Artful Evil

by C. G Harris

  I peered around the inside of the shop looking for something to write on. Sticky notes weren’t really a thing in The Nine, so I poked by head into the back to find some scrap ... anything. I climbed up the tall stairs and was surprised to discover more than our usual stock of Twinkies and Coke.

  Lined up on the front seat and floor were several strange box-shaped electronics. Not the finished outer shells, but the raw metal skeletons and circuit boards. They all had a sort of clear, black orb on top and sported a trail of long wires out the bottom. It looked like Zoe— or someone else—had figured out how to hot-wire the things to a car battery as well. One of the shoebox sized contraptions had been rigged with clips capable of hooking to the fat terminals of one sitting next to it.

  I leaned in close, examining the handy work. It didn’t look complicated. The loose wires had obviously led to the previous power source to operate ... whatever these things did.

  Zoe was up to her neck in something, and it didn’t look good. I considered waiting her out. Sitting here in the shop until she got back and forcing her to explain what all these electronic doodads did. It wouldn’t do any good. She would either tell me they were new snow cone machines or say she was holding some stuff for a friend. Either way, I doubted she would be honest with me. We were way past that. Even after our talk, it was clear she didn’t care about this place. I began to wonder if she ever did. Whatever these things were, I would find out for myself, then come back and discuss it later.

  I hefted one of the devices off the back of her pile and carried it out to the front of the shop. After a moment’s hesitation, I decided a note was overkill too. Announcing I came back would only alert her to the fact that I saw her stash. At least the missing Whip Crack wouldn’t be all that obvious.

  I stomped outside, kicking the door shut, and slamming the lock home. The light was almost gone, so with my Whip Crack holstered over my shoulder, I tossed my new toy into the basket on the back of my trike and started pedaling. The anger that surged through my limbs made powering my ride much easier than normal. When would I learn not to trust people?

  I pushed on through the dimming light consumed by my disappointment. I no longer cared whether it was dark or not. If any baddies jumped me from the shadows now, I’d say bring it on. I was in the mood for a fight.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Alex and I made our way to the warehouse Marcus had described. We were in a seedy part of town, like pretty much everywhere in The Nine. Shanty type buildings lined the maze of patchwork streets and pathways. Sheetmetal and spare steel lay strewn all over the ground, and Woebegone seemed to prowl and scurry like rats from place to place, searching for heat, food, security, anything not readily available to those who existed in The Nine.

  “How much further is this place?” Alex walked with her arms at her sides looking like a gunslinger ready to draw. She wore her Song Reapers under the wide sleeves of her leather duster and was prepared to snap them out into action at a moment’s notice.

  I wore my Whip Crack holstered over the shoulder of a denim jacket. Hostility poured out of me, and if some lowlife wanted to feed my blades, I was happy to oblige.

  “I have no idea. You heard Marcus same as I did. We get there when we get there.”

  “Wow.” Alex peered back at me. “Did Godzilla pee in your cereal this morning?”

  I huffed out a breath. “Sorry. I had a rough night. I went to the shop. Zoe and I had this long talk about taking care of the place and what really mattered. Turns out it was nothing but a big story to throw me off her scent.”

  Alex winced. “Sorry.” She climbed over a tangled mess of wire, making sure to kept at least one of her arms free. “Zoe is her own breed. I’m not here to judge anyone’s past, but it does speak to her character. All that information we found doesn’t mean she’s Scrapyard City’s newest serial killer, but I think she’s capable of a lot more than you’re giving her credit for. She has a dark side. She’s not the wholesome girl you knew when she was a brainless Freshborn. You need to accept that. She has baggage like the rest of us, and hers is full of a dark past. Like it or not, that’s a part of her. Understand that, and you might not be happy, but you might find you are less disappointed.”

  I nodded. Lord knew I had my fair share of baggage. Far be it from me to expect anyone to drop theirs at the door.

  “Thanks for the reality check. Sometimes I need a slap in the face to see straight.”

