by Charley Case
“Sounds like we have time for a shower and a quick lunch,” Finn said, opening the fridge and pulling out a package of thick-cut bacon. “How does a BLT sound?”
Mila rolled her eyes back and moaned. “Like heaven. I’m going to shower first if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all.” He pulled a frying pan from the large drawer beside the stove.
Danica opened her bedroom door and stepped out, drying her hair with a damp towel, dressed in her lounging clothes. “Oh, hey, guys. I didn’t hear you come in. How did it go?”
Penny, who had fished the box of Charleston Chew Minis from Finn’s bomber jacket, looked up and waved before eating another candy. Danica smiled and held out her hand. Penny begrudgingly placed one chew in her hand.
“Thanks, darlin’,” the elf said with a wink.
“It went like a hurricane at a wedding,” Mila said, peeling off her thick wool sweater, leaving the black Gortex compression shirt. “Luckily, we were ready for a hurricane. How was your day at the hospital?”
Danica put her towel around her neck and flopped onto the couch. “It was crazy. So, get this. A guy who had been attacked by wolves was brought into the emergency room. Fucking wolves!”
“Holy shit.” Mila’s eyebrows shot up her forehead. “That hasn't happened in...well, shit, I can't think of the last time that happened.”
“Tell me about it,” Danica said, putting her feet up on the coffee table, and crossing her ankles. “Poor guy didn’t make it. Died on the table. But here’s the weird thing: I went down to check him out, and the wounds were laced with magic. Nothing anyone would have noticed unless they were looking for it, but it was there. I couldn’t tell if the bites were done by a magical beast, or if someone had used magic to make the wounds look like they were from a wolf, but it was damn weird. Kinda freaked me out, to tell you the truth.”
Finn and Mila shared a look, but it was Penny who spoke up.
“Shiri chi chir squee?”
Danica looked from Penny to Finn for the translation.
“She asked if you know about Preston Meriwether’s magical zoo,” Finn said, laying the first slices of bacon in the hot pan, the apartment filling with sizzling, and the mouthwatering smell of bacon.
Danica barked a laugh. “You think he has something to do with it? There is no way that guy killed a dude with magical beasts. He’s practically a saint in the Magical community. Hell, he’s practically a saint in the Peabrain community. I heard he once donated ten million dollars to an orphanage for half-breed Magical children who had been abandoned by their parents. A guy like that doesn’t feed people to magical wolves.”
Finn had seen a lot of people in his many years of life, some of whom were very rich and loved by the public, as Meriwether seemed to be. He would have to disagree with Danica’s blanket statement, but he would reserve judgment on the man until he met him.
Finn made four sandwiches, slicing the tomato nice and thin, and adding salt and pepper, just the way he liked it. Sitting around the coffee table, they crunched their way through the toasted sandwiches. Danica told them about the rest of her day; nothing special, but Finn found it was good to get a day off your chest so you could relax, so he was more than willing to hear about Regina’s and Mark’s baby, and how the cafeteria had stopped serving Danica’s favorite soup.
Mila told the story of Finn fixing the trees, to Danica’s open-mouthed amazement, and Finn’s protests that it wasn’t really all that big a deal. Penny was the one who made it clear that Mila was the one who’d saved most of the elves’ lives with her quick work with the healing potions. Danica was so shocked by the whole tale that she didn’t even notice when Penny ate the last quarter of her unattended BLT.
After dinner, Mila hit the shower while Finn cleaned up their plates and glasses, then he took his turn washing off the small twigs, brambles, and leaves he had unintentionally collected on their trek through the woods. He toweled off and stepped out of the master bathroom into Mila’s bedroom, where he had some things in a small section of her closet.
He appreciated that she had given up what space she had for him, but he knew this was not a long-term solution. He needed to find a place of his own, but he also didn’t want to be far from Mila and Danica, the two people he counted most as friends on Earth so far.
