by James Hunter
I crested the top of the stairs a moment later. A wood-floored hallway stretched out before me with a handful of rooms on either side. All the doors to the right were closed up tight, but that was okay since I was pretty sure Ferraro wouldn’t have picked one of those puppies. The rooms on the right would’ve been positioned above the bar room below, meaning a stray round could easily come through the floor and take you out from below. The room windows on that side would also let down in front of the bar, making our escape more noticeable. Ferraro was more than smart enough to know that, so she’d be in one of the rooms on the left.
There were four of them, two with open doors, two with closed doors—she’d be in one of ‘em, though I couldn’t be sure which. I drew my iron and moved in a crouch, keeping low and constantly peeking back over my shoulder to make sure there weren’t baddies trucking up the stairs. The first door was closed, but the knob turned freely in my hand—it swung open on creaking hinges, revealing a small room decorated with a set of drawers, a wrought-iron lamp with a rawhide shade, and a large bed, the sheets peeled away in disarray.
There was also a woman: a buxom gal who’d seen better days, her skin a shade of chalky-blue, a messy pile of curly red locks hanging around her face, and most of her clothes strewn on the floor near the mattress. She stood in the corner near the outside window, one arm wrapped around her front concealing gigantic breasts. The other hand held a sheet around her ample waist.
“You ain’t gonna hurt me, right, sug?” she asked, purple eyes widening slightly in pleading.
“No, no ma’am,” I said, dropping my weapon to show I meant her no harm.
“That’s real good,” she cooed, smiling.
Then, of course, she dropped the sheet clinging to her hips, and pulled out a dainty pistola from a shimmering white garter belt gun holster. I ducked around the corner just as the bullets smacked into the wall. Idiot. Never should’ve dropped my gun, not in a place like the Hinterlands.
I scooted along to the next room as quick as I could manage, my calf squealing in protest, though bearing my weight okay. The door was open, so I peeked around the corner and nearly got shot by another woman—this one I knew. And no, it wasn’t an ex of mine, though that’s a pretty fair guess as things go.
It was Ferraro. Thankfully, she had enough training and fire-discipline not to pull the trigger on an impulse, which certainly saved my neck. She still held Fast Hands in a chokehold, her gun tucked up under the corner of his jaw. He just stared blankly down at his ruined hand, all the fight seeming to have gone out of his body.
“Took you long enough,” she said.
“Sorry for taking my sweet time—I wasn’t standing right next to the friggin’ stairs when someone decided to pick a fight in a room full of trigger-happy killers.” I carefully closed the door behind me and slid home an old-fashioned iron bolt, sealing the room.
She scowled at me, her lips slightly turned down at the corners in disapproval. “He was trying to solicit me—called me easy.” She glanced down at the disheveled Fast Hands as though there were no greater insult known to man. For Pete’s sake, the son of a bitch had told me to shut my cock holster, and I’d still managed not to Judo flip him into the floor and start a Wild West shoot out.
So I scowled right back. “Yeah he did. So what? Haven’t you ever worked undercover before? Sometimes you’ve just gotta play along a little. That’s how the game works, especially when you’re working in enemy territory and playing with a shitty hand of cards.”
“Don’t take that tone with me,” she said. “I’ve done my share of undercover ops, but there was no way things could’ve gone down any other way. If I’d turned him down, it would’ve ended the same way. The only other option was to separate—a terrible idea—and go with him upstairs by myself, which wouldn’t have ended well either. No way was I going to play blow-up doll for a disgusting snake-man named Fast Hands Steve. Now, let’s stop bickering, act like a couple of professionals, jump out this window”—she nodded to the glass pane behind her—“and steal a couple of horses.”
I paused for a moment, not sure what the expected response was to such an outlandish and completely hilarious statement. Then I snorted, because hey, how often does an FBI agent dress you down before telling you to jump out a window and steal a horse? “Yeah, alright,” I said, walking past Ferraro to grab a glance at the street below. A narrow thoroughfare—not much more than a wide alley, really—of tightly packed dirt running off in either direction. As straight as an arrow between shops and buildings on either side. And sure enough, there were a pair of horses tethered up behind one of the adjacent buildings.
