by Logan Jacobs
Herm’s soft snores carried down the hallway as I stood to take my own peek out the tiny glass square in the door. Sure enough, a singular headlight shone about thirty feet down the road. When it was close enough to light up the front yard, the driver flicked it off, and shut down the engine so they could coast into the driveway. The motorcycle glided around the farmhouse, and Ariette and I softly padded over to look out at the garden. The bike came to a stop just outside the gate, and a short, skinny figure dismounted. The figure took off its helmet, and under the glow of the moon, we could just make out a man’s face, rough with a five o’clock shadow. He had a backpack hung over his shoulders, and a tiny golden bird head peeked out of it.
This guy had the phoenix with him.
He softly walked over to the gate and pushed it open with a loud creak. Instantly, the man froze and waited for about thirty seconds before he continued into the garden and made a beeline for the Moly Flower.
In a flash, I drew my gun and swung the back door open. I let it slam back against the side of the house on purpose. I wanted to startle the living daylights out of the thief and let him know that we were onto him. The moment the door banged, he leapt back from the flowers and turned toward the sound.
“I don’t think you’re supposed to be doing that,” I said to him calmly, while Ariette grabbed a zip tie from her pockets. “Step back and put your hands up.”
The man took a deep breath, and I could see that he was visibly shaking. But he put his hands in the air and didn’t fight Ariette as she pulled his backpack off and forced him to his knees. Then, she tied his hands together and picked up the baby phoenix. The elf grabbed a few flowers and fed them to the bird who scarfed them down hungrily.
“Well, I think we found our last baby animal, HC,” Ariette said as she grabbed the man roughly by his arm.
He didn’t say a word.
Chapter 17
“Did you get him?” Herm demanded as he burst out of the back door behind me, his rifle held tightly in his hands. The moment he saw the thief, he aimed the barrel at his chest and crouched a little lower like he was ready to fire.
“It’s okay, Herm,” I chuckled as I pushed the tip of his gun down.
The wizard lowered it slowly while he stared at the thief, whose brown eyes were now wide with fear. After being confronted by a semi-crazy old wizard wielding a gun, I couldn’t blame the dude.
“You’re a filthy, rotten scoundrel, you know that?” Herm spat at the thief. Ariette burst out laughing as she pushed the guy forward and around the side of the house. She handed me the baby phoenix as she went, and I took the creature gingerly.
It mewled a little in my arms, and I was surprised at how strange the thing felt in my hands. There were only a few golden feathers on its scrawny head, but they still shone brilliantly, like they were their own light source. I could only imagine what a full grown phoenix would look like, covered in those feathers. The rest of the creature kind of looked like a hairless cat. Its skin was pink and wrinkly, and it felt leathery on my fingertips. The wings were nearly nonexistent, just two little flaps of skin on its back, and its white-yellow feet lacked real claws yet.
But its eyes were beautiful. They were a soft yellowy gold with tiny flecks of green. And they looked like they held all the wisdom in the world as they stared into my very soul. With those eyes, it was no wonder phoenixes were thought of as wise birds.
“You want to tell us your name, or wait until we get to the guild to fingerprint you and throw your ass in jail for conspiring with the known terrorist organization, the Phobos?” Ariette barked at the man as she shoved him into the back of the car.
He pushed his feet into the floor and tried to leap back out of the backseat, but Ariette was too quick. She shoved him down and drew her sword as fast as lightning.
“Listen, lady,” the man said in a thick and heavily accented voice. He sounded like he was from somewhere in the east. “I don’t know anything about no Phobos. Okay, I admit, the bird is stolen, yeah. But I didn’t do anything with these Phobos people you’re talking about.”
Ariette’s blue eyes looked at me inquisitively as she silently asked for my opinion.
“He’s a damn liar,” Herm growled, and then he raised his rifle again.
“I think we ought to get him back to the guild,” I said hurriedly as I shoved the barrel down again and took the gun from him gently.
As much as I admired the wizard’s gusto, I didn’t trust him not to shoot his own balls accidentally off in a fit of righteous rage.
