For Gold and Revenge

by Noah Layton

  In a slick movement that I hardly noticed, she slipped the vial to her colleague and they parted ways like nothing had happened. Not a single other figure in the den had paid any attention to them.

  I had to hand it to the sun-elves; they were smooth.

  The courtesan returned to me and collapsed onto the bed, placing her head on my chest but leaving her eyes wide open.

  ‘It is done.’

  ‘Then I guess this might be goodbye for now.’

  ‘Goodbye? You are leaving?’

  ‘Things might be about to get a little weird in here.’

  ‘… Why?’

  ‘AAGHHH!!!’

  The scream came from Bartram’s bed, but the courtesans he was sharing it with weren’t responsible for it.

  He jumped and scrambled around like a man possessed, waving his arms at invisible forces surrounding him.

  ‘Get away, get back! GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!’

  With no weapons on hand, he started swinging the pipe before him like a dagger.

  And from its centre I could spot the faintest wisp of pink smoke.

  ‘What the sweet shit is this?’

  The once-wise sun-elf clerk appeared at the door with his two guards. Any sense of calmness had been dropped.

  ‘Back, demons, back! I’ll cut your fucking throats!’

  ‘Get this idiot out of here,’ the clerk said casually to his guards. ‘Grab his possessions and throw him into the street with them.’

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ I said, reaching for my jacket and dragging my eyes from Bartram over to the courtesan. ‘Can we keep this between you and me?’

  ‘Keep what between you and me?’ She winked at me, pulling my jacket over my shoulders.

  ‘Exactly.’

  I winked back at her and pushed up from the bed just as Bartram was yanked to his feet and dragged across the den kicking and screaming by the guards.

  ‘Get off me! Get off me, demons! I swear to fucking god I’ve got a vial of holy water in my bag and I’ll drown you fuckers in it!’

  I followed from a distance, waiting ten yards back as he was carted up the steps and thrown into the street, along with his weapons.

  The clerk had retaken his post at the front desk when I arrived.

  ‘I am sorry for the commotion, sir,’ he said insistently, fetching my possessions from behind the desk and handing them to me. ‘I do hope that we will be seeing you again.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, promptly equipping my weapons and fixing myself up. ‘I’m sure I’ll be back to see you one day.’

  Once I’ve taken down every gang in the city.

  But I was getting ahead of myself.

  The guards returned downstairs amid torrents of angered yelling and growling. I nodded to them and passed by, pulling up my mask and whipping my hood over my head just as I reached the street.

  And there he was.

  Bartram staggered through the now-quiet street, swiping at the empty space before himself with his axe in huge, powerful swings.

  Veronica hadn’t been kidding. This chemical was more powerful than anything I had ever seen.

  And one of the guys who had tried to kill me was now on the receiving end of it.

  ‘Hey!’ I shouted after him. ‘HEY!’

  ‘NO! GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME!’

  He turned and took another swipe, but I was yards away. When his blade had hit nothing for three swings, he took off in a terrified sprint to a narrow alleyway between the buildings to his left.

  I followed him, feeling the rage build up within me.

  I moved into the dark alley after him. There was just enough light from a streetlamp outside to show me that this was a dead end.

  My first betrayer sprinted to the end of the alley and, finding no exit, turned and looked back at me with his blade at the ready.

  ‘Fight me, demon! I’ll send you straight back to hell.’

  I pulled down my hood and my mask.

  ‘You remember me, Bartram?’

  Bartram glared back at me, holding his axe up and pointing the blade at me. There was a moment of lucidity in his eyes as he glared back at me.

  He quickly reached into his jacket pocket and retrieved a hip flask, promptly downing several harsh glugs of the contents.

  I could practically smell it from where I stood, and I knew the scent.

  Vodka strong enough to contest with the liquor that Mavis had loaned me to clean out my wounds.

  No way is he going to drink that…

  He took several long glugs from the flask, shivered violently, and cast it aside.

