Chapter Five
Pocket of a Policeman
“Quite the little performance he was able to put on, Mr. Poe,” said Mr. Twitch as he sat behind his burnished pine desk the next day around noon. Ridley Poe remained standing across the surface of the desk from Twitch, who had a number of information sheets spread out across the top of his working space. “Such a performance that, I believe, you were unable to use your subtle mastery to alter the course of even a single one of his blades,” Twitch said. While his tone was amiable, friendly even, Ridley Poe felt a thin trail of cold sweat racing down the middle of his back. He could tell that his Headmaster was not in the slightest bit pleased.
“I can only offer my apologies, Headmaster,” he stammered, keeping his eyes fixed on the wall behind his employer. “Neither of us could have expected Thaddeus Fly to be quite so cunning.”
“Actually, we could have, if we had done a proper background search on him,” said Twitch, leaning back in his chair. He folded his hands together on his stomach, his pouty lips twisting this way and that as he tried to think of an appropriate punishment for his second-in-command. “And then there are the other matters which we must deal with. Your report on Mr. Flant’s interaction with you is quite revealing.”
“He’s a greedy one, sir, to be certain, but I believe that the extra coin offered to him has sealed his cooperation,” said Poe, able to relax a little. The Lizardman Thug hadn’t been pleased with the offer, but when more money was laid on the table, he was quick to sign on with Twitch’s plans.
“Let us hope so, Mr. Poe. Wayne has sent an invitation to officer Langstrom to come speak with you today. I trust you received my memo,” Twitch asked, turning in his seat toward the picture window to his left.
“Indeed, sir.”
“Good. Go see to it. And when you’re done with that, Mr. Poe,” Twitch said, arriving finally at a suiting punishment for his failure to secure the Shades the first event of the Games. “Bring me your latest collection of poems. I require tinder for the fireplace in the study.” Poe cringed, but bowed and fled the office of Mr. Twitch. When he heard the outer office door shutting, Twitch pulled a bottle of brandy from his bottom desk drawer, and poured himself a small drink in a shot glass kept next to the bottle. As he set the emptied glass down, he looked once again at the information sheets before him. “Thaddeus Fly,” he muttered. He picked up a pen and slashed a crooked ‘X’ through the picture clipped to the info sheet. “We shall have to have you dealt with as well, won’t we?”
Back in Desanadron, Ignatious Stockholm stood up on the stage in the primary meeting hall of the Hoods, his hands clasped behind his back. To his left stood Hollister, a turtle-like Sidalis with a soft countenance and a bookish overall demeanor. To his right stood Yuri Gorichev, one of the new enforcers in the guild and a mountain of a Minotaur. On the main assembly floor stood nearly three hundred sets of eyes, all locked on the muscle-bound Red Tribe Werewolf. He cleared his throat, stepped forward, and surveyed the crowd one more time before beginning his speech.
“Ladies, gentlemen, and every one not quite included into either of those categories,” he began brusquely. His voice reached the back of the chamber easily, with a little added help from certain old tricks he kept up his sleeves. “Today is the twentieth of Fivel, and on this day, it is scheduled that we divide up our earnings as appropriate to your rank. Mr. Hollister has your sign off sheets over there,” he said, pointing to the table behind the turtle-man. “Mr. Foran from the treasury department is in the payments received room through that door, as always,” he said, now indicating the iron door just off the stage. “No mobbing, no fighting, and no arguing about your pay. If you find that your pay has been shorted from last month, you will be able to see why when Mr. Hollister gives you your expenses information sheet.”
Behind the desk that Hollister would be sitting at was one of Stockholm’s filing cabinets, carried down to the meeting hall with ease in the wee hours of the morning. There was some mixed moaning and groaning from the agents, but nobody was foolish enough to dissent with ‘the Red Menace’ in charge of things for the time being. With William Deus, they might have been able to beg and plead for more pay, but such tactics only ever served to annoy the Guild Chief.
As the process began and the agents started queuing up in front of Hollister, Stockholm gave Yuri a brief nod and exited the meeting hall. Down the hall he stalked in silence, the familiar scents and sounds of the sewer tunnels giving him a sense of peace, a sense of calm. When he opened the door to his working office, he saw that the enchanted mirror on his desk was glowing a soft red. He picked it up and rapped on its smooth surface once with a knuckle. The shimmering visage of Flint Ananham swam into focus, and Stockholm growled inwardly. He’d given the mirror on the other end to Anna in the hopes that she would be responsible and conscientious of his tendency to worry about her well-being.
So much for that, he thought.
“Prime Flint,” Stockholm said into the mirror. “What news, sir?”