There was also a staggered row of mopeds: chrome and brass and dusty paintjobs in various hues. Now that I could work with.
I grabbed up a wrought-iron lamp off the dresser and proceeded to bust out the thick, cloudy glass, taking a little time to make sure there were no large protrusions left sticking up to cause me trouble.
“Alright.” I pointed at Fast Hands. “Put him out cold, okay?”
She just nodded and, with a flash of her hand, pulled the gun out from under his jaw, engaged the safety and bashed him in the base of the skull with the pistol grip. The guy dropped like a sack of concrete, sprawling on the floor, ruined hand splayed out and leaking blood in a steady stream. “You think we should do anything about his hand?” she asked. “He could bleed out if we don’t do anything.”
“It’s probably better that way,” I said. It was a cold thing to say and I felt like a real son of a bitch, but it was true. Probably, we’d get away free and clear from the Hog’s Head, but it seemed to me that Fast Hands Steve was the kinda fella who might just hold a grudge. If I ever ran into him again it would probably end up being pretty ugly.
Ferraro said nothing, only stared at me with narrowed suspicious eyes, a kind of weighing judgment—I could practically hear her voice in my head: Maybe he is the killer I always suspected him to be.
I sighed. “Fine. I’m going on the record right now, though; we should kill him. I’ve been around the block a time or two and I know a real bad apple when I see one.” I pointed at Fast Hands with my pistol, still thinking about pulling the trigger. “That overgrown snake in the grass is a knife in the back just waiting to happen. Trust me, I know from experience.” I rubbed at my lower back with my left hand, remembering a Rakshasa who’d stabbed me a little over a year ago. “So if this comes back to bite us in the ass, it’s all on you.”
I limped over to the bed—my calf felt increasingly tender by the minute, though I could see I’d only been grazed. I pulled my K-Bar free from the sheath at my hip, and cut pieces of linen from the dirty white duvet. I bundled the material up, a quick pressure dressing, and shoved it into place around Fast Hands’s missing digits, securing it in place with a few tattered strips of fabric.
I took the last of the material and struggled to tie it around my calf. It doesn’t sound that tricky, but securing a pressure dressing in place on yourself isn’t as easy as it looks. At least the wound wasn’t too bad, just a scratch really. After a few fitful minutes, I got the damn thing in place, and stood up to test my leg—it felt good enough all things consider.
“There,” I said, once everything was ready. “Happy Miss Goody-friggin’-two-shoes? Now the villainous snake-man will survive. Sure, he’ll probably kill us both at some later date, but whatever … we did the right thing. Yippee. Now, can we please get a move on?”
TWENTY-TWO:
Shootin’ the Shit
She smiled, just a little, but overall seemed pleased with my decision not to end Fast Hands, which I understood, at least in part. Still … I had a feeling about Fast Hands. Guy was trouble just waiting to happen. I’d already made up my mind, however, so I stowed my knife and went back over to the window, pushing my legs through, then lowering myself down until I hung by my fingertips. The drop was maybe only eight feet or so, and hardly hurt at all. Oh wait, that’s not true, it hurt like a bitch because someone h
ad shot me in the friggin’ calf. Assholes.
I moved out of the way and secured my ventilator and goggles in place; a few seconds later Ferraro dropped down beside me. She likewise geared up, then immediately headed over to one of the horses: one with tan-colored hair, spotted with patches of white, and a saddle on its back. Looked like a boy horse—stallion I think they’re called—from the goods underneath, but I don’t know shit about horses. Precisely why I made my way over to the mopeds and searched around until I found one that had the key in the ignition. A nice little orange one with a wire-basket on the front—even had a full tank of gas. There’s a lesson here, I think: kids, don’t be lazy and leave the keys in the ignition of your moped or some delinquent bluesman will steal your shit.