  And then his eyes focused on me a little more clearly.

  ‘… Drake? Am I seeing a ghost?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘You motherfucker,’ he growled. ‘How are you alive?’

  ‘Because you sent amateurs to kill me.’

  ‘Hey, listen man, that wasn’t me. That was all Killian’s idea. He was the one who wanted you dead. I had nothing to do with it. Hell, I was against it.’

  ‘Are you sure about that? Because when I followed you here tonight from the headquarters, you all looked to be pretty pally-pally.’

  ‘I swear it wasn’t like that, Drake… Killian’s our boss-’

  ‘Your boss,’ I interrupted. ‘I’m dead, remember?’

  ‘Right. Right, my boss… But what was I supposed to do?’

  ‘You’re not doing yourself any favours,’ I growled, raising my sword. ‘Own up to it. It’d be better for you.’

  Bartram panted, his hands shaking as he mulled on his decision.

  ‘If I tell you the truth… Will you let me live?’

  ‘I don’t think you’re really in a position to be asking questions right now, Bartram. Why don’t you tell me and find out?’

  My foe squirmed and fidgeted. The over-confident swagger that he usually sported was gone, and now he was struggling to find a way out of his predicament.

  The chemical was still having an effect on his mind, and it was pushing him further towards the answer that I wanted.

  ‘Fine… It was all of us. We all decided on it, Drake. You were getting too big for your boots. Killian hired those two new guys to take you out. We thought they had just done it and skipped town, seeing as we didn’t hear another peep from the three of you.’

  ‘All three of you?’ I confirmed. ‘So you were all in on it.’

  ‘It was John’s idea, but Wargo and I were both on board. It’s been a long-time coming…’

  ‘My death has been a long-time coming? Are you shitting me?’

  ‘I didn’t mean it like that, Drake!’ He pleaded. ‘It’s just… We don’t think the same way you do.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter now. You’re just going to kill me anyway. Will you please just get it over with or let me go? I’m tired of waiting.’

  I looked at me enemy, my sword still raised and took a deep breath as I considered the situation.

  All three of the bastards had plotted to kill me.

  ‘You know what,’ I finally retorted. ‘I’m not going to kill you. That would be an execution, and there’s no bounty on your head. That just makes me a murderer. But you say one word about me being alive to either of them and I’ll rip your head off and pull your lungs out through your neck.’

  ‘I promise, man. I won’t say anything. Just let me go.’

  I eyed him angrily, keeping my hand placed firmly on the handle of my sword. Slowly, steadily, I dragged it away, sheathed it, and buried my hands in my pockets before stepping aside.

  ‘… Seriously? You’re actually going to let me go?’

  ‘It’s a courtesy you would never have offered me. You’re a piece of shit, and you know it. Now get the fuck out of here.’

  Bartram took a cowering footstep forward and stumbled onwards. He kept one hand hanging by his side and one covering his chest.

  ‘You’re a better man than me, Drake,’ he whimpered. ‘If it were up t
o me I would never have let Killian sign your death warrant. Really he pressured me into it, he-’

  Just a yard from passing me in the shadowy alleyway, he dropped sharply to his knee, grabbed the handle of a dagger hidden at his ankle, whipped it free and drove it straight towards my chest.

  With my free hand I knocked his arm to the side, and with my right hand I pulled the trigger of the concealed pistol hidden in my jacket pocket.

  The bullet tore straight through the fabric and struck him in the gut.

  I had reacted instantly simply because I knew it was coming. Bartram had been acting the whole time.

  I had, too.

  Bartram halted in his tracks. The knife dropped from his hand, and his other hand touched to the wound at his stomach.

  He looked down at his gut in pure shock, then glared back up at me.

  ‘Did you really think I didn’t know your cowardly ass was going to try to kill me the first chance you got?’ I said flatly.

  Bartram spluttered a mouthful of blood as he tried to respond. He crashed back against the wall and slid down to the ground, but his enraged eyes remained fixed on me.

