The Curious Case of Simon Todd

by Vanessa C. Hawkins

  “I haven’t,” she said. “But dice houses are all the same. You just need to find the seedy alley in town and there you’ll find a garden of vice.”

  Jane thought this alley looked much more mossy than it did seedy, but he didn’t see fit to argue.

  After a small amount of time however, they found the establishment. It was called the Golden Arsehole and the door outside looked like an old playing card. “This place looks ritzy!” Fae exclaimed, eyes bright.

  “You mean contrary to its name?” Mr. Darcy had an eyebrow raised, hand in his pocket watching out for his gold as she approached the building. It was of slim construction and looked more like it was occupying the space between two legitimate buildings. It rose about four stories however, and the top was an open steeple belching out sooty smoke into the daytime sky.

  Mr. Darcy took another step forward. “I’d hate to think of the more standard places you’ve been.” Fae smiled. Jane went forward, joining her at the door.

  Inside it was dark despite the daylight spilling into the alleyway outside. There were no windows, and the walls on either side were hard, rust-colored brick. Fae coughed from the smoke inside, though Darcy rather enjoyed it.

  There were no women in the Golden Arsehole, aside from Miss Hershal, and one other older lady in a violet gown. She had silver hair and a lace fan she was using to keep the smoke from her face. A few tables were littered about the room, all stationed under hanging lamps and lanterns, and to the right were stairs, looking more like boards protruding from the wall than any sort of staircase, leading up to another floor with more tables and gambling equipment.

  “Looks a bit better from the outside, but that’s okay.”

  Mr. Darcy looked less than thrilled. “There aren’t a lot of people here,” he said. “Might be hard to gamble when there isn’t anyone here to gamble with.”

  Fae bit her lip, looking around, fingering the ivory dice within the bag in her palm. She could see a table in the far corner. It had upturned edges to keep dice from rolling off. It was midday, so not everyone was out looking for a quick game, but she knew from experience, that the few who were here were hard rollers.

  “It’s fine! There’s enough ‘ere to keep us till it gets busy. Only real players will be here during the day.” Which meant they’ll be eager to throw away their crowns, she thought.

  “You mean like us?” Mr. Darcy asked flatly, feeling a bit insecure about his coin and the young lady who was so willing to abandon hers. Fae grinned back, shaking her small bag as she went towards the table.

  “The very same.”

  Chapter 17

  Take The Bitter With The Sweet

  What Jane Darcy knew about gambling was simple: throw the dice, get the number you want, get gold. It seemed all very simple and all very easy.

  What Jane didn’t know, was that a young girl with a gambling problem could get into all sorts of trouble, and Mr. Darcy, being a gentleman accompanying a gentleman’s daughter, was somehow equally responsible for certain payments.

  So when the time came, and it did so sometime after dark, for Miss Hershal to pay her debts, Jane Darcy was hunted down from the second floor to offer some kind of recompense for the young lady’s excessive loss.

  “What do you mean I must pay?” he asked, putting down his rather sour glass of port on the ledge of the poker table. He had been glad to be up by three whole chips, which meant he’d be finishing soon for fear of his luck running out. “She was the one who incurred her debt. Doesn’t that mean she should pay?”

  The man before them looked bored and a bit like he’d been server to this sort of conundrum before. He was wearing a rather deflated, beige flat cap, with a faded vest that hung like a set of drapes from his rake-like figure. A pointed beak of a nose dangled just above his top lip like a fat icicle on a thin roof.

  “She says she ain’t got enough coin on ‘er. Says you’re gonna float ‘er a loan.”

  Jane turned completely from the table to regard the man. He had a high voice that honked a bit like a hungry gosling. “Well,” Mr. Darcy began, looking at him from head to toe, “how much is it?”

  The thin fellow scratched his neck, looking up and away as though attempting to tally up the sum in his head.

  “About seventy crowns.”

  Jane was aghast! How had she managed to accrue that much debt in such a short amount of time? The notion was ludicrous!

