eyes like fire. "Right. When did this all start? The whole, huntin' the good innocent people of The Reds thing, I mean."

I'm about to make a guess, when I remember the notepad still in my hand. "Actually, I can tell you exactly when." I flip to the first entry documenting my condition. The three crowd around me, eyeing my journal. My records begin the 14th of Octobrea, so... subtract a day, and the night before, to account for the actual start... "It began the night of the 12th, twelve days ago."

The trio look amongst themselves, and Tegan says, "Yea, that lines up. To the day."

"What lines up?" It took so little time for me to tire of their antics once more. If they expect honesty out of me, how can they not return it?

Tegan looks lost for a moment, almost a whine on her lips. Alabastra steps in for her, "Remember what we said earlier? Personal questions? It's not that we don't trust you, or don't wanna tell you, it's just... some things we keep close to the chest for a reason. Let's keep this cat in the- actually, fuck, I've always hated that saying. Point is, we're on eggshells here."

I pinch the bridge of my nose. Gods, she is unserious. "Be vague, then. You're skilled at that."

The blonde smiles. "Dangerously close to a compliment, Moodie." She thinks for a moment. "Let's just say... you're not the only one dealing with some... occasionally monstrous-adjacent urges, starting at the exact same time."

Then whatever's happening with me is also happening to others... like the dwarven girl? "And these... other cases, are they also experiencing blackouts? Violent yearnings? Involuntary activities and subsequent amnesic gaps?"

"Uhhh", begins Tegan, "No, not really, sorta kinda, and... no again? All that's actually happening to you?"

Ah. I see. It turns out even amongst those similarly inflicted, I am truly worse than everyone else. Brilliant. I suppose I shouldn't have expected different. They're all symptoms of the same problem, after all; my insatiable hunger. That's the thread of commonality between myself and these others, then. The violent thing is only starvation's reverberation, a sickness of my own soul.

As far as Tegan's question goes... "Yes. Since this started, I've been ravenously hungry, and inundated with... sick desires." I look to Alabastra. "I don't suppose you have any insights on that?"

Alabastra tilts her head back and forth in indecision. "Maybe? Look, whatever's happening with you, it's clearly different... but definitely related. There's gotta be some kinda pattern, a- a signal in the noise." She starts to pace. "We don't exactly have many examples yet, but if we had more..."

"We?", I fail to stop myself from saying. The three stop, look at me, nearly stunned. I've already started, I may as well continue. "There is no 'we'. Regardless of my own intentions, I've just admitted to you that I am a danger. Now you want to drag me along on whatever investigation you're planning, where I might imperil countless others, for what benefit? Why? Why are you helping me?"

The half-elf taps her foot as she says, "Three reasons." She counts on her fingers. "One: We'd help you no matter who ya are, Moodie."

Tegan says, "I dunno if you forgot, but I'm, uh, bound by oath to do exactly that. Alabastra's a stubborn idealist, and y'can get Faylie to do just about anything with a sob story."

"In other words", Alabastra says with a small bow, "We are inveterate do-gooders. A terminal condition, I'm sure you'll find." She continues to count, "Two: Our aforementioned shared interest in solvin' this problem. Four heads are better than three, after all, and even if you're not about the mushy moral stuff, everyone loves a lil' quid pro quo!"

Faylie slides off the table. "You scratch our backs, we scratch yours! Though, that's kinda more back scratching that you have to do, so, maybe it's more like, we all scratch each other's backs?"

"You can just ask for back scratches, Glowbug", says Alabastra, ruffling the faun's hair for good measure. Then, she looks to me, hand on hip, and says nothing more. Only smiling, knowingly. Reeling me in like a fish caught on her line, and... dammit, damn my curiosity.

"And the third reason?"

"You'll find out", she says with that insufferable grin. Unbearable. Intolerable. I don't know why I expected different.

I look between the three women, the constant thorns in my side that they are, pushing at my boundaries for years. Perhaps call it a moment of weakness following a day of exasperating circumstances, but, I decide to do something I know I will come to regret. I relent.

"Fine. Where are we going?" The three look to me with delight, pumping fists and smiles abound. Though why they would feel anything but dread at the prospect of spending yet more time in my presence is its own mystery. "Unless there are any other confessions to be made, here?"

Faylie shrugs. "I stole some stuff from your house and forgot to give it back?" I remove my glasses, fully facepalming. Already I am exhausted.

"Bug...", says Alabastra.

"I'm also stealing this cute vintage snow globe from Mr. Welchershman." She produces a glass dome with specs of falling white particles from within her coat pocket.

Alabastra says with a pained sigh, "That's... fine. Not like he needs it anymore..."

From above us, the loud clicking sound of a crossbow bolt being loaded bounces off the walls. A voice, old and angry, shouts, "Who in the hells is down there?!"

The four of us look to one another in a panic.

* * *

I duck under a wide crossbow bolt fired from the door's threshold. "You said he was deceased!", I shout at the half-elf.