  ‘You fucking shot me.’

  ‘No shit.’

  Bartram managed a laugh, then a grunt. Even in the dark of the alleyway I could see the blood spilling copiously from the wound on his stomach.

  ‘You know something?’ He said. ‘Fuck you, lone wolf. I was in on it. Every one of us was in on it. We were sick of your smug meditative ass thinking you were better than all of us, talking about going after the fucking gangs… You will amount to nothing, Drake. You should’ve just laid down and taken it like the submissive little bitch you are. You’re an uppity fucking nobody.’

  ‘Maybe,’ I panted through gritted teeth, pulling the rifle from over my shoulder, ‘but at least I’m still alive.’

  Bartram moved to let out a wheezing, blood-curdled laugh, but he didn’t have time. I had already cocked my rifle and pointed it at his head.

  I pulled the trigger without hesitation. The bullet struck him square in the forehead, and his lifeless body sagged to the side in the shadows of the alleyway.

  I quickly put away my rifle and poked my head out of the alleyway, checking for any signs of life. A drunk laughed somewhere down the street. A cat sprinted from one side to the other, disappearing into a large crack in the building.

  Nobody was around to see me.

  I pulled my hood and my scarf back over my face, buried my hands in my pockets and emerged from the alleyway, disappearing into the night.

  11 – Clean-up

  ‘Good fucking riddance.’

  Cassandra was stretched out on the bed in her underwear, propping herself up with one arm as she looked over at me with an entranced expression.

  After making sure that I hadn’t been followed and arriving back at the hideout, I had entered through the hidden door covered in sweat, spattered with blood, and hands glazed with mud from the scuffle in the alleyway.

  Cassandra had woken up as I had shut the door, drawing one of her twin blades and pointing it straight at me, while Veronica had drawn a deep breath.

  The next thing I knew I was on my back in the bathtub, while Veronica took off to drop my clothes into a separate tub of water.

  She returned promptly and began to wash my body down, unable to keep her eyes off me as she did. For somebody who was so concerned with manners, she didn’t seem to have a problem with stripping me down and rubbing my body all over with hot water.

  Not that I was complaining.

  ‘He’s just the first of three,’ I said, finishing my story and drawing a deep breath. ‘And he was probably the easiest to take down, too. Arrogant and gullible, two things that’ll spell the death of you when they walk hand in hand.’

  ‘But what about the body?’ Cassandra asked. ‘There will be a bounty for information going out the moment his body is found. His guild will get word of it.’

  ‘I want them to know,’ I said calmly, but clenching my fist into a tight ball beneath the water.

  ‘But they will think that you are alive, no?’ Veronica said, scooping water over my chest and letting the warm liquid seep over my skin. ‘Surely that will blow your cover.’

  ‘Not exactly. They’ll know Bartram’s dead, sure, but how will they know that it’s me? I’m sure that they will have their suspicions with my so-called death happening so close to Bartram’s, but I want them to feel it. I want them to feel like they aren’t sure about my real fate. I want them to question themselves and go crazy at the thought of it. And then I’m going to find them and kill them when they’re at their most afraid – just like I was.’

  ‘You were afraid, Drake?’ Cassandra asked. ‘I haven’t known you long, but it’s not like you to admit that.’

  ‘I try to take the prospect of death in my stead, but I quite like living. So, yeah, of course I was scared.’

  ‘That’s a fate that you dole out every day to your enemies though, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yep. But death has to meet all men eventually. I just hope I’m old when it reaches me.’

  ‘Amen,’ Veronica said, finishing cleaning me up.

  I climbed out of the bath and towelled myself off, falling onto the bed with Cassandra. She wrapped an arm over me and rested her head on my chest.

  ‘Now can we get to sleep?’ She said. ‘It’s one in the morning.’

  ‘Definitely,’ Veronica said casually. She undid her apron and undid the knot of her outfit at the back of her neck.

