The gate guard was being an asshole. I could sort of understand, since they had actually called us for once - it was like pulling teeth without anesthesia to get any person of authority in the Republic of Germany to call us even if a witch were
setting fire to their hair. Of course in a way, one was.

We had dubbed her "the Puppet Master." Her main ability seemed to revolve around taking control of people, manuevering them from the shadows as if they were made of wood and strung to her fingers. She was not subtle enough to hide herself completely, but just subtle enough that the Germans, who normally liked to handle their witch troubles themselves whenever possible, called The Hunt.

And the Hunt of course, called me.

Which led to the last reason the guard was being an asshole. I looked like a homeless person who'd been dead for a week, and therefore obviously had no money. This was on purpose - it's the little things that make life worth living. The bored looking little roach of a large fat man stared disinterestedly down his often broken nose and bleated again:

"If you've got no money and no trade goods then shove off! This gate is closed to beggars."

Another look around revealed all sorts of people heading through the gate, courtesy of this jackass's partner. Old, young, rich, poor, dirty and clean. All headed through the 12 foot steel gate in the 15 foot granite block wall without a care in the world. I couldn't stop a grin, and cut my attention sharply back to my flabby roadblock. Sure enough, he was stumbling away with a look of horror rising to the fore. He looked like he wanted to scream, piss himself, and pull his sidearm... all at once.

My smiles tend to have that effect, I'm told.

Looks like I had to do damage control... ugh, and so early into the assignment. I pulled out my badge, the symbol of the hunt and flashed it at him, making sure to keep the movement subtle and hidden by his bulk... which was pretty easy all told. His eyes widened and his mouth opened.

"You're...."

Too loud. Way too loud. My hand reached out on it's own, and pulled him closer to me, shirt collar first. This had a further beneficial effect of shutting him up.

"You need to shut up. You blow my cover here and well, let's just say I won't be happy. You've just gotten the bribe you were looking for, and you're happy, right?"

He nodded, clearly terrified now. Hmpf, some guard he was... a plush toy could own this place, the modern town of Vymar.

"Now now, that just won't do. You're happy, it's a large bribe... so smile."

I patted his cheek with my free hand as I put him down. His smile was a weak thing, easily crushed by the glimpse of my weapon he'd caught. I really didn't think it was possible for him to go more pale, but he managed.

"Go right in, sir."

"Thank you good sir! Have a wonderful day!"

Sheesh, act like he'd never seen a pistol before. He was wearing one! I pulled my cloak back around my face, carefully tuning out the sound of ripping as another hole was opened up in the rotted cloth. It couldn't show anything but more of the same, so I wasn't worried; my disguise was foolproof!

"Yo, Sasha."

Damn it.

"Hello, Dusty."

Dustin Silverman was in the same business I was, and a black like me. He was almost as good as I was, too. If almost meant not even close. I'd been promoted from both grey and red before him, I had the better mission success rate... and I was taller by a half inch. Any smoke he could blow about being better than me was just that; smoke. I had to admit he was the type the ladies go for, despite being short; dyed blue hair, a boyish face with just a hint of the masculine in it, compact corded muscle suitable for a gymnast. Or for someone in our line of work. He cut a good figure in his expensive tailored suit. His
weapon, an absolutely lame naginata, was absent.

He wasn't my match in looks of course, but he wasn't my match in anything else, so that was to be expected. He looked a bit angry. He caught my head in the ultimate schoolyard move, the noogie.

"That's Dustin you barbarian. Try to remember."

Oh right, he didn't like to be called dusty... it reminded him he might get dirty. Speaking of which.

"Might want to let me go. You're getting your suit dirty."

He let go so fast I stumbled, darn near falling. I decided to press my advantage.

"So you're my backup?"

It was customary to send a team of 3 to 6 for most witches; though they were single and acted alone, they were usually powerful enough that we needed multiple hunters to ensure a kill. In rare cases two teams were sent. In really rare cases a hunter would meet one of the 25... and multiple teams would be dispatched. Usually multiple teams led by whites. The top 25 were the most wanted of the witch world for good reason. Cities had a tendency to die around them. Sometimes countries.

"Yes, I'm your backup. It was decided that you tend to be a bit too... straightforward to tackle the puppet master alone."

"What? That's bullshit. I can get her no problem."

He sighed.

"I'm sure you can Sasha, but without announcing your presence? Without mass property damage?"

Urk.

"Um, sure! I got this."

"Well just in case, my team is staying at the Hilton. Call if you need us."

