Two men were having a conversation in a dark place. One of them was scared, but trying not to show it. The other one was scary, and had recently given up on trying not to show it.

"Are you back in the craft, then, Jarus? I've got a number of little jobs, if so. Goat level only, of course: you're a principled man, I know," the scared man said, trying to project a sense of professional bonhomie.

"No. I'm looking for information," the scary man replied.

"Ah, well, information. That ain't free, Jarus. Now, if you could see your way clear to dealing with one or two of the aforementioned jobs-"

"You owe me. You know you owe me - and I might be principled, but I always collect."

That put an end to the faux-confidence: "Yes, ahem, well, since you put it like that..."

"Lady Jenata. Vampire. Who, and where. Don't lie. I'll know."

The scared man nodded. "I know the who. The where, well, the where is a bit on the complex side. It's going to sound a bit odd, but it's the truth, I swear it on-"

"It's okay," Talius said, emotionlessly. "I believe you."

- o O o -

It had just rang three bells when McKenzie turned the corner onto the street that held, amongst other buildings, Aghkar's Den of Sin, Iniquity and Dark Delights. The sign hadn't been changed yet: Iyanus had been busy with more important things.

Three bells was too early for punters. Aghkar's was quiet. Good. McKenzie strolled up to the main doors, which were guarded by a pair of hulking blokes who looked quite familiar - one had a black eye, the other a badly bruised cheekbone.

"Well I fuckin' never," he said, as he walked up to the doors. "Shover and Laughing Boy."

The two men recognised him, and became very tense.

"You don't know what these things do," McKenzie said, levelling the submachineguns at the two bouncers, "and I won't go into details, but if you wanna still be alive ten seconds from now, fuck off and never come back."

Shover and Laughing Boy came to a decision admirably quickly, and without fuss: they walked away down the street, and it didn't look like they had any intention of coming back.

"That was easy," McKenzie said to himself. He nudged open the doors and peered carefully inside: the main casino hall seemed deserted, except for a man dejectedly sweeping the floor. McKenzie edged inside, checking the gantries, which had been shored up where he'd smashed them.

"Hasthandali-" Someone hissed from behind him.

McKenzie didn't turn – he just flipped one of the machineguns over his shoulder and pulled the trigger. It chattered in his hand for a second, and set his ear to ringing, but when he turned around, there was a very dead mage on the floor. He'd been hiding by the door.

"Sorry about the mess," McKenzie apologised to the guy with the broom, as he made a dash for it out of the door.

The next assault came from above – the main doors, which had been cemented back into place, burst open, and a number of men in mismatched armour lunged out. They hurriedly spread out along the gantry.

"Fire!" A rough voice yelled. "Aim for 'is 'ead!"

Crossbow bolts thudded into the door and floor around McKenzie, and one even bounced off the top of his head. McKenzie ignored it, aimed, and returned fire. The machine pistols chattered and kicked in his grip – he held the triggers down until they were empty: the results were fairly predictable.

He trotted up the stairs, slowing to a walk for the top few: they were already wet and sticky with blood. Eight men had fired at him: all were either dead or dying.

McKenzie ejected the spent clips and rammed in fresh ones, carefully stepped over the stricken detachment of Iyanus's guards, and peered along the corridor. It was empty – he could see all the way along to where the office doors had been refitted.

They didn't stand up to much punishment – one swift kick was enough to smash them in. The office inside had new furniture, old bloodstains, and nobody in it.

McKenzie started bashing down the remaining doors – the third one had stairs behind it, spiralling upwards. McKenzie stalked up them, with a gun pointed in either direction, alert for another attack.

The layout at the top of the stairs was identical to the floor beneath in dimensions as well as lack of people, but McKenzie could hear trollish laughter coming from the far door, which was slightly ajar.

"Right, if you don't wanna be eaten...stand on one leg!" Iyanus's voice could be heard. Then he laughed, and McKenzie could also hear an unwelcome but familiar laugh.

"Ooh, close," Leni said. "But I'm gonna award that point to the blonde one."

He edged down the corridor, alert for any signs of assassin-bodyguards. They did not seem in evidence. McKenzie rated it pretty likely that they were lurking somewhere, waiting for him to be in the right position to jump him, but he was okay with that – it'd save time.

As he got closer to the door, he could make out the sound of two women sobbing in terror.

"What's the score?" Leni asked.

"Four all," Iyanus replied.

"I'm hungry and they smell so good – next point wins. Or loses, dependin' on your point of view," Leni said. This produced an immediate increase in the volume and desperation of the crying.