"Clearly I was wrong!" Alabastra banks hard toward a nearby alley, cover from the angry man's volley. Her bird swoops past, angry squawking meeting and matching the old man's tone, as the raven squabbles and pecks at the poor grandfather.

Behind us, I catch a glimpse of Faylie dropping the snow globe on the grass as she scampers away. "Sorry, Mr. Welchershman!"

* * *

At a street corner next to tenements and brick shops, a tall metal staircase leads up to a wide platform hanging above the avenue.  The platform of steel has an open gap cut through its center, and running through the gap, floating in mid-air, sit tracks made of iridescent light, created and suspended with magic. The skyway: Marble City's world-class public transit. A wonder of physical, civil, and magical engineering.

Alabastra finds it objectionable. "I mean, fuck, they'd probably make money if they made it free! Not that that should matter, but you'd think the stuffed suits would at least run the numbers." She's been ranting like this for five minutes, much the same as long as I've known her. "It's just... disappointing."

"One of the greatest mortal-made wonders of our age, and you're disappointed", I say. "I'm sure the artificers would be horrified to hear they've fallen short of your demanding standards."

"Even a good thing can always get better, Moodie."

I roll my eyes, and mutter, "That's some kaleidoscopic dream world you live in." We venture up the stairs to a short procession of visitors and passengers, tourists and commuters alike, waiting for the next train.

Alabastra diverts to buy us tickets, amidst her own grumbling protests. I look up and down the gathered crowd. A tall draconide with white scales and a large lizard face dressed in a fedora and trenchcoat checks his watch. An elf stuffs half a sandwich into her mouth after eyeing the No Food sign. A mother tries to calm her screaming child. The sights and sounds of the city, that join in such a chaotic image and chorus from afar, but close enough now to make out the constituent parts. Occasionally I've wondered what it must be like to live in the country, away from the flood of people and all the mess they bring. A strange thought, to wake to silence, to have the width and breadth of your world and all who pass through it known to you.

"He's doing the thing again", I hear the chirpy voice of Faylie say next to me.

"The zoning out thing?", says Tegan. I realize a second too late that they're talking about me, just too slow to prevent Tegan from snapping in my face. I swat away her hand, shooting her a death glare. The knight winces. "Sorry."

I sigh. The crowd hardly holds my attention any longer anyways. "Do you need something?"

The faun smiles, eyes closed in a sunny display. "Mhmm! Or, maybe more like, you need something!" Then, she fishes into a large satchel she carries at her side. I cannot help but catch a peak of the interior, yet to my surprise, I see only a black void expanse. She shoots her arm down deeper into the bag, further than it looks like she should be able to go without hitting the bottom. Eventually, her entire arm up to her shoulder is swallowed by the opening, as she sticks out a tongue in concentration. Finally, she smiles, and pulls her arm free. In her hands she holds... a collection of herbs, a familiar cutlery set, and the wind-up key to a music box. "Here's your stuff back!"

I stare down at her through my spectacles. I've never had issues finding Alabastra aggravating, but with Faylie, there's almost no point. She's simply a force of nature, like it's never even occurred to her to be anything but what she is.

"I... guess I appreciate the thought. But, I don't have anywhere to put them..." I motion to my relatively storage-free person. I start to regret not preparing more for the length of this incursion. I'd only adorned a new set of clothes to replace my sweat-soaked garments. Had I known the extent to which I'd find myself wrapped up in these three's plans, I'd have brought my own satchel, perhaps even a portable alchemy set so that I might be of use.

"Oh, I'll just hold onto it all, then!" Faylie unceremoniously drops my belongings back into her bag.

The stomping of her boots heralds Alabastra's return, as she holds four tickets in her hands, splayed out for each of us to take. The silver strips of paper demarcate a one-way trip to wherever we're going, which Alabastra has, as usual, yet to elaborate on.

Above us, the CAW-ing of a raven draws the attention of the gathered crowd. Alabastra looks up. "Aw, Paella!" Above the domed roof of the skyway station, the fat black bird beats its wings against the glass. "Follow the train, Pae! Meet us at the next stop!" The crowd looks in confusion at the woman yelling at a bird, which seems to bother the rogue not at all.

To the west, the sound of the approaching train begins to shake the platform, its slowing wheel beats turning against the arcane rails. Soon the tram of several bronze carts pulls into the station, a single conductor dressed in grays at its helm, beams shining out of the front from twinned headlights. The doors open with a simultaneous huff and scrape of metal, and parallel streams of people move in and out of the carts. The four of us manage to find a section near the middle with few fellow passengers, granting us relative privacy. We cram into a booth seat, two to each side. Alabastra slides in after me, leaving me the windowed half.

Through the glass, I notice that the black bird seems to have processed its owner's command, and now flies in circles above the train cart. "Your bird is more trouble than it's worth."

Alabastra crosses her arms over the table. "Pfft. She's not my bird." She says that as if it was obvious. At least it explains why it's... relatively well-trained.