“Nothing much, Stocky,” said the Wererat, getting the flinch reaction from the Red Tribe warrior that he so enjoyed. On his end, Flint lay lazily on his rented hotel room bed, his tools of the trade sprawled at the foot of the bed, waiting for his cleaning ministrations. But he wanted to check in with Stockholm first, because something had been bothering him since the knife throw competition. “Listen, I have a bit of an errand I need you to run.”
“With all due respect, sir, you’re all the way across the continent. What sort of errand do you expect me to run from here,” Stockholm groused.
“Information, my fine red friend,” replied Flint, sitting up. The shift in orientation of the image gave Stockholm a sharp needle of pain in his eyes, but he adjusted quickly. “Something stinks to high hell about our hosts, Stockholm. Plus, there’s the interesting addition of the Koikara Group being here.”
“What’s so interesting about them, Flint? We’ve known their company is a front for all kinds of illegal activity for a few years now.”
“Maybe so, but their owner and CEO is here for the Games, my man,” said Flint with a toothy smile. “Sally Ridge, mate. Get whatever dirt you can on her and the Shades.”
“Any particular member of the Shades you’re referring to,” asked Stockholm, sitting behind his desk. He took out a spare yellow steno pad and a pen, scribbling down Ridge’s name before waiting for Flint’s reply.
“They’ve got some sort of butler fellow working with them, a Mr. Wayne Traedo,” Flint said, looking over the roster sheet that had been distributed to the participants of the Games. “According to Lee, he brought the invitations to the Games to everyone but us.” Stockholm had not written the name down, his hand hovering over the pad. He knew Traedo’s name, but from where, he could not clearly remember. After a moment more of hesitation, he jotted the name down. “How’s things on that end, Stocky?”
“Everything is proceeding as normal with day to day operations, sir,” Stockholm said with an air of efficient pride.
“Good, good,” said Flint. “Hey, your birthday is right around the corner, yes?”
“Indeed. Why,” Stockholm asked, ever suspicious of the Wererat’s motives.
“Oh, no reason,” Flint lied. “Just figured I’d wish you a happy birthday in case we don’t get the chance to chit-chat again before it comes and goes. This Thursday, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Stockholm said, also a bit of a lie, but one that had become such a part of his existence that he accepted it as fact more often than not. The truth being, of course, that he didn’t have any real ‘birthday’, per se. “Again, though, why do you care?”
“Oh, I have my reasons,” said Flint. He rubbed his furry hand over the glass surface of the mirror, breaking the connection. “Always leave them guessing,” Flint whispered to himself, picking up his lock picks and setting to cleaning them up.
Anna Deus sat sipping her coffee at a small but lavish little shop called ‘Le Café Du Sorineux’, named after the owner and proprietor. Said lady was an Elven woman at least in the middle of her seventh or eighth century of life, having only started to show the signs of middle age. Lucky pricks, Anna thought, getting over a thousand years of life to live if they take care of themselves. Why can’t we Humans manage it? Not, of course, that she was a racist or prone to thinking herself a victim of short lifespan. Humans, in her and many others’ opinions, lived shorter lives but those lives were full of excitement and thrill. Not as true for the common Human civilian, but emotionally and intellectually, Humans were much quicker on the uptake than other species. A tradeoff, she supposed.
She felt splendid, too, because anonymity was required during the daytime hours, and she had the perfect cover for such things; being herself. She wore a simple grass green dress with a white over blouse, bronze bangle earrings and a small flowered brooch pinned to her left sleeve. With her hair allowed to flow down naturally and the assistance of a push-up bra, she looked like she should, which is to say, like a woman.
And that, of course, almost led to a bit of disaster when Akimaru Tendo, the white-clad Ninja of the Midnight Suns, came in to the café a few minutes later. Anna remained at her two-seater table, sipping her cuppa, her eyes stealing over to the enigmatic agent as he ordered something called an espresso and then turned to scan the seating area. There were no open tables, only seats at tables where one or two other people were already present. When Akimaru received his order, much to Anna’s dismay, he came right over toward the chair opposite hers.
If he speaks a word to me, I’ll just leave, she thought. But no, that’ll seem suspicious, or at the very least cowardly. Mighty hell, what do I do? Akimaru seated himself silently, and Anna’s heart accelerated as she felt his eyes bore into her face. “Excuse me, miss, but does it bother you if I seat myself here?” She looked up into his purple eyes, and when she did not see shock or recognition register there, she almost breathed a sigh of relief. That’s right, she thought, I always wear the colored contacts when I’m playing ‘William Deus’. He must not recognize me.