Ferraro pulled herself up onto the mount—made it look pretty easy too—and then motioned me over to the other horse. A grayish she-horse, I think. Yeah, she-horse. What I know about horses has mostly come from bad fantasy novels and old western movies. I just shook my head nope and then hopped on the moped and turned the engine over; it hummed to life with all the fury of a purring kitten. So maybe Ferraro would look a lot cooler riding off into the sunset on her horse than I would on my scooter, but the scooter wouldn’t ever get a wild hair up its ass and buck me onto mine.
“What are you doing?” she asked, a look of incredulity spreading across her face, followed by a flash of annoyance. “Get on the other horse.”
“No way, cowgirl, this city slicker doesn’t ride horses.”
“Get. On. The. Horse.”
I backed the moped out of its place. “Horses are big,” I said over my shoulder. “Horses have a mind of their own. I don’t like horses and I don’t know how to ride a horse. So it’s this sexy-ass moped for me all the way, you dig?” I revved the engine—sounded like some kid’s starter dirt bike—and then putted away, leaving Ferraro and her horse to follow.
The alleyway let us out onto a main boulevard, lined with traffic moving in both directions. No one seemed especially interested in us—apparently we managed to leave all the wackiness behind at the bar. How long it would remain that way was uncertain, but for now I counted it as a lucky break to be exploited—don’t look a gift moped in the mouth, they say. Well, that’s what I say anyway.
We rode eastward for a good hour, taking our time, maneuvering through occasional stop and go traffic, taking in the dusty sights of Bradshaw Landing until the city finally dwindled behind us. The town gave way to low foothills, which stretched out before us: short, arid sweeps full of sagebrush reaching off into the distance before the darkness of night swallowed the landscape entirely.
Full night had come long before and the moon overhead, just a thick thumbnail in the sky didn’t shed much by way of light, so we stuck to the road. Trying to ride through the sage would’ve been damn near impossible for me. In town, the road had been a wide, hard-packed thing, but out here it turned into a thin, winding cut, barely wide enough for a single compact car to navigate—though we had no problem even in the dark, thanks to my scooter, which I mentally dubbed Sir Zippy. Horses might be better than mopeds in some ways, but no horse I’ve ever seen has a headlight. Score one for Sir Zippy.
This part of the road saw little use—no one with any sense had reason to go east from the Landing. To the west lay the Sprawl, a harsh desert with a few isolated towns and pockets of insane mutants living in broken cities, chock-full of radioactive fallout. But past the Sprawl lay the Spine: a jagged set of mountain peaks cutting across the sky like a nasty shark bite. And lots of people made for the Spine.
Big mining town out that way, right at the base of the mountains—locals just called it Base Camp—full of folks seeking to eke out a living mining into the deep darks below the mountain. A lot of money to be made in those mountains, but also a thousand terrible deaths for the unwary: poison clouds that could seep up from the rocks below, caverns filled with blue-skinned, malformed Kobock clans, slumbering ancient gods—there was even rumor of an old-world, stone-dragon dwelling in the mountain heart.
Still, there was some reason to go west. To the south lay the Hub, and the train ran further north for another week before dead ending at the Endless Woods—the Realm of the fae, high, low, and all five courts. But east? No one with a friggin’ lick of sense went east—what that says about me I don’t really want to know. East from the Landing lay the Salt Marsh, which eased into the Hinterlands Swamps, a dark place filled with twisted things. Twisted things and the ever-shifting Bog Fog, which no one wanted to venture into, since the Mists of Fate randomly drifted throughout like an unpredictable bear trap, just waiting to snag you in iron teeth.
We rode another hour into the night, wanting to put a little distance between us and the Landing, but taking things nice and slow. Driving at night isn’t easy and I doubted riding a horse was any better. Plus, we were both tired and I’d had a beer or two too many, though I was a far cry short of drunk. And before you judge, it would’ve been odd as a duck in a toupee for a Song-Slinger not to down a few drinks while playing. I’d only been keeping in character, honest.
Once the city lights were firmly behind us, I pulled to a stop and motioned for Ferraro to do the same.
“We should set up camp for the night,” I said. I pulled my goggles up and slid my breather off.
“Is it safe?” she asked, taking a glance around the plains yawning out around us.