  “Anytime you want me to slap you, just say so. I’d be glad to do it right now.” She raised a hand, and I grabbed her wrist to stop her. She had a Cheshire Cat grin on her face, but she didn’t resist me.

  “You’re a good friend, but I’m okay for now. I’ll let you know if anything changes.”

  Alex dropped her arm and shrugged. “Suit yourself. Maybe I’ll surprise you later.”

  I chuckled, then pointed up ahead at a large structure; a place that big meant it was reinforced against firestorms somehow. That kind of integrity did not come cheap, which in turn meant corrupt, ruthless, and violent. All things I made it a policy to avoid ... pretty much never anymore.

  “I think that’s our spot.”

  Alex eyed the huge warehouse and let out a long whistle. “I don’t know who’s in there, but that place is well funded. I don’t know if we have the clout to kick in their doors.”

  “I feel like kicking anything in that place would earn us a whole lot of time in the Pools,” I said.

  “Marcus said the painting would be up near the dock in a red and yellow crate. How hard could it be to spot? Let’s find a window to peek through.”

  Alex groaned. “Fine, but we’re only looking. No Batman superhero entrances.”

  I laughed. “Come on. You can be Batgirl.”

  I started to slink forward, but Alex wrapped her fingers around my throat and squeezed.

  “Call me that again, and I will slap you so hard you’ll think you’re the Batboy Wonder for real.”

  I held up a hand in surrender. “Okay, okay. Not Batgirl.” I pulled away from her and made sure I was out of her reach then said, “How about Bat Lady or Bat Woman ... No wait ... Bat Broad.”

  Alex lunged for me, but I managed to stay just out of her reach. “And you can’t say the Batboy Wonder. That’s mixing up heroes. It’s Batman and the Boy Wonder. You could pull that off with some yellow tights and a cape. All you would need is a cool mask. You already have the hair for it.”

  I took a step to run and avoid Alex’s wrath when a lower level Hellion showed his tall, lanky form outside one of the warehouse doors. Alex and I both dove for a stack of crates to conceal our location next to the wall.

  I peeked through a crack between the boxes, trying to spot the Hellion, when pain accosted my right ear. I stifled a scream as Alex all but twisted my earlobe off and pulled me back toward her.

  “I am going to twist this thing until you look like an elf if you don’t take back everything you said.”

  She twisted harder, and I winced, tilting my head to try and minimize her leverage.

  “I take it back.” I shout-whispered. “I take it all back, everything I’ve ever said. Everything about you, about bats, about girls, everything.”

  “And Bat Broad?” She twisted harder.

  “Terrible idea. Who would even think of something that sexist? I wouldn’t want to be associated with someone like that.”

  Alex let go, and I sank six inches to the ground.

  “I’m so glad we have these little chats.” Alex shoved me to the side and peeked through the crack I had been looking through.

  I pulled myself back up. “What’s with you trying to twist off my ears lately?”

  “What’s with you saying things to deserve it?”

  She had a point.

  “The Hellion’s gone. Peek through that window and tell me what you see.”

  She pointed up to a dirty pane of glass above us. I would have to stand on one of the crates to peer inside, but the window should giv
e me a clear-ish view of the dock area without exposing us too much.

  “Okay. Tell me if our friend comes back.”

  “Any more cracks, and I will call him over and throw you into his arms.”

  “Sheesh,” I whispered. “You really have a thing for bats.”

  Alex turned to glare at me, but I ignored her and climbed up to peek through the window.

  “What do you see?”

  I groaned. “Well, the good news is I see the crate. It’s a ways back in the warehouse, but it’s on a table right out in the open.”

  “What’s the bad news?”

  I ducked back down behind the boxes and crouched next to Alex. “It’s surrounded by about a half-dozen low-level Hellions and a bunch of Woebegone thugs. That place makes the mafia look like a bunch of preschool teachers.”

  “One Hellion was bad enough,” Alex said. “We can’t stand up to six of them and a bunch of Woebegone. There’s only so far I’m willing to go for a Coke.”

