“What do you want out of all this?”  I asked Bob, looming over him a bit.  “You want to keep chasing after me?  You want to engage in a full-on fight?  You’re in way over your head, shifter.  Chances of you winning against me,” I made like I was doing math, “yeah, next to nothing.  I suppose there’s always a chance I somehow trip and manage to kill myself, but otherwise, you got nothing.”

“I’m not defenseless!”  He objected angrily.

“Oh, sure, sure,” I patted him on the head condescendingly, making him even angrier.  “But you’d be going up against a naga with decades’ more experience than you have.  You really want to take that risk?”

“My friends – ” he started to say.

“Oh, yeah, you want to bring them in, have a three on one, eh?”  I rolled my eyes.  “Well, that should tell you all you want to know, if you think you can’t defeat me unless you brought your precious friends along.”

He did shut up this time, looking unhappy.

“Let’s say, for argument’s sake,” I acted patronizing, “you won.  Let’s even say you killed me.  Then what?  What do you get out of it?  Your boss is long since dead, the gang ended – which you can blame on people within the gang making bad choices, by the way.  I may have put you on the defensive side, but it was your own people who then ran the gang into the ground.  But anyway, the gang’s gone.  You just get revenge, that’s the joy?  You think that’s worth all these decades of hate?  Or somehow you imagine the gang will come back if I disappear?  What’s in it for you?”

He actually started to look puzzled during my speech.  “Well…vindication?”

“Of what?  That I shouldn’t have killed him when he broke the contract like that?”  I raised an eyebrow.  “We all have our own code we live by and what we choose to do when someone disrespects us and backstabs us like that.  What would you have done if that was you in my shoes?”

Now a bit of embarrassment fluttered across his face.  “I, um, I might have – I’d probably have killed him, too,” he admitted reluctantly.

“Look,” I told him bluntly, still keeping a cooler persona on, “I don’t care if you still hate me.  But as far as I’m concerned, the only way I see this end is you dying or you walking away willingly.  Fine, maybe I die, and you get your precious vindication.  Does that really change anything in the end?”

He thought about this for a surprisingly long time.  “No,” he said at last.  “Okay, okay, I get it, I think.  There’s no point to keeping the grudge this long.”  He sighed heavily.  “Fine.  If I agree to call it off on my end, you’ll agree to leave me alone, too?”

I sat back and considered, my arms crossed.  “I’d intended to let the matter drop 35 years ago,” I stated coolly.  “You and your friends are the ones who insisted it be kept alive.  So now I have to wonder if I can take your simple word for it that you’ll call it quits, and I’m not sure I can.”

“Well, what do you want?  I don’t exactly have the ability to do a dragon promise,” he burst out, annoyed.  “Yeah, I’d rather live than die, and yeah, maybe it’s better for everyone to just drop it, ‘cause you’re right, it’s kind of pointless now, but beyond acknowledging that, what?  You want it in writing or something?”

That actually didn’t sound like an awful idea.  “Sure, writing’s not so bad.  Let’s come up with a new contract then, just for you and me – we both agree to walk away, leave each other alone – which includes their property and friends and all,” I waved vaguely at his house around us, “and that’s that.  And if you violate the contract,” I gave him an icy smile, “you know how I feel about people violating their agreements with me, don’t you?”

He shuddered a bit.  “Fine, yeah, you’ve made your point.  You could get into my house and get the drop on me pretty easily, I don’t doubt you could find a way to get me again.  And – you mean it?”  He asked hesitantly, a bit of worry in his face now.  “About, um, leaving alone other people, too?”

I looked at him for a moment, then swiftly cast my eyes around the room until they stopped on a picture.  I went and picked it up, not oblivious to his squirming as I did.

“Got a kid, then?”  I asked a little quieter.  Then I looked back at him, straight into his eyes.  “You know how I feel about hurting kids.  That’s the reason all this started.”

“Oh.  Right.”  He deflated a bit.  “That’s – right.”

“Kids – humans or supernaturals – don’t deserve to get dragged into the adults’ fights.  It’s bad enough for adults, but at least they usually can choose to get involved and know what the risks are.”  I set the picture back on the mantle place carefully, before turning my attention back to him.  “I never bother kids.  Or non-combatants.  I have a code, Bob.  It involves killing those who break their word to me, yes, but it also means I would never harm a kid unless it was genuinely in self-defense.”  There could be that situation.  A kid armed with a gun was a threat, and I’d have to deal with it, but I’d do my best not to hurt them as much as possible.  I still had the memory of my brother burned into my head and I would do everything I could to not let other kids be victims of, well, anything.  Maybe too idealistic, really, but I was strongly of the personal opinion that kids should get to be kids.

That did bring up an unfortunate dilemma with Bob, though.  I honestly didn’t want to have to kill him if he had a kid who was still in his young teens, in looked like, from the picture.  His kid didn’t need to lose his dad like that.

Maybe that was part of the reason Bob got more cooperative as I wrote out a contract, keeping it as neutral for both of us as possible.  Aka, neither of us would seek revenge or harm each other deliberately, or harm each other’s friends, family, or property, etc., etc., and preferably if we encountered each other we would just pretend like we’d never met before and go about our business.