Oh, I can have fun with this, she thought.
“Certainly not, young man,” she said, allowing the fullness of her feminine voice to come to the fore. “But only if you will answer me a question.”
“I am obliged,” Akimaru said, inclining his head slightly. Hmm, well mannered, Anna thought.
“You’re obviously a Ninja.”
“Indeed.”
“So why be so blatant about it as to remain dressed as one in public,” she asked. Akimaru waved his hands in front of his face, summoning up an instant fog of cold, cotton-white mist in front of the lower portion of his face. He picked up his cup, and though she could hear him sipping his espresso, Anna could not see through the mist. He set it back down, and she saw mischief sparkle momentarily in his eyes.
“Because, miss, I am not predisposed to wearing anything else,” said Akimaru. “This is who I am. And now, I have a question for you, if you will honor me the allowance.”
“Certainly young man,” Anna said, relaxing enough to sip her cuppa.
“Are you aware that you bear a striking resemblance to a visitor to this city, one Mr. William Deus,” he asked in a short, clipped tone. Anna maintained her composure, trying to think of a cover for this sudden and sharp question. It was just too close to the heart, this one, but she had her answer much faster than she would have thought possible. She put on a happily surprised expression, and put her hand to her chest.
“My Will is here in Ja-Wen,” she asked. Akimaru, in all honesty a little confused now himself, sat back straighter in his seat. “Oh, how rude of me! I’m his sister, Anna,” she said, offering her bare left hand to Akimaru, wedding band glimmering in the light of the electric lights overhead. “I’m here for the diplomatic negotiations regarding the exchange of foodstuffs via alchemical teleportation between Ja-Wen and Desanadron.”
This cover worked wondrously, because it was a half truth. There really was such a series of negotiations going on, and her husband Harold had been the first person she used the story on. He, being so loving and trusting, had fallen for it right off. Akimaru, she could see, was about to buy into it as well. He took her offered hand gently from underneath, like a true gentleman.
“Ah, I see. Yes, I have heard of you, but only in passing reference,” Akimaru said. This could complicate things, he thought. If something happens to her here because of the Games, Mr. Deus will be wroth with anger. And master Fly has already agreed to keep her and her husband protected in Desanadron. He made a show quickly of checking the clock behind the clerk’s counter, and shook his head. “I am most sorry, Mrs. Deus, but I have just recalled a pressing engagement elsewhere soon. It was an honor to meet you,” he said, standing up and bowing.
“Oh, do you work with Will,” she asked, digging the knife into Akimaru in ways she never could physically. She saw his shoulders bunch up momentarily, but he was good, shrugging it off quickly.
“No, with his competitors. I am sorry, Mrs. Deus, but I must be going.” Akimaru Tendo, feeling as awkward as he ever had in recent memory, fled the café then, leaving Annabelle Deus to enjoy her cuppa in relative peace.
Whispers, dozens, no, hundreds of whispers, all assailing Sally Ridge as she opened her mind to the outflow of free surface-level thoughts streaming out around her as she and Lester Joelly strolled through the busy market street in the fourth precinct of Ja-Wen. She tried to filter through them as quickly as she could, allowing Lester to take her by the arm and lead her through the crowds. Her body was sluggish to react when she concentrated on the natural abilities of her Psychic power.
Shouldn’t have had that pastrami…
I wonder if she’ll like this…
Stupid git, always fetching about with ‘is street women…
Worthless, just a bauble…
And on that last line of thought she decided to fix herself and her mind. The interior voices of many folks, she had come to realize over the years, sounded like their external voice, and this one caught her attention in the crowd above all others. It was the voice of one of the Wererats from the Pack of Liars, Jefe Gabriez. She spotted him with a concentrated effort some fifty yards away, perusing the wares one of the wagon street vendors was trying to sliv off on the crowds of market-goers.
“Stop,” she whispered to Lester. He led her over toward a small booth where someone was putting on a puppet show, and mixed himself and his boss in with the crowd. Hidden thusly, Sally focused her power on recapturing Gabriez’s pattern of thoughts, which did not take long.
-could be nice, but it ain’t worth squat lady. You’re gonna regret it. Interesting, Sally thought. The huckster down the street was a Kobold fellow, selling all manner of trinkets and ‘wards against evils and curses’, but Gabriez clearly knew that the little man was selling little more than junk.
Where the hell is Stephanie? She should’ve been back by now. Probably poking around in a bookstore again.
