Skulduggery 2

by Logan Jacobs

  “You carry the blood water, and I’ll steer the wagon,” I said before I handed Penny the pail of water.

  “Sure, give me the damning evidence if we’re caught out here.” She took the bucket and held it out as far as she could without spilling it. “Why don’t we just dump it right here?”

  “I don’t want it to stain,” I replied as I lifted the handcart by its wooden rails and pushed it forward.

  “Fuckin’ blue bloods,” Penny muttered and followed me.

  “Yeah, we can’t be too careful,” I said as I maneuvered through the dirt, weeds, potholes, and wildflowers that littered the grazing area for the horses.

  “Ain’t that the truth these days,” Penny sighed as she nodded ahead. “Follow the rushing noise. The river is hidden behind that small treebank.”

  “You’d know best,” I said and balanced the cart that tilted with each bump in the ground. Then I stopped just before the tree line that stretched along the muddy bank of the small river and looked at Penny.

  “We’re right by a tiny rapid section in the river.” Penny pointed ahead of her where bubbling white crests appeared through the lush green bushes and trees.

  “Is this where you filled up last time?” I asked as I maneuvered the cart behind me so I could pull it down the bank.

  “Yeah, but I had a donkey do all the lifting for me,” she laughed as she hopped down and vanished within the lush vegetation.

  “A donkey … ” I grunted and pulled down the cart. “I’m the fuckin’ donkey, now.”

  “Hurry up,” Penny’s voice came from the other side of the thick bushes. “Leave the cart on that side and bring the kegs through the brush.”

  “Yes, ma’am!” I dropped the cart and lifted two empty kegs on each of my shoulders. Then I ducked through the thin branches that scratched at my pants like skinny fingers.

  When I emerged from the green bushes, the small rapids churned against the silver rocks that looked like the slick back of a hippo, and the flowing turquoise river behind Penny made her glow on the shoreline.

  “Where would you like me to dump this?” Penny asked as she held up the bucket of blood.

  “Walk a few steps to our right and toss it in with the current,” I said as I put the kegs down.

  Penny moved a few yards down the shore and swung the bucket forward. The dark blue liquid flew into the air and glistened against the sun like crystals. Then there was a silent splash as the elf blood soaked into the river and disappeared.

  “No more elf,” Penny said as she walked up to me and tossed the pail aside.

  “Thanks for getting rid of the murder evidence.” I smirked and tilted one of the kegs on its side so we could sit on it. “I need a breather.”

  “The donkey didn’t need a breather,” Penny chuckled and joined me on the makeshift bench.

  “I’m no donkey,” I said, and the warmth from her leg pressed against mine made my heart jump within my chest.

  “Wade?” Penny twitched her leg to get me to look over at her, and her eyes matched the trees that towered over us.

  “Yeah? ” I smirked and relieved some of the tension in her face.

  “Ahhh, never mind,” she huffed and turned away from me.

  “Fuck, just spit it out,” I groaned. “You gonna get mad at me again for the elf--”

  “Naw,” she sighed. “I didn’t want to talk about that.”

  I didn’t say anything, and we sat there for a few moments in silence as we looked at the river.

  “Well?” I finally asked. “What the fuck did you want to ask me?”

  “You drive me mad, you know?” The pixie’s lips curled into a pained smile as she looked toward the river. “I remember the first day I met you, I hated you.”

  “I know,” I laughed.

  “But … ” She tilted her head and faced me.

  “But what?” I asked and didn’t move my eyes off her emerald orbs.

  “Fuck,” Penny breathed and moved her hand over her face. “This is hard for me.”

  “Maybe I can help?” I began. “You hated me as a lot of people do at first sight, but then there was something else you felt.”

  “Yeah,” she said with her lips parted slightly, and her eyes softened.

  “That something else is the fuckin’ scary part that confuses you, and it eats you up inside like elven acid,” I looked over to the river, “and some days, you tried to push it down until it would just disappear.”

  “But it never did, ” Penny muttered.

