Picking the lock would prove a more treacherous feat, especially in broad daylight. The thief realized that, and did his best to be as swift as he could. On his way over to her home, his eyes wandered, like somebody who was paranoid. And that's exactly how he was. Paranoid. There were a lot of folk around, and it would be difficult to break in without it being suspicious. Some of the men and women, and merchants and tradesman stared at him. He smiled in return, his hand felt down at the handle of his knife nervously. Fidgeting.
His eyes looked around at each building, and soon it was realized how little he knew about Christique's house. The night he left with her, it was dark and there were 'distractions' that kept his attentiveness diverted elsewhere. There wasn't a whole lot that really stood out about any of the buildings on this section. A casual and default form about all of them. They were sand homes. Most of them. Except for a select few that actually opted out enough to use wood or planks. Those ones looked the shabbiest and like they were damn-near ready to fall apart.
Copé scratched his head. He knew that Christique lived in one of the wooden homes but didn't know too many specifics other than that. It narrowed it down some. He also knew the general location of her house, that is, and that made things a little easier as well.
Sooner or later, Copé found himself at her doorstep, or what he was almost certain to be her doorstep. This wasn't the first time he robbed the wrong person, however. And the last time damn-near cost him everything.
He was out of options though, and worst case scenario meant only that he'd have broken into a stranger's home. There were certainly worse things he could have done. The lock was simple, without extravagance and without sophistication, that's how most locks were. The key to lockpicking (no pun intended) was patience. A lack of patience was the only thing that could really keep a door from being picked.
The mistake in that, and the mistake in Copé's decisions is that he didn't have time for mistakes. A man fidgeting around a door would draw suspicion. If he did it fast enough, it'd look like nothing more than a man unlocking his door and going inside.
Copé walked nearer to the door. It didn't particularly feel familiar, but it was much darker before.
The main-center of the Trading Network with the tables, and the merchants, is what was most crowded, whereas the spots for living tended to thin the herd, but there were still more than a handful of people. Some of them sitting down and resting, blankets put out, and people socializing. There wasn't really a whole lot to see with the desert sands, so it wasn't much a place for tourists, not like Italina, which had a lot more scenery and romanticism.
The desert was strictly about the relationship between consumer and producer.
Secrat looked at the keyhole and readied his hand. He messed with his pin, fidgeted and tweaked, moving the tumblers up. A small mistake happened soon into his efforts, the hairpin became caught as he tried to pull it out, he succeeded.
His hand shaking more than necessary. No eyes were staring at him, and he knew that, but only under the surface, and above the surface, there was a layer of frightened dismay. A subconscious feeling that was unaware. He readied his hand again, trying to keep himself calm and focused, he moved one tumbler up and then the other. Breathing as steadily as he could.
The voices talking from behind him didn't fall on deaf ears, but he couldn't make out their words. Like buzzing coming from an annoying fly is how they sounded. Were they noticing him, or just having a discussion? The thief didn't have the answer to that, but he didn't have time to look. The time finally came as he heard the click of the door unlatch itself. He went inside.
He didn't come into the house like a man unlocking the door to his shack and coming inside, but like a man being chased like The Carvers were after him.
His back pressed against the door on the inside. His eyes wandered around the confines of the room. The wood felt warm beneath his feet. Bare. He walked further into the room and almost immediately recognized the bed. Neatly made. Smiled at the sight. Some good memories happened there. Looked down at the ground. He was hoping the flask would be there and he'd be able to leave in a matter of seconds. That was not what happened though. There was nothing there.
Pity.
Secrat walked further into Christique's little den, admiring it with wonder. A shelf at one section filled with books. He couldn't read them, however, as they were written in a language unknown to him. It looked familiar for some reason though. It was on the tip of his tongue but none of him could say it for certain. He walked toward the books. Gathered with dust. They hadn't been touched in ages. His fingers skimmed around the spine of a few of them. His fingerprints cleaning some of the dust off. At last, his eyes left them. His interest lost.