  “And if I don’t pay?” Mr. Darcy asked, offended that the man looked nonplussed by the issue.

  The gentleman shrugged. He had hair sprouting from large ears to accompany his irritatingly nasal voice. “Well,” he began, rifling for something in his nose and wiping the find on his vest, “then I suppose we’ll have to call in someone to fix this wee problem o’ ours. Wizards don’t like when they don’t gets their money.”

  Jane grimaced. He was certain that refusing to pay for Miss Hershal’s financial crisis would put him at the opposite end of what would be considered gentlemanly, but he wasn’t entirely willing to fork over the coin for the sake of staying in character. Even if he did have seventy crowns nestled in his pocket. He briefly considered just roasting the man, but then that would put to ruin all his hard work thus far. Perhaps, he thought, there was something else he could do.

  “Let me,” he began, gesturing for the man to stay as he made his way around him, “let me talk to Miss Hershal.”

  “You can do whatever you want, Mister. But I’m not gonna wait around to collect what’s owed. So you best hurry.”

  Jane nodded, doubling back to collect his three chips and the remainder of his gambling winnings. “Yes, yes! Understood.”

  Miss Hershal was on the second floor, but as Mr. Darcy pivoted on his heel towards the staircase, he saw her being led downstairs. She was biting her lip, looking rather sheepish when their eyes met, and Jane couldn’t help but grind his teeth.

  How could she look so calm, he thought? A gentleman’s daughter indeed! Did she not understand the predicament she was in? Her father wasn’t around to bail her out now, neither was the good Mr. Todd.

  “Fae!” he called, looking from side to side before skulking up to confront her. “What is the meaning of all this? Seventy crowns? Are you mad?”

  The young girl scratched at her head, looking to the side with her brown eyes. “It’s a terrible disease gamblin’ is. I tell ya it’s like a good puff on a nice cigar. Ya figure, mys well smoke the whole thing, ain’t nobody gonna wanna half cut ciggy.”

  Mr. Darcy stepped back, confused. “That doesn’t make a lick of sense.”

  Miss Hershal nodded. “Neither does me losing seventy crowns.” Leaning forward, she looked sidelong to one of the patrons tossing chips into another round of poker, her voice low. “I don’t wanna be no sorry sport, but I think this whole thing’s rigged. Ain’t no way I lost so much money in one night. They rigged the dice.”

  Jane sighed, rolling his eyes. “You brought your own,” Jane said, exacerbated.

  “That’s what I’m sayin’! Ain’t no way me dice lost that much.”

  The man that had led her downstairs turned to wander towards the bar as the young lady leaned in ever closer.

  “I say we run.” Jane looked behind her, then around the establishment in an effort to find the beak-nosed ragamuffin that had accosted him for money.

  “Run?” There was a strange jab to his pride that gave him pause. A dragon running from bird-faced humans? The thought was preposterous and yet, Jane felt inclined to believe there really was no other way around it. Though his human form was more than sufficiently adequate in order to blend in amidst the creatures, the unwieldy way in which people tossed their limbs about during a scuffle was something Jane hadn’t accustomed himself to yet. So, unless he wanted to expose himself over a pot of gold and a young woman’s foolish inhibitions, Jane Darcy would have to suck up his self-respect and put his two legs to work.

  Which he did, but only when the young lady called to him from the doorway.<
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  “S’go Mr. Darcy!” she said, escaping the Golden Arsehole through the front. He wasn’t so glad that he had chosen the tight breeches for today. They strained against his calves as he ran, and the cravat kept him from inhaling too deeply.

  Disgruntled shouts from the gambling den were hurled at their backs as they stepped from the threshold, running down the lit alleyway sparkling with pumpkin-shaped lanterns. Fae was laughing as she ran, boots thudding over the cobbles as Jane gulped in the damp, mossy air around them.

  “Bleedin’ thieves!” she called. “S’what ya get for tryin’ to take all me money!”

  Jane frowned as he caught up to her, glad he had chosen a male with long legs. “Aren’t we,” he puffed, “the thieves here?”