“No, not really.” I slumped forward in my seat, tired right down to my bones. “But we can’t make the Salt Marshes tonight. It’ll be maybe another three or four hours, I think, and I can’t do that without a little sleep first. There are predators out here—muties, mostly, but a lot of them are slow and dumb. The ones out here in the plains are scared of fire. So we’ll build us a little camp and make a fire. We’ll take watch shifts … it’ll be okay. And we don’t really have a choice.”
We pulled off the road a little way, into a small dirt-filled clearing mostly devoid of sagebrush, and began setting up our impromptu bivvy. I’d lost my bag and guitar, which meant I had no food rations, extra clothes, or my camping supplies. Thankfully, I’d kept all the really important stuff on me—gun, knife, jacket, goggles, ventilator. The things I needed to absolutely not die. Ferraro had managed to keep hold of her bag though, so she gave me a box of fire-starter matches while she went to work doing horse stuff. I gathered up some dry brush—plenty of that around at least—and built up a little fire, which took away some of the chilly nip in the air.
I settled and waited for a few minutes while Ferraro finished doing whatever the hell she was doing with the horse. After a while she joined me by the fire, sans goggles and breather. She pulled out a small travel blanket and a couple of brown-packaged MREs—meals ready to eat, the new C-Rats of the military—from her pack, before handing me some chow … I got pot roast and mashed potatoes, which wasn’t so bad even if not exactly good. Ferraro had meatloaf, so I got the feeling that she’d done me a real solid.
She bit in to the congealed meat and chewed for a moment, staring at the fire. “You know, I was only kind of kidding with Fortuna,” she said. “I really do think I got into the wrong line of work. No, not the wrong line—I love catching bad guys—but maybe I joined with the wrong branch. Back in interrogation, you told me you were like me. You said you were a cop, kept regular people safe from monsters. Who’d you work for? How did you get involved in all this in the first place?”
I ate for another minute, taking a plastic spoonful of mostly tasteless mashed potatoes. “Once upon a time,” I said, “I worked for the Guild of the Staff. It’s the mage ruling body. It’s sorta like the mage ‘government’ I guess, if there is such a thing. If you’re a member you belong to the Guild, to the nation, and you have certain rights and privileges. You’re also supposed to have a certain degree of protection. If some supernatural monster or one of the other supernatural nations knocks you off, the whole Guild is responsible for avenging you.”
“So is everyone in the Guild a
supernatural cop?” she asked.
“No. Every member is responsible to the Guild, and yes, technically, every member is expected to defend the Guild from its enemies if necessary. But in reality? There aren’t very many actual enforcers. Inside the Guild there’s a group, the judges. They’re, I dunno, a combination of cops and military infantry, I guess. There’s not a lot of them—maybe two hundred all across the globe. Mostly, they handle routine affairs: monitor potentially dangerous practitioners, enforce rules, take care of low-level problems, handle most investigations, that kind of thing.”
“Okay,” she nodded in understanding. “So you were a judge.”
I dipped my head yes and took another bit of pot roast—even warm, the meat was squishy and unappetizing. Southern-style ribs this was not. “Yeah … well, sorta,” I said through a mouthful of packaged meat. “It’s complicated. See, inside the Judge’s Office, there’s another group, a group of five, called the Fist of the Staff. They’re the wet-works department. The friggin’ secret police is what they really are … hunt down the worst of the worst, kill at will, have a blank check to break any rules they need to, and they report only to the Arch-Mage of the Guild.”
I picked up a nearby stick and poked at the fire, watching a few loose embers kick up into the night air, swirl for a moment and then die. Usually I didn’t talk about the Guild, didn’t talk about the Five—everyone who knew me, really knew me, knew those were off-limits topics of conversation. But Ferraro didn’t know any better, she was new to this crazy world and couldn’t possibly be aware of all the history I had. She didn’t know me, but she deserved some answers. She’d proven herself gutsy and good. She’d stuck her neck out for me when she didn’t have to, had stitched up my wounds, and traveled to the dark heart of a different world.