by Eric Ugland
“Sure.”
“Do that.”
“How’s the apartment? Is it okay?”
“It is generous and great. More than I deserve.”
I definitely did a little blushing. I didn’t want the conversation to go any further down that track. “There’s something I need to talk to you about.”
“A not-in-public conversation?” he asked.
I looked at him watching his kids, and Titus’ kids I assumed, and realized that he probably wasn’t keen on leaving them there.
“It’s definitely something of a less-than-legal nature, but I guess it can wait,” I said. “What’s going on with the kid situation? Has anyone figured out who’s taking them?”
“Not yet, and it’s still happening,” Matthew said softly. Not quite a whisper, but certainly purposefully keeping the volume low enough that the kids wouldn’t hear.
“Like a lot of them?”
Matthew nodded.
“I don’t want to sound like more of a rube than I usually do, but aren’t there, say, lots of things in the night that snack on children?”
“If you consider the wider world, I’d wager there’s likely a nearly infinite amount.”
“So what’s the deal with this particular missing kids thing?”
“Didn’t your parents teach you about this stuff growing up?”
“I guess we lived in a safer spot.”
“Not many places safer than Glaton. I might need to look into getting a home in this Denmark place of yours.”
“Denmark, right.” I wondered if a Hamlet joke had ever gone this far.
“The usual things aren’t working, which means whatever that’s running afoul of us here is not a usual thing. It’s something new. And it doesn’t seem to have picked a hunting ground. It’s happening all over the city. Hells, it even hit the Bright last night.”
“Last night?”
“Minister of Agriculture. Her kids were taken.”
“Okay, something weird about that —“
“You about to say you were in The Bright last night?”
“I was.”
He stopped looking at the kids and turned his head so his full attention was on me.
“Now where was you last night, while you were visiting the Bright?”
“I maybe stopped by the Minister of Agriculture’s house.”
“Was this an uninvited drop-in?”
“I came unannounced, yes.”
I saw the muscles around his jaw tighten.
“I had nothing to do with the kids though,” I said. “I never mess with kids. Ever.”
“Did you see them?”
“Yes.”
“You saw the kids?”
“I saw them asleep, yeah.”
“So they were there when you left?”
“I left when someone started screaming.”
“You didn’t cause the screaming?”
“I got out without being noticed. I have a good teacher.”
“Not the time for compliments.”
“Always the time for—”
He grabbed me by the throat and shoved me against the wall, hard enough that I felt my teeth rattle.
“The city is in panic, boy. You might not have noticed, but there’s a riot brewing. I know you think you’re being a right bit funny. Light hearted. And I want to believe you have nothing to do with this, but enough coincidences line up and it seems much more likely there’s a real problem here.”
“I’ve only ever helped kids, man,” I somewhat coughed out.
His hand slowly released my neck. It was a bit odd, because he watched his hand, no longer interested in me.
“Sorry,” he said, almost like an afterthought. “I’m worried. Out of sorts.”
“I can understand,” I said. “You’re thinking of your family.”
He shook his head. “I used to say the same sorts of things. I never really knew what it meant until I had kids. Still, I shouldn’t have done that. I’d like to think I know you, Clyde Hatchett. And from what I know, you like to take things to hurt the rich. But you’ve been good to the children I’ve seen you with.”
“I am. I, uh, yes. I think?”
“You had nothing to do with the minister’s kids being taken last night?”
“No. None. I had a meeting with some asshole, and on the way home, I noticed this house with laughable security. And I had nothing with me, no weapons, no gold, nothing. Since nights are dangerous, I took a peek inside. I mean, two guards at the front, one inside, that’s it. And the fences, you could step from the top of the fence to the window ledges. And in the back yard, you could climb a tree to a balcony. Very easy to get in and out. Whatever came after me, let’s just say that I’m not surprised something else was in that house. But they had to have been fast, because it wasn’t that long between me seeing the kids in their beds and when I made a break for it. I thought they’d discovered what I took.”
“Which was?”
“Jewels, a sword, some glowstones for your apartment, and some bonded journals. They were tucked into a secret room. I was going to give them to you to take a peek. Tell me if you knew what the hell is going on.”
“Those them?” he asked, looking at the basket I was holding.
“Uh, no, that’s, uh, well, it’s a grimeling.”
Matthew jumped a full yard back.
“Supposedly tamed,” I added, and I pulled the lid back just a bit. The creature was curled up and asleep, but then he opened one eye and looked around. Clearly he decided there was nothing to worry about, because he closed the eye and settled back into snoozetown.
Matthew held the basket open just a little, and peeked in.
“It is a grimeling,” he said.
“Supposedly tame.”
“Where did you get it?”
“Nadya took me to the beast market.”
“Of course she did.”
“Not like there was a whole lot to do in the pit without you.”
“And someone was selling tame grimelings?”
“Yeah. Is that so odd?”
“Yes.”
“Well, the salesman insinuated they’d do the cleaning for me.”
“And you believed him?”
“No, but curiosity got the better of me. Technically I bought him for Nadya, but she wasn’t willing to take him.”
