STRANGER, jesper fahey

CHAPTER ONE

"Give me a name."

Kaz Brekker didn't need a reason the saying went, whispered around Ketterdam as the sound of a cane hitting the cobblestones echoed around the forlorn streets, walking away from anxious eyes and leaving terror in his wake. He didn't need a reason to cause destruction, to take you for everything you have while there was truly nothing you could really do about it...well, for most people, there was nothing you could do about it, because if you went up against the likes of Brekker, you'd be lucky if you kept your eyes in tact.

The dregs, the demon named Dirtyhands who lead them, they were all something you didn't want knowing that you wanted to cause trouble, because the least they would do would be laugh off your pathetic attempts with a few broken bones and torn apart ego...but if they thought you were a threat, thought you were someone who had gotten too confident in your slander over their crew...than you'd be lucky if you died quickly, it was as simple as that.

However, to fortunate and quite frankly, rich, souls such as Eddard Nobles, there was something he could do about it...and he planned to do so most indefinitely...because the bastard of the Barell deserved to be taken down a peg or two, after all, he'd taken the man for almost everything he had, his riches, his paintings imported from around the world, even some of his men who'd apparantly been no match for the mere boy who seemed keen to tear whatever was left of his empire apart like he did with every other rich bastard who got in his way.

But luckily for Eddard...there were monsters everywhere in Ketterdam, hidden in shadows and some plainly lying around in broad daylight, salivating and hungry for blood, for kruge, for death...and it was only a matter of finding which ones had the sharpest teeth and more dangerous claws. There were plenty of assassins, of mercenaries, of people who were killers who'd take the job...but he didn't want any of those, he wanted the myth, the legend...Eddard wanted The Stranger.

He'd listened to the whispers, listened to the stories that spread around through loose lips, heard the terrifying tales of something immoral that came in the dead of night if asked too, and taking your name as their own as they drained you of your own morality, and then leaving you there amongst your own floor, dead and gone with nothing more than a whisper on your tongue and a fear that struck the hearts of those who knew them, and who knew who...or quite frankly, what killed them. No signs of forced entry, no signs of a fight, of poison, of fear...just a rotting corpse that had been taken far too easily from a monster hiding in humanity's plain sight.

So, he planted the seeds of questions, of inquires through what was left of his trusted men, forcing them to wander through the streets, through high and low with their name on their tongue, trying to find a scrap of information of the being that made people drop like flies. Bars, taverns, brothels were some of the easiest places they'd gone, through no such luck, then they'd be made to go to the Gala's of the rick folk, to parties and such, but every time they'd come back with apologises on their lips, well, the ones that made it back did anyway.

But the truth was, Eddard, contrary to popular belief, was no fool, he knew no one would admit to using The Strangers dark talents of death, no one would give their location in fear of what they could do, no one would even act as if they existed other than to be a horror story to tell their children at night, all about the great beast that haunted Ketterdam. The truth was you didn't simply find the Stranger...The Stranger found you, and it was up to them whether you lived or died.

He'd sent out those inquiries a week ago, and every night since then he'd been on edge, pacing back and forth across his bedroom floor, refusing to see or talk to anyone, paranoid eyes constantly flickering around the room as if expecting to find them waiting for him with a knife in their hand, ready to gut him like a fish for asking questions he didn't know the answer too...but as soon as the order had left his lips for his men to look for The Stranger, he'd regretted them, but he refused to turn back now, not with Brekker still at large and taking him for everything he had.