Franz quickly overtook Kus, ing to a halt outside the door. Reag out, Franz blocked Kus before he could reach for the door.

  “I need you to stay close behind me and follow my lead. Until I say the danger is passed, you will do everything I tell you to. If you ’t do that, we leave now and your family will be left to fate. Do you uand?”

  “Yes. I promise to do what you tell me to do.”

  “Good,” Franze said, turning back to the door, hands drifting down to his ons. “Give me a few seds, then follow me in.”

  Drawing his sword in a swift motion Kus could barely even see, Franz swung hard and fast for the door. While Kus thought it was likely that the entrao the massage parlour was locked, the force of the blow by Franz’s sword made that a moot point. The door did not so much as fall apart as burst into splihat went flying into the room beyond. As Franz took a step into the entryway, his other hand flung his long k a target Kus could not see in the room beyond. Franz plunged into the room.

  After two seds, Franz had only asked for a few after all, Kus stepped cautiously into the building. As his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, the first thing he saw was the remains of the door lyio a Blood Eagle on the flarbed in the same kinds of clothes that Albrecht and the others had worn, the man was lying dead on the ground with Franz’s knife embedded in his forehead.

  A scream came from Kus’ right, a bit deeper into the building. Stepping over to the desk that stood by the back wall, Kus saw Franz standing over another Blood Eagle, this oill very much alive. Franz had embedded his sword into the floor through both wrists of the criminal. Seeing Kus enter behind him, Franz beed Kus over.

  “The scream probably alerted everyone else in the building, but he refuses to tell me anything I uand.”

  “Fick dich, ich werde dich t?ten!” the Blood Eagle snarled in pain.

  While Kus hadn’t mastered German, much like everyone else iy he was at least versational in it for the most part. “He said he is going to kill you.”

  “Well, we ’t have that, then.” Franz twisted the bde that had the Blood Eagle pio the floor. It brought a high-pitched screech from the man, as the bde began grinding against the bones in his forearms.

  More than a bit nauseous at what Franz was doing, Kus kept himself from throwing up by fog on the fact that the Blood Eagles would likely do so much worse to his own family if they did not succeed tonight.

  “Wo ist dein Anführer? Sag es mir und er wird aufh?ren.” Kus tried to reason with the man, promising ao the pain if the Blood Eagle tells them where his leader is in the massage parlour.

  “Fick dich!” the man swore, until Franz twisted his bde again, causing him to scream. After several long seds, the Blood Eagle could not take the pain anymore and gasped, “Zimmer im erdgschoss! Eingang hinter Sk!”

  “Danke.” Kus thanked him for telling them what they needed. “He says that there is a et that s arao a secret downstairs.”

  “Good work.” Franz pulled his bde free, and in a sharp motion beheaded the Blood Eagle on the floor. So swift was the strike that he probably had no idea what happened.

  “Why did you do that?” Kus asked appalled, as Franz stepped away from the corpse to begin looking around for the et. Nothing like that was in the room with them.

  “Do what?” Franz asked mildly, eyes taking in the only two doors of the room.

  “Kill him. He wasn’t a threat anymore.”

  Franz eyes fixed on one of the doors lohaher. Nodding to himself, he seemed to make up his mind as to whi he would be going into . “Kus, he was an enemy, and you never leave a live enemy behind you.”

  “But he wasn’t a threat anymore.”

  Franz turned back to face him. “Boy, an enemy is always a threat. Mercy is a luxury of the strong, and while I would likely survive an ambush, the ces of you ing out the other side in one piece is not something I’d be willing to risk. You should not risk it either when it es to your enemies.”

  “I don’t have any enemies.” Seeing the scar stretch across Franz’s face as the swordsman arched an eyebrow, Kus tinued, “Point. After tonight, then, I won’t have any enemies. ”

  “Trust me, Kus.” Franz’s expression hardened before he turned back to the door he had chosen. “Where I e from, everyone has enemies. When others learn of you, Kus, you will likely have more than you imagine.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  Franz did not respond, perhaps because he might have already said too much. Instead, he moved quickly to the door he had selected, hand pausing on the handle as he paused to listen. Jerking the door opehen darted inside, sword in a ready position at his side.

  Kus waiting another few moments, but when no sound of violence came from the room, he stepped inside. Past the doorway, he realized that it was not actually a room, but a long hallway with beled doors oher side. Likely the massage rooms. At the far end was a dispy et full of dotation aificates of iion by the city. Knowing what he now knew, Kus was sure they were fakes or the result of bribes to a city official. Just another example of how the city was sinking further into corruption and crime.