By the time I finished with the couple of comments Bob wanted added to it, and was satisfied with how it was, and then printed off a second copy from his computer, his paralysis had worn off enough that he could use his upper body, which meant he could sign it.  We both signed both copies, then I took one, and left the other one for him.

“The paralysis will finish wearing off in another 30 minutes or so,” I informed him.  Then, despite knowing it might be a little bit less of the scary persona than I’d kept for the rest of the meeting, I nevertheless felt obligated to offer to stay.  “Want me to stick around till it wears off, just in case?”

He seemed surprised at my offer, but after a pause, shook his head.  “Just – can you get me my gun from the cabinet?  Can’t imagine I’ll need it, but if some other shadow from the past pops in during the next 30 minutes, it might be nice to have something I can use with my hands.”

I retrieved it, a little alert as I handed it to him just in case he was planning to use it on me despite the conversation we’d just had, but he just tucked it into the side of the recliner, then settled in more comfortably until he looked around, frowning.

I figured out what he wanted before he could ask and spotted the TV remote, which I brought over to him as well.  He looked a bit embarrassed.

“Um, thanks.”

“Don’t mention it.”  Really, don’t.  This was kind of an awkward thing right now.  “And don’t take this personally, but…I kind of hope never to see you again.”

He grimaced a bit.  “Same, really.”

On that, I headed out, hearing the TV switch on behind me, and relieved that this had turned out about as good as I had hoped for.  Better, in fact, because we now had that contract.  Sure, I technically now knew he had a kid, but he also knew I’d never hurt the kid, so that wasn’t exactly an issue for either of us.  I was actually inclined to believe he was willing to just let it go, given that he’d clearly moved on from a life of crime, possibly because of his son, I wasn’t sure.  But he had reason to want to just end this and less reason to want it to continue, now that I’d pointed that out for him, and he’d agreed that he’d rather avoid dying…so I was fairly confident my issue with him was over.  If he’d really wanted to, he could have tried to shoot me after I gave him his gun, especially when I was heading out the door with my back to him, but he hadn’t.

So Bob the shifter was handled.  Now to figure out how to deal with the nightwing and centaur.

~~~~~

Ambrose frowned the moment he spotted me, his frown deepening as he got closer.  “What happened?”  He asked without preamble as soon as I was able to take his order.

“Ran into an old acquaintance,” I responded cryptically.  Yes, lovely, bruises on my face from where Bob had hit me right after I bit him.  Thankfully, they were mostly on my right side, where my blind eye was, so most of them were hidden by my hair, but there was just enough across my nose and jawline – Bob hit hard, unfortunately – that they were visible to others.  Several of the other patrons who were members of my “fan club” had sounded all sympathetic or even admiring, like somehow the idea of me getting into a fight was appealing to them, but Ambrose was genuinely worried about me.

“Is it…a good or a bad thing?”  He asked hesitantly, his eyes still searching my face.

“Good, actually.”  I gave him a bit of a smile.  “Got a third of my project finished now.”

He lit up a bit, though he still seemed worried about me.  “And the, uh, rest of it?”

“Later.”

He thought about this while I served his drink and moved onto another patron, waiting patiently until I was free to talk about.

“Do you have help?”  He asked earnestly, almost forgetting where we were.  “I hate to think of you, um, solving this by yourself.”

I shook my head at him, briefly.  “I’m afraid this isn’t something you can help with.”

Ambrose was not pleased with that, but accepted it anyway.  The next time I came back around to him, he seemed determined to move the conversation into happier lines.

“If you were putting together your ideal date,” he asked me with the tiniest of blushes, “what would it involve?  Would you want to travel somewhere?  Eat at a fancy restaurant?  Watch a movie?  What?”

Ah, the rich kid in him made an appearance.  Since I knew he’d dated before, I was a little surprised at his suggestions – was that what he just usually did on dates, because that’s what he’d seen when he was young, or did he just imagine I’d be in the mood for something like that?  Even though I was definitely not rich person material?

“Hmm,” I considered, noticing that a couple other “fan club” members had heard his question and were not so subtle about eavesdropping.

“Food’s usually a safe bet,” I responded at last.  “I mean, most people eat, right?”  I winked at him.  He actually knew that some people didn’t eat regular food, like vampires and dryads, but hey, at least we weren’t any of those species.  “I guess it depends on what I’m in the mood for.  Want a romantic night, fine dining could help set the mood, but want to have fun and get to know your date better?  Take them somewhere the food is so spicy you start crying while eating it.”

Ambrose’s eyes got round at that last suggestion.  “Spicy food?”  He asked hesitantly.  “Do you like spicy food?”

“I do come from a culture where we eat lots of spices,” I informed him.  He’d probably never tried naga food before, but I was fine with eating pretty much the hottest spices on the planet thanks to having my taste buds regularly torched for most of my life.  “So, yeah.”

He looked a little uncertain, which made me guess that spicy food was not his thing.  Roland and Miranda never served it at their house, so it didn’t surprise me that Ambrose might not have gotten accustomed to it, even after all these years.  Some foods were an acquired taste.