Novek spent the interminable wait muffling his gear with cloth and oiling anything that might squeak and disrupt his mission to find and escape with the kit unnoticed.

  While there was still covering noise, he also unblocked his window, loosening the wood plank barricade so it would be easy to remove when the time came.

  The last sounds of activity died down at last, and most of what he could hear were snores of those who had decided to remain in the inn for the night out of an abundance of caution. Not everyone had stayed, but probably a third of the village was still here. Now that the rest of the noise was gone, he could clearly hear the infrequent pacing of two people keeping an inconsistent watch outside for any further activity. They weren't moving at all times, so he guessed that they were looking around, then sitting down until it felt like time to check again. Sloppy, but it would make things easier for him.

  He waited for both guards to finish their ‘rounds’ and sit back down, talking quietly to each other to alleviate the boredom. Stupid — they wouldn't be able to hear faint noises while talking.

  A quick glance out the low-quality glass window told him the side street — really more of an alley given the size of the village — was dark and thus probably unoccupied. He lifted the pane slowly, glanced to the sides, and slid out — making sure not to let any of his equipment bump or rattle — then closed the window after him on a small strip of leather to avoid an audible bump, then pulled the strip out.

  Pausing in the dark — well, dark to Humans, he could see well enough — he listened for any alarm or notice of his exit. Hearing nothing, he moved slowly and quietly towards Lennert's house, and the vodat kit.

  The house was as it had been earlier. The door was still closed, and the lights out. That was good. He debated whether to use the key on the front door — exposing himself to the street — or if he should just break in a side window. He decided to go with the door. It was faster, and carried no real risk of being overheard. Humans had terrible night vision so as long as he moved slowly, he'd be almost invisible to anyone, even if they looked down the street.

  Hugging the wall, he came around the corner and got up on the small porch which had been the site of both of the night's tragedies. The key went in easily, the door unlocked, and he slipped inside, closing the door behind him softly. He re-locked the door — best to not be interrupted while he searched the house.

  It was a single story, and not very big. It only had four small rooms that he could see, thus why he'd called it more of a hut earlier. The roof was thin and not very high, so he assumed the kit would be underneath floorboards, where sound would be muffled and size was restricted only to how much they'd felt like digging.

  He guessed that they wouldn't hide things in the living room with the front door — there'd be no way to retrieve an object without a visitor seeing where they hid things, so that left 3 rooms as candidates. A small kitchen and two bedrooms. He glanced in the bedrooms, they were filled with whatever possessions the group had owned and had almost no space to move around. Unlikely, then. He decided to try the kitchen first.

  He disqualified the cupboards near the basin and cutting board — too visible from the living room. Other than a thin wall-mounted pantry, that only left the kitchen table against the inner wall. There was a small rug underneath the table. One of three in the place. If that wasn't it, he'd eat his hat.

  It was. It took only moments to lift the carpet and move the table off of poorly cut boards underneath. Pulling one up, he could immediately see a small, maybe meter deep dirt pit. There was no way they'd done this only for the kit — this was obviously in support of an established side hustle. There were various goods sitting on the bottom or hung on pegs sticking out of the sides; Novek ignored those. The soot-darkened bag sitting in the center was all that mattered.

  Lifting the bag up, he set it to one side. The kit had obviously been sleeping, but woke as he'd lifted the bag, and it was struggling against the thick, baffling cloth. The idiots could have suffocated it like that. If it hadn't been a vodat, they might have. He mentally downgraded them from kidnappers to stupid kidnappers.

  He untied the rope holding it shut and let it fall open — it was no proper sack, just a cloth that had been folded inwards.

  There was the kit, almost invisible — even to him — in the darkness, then it blinked, and he was staring at a tiny pair of green eyes.

  The eyes stared back. The kit stopped struggling, but kept staring upwards. He motioned silence, calm, safety in Tradish quickly, unsure if the kit could even understand him.

  They'd bound the kits forelegs and hindlegs together with more rope and blackened cloth and Novek's temper flared suddenly. The kit jerked and cowered in response, and he immediately regretted losing control for even a moment. He calmed himself and signed safety again. Rather than reach for his knives, he simply extended a claw and cut through the thinner rope around the legs.

  The kit remained calm, but stretched out its limbs — it would be sore, he was sure. Novek wasn't sure what vodat, and more specifically vodat kits might eat, so he took the small items he'd prepared earlier out and set them to one side. He didn't want to waste time, but he had no idea how long it had been since the kit had eaten. At least since dawn, he knew for certain. A few small bites of meat, some cherries, and he poured water into a bowl he'd kept from the inn for the purpose.

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  Novek took a crouched step backwards and sat down on the floor, indicating the food and bowl. He needn't have bothered — the kit immediately ignored him and ate everything he'd put down. He only had a few more cherries, but he rolled those over as well. They vanished, pits and all. He realized he should have done something without a pit. Too late, everything seemed fine.

  He waited for the kit to finish and look back at him, which only took a couple of minutes, mostly for the water. He signed we, leave, safe. The kit didn't seem to pay attention to the signs though, and only kept staring at his eyes.

  Hmm.

