Kirk had dealt with pain before, but he'd never expected to be run over by a killer robot.

The ribs on his right side ached all over, and he suspected more than one of them had been broken, but it wasn't like he had the crypts to cover the treatments anyway. So he swallowed half a dozen cheap-cut painkillers to get himself moving again, and limped his way through the dock slums.

At first he circled back to where the thing had first accosted them, only to find the police had gotten there first, with a pair of baffled looking officers creating a small cordon to keep back the group of gawking civilians.

He could just see Barson's broken body beyond the cordon, one cop kneeling beside him with a scanner chirping in one hand. Kirk allowed himself a fleeting smile at that. Small mercies – at least that loud-mouthed piece of shit wouldn't be throwing his weight around on the docks anymore.

The smile faded, however, when he spotted a battered hunk of metal just beyond the police line. It took him a moment to recognise the violin case, now sporting a massive dent where it had struck the codewraith.

Kirk swallowed hard, weighing up his options. Right now they didn't seem to have noticed the violin, it having bounced so violently off the codewraith that it had been thrown clear of the cordoned area. They'd get to it though, he had no doubt of that. The first responding officers were still frantically babbling into radios, trying to make sense of what they'd found, but it wouldn't last.

He wanted his violin back, but probably more importantly, the last thing he needed right now was to be connected to a dead gangland heir. If the cops picked up the violin and started asking around, it wouldn't take long before someone pointed the finger at him.

So he slithered closer, taking painstaking care not to be seen. Right now the two cops present were a lot more concerned with the dead bodies than the surrounding debris, so he edged past the onlookers. Nobody paid any attention to a scruffy kid from the docks – he might as well have been ash on the wind for all they cared.

The case had landed between a trash pile and a small stack of abandoned crates. Kirk made a show of leaning on the crates for a moment, as though observing the police like everyone else, before stooping down, feeling blindly for the handle of the violin case.

Pain seared up his ribs as he bent over, but he strangled down a growl of pain and closed his fingers around the handle. Straightening, jaw clenched tight, he lingered for a moment longer like any innocent bystander might have, before shuffling off down a side alley.

Once he was sure he was out of sight, Kirk sank to his knees and opened the clasps of the battered case with shaking hands. Prayers from long dead religions passed his lips as he opened it.

The grief hit him before he could process it.

Nestled within its padding, the violin lay, its neck cracked in half and clinging together by a few stray splinters. He stared at it, not believing. Refusing to believe. Tears cut rivulets through the grime on his cheeks. Gulping down the lump in his throat he eased it gently out of the case like wounded bird.

Looking closer just made it worse.

"You fuckers!" Kirk screamed, and he almost hurled the violin away in his rage. He caught himself just in time, squeezing his eyes shut to keep the rest of the tears inside. There weren't a lot of things in Hadrian that he was sentimental about, but the violin was certainly one of them.

It was the only thing he was good at; the only thing he had to offer to Piper to cobble together crypts. Dockside nights flashed in his mind, memories of Piper dancing to his music, her smile lighting up his night. He would have worked himself straight into a grave for her.

But now she was gone.

He had to find her.

Sniffing and clearing his throat, Kirk placed the shattered instrument reverently back into its case. Maybe, just maybe, someone could fix it. Standing, he slung it across his back and exhaled a shaky breath; rubbed his eyes with one hand.

Find Piper.

*

He wasn't sure he should be thankful or not that there was a trail of destruction to follow.

The house that he'd been launched through no longer looked stable, its whole structure bowing dangerously now that it was missing most of one wall. Kirk limped past it, following the divot-like prints the codewaith had left in its wake.

He followed them down the alley and out into what would normally have been a busy street, except to his shock a whole stretch of this seedy slice of debauchery had been shut down. Stuffing his hands into his pockets, he slowed his pace, trying to take stock. Harassed-looking police were stomping back and forth, swearing into radios and ordering people back.

In the middle of the street were three dead bodies.

Kirk felt a bolt of fear in his heart for an instant, but it subsided when he realised that none of them could be Piper. Even under the oh-so-tasteful black tarps that cover the bodies, they were too big and lumpy to be her. He could see a foot poking out here; a hairy hand there, nothing that looked like Piper.

There was a lot of blood though. A lot.

As he examined the scene, he realised the unfortunate souls had been butchered in almost a perfectly straight line, leading from where he was standing, to the doors of a bar. Around the entrance of that bar two grey-uniformed officers and a fat, red-haired detective were conversing animatedly.

It chased her in there.

Well, there was no way he could get in through the front door, but front doors had never really been Kirk's style. Exhaling a steadying breath, he took a different approach, setting off at a lop-sided jog towards a connecting street to the right that he knew would eventually loop around through some rank back alleys towards the rear of the establishment.

He found himself kicking his way through filthy overspill from garbage bins that lined those back walls. The back alley was a barely lit, stinking crevice between two buildings, but that also meant that Hadrian's half-arsed cops weren't in any hurry to check it.