  I looked around, trying to think, when I noticed something across the way. Something no Hellion gangster would leave home without. A rusty Cadillac complete with smoked out windows and chrome rims.

  “I have an idea.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I stood on the crate below the window, watching the Hellions and Woebegone inside the warehouse. There seemed to be two separate groups. One belonged to the warehouse itself and was comprised largely of the Woebegone staff. They worked at pulling or rearranging the warehouse stock while a single Hellion supervisor orchestrated the whole thing. He wasn’t huge by demon standards but compared to a human-sized Woebegone, he was Conan the Barbarian with Rocky Balboa riding on his shoulders.

  He had an insectoid look to him: greenish with an exoskeleton and long, mantis-style arms. He looked like he could swing one of those limbs out like a machete and hack half the staff in two if he wanted.

  The rest of the occupants looked to be a visiting set of Hellions of all shapes and sizes. Some squat and heavy, some tall and lean. They were all of the lower level variety, like Bug Face, but just as deadly when it came to the tender anatomy of a Woebegone. They seemed to be negotiating the sale of a few items, one of which was the three-foot red and yellow crate I was interested in. The flat box sat on a table with several other antiquities, and Bug Face was deep in negotiations with a squat demon so wide he had to waddle from foot to foot in order to move.

  I watched them haggle and barter. At one point, the negotiations reached a fever pitch, but, in the end, they shook hands ... pincers, whatever, and several of the demons behind Squatty began gathering up the loot to leave.

  I backed off my perch to scan the street. Alex should have pulled off her little stunt by now, and I began to worry that she ran into some trouble of her own. Before I could abandon Plan A and dive headlong into B, the Cadillac parked outside the warehouse roared to life.

  Fit for a funeral, this stretched-out luxury job billowed smoke and unholy noise from every orifice. The engine roared a few more times, then the rear tires howled out a scream of rubber, and the demon-mobile tore off down the street, dodging debris and gaining ground with every second.

  The warehouse docks spewed low level demons like a shotgun blast with them hurling down the street at full speed. Even Squatty was along for the ride in what looked like a baby carrier on steroids attached to a much beefier Hellion with long legs. One of the Hellions sprouted wings and took flight. That wasn’t something we had planned for. I hoped Alex could hold them off long enough for me to snatch the goods and make my getaway. An airborne pursuer might be a game changer on her end.

  There was nothing I could do about it now. Alex had done her job. Now I needed to do mine.

  I climbed onto the crate again and peeked into the warehouse. Just as had I hoped. Nothing but Woebegone personnel left to tend to the stock. Time to go to work.

  I unholstered my Whip Crack, and the rasp of blades announced my arrival at the open bay door. The workers inside took one look at me standing there, seething for blood with my hungry weapon, and ran the other direction. I didn’t know where the other exits were, but they abandoned the place like rats on a sinking ship. Not one of them stood their ground.

  Don’t get me wrong. Part of me was overjoyed that I didn’t have to fight my way into the warehouse, but not even one? I expected more from a staff employed by a Hellion crew boss.

  I shrugged and hurried over to the table where the crate rested, still stacked along with the other antiquities Squatty and his buddies had bartered for. There were works of art, statues, and even a vase that looked to be Egyptian or maybe Roman in origin. I didn’t see what they had paid, but it must have been a bundle. These things were old and that equaled expensive no matter where you were.

  I ignored the more impressive pieces exposed on the table and focused on the painting. I set my Whip Crack on the ground at my feet then reached for a crowbar placed next to the crate. Maybe it was part of the convenience package. After a bit of prying and well-placed effort, the front of the crate popped free. I lifted it away to reveal the contents and was aghast to see the most horrifying clown painting I have ever witnessed in my life. This guy would clear out the circus and scare away every lion, tiger, and monkey in the big top.