  I could only watch in awe, trying not to let my jaw fall open, as she shrugged her slender shoulders out of her outfit and let it drop to the ground.

  She stood in nothing but a set of pristine white underwear against her smooth skin, exposing her slim body, perky breasts and tight waist. Her pert behind propped out behind her as she confidently raised her hands over her head and stretched. Her tail flicked up and moved back and forth in slow, smooth movements as she set eyes on me and grinned warmly.

  ‘Mind if I share the bed?’ She said. ‘I promise I am a quiet sleeper.’

  ‘Uhh… Sure,’ I said, trying to sound casual at her proposition.

  ‘Fine by me,’ Cassandra said, ‘I have shared a bed with you in more than a few occasions.’

  ‘That you have.’

  ‘You know,’ I said, wrapping my arm around Veronica as her tender body snuggled up to my other side, ‘You never did get around to telling me that story…’

  ‘There is more than one story,’ my foxgirl said. ‘Spire City gets cold in the winter, and we had to huddle together for warmth. But then things became too warm, and we couldn’t throw off the covers, so our clothes had to go. Then…’

  I was exhausted by the day’s events, but the sound of the girls explaining to me how they had first been together was enough to send me into dreams that were beyond peaceful.

  ***

  The next day Cassandra and I headed out to the bounty office to acquire a new target that would build our gold stores. Veronica was more than happy to spend the day back at the hideout – by her own admission she preferred to sleep long hours in between her cooking and cleaning, and for all that she was doing for me I couldn’t exactly argue with her.

  Besides, her eccentric behaviour would probably draw too much attention in the streets of the district, even in one as bohemian as this.

  Arriving at the bounty office, I immediately found that Cassandra was right about the bounty regarding Bartram’s murder. It had already been posted, offering 50 gold pieces for information or evidence leading to the capture of his killer.

  ’50 gold pieces?’ Cassandra said quietly. ‘That’s all he’s worth?’

  ‘It’s the information that’s worth something. Actually apprehending his killer is the more expensive part. Look.’

  Further down the poster, there was an offer for 500 gold pieces for the further capture of his killer.

  The problem with many crimes in Spire City, though, was evidenc
e. Bounties weren’t put out on individuals unless there was an abundance of eyewitnesses to the event, and then a sketch of the criminal had to be drawn up.

  Turning over the body of a man and saying that he was a killer without supplying any evidence was enough to get you executed yourself.

  That was why I only went after those who were named and identified.

  The gangs were a different matter. They were responsible for a lot more crimes than people knew of. They would hit targets anonymously sometimes while nobody was around – just like I had done last night – so there would be no witnesses.

  Other times they did it out in the open to declare their power outright, but that was only to send a message.

  The point is, the crimes that they were wanted for were only a small minority of the actual crimes that they had committed.

  Which is what made them so dangerous.

  But I knew that I was safe, not only from the gangs but from my old guild. Right now I was nothing but a ghost. Nobody had seen me, nobody knew my face.

  My death would strike fear into nobody, but Bartram’s sure would.

  ‘What are we looking for today?’ Cassandra asked. ‘Another group of bandits?’

  ‘Something a little more challenging, I think,’ I said, scanning the wall of wanted posters. ‘I was considering a premium lone-wolf, but now I’m considering something else. Small-time, small-time, probably already dead…’

  I traced my finger just a few inches from the parchments, scanning the bounties available. I abandoned the small-timers at the bottom, moving above the bandits and the thieves, and sought to find something linked to the actual gangs.

  I had no intention of going after one of them just yet – that was a plan for another day – but if I could find somebody that was connected to them in some way then that would be a start…

  ‘Bingo,’ I said, snatching up a piece of parchment and reading it back in my head. Cassandra moved closer to my side, reading it over my shoulder.

  WANTED – DEAD OR ALIVE

  ODASA MERLIAH

  For the crime of immolation of a Spire City Guard

  1000 gold pieces

  Known location: Jagged House, Beyond City Walls