Kirk shuffled his way along and eventually wrestled himself loose, spluttering and gagging, trying not to think about what he'd just had to walk through. Clearing his throat and rubbing his watering eyes, he looked around, and when he saw the rear wall of the bar, he allowed himself a satisfied grin.

And lo and behold, there was the back window he'd hoped to find.

Kirk hobbled over, bracing himself to clamber up and inside, knowing full well that this was going to hurt. However, when he looked up to examine the window itself, he realised that it was already open.

He blinked and a thought struck him.

Looked down at his feet.

And barely a meter away from him lay the broken window clasp, snapped off by an expert with a knife.

Piper.

No sign of the wraiths footprints out here, but it had to be her. He turned, mentally mapping out the route in his mind.

And, ignoring every tremor of pain that ripped through his ribs, Kirk started running.

*

By the time he reached Piper's street, Kirk had managed to convince himself that everything would be okay. He'd find her, gathered round the dinner table, bickering with Arden, smiling that smile that could make the weight of Hadrian feel just a little lighter.

Then he turned that last corner and saw more cops. He saw the flickering blue glow of the holo-tape cordoning off the area; saw the ugly boxes of their patrol cars. And he saw the gaping hole that something had torn in the side of Piper's house.

He was through the cordon before anyone could stop him. One policeman made a clumsy swipe at him as he went skidding over the bonnet of one car, but Kirk slipped through racing towards that building, thinking all the worst thoughts in the world. Voices chased him, but he didn't care.

But before he could get to the house, a figure leapt out to bar his path.

"Woah now, kid." The woman barked, holding a hand up to halt him.

It was the other hand that dropped to the gun holstered at her hip that finally made Kirk pull up short, grimacing as another lance of pain rattled through his ribs. He gritted his teeth and spread his hands to show he was unarmed. She kept a hand on her holster anyway. The woman didn't have an officer's uniform – clad in baggy cargo trousers, a t-shirt and sleeveless hoodie.

A detective then? She didn't look like she gave much of a shit about what others thought of her, with a short sea of hair dyed a purply-blue, and a full sleeve of intricate tattoos adorning her left arm.

He edged closer, almost unable to stop himself.

"That's close enough," the detective barked. He heard the clatter of running feet behind him, and before he could make another move two firm hands grabbed him by the shoulders.

"Please, I need to-,"

"This is an active crime scene," the detective told him firmly, shaking her head. "Find another way home."

"No, wait," Kirk blurted as the officers started to haul him away, shaking his head. "What... what happened?"

"You let us worry about that."

"You don't understand! My girlfriend lives here!"

"And who are you?"

"My name is Kirk. Kirk Balfour."

The detective's lips twitched. "Did you see what happened here?"

"It was a wraith, wasn't it?"

Her eyes narrowed in thought for a moment. Then, slowly, she drew her hand away from her gun and straightened up, giving a slight nod to the officers. They stopped pulling, the grip on him slackening just a little.

"What would make you think that?"

"I told you, my girlfriend lives here," Kirk babbled. "Her name is Piper Russell. She lives with her mum and her sister. That wraith chased us all the way from the docks. I saw the thing with my own two eyes, detective. That's what did for those poor bastards over on Shanken Row, wasn't it?"

Several seconds dragged by as the woman stared at him. He could almost feel her gaze, willing the truth to come spilling from his lips. Except, it already had. He had no reason to lie.

"Let him go," she said, planting her hands on her hips.

Kirk's legs almost buckled when they released him. He hadn't realised that the solid grasp of the officers had taken some of the weight off his aching ribs, and when it disappeared the pain came back with a vengeance. He let out a strangled growl, clutching his side.

"You okay?" she asked.

"Another little souvenir from your wraith," Kirk answered, steadying himself. "Bastard bodied me straight through a wall."

"We'd best get you looked at."

"No, wait, please!" He shook his head, shuffling towards her. "Detective...?"

"Detective Delgado," she offered.

"Delgado, what happened? Is Piper here?"

"No, she isn't."

Kirk felt bile rise in his throat. "Is she...?"

"Kid, at this point, I just don't know. She's not here." Delgado glanced back at the house with a frown. "No sign of the mum or the sister either. And no sign of your wraith, but we know one of them was out here. God-only-knows how it got across the water, but I've got fifty plus eye witnesses who saw the thing rip up Vintero's place." She turned back to him. "Signs of a struggle in the house but no blood, no bodies. It's like the whole lot of them just went up in smoke."

"So... what happened?"

"That's what I'd like to know." Delgado reached into the inner pocket of her hoodie and withdrew a square case in a flash of dull gold. She clicked it open, and selected a fat, dark-leafed cigar from within.

Kirk was boiling with questions, but he got the sense that this was a ritual he should not interrupt. The case disappeared, replaced by a jet lighter, its blue flame roaring. Cigar placed between her lips, Delgado raised the light with painstaking care, setting the end of the cigar smouldering. The orange glow flared as she breathed in.

"Alright, Kirk," she said, exhaling a waterfall of smoke. "I think you'd better come with me. We've got a lot to talk about."

||