  Packing up the bowl, he also — slowly — lifted the kit off of the sackcloth, partially to start cleaning up, partially as a test. The kit did not react with more than a bit of a sideways look.

  He gathered the bag, ropes, and any sign that there had been a kit or anything alive here, replaced the boards, the rug, and the table. Finished with that, he checked to make sure it would look like the kit had never been here, and neither had he. Good enough.

  Novek crouched back down, and put his sizable paws down, in front of the kit, and tilted his head down, indicating them. It stared back at him. He tried indicating with his eyes instead, and that got across immediately. The small black fuzzball crawled into a paw, pressed a few times to be sure of the footing, and then curled up.

  Novek's heart broke a little at that moment. He decided then and there that if anyone did anything else to harm the kit, he'd kill them, then and there, no questions asked.

  He was, after all, merely a kind person. Not a good person.

  It was past time to leave.

  One final glance around the room, and he moved to the door. With the kit in one paw, things were going to be a bit more difficult, but he refused to try to put the kit in a bag. It had more than enough of that for a lifetime, he thought, and he'd not traumatize it further.

  Opening the door, he looked side to side down the street. No lights but the moon. No sounds except the night air. He stepped out the door, then turned to close and lock it again.

  “You know, I'd wondered if it being another cat would cause a problem. Can't say as I'm surprised.”

  Novek whipped around at the voice. It was the village head, the two ex-militia, and the show fighter.

  Only now did he smell them. Tricky. What had given it away?

  They lit the torches they'd been holding while they stood there in the dark. They must have crept up while he was searching or feeding the kit. The militia were armed with pikes. Astilla was in leather jerkin and wielding her cestus. They were serious.

  “A mercenary who didn't ask immediately for pay, and you slunk off without a celebration? I didn't want to believe it but Wend here insisted. I suppose I was wrong. So, what did you steal?”

  They couldn't see well enough in the dark. The kit was pure black, and their torches spoiled their vision as much as aided it. Let's keep the focus on me, then.

  “I've stolen nothing. Taken nothing that could belong to anyone. Everything they stole,” he indicated the house, “is still inside the smuggler's stash.”

  “See, if you were a better liar, you'd have tried to say something small, it was what you were owed, but you were taking it to save us the burden of paying. I might have let it go at that, even. But now I'm just curious. Why are you here, in the dark, past midnight, breaking into the home of three victims, the last of which you were the only witness to the actual death? Did the vodat even kill him? Or did you? I'll ask again just one more time, what did you take?”

  It was unfortunately at this moment the kit decided to uncurl and gaze at them with its bright green eyes that glowed faintly in the dark.

  “It's another vodat!” This from the other militiaman, Denem.

  The head man was winding up to say something, but Novek decided he'd had more than enough for the day, thank you.

  “I will not have this discussion with you. I will not be threatened by you. One of your people took their kit, their child — possibly kidnapped, in the eyes of the law.” Novek's voice threatened to turn into a growl.

  “What? They're beasts — Ber — it's not a child, it's an animal. A killer.”

  Only then did Novek realize that he had not asked if the kit was awakened. He assumed yes, but it was late now. He'd find out soon enough.

  “You don't know that; Vodat don't speak.”

  “Then they're hardly people, are they!”

  “That is not for you to decide. The child is likely too young to have language yet, even if awakened.”

  “People are dead by this animal's pack. My people! I will not let this killer escape, to return and seek either prey or vengeance.”

  “It's not your choice. We're leaving. The only question is who is left standing when we do.”

  “You can't threaten us. You're no Ber to fight us all at once, and a single shout will alert the other guards. We're not the only ones awake and waiting for you, merely the ones standing here. Give us the kit and get out of our village, and we'll forget this happened.”

  “No.”

  “Arrest him. Don't let the kit run.”

  The head man was decisive, Novek had to give him that. Both ex-militia started to step forwards.

  But Novek was a trained soldier. A trained killer. Used to making life and death decisions in an instant, without deliberation about future regrets, lest he not live long enough to have them.

  But being his own person meant he could choose who to kill. So he did.

  There was a reason he kept his throwing knives attached at all angles on his armor — few could keep track of when one left its resting place and moved into his dexterity-enhanced paws. Astilla's booted foot was suddenly pinned to the ground by one. She yelped in surprise. The pain would come soon.

  But his knives were kept in pairs. He leapt to close the distance to the head man. The militia had tried to step forwards to intercept him, but Novek was no out of shape militiaman who had retired to a small village. He was a mercenary actively searching out work who had happened here on his way to more dangerous, and thus more lucrative places.

  So, before they could stop him, he had the second knife to the head man's neck. Not that it would have mattered, he could have used a claw just as easily, but Humans considered weapons more threatening for some reason.

  “You've done nothing to me except threaten. Yet. So we're still playing by training ground rules. But we're done here. I was willing to step out in the street, alone, against one or more known Ber. Tell him what that means, show-fighter.”

  She gritted her response out from a clenched jaw. The pain had clearly arrived. “Let him go. Notify the constable. He can't kill us without bringing the law down on his head — too many know we came to confront him.”

  Novek didn't wait for them to decide. To do so was to imply they got to choose. He turned and started walking out of town, kit in paw, while Astilla tried to free their foot.