“In my day we’d have killed him,” Herm muttered dejectedly. “Dirty rotten thief.”
“We like to try to get information out of them first,” Ariette pointed out as she slammed the door shut.
“If you insist,” Herm finally allowed. “What are you gonna do? Torture him?”
“We have our ways,” Ariette nodded.
“Well,” I said as I turned to the wizard with an outstretched hand. “Thank you for letting us use your kitchen to stakeout this guy. And thanks for the backup.”
“Milton, you are welcome here any time,” he said seriously, and then he pulled me in tightly like we were spies having a secret conversation. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “You can do it, you know. Be the Racmoth. Whatever is coming, you can handle it. If you couldn’t, you wouldn’t be prophesied, Blood Wielder.”
The old wizard stepped away from me unevenly and lowered his icy blue eyes at me. I wasn’t totally sure how to respond in that moment, and it struck me that that was the first time anyone had outright told me that I was capable of this. The dragon had told me it’s what I would do, Ariette and Kalista had agreed, but none of them had told me that I could do it. And even though I didn’t know Herm, and really, he could just be some crazy old wizard, it made me feel a lot better to know somebody truly believed in me.
“HC, are you ready?” Ariette called, and her voice pulled me out of my thoughts.
I turned to find the blonde beauty as she leaned casually against the driver’s side door with a smirk on her face.
“Uh, what are you doing?” I asked. “I’m driving.”
“No way!” she cried out and pouted her lips. “You drove all the way here. It’s my turn.”
As if in agreement, the little phoenix baby let out a tiny squawk in my arms that sounded more like a squeak.
“See,” she said with a grin, “the bird agrees. Hand over the keys.”
“Fine,” I sighed and dug in my pocket for the keys. I tossed them to her, and she caught them gracefully and shot me an excited wink as she slid into the seat.
“And besides,” she said as I climbed in, “someone’s got to hold the bird.”
“Joke’s on you.” I rolled my eyes as the engine purred to life, and then I stuffed down the pangs of jealousy in my stomach. “This little guy is adorable.”
“Hey, uh so like, what are you two?” the thief asked from the backseat. “I’m Rob, I’m a human, uh--”
“We’re just two people who would appreciate it if you would shut the fuck up,” I grumbled as Ariette turned the car onto the dirt road.
“Okay, man, I get your whole vibe here,” Rob responded calmly. “It’s like, uh, Mr. Too-Cool-for-School, or, uh--”
His sentence was abruptly cut off when Ariette smacked a button on the dashboard, and a heavy glass partition rolled up between the front and back seats. I snuck a glance over my shoulder to watch an expression of indignant shock cross his face as the glass thumped against the ceiling.
“That’s better,” Ariette sighed as she settled comfortably into the driver’s seat. I tapped on the screen on the dashboard to bring up the communications system and connect with the Van of Death.
“Hey, Kal,” I said when the little mechanical buzz let me know we were connected. “Talk to me.”
“I am so bored!” she growled into the line before I could say another word. “Tell me you have good news.”
“We got him,” I snickered, “y
ou guys can meet us back at the guild.”
“Thank the GODS!” Kalista exclaimed quickly. “I was seriously about to start reading a newspaper. A newspaper, Milton! We’ll see you back at the guild. Bye!”
And with that, the call clicked off.
“That girl has never been much for stakeouts,” Ariette chuckled. “It’s a good thing she doesn’t have to do them as often.”
“Patience is not Kal’s strong suit,” I agreed. “Although apparently giving her sandwiches will do the trick.”
“You know what I think?” Ariette said suddenly.
“Huh?” I mumbled back as my eyes started to flicker closed. The purr of the engine and the movement of the car had begun to lull me to sleep already.
“I think that we should see how fast this thing goes,” the elf responded with a wicked smile.
Before I could utter a reply, the elven warrior floored the gas, and the car leapt forward as the speedometer climbed up to over one hundred and fifty miles per hour. I cupped the phoenix in my arms as the engine roared and my entire back was thrown against the heated leather seats.