“Kind of like the chest.”
“Hellion? Yeah. Kind of like him.”
“She’s got your number.”
“Let’s leave my number out of this. I’m just holding onto the grimeling until she’s got her damn lab set up.”
“Sure.”
“Can you just take a look at the books?”
“If you get them to me, I’ll see what I see.”
I gave him a smile, a surly one because I felt he was being just a tad salty with me, and then I went up to my apartment. Someone had cleaned the place up while I was out. I snagged the books out from the semi-secret closet hiding spot, and tucked the grimeling and his basket into the closet in their place. Then I darted back downstairs.
Matthew hadn’t moved. I passed the books off to him.
He hefted them once before tucking them under his arm.
“You write in these?” he asked.
“No.”
“Good. Decent chance no one knows they’re missing yet. Always an important asset in information gathering.”
“Did you ever do this for the government?”
“I had plenty of clients, all of whom relied on me to keep them out of my mouth. So while I’m happy to talk to you about most anything, that I won’t discuss.”
Realizing that Matthew was effectively ending our conversation, I wished him a good night, and I headed upstairs to my apartment once again.
Chapter 105
I checked on my grimeling before heading to the third floor and training. I focused quite a bit on free-running, especially moving in and out of small openings. I wanted to make sure I could run and slip through wind
ows whenever I wanted. I also worked on changing directions on a dime, in case, say, a certain chest opened up and its long tongue tried to snatch me when I wasn’t paying attention. I got a good sweat going, and I fired up my stamina regen spell. I kept that going until I was mostly out of mana and well and truly exhausted.
Then I took a nice long shower and wrapped myself in a fluffy towel, a leftover from Etta. I appreciated the various creature comforts she’d left behind. It meant I didn’t need to spend much money on the basics. It was a bit like getting a cheat code beginning. I had the feeling that if I was truly playing this game, I’d feel a bit like I’d cheated to get where I was. And yet, this was a life, and sometimes, in life, it was okay to take advantage of the foibles of luck. Besides, I felt like I was also spreading the wealth around in a good way. That had to make up for getting the push ahead, at least in some capacity.
I didn’t bother to put my clothes back on, though I did wonder about laundry. So far I’d been rewearing clothes after airing them out, but that mostly only worked because I didn’t have much of a nightlife, or a personal life, and my work clothes were gross from the start. I hadn’t seen a washing machine or a dryer of any kind, anywhere really, and there weren’t laundry lines strung up, so professional laundry services had to exist within the city.
These were the thoughts permeating my brain as I wandered up the stairs wearing only my towel, and I meandered into my own apartment half-naked, relatively brain dead. Once there, I took a cursory look around, realized no one else was home, and the grimeling was snoring. I moseyed to the bed, and I collapsed, not even bothering to take the towel off.
All to say I’m not sure who was more surprised when Shae walked into the apartment, made me shoot out of bed, and my towel fell off.
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. She turned around to leave, only to bump into a man who’d decided he was going to break into the apartment.
He had a rusty looking knife and had taken care to wrap a scarf or bandana around his face to make it almost impossible to tell he was one of the surly regulars in the Heavy Purse. I recognized his greasy combover and marked him as one of the drunks who spent their evening leering at anything remotely female. Tonight, he’d drunk enough to act upon his baser desires.
Combover shoved Shae out of the way with surprising strength, and the pretty girl tumbled to the ground, coming quite close to braining herself on a table.
“All your coin,” he said, pulling a cloth bag from his pants. “Now.”
Okay, so I was marginally mistaken about which base instincts he was following. I wanted to be angry about him robbing me, but that’d be a bit hypocritical. He was just doing my job. Sure, with a little less class, but basically the same.
“And I’m going to give it to you,” I said.
“Right you are,” he growled back at me. “or I’ll gut you and the missus and tie a knot out of your entrails.”
“That’s disgusting…and specific. Have you actually done that before?”
“More’n once, I have.”
“Let’s just keep our guts separate, shall we?”
“That’s up to you, moneybags.”
“Okay, I maybe have some coin, but moneybags?”
“You own this building and the next — you must be rolling in gold.”
“Or I’m leveraged in debt up to my eyeballs.”
He blinked, and looked around the room as if he was trying to gauge the truth of the statement.
“Didn’t think of that did you?” I asked.
“You got gold here, I can smell it.”
“Quite the skill.”
“It’s an ability, asshole.”
Should have known. My mind whirred as I tried to come up with a good idea on how to deal with this drunk. All my weapons were on the other side of the room, save the sword I was born with, but I hesitated using that even against a rusty knife. Also, I needed to stop sleeping naked. And maybe put a better lock on my doors.
“Gold,” he said. “I’ll count to ten, and then—”
“No need to tax yourself,” I interrupted. “I used up most of my gold buying these places, but everything else I have is in a chest one floor below here.”
He seemed to think that through, then decided it made sense.
“Get your towel,” he said. “you come with me.”
I got my towel, wrapped it around my elven body, and I walked over to the robber.
