Wolf Ramez

I held his hand in mine, and we teleported. We ended up in a small alley I had discovered when I had been here for the first time. It was a nice private place that I had never seen anyone enter. It was impossible to teleport somewhere that you hadn’t seen, so this was the closest area.

“Do you want to walk?” I asked Nick.

“Sure,” Nick said. The area we had landed in was one of the worst places. People in rags lined the streets, begging for money. I saw a pile of trash going up in flames, and trash was strewn everywhere on the streets. The air was dirty, as well. The remnants of the Asian Brown Cloud. At some point, the authorities had decided to stop all public transportation that emitted carbon dioxide. However, these laws had come into effect too late. The damage on the environment was already done, and it would take lifetimes to get rid of all the pollution.

“Where now?” Nick asked me. In response, I turned and walked down a street. Our light skin managed to attract some attention.

“Are we there yet?” Nick asked me. I looked at him closely. His eyes were tearing up, and his face was slightly pale.

“Hold on,” I said. “Just a few more minutes.” We passed a park, and I slowed down slightly, my eyes widening. There was a group of people protesting there. I looked at the posters that they were holding. They all bore pictures of Hernandez. They were simply holding the posters. No one was uttering a single word. Looking up the street, I saw several police running down from all sides. They were all armed, and running fast.

“D****t,” I said. “This could get messy.”

Nick’s eyes zeroed in on the spot. “Keep walking,” he said. He was right, and I hated him for it. Nick put his hand on the small of my back and pushed me forward. We couldn’t draw attention to ourselves. A second later, I heard a shot fire. I had grown up around violence. It was embedded in me. It was a part of my life, but when I heard that gun go off, the hair on my neck stood up. It took all of my willpower to move forward. I heard a woman scream for his child. I growled, and the air around my hand shimmered in the shape of a gun. Nick put pressure on my back.

“Don’t even think about it,” he said softly. I relaxed my hand, and we continued on our way, but the screams of the people did not fade from my mind.

We reached the cemetery, and walked up together to a completely random gravestone.

“I can’t sense anyone,” I muttered quietly.

“Neither can I,” Nick said.

“Let’s do this,” I said. We walked towards a certain gravestone. I bent down to search behind the tree the contract and money was supposed to be at, and straightened back up with a sack of coins that jingled in my hands and an envelope.

“Do you want to scout now?” I asked Nick. It was his call, since he looked like he was going to pass out.

“Let’s just hurry up and get this over with,” he said. I nodded. I ripped open the envelope.

Our target was an old merchant in what is former Japan. He ripped people off, and blackmails anyone for ratting him out. He had a wife, but they fought a lot, and nobody really cared for him. The payment was decent enough for a job like this.

“Let’s go,” I said. We teleported again, and we ended up in a small alley that led to the street the merchant happened to work on. It was a busy street, and all of us had frequented it a lot.

“Why don’t people just stop buying from him if they all hate him?” Nick asked.

I looked at the letter. “He blackmails certain people into buying from him.”

Nick shook his head sadly. “What is this world is coming to?”

“C’mon,” I said. I slipped my hand through his. “We’re a new couple in the area, and we need some food to eat.” Nick nodded. We stepped out into the main street and began to walk down it. There were many vendors and hawkers on both sides, and we had to slip in between people to get anywhere. We stopped at several stalls, inquiring about the prices and the quality. They were all relatively similar. Then we got to one of the main stalls, a stall which was clearly run by a more successful merchant. He had a sleazy look about him, and I immediately suspected him.

“How much for the pound of apples?” I asked the man, pointing at the red fruit.

“Four gold pieces,” he said. My eyes narrowed. Everyone else had offered no more than two gold for a pound.

“I see,” I said. “Well, thank for your help.” Both of us turned and walked away, but Nick pretended to bend down and whisper something in my ear. I turned back around to the man.

“Do you happen to know where we could get some furniture?” I asked the man.

The man seemed to perk up slightly at this. “I have some great pieces!” He said. “Would you like to see them?”

“Yes, that would be wonderful!” I gushed.

The man opened up a flap in his tent for us and led us inside. “Are you new around here?” He asked.

“Yes,” I said. “We just got married, in fact!” I pretended to be super happy about the fact when on the inside, I was retching. A sixteen-year-old getting married?

“Congratulations!” The man said. “And congratulations to you, good sir! Finding and keeping someone like her must be difficult!” Nick contented himself with a slight nod. The man finally stopped in a room. I wasn’t surprised that his tent was this big. Without the stalls, the street would easily be as wide as the length of a plane- if they still existed.

“Feel free to pick whatever you want,” he said. “I will have to go back out front, but please, do not try to steal anything. I will know if you do so.” The man disappeared without another word. I lowered my vision into the Cross World.

“The magic is minimal and easy to bypass,” I said. Nick was already looking at the furniture. I frowned. “You know that we aren’t going to buy anything, right?”

“His price is too high for the quality of his furniture,” Nick said.

“Do you think it’s him?” I asked.

“Was there a surname on the letter?” Nick asked. I dug the paper out of my pocket.

“Wolf Ramez,” I said. “He’s a descendant.”

“Alright,” Nick said. “We’ll walk back out in a few minutes, and casually ask for his name.”

I nodded. “That could work. And if it is him?”

“Then we start scouting tomorrow,” Nick said. “Definitely tomorrow.” I inspected him closely with my vision in the Cross World and was amused to find that he had put up a barrier to stop the polluted air from entering his system. It wasn’t as bad as what it was when he was little.

“So let’s leave?” I asked him. He nodded. We walked outside. “Thank you for letting us check out your selections!” I told the shopkeeper. I held out my hand, and he shook it. “What was your name?” I asked.

“I never told you,” the man said. For a second, a hint of suspicion entered his voice. “It is Wolf Ramez.”

I nodded. “Well, thank you, Mr. Ramez. We’ll probably be coming back!” I said.

Wolf Ramez nodded. “Do come back soon, then.” I laughed, and we walked away. After making sure no one was in an alley we entered, I teleported us away. We ended up right outside of our new home. The door to hit was on the shore of a beach. We always lived on a beach. Why, I don’t know, but we did.

“Think it’s him?” I asked.

“I would bet my life on it,” Nick said as he opened the door for me.