Seera Wyndham blinked at the appearance of a light in her cell. She took the moment to try to look around before turning her attention on her visitors.

Whitehouse had dropped her in a vault room. That meant she was somewhere in the center of the tower. She realized that it was his personal vault room, and that was why it didn't have any doors, or windows. He had memorized the location so he could come and go with whatever treasure he had taken from someone.

She used her sense to look for a weapon before she realized Whitehouse wasn't alone.

“Hello, Seera,” said Morehull. He leaned against a stack of boxes. He placed his red helmet on top of the stack. “I have some questions for you.”

“Really?,” said Wyndham. She waved at the room. “It's not like I'm going anywhere.”

“I want to know about your friend,” said Morehull. “He's here in the city. I want to know everything that you know about him.”

“He's a beggar that I hired to do some work for me,” said Wyndham. “Matter of fact, I still owe him for the last task he did for me.”

“This man is a beggar?,” said Morehull.

“Not likely,” said Whitehouse. “He killed Don like he has been fighting all of his life. There's no way he's some common beggar.”

“I didn't ask him what he did before he started living on the street,” said Wyndham. “I just needed someone to help with some things in my new position. He doesn't demand much payment, and he's quiet.”

She looked for Shanahan. He wandered the street at the base of the tower. She looked for Donald Goreman. He didn't appear on her mental screen. She looked for his corpse. That showed up downstairs.

She should have known that Mister Shanahan would not give up. She hadn't expected him to kill the Fist. Could he kill Morehull and Whitehouse before Grandview arrived with the rest of the spirit holders?

Did she want to think that he couldn't if he got the chance?

“So you don't know anything about him?,” said Morehull. His tone did not convey belief.

“I asked around before I hired him,” said Wyndham. “The local watch knew him. So did most of the neighborhood. He was described as quiet, unfriendly, and bad tempered.”

“That's exceptionally accurate,” said Whitehouse. “This beggar only said two words to Don before they started.”

“I'm surprised he said that much,” said Wyndham. “What is this about? You brought me back here. Why? I was away from here. I was minding my own business. What was the point?”

“Emil didn't say,” said Morehull. “I expected he didn't want your talent going to waste working for someone else when it should be working for us.”

“It's my talent,” said Wyndham. “I was finding lost people with it. I was actually helping others. You people are wasting your time with this.”

“And helping someone in another land is not helping us,” said Morehull. “What are we going to do about your helper?”

“Why don't you let me go?,” said Wyndham. “Then he will go with me when I leave here again. That way you won't have to worry about what he will do when he discovers how strong he is as the Fist.”

Morehull grimaced at that. The man in green didn't know the full extent of his power. The Sword hadn't thought of that. What would he do when he did figure things out?

The faction used Goreman as a human catapult against their enemies. He set up rocks behind their cover so he could throw them at the enemy. The large rocks tended to do a lot of damage to the creatures and structures that the Fist used as targets. It made the difference between a battle and a rout.

If Wyndham's beggar started throwing massive rocks at the tower, he could cause it to fall over eventually.

Emil was already going to be upset over losing the Horse and the Fist. When he got home and found part of his home lying on his city and crushing it, he might decide to try to take out his anger on the man he had left in command while he was gone.

“Will he leave without you?,” asked Morehull.

“I don't see why he wouldn't,” said Wyndham.

Wyndham didn't think that Mister Shanahan would give up. He showed himself to be singleminded. The only reason he would stop now was because he had gone to get the gate stone to go home and arm himself before coming back and finishing what he had started.

She didn't think that would occur to him since he seemed intent on applying pressure to Grandview's minions until he got what he wanted.

On the other hand, if she could trick Morehull into getting close to Mister Shanahan, he would cut the homeless man apart with his sword.

She should be thinking of ways to keep them apart so Mister Shanahan had time to figure out where she was, and rescue her. The only thing she could think of was giving Morehull the idea to use her as bait and hope Mister Shanahan could fight the other two off and get them out of the city.

She didn't want to rely on that. Morehull and Whitehouse in conjunction could slice through members of other factions before they could act. She didn't expect Shanahan to be any different.

If they caught him out in the open, he would need some luck to get away from them.

“I'm going to think about this,” said Morehull. He grabbed his helmet as he straightened. “Maybe we can reach some kind of accommodation with this man. What is his name?”

“It's Shanahan,” said Wyndham. Morehull might be thinking along the same lines as she was. He was hard to read in the best of times, and she couldn't tell what was going through his mind in the flickering light of the lamp Whitehouse had brought to light the room up.

She thought that he had some means to set a trap where he could control what Shanahan could do to get out of it.

“Arnold and I are going to have a little talk,” said Morehull. “He might bring you something to eat and some water. Don't attack him. If you do, we will just leave you in here until Emil gets back.”

“Why is he talking to the paper people?,” asked Wyndham.

“There's been problems with the dungeon in the north,” said Morehull. “Come along, Arnold. Seera doesn't need to hear our thoughts.”

Whitehouse grabbed Morehull's arm. They vanished in a flicker of air. The flame in the lantern danced at the movement.

At least they had left the lantern.

Wyndham looked around for anything that could be used as a weapon. She had a feeling that she was going to be an integral part of Morehull's plan. She needed something help her foil those thoughts.

Her talent pointed to the lantern. She supposed she could use that to set someone on fire if she got desperate. It pointed to what looked like a pry bar hidden behind some of the boxes. Dust on it said it had been sitting on the floor for a long time.

She picked it up and tapped it against the palm of her hand. It wasn't really heavy, but if she could use it on the right part of her victim, it might give her a chance to get free.

That's all she asked for at the moment.

And it would be a pleasure to crack Arnold's head open and use him to make some kind of escape. How could she do it?

She considered means until she decided to put her planning aside. It had started going around in circles. She didn't want to plan on things she couldn't count on.

The dungeon in the north causing problems was interesting, but it didn't mean anything to her in the end. The monsters coming out of it would be attacking the paper people's hex. The problem for the spirit users was the entrance/exit was on their hex.

She wondered what Grandview was promising the Wu Chi. They would not like monsters snacking on their people, spreading across their hex. They especially wouldn't like it if the monsters was coming from another hex.

The paper people had their own powers to deal with things. Maybe they wanted to close the entrance to the dungeon. If they wanted to do that, that might force the monsters out somewhere else.

Grandview wouldn't want that to happen. Monsters breaking into his tower, or running amuck in his city, would reflect badly on him. And hunting monsters down took a lot of time unless he did it personally and killed each monster as soon as he saw it.

Wyndham was the only other weapon who could hunt monsters with her mind. She could see any monster in the city if she wanted. She could feel them at a greater range.

If Grandview wanted that talent back under his control, that explained why he had sent a squad of his minions to take her from her apartment, and new life.

What could she do about fixing the situation from a vault room full of loose treasure?

She wondered if the coins could be used as a sap. She had been reading up on weapons used in her new land. The sap appealed to her.

She took off her boot. She had a striped sock on. She took that off. She used the pry bar on one of the boxes. She smiled at the gold coins glittering up at her. She scooped the coins up and dumped them in the sock. She twisted the opened end and tied it shut. She closed the box back up.

It wasn't much, but it was heavier than the pry bar. She nodded at the weight of it before slipping it one of her coat pockets. She would love to use it on her former comrades if she got a chance.

She doubted Morehull would let her go anywhere without restraints. He was one of the more cautious members of the faction. The only way to take him off his guard was to arrange for some kind of distraction.

That didn't mean there wasn't some way of dealing with him. She hadn't thought of it yet.