Sure, right. If I knew Dustin, he'd be making his own investigation. He would want to get the collar (and the sizable bounty)before us, the cheap bastard. Oh well, I could always call if I needed like he asked, or ignore it and say the portable cb's couple mile range wasn't enough. Or claim it was broken, whatever.

Communications was crap for everyone anyway; Hunters had the best gear, just old school CB's with a few repeater stations. Everything else - satellites, radio towers, heck even roadways with cars and trucks - were all targets of the witches. Oddly enough they left steam trains alone, as long as they burned wood. At least for the most part; you never could tell with an angry witch.

Which was why I had to walk in, the Hunt had it's own train lines, but not to here...and regular train tickets were expensive. the price one had to pay for a regiment of soldiers and a squad of Hunters to gaurd the train in the first place. What I wanted to see though, was a plane. the ability to fly like a bird through the air, and get to places so fast a witch couldn't escape me in time; that would be worth any cost.

I realized Dustin had moved off while I was meditating (that's right, meditating) and I decided to go check in with my team; due to an unforeseen witch hunt in the hilly farms a week away, I'd been delayed from taking this case, and my team were two reds. They were not powerful enough to take on a witch without me; the good news is they were smart enough to know that. With luck they had used their skills to find the witch for me.

I hated the hidey ones worst of all, they were always a pain to find. A straight up fight is best. And of course with a name like 'the puppet master' this one would be one of the hidey ones. The police of this burg had only caught a hint of her trail because one of their districts had a slightly higher death rate with an unusual cause.

It seems that people under her influence act a bit off, and a bit less natural... then their hearts explode in their chests. The current theory is the death is a week after she first takes control. So far in district two (a lower middle class district where her predations seem to be centered) 14 people have died this way. And that was with my last information; it's likely much higher since it's a month later.

So what I was looking for was a young woman (witches were always women, and always young - the process that made them witches halted the aging process) with indulgent habits and a self satisfied sneer. there could be many suspects in this place... Vymar was the epitome of a modern city.

Concrete and impact resistant glass everywhere you looked; precious few wooden buildings (mostly in the poor district) and large reinforced roads to handle the buggies and carts all the vogue in places where people no longer preferred to use their feet. They even had streetlights, and a few buildings over three stories... which was just asking for witch trouble. But then the civvies never do ask our opinion, and the Germans doubly so; they are as addicted to their gadgets as the Japanese were reported to be. Before the nation was destroyed that is.

At least the manufacturing plants (one for steam engines and one for the metal frames of concrete prefab houses) and the textile mill were well protected and as far away from each other as possible. So they weren't completely ignorant of the target they represented. A patrol of four police, armed with the standard pistols were down every street, or stationed
on the corner. Some of those even watched me as I walked nonchalantly along towards the rendevous point.

It was probably my sublime whistling.

In fact, only the 4th street in, it appeared my whistling had picked up an audience. Four of those men in uniform had been following me, and now moved to intercept; I did not object when they grabbed, lifted, and ushered me into a relatively shielded alley away from prying eyes. It was done so fast that a normal person would have no time to object, and nobody from the busy street noticed.

The fourth man, their officer, yanked my hood away quickly. He improved my mood by taking a bit of hair with it, as my hood violently parted ways with the rest of the cloak in an explosion of dust.

"Who are you and what is your business here?"

"Now is that any way to treat a guest to your fair city, Captain?"

He flushed and started fingering his pistol.

"Talk now miss, or face the consequences."

Oh, for fuck's sake. Not twenty minutes in town, and this already. Again. I could imagine Dustin doing cartwheels in my head and cheering, waving a victory flag. I lowered my center of gravity slightly, then drew myself compact while making a tight circle with my body, arms out, clearing them. I wasted no time and drew, sighting both barrels of my antique yet still very functional colt navy revolvers. One in the captains' face so close his eyes crossed, the other to crony number 1.

"First off, you're an idiot. I'm a guy, you jackass. Second off, I'm the last one you want to be pissing off right now."

The captain drew back far enough to actually see the guns and paled.

"...The maniacal marksman!"

And of course he goes from blind to cowardly, like his guard buddy at the gate. All us Hunters had nicknames, given to us by a grateful populace. For example, Dustins' was 'the heavenly flow' because his naginata, once plugged into a generator, could generate a gate through which water would flow. Or something, I wasn't too sure on how his stupid weapon worked. I was 'the maniacal marksman' because I used guns.

