Critical Failures V

by Robert Bevan

  “I sensed a sudden surge of relief.”

  Though the empathic link he shared with his familiar had saved their asses on more than one occasion, Julian sometimes wished it came with a toggle switch.

  “We need information,” said Stacy. “And for that, we need money. How much have you got on you?” She held out an open hand like she expected him to dump out his coin bag in full view of all the leering eyes around them. “Just the gold and platinum. Don’t bother with any small change.”

  Julian leaned toward her and whispered, “Maybe we should be a little more discreet?”

  Stacy glanced around. “You’re right.” She grabbed him by the shoulder and pivoted him toward a dark alley. “In there. Hurry up.”

  Stumbling over piles of rubbish and through puddles of what smelled like liquor which had already been enjoyed and expelled through various orifices, Julian wondered if the alley was really the safer option. He spotted something cylindrical and furry poking out from under a mildew-blackened sheet of canvas which he hoped was a rolled up and discarded shag carpet.

  The sense of gluttonous ecstasy he felt when Ravenus flew ahead and tore into it with beak and talon confirmed what he was pretending not to already know. It was some poor creature’s leg.

  “Okay, I think we’ve gone far en–” When he turned around, Stacy was nowhere to be seen. The faint light from the street looked a lot further away than he was comfortable with. “Stacy?”

  “Looks like she ditched you, friend.” The voice had a forced air of confidence to it, like the speaker was deliberately trying to use his Intimidation skill. It was working. “Let’s hope, for your sake, that she didn’t snag that coin purse of yours.”

  A small, wiry humanoid figure stepped out from the shadows, still barely visible but for the two blades he wielded. Each was about the length of a shortsword, but they were two completely different styles of terrifying. The blade in his left hand was round and narrow, like a miniature lance, or a giant novelty icepick. The blade in his right hand was something between a sword and a sickle, like an incompletely flattened question mark, sharpened on the inner curve.

  How these two blades might be used to complement one another was immediately obvious to Julian. You pin your subject to the wall with the former, and casually hack off his limbs with the latter. Whether or not that would work in practice, the mere suggestion was extremely effective.

  Julian sensed Ravenus was alert and ready to strike.

  “Take it easy,” said Julian, hoping that his message was received by both his familiar and his mugger. He reached under his serape like Enzo the Baker.

  “That’s it. Pull it out and toss it here.”

  Well, shit. Julian’s attempt at Intimidate was interpreted as unconditional surrender. This guy just assumed he was reaching for his coin bag.

  Julian weighed his options. As usual, it came down to casting a Magic Missile, whacking a guy with a stick, or summoning a horse and hoping for the best. His hand found the coin bag. If this guy was just after money, Julian could just dump the bag and make a run for it. He wasn’t carrying a fortune, but what he was carrying didn’t belong just to him. He’d helped bring down a red dragon only a few days ago. Was he really going to throw his friends’ money at some lowly street thug? He took a step back to keep his options open for a few more seconds.

  “You don’t want to go that way,” said the mugger, taking a larger step forward than Julian’s step backward. “That way’s dangerous.” His cold grey eyes briefly focused on something about as far behind Julian as the sound of heavy boots stomping through the trash.

  Keeping his hand under his serape, Julian took a quick glance to his rear. A second mugger was approaching, his means of intimidation more straightforward than his sneaky companion’s. Built like five sides of beef held together by a leather diaper, the brute made no effort to hide himself or the weapon he brandished in front of him, which appeared to have been crafted from half a telephone pole and some railroad spikes.

  Throwing money on the ground was looking more and more like the best option available. He’d still need a way to get around this guy though. No... not around. Through.

  Julian pulled out his money pouch and threw it into the air. “Come and get it, motherfuckers!”

  The smaller mugger’s greedy eyes followed the shimmering fountain of copper and silver coins.

  “Horse!” Julian shouted. His skill with this spell had improved to the point where he could anticipate where the beast would show up with such accuracy that he was able to get one foot in the stirrup as it materialized. He’d barely swung himself up onto the horse when it vanished from between his legs.