To the side, a table, and on top of it, a pair of black gloves. He walked toward them, and in that instant, he heard a creak beneath his feet. A loose plank of wood. Copé came down to one knee and felt at it. He thumbed at it, trying to pry it free. It obliged. The gap was small and dark. His eyes could barely make out what was there. Her house must have been slightly elevated, at least by a few feet, because it led to the outside beneath. Copé eyed at the sand, and at once took sight of the flask. His flask. It stood out faintly, but he could see it. Hidden. Christique no doubt anticipated his arrival.
Secrat dropped to one knee and reached his hand down into the black until he felt sand. He reached around for it until he touched the flask. He brought it out, having the metallic feel of it in his hands gave him a feeling of nostalgia.
It was good to have it back. Even if it he was most likely going to sell it for coin.
The shine of its silver dulled by the sand, and the encrusted jewels were faint as well. The thief looked around Christique's home. Nothing else that he really needed. There wasn't anything that was worth more than one or two coin, and that just wasn't worth the trouble of finding someone to sell it to.
With that, the option of taking his leave presented itself. The wood plank fell back into its place on the floor and everything looked as it once had.
Unlike Christique, Copé didn't care about leaving a message for his opposing, all he cared about was getting his flask back, and after that, starting his life over as a thief. The flask went into his pocket, and his eyes threw themselves back over to the ebony gloves that rested on the table. He looked at them. Held them in his hands. They looked out of the ordinary for some reason, and he didn't really know why. On the top of the glove was a letter scribed in white, a big 'K' that seemed to hold some type of semblance lost on him.
The material was leather, and hard. Not exactly popular fashion in the Whispy Deserts. Back on the table, they went. The gloves had no worth to him.
The sound of the door shutting behind the thief befell his ears, causing him to stifle over himself at least momentarily. His composure regained, he turned around and saw Christique looking back at him. Not unlike how she looked when he saw her in Alsabenya, she was not smiling. Copé didn't look her in the eyes, because he knew they'd be fiery and filled with venom. Instead, all he did was stare down at his feet nervously for a second until mustering up the courage to speak:
"Hello," Copé's words didn't feel right for the moment, but they were all that he could think to say.
"Hello, yourself," Christique's voice disguised her temperament, but Secrat had a second-sense when it came to people being infuriated with him. She contained herself though. She walked nearer to him. Copé felt down his pocket for one of his knives. "You stole something of mine."
Secrat smiled. "Thief," he said, announcing his title, adding in a little bow for good measure.
"Is that right?" Christique asked. The way her voice sounded the words made it feel rhetorical. Copé held his tongue. Her feet stepped gingerly on the hardwood floor, an elegance, a certain primal aura with her movement that he hadn't noticed before. This took him aback some. He felt the handle of his knife in his hands, but before he could welcome it out of his pocket, Christique moved forward towar
d him fast. Her hand clutching his wrist and keeping his weapon sheathed in his leggings.
Secrat flinched but then looked Christique in the eyes at last. He could smell the scent on her. An intoxicating aroma. And he could feel the warmth of her breath on his cheek. "Can I have it back?" Christique said, leaning her face forward, the side of her face touching his.
"I'm afraid that's not possible. I do not have it." Secrat said clearly.
Christique pulled her head back from him. Slow, but distinctive enough to be noticeable. Her face distorted a moment until she went back to the restrained and somehow seductive plainness she had been carrying herself with. She lifted Secrat's hand out from his pocket. His fingers still holding the knife in their clutches. For some reason, a reason unbeknownst to Secrat, he put up no fight against her and surrendered the knife. It was in her clutches now. She turned her back on him. This would've been as opportune of a moment as any to ready another of his knives and slit her throat from behind. But he didn't do that. He didn't do anything.
Christique started to walk forward. Twirling around the knife in her hands. There was a sound in the stillness of it all. The sound of her brown woven boots knocking into the floor. In one hand, she held the knife. In the other-hand, she held gloves. Secrat looked down at the table. She had taken the 'K' scribed gloves while he had been distracted.