Very powerful, very explosive guns. And of course, I almost never missed. There was that one time in Morocco... but I was drunk, so that didn't count. That city needed remodeling anyway. The maniacal part was due to my grin and infectious laugh; it really had nothing to do with the property damage and casualties. Those were all caused by the witches.

After all, how dare they resist?

"Oh dear god, I can't believe they sent you; I must warn the town!"

I reached out and snagged him.

"You'll do no such thing. You want to warn the witch that hunters are here? You'll cause as bloodbath."

He stopped and turned woodenly. Then he did something that probably shouldn't have caught me by surprise, but did. He reached out and fondled my right pec.

"Forgive me! I only wanted to make sure. The rumors never described you! I thought you'd be... taller."

I removed my gun from the inside of his nostril and eased the hammer back.

"I have to go meet my team. If anyone asks, you saw me, checked my papers, and I'm a travelling merchant from the north."

"Uh, right. Please carry on sir."

I really can't blame them for being on their toes, but if they are pulling shit like that the witch is going to notice. The real question is have they before today; if so then the witch is either blind or knows we're here. If not, then we have a chance. It was obvious to me that the captain saw a person he thought was suspicious (and female, hurl. I'm not that girly, damn it!) and decided to act on his own. The real question is how many others were jumping the gun, thinking they could find and kill the witch.

And I really couldn't wait till that next growth spurt. I was sure being taller than 5 foot 5 and weighing more than 140 pounds would help this whole mistaken identity thing. this wasn't even close to the first time that I'd been accused of being a witch myself, despite the fact that I was plainly a guy.

I found the rendevous without further annoyance. A small old world style inn that was actually shaped to look like an old pub at the end of the poor district; 'The Rusty Nail'. It was without a doubt the worst hive of scum in the entire city; which of course made it the perfect home away from home.

"Yo Norre, you're late."

"Yo Ivan. Had to make a little side trip is all."

Ivan was a big tall russian bear of a man, and an old special forces hand. His specialty was knives - big almost sword ones. He also wore enough throwing knives to act as a makeshift anchor for a ship. All his cutlery could be charged by his generator of course, making him a deadly close and mid range fighter to any witch. He was dressed a bit better than I was, with leather being predominant.

Hey cured animal hides were better than rotting burlap any day, but I had a statement to make!

He followed me to the bar, and stood behind me while I got the bartender's attention.

"Beer me; something domestic."

The bartender did not argue. He knew I was young, but that carding thing went out of style about the time everyone started dying; nobody worries about that crap now. Or if they do, Ivan is always there to back me.

"Table in the far corner, watching both the exits."

I followed Ivan's directions (always a good idea to sit where you can see the entrances/exits) and found Alicia there. She immediately frowned. Three mugs in front of her... she was mellow; that meant I had a chance to avoid a scene.

"You're late, ass."

"I had something to do."

"Something, or someone?"

She leered back. OK, a bit more than mellow, she was downright tipsy. I took a look at my beer, which turned out to be darker than black. Minor mystery solved there.

"In a manner of speaking, both. Don't worry, you'll get your cut - if you keep your mouth shut."

After all, if she talks I could get suspended, since I already had a job; but if the higher ups think that I ordered them ahead to take care of this witch while I killed the other... well they'd still be pissed, considering they thought the 'puppet master' was dangerous, and didn't know about the other one. Hmm, I did not think this one out very well.

"Well goody for me."

Alicia replied, promptly thumping her head on the table. I checked my beer again while waiting for her to revive. She didnt. Alicia was the type of woman you right home about... if you write horror novels. She was tall and in shape, and that was the best that could be said about her.

Her shape was mostly an inverted triangle, and she weighed almost as much as Ivan. I suspected she had to shave every morning, and I don't mean her legs, which were more hairy than some bears I'd met. It was however, a given that she could walk from one end of the town to the other and not be accused of witchery. Even worse, she used whips and wore form fitting leather.

I turned to Ivan.

"Sop then?"

He nodded. Sop was standard operating procedure; also known as 'let the annoying woman drink herself stupid any time it's feasible'; just fewer problems that way. It seemed to have worked this time as well, since the bar was still standing. I took a sip. The beer was as potent as I thought it would be, a direct hammer to the tongue.

"So tell em what happened."

"Well Ivan, there I am, walking along and minding my own business just walking down the road, when a witch comes out of the farmhouse next to me with blood all over her. Of course I had my uniform on, and she's got her stupid hat and a stupid wand in her hand, and we stare at each other for a minute before she starts to fly away."

