"I know this is rather unusual, madam, but we'd be very grateful if we could stay here for, say, two days," Michael said politely after introducing himself.

Indra was just turning away when he mentioned the willingness to pay. She changed her mind swiftly.

"I don't know why gentlemen like you would want to stay here instead of an expensive hotel," she said, addressing Michael and Serrin while pointedly ignoring Tom. "The rooms are clean, but nothing flash."

"Precisely," Michael said, a smile insinuating itself at the corners of his mouth. "However, we aren't here to sample the delights of your, er, employees. There's someone we want to see, who told us we could find her here. If you could send someone to fetch her, quietly and discreetly, of course, we would naturally pay well for such a service."

"Yes?" Indra prompted, meanwhile gesturing to the orks to begin carrying the bags up the stairs. In moments the squeals of girls unwillingly being turned out of their rooms filtered down after them.

"Kristen. Kristen Makibo. She's an, er, friend of ours. She called us from here," Michael explained.

Indra looked them up and down. "That girl has friends like you?" she said disbelievingly.

"Most certainly. Mr. Shamandar here is her godfather," Michael said quite seriously.

Indra burst into laughter and patted him on the shoulder as she ushered the group in.

"Godfather? Mr. Sutherland, you shouldn't tell such wicked lies to an old woman. That girl ain't got no ordinary father, nor mother, and sure as anything there aren't any gods holding cards for her."

Michael raised his hat to her, smiled mischievously, and headed up the stairs.

"She's over at the doc. I'll have her here within the hour," Indra said determinedly. Michael guessed she'd give the girl a grilling before turning her over, and said it was urgent.

"Say fifteen minutes," the woman agreed as he passed her a wad of bills. Having spent less than expected to grease the eager palms at the airport, he was feeling generous.

"And a gin and tonic, I think," he said finally.

"It's an act, Tom," he whispered to the troll as they headed up the creaky, uncarpeted stairs. "She expects it. I know how to play my part. It's just the way things are done sometimes."

"I don't understand you," the troll said by the time they got upstairs.

"You haven't spent much time with Brits, have you?" Michael didn't waste a minute waiting for an answer. He was eager to unpack and hang up his clothes, and he just knew there wouldn't be a trouser press in the place.

Dismayed at the condition of his room, Serrin still wasn't sure whether he agreed with Michael's idea about staying here. True, it would be the last place anyone in his right mind would consider looking for them unless that someone had access to the phone and fax numbers that had brought them here. Later, he would want to cast some magic to conceal them, but he'd have to be careful about spellworking in case Indra went off the deep end about such things. He didn't sense any magic around the place, but he also didn't know much about Cape shamans and mages and he certainly didn't want to take the chance of giving offense if Indra did have one on tap.

Michael was halfway through his drink when the ork bouncer practically threw the girl into his room. So this was Kristen. Her appearance was appalling, with the crude stitches in her ear and her clothes covered with dried blood. Her hands also showed heavy graze marks and she looked like a frightened child expecting a beating for some guilty secret. Which, he suddenly realized, wasn't so far from the truth.

"I'm Michael," he said. "Serrin will be here soon." He was trying to be soothing. "I'm sorry if you suffered some rough treatment being brought here." She just stared at him, trembling slightly, neither speaking nor moving.

"Please sit down," he said, smiling. "We've come all this way to find out what you know. It's important."

That seemed to help. No one had ever made Kristen feel significant in any way until this moment. Looking slightly less terrified, she sat down slowly in the rickety

chair next to the table by the window, but still didn't speak.

"The pocket computer you mentioned, the one where you got the names. Do you still have it?" he asked. She was halfway through shaking her head when Serrin appeared in the doorway, apparently not noticing the presence of the girl.

"Michael, you must be out of your mind paying to stay here. When I put my shirts in the cupboard, the top shelf collapsed and I got a faceful of whore's underwear and a couple of roaches. Frag it, can't we stay at "

His voice trailed away as the Englishman shook a finger reprovingly at him.

"Watch your language, old boy. There's a lady present."

As Serrin took a step into the room and looked around, it was his paleness and the gray eyes that she recognized. The slope of his forehead. The limp in his movement, the bad leg. Then she realized that she could have seen the eyes, the pallor, the brow, in the photograph. Nasrah could have read her the detail about the leg. But she couldn't have known the way he moved from words and pictures on paper, and yet she did. She knew exactly how he favored his one good leg, how he tried to compensate, because she recognized it. And that truly frightened her.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled, "I didn't mean

"It's all right," she managed to say, her own voice sounding distant and faint to her ears.

As he came into the room, Serrin was disturbed by the brief, uncanny sensation that he'd lived this exact moment somewhere before. But the feeling was short-lived, no more than fleeting. Her appearance was so startling, like she'd just been in an argument with a truck.

"I'm Serrin Shamandar. We spoke," he said. "Have you been here long?"

"Just got here. Sunil was checking my stitches," she said.

'"Are you all right?" the elf said, alarmed. "Is it anything serious? We can

"Stop fretting," Michael said coolly. "Kristen was able

to walk in on her own two legs. I don't think she's going to keel over imminently.

"But we should find somewhere safe to talk," he said, looking disapprovingly at the open door. "Kristen, we could do with coffee and some real food, but let's go somewhere we can talk without being overheard. Do you know a place like that?"

She smiled a little. "It's still a little cold at the waterfront, but we could sit outside and it'll be quiet. Won't be many people around. I don't have much money, though," she said a little defensively.

Spirits, Serrin thought, she thinks we're expecting her to invite us to breakfast. His heart warmed to her.

"Not to worry," he said quietly, smiling at her. Suddenly he was aware of how intently she was staring at him, for all the world like someone studying a portrait in a gallery, searching for something hidden.

"We'd better worry about it," Michael said laconically. "We've got a hungry troll to feed, for one thing. Let's get Tom and finish the introductions. Then we'll go and talk. There's a lot to find out."

Kristen changed her mind as they were leaving Indra's. Suddenly, she didn't want to take them to any of her usual haunts on the waterfront. Part of her wanted to show off in front of her chummers on the street, but that might only stir up resentment against her later on. Some of the harder cases might not look kindly on an uppity kaffir girl afterward. So, mischievously, she took them by cab to one of the plush places off the Strand. The money there would find her offensive, but with the company she was keeping today they wouldn't dare try to throw her out. As they walked along past the flower market, she stopped to buy a tiger lily orchid, an absurd extravagance. She put it in her hair, over her untorn ear, as if it were something she did all the time, using her reflection in a shop window to position it just right. At least my face didn't get ripped up, she thought. I don't look too bad.