  “But you still tried, because if you felt that ‘something else’ then that would mean more pain, and you’ve dealt with enough of that your entire life. So, why would you openly invite more in?”

  “That’d be stupid,” she whispered beside me.

  “You slammed it down until one night you were stabbed in the gut by a crazy halfling, and like the blood I saw flow out of your wound, so did that ‘something else.’” I rested my hand on hers. “Right?”

  “Then I healed and fucked it up,” she scoffed.

  “I wouldn’t say that.” I squeezed her hand. “We fucked it up.”

  “What do we do now?” Penny’s voice was soft, and she leaned her head against my shoulder.

  “Change … ” I muttered and dipped my head on hers. “Just like our lives are changing before our eyes.”

  “Like the river?” she wondered as she lifted her head off my shoulder.

  “What do you mean?” I asked with a laugh.

  “I don’t know, when I threw the blood in the river it vanished, you know?” Penny’s eyes searched mine. “A river doesn’t stop moving, it’s never stagnant, especially by the rapids.”

  “Okay,” I tilted my head, “a little too poetic for me, but I think I’m following you.”

  “Let’s get in the river, the current isn’t too strong if we stay near the shore,” Penny said as she stood from the keg. “We’ll have to fill these fuckers up anyway, but before we do, let’s get in.”

  “Um, naked?” I arched an eyebrow.

  “No, you ass,” she laughed as she took off her boots and green hooded cloak. Her black tights hugged her ass perfectly, and the black sleeveless top exposed her soft white skin to the sun. “Please come in with me.”

  “Why not?” I took off my mud stained shirt and then slid off my thick leather boots. I left my trousers on even though I wanted to take those off, too.

  “Come on.” Penny smiled wide and reached for my hand as we walked into the flowing river. “Oh, shit, it’s cold!”

  “Your idea, remember?” I laughed and squeezed her hand tighter as we stepped on the slick river rocks. The current didn’t pull too hard, and we were able to keep our balance.

  “This is far enough,” she said as we were about waist-deep in the water. Her lips trembled slightly, and her emerald eyes seemed brighter than I’d ever seen. “Now, we go under.”

  We both sank ourselves underneath the water, and the burbling rapids behind us were silenced. I opened my eyes to see not even a river could extinguish Penny’s fire-red hair. Strands of her flames floated within the turquoise world around us before we both emerged and stood dripping wet.

  We stood together and laughed. We laughed at the silliness of simply jumping in a river.

  “You’re cold.” I pulled her closer to me and felt her body vibrate into mine, and her breath warmed my chest.

  “You are, too.” She pressed herself into me as her lips parted, and her eyes studied my mouth only inches from hers.

  A lifetime of waiting and pain was washed away in the river like the blue elf blood, and our lips crashed into each others with the same force as the rapids on the rocks. Her tongue brushed onto mine, and she tasted of mint and cherry.

  Her tiny body vibrated against me. It could’ve been from the cold water, or the release from waiting for so long.

  “Wow … ” Penny cooed as her lips lingered on mine.

  “Yeah,” I whispered and wanted to have her in the river.
<
br />   Her eyes said the same.

  “Wade,” she whispered. “Please … just … I want you inside of me, but everything I love gets taken. So, ple--”

  “What in the name of the Ancients are you both doing?” Dar suddenly hollered as he rolled another keg to the edge of the waterline.

  “Uh, swimming, the water is … is fine!” Penny stuttered as she freed herself from my arms. Then she trudged through the water and stepped back to shore.

  “Is that what they call it these days?” Dar belly laughed and waved to me from the shore. “Cimarra woke me up, and I saw the water kegs were gone, so I figured you’d be here.”

  “Make yourself useful then and dip one of those kegs under the water,” I shouted to Dar, who had his foot on top of a cylinder. “Where is Cimarra?”

  I knew I’d need to tell her what just happened with Penny. I didn’t want to lead either of them on or anything like that. They meant too much to me, and the last thing I wanted to do was hurt either of them. I knew Cimarra already had an idea of Penny’s feelings, and Penny obviously knew of Cimarra’s, but I still wanted to be honest.

