Harboring a werewolf wasn’t a federal crime; it was local to the vampire territories only. Still, he thought it best to be coy.
“It’s been about a year.”
“So he’s had his shots?”
“I’m sure he’s had some shots in his lifetime,” Paulie answered, assuming that Burt was a drinker.
“All right,” the guy said as Mr. Biscuits nuzzled his leg. “He seems like a nice-enough mutt, but listen, Mr. Vergo—”
“Vergen.”
“—just get a collar and some tags for the dog, will ya? It’s a $50 fine otherwise.”
“How much is the license?”
“$250.”
“I see,” Paulie said, thinking he’d rather pay the $50. “Thank you, officer.”
The line had barely moved and Paulie was feeling the effects of his lack of sleep. Seeing that they weren’t going to make any real progress anytime soon, Paulie pulled out of line and headed toward the shops in search of food.
“Maybe we can even find you a collar and some tags, Mr. Biscuits.”
Paulie was finding that he somewhat enjoyed the company of a dog. While he knew that it was actually a werewolf, the werepup form of the creature was nice to have around. He resolved to seriously consider going to the pound after this entire ordeal was cleared up. Paulie understood what it meant to be considered a lost cause, after all.
They turned in to a small pet shop at the end of the row and found a neatly trimmed leash and collar set. It was black leather with multiple points of elastic interweaving. The band would stretch nicely for Mr. Biscuits. It also had little silver studs jutting out from it. Paulie tried to find one without the studs, but none of those had the elastic relief.
“You look like a real tough werepup there, Mr. Biscuits,” Paulie said with a laugh.
“That’s one of our better models,” the salesperson offered.
He was a halfling that came up to Paulie’s elbow. Being that Paulie wasn’t very tall himself, this made the man seem like a small child. His pudgy face and curly brown hair only added to the childlike visage.
“It’s rugged,” the little fellow continued. “It’ll give you years of service and it’ll grow with your dog too.”
“How much does it cost?”
“That one runs $30.”
Paulie’s eyebrows shot up.
“Sorry, what am I saying? I meant to say it was 20% off, um, $20.”
“So $14?”
“That seems awfully low, doesn’t it?”
“Not to me,” Paulie said.
“Let’s say $15 and we’ll be done with it.”
“I’d rather stick with the $14 you just said it cost.”
The halfling nodded sagely. “You drive a hard-bargain, my friend.”
“I do?”
“Not many can get the better of old Epps in a negotiation.”
Paulie felt a small sense of pride as he was not exactly gifted in the art of negotiation.
As they walked out of the place, there was a sign in the window showing the collar and leash set that he’d just bought. It showed a price of $9.99.
Paulie finished clicking the leash onto the collar and then decided that, for once, he was not going to be taken advantage of.
“Stay here, Mr. Biscuits. I have something I need to do.”
He turned around to see the doors were shut and locked and the shopkeeper was in the process of spinning the sign that said, “Out to lunch.”
“Isn’t that timely,” Paulie said with a sneer.
The two walked the hall for a while, checking out all the shops. A couple of officers passed by, but they didn’t say anything about the werepup. Paulie assumed they noted the collar and leash and expected everything was on the up-and-up. Even if he had overpaid for the set, it was far less than the $250 to get a license.
“I don’t know about you, Mr. Biscuits, but I am getting hungry. Let’s take to the food court and see if we can find something to eat.”
The choices were nearly endless as they walked from one end to the other. Employees were handing out samples to the point where Paulie was starting to find himself full. On the one hand it made him feel a little guilty; on the other hand, he felt full. Mr. Biscuits was not offered any samples, though, so Paulie purchased him a pulled-pork sandwich and found a seat against a wall.
“Here you go, Mr. Biscuits,” Paulie said as he placed the food on the floor. Within seconds, it was gone.
“I guess you were hungry too, eh? I can’t say I blame you. It’s been quite a day so far.”
Paulie took out his wallet and began taking inventory of its contents. He was down to $25, which he assumed was enough to get a portal ticket to Fez.
“There must be an automated teller machine here,” he said, scanning the area.
“Well, that’s gonna cost ya,” the officer that had spoken with Paulie earlier was sitting at the next table with his eye on Mr. Biscuits, who had just dropped a doozy of a doodle by the wall.
“Oh, no,” Paulie said, jumping from his chair. “Mr. Biscuits, that’s a bad boy!”
Mr. Biscuits crawled under the table, his ears lowering guiltily, as Paulie grabbed some napkins and began to clean up the mess.
The officer had his book out again.
This time he was writing.
He made Paulie sign the ticket and pay the fine on the spot, and then went back to his own table.
Paulie was livid.
He snagged Mr. Biscuits by the leash and pulled him out of the food court.
“You just cost me $25,” Paulie was saying as they rounded the corner. “Between the clothes I’ve purchased, the portal ticket, the food, and the destruction you’ve done to my house, I’m starting to get the feeling you’re trying to bring me to the brink of financial ruin!”
Mr. Biscuits responded by keeping his tail between his legs.