Shae looked at me with tears in her eyes.
I just gave her a wink and smile.
Which pissed off my robber. He lashed out and gave my arm a rather vicious cut.
“Hey,” I shouted.
“Faster,” he snapped back at me. “And no communicating with her. I’ll not have you planing your escape.”
“My escape? You’re taking all my money. You’ve got full control in the situation.”
“You just remember that, elf.”
I frowned, not exactly a fan of racism.
“After you,” I said.
“Aren’t you the clever one,” he snapped. He pushed me in front, and I shrugged as I walked down the stairs. I opened the third floor apartment door, and went inside.
The lights were on, because I hadn’t figured out how to turn them off. I knew it was a bit wasteful, but, well, my time was valuable and I didn’t feel like looking around for a switch. If there was a switch. Most of the time, I turned the lights off by taking the glow stones out.
Rusty Knife was right behind me, and as soon as I was inside the apartment, he was as well, pushing me forward with one hand on my neck.
I thought about pulling off a cool judo move, flip him over my shoulder or something like that. Reality kicked in pretty quickly when I realized I was picturing Steven Seagal doing it, not myself.
Rusty gave me a shove, and I purposefully took a tumble, tripping with a solid thud. Which made me grimace because I didn’t want Lothar to hear noises above him and get involved in this mess. Rusty grinned at the chest, excited, maybe, by the size of it. Or the look of it — it looked like a nice chest.
Dutifully, and even before he asked, I held the key out.
He snatched it from my hand.
“Any traps on that thing,” he said, “and I’ll cut off your fingers and feed them one by one—”
“There’s no traps,” I interrupted. “And you don’t need to go through these descriptions. Your threats are really just too weird to be scary at this point.”
He spit on me.
Which was gross, but not that impactful, really.
And then, licking his chops, almost literally but mostly metaphorically, Rusty strode towards the chest like he was about to have a great damn payday.
I really wish I could have seen the look on his face when he bent over and tried to put the key in the hole. Because that’s when Hellion opened up his mouth — a big mouth by the way, lots of crazy ivory-colored teeth — and the huge purple tongue lashed out and wrapped all the way around Rusty’s head.
There was definitely a muffled scream, and then Hellion pulled. The thief resisted a bit, but Hellion just chomped down in an incredible display of power and brutality. His teeth, each about as big around as my arm, punched through the poor man’s body from both top and bottom. It was just awful. Blood and other fluids poured out.
Then Hellion’s teeth started to move, essentially pulling the body the rest of the way into the mimic’s mouth. There was some chewing, and I heard the bones popping and snapping under the pressure of the mimic’s jaws. Not something I’d like to hear again. Finally, stillness.
But just for a second though, because Hellion kindly cleaned up after himself. His big purple tongue came out and lapped up all the expelled blood. And everything else.
After a moment, there was a slight belch, and then Hellion spat out the metal bits of the man. Including a gold tooth.
So, you know, that was gross.
Chapter 106
Lothar was running up the stairwell when I walked o
ut.
“You’re bleeding,” he said.
“Unpleasant visitor.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Do we need to, um, dispose of the body?”
“Nope. It’s been handled.”
“Oh.”
“Are you okay?”
“Fine.”
“Boy okay?”
“He’s asleep.”
“Keep the window’s locked tight.”
“I will. Thank you. How did the intruder—”
“He followed someone inside.”
“The girl.”
“That’s the one.”
“Is she staying long?”
“As of yet undecided.”
“She’s probably trouble.”
“She’s definitely trouble.”
“As long as you know what you’re doing.”
“Would it surprise you if I said I have no idea?”
“Not at all,” he replied with a smile. “Good night.”
“Night.”
The girl in question was standing at the door with a sword in her hands.
“He’s gone,” I said.
“He took your money?” Shae asked.
“No,” I replied with a shake of my head, “of course not. He tried to open Hellion the Mimic, and Hellion the Mimic did as mimics do, I guess, and ate him.”
“Oh.”
“Isn’t that what always happens in these sorts of situations?”
“No.”
“Different strokes for different folks, I guess,” I said.
I stepped around her, and the sword, and paused, faltering a little as I walked. Had this been planned? Had she been part of the gambit? When I completed the quest to save her, it said she’d always be loyal to me. Or something along those lines. I wished there was a way to look over quests again. If there was, I hadn’t found it yet. Nor had I found someone I could tell about my actual origins so I could ask all the stupid questions I needed answers to. Instead, I just stumbled about like an idiot making Hamlet jokes no one else got.
I turned around to look at Shae. She was trying to lean the sword against the wall next to the door, but the sword kept sliding to the floor. I just didn’t see it. She had so little guile as to be, well, almost stereotypically a naive waif. That stereotype came from somewhere, in theory at least, so maybe there were people like that. Maybe Shae was one of those people. Or, she was playing the part, and she’d cut my throat while I slept and steal all my gold. At which point, I’d respawn, find her, kill her, and steal my gold back. Probably better to just trust her and enjoy the time around her instead of becoming a paranoid douchenozzle.