  Fae’s white hair was orange in the lamplight and looked like a lighted end of a candlewick. “No!” She turned before they got to the main road, ducking into another alleyway between two brick buildings and continuing to run.

  Jane stumbled and ran right into a barrel of pitch, sending its contents to sprawl over the narrow street when she stopped. “Ugh!” he moaned, pausing as the sticky substance ran down the front of his pant leg.

  “Thieves,” she said, chuckling, “would ‘ave had the mind to grab a few coin before runnin’ off now, wouldn’t they?”

  Jane thought of the three chips he had in his pocket. Useless wood now.

  Fae leaned against the building. “Sorry about that, mate,” she said, trying to calm her breathing so she could listen for footfalls.

  Jane grimaced at the sorry state of his black breeches, quite certain this was not how young men and women cavorted about in his stories. “You owe me three gold,” he said, trying to wipe off the pitch from his pants. The young girl laughed, looking up between the buildings at the pale moonlight that fell along the brick and mortar.

  “And the Golden Arsehole owes me seventy. When I get it, I’ll divvy up.”

  “’Fraid you may need to do a bit more than that sweet cheeks.”

  Jane looked up, hands stuck to his trousers as a man in a black coat walked towards them from beyond the ally. He had a black fedora covering his eyes and was chewing on a toothpick from beneath the brim as he approached. Fae stood straight, looking towards Mr. Darcy, then behind her.

  “Don’t try and run now,” the man called again, looking up as the lanterns flickered. “Wouldn’t wanna give Benny a chance to try out his new Storm Weed.” Shadows played about the ally, scattering as another man walked into the fray. An older man, with a thick greying beard and a large frame frowned.

  “Storm Weed isn’t necessary,” the older man said, a black-blue mantle pooling around his shoulders.

  The smaller man shrugged, picking his head up. “In any case, the mages of Grimguild don’t take kindly to people who steal from them,” he said, something smoky exhaling out the cuff of one sleeve.

  “Are you mages?” Mr. Darcy was intrigued. “You don’t look like mages.”

  The younger man smiled, his crocodilian expression consuming his face. “You don’t look much like a thief, but looks can be deceiving.”

  That was true, Mr. Darcy thought. If his human visage had not fooled them, these two black-clad brigands would be running, screaming for their family’s matriarch. Being a dragon had its advantages.

  “Look,” Jane said, trying to ignore the sticky spot on his trousers as it stuck to his calf. “We certainly don’t want any trouble with mages. I’m sure if we speak to our companions they will offer us a loan to pay your establishment back.” He turned, regarding Miss Herhsal who was regarding the larger man named Benny.

  “Right, Miss Hershal?”

  “Hershal? Any relation to the Hershal bank?”

  Jane paused. The younger of the two men laughed, removing his hat and revealing a shock of red hair. “I didn’t realize the pedigree of our thieves. My apologies.”

  He had an accent Jane noticed.

  “Stuff it ya pointy-hat wearin’ bellend!” Fae shouted.

  “Please doll face, call me Chip.”

  Chip. Jane perked up.

  “I’ll call ya whatever in the bloody hell I want! If you think you’re gonna call up me pops and demand more money with interest from ‘im than yer wrong. I’m not—” Fae’s dander was up now.

  “Fae—” Jane tried to intercede before things went any further south.

  “—playing that game again! So if you want to have a row or sorts than bring it—”

  “Fae!” Jane tried again.

  “—on because I can put up me dukes better than any man ‘round these parts—”

  “Miss Hershal!” Jane strode towards her, catching her about the shoulders and causing her to turn and regard him irately.

  “What in the bastard hell do ya want?” Jane stared ahead, watching as the smoke, no, the shadows, continued to pour from the man’s sleeve, wrapping around his arm like a chain. Dragons were exceptional memorizers, especially in comparison to humans. Though he had never seen Chip Ardale, he certainly remembered Miss Baxter speaking of him whilst they were at the Thirsty Bush in Piper’s Toss.