"Is there any idea of where it is?" Christique asked. Her back still turned away from him. The blade pointed upward. The gloves put away. Secrat didn't see where. Likely a pocket. Her other hand was on the door.
"I don't know," Secrat replied.
Christique let out an audible sigh as a retort. She didn't feel much like how she did at Alsabenya. Felt colder. Manipulative. In-control. As if something dormant inside of her had decided it now time to awaken.
"You followed me?" Copé asked. He already knew the answer to it. Didn't really have much reason to ask. But he wanted to keep it from being silent too long.
"It wasn't that difficult. I saw you from a mile away," she reaffirmed. "But that's all over now. Goodbye, Secrat."
Christique opened the door and began stepping out. She stepped out without any sort of haste. The door closed behind her. Copé could hear the distinctive clicking sound that the latch made.
"Goodbye," Secrat replied. Albeit, by this time, Christique was out of earshot. He didn't know where she was going, considering this was her own home, but he didn't much care either way. He let out a breath. A loud one.
It felt almost as if he hadn't breathed for the entire altercation between them. He didn't know why. But it bothered him. She bothered him. Almost intimidated him. Seduced him. He looked down at the wooden table again. He looked at the door where she left. A small tarp tapestry hung loosely over the window beside it. That struck him as odd for some reason. If only because he seemed to remember looking out at the moon the night they had spent together and there not being a curtain in-front of it. Biding his time. It was long enough now that he could leave the shack without any sight of Christique. That was good. He wanted to be as far away from her as possible.
He reached for a cigarette. Once more, it was not a taste or a feeling he enjoyed but it was a distraction. He reached for his pine sticks next. He had very few but at least some left. But when he dug deeper in his pocket, there were none to see.
Perhaps he lost them earlier in the Thieves' Network in his altercation with that girl. A sigh came after, but that was that, and he would have to come to grips. The cigarette went back in his pocket, and he went toward the door.
All at once, however, the curtains over the window became inflamed. Spreading slowly over to the door. That's what she meant by goodbye, Secrat thought to himself. Did she hang up curtains so I couldn't jump out the window? What a bitch...
5
The fire was bright. It ate into the wood, slowly like a termite. Secrat backed away from it. No other way out of the house. No back doors. No other windows. What was engulfed by the flame is what was there. The warmth of it was adamant. It reminded Secrat of her breath on his.
He backed away from it, the back of him bumping into the wooden table.
This is how it would end for Secrat Copé, so it seemed. That was that, and at least he would leave in a blaze of glory. That was something he couldn't accept, but for the life of him, he couldn't think of how to remedy the situation.
But he was Secrat Copé, master thief, and one of the brightest The Red Flux ever had to offer! That didn't really matter though. Not in this situation. Accolades wouldn't extinguish the flame. Neither would anything else. Copé kept himself backed away from the flame for a time. The wheels in his head weren't turning fast, but some ideas reeled their head. By now, the fire had completely engulfed the front-side of the small one-room shack.
He walked himself toward the bed. The blankets not yet scathed by the harsh, cogitating flame. Yanking them off, the thief readied his next move. Wrapping himself around the covers like a caterpillar might wrap itself in a cocoon, Secrat pulled the blankets up enough over his body to give his legs reasonable mobility. Once assured, he backed away further from the flame. Enough space for momentum. The door was hard-wood and Secrat was not large. He'd need all of the momentum and vivacity he could have. The table was in the way. He used his foot to kick at it, shoving it off to the side and offering a clear path to the door.
Until he was at the other side. He looked back the flame. It had spread some. He knew that the time for action was upon him. Hopefully the fire had dug enough at the door to assist his escape, and thereby, his survival.