  “Cimarra had to run into a meeting, but she has some news for you,” Dar shouted as he rolled the keg into the water and then opened the lid on top. A chorus of bubbles escaped the opening as water filled the cylinder.

  “I hope she has good news,” I said as I walked back to shore. The breeze blanketed my body and covered me with goosebumps.

  “Here’s the last one.” Penny rolled another cylinder through the brush, but I noticed she avoided looking at me.

  Fucking four steps forward and three backward with her.

  “Thanks, you can go get dry if you’d like.” I turned to Penny, and then gestured to Dar, who had pushed down a keg all the way under the water. “We’ll handle the rest.”

  “No,” Penny sneered, “I want to help.”

  “Even better,” I said as I watched her roll the next keg over to Dar.

  “Hey, come grab this one,” Dar said as he waved me over and tugged at the full keg in the water between his short legs. “But yeah it sounded like good news.”

  “What good news?” I asked as I tugged the keg free that Dar just filled.

  “Cimarra’s news,” Dar huffed as he dunked another keg. “She had to run off and finish something for the count, but wanted me to tell you she got you the meeting.”

  “Oh, shit … ” I smiled. “Things are moving quickly, then.”

  “What meeting?” Penny asked as she knelt and waited for the keg to fill.

  “A meeting with the count,” I said and lifted the one full keg upright until it balanced on the shore. “We’re gonna have to save the theatre if we want to keep the stables.”

  “Cimarra mentioned the theatre was having some struggles,” Penny said as she wiped a strand of her wet red hair aside.

  “If that’s true, how can we save it?” Dar motioned for me to take the next keg.

  “By selling our whiskey to his customers for profit,” I said as I leaned down, lifted the other keg that Dar filled, and brought it to shore. “I’m sure we’ll work out the details in the meeting.”

  “Isn’t that dangerous?” Penny questioned.

  “Isn’t everything we are doing lately?” Dar responded.

  “Ain’t that the truth,” I snickered. “But, yes, it’s dangerous and something I didn’t want to do at first, but with how bad the theatre is doing, we would be found out sooner rather than later.”

  “So, might as well try and fix it ourselves then?” Dar asked as he cupped some water in his palms and washed his face.

  “Are you both good with me moving forward with the meeting?” I questioned. I wanted us to be a united front, and if my partners felt off, then I’d always take their thoughts into consideration.

  “If you think it’s what we need to do, then that’s what we need to do.” Penny nodded.

  “I agree.” Dar nodded, too.

  “Okay.” I smiled as I helped Dar with a keg.

  “So, just to get it straight, we’ll have the twin halflings, Hebal, and potentially the theatre to distribute to?” Penny asked and then glanced at us.

  “Yep.” I nodded. “We may need to bring in a smaller tub dedicated to distill the theatre’s whiskey. Or, the theatre might be our way out from Hebal, until we can distribute in the Dwarf District ourselves.”

  “A life in showbiz,” Dar’s eyes widened, “I’m in.”

  “Slow your walk.” Penny narrowed her eyes at the halfling. “As for the two new halflings, is Selius taking that and running with it or … ”

  “Over my tiny dead body,” Dar began. “He’s just going to be the face our customers see when he drops off the orders.”

  “Selius needs to be groomed, but you never know,” I said and pulled the third keg out from the water and onto the shore. “What he said yesterday made me nervous, though.”

  “What?” Dar asked as he dipped the last keg in the water. “That he’s being followed? That’s nonsense.”

  “He’s being followed?” Penny looked to me as she bent over and let down her wet hair.

  “No, he’s just seeing things.” Dar shook his head. “Who besides the elves would follow him? And why would the elves have interest in him before we even met with him?”

  “We’ll just have to keep an eye on the kid,” Penny suggested as we all pulled the last keg from the water.

  “Well, Wade also thought we might have been follo--” Dar started, but I interrupted him.

  “But we weren’t.”