He's nodding.

"So of course I blast her and hit her wand, and she drops like a stone and breaks a leg. then her stupid familiar, a mud man of all things, flows up and grabs her, and they both start running again. Only even with the broken leg, her and the mud guy prove to be fast, so I end up spending three days chasing the bitch till she can't keep her familiar summoned anymore. One in the head, one in the heart, I grab her hat and here I am, just slightly late."

"And the farmers?"

I took a long draught, reveling in the cool feel of the beer flowing down my parched throat.

"God only knows what drew the witch to 'em, but she got them all. Kids were in a pretty standard hiding spot -the cellar- and she got them too, just before I arrived it looked like. The bodies didn't have time to cool."

Ivan knew I'd checked before giving chase. He would have too, even though we both know better. On that score, Alicia was one up on us. She never checked.

"So now one more hat registered in your generator eh?"

"Yep, and since we're a team, you both get cuts."

Teams get split up all the time, and reassigned. Something to do with traveling speeds and locations, etcetera. Ivan and Alicia would both get a third of the money, and the energy from the hat itself - the witches power conduit. It always amused
me that we used the witches' own powers to defeat them, through the generators and their linked weapons. Of course when you took a hat from a witch she became... docile. Destroy the hat, by weapon or generator, and the witch died.

"So how was she, this farm witch?"

"Feh, she was weak as all hell. She paniced right off and ran from the first. Her sole offensive ability seemed to be the ability to shoot pink hearts from her wand; they couldn't even stand up to a standard generator fueled load out from the Colts. Made me sick to look at her after the first day. I think even Alicia could have taken her alone."

"Then her hat will give us little energy."

The problem with having weapons that run on the energy of a witches hat is that the hat eventually runs out of energy. After all, a dead witch isn't alive to power the hat. Some teams have died in the field because they didn't gauge their energy consumption. Of course, the highly successful teams have energy to burn.

"It's OK man, we got more than enough; I was just adding to the pile. We can link genny's later. we drink now. And maybe food."

With an upraised arm, he called a barmaid over. That's what I liked about him, he never argued. Well, not about food at least. The barmaid was a blonde, fairly pretty as barmaids go, and taller than I was.

"Yes? What can I get you both?"

I held up my somehow empty mug.

"Another one of these and whatever you have in the kitchen."

She came back with two full mugs and one plate full of sausages, fried potatoes, and an apology.

"I'm afraid this is all that's left from the lunch rush, and dinner isn't ready yet."

"It's fine."

I replied with my mouth wrapped around a sausage. She blushed and stammered her thanks, then stumbled off. Weird, wonder what her problem is? I checked - guns were still hidden. Meh, whatever. I looked over to a rare sight; Ivan was showing me all his teeth. Well I knew how to stop that.

"The locals are getting antsy. One of their patrols stopped and escorted me into an alley in broad daylight."

He pondered.

"Well, you ARE a good 4 days late."

"It's a dangerous world, they should be used to people being late in it."

"My friend, these are Germans. They go crazy if their trains are a minute late. Having someone like you running loose in their country, and not being where he's supposed to be... to them that's as bad as a witch. but to answer your first question; no, I've not seen or heard of anything like that here before, in the weeks I've been here."

This was the acid test; I tried to keep the hope out of my voice.

"Any idea where she is?"

He shook his head a trifle sadly. Damn it again.

"Just that shes in this district. She can't have very good range, as she's leaving the local government alone. She can't be able to keep very many under her spell I think; Perhaps as many as 4 at a time. I base this on how the bodies have been found. Usually in small groups at once, and 4 was the largest one of those."

Hmm, she sounded weak now that I was here. I kind of hoped that wasn't the case. But then, even now we'd need to find her before she found us. If she caught us first we'd be her puppets for a week, then dead. Ugh, I hate all this thinking crap! Ivan interrupted with great timing; after all I don't think running out and shouting to her to 'come on out' would work.

"Hey."

"Yeah?"

"You're done eating, aren't you?"

I looked at my empty plate. Not even grease marred it.

"Yes."

"You need sleep, don't you?"

He passed me a room key. Good old number 3.

"Yes, that's part of the plan, what of it?"

"Well you've had two of those beers... "

He pointed at Alicia.

"...3 put her down. And you're a bit of a lightweight. so would you help me get her upstairs before the alcohol hits and you pass out, please?"

I gave him my best 'I'll melt your head off' stare. He remained unphased, so I shrugged.

"Sure. Let's go."

(tbc)