“Now we have no choice but to find a bank. Because of you, we’re broke.” They walked on in silence for a while. After a few hundred paces, though, Paulie could no longer hold his tongue. “Honestly, I have never seen an animal void itself as much as you do. If I hadn’t read that article on Werewolfism, I would have thought you must have some type of problem. I’m just glad you don’t seem to have this issue when in non-wolf form. If you did, I wouldn’t be paying the fines. You can be sure of that!”
Paulie found an ATM at the corner drug store, and he checked his bank balance. He groaned. He hated falling under the minimum amount required to avoid monthly fees. Not that it was much of a fee, but over a year it added up.
“Why I should keep putting my neck out for you, I just don’t know,” he said as $100 piped out from the slot.
A line was forming behind him so he tucked the cash into his wallet, grabbed his receipt, and moved out of the way.
He sat down on a bench and forced himself to relax by people-watching.
There were all sorts of travelers in the station. Gnomes, halflings, dark elves, regular elves, humans, trolls, orcs, and so on. There were even a few dwarfs mixed in here and there, but not very many. Their lot tried to keep to the mountains. Paulie found it interesting how all the races had both great similarities and great differences with each other. Clearly everyone was made from the same mold, but some were smaller, thinner, taller, fatter, hornier (meaning they had horns, not the other thing…though maybe that too), lankier, quicker, slower, and so on.
Though Paulie was agnostic, he imagined that if The Twelve actually existed, they must have spent a lot of time differentiating each race.
Paulie felt a tap on his shoulder and jolted slightly. He turned and saw a rather odd creature indeed. It stood roughly the height of a dwarf, had a triangular head that encased enormous almond-shaped eyes, no discernible nose, and a tiny mouth. It was gray in color and it was pointing a long, thin finger at Mr. Biscuits, who was in the process of watering the potted plant that sat next to the bench.
“Not again,” Paulie said as Mr. Biscuits stepped away from the p
ot.
Paulie spun back toward the little gray man again, but in his place stood the officer from the food court. He was shaking his head and filling out another citation.
“Mr. Biscuits,” Paulie admonished the werepup, “you need to learn some self-control.”
The officer turned the book toward Paulie, who signed his name.
“Did you just see the little gray man that was here?”
The officer’s head darted around as if making sure no one was watching. “You saw one of the little gray men?” he whispered.
“Yes, I have never seen the likes of him before.”
“If I were you, mister, I wouldn’t mention it to anyone. Ever.”
“Why not?”
“Well, the last guy who reported a sighting was abducted by them, and it wasn’t pretty.”
“Abducted? Seriously?”
“Yeah, and let’s just say those little gray people seem to have a real fondness for probing the old gluteus maximus. The poor guy couldn’t sit right for a month. To make matters worse, the authorities were so freaked out by the guy’s story that they ran it up the food chain. The guy hasn’t been seen since. Rumor has it that the government tucked him away in a padded room somewhere and they’re running their own probes.”
“Where do they come from?”
“Government types? Hard to say. My first guess is that they come from the same place we all do, but sometimes you gotta wonder.”
“No, I mean the gray creatures.”
“Oh, right,” the officer said. “No one knows. At least not at my level. They just started showing up occasionally in the terminal shortly after it opened. It’s still a mystery how they get in and out, but obviously they’ve got some trick.”
“You mean they don’t use the portals?”
“If they do, we don’t know how. I think that’s why the government boys are so concerned about them. They haven’t a clue who they are or where they come from.”
“Has anyone else been abducted?” Paulie asked, eyes wide.
“Happens all the time, but nobody registers reports anymore. The thought of a permanent stay in a government facility is far worse than a few weeks of walking funny.”
Paulie had to agree with that. It’s not like reporting it would undo the abduction and subsequent probing, after all.
“Thanks for the warning,” Paulie said and then shrugged. “I guess I didn’t actually see anything. Was completely my imagination.”
“Wise,” the officer said. “Hard to go wrong when you see nothing, hear nothing, and say nothing.”
IN PURSUIT
Stelan was confident that he would get to his quarry before they got to King Larkin. Even if they did manage to land in Yezan ahead of him, Stelan knew the area. They didn’t. And a vampire in Yezan was a recipe for a short life.
Of all the portal stations, Stelan liked Yergarn the least. It had so many rules and regulations that it made travel difficult. Fortunately, he spent enough time in the systems that he was considered an elite club member. This bought him expedited service and a plethora of sneers and jibes as he walked to the front of the line.
“Your card?”
He handed it over.
“Thank you, sir. Do you have anything to declare?”
“I do not.”
“No suitcases today, sir?”
“Just my attaché. Simple day trip.”
“Very well. Destination?”
“Fez.”
“Checking the portal, sir. We have been having problems as of late with Fez.”
Stelan was all too familiar with the portal issues in Fez. He had been trapped there on more than one instance because of their governmental pointlessness.
“Everything is in working order, sir,” the attendant said. “If you’re ready?”
“I am.”
A blink later he was standing in Fez.
The town sat just off the ocean, trapping it between the water and a spattering of mountains to the northeast. It was the middle of the night and it was just as musty as it was every time Stelan had visited. Stelan had read that when the water vapors rolled in, they got captured low, and settled with a thick fog until the daylight sun burned it off. From his perspective, it was just another reason to dislike the place.
