by RyFT Brand
been…”
I whispered one name in his ear, “Valishae.”
His face softened at last and his mouth closed. “You have a talisman?”
“Of course.”
Boss Geeter glanced over at the sobbing sasquatch, then looked back at me. “I will check this out.”
“And I don’t care,” I said, walked over, stood the chair I’d been tied to back up, and sat down with the glow dart gun resting in my lap. The cardboard had all but burned out and mallow made buildings didn’t burn. “Now I’m asking questions. How’d you know that I had a meeting with the clowns?”
“So you did—”
“Hey!” I shouted. “I’m asking the questions, remember?”
He face went taunt with the reminder. “I’m Boss Geeter, I got spies everywhere.”
That got me thinking. I’d better speed this up. “You work in the city, you and the Clowns don’t cross territories, what do you care?”
“Because we thought that the Clowns might have been doing the hits on us, like they wanted to expand their territory.”
“But not anymore?”
He shook his lumpy head and spoke like he was sitting in my office, not on the floor of a warehouse minus an ear and his pants. “Nah, they’re getting hit too, so it ain’t them. Maybe it’s you.”
“It’s not me. I don’t shoot beings in the back, even monsters, I fight face to face.”
“Yeah, I know that.”
I heard something outside, something I hadn’t heard in a long time, the call of a bird. “So if you knew I wasn’t behind the hits, and you knew it wasn’t the clowns, then why the tied up and tortured routine?” I walked over to Boss Geeter’s pants and began to shake them. After a second a semi-conscious and filthy little flower fairy fell out and plopped onto the floor. Her glow was gone and she looked, and smelled, like she’d been scooped out of a cesspool.
I tossed Geeter his pants.
“I wanted to know what you knew about these attacks. I figured it wasn’t you, but I also figured you might know who it is. Just because you won’t take blind hits on us, don’t mean you wouldn’t look away from whoever was hitting us.”
He was probably right.
“You mind turning your head while I pull my pants on?” he asked.
“Yeah, I mind,” I said, aimed the gun at Moxie and pulled the trigger.
“Ocrocloc!” Geeter cursed in his native tongue. “You are despicable, you know that?”
“I know it,” I said, re-cocking the weapon.
Sure enough Moxie began to glow brightly. She shook her little head of golden curls, throwing glowing dust in the air. Then her pudgy face scrunched into a little ball of anger. She flew up and, with her little fist drawn back, sailed straight toward Boss Geeter’s face.
With a growl he snapped at her with his long, sharp fangs.
Grabbing her by the wings, I just managed to pull her out of his jaws in time. She fought forward, swinging her little fists.
Geeter nodded his approval. “Tough little speck, ain’t she?”
“Yeah,” I said, holding her up. She gazed at me with those sappy, puppy-dog eyes and smiled, her glow intensified as she did. “She’s fai, of magic itself. A glow bolt is like an energy drink to her. Oh, and you’d best call off your goons,” I said shoving Moxie in my pocket.
He tried to look surprised. “What goons?”
Just then three sets of double doors positioned on three different walls burst open and a bevy of gun wielding goblins, golems, and dark gnomes charged in.
I raised the gun and leapt for Boss Geeter, but he was ready for me. Pushing off of a hand, he kicked with both feet, sending me flying in one direction and the gun in another. I was adept enough at falling. I managed to roll though the momentum and come up on my feet; as soon as I did something massively strong clamped around my ankle.
“Ahhh!” I cried out, feeling like the bones in my ankle were about to shatter. I’d come up standing right beside the sasquatch amputee. He face was soaked with tears and he glared at me like his feelings had been hurt, but this was an act, monsters didn’t have feelings. I, however, did, and right then I was feeling pain.
Then a bright little star lighted from my pocket and flew at the behemoth’s face.
“Eeeee!” he screeched like a girl, released me and began rolling over and flailing its arms. “Keep away! Keep away!”