  Franz had not hesitated upoering the hallway. Moving with quick efficy, he was cheg each massage room for cealed enemies as he made his way to the end of the hall. All the rooms were empty, and Kus came to stao him in front of the et.

  “A tch you think?”

  “Likely,” Franz responded as he started moving his hands around the sides of the et. “Should be easy to find, given how often they would o open this during the day.”

  A soft click came from the back as Franz’s fingers depressed the hidden tot saying a word, Franz jerked his head to indicate Kus should again stand back. While Kus moved a few feet backward, Franz slowly pushed the et aside, revealing steps that spiraled downwards. Just wide enough for one of them to go at a time.

  “Wait here a little longer,” Franz directed. “If they heard what happened earlier, they are likely ready for me to e dowairs. I’ll call up when you join me.”

  “If that is the case, wouldn’t it be better to have me help you?”

  Franz pulled his gaze from the desding steps to look at Kus. His scar flexed across his face as he gave Kus a grin followed by a soft chuckle. “The day I need your help with something like this is the day I retire as an Imperial Hunter.”

  Motioning for Kus to wait, he darted dowairs, again seeming to move faster than what should be possible. Within moments the sound of wood shattering came eg up the stairwell. Brief yelling was followed by a scream that was quickly cut off by what sounded like a gunshot. Kus was starting to get worried when he heard Franz call up that he could e down.

  Rushing dowairs as fast as was safe, Kus again prepared himself for a se of violehe door, much as he expected, had burst inwards from the strength of Franz’s blow. Splinters, some as long as a foot or more, y scattered around a room that looked like a bomb had gone off i. The bodies of two Blood Eagles y just beyond the doorway. Lying in pieces, it looked like they had been smmed to the floor uhe force of Franz’s sword blows. Past the remains of an impromptu wooden barricade of tables and chairs was another man dead against the wall, Franz’s long khrough his neck. A shotgun y discarded nearby on the floor. So it had been a gunshot that Kus had heard.

  Franz himself was standing over one of the fattest men Kus had ever seen. Sword extended in front of the man’s face, Franz had cowed him into silence by the time Kus had e into the room. Based on the gaudy jewelry the fat man was wearing, really some people had no taste, this was likely the leader of this branch of the Blood Eagles. The man’s hands were buried in the pockets of his jacket as he fidgeted under Franz’s attention.

  “I’m gd you uand the situation, Hans,” Franz was saying to the fat man, likely in respoo what had been said before Kus had e into the room. “As soon as we have what we came for, this all be over. Now, answer his questions.”

  “Where do you access your email?” Kus asked, ing to stand over the gang leader.

  “In…in the side room.” Hans a doorway deeper into the room, on the right, “A phone. Just…just there.”

  As Franz shifted to look at the indicated door, the local leader of the Blood Eagles ripped his hands free from his pockets and, in one swift motion, flicked a pin at Franz’s face. Kus barely paid attention to the flig motion, as his eyes remained fixed on what else the fat man held.

  A grenade.

  Reag faster than scious thought should allow, Kus darted down at the Blood Eagle leader, hands reag out to take a vice-like grip around the grenade and the man’s fingers. Hissing in pain at Kus’ grip, the man looked up in horror at the look Franz now had on his face.

  “Well isn’t that iing,” Franz said, though whether he was refereng the grenade or Kus’ a was unclear. “May I assume that our frieried to use a on of some kind just now?”

  “Grenade,” Kus said, but when Franz looked fused, he tinued. “If you hahe pin he flicked at you, I put it ba and disarm it.”

  Bending down, Franz reached for the pin. It was strange he had never heard of what a grenade was. But, then again, there were a lot of strahings going on with the man.

  Taking the pin from Franz, Kus forced it bato the grenade, despite the leader of the Blood Eagle trying to jerk his hands out of his grip. O, Kus forcefully took the grenade in hand, then pocketed it once he was sure the pin roperly locked in pce.

  “ I ask you a question, Kus?” Franz asked, pletely ign the now begging man at his feet, except t his sword dangerously close to his ear. When Kus nodded, Franz asked, “That gre would have killed you had it gone off?”

  “Most likely,” Kus nodded. “It probably would have put you at risk as well.”

  “Hmm.” Franz starred into Kus’ face, eyes searg for something. Apparently finding what he sought, he nodded. Reag into his coat with his free hand, Franz pulled out another bde, this one a dagger. Flipping it in his hand to grasp the bde, Franz held out the hilt for Kus to take. “Here, take this. Point it at our friend while I check for his phone iher room.”

  Nodding, Kus took the dagger and poi down at the Blood Eagle’s face. Inwardly, Kus felt nauseous to be directly threatening the life of another person, but given who this man was, and what the Blood Eagles would likely do to his family, he kept the bde steady.