“Off the platform,” one of the portal workers instructed.
“Right,” said Stelan, stepping down. “May I ask you a question?”
“It’s a socialist country,” the ogre said with a shrug.
“Have you seen a vampire and a dog come through here tonight?”
“Nope.”
“Are you certain? It’s very important.”
“Oh,” the ogre said. “Well, if it’s very important then I’ll really have to think on it. Hmmm, let’s see. Still nope.”
“I sensed your sarcasm there.”
The ogre rolled his eyes and walked away.
But the ogre was right about one thing: It was a socialist country. That meant that Fez was an open-society and that Stelan could get any information he wanted.
He opened his ePad and, after some doing, hooked into the portal vids. He fast-forwarded through the last four hours but saw nothing of Paulie or Hughbarian, so they had to still be in Yergarn Station. The line at Yergarn for normal passengers had been quite long, for sure.
He kicked himself for not checking out the station first.
Stelan stepped back toward the portal, but the worker held up his hand.
“Portal down,” he said.
“Down?”
“Did I stutter?”
“How long will it be down?” Stelan asked.
“How am I supposed to know?”
“Aren’t you in charge of keeping it running?” Stelan was getting a bit irritated.
“In charge? Nobody in Fez is in charge of anything.”
“Well, does this mean that it’s broken both ways?”
The ogre scratched his bottom. “What do you mean?”
“I know people can’t leave Fez through the portal, but can people enter Fez right now?”
“They can walk.”
“Through the portal, I mean. Can anyone come in through the portal.”
“Nope.”
Stelan grunted and walked away.
Seeing that the portal was effectively down and would remain so until someone with half of a brain fixed it (which could be days in his estimation), he entered the nearest hotel and requested a room with a balcony that overlooked the portal. The clerk grunted at him, but didn’t outright object, especially after Stelan slipped a gold piece onto the counter.
“You need help with bags?”
“No,” Stelan said. “I just have the one case.”
“Room 402.”
“Thank you.” Just in case, he asked, “Listen, you didn’t happen to see a vampire and a dog check-in today, did you?”
“Nope.”
“Are you certain? It’s very…” he stopped, noting how the clerk was eying him. “Right. Never mind.”
“You gotta get out by noon tomorrow.”
“I’m sure I’ll be gone before then,” Stelan said. “I happen to be an early riser.”
“Don’t care,” the ogre said and then turned to another waiting customer.
GNOMES AT WAR
Paulie wanted to get out of Yergarn Station before Mr. Biscuits cost him another $25 in fines.
“What do you mean the portal to Fez is down?” Paulie asked.
Confrontation-avoidant or not, Paulie had his breaking point and it wasn’t far off. Two hours standing in the security line, the full body scan, including commentary on his missing fang, and having to pay ridiculous fines would put anyone off their game.
“Sorry, sir, Fez isn’t exactly reliable.”
“Look—”
“Um, your dog is urinating on the post,” the security officer said, pointing at Mr. Biscuits.
Paulie didn’t even bother to see what Mr. Biscuits was up to. He merely pulled out ano
ther $25 and handed it to the officer and thanked The Twelve Mr. Biscuits was only peeing.
“You should offer a discount card for travelers with pets,” Paulie said, mostly under his breath.
“We do,” the officer replied.
“Seriously?”
“Yes, it costs fifty dollars.”
“What does it give me?”
“Your dog can do his business anywhere in the station up to five times.”
“Five times! That would have saved me a lot of money. You should post that on a billboard or something.”
“I agree,” the officer said, “but upper-management feels we make more money when people don’t know about the card.”
“Not surprising,” Paulie said, shaking his head. “Since the portal to Fez is down, what are my options?”
“Hubintegler is open,” he offered. “Or you could go to Pren or Dakmenhem.”
Paulie sighed.
“You could also go to the Upperworld, assuming you’ve got a permit?”
“I don’t have a permit.”
“Then that won’t work.”
“I’m trying to get to Fez, so I assume that Hubintegler is my next best option. I’ll just need to take some other form of transportation from there.”
“They have a nice trolley system, sir. Of course, you could just wait.”
Paulie gestured at Mr. Biscuits. “I don’t think I can afford that.”
The officer nodded.
“Okay, so how much is it for me and my, uh, dog to get to Hubintegler?”
“Twenty-five dollars.”
“Of course it is,” Paulie said with a sigh as he handed over another $25.
They got on the platform and Paulie told Mr. Biscuits to sit.
“Hurry up and get this thing going before this one decides he needs to go again,” called Paulie. “I don’t have any more money to pay fines!”
A moment later they were standing on the portal in Hubintegler.
The operator, a gnome that was about half as tall as a halfling, was staring at Mr. Biscuits.
“Oooh,” the tiny person said, “a horsey!”
Paulie imagined that to someone that small, Mr. Biscuits could be a rather useful mode of transportation.
“Does he bite?”
Comedic Fantasy Bundle #1: 4 Hilarious Adventures (Tales from the land of Ononokin) Page 25