"Please...let us go, Mr. Iyanus!" A woman's voice, racked with fear. "We haven't done anything wrong!"

McKenzie abandoned the cautious approach. He ran down the corridor, shouldered the door aside, and levelled the guns. Iyanus and Leni were in there, alone apart from the two dancers McKenzie vaguely recalled from the original hit. They were stood – each on one leg – on a massive bed off to the right of the room. The bed was flanked by the two trolls.

"New game," he said. "If you don't wanna die, don't be a troll. You two – run for it."

The girls didn't need to be told twice. They leapt off the bed and ran towards him to get to the door.

Then quite a lot of things happened very quickly. The first was a sense of magic, and then a red-coloured shield shimmered into being around the bed, cutting him off from the two trolls before the dancers were out of the line of fire. McKenzie heard a door slam open behind him, and then there was a tremendously powerful and tremendously painful blow, right into his spine just above his lower back. He was flung across the room, reflexively tightening his grip on the guns as he went. One of them discharged a burst of five rounds, which randomly embedded themselves in furniture, the floor and, in one case, produced a rather lovely pattern of concentric circles on the shield.

McKenzie hit the far wall hard – it actually cracked – then bounced to the floor, landing on his back. The dancers screamed, but the way was clear for them, so they continued their flight.

"Gnngh," McKenzie said. Everything was a bit blurry.

"Is he fuckin' dead?" Iyanus asked.

"Dunno, boss," Leni said. "Hey, McKenzie! Raise your arm if you're not dead!" She laughed.

"Remain behind the shield, please," a man's voice said.

"Is. He. Fucking. Dead," Iyanus repeated.

"Unclear at this time," a new voice – a very deep voice – answered. "Weaver is correct. Do not exit the shielded area at this time. I will investigate further."

Then there was a loud creaking sound, a bit like a mast and ropes under tension, followed by a click.

McKenzie rolled onto his front, and made to lever himself up off the floor. He heard a deep twanging noise – everything went dark for a bit, but then he opened his eyes again. His head was in agony, now, too.

He couldn't have been out long – he was still holding onto his weaponry. This time he was face down. There was a long, thick metal rod on the floor in front of his nose, with a sharpened end. He could focus on that, but everything else was a blur.

I've been shot with one of those big spear things again, McKenzie thought muzzily. Twice, probably.

"Dead yet, McKenzie?" Leni's voice again, now sounding like she was speaking from the bottom of a very deep well.

He jammed the barrels of both guns into the floor and shoved himself upright.

"Nope," he said. His vision was still blurred, but he could make out the red glow of the shield. Time to see how much it could withstand. He aimed for it.

He didn't get the chance to fire, though. Something big, hard and wooden - a ballista? - slammed into him, knocking him off balance. A millisecond later, something big, hard and stony slammed into him, grabbed him in an unbelievably strong grip, and kept going.

The wall behind McKenzie was already cracked – under the impetus of whatever it was that was assaulting him, it gave way. McKenzie, his assailant and a whole lot of masonry went plunging towards the cobbled surface of the street behind Aghkar's Den, and hit the ground hard.

A few moments passed. McKenzie blinked, and coughed out dust and gravel. Everything ached.

"Holy shit," he said, forcing himself to his feet. His ears were ringing, and everything still sounded muffled.

Then his opponent got to his feet, shouldering aside a section of wall that had landed on him. McKenzie's eyesight started to clear a little. His first thought was that the other guy was a troll that was simply covered in masonry dust, but then, as his vision cleared further, he realised that the shape was all wrong. His adversary was more like a big statue of a bloke. Then the figure opened his eyes, and they glowed white. McKenzie realised that he was, in fact, an actual statue.

"The fuck is this now?" McKenzie murmured to himself.

The statue said something - at least his mouth moved in an imitation of a man speaking. The stone moved just like a person's flesh, which was, McKenzie was surprised to discover, actually weirder than the fact that the statue had a bright glow shining out of his mouth, too.

Whatever the statue had said was lost behind the ringing in McKenzie's ears, though.

"WHAT?" McKenzie asked. "DIDN'T HEAR YOU!"

The statue repeated his words, or said something different - McKenzie's newfound gifts of linguistics didn't extend to lip-reading (or at least not with stone lips) so he had no idea.

Ah, McKenzie thought, as a neuron, possibly jogged into action by the recent fall, suddenly fired some useful information at him. You'd be Anjarong's mate then.