  “Look,” he said carefully, eyes serious. “I’m sure there is an alternative to fighting. Let’s just give these two men the crowns owed and maybe a bit more for all their trouble.” With ‘Benny’ Benedict behind them, and the shadowmancer ahead, Jane was certain that the foolhardy Miss Hershal didn’t have enough dukes for both men.

  “I don’t have any crowns,” the young woman whispered back, pressing her cheek to his ear as spoke.

  “These are the men looking for Miss Baxter,” he replied quietly, trying to smile past his words.

  How troublesome, he thought! If he just let Miss Hershal be taken now, then the others would certainly go and have to find her, which meant more time he had to go parading as a human! Even if he weren’t already an accomplice to her dice-rolling shenanigans, there was also the possibility that she’d reveal the fact they were hunting dragon treasure, which meant even more hunters coming to claim his hoard. Of course, Jane could just transform now and eat them all, but that meant the entire town would be thrown into a tizzy, and what if he lost track of the others? What if good ol’ Mr. Todd or Dick Dashing escaped without being gobbled and went off alone to find the treasure?

  It was all a great big tangle of a mess! Not to mention that Jane had never really digested a mage before, and well, as frustrating as Miss Hershal was, he didn’t really want to eat her… at the moment.

  “We can all agree to gold, now can’t we?” Jane continued.

  Chip narrowed his eyes, the sweeping chain around his left wrist blooming into a smoky apparition that quite resembled a ’gator. Long jaws ending in jagged teeth, opened and closed lazily as it swam about the young man’s torso. Chip laughed, gesturing outwards with his arms.

  “A little extra dough always makes a mean man happy, eh Benny?”

  The man behind them made a sound, something that resembled hard grit between two stones. Chip walked forward, swinging an arm around Jane’s neck and pulling him close. “Course, if you all had the gold, you shoulda said so in the first place.”

  Fae backed up a step towards the wall, the moonlight pouring over her face and spilling into her alabaster hair. Jane gulped in a breath, irritated by the man’s sudden closeness and the swimming alligator snapping at his legs.

  “Well we don’t have the gold here, of course.”

  “Mr. Todd has it,” Fae said.

  Chip looked up, his ’gator dissolving into the shadowy corridor of his open coat and reappearing out the collar. “Mr. Todd?”

  Fae nodded. “He’s my father’s accountant,” she said.

  “Ya don’t say.” Chip inclined his head, looking at the poor be-speckled scholar under his arm. Grinning, he reached forward, removing Jane’s spectacles before he had a chance to object.

  “Kindly give those back!” Mr. Darcy was losing his patience. Chip turned, his coat flourishing dramatically behind him as he placed the glas
ses upon his own, upturned nose.

  “Mr. Uovo!” he said to the older man, liking the way the crimson eyewear colored his vision. “What was the name of the old fop accompanying Miss B?”

  Mr. Darcy felt his nostrils flare as he inhaled a deep breath: an instinct amongst dragons who were about to crisp their enemies into char.

  Benedict was faster however. As the shadowed reptile attached to the red-haired youth snaked his way towards them, Benedict Uovo threw back his mantle, revealing a large mechanical limb that had begun transforming mid swing.

  Miss Hershal stepped back, beginning to turn as the joints on the man’s robotic arm hissed with steam.

  “Cohibeo!” the older man commanded. Blue webs of electricity sizzled from his fingertips, dancing in thin ropes towards them. Jane Darcy shouted, dodging the jagged burst of energy as it compounded into a wall and dispersed.

  “Miss Hershal!” he called as the robotic parts on the gentleman’s arm began to change. Brass and steel and glass vials that pumped jade colored steam into transparent tubes, all churned together on Benedict’s arm until again, from several openings on the tops of his fingers, more Arcane energy shot out towards them, arching round the alleyway like netting.

  Barrels of pitch tipped over as the two struggled to get out of the circumference of the spell. Fae had jumped forward in an attempt to flee past the large elder man when her feet were tripped up, and cold, shifting chains wound about her ankles.