  The next thing he knew, he was on the ground, staring at the heavy-bladed throwing knife Stacy had helped herself to from the cellar of the Whore's Head Inn. The blade was slick with horse blood. He looked up.

  His would-be mugger looked decidedly less confident with Stacy standing behind him, a fistful of his hair in her left hand, and the edge of her sword at his throat.

  “Drop your weapons,” said Stacy.

  The straight pointy blade and the long curved blade clanged against the alley floor simultaneously.

  Julian picked up Stacy's throwing knife. “You appear to have dropped one of your weapons as well, right into my horse’s throat.”

  “That was meant for him.” Stacy nodded past Julian.

  Julian turned around just in time to see the big mugger fleeing around a corner at the other side of the alley. “You missed.”

  “How was I supposed to know you were going to summon a goddamn horse?”

  “I always summon a horse!”

  “I thought the coins were supposed to be the distraction.”

  “They were.”

  “So what was the horse for?”

  “I didn’t know we were working together. All I knew was that you ditched me in an alley with a couple of muggers.”

  “I didn’t ditch you. I was hiding, waiting for you to provide a distraction.”

  “How was I supposed to know that? You just disappeared without telling me anything.”

  Stacy shrugged. “You’re too nervous and expressive. You would’ve blown my cover.”

  The mugger cleared his throat. “Are we done here?”

  Stacy let go of his hair and guided his neck to the wall like it was an extension of her sword. “We’re done when I get some information out of you. Now are you going to spill your guts, or am I going to do it for you?”

  “Whoa, hey! No need for that. Just tell me what it is you want to know?”

  “Who are you working for?”

  “What makes you think I’m working for someone?”

  Stacy raised the tip of the blade up to where his lower jaw met his neck. There wasn’t much bone to block the path from there to his brain.

  “The Rat Bastards.”

  “Who?” Stacy pulled the blade back about a centimeter.

  “I’m not working for them yet. I’m still trying to pass the initiation. It involves a sizable donation to the guild as well as a finger from whomever it was stolen from.”

  “Wait,” said Julian. “You were going to cut off my finger?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Don’t you of course not me! You needed a finger, and I was your mark. You were totally going to cut off my finger.”

  “Were you going to cut off his finger?” asked Stacy.

  “No!”

  Stacy shrugged. “I believe him.”

  Julian felt like his stomach had been kicked in the nuts. “Why?”

  “I don’t know.” Stacy pressed the blade into the mugger’s neck again. “Why do I believe you?”

  “I swear by the gods!” He sounded sincere enough, but anyone could sound sincere with a sword at their throat. “Check my bag. I’ve already got a finger.”

  Julian had to admit, that would be a pretty lousy bluff, what with it being immediately verifiable.

  Stacy eased up again, leav
ing a second bleeding prick in his neck. “Where did you get the finger?”

  “I know a guy at the mortuary. I’m still working on the sizable donation part.”

  That reminded Julian that all of his and his friends’ money was still scattered on the ground. He started picking up coins and putting them back in his pouch.

  “How much is a sizable donation?” asked Stacy.

  “I don’t know. They leave that intentionally ambiguous.”

  “What were you aiming for?”

  “My goal was ten gold pieces. That sounds okay, right? I mean, that and a finger.”

  Stacy nodded slowly. “If I wanted to be a Rat Bastard, who would I need to talk to?”

  “Ask for Dolazar at the souvenir shop in Shallow Grave.”

  Julian knew that place. He stopped picking loose change out of the filth and stood up. “Shallow Grave? Isn’t that kind of a... um... rough neighborhood? Who buys souvenirs in Shallow Grave?”

  Stacy and the mugger both gave him a ‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’ look.

  “Nobody buys souvenirs there,” said the mugger. “It’s a front.”

  Julian wanted to ask how a front was supposed to work if there was no legitimate commerce taking place, but he thought it might earn him even harsher looks. He squatted back down to search for glimmers of copper and silver amid the piles of trash.