"Then who does she belong to?" What poor creature entrusted their corvid to Alabastra for pet-sitting?

"She's her own woman. Don't own her any more than I own these two." She points to Tegan and Faylie. The two look between each other for a moment, a shared knowing glance. "Maybe less than I own these two." Tegan flips Alabastra the finger.

Another of her riddles. I lean back in my seat, crossing my arms in protest. "Fine then, don't tell me."

She grins, and begins readjusting her gloves in performative disinterest. "If you insist..." Her word games are a constant source of exhaustion, and I have no further interest in entertaining them.

With a lurch, the train pulls forward, and departs the station. The city below starts to whip by in an accelerating blur, and for a moment I allow myself to be transfixed by the sights of the skyscrapers. Those obelisks of stone and metal, like fingers reaching toward the gods. Dull and gray in this current light of day, but at night, under the new world of power, they scintillate with light; screaming manmade constellations back toward the stars.

From the corner of my eye, I see Faylie wave a hand, trying to grab at my attention. As tempted as I am to ignore her until she gives up... she never gives up. I turn and meet her gaze. "Can I ask you a question?", she says, leaning forward.

"If I say 'no' are you going to ask it anyways?"

Barreling right through my remark, she asks, "How can you... you know, walk around in the sun?"

"Careful, Firefly", Alabastra says, "Moodie barely gets enough sun as it is."

I ignore the blonde. "You know I'm not actually a vampire..." At the look of confusion, I clarify, "A full vampire, I mean. Half-vampiric, by lineage. I guess one of my birth parents must have been, or maybe something happened to me what I was younger. I wouldn't know, seeing as I never met them." I look to Alabastra. My orphaned status is old news for her.

She nods once. Then, far too pleased with herself, she says, "Which means you don't fully suck."

"Hilarious", I deadpan.

Tegan puts a finger to her temple. "Then you're, what, a spawn?" Ah, right. Religious teachings would cover a vampire's abilities.

"No, a spawn is barely more than an extension of a vampire's will. And they're made, not born. I'm... something else. Few of their strengths, or their weaknesses. I require blood, but I have nothing to fear of the sun. I've heard the term dhampir tossed around before... but I've never much cared for it."

"Vampires are more complicated than I thought...", Faylie says, mostly to herself.

"How'd ya get your blood before?", asks Alabastra.

I consider whether she's just fishing for more information to hang a joke from, but, it is potentially useful for the three to know. "The local hospitals donate their nearly-expired or diseased blood. Ostensibly for my alchemy. I clean it with a purifying agent and freeze it for later. In emergencies, a freshly butchered animal carcass also suffices."

Ever so slightly, Alabastra leans forward. "And you've never fed from the source before this month?" I avert my gaze from her, but still I feel her stare burrowing into my soul. Perhaps now that I'm aware of her insightful abilities, this is what it's supposed to feel like when she's using them. Or perhaps, it is only the weight of my own guilt putting depth to her stare, redolent now of a beacon.

"No."

By some miracle, Alabastra says nothing more. I am left only with the tightening feeling in my chest, the cold emptiness of my own cowardice.

She lets a beat pass, then turns to the two opposite us, and says, "Let's talk plans." Tegan and Faylie lean closer, and I do as well, a pantomime despite my greater distractions. "We need more information. Now, we could put an ear to the ground, ask around all the usual haunts, play the slow and safe game..." Her tone betrays a persuasive hint. I wonder if it's her usual showmanship poking through, or this is the path she'd prefer to take.

It seems I'm not the only one who's picked up on that, as Tegan says, "You're not usually the one pushing for slow n' safe, Allie."

"And I'm still not." Alabastra sighs. "Because, much as I hate to admit it, the smart play would be to go to someone who might've already done that legwork for us."

The two look confused for a moment, and it seems Faylie reaches whatever conclusion Alabastra has laid before them first. "Wait... not Nathaniel..."

Alabastra nods her head solemnly. "Nathaniel, I'm afraid."

"Oh, gross!"

I raise an eyebrow. "And Nathaniel is...?"

Tegan groans. "Nathaniel Latchet. He's this sleezy private detective we know. Allie, are you sure?"

"Not my favorite of my plans, either, girls, but if anyone in the city's kept their eye on this and seen somethin' we haven't yet, it'd be that jerk. " For a moment when she speaks, I lean in closer, then turn away again when she says girls. It should have been obvious before that point that she wasn't talking to me. I push down the burning feeling in my chest, and consider her words all the same.

For this Nathaniel to have annoyed these three so greatly... He's either a perfectly reasonable man, or truly the scum of Vaunder. Either way, a growing, gnawing part of me is uncomfortable with asking these three to endure hours spent with someone they clearly despise, on my behalf. But, the logic is sound; assuming this detective is as reliable a source of information as Alabastra claims.

Suddenly the prospect seems dubious.

Alabastra continues, "We'll get off on the next stop, gotta pick something up before we meet with him."

"And that would be?", I ask.

"Peace offering."