City of Dust

Chapter Five

I'm up early the next morning, fresh with resolve. Throwing on my clothes, I descend the tower steps and make my way to Guildmaster Kessis's office. Although my stomach rumbles, I'm determined to score a large bounty.

Nelson and his three fellow fools are already there, sitting with booted feet up on a small coffee table outside the door. Nelson sneers as I approach. Without so much as a glance in his direction, I lean down and throw his friends' feet off the table, watching with satisfaction as they struggle to keep their balance.

"What the hell, Raine!?" Nelson thunders as his friends reorient themselves.

"You took all of the chairs," I reply dryly, taking a seat on the coffee table and hooking one booted foot over the opposite knee.

"Goddammit," Guildmaster Kessis grumbles as he yanks open the door to his office. "It's too friggin' early to listen to your bitching, Nelson."

"She did it, Guildmaster," LaShawn, one of Nelson's friends, argues, pointing an accusatory finger in my direction.

Kessis rolls his eyes. " 'She did it'. Do you hear yourself, LaShawn? Jesus." He shakes his head. "Get up, Barlow. You're just the person I need to see."

Nelson's face flushes. "We were here first."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Kessis waves at him like an errant boy. "I'll be back to see you four later. Barlow," he repeats, more firmly this time.

It's been a while since I've been startled into inaction. I didn't expect Kessis to have anything for me, considering he's been giving Nelson's crew all the prime gigs for the last few weeks. Once my brain kicks back into gear, I get to my feet and casually step around the men.

"Later," I say, giving them a little finger wave. Nelson seethes as I follow the guildmaster.

"Cool it, Barlow." Kessis's rebuke drifts over his shoulder, but there's very little emphasis behind the words. "Shut the door."

I do as requested, then take up a seat in front of Kessis's massive desk. This is one of the objects he didn't cannibalize or sell off after taking over Keres House.

Kessis lowers himself into an overstuffed chair, pivots, and throws his feet up on the desk. His boots are worn, black leather, scuffed and repaired dozens of times. The guildmaster himself is an unassuming man who was once a simple CPA working in a global firm before the Turning. Sometimes, I wonder what it would be like to have lived a different life. What does that feel like? Do you mourn the old times when the only monsters in the world were your fellow man?

"Barlow."

I lift my chin.

"It's not like you to daydream," Kessis notes. That same attention to detail that helped him in his pre-Turning career also makes the guildmaster an excellent study of character.

No, it's not. I don't like that my attention has wandered.

"I know." Shifting in the chair, I push a strand of hair behind my ear. "What is it that you have for me?"

Kessis reaches for an envelope on his desk, next to an old laptop and a pile of paperwork. "This came in from the mayor's office yesterday," he says, waving the letter slightly for emphasis.

There is a pause. Then I realize Kessis is waiting for me to say, "Oh?"

"This is a big contract, Barlow," Kessis tells me after I dutifully reply. "Ten thousand dollars."

Ten thousand?

I choke on my own spit and spend a minute trying to get myself under control. Kessis passes me a handkerchief and a cup of water. Once the moment passes, he continues. "Abbott is looking for a woman Hunter to escort his twelve-year-old daughter Kayleigh to the City of Dust where her mother is working."