"CAN'T HEAR YOU!" McKenzie told him. "YOU'VE ONLY BLOODY GONE AND SET MY EARS TO RINGING WITH ALL THIS BULLSHIT WITH BIG-ARSE ARROWS AND WALLS AND SHIT, HAVEN'T YOU? LISTEN, ANYWAY, THIS IS YOUR CHANCE TO PISS OFF AND NOT GET KILLED. THE QUOTE-UNQUOTE PEOPLE YOU'RE GUARDING AREN'T WORTH SHIT AND THE HIGH ASSASSIN IS AN ASSHOLE! LET'S NOT DO THIS!"

Statue Guy shook his head in an unmistakeably negative gesture, and picked up a large lump of rock ready to throw at McKenzie.

"OKAY, FUCK IT, I TRIED!" McKenzie told him, and unloaded at the guy. They weren't far away from each other - so every round struck home. Stone chippings flew from Statue Guy's chest and arms, but apart from this, it didn't appear that a hail of bullets was something that was going to trouble him much in life: he didn't fall over, or even stagger backwards, or give any sign of pain.

"Oh piss!" McKenzie said. He reached into his pocket for more clips, but the other four were in the bag on his back. He could use his pistol, but then he thought bollocks to it, I'd run out of bullets way before this fucker would run out of chippings.

McKenzie slung the guns over his back and cracked his knuckles. Then he grinned, and cracked his neck to one side. "Let's rock," he said.

Statue Guy paused, however, and spoke. McKenzie found he could hear now, albeit still with Bottom Of Well™ modulations.

"I too do not crave this pointless confrontation, Crowbar," Statue Guy said - his voice was exactly what you'd think it would be: deep and resonant - or maybe that was just how it sounded to someone who'd just been ballista'ed twice, smashed through a wall and then fallen fifteen metres or so to the ground. "My purpose here is not to kill you but to protect the Clients. I will wear myself down to sand before I fail in my duty. You may be able to achieve that, but how long-"

"I'll get back to you on that," McKenzie interrupted. He'd just had an idea.

He jumped up to the large hole in the wall they'd just made. He fell slightly short of it, but was able to grab onto the edge and yank himself through and back into the room. A quick glance down as he scrambed in showed that Statue Guy was already on the move below.

Leni and Iyanus were still behind the shield around the bed - a black-robed guy was in there with them too, now, or at least had emerged from hiding under the bed or somewhere.

"Miss me?" McKenzie asked, yanking out the pistol.

"Shit we're fuckin' dead!" Leni yelped.

"Stay inside the shield!" The assassin-mage reminded them. "Allshield won't be far behind him."

"He isn't, but we oughta be done by then I reckon," McKenzie said, advancing. "Nice try with the ballista - been telling tales about airship battles, have we Leni?"

Leni and Iyanus were edging towards the door. "Don't step outside the shield!" The mage, seeing this, reminded them. McKenzie moved to put himself between the door and them.

"He can bring down shields, you fuckin' idiot!" Leni said.

"Correct," McKenzie said, and rammed his hand into the red shield. It dissolved, and McKenzie felt the familiar tingling sensation again as his body absorbed the magic.

"Melastha!" The assassin mage snapped - a bolt of green lightning zapped into McKenzie: it achieved nothing except to make him tingle a bit longer. McKenzie ignored him.

Leni, Iyanus and the mage backed up against the wall. McKenzie stopped at the foot of the bed.

"Black robe guy - you can go. Ain't got no quarrel with you," McKenzie said. The man didn't move, though.

"McKenzie, c'mon. We were friends. Look, it's not too late to call this off. We ain't got Danna or Shar yet, let's call it quits, eh?" Leni pleaded.

McKenzie kept her covered with the pistol.

"I just wanna leave town. I'll head back east to the ancestral troll lands, you'll never see me again, I swear," she continued.

A single bead of sweat ran down McKenzie's forehead, leaving a line in the masonry dust.

"Lies - she's bound by an oath to see this through. Go on, fucking do it!" Iyanus roared. "I won't beg." He shot a baleful glance at Leni.

McKenzie didn't fire.

"DO IT!" Iyanus bellowed.

"He can't," Leni said, then laughed in relief, and stepped in front of Iyanus.

She was right. He couldn't.

McKenzie could hear the heavy thumping of Statue Guy's steps. He was nearly there.

McKenzie sniffed. "Well fuck," he said. "That's a fucking day-spoiler, and no mistake." He started backing away towards the hole in the wall.

"But it's broken!" Leni said. "It's gotta be!"

"Well, either way you're fucked," McKenzie told her, determined to have the last word. "Either it's on the way out, and I'll kill you next time, or once Lemuel twigs that the fucking curse isn't really broken you're gonna be so deep in shit with him you're gonna need fucking scuba gear, Leni."

