Mika moved more silkily than a cat from one shadow to the next. Her gloved hands pressed the dead hand to the scanner and the eyeball up for the biometrics and the computer voice welcomed Mr. Vimto to the jewel room. Now that the sensors were disarmed she replaced the body parts into her black backpack and headed in. The room was the same as any bank vault. Yet in these draws were millions in diamonds. Some draws held only the translucent stones, barely twinkling in the poor light. Without hesitation she transferred them to a pouch. In other draws they were set in platinum jewelry or in gold. They were accessorized with rubies, sapphires and emeralds. Mika considered the weight of her haul, she would have to base jump from the roof.

The bed and breakfast advertised as "quaint" and "comfortable." Rocio gingerly placed her travel bag on the worn carpet and rang the bell for service. An old woman came tottering out in her nightgown, and barely taller than the counter she peered at her. Her manner was of one interrupted from a favorite TV show. She was a great deal deafer than she had been just a year previously and she squinted at her new customer, her spectacles had been lost and not replaced. "One night" she said, "thirty five dollars." A wrinkled hand shot over the counter. Rocio took a step backwards. The woman narrowed her eyes. "Twenty dollars!" she said. Rocio turned to leave to find her way barred by a pitt bull. "Fifty dollars!," she crowed as the dog's rumbling growl grew louder.

The room was no bigger than a cupboard. The beige wallpaper was peeling and you could see the damp creeping up the walls. The bed was narrow and no doubt cut smaller to fit in the room. Then the door locked behind her..

The beast lay hunched in the brooding forest on the borderline between The Known and The Unknown. He was part of the latter but he was hungry for fresh meat. He was as large as a bear on it's hind legs and with jaws just as powerful, but his skin was a dull green and the claws he held at the ready looked borrowed from some prehistoric predator, they were twelve inches to the tip and sharper than a butcher's knife. He squinted his red eyes toward the dappled shade of the meadow that surrounded the people village and tensed his muscles ready to pounce. That sunlight would be murder on his delicate skin and almost unprotected retinas. Then came a sound to fill his heart with joy, it was a child, skipping and singing. A child who had not listened to it's mother's warnings about staying away from The Unknown.