The heat of the flame drew sweat from his brow, that and his heart-racing faster than a horse. By the time he touched the opposite wall, he allotted himself no time to think or contemplate. The thief ran to the other-side with all of his might and charged against the door. A loud banging noise came out of it. But the door didn't knock off of its hinges or break. Instead, Secrat felt the severity of flame attempt to swallow him whole. Like a cat in water, a thief in fire, he jumped away from the blaze as fast as he could. Shedding the blankets off of him. They fell to the floor. Only spreading the fire more and more.
Secrat dropped to his knees. For a second. Just a second. He didn't even really have a second for anguish. But he took it.
The fire had burned some of the hair off his arms and the smoke was starting to encumber the room. Copé looked to the wooden table. Another idea. A shot in the dark. Grasping at straws. The only thing he had.
He jumped up to his feet and tried to lift the table. It was heavy. He was not strong. Not physically at least. He kicked at the legs. Until prying one free at once. The table dropped at an angle. His intentions were neither brilliant nor profound. Desperate. That was more fitting a word. Throwing legs at the door until it would break. The window wasn't really big enough of an opening to make a quick escape, and with fire all over that side of the room, a quick escape is what he needed.
A step forward with one of the legs in hand, a creaking sound is what Copé heard next.
He looked down. The loose wooden plank where he found his flask. That was enough dangling of hope to make at least some type of cogitation happen. The table leg fell out of his hands and to the floor, making a knocking sound as it hit the ground. Down to his knees slowly, the thief dislodged the wooden plank from the flooring and took sight of the sand. He smiled a little bit, then let out a cough as the smoke penetrated his lips and entered his lungs.
The other planks of wood weren't like that. They weren't loose. He pulled at them, but they wouldn't come free. That made him nervous, but he let out a breath, albeit polluted with smoke and reached for one of his knives. The handle in his hands, he drove the sharp-blade into one of the creases between each wooden plank and scraped at it. He wiggled the blade in between it, trying to loosen it. But none of it seemed to be working.
The knife went down on the floor beside him, and in its place, Copé picked up the wooden leg. The leg was heavy. Not too heavy. But heavy. He stamped i
t down as hard as he could over one of the wooden planks. One of planks adjacent to the one already dislodged. The noise was loud. The sound of wood cracking. It wasn't broken yet. A second stomp did get it a little closer to that. The wood was dented in. A third hit broke it in half.
The way it broke caused a small shard of timber to scrape into his arm. Something which Secrat didn't notice. The adrenaline was setting in and making him feel almost invincible. He wasn't. In-fact, far from it. The fire raged on, yearning to express him that fact. With two planks removed from the floor, he was almost able to fit himself into the hole. Both legs. The waist was a problem though. He didn't try to force it. In fear he might become stuck.
Copé took the leg once more in his hands. The fire was nearing. Much nearer now than before. Close. The smoke damn-near intoxicating. He could feel it becoming more and more difficult to breathe. Gagging. Choking on the air around him. It was a matter of time before he would lose consciousness. A matter of time before he'd be burned to ashes. He took the leg and looked at another wooden plank. Not even trying to unhinge it with his knife, he stomped the leg repeatedly over it, as fast he could, and then, much faster than the other one, it gave way. Snapping like a stick beneath the foot of a giant. Secrat didn't waste any time after that.
The hole in the floor offered enough room for him to make his escape. He dropped off into the sand. His back slapping against it. For him, at that time, at that moment, it might as well have been a nice fluffy cloud or bed. It was comfort. It was life. He lifted the sand up into his fingers and let it fall out. His eyes lent themselves up above him. The smokey blackness obscured everything there was to see of the house.
He turned his head, and there was light in sight. Feet as well. He could see them. A gathering of people, all gathered up and watching on as he damn-near burned to his death. There was no sign of Christique. Not that he could recognize her by her feet, but he liked to assume. He rolled in the sand. The front-side of the building was where all the commotion was. Where everyone was all crowded about. He rolled out from under the house from the back-end. He climbed to his feet. Part of him felt like gasping for air, but the other part of him managed to contain himself.
The Red Flux and the Wunderkind Thief Page 6