Statue Guy - Allshield - burst in through the door.

"Hey look Iyanus, it's your personal wall - although you take to hiding behind women like a natural, gotta hand it to you," McKenzie said, then jumped out through the hole, landing properly this time, and stalked off down the street.

Leni and Iyanus breathed out.

"Are you injured?" Allshield asked them.

"No, but I'm fucking furious," Iyanus growled back. "What the fuck was that?"

"Apologies," Allshield stated, sounding not at all contrite. "The subject proved to be stronger and more agile than anticipated."

"I did try and tell you," Leni said.

"You shut the fuck up," Iyanus snarled at her. "I expect better of my people than begging for their lives at the first sign of trouble."

"Sorry, boss, who was hiding behind who again?" Leni asked.

Iyanus' reaction was to snarl a troll imprecation, and deliver her a stinging slap across the face that sent her sprawling to the floor: the noise of the blow nearly deafened the assassin-mage. Leni snarled in return. "I've killed people for less than that. This is your protection?" She asked.

"That is how I treat my employees - which is what I swore to do," Iyanus reminded her. "Get the fuck out. Now."

Leni's eyes flashed in anger, but she picked herself up and slunk - as much as a troll can slink - out.

Iyanus turned back to Allshield. "I want more insurance," he told the golem. "If that fuckin' bastard comes back, I want a line of his fuckin' family with fuckin' knives at their throats."

"He has no family - and all his friends and associates that we know about, with the exception of the Archmage of Melindron, are missing. Would you like me to try and kidnap her?" Allshield asked. If he was being sarcastic, his tone did not betray it.

"Find someone he might care about," Iyanus said. "There's always someone, when you need to get some fucker to co-operate. Always."

In the street, McKenzie was scarcely in a better mood himself.

"Great," he said to himself. "Just fucking perfect. What could possibly make today worse?"

- o O o -

A very considerable distance away, a meeting of the United Nations was underway. The Republic of Indradesh was about to appeal for an international investigation into how it's much-vaunted nuclear test had been sabotaged: their prime suspects were their neighbours across the border.

A man in a white suit was observing the meeting, when his iPad chimed softly at him. Somewhat bored - and infinitely saddened - by the pomposity of the Indradeshi representative's interminable address, he tapped in his passcode and examined the notification.

An email, from a certain address. Name usage detected, the subject line read. Nothing earth-shaking there. This one was flagged as important, however: usually they weren't. Interesting. It was in the usual format - these things were generated by an automated process he'd set up a long time ago: he'd been an early adopter of email.

The list contained a lot of the usual verbal abuse from the usual source, and, disappointingly, someone had mentioned that this was another possible vector for that individual's seemingly endless quest to find ways to annoy him.

And then:

Words "Lemuel twigs that the fucking curse isn't really broken you're gonna be so deep in shit with him you're gonna need fucking scuba gear, Leni." Detected just after three bells in the afternoon, Aghkar's Den of Sin, Iniquity and Dark Delights, Old Iron Traders' Quarter, Vyrinios.

He wasn't the sort of person to feel disbelief, but even so, he read it twice, then took his phone from his jacket pocket and dialled a number he hadn't had cause to dial in quite some time.

It was answered after several dozen rings. "Da?" A voice answered in Russian.

"Do you know what it means, when the phone you have just answered rings?" Lemuel asked.

"Phone? Ha! You make joke."

"Do you understand?"

"Da," the Russian voice answered, grudgingly. "Although I am hope is drill. Is drill?"

"This is not a drill."

The Russian voice swore, then sighed. "Okay. Prepare the portal?"

"Yes," Lemuel confimed. "A matter has arisen that will require my physical presence Over There. Prepare the portal, and inform me as soon as it is ready."

"How to dial number with this fucking thing?" The Russian asked.

"Just touch it. It only contacts this number. Understood?"

"Da, Lord Lemuel."

"Spaseba," Lemuel said in Russian, and hung up. Then he returned his attention to the meeting. They were about to vote - earlier in the day it had seemed likely that the investigation would be approved: if Indradeshi nukes could simply fail to work in mysterious ways, who was to say it couldn't happen to American, Russian or Chinese ones?

Lemuel had been busy shaking hands all day, though. He could be very persuasive, as long as he could shake someone by the hand. The motion was unanimously denied: there would be no international investigation into an internal Indradeshi matter, although some few of the representatives looked a bit confused as to why they'd just changed their minds so suddenly.

Lemuel sighed. It had been a tiring day. Things were so difficult here. He found he was actually looking forward to a visit to the old country.

It was so much simpler being a god, there.