He selected a pair of bright red boxers, the only thing he wore of any color. His black t-shirt and jeans had been a staple for as long as he had been on his own; plus, it made selecting what to wear on any given day a non-issue.
A man and woman’s voice he didn’t recognize came filtering through Mila’s door from the living room. He tensed and finished fastening his leather holster around his chest before pulling the handle of Fragar out and taking hold of the door handle. In one quick burst, he pulled the door open and leaped out, his eyes scanning for the threat.
Sitting at the dining table beside the kitchen were Mila, and a man and a woman both in suits. All three jumped at his aggressive entrance, the woman and man letting out squeaks of fright.
Mila frowned and rolled her eyes. “Finn, you remember we have a meeting with the bank people?” she asked, indicating the two at the table with open-handed gestures.
Finn went from narrow-eyed aggression to large, toothy smile in a heartbeat, and quickly slipped Fragar back into its holster. He strode across the condo, taking a quick glance around for Penny, and seeing her tucked into a corner of the couch, out of sight, napping while she waited for the strangers to leave. Danica was nowhere to be seen—probably in her room or out for a run.
Finn held out his big hand to the woman first and shook hers before turning to the man and doing the same. “Hello. Sorry about that. We had some intruders a few weeks back, and I completely forgot you were coming while I was in the shower. Finnegan Dragonbender, it’s nice to meet you.”
The man spoke up first, while the woman blinked in surprise a few times, taking in his huge frame.
“I’m Benjamin Groot, and this is my associate Silva Durant. She will be in charge of your account and your primary contact at the bank. It’s very nice to meet you, Mr. Dragonbender. That’s an unusual name. Where is it from, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Finn smiled and sat down at the table. “It’s Canadian, but please, call me ‘Finn.’ So, how is this going to work?”
Silva finally recovered and cleared her throat, opening a leather binder and sifting through some papers while she spoke. “I have put together some numbers, and the process we need to go through to exchange the gold you withdraw from the mine. Mr. Groot here is our appraiser and will be taking a look at the samples you have brought from your mine. Ms. Winters said you had several bars here we could take a look at?”
Mila stood and made her way around the table. “Yeah, I have them in the safe. I’ll grab one.”
Mr. Groot opened a large, leather rolling bag that sat on the floor beside his chair—a bag Finn had failed to notice—and removed several rolled-up tool bags. He had set up a little workstation by the time Mila returned, and she placed a large gold bar on the piece of black felt he had laid out on the table in front of him.
He started working, doing his weighing and measuring, while Ms. Durant continued.
“As you know, the bank deals in bullion, so we will be able to take the bars directly and give you spot price minus one percent. How much do you estimate the mine will produce?”
Finn looked up at the ceiling, mumbling as he did the math. “Uh, let’s see. Nine bands times four pounds, times sixteen ounces… Thirty days in a month…” He cleared his throat. “About two thousand ounces a month, by my numbers.”
She nodded and wrote down the figure. “Okay, that’s not too bad for an old mine. That small a deposit should be fine for the downtown branch. If you want to have it shipped directly to me, I can take care of everything for you. I’m just going to need to have the name of the mining company and your paperwork that I sent Ms. Winters last week. And a form of ID.”
; Finn produced a folded piece of paper that had nothing but a few runes scribbled on it, and she looked it over, filling out the pertinent information her nonmagical eyes saw on the “ID”.
An hour later, the two bankers left, Mr. Groot’s rolling bag heavy with three gold bars. They had concluded business with a firm handshake and a stack of signed documents. As of now, he and Mila were the proud owners of a very profitable gold mine, and they didn’t even have to mine it.
Finn held up the small plastic cards and handed Mila the one with her name on it. “Well, I guess we’re rich. This is a lot of money, right?”
She smiled and laughed. “Yeah, nearly three million dollars is a lot. Now don’t go spending it all in one place.”
“No promises,” he said, slipping the card into his back pocket.