  “Ask around,” said the mugger. “You can usually find him in the early afternoon.”

  Stacy pulled the blade away from his neck. “Leave your bag. Get out of here.”

  His grip tightened on the shoulder strap of his satchel. “Show some mercy, huh? Everything I own is in this bag.”

  “From what you’ve already told me, that amounts to less than ten gold pieces.”

  “And a finger,” added Julian. “At least that shouldn’t be too hard to replace. There should be nine more where that one came from.”

  “What about my weapons?” He was talking directly to Stacy, not even glancing Julian’s way. “A guy’s gotta make a living.”

  “You’re lucky I’m letting you live,” said Stacy. “You tried to steal from my man.”

  She couldn’t have said ‘friend’? Even ‘boyfriend’ would have been okay. ‘My man’ made it sound ironically emasculating. The mugger must have thought so too, because he stifled a laugh.

  Julian stood up. “I was actually doing fine on my own.”

  The mugger dropped his bag at Stacy’s feet and backed away. “Here, take it. If Dolazar doesn’t like the finger, you can offer him the set of elf balls you keep in your own bag.”

  Chapter 5

  A disconcertingly banal electric chime sounded as the door opened. A short pointy-eared monster walked through, tightening the rope that held up his khaki shorts.

  “Shaggy!” The young ponytailed woman behind the counter glared at the creature, her eyes burning in the shadow of her Arby’s cap brim.

  The monster looked up at her as innocently as its yellow eyes could manage.

  The woman – Jennifer, according to the plastic tag pinned to her shirt – brandished neither weapon nor magic. She was armed only with the air of someone not to be fucked with. “Did you wash your hands?”

  “I...” The creature looked at the floor.

  “Do you want to be a fry cook for the rest of your life?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Fred and Velma are already on registers. Look at their hands.”

  Two similar creatures who were almost certainly not born with the names Fred and Velma displayed their green, clawed hands above the counter. Clean as they may have been, Dave didn’t relish the thought of them having touched the food he was eating.

  “Yes, ma’am,” said Shaggy.

  “Now get your little goblin ass back in there and use soap like I showed you.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” The chime sounded again as Shaggy hurried out the door.

  “And tuck in your shirt!” Jennifer called after him. “This isn’t Hardee’s.”

  Dave swallowed his mouthful of roast beef sandwich. “She seems to be adjusting well to being dragged into a fantasy world against her will.”

  “Hmph,” said Professor Goosewaddle. “She ought to be, with what I’m paying her.” The wrinkles in his forehead deepened between his fluffy white eyebrows. “The girl is robbing me blind, but she runs a tight ship.”

  “She certainly has a way with the goblins,” said Murkwort, an associate of Professor Goosewaddle’s who had popped in for a visit and an order of curly fries. He was human, but clearly from this world. He had a long forked beard, one side white and the other side black with streaks of grey. His black cloak covered his feet and dragged behind him when he walked, giving his lower half the appearance of a serpent or slug.

  “You should see what she has me paying them! It’s preposterous.”

  Murkwort grinned, showing off his platinum and gold-plated teeth. “You pay goblins, with coin?”

  “More than I ever got paid as an apprentice wizard.” Professor Goosewaddle shrugged. “Incentive, she calls it.”

  “Would it not be more... incentivous... to throw one of them into the boiling potato oil as an example to the rest?”

  “You are truly a disgusting human being,” said Rhonda, applying Horsey Sauce to her open sandwich.

  Murkwort’s eyebrows, colored identically to the forks in his beard, raised as the sides of his mouth drooped.

  “Naturally, I’d replace the oil before I resumed cooking. I would have thought that much was obvious.”

  Dave had to agree that Murkwort wasn’t the most pleasant person in the world to listen to. Even when he wasn’t speaking openly of throwing another living creature into a fryer, he was boastful and mildly obnoxious.