  “Yeah,” he corrected as he grimaced at Penny. “We did the left square to try an--”

  “So, Selius thinks he’s being followed, and Wade thought he was bein--”

  “But we weren’t,” I reassured Penny. “We didn’t see anyone when we squared back to--”

  “What if they were good, though?” the redhead asked as she bit her lip.

  “Who’s better than us?” Dar snickered. “No one knows what we did or who we are.”

  “What about one of Hebal’s bruisers?” Penny asked.

  “We didn’t see anyone,” I said again with a shrug. “I’m paranoid, but we have to do our best here.”

  “Alright,” Penny sighed.

  “We have a lot to keep our eyes on these days,” I said as four kegs full of river water stared back at us on the shore.

  I wasn’t sure if the river could wash away all of our concerns like the elf blood, but just like the river, we had to keep moving.

  Chapter 15

  I hadn’t seen myself in a mirror in quite some time, but I saw my distorted reflection in one of the metallic water kegs we’d filled up at the river yesterday. My head looked like someone had smashed it down into my shoulders, and my mouth was a tiny red worm living above my chin.

  “What’re you laughing at?” Dar asked as he set down the two small wooden kegs he promised he’d get for the halfling’s order.

  “My face,” I said as I tried to make out his image in the faded metal of the keg, too.

  “Makes you look more like a halfling,” Dar snorted. “You need any help?”

  “No,” I said as I lifted the keg and laid it on top of the other water kegs. Once I opened the makeshift lid we’d made with a knife, the water drained easily into the bucket.

  “You’re lookin’ extra spiffy for cleaning an elephant tub,” Dar remarked as he threw a few scrub brushes into the vat.

  Dar was referring to my clothes. I rarely paid too much attention to what I wore, but today I’d pulled out the cleanest shirt I had. It was a long sleeve gray tunic with red trimming along the neckline and arm cuffs.

  “I have the meeting with the count, but I’ll be back in time to help with the actual distilling process,” I said as I uncorked the keg, and water poured into the wooden pail that once held the elf blood.

  “Oh, how convenient for you.” Dar smirked, stood on the ladder, and leaned against the vat’s rim with his arm.

  “D
on’t worry, you’ll have help.” I corked the opening of the keg once the bucket was full to the brim. “Penny will be back soon with soap. She’s done this already before, too.”

  “That’s great, but it already looks clean to me,” Dar said as he swiped a finger along the vat’s wall.

  “What you don’t see is the residue from the previous mash water we drained.” I carried the bucket over to the halfling and lifted it for him to take. “But there is small bacteria and yeast in there still that will fuck up the new batch. Once it’s nice and clean, our new mash water won’t be contaminated.”

  “I get it,” Dar said as he tossed the bucket of water into the empty vat. “I’ve just never been one who enjoys cleaning anything.”

  “I know you haven’t,” I laughed and took the pail back from him. “One more bucket full will coat the bottom, and you can get a good scrub on it.”

  “Then we drain the soapy residue water?” Dar wondered as he pointed to the small trench we had made in the dirt floor of the stable.

  “Yup, the water will follow the trench we made under the back wall of the stable and down the hill toward the river,” I said as I filled the bucket with water again. “We repeat the same process once it’s done distilling, and then we drain the fermentation tank, too.”

  “Oh, yeah, I remember you shoveled the bigger chunks of fermented shit into that barrel,” Dar said as he took the full bucket of water from me and tossed it into the vat.

  “We could even try to sell that to some farmers once it’s full,” I replied as I grabbed the bucket back from Dar. “It makes for great fertilizer.”

  “Like bull shi--” Dar paused as the stable door squealed open.

  “You look nice,” Cimarra purred to me as she walked into the stable.

  “It’s the cleanest thing I own,” I chuckled and wrapped my arms around the dancer. As I did, I knew I needed to tell her what happened with Penny as soon as I could.

  “I told him the same thing,” Dar said as he hopped into the vat. “Don’t have him out too late.”

  “I’ll try.” The dancer smirked at the brushing and scraping noises coming from the tub. “I know he has a lot to help you with.”