I looked over to see that Ariette had a grin on her face the size of a dragon’s as she clutched the wheel and pressed the gas harder and harder. Rob, in the back seat, had thrown himself down into a terrified ball, and he dug his head in between the seat backing and the actual seat as far as it could go. The exhilaration of our speed combined with Rob’s curled up form caused me to laugh out loud. Ariette laughed too, a light sound full of joy and excitement.
“Alright, I just needed to do that once,” she giggled as she let her foot off the gas, and the car slowed down. A hollow bang reverberated against my eardrums, and I turned to see Rob’s angry face as he yelled something incoherent. He actually turned red with anger, but I just shrugged innocently at him and turned back around.
Thanks to Ariette’s love of fast driving, and the fact that she could actually see out of all the windows, we made it back just before Kal and Maaren, despite the fact that Herm’s place was twice as far away.
“They’re trying to kill me,” Rob cried into the night as he stumbled out of the backseat and fell on his knees on the gravel driveway.
Kal and Maaren pulled up then, and when they hopped out, he turned pleadingly to them.
“These psychos are trying to kill me!” he repeated, his eyes wide with sincerity. “You got to stop them! This is illegal!”
“No,” Maaren responded calmly as she hoisted the man to his feet, “what’s illegal is stealing a protected egg from a museum. That’s illegal.”
“I didn’t steal anything from any museum, lady!” Rob protested as Maaren hauled him inside.
It was the dead of night, but even so, a pink fairy flitted across the lobby, and a satyr paced the floor to our right as he mumbled and read from a manila folder.
“Uh-huh,” Maaren muttered uncaringly. “That’s why you totally showed up to steal a rare flower with a rare bird in your backpack, right?”
“I mean, sure,” Rob continued and tried to turn around and face all of us, but Ariette grabbed his other arm and helped Maaren haul him toward the stairs. “I knew the egg was stolen, yeah. And when it hatched, that one scary elf dude told me that I was supposed to watch after that phoenix and train him when he got older. But that wasn’t always the deal, I mean I’m a dog trainer. I don’t know anything about birds, and then I just haven’t heard from them in days so I figured I’d get the bird some food. But hey, I can give you all their names, you know!”
Rob talked fast, and it got faster as he went on. His face also grew an awful beet red color, and he was pretty much hyperventilating by the time he finished his mile long sentence. He looked wildly between Maaren and Ariette, but neither of them said a word and just set their faces into stony expressions while they dragged Rob down the hallway and into an interrogation room.
“We already know their names,” I told him from the steel doorway as the women handcuffed him to the table, “but you’re going to tell us your whole story in a minute.”
And with that, Ariette and Maaren strode out of the room and slammed the door hard behind them. The little phoenix baby squawked in my arms at the noise, and for the first time, Kalista wrinkled her nose at a magical creature.
“It looks like a newborn baby’s butt,” the dwarf muttered as she stared at the bird. “But it’s all wrinkly like an old man’s.”
The phoenix just tilted its head at her in a rather human-like manner and blinked its big, gold eyes.
“I think it’s kind of cute,” Maaren cooed as she bent to scratch the phoenix’s chin. “How do you know what an old man’s butt looks like anyway?”
“You would think a dinosaur was cute,” Kal countered, and completely ignored the question.
Maaren just shrugged in agreement.
“So what do we do with it?” Ariette stepped into the conversation. “We certainly don’t have enough Moly Flowers in evidence to keep it fed.”
“We could give it to the zoo,” I replied.
I was not about to take on more parenting duties. Storm kept me busy enough as it was. Besides, we didn’t need another magical creature. Storm and Jake could fight the bad guys alongside us. A phoenix couldn’t really do that.
“They don’t have a phoenix,” Maaren added. “I was told that many, many times on our trip there. Pretty sure Victor was hinting that he wanted one. Although, it was hard to tell between puffs of air.”
“Right!” I exclaimed as I remembered how the poor guy seemed like he should have an inhaler with him at all times. “That was weird.”
