I hurried out of the alley, Sean next to me. We stepped into the street, and a current of beings swept us along. Creatures in every shape and size walked, crawled, hovered, stomped, and slithered between the buildings, searching the merchants’ stalls and shops for that particular something that couldn’t be bought anywhere else. The street breathed and spoke in a thousand voices.

We wove our way through the current and stopped before a large building, its rectangular doorway dark. Sean grimaced. It wasn’t his favorite place. Damn it, I should’ve thought about it before bringing him with me. Nuan Cee, one of the powerful Merchants of Baha-char, was the one who'd hired Sean to become Turan Adin. Sean was probably being hit with all sorts of memories he was trying to forget.

“I’m sorry,” I told him. “But we need his help.”

“It never comes without a price.”

“I know.”

“We could just go back, get Arland, and storm the place…”

I stepped close to him and kissed him. It was meant to be a quick kiss, a brushing of my lips on his, but the moment we touched, excitement dashed through me. The memory of what it felt like to kiss Sean Evans short-circuited my brain. I threw caution to the wind and kissed him hard. My tongue licked his lips. He opened his mouth and I tasted Sean. Like drinking fire.

We broke apart. I opened my eyes and saw the deep forest in his eyes and a scarred feral wolf looking back. He was close, much closer than he’d ever come before.

Sean wrapped his arm around my waist, and pulled me close. A little thrill dashed through me. I was caught and I didn’t mind. Sean studied my face, leaned, and his mouth closed on mine. He kissed me back, deep, deliberate, seducing me right there on the street. I didn’t want it to stop.

Sean broke the kiss and turned his head.

A creature had emerged from the doorway. Hulking, shaggy with long black fur, with massive arms ending in clawed fingers and a monstrous face filled with fangs, it looked like nothing Earth could produce.

“The Merchant will see you,” the creature boomed.

“We should go in,” I whispered.

He let me go, slowly.

We followed the bodyguard into the tall foyer lined with gray tile. A waterfall splashed from the far wall, falling into a narrow basin. Here and there plants in all shades, from purple and magenta to emerald green, flourished in ornate planters. A table of volcanic glass waited in the middle of the room. I sat on a soft purple sofa by the table. Sean remained standing.

A curtain on the right opened and a fox-like creature barely three and a half feet tall, criminally fluffy, and wearing a jeweled apron, scurried out on two legs. I opened my mouth and forgot to close it. I had expected Nuan Cee. This was…

“Cookie?”

The short fox opened his arms and ran to me. I hugged him.

“What are you doing here?” Sean asked.

Cookie reached out to hug him. Sean hugged him back.

Cookie twitched his lynx ears. “Uncle is away on business. I’m in charge until he returns.”

He stepped back and very formally held his paw-hands together. With his sandy fur and bright blue eyes, he was almost too cute to be taken seriously. However, he was of clan Nuan and underestimating him would prove deadly.

“So what can the great Nuan Cee do for you?” Cookie asked.

“We need your help to bargain with muckrats,” I said. “They have taken an argon tank with a creature inside it as means of payment for a debt owed by a merchant. We need to retrieve the tank.”

“What do you offer in return?”

“A favor,” I said. I didn’t have anything else.

Cookie’s blue eyes narrowed. “I shall do this. In return, I will call on you in time of need.”

“Deal,” I said.

Cookie rubbed his paws together. “What do you have in trade to the muckrats?”

* * *

Fart.

Fart.

Faaaaaaart.

“Will you please stop doing that?”

Cookie giggled and waved the fart gun around.

Males and farts. Any species, any planet, didn’t matter.

We walked through the shadow area of Baha-char. The streets were narrow here, the colors duller, the canopies worn. Grime had settled on the doorways. The merchants stayed in their shops with their weapons within reach. Sean scanned the street with his gaze. I felt weary. Cookie skipped without a care in the world as if he was in the middle of a sunny meadow. Possibly because the hulking monstrosity that served as his bodyguard followed us, breathing down my neck, but most likely because his apron identified him as a scion of a Merchant clan. Harming a member of the Merchants meant signing your own death sentence.

We turned the corner. Sean stopped. High stone walls rose on both sides of us, enclosing an area about the size of a football field. Directly in front of us was an enormous metal wall, hammered together from giant rectangular hard steel plates. Smaller plates interrupted it, with rust and acid trails stretching from them over the metal. The huge gate in the center at ground level was big enough for two elephants to pass together side by side.

Cookie rubbed his hands together. “Stand back please and do not say anything.”

He raised the fart gun and let it rip.

A small plate slid aside about fifty feet off the ground.

Cookie took the smashing game and pounded it with the hammer. Lights and awful screeching noises broke the silence.

More plates slid open.

Cookie raised his hands and spoke in the chirping language of the muckrats. He waved his arms. He walked back and forth. He walked some more, lecturing. He lifted the fart gun and let out another blast of sound. He smacked the game with the hammer. He spoke again, then he fell silent.