Ash stepped out through the eatery door with his small axe back at his hip and fresh air that felt different from the air inside. At the end of the road to the left of the eatery, a large tactical vehicle had stopped with its open cargo bed at the back.
A man was closing the iron bar at the rear of the cargo bed, his hands moving quickly to lock the latch. On the cargo bed, an iron cage stood at the center.
Ash glanced toward that vehicle briefly without taking in anything in particular, then looked ahead, choosing a direction not yet decided before starting to walk.
"Boss! Hey, over here!"
That voice came from the direction of the vehicle. Ash stopped and turned.
Inside the iron cage on the vehicle's cargo bed, the elf woman was smiling at him and waving her hand as if greeting an old friend.
Ash's expression that had been flat changed. His eyebrow lifted slightly, then he stared longer to make sure his eyes weren't mistaken.
"You?" he said.
Ash stood in front of the rear cargo bed of the tactical vehicle, his eyes on the iron cage on top of it.
The elf woman was still sitting inside the cage, her green hair disheveled after her hoodie had been forcibly pulled back, but her expression didn't reflect someone who had just been caught. More like someone waiting for something boring to finish.
"Give my money back." Ash's voice was flat.
The elf woman furrowed her brow. "I didn't take your money."
"I can smell my wallet on you."
The elf woman went quiet for a moment, her eyes blinking once. "What?" Her voice dropped half a tone. "Is your nose like a dog's?"
Ash didn't answer, his hand going straight through the gap in the iron bars, reaching toward the inside of the cage. The elf woman stepped back two paces to the far side of the cage, just outside the reach of that hand.
She exhaled shortly, then her hand went into her trouser pocket and pulled out a thin wallet. "Fine, I give up." She held the wallet out in front of her with two fingers. "You're right, I was the one who took it."
"Give it back."
The elf woman didn't immediately extend it. Her eyes shifted toward the wall across the road, toward a poster stuck there, a sketch of the hooded figure with numbers below it. "200 Virel." Her finger pointed at the poster. "That's what my head is worth now." Her eyes returned to Ash. "Is what's in your wallet worth more than that?"
Ash glanced toward the poster briefly, then his eyes returned to the wallet in the elf woman's hand and didn't move from there.
Footsteps were heard approaching from the right side. One of Jason's men who had been locking the rear of the vehicle walked toward Ash with his hands on his hips, his eyes looking from head to foot.
"Who are you?" he asked. "Do you know this woman?"
"She owes me."
The man snorted. "That woman belongs to Master Jason now." His hand pushed Ash's shoulder backward. "So, leave before you regret it."
Ash didn't move at all, like pushing a mountain boulder. The man furrowed his brow and tried pushing once more with greater force, the result was the same.
"I'm not going anywhere until she returns what's mine."
The man stared at him for several seconds, then his hand moved to his hip and his pistol rose toward Ash's head. Two others approached from the left and right, each with hands already on their weapons, all their eyes on Ash.
From inside the cage, the elf woman looked left, right, at the men now fully concentrated toward Ash, at the cage key hanging at the hip of the man standing closest to the rear of the vehicle.
Then her eyes returned to Ash, and her tone changed completely from before, higher, slightly trembling, like someone who was genuinely afraid. "They're going to sell me, Boss." Her hands gripped the bars. "You have to help me."
Ash glanced toward her with a slightly raised eyebrow.
The man who had been pointing the gun at him also turned toward the elf woman, then back to Ash, his expression somewhere between confused and suspicious. "Looks like there's something you need to explain."
The street fell silent for several seconds, only the sound of vehicles passing on the main road not far from there.
An iron rod came from the side, swinging toward Ash's temple at full speed, accompanied by a shout from the man swinging it. "Are you mute!"
Ash's left hand rose, deflecting the rod from below, and it flew out of the man's grip, spinning in the air and landing on the asphalt several meters away. To the right side of his head, the sound of a pistol mechanism was heard, and Ash shifted his head several centimeters to the left, enough to move the pistol muzzle away from his head.
BANG!
The bullet passed where Ash's head had been half a second earlier and struck the man who had swung the rod. That man collapsed instantly.
Ash swung his right fist at the jaw of the man who had fired, and that man was hurled backward, his back striking the wall before his body slid downward.
"Try not to kill the one holding the key, Boss!"
The elf woman's voice sounded cheerful, almost like someone watching a match from the stands.
Jason pulled the trigger without warning.
BANG!
The gunshot shattered the noise of the marketplace, and the bullet pierced Ash's chest on the left side. His body staggered half a step back, then Ash cried out once, short and sharp, before his knees hit the ground. Blood poured heavily from the wound, falling onto the cobblestones beneath him, and the color was not red.
It was bright purple.
Jason stood still. Bruno beside him did not move either. Both of them stared at the puddle forming slowly beneath Ash's knees, a color that made no sense, too vivid to be called blood. The puddle spread for a few seconds before the ground absorbed it entirely.
Bruno swallowed hard. "Boss ..."
Jason did not answer. His eyes did not move from the figure kneeling before him.
***