Chapter Five
That evening, Finn made dinner for the whole household, fish with lemon garlic sauce and steamed asparagus. The four friends sat down at the large coffee table and watched the first couple of episodes of Firefly for the third time. It was turning out to be Finn’s favorite show, and even though he hated to admit it, Captain Mal was even better than the Duke in a lot of ways.
Mila and Danica cleaned up while Finn contemplated the problem of having somewhere to call his own. He didn’t want to move out, but he also knew that sleeping on their couch was not a long-term situation.
He was about to ask Penny to get online and find them a place close by when he heard the neighbors’ music quietly thumping through the walls. It wasn’t obnoxious, but it gave him an idea.
“Hey, Mila.” He stood and walked to the safe, entering the code and opening it up. “How much cash do we have?”
Mila looked up from the sink, where she was doing the dishes, and bit her lip in thought for a few seconds. “I think there’s about five hundred thousand or something. Why?”
He squatted down and started counting out the stacks of hundreds they had gotten from cleaning out all the Cash for Gold places around Denver.
“I think it’s time I got my own place. You guys don’t need me snoring away on your couch. And I just thought of the perfect place to get.”
He was facing the safe, so he missed the frown that crossed Mila’s and Danica’s faces.
They looked at one another, and a ‘well, it had to happen eventually’ look passed between them.
Penny hopped off the back of the couch and glided over to land on his shoulder. “Squee, shi chi chi!”
Finn smiled at her and winked. “I know they like us here, but to tell you the truth, my back is starting to hate that couch,” he hiked a thumb at the large, L-shaped piece of furniture. “Besides, I think this will work out pretty well.”
He closed the safe and turned to see the women wearing sad expressions.
He smiled. “Don’t be so dour. I think you’ll like this.”
He walked to the front door and exited, everyone trailing on his heels.
“Where are you going?” Mila finally asked, drying her hands on a dishtowel she had brought with her.
Instead of answering, he stepped up to their neighbor’s front door and loudly knocked.
“Their music isn’t all that loud,” Danica said, raising her eyebrow.
The door opened to reveal a woman in her mid-twenties. The music was much louder now that the door was open.
“Hello. Sorry, I didn’t realize you were home. I can turn down the music.” The woman gave them an apologetic smile, slightly intimidated that there were three people on her doorstep, one of whom had a rather intense-looking blue lizard on his shoulder.
“The music is fine,” Finn reassured her with a smile of his own. “I was actually wondering if you would be willing to sell your condo to me?”
Everyone but Finn blinked in surprise for a few seconds. The door opened all the way to reveal a man about the same age as the woman, their rings showing that they were married.
He gave everyone a confused look before fixing his eyes on Finn. “Hello. I don’t think we’ve met.” He held out a hand. “I’m Simon, and this is my wife Becky. Can we help you guys?”
“I would like to purchase your condo,” Finn reiterated, shaking Simon’s hand.
Simon laughed until he realized Finn was completely serious.
“I don’t think now is a great time to sell,” he said uncertainly. “The market is still climbing. We were hoping to sell in a couple of years and build a place out in the mountains, but it just wouldn’t be worth it to us right now.”
Finn never lost his smile. “How much are you hoping to get for it?”
Simon blew out a long breath while he considered, finally barking a laugh. “Well, we got the place pretty early, so we only have about five in it, but I’m thinking it could be worth a million in a few years, the way the market is going.”
Finn glanced at Penny, who knew this game all too well, and she showed teeth in her smile. She was thinking the same as him.
Finn turned back to Simon. “So, if you got a million now, the money would be worth more, since the market is cheaper. And it would go a lot farther now than it would in a few years, right?”
Simon raised an eyebrow. “Yeah…”
“I’ll pay you a million right now for the condo, and an extra two hundred thousand if you can move out in the next week.”
“What?” Mila, Simon, and Becky all said at once.