  The clown wore a painted blue smile that read pure child-molesting mass-murderer. His hair was a shock of greasy red covered by a decayed bowler hat. He had a cracked red nose which bore a spider from its nostril and an oversized bowtie that had been pulled and jerked to the point of near failure. Almost as if someone else had used it as a handhold in a last-ditch effort to ward him off and failed. The paint was cracked, and the finish dulled by time. If there were a more horrifying image put to canvas, it would be registered as a terrorist weapon.

  I slammed the lid back on the crate and realized I had been holding my breath. I gasped in a long pull of air then let it out again. I didn’t know how Dan got mixed up with this clown-loving Hellion, but if this painting was any indication as to his demeanor, squirting flowers and rubber chickens were definitely not his bag. We needed to do this deal and get Dan in the clear, or I had a feeling losing his bar might be the least of his worries.

  I tapped a couple of the nails back into the top, holding the crate together, more for my sake than the painting’s, then went to pick it up. Before I could, the dock door rumbled to life with a jaw rattling creak and began to go down. Out of instinct, I reached over my shoulder for my Whip Crack, but as soon as my hand hit the empty holster, I realized my mistake. It was at my feet on the floor. I dove for it, already knowing I was too late. Just as I thought, my hand found nothing but bare concrete and dust. My weapon had been swept away by a sickly green carapace. Bug Face had hung back to meet me after all.

  Chapter Thirty

  “I don’t suppose we could talk about this.” I spied my Whip Crack behind Bug Face on the ground. He had reached in with his other foot and swept it out of reach. “Would you believe I’m an art lover?”

  Bug Face emitted a series of mucousy clicks and clacks. His mandibles flexed like a worker ant’s when he spoke, making it look more like he was licking his chops than trying to communicate.

  “Sorry, I don’t speak bug.” I managed to work my way around, so the table stood between the two of us, affording me at least some sort of shield. “Why don’t we circle back when you pupate lips?”

  Bug Face lashed out with his mantis-style arm, slashing it through the air so fast I wound up back on the floor trying to dodge it. He followed up with a downward chop that cleaved the one-inch solid steel tabletop in half. The noise sounded like a thousand kindergarteners grating their chairs across the floor at the same time. It was deafening. The two halves crashed to the ground, and the weight of the table made the Earth vibrate beneath me. Stunned by Bug Face’s power, I almost forgot to duck out of the way of his next slash.

  I managed to dodge a sweeping crosswise strike, but the shelf next to me wasn’t so lucky. His mantis machete cut
the legs out in one fell swoop. The noise didn’t sound nearly as impressive this time, but Bug Face would pay a higher price for his careless swing.

  I rolled and kept on rolling as I saw what was about to happen. The shelf Bug Face cut was tall and heavy. It reached almost all the way to the two-story ceiling, and it was filled with antiquities that were priceless both Topside and in The Nine.

  The shelf toppled like a tree in the forest. Slowly at first, then it gained speed. Crates, pottery, and busts all slid from the safety of their shelves and crashed to the ground. I watched as Bug Face realized his mistake. He attempted to use his strength to keep the shelf from falling. Too bad he didn’t possess those two little things called opposable thumbs. They couldn’t slash through a table, but they were handy when you wanted to save an inventory of priceless art.

  The shelves slid across the slick shell of Bug Face’s segmented arm and kept on falling. When the heavy mass hit the shelves next to it, they began to topple like over-sized dominoes as well. By the time I was through to the other end of the row, I watched one shelving unit after another crash to the ground in thundering rounds of dust, ancient pottery, and glass. The storm of destruction did not diminish until the last unit was down.

  I crouched there for a moment, ready to run, dodge, or fight. The dust and silence hung in the room like a heavy fog until a guttural shriek sliced through it from the other side. It sounded like a Pterodactyl on the hunt for its favorite meal, and Gabe Fricassee was at the top of the menu.

  Who was I kidding? I couldn’t fight that thing. My only hope was to hide or outrun him. Hiding wouldn’t work, since Bug Face probably knew every inch of his vast warehouse. That left running ... through a disaster of fallen debris and dust so thick I could spoon it like soup.