“So the zoo it is,” Ariette announced. “Maaren, do you think you could make a special delivery?”
“Sure,” the hunter said as she shrugged and reached for the bird. “They’ll be open in an hour or so. I’ll just drive over there and catch Victor before the crowds come in.”
Maaren trodded off with the bird in her hands, and Ariette turned to Kal and I.
“What are the odds this guy has any really useful information on the Phobos?” she asked quietly.
A dryad stumbled past us in a post night-shift haze, but it seemed he didn’t hear a word the elf said as he walked zombie-like up the stairs.
“Probably zero,” Kalista replied cynically once we were alone again. “None of these lower-level guys seem to know their head from their ass.”
“But it’s worth a shot,” I pointed out. “Might as well see what he knows before we let Alfrisco haul him off to jail.”
“Ugh.” Ariette shuddered as she thought of the paunchy human cop. “Alright, Kal, give the human police a call. HC, you and I are on interrogation duty.”
I nodded, put on my best poker face, and reached out for the door handle.
“Look man,” Rob cried the minute we stepped inside. “They got me. I admit, they got me with their promises. They said there would be money, and--”
“Would you shut up already?” Ariette asked in exasperation. “You’ve already been found guilty. Now it’s just a matter of how long your sentence is going to be.”
Immediately, Rob snapped his mouth shut, and the sound of his teeth were audible as they clacked together. He stared at us with an expression that I found extremely comical, but I bit back my laugh to try to be professional. His eyes were wide, but he pulled his head back to stop himself from speaking, and in the process had given himself about fifty chins. He looked like a fat caterpillar.
“Look,” I said to Rob as I sat down across from him. “Can you just tell us what happened, in concise terms?”
He didn’t say anything and just looked from Ariette to me and back again.
“You can speak now,” Ariette said gruffly as she crossed her arms over her chest.
“O-okay,” Rob stammered, and then he let out a huge puff of air. “Well, see, like I said, I’m a dog trainer. So this one day, this big scary elf dude says he’s got a job for me. And it’ll pay real well. I’ve got this bad gambling habit, so I could
really use the money. Anyways, he takes me down into the sewers--by the way, you ever been down there? Nasty, nasty place.”
“Yeah, we know, go on,” I prompted him.
“So anyhow, he takes me into the sewers and there’s this golden egg there,” Rob continued. “I’d seen it on the news, you know, so I knew what that egg was. And there are these other animals too. A griffin, a hydra, ooh and a kraken! They had a real kraken down there, crazy shit. So anyhow, I’m getting paid to train all these animals, and it’s good money, so I do it, no questions asked. But then one day, I take the phoenix up for a flying lesson, I come back, and poof! They’re all gone.”
Rob sat back proudly in his chair as far as his handcuffs would let him, and then he just nodded at Ariette and I, like we were old friends that shared a deep secret.
“Do you have any idea why they wanted you to train these animals? Were there any more?” Ariette asked roughly, and her tone gave away how annoyed she was.
“Oh, no,” Rob replied as he shook his head. He had finally managed to make a sentence short, at least. “That was above my paygrade, to say the least.”
“Was there ever anyone in charge, besides the elf?” I questioned.
“No,” Rob shrugged. “At least, not that I know of.”
“Did you know anything other than that you were there to train the animals?” Ariette sighed out, on the brink of anger.
“Nope.” Rob shook his head again. “Like I said, I was in it for the money. No questions asked.”
“Okay, then,” Ariette said, and then she stood to go. I followed suit.
“Woah, wait a minute!” Rob cried out, and the cuffs jangled against the table as he tried, and failed, to stand. “Aren’t you going to let me out?”
“The police will collect you soon,” Ariette replied on her way out the door. “They’ll send you to trial for accessory to grand larceny.”
“The nether realm!” Rob shouted desperately just as Ariette and I were about to slam the door shut.
“What?” I asked as I turned around slowly. Rob’s chest heaved, and his eyes looked absolutely terrified as he stared at me.