I caught Moxie, took two fast steps and dived down a steep loading ramp as the first shots went off narrowly above my head.
I was in deep do-do this time.
I opened my hand. “Moxie, go get help.”
She blushed, flew up and started applying kisses to my face.
“No, no.” I snatched her off my face and brought her out to where I could see her. Shots were hitting the wall above us, dust and debris rained down. The troops were moving closer and time was running short. “Moxie, go and get help. Go get DJ, or get Parry.”
She only blew me kisses.
Flower fairies were a very simple life form—they had no language, to real ability to reason. This one thought she was in love with me—I had become the flower she tended. She was bound to me, would do whatever I told her to do, only she couldn’t understand me.
“Forget it.” Limping, I hustled down the ramp to a pair of metal doors and pushed them open. They moved about two inches then stopped. A heavy chain and padlock lopped through the panic bars were holding them mostly closed. The shooting had stopped which meant bad news for me. I held the doors as far open as the chains allowed. “Moxie, fly through and get help.”
Moxie flew off my shoulder and, wrapping her little arms as far around my face a she could, applied little tingly kisses to my cheek.
Big help.
Then someone behind me cleared his throat.
I hate to admit it but I gulped.
Moxie looked over my shoulder and her eyes got big. She flew over and, with her all four of her wings beating like a bee’s, she pushed against the door. Then, looking confused, flew down and into the padlock. I sighed in frustration.
“Oh Jazz,” Boss Getter called from behind me.
Oh, what the Hades? I turned around. Boss Geeter, gun in hand and pants back in place, stood at the top of the ramp surrounded by a dozen of his ‘safety enforcers,’ which was a polite way of saying insurance salesmen which was a polite way of saying extortionists, and Boss Geeter was definitely into being polite. The creepy thugs were heavily armed too.
Boss Geeter holstered his gun and started strutting down the ramp. “So here’s the deal Jazz, I’m going to hire you to find out whoever’s behind the hits on my people.”
“You can’t afford me and you ain’t people.”
I head a cacophony of grumbles and curses from his gang. Good.
“Oh I think I can, because you’re going to do it out of the kindness of your heart. In fact you’re even going to give me a deposit. You finish the job and you get the deposit back.”
He stopped a foot from my face. I was cornered, out numbered and out gunned. But I still had one advantage over the pygmy, I wasn’t afraid to die. I’d died before and found the event unburdening. “Well then I guess you are an idiot, Boss. Because even if I would give you a deposit, which I never would, what makes you think I have any money to give you?”
Boss Geeter drew a very long, serrated knife from his jacket. “I didn’t say I wanted money. An ear for an ear?” I didn’t like the hungry look in his eyes and smile. I could tell he had no intentions of returning my deposit.
Just then fresh air and light burst into the room. Well I’d be damned, she’d managed the lock. Too bad I’d never make it through the doors.
I caught a speck of light flash by my side.
“Ohhh!” Boss Geeter shouted. His eyes burst open and he started leaping around like a frog tossed on a hot skillet. “Not again! Not again!”
Perfect cover; the sample-sized troll’s panicked antics were preventing his goon squad from
getting a clear shoot at me. And all this time I’d been thinking Moxie was a pain in my ass. I spun and leapt though the door. I could hear Boss Geeter screaming and his thugs shouting in utter confusion. The ramp dumped me onto a dead-ended track-side loading platform. There was no time. I had to jump and hope a train wasn’t coming. Just as I leapt I heard a shot fired and my right side started to burn. Out of control and blinded by pain I fell, landing on steel and gravel that added pain to my ribs.
“Ahhh,” I shouted and forced my eyes open just in time to see a heavy freight hover-train barreling straight for me. Reeling in pain, I was helpless in a puddle of my own blood.
Looks like this is the end.
…to be continued.
Jazz, Monster Collector, Season one, Episode seven...Coming Soon
I hope you’ve enjoyed this Jazz adventure.
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