Penny and Danica just snickered behind their hands; they knew how dwarves did business—if not from experience, then from stories. Always fair, but with deadlines.
“I’m completely serious,” Finn assured the young couple. “I’ll even give you a cash advance to make the move easier. How does five hundred thousand sound?”
Becky laughed. “Honestly, it sounds a little too good to be true.”
“Hold that thought.” Finn put up a finger and jogged back into Mila’s condo.
A few seconds later, he came back with a paper bag full of hundred-dollar-bill stacks. He handed the bag to Simon, whose face was frozen in shock.
“That’s five hundred. We can have the paperwork done tomorrow, and you two will be millionaires.” He smiled at them and put his fists on his hips.
“Uh, that’s not really how things are done, Finn. You don’t just hand a bunch of cash to someone before you have a contract,” Mila said quietly so as not to offend her neighbors, who were staring into the bag of cash.
“It’s fine.” He waved off her concern. “We know where they live, so it’s not like they could steal it from us.”
Everyone clammed up and looked at one another nervously.
Penny caught on before Finn and leaned in to whisper in his ear. “Shi shi.” She gave him the eye.
Finn turned a little red. “Sorry, that may have come out wrong,” he said to Simon and Becky. “I was merely saying that we could trust you. If you want to sell, that is.” He raised his eyebrows at the couple.
They looked at one another, then nodded vigorously. “I say we have a deal, Finn.”
Finn clapped his hands together. “Great! We’ll meet up tomorrow and get the paperwork done. Thanks, guys. Oh, and it was great to meet you both.”
The shocked couple backed into their condo, the brown paper bag full of cash held out in front of them as if it might try to bite them, before they slowly closed the door.
Mila turned to Finn and put her hands on her hips. “What the fuck was that?”
Finn shrugged. “That’s how rich people get shit done. We don’t need all the money, but we do need the space. It was a good deal for everyone.”
“I guess so, but they probably think we’re drug dealers or something, having that much cash on hand.” She shook her head. “Besides, I know it’s just next door, but we’re going to miss having you two in the house.”
Finn smiled as he led the two women back into their condo. “That’s the best part. We can knock down this wall and make one big place. I was thinking we needed not just a place for me and Penny to sleep, but a whole b
unch of other things like a dojo and a workbench, not to mention places to store all the gear we’re going to be accumulating. Imagine this place twice as big and outfitted the way we need it. Besides, Penny already hid the top floor of the building from the Kashgar, so that’s one less thing to worry about.”
He saw the look on Mila’s and Danica’s faces slowly change from sad to ecstatic as they considered the possibilities.
“I’ll contact a lawyer and get the paperwork drawn up,” Mila said before giving him a big hug, which Danica joined in on. “I love this idea.”
Chapter Six
The next morning, Finn and Mila drove south forty minutes out of town to just northwest of Castle Rock. From there, they pulled off Interstate 25 and headed west for a couple of miles, till they came to a large, gated drive. Trees lined the front of the estate, and with the assistance of a ten-foot stone wall, blocked any views of the house and grounds beyond.
Mila pulled to the curb and checked the address once again to be sure.
“This looks like the place. Meriwether knows how to live it up.”
Penny huffed a ball of smoke from where she stood on Finn’s leg and leaned against the window, taking the place in.
“I agree.” Finn nodded, squinting. He translated for Mila. “We’re pretty sure there’s a concealment spell on the whole property. See how you can’t get even a glimpse past the trees? That’s by design. I would be willing to bet that the neighbors don’t notice this place unless they are looking for the address.”
“Is that a guard at the gate?” Mila asked, seeing a small, arched door recessed in the stone wall beside the large, steel gate.
“I would think so. Pull up, and let’s find out,” he suggested.
She tapped the gas and the Hellcat growled its way into the drive. She came to a stop at the heavy gates that looked like they could stop a tank if they wanted to and rolled down her window.