  Even Professor Goosewaddle seemed to be put off by him. Dave caught him rolling his eyes as his guest bragged about getting twenty percent higher than market value for a scroll of Whispering Wind which included a musical background with the message. And as much as the professor normally enjoyed a good chat, his participation in the conversation since Murkwort had arrived had mostly been limited to short to-the-point answers to Murkwort’s direct questions, his little rant about having to pay goblins notwithstanding. But Dave sensed that Professor Goosewaddle just wanted to vent, even if it involved talking to someone he desperately wanted to leave.

  For all of Murkwort’s faults, at least he wasn’t boring. Dave hadn’t been thrilled to be partnered with Rhonda, even if the assignment was as simple as hanging out at Arby’s and waiting for Tim to show up. She was a prickly one, who seemed to be constantly lying in wait for someone to say something she could be offended by. Trying to have a casual conversation with her was like taking a stroll through a minefield.

  Shaggy hurried back in through the door, quickly tucked in his shirt, and ran to the back of the restaurant.

  A few seconds later, Jennifer re-emerged. “Paul!”

  The other fish-out-of-water human employee, who had recently gone on break, looked up from his salad. “What?”

  Jennifer crossed her arms and gave him the same look she’d used to bring Shaggy in line.

  Paul put down his fork. “Yes, ma’am?” His voice had an unmistakable trace of bitterness.

  “There’s something called a shocker lizard drinking out of the toilet in the men’s room. Go take care of that, would you?” The hint of smug satisfaction in her voice seemed to complement the bitterness in his. Dave sensed a recent turning of tables in their professional relationship.

  “But I don’t even know what that is!”

  “Neither do I. Maybe bring a mop.”

  “Jennifer,” Paul pleaded.

  “Excuse me?”

  Paul looked at the floor. “Miss Hutchinson.”

  Jennifer smiled and nodded for him to continue.

  “This is a grievous abuse of authority.”

  “Like making someone come into work on the day of her grandfather’s funeral?”

  Dave and
Rhonda glanced at each other and sank lower into their booth.

  “I was understaffed!” said Paul. “Ronnie and Thomas both called in –”

  “I’ve got a stack of applications in my office, Paul. A bunch of folks would love to replace you as assistant manager. People with more brains, more charm, more legs. If you want to test the job market out there,” She at the window to a world outside of Arby’s, full of demons and vampires and dragons. “then by all means –”

  “Fine, I’m going. I’m going.”

  “I’m afraid I must be off as well,” said Murkwort. “I have some very important business to attend to in the Crescent Shadow.”

  Professor Goosewaddle closed his eyes. “Yes, you’ve mentioned that.”

  “What do I owe you for the coiled potatoes?”

  “Keep your money. You are my guest here, not a customer.”

  Dave was a little miffed that he didn’t qualify for guest status.

  “Don’t be silly,” said Murkwort. “You need something to pay the goblins with, after all.” He reached out and placed five shiny platinum coins on the table.

  “You are very generous, but that’s far too much.”

  Murkwort flashed his shiny metallic grin again. “Worry not about me, old friend. I expect to come into a sizable amount of money very soon.”

  “Best of luck with that.”

  “I’ve recently acquired some valuable merchandise, you see.”

  “Very nice.”

  Murkwort patted a bulge on his hip. “Some really high-end stuff.”

  Professor Goosewaddle appeared to be struggling to find an alternate response to politely express his disinterest. “Okay.”

  “It’s a bit of a secret, which is why I haven’t spoken of it in any more detail.”

  “Oh?” said the professor. “I assumed it was because I hadn’t asked.” He gave Dave and Rhonda a quick wink.

  Murkwort shuffled out of the booth and stood. The bottom of his robe pooled around his feet like spilled ink. “Fare thee well, old friend. Best of fortune with your little restaurant. May it work out better for you than your previous business ventures.”

  With his left index finger, he traced a circular pattern in his right palm. A funnel cloud of swirling green vapor grew out of his hand, and soon obscured his whole being. When the storm calmed and the vapor cloud dissipated, Murkwort was gone.