Oh hell, is that that bounty hunter? Upon snatching this thought, Sally concentrated even further, using the Psychic power of sightjacking. Her eyes snapped shut, and her body went rigid under Joelly’s arm as her consciousness whipped into Gabriez’s eyes. The Wererat’s eyesight was sharper than a hawk’s, she thought straight away. The man that the Wererat was looking at, she saw, was practically a one-man militia, a broad shouldered Simpa. What’s with those stripes, she thought, noting the faint gray lines along the bounty hunter’s arms. On his back she saw he had a sword and a spear strapped and ready for use. On his right hip hung a battle axe, and on his left hip, an ancient mecha weapon, a revolver.
And gods knew how many weapons the man might be concealing in his pockets and pack, she thought. Strapped to his left ankle, just above his bare foot, was a brace of shuriken. On the right ankle the bounty hunter kept a small black device of some sort. Along his belt, Gabriez’s eyes focused on more mecha weapons, known as grenades. This bounty hunter, thought Sally, takes his job very seriously.
She removed the sightjacking and came back to herself, suppressing the whispers from entering her mind. “Let’s get going,” she said to Lester, who was looking at her with some concern. “What? What’s wrong?”
“You had another convulsion,” he whispered in her ear. “I was able to hold you still, but only barely. I think you need to see an alchemist soon about that,” he implored. But Sally Ridge scoffed at the idea. She hadn’t been able to climb to where she stood in the world by showing any weakness. And she would not show any such weakness during the Games, not even to Lester.
“It is well enough that you’re here to make sure I’m well,” she said off-handedly. “Let’s go back to the penthouse.”
Wham! Another thud sounded out in the alley as Harley punched the security guard yet a third time in the face, though the man was already quite unconscious from the first and second blow. The Jaft woman let the Human go, dumping him unceremoniously to the alley floor. “Was that really necessary,” asked Yvonne from around her knee height.
“Not completely, no, but we don’t want him waking up and causing a scene, now do we,” said Harley. Yvonne wasn’t about to argue; she liked having both eyes to see with. “Now come on. You said we can get what we’re after here, right?”
“If my sources and contacts are correct, then yes,” said the Gnome alchemist, shuffling up to the open door in the alley. She ducked into a darkened vestibule that led to the right up into the house proper. To the left, however, a set of moldering brown steps led to the basement, where the treasure she had brought Harley with her to collect lay. “It’ll be down there.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because, dear Harley,” Yvonne said, shaking her head in the way of the sadly overeducated when they must explain something to the ‘lay folk’. “Any scientist worth ‘is weight in salt keeps his lab in the basement, or in a secret place. Especially when what they’re working on isn’t strictly approved of yet.”
“And what is it we’re nabbing here,” Harley asked, whispering as they descended down the steps.
“Something very, very valuable. Or rather, I should say, it could be valuable, to the right people. It’s a chemical, really new, cutting edge research,” said Yvonne, warming to her subject matter but careful to keep her voice low, in case the good doctor who owned the house might be down there working in his lab at that moment. “Stuff is supposed to grant temporary regenerative powers equal to one of your men.”
“A potion that can give people a Jaft man’s regenerative power? Is that even possible?”
“It might well be,” said Yvonne. “Lycanthropes wouldn’t have much use fer the stuff, but to humanoids like meself, well, it’s a wonderful idear, see?” She smiled up at Harley, who looked baffled still by the implications. “And thus, very valuable, smaller than a trunk, and we can use it as our bid for the Most Valued event.”
“Ah, the Games,” whispered Harley. Yvonne tried the knob at the bottom of the stairs, slowly, ever so slowly, and almost hooted for joy when she found it locked. That likely meant the good doctor working on the formula was not within. She took out her lock picks, and set about trying to undo the lock on the door. After five minutes with no success, she started getting flustered. “Damned good lock, this is,” she growled, twisting and turning her picks as best she could.
As she continued to pry at the lock, Harley excused herself silently and headed back up the steps. A few minutes later, as she continued to have no success with the lock, Yvonne heard a meaty thud behind her and looked up the steps. There stood Harley in all her brutish Jaft glory, the doctor in question unconscious in her right hand, his key ring in her left. “Here,” she said, tossing the keys down to Yvonne, who grunted with distaste at her partner’s use of brute force.
“Well, I could’ve gone and done that,” she said, unlocking the door.
Evening came, and with it, the contestants in the Games assembled in the second mandated spot for the night’s announcement of events, Hyde Park. The park was a splendid expanse of greenery near the center of the teeming city of Ja-Wen, and the picnic area they stood in was mercifully free of law enforcement during the evenings and late nights. The most trouble a patrolman was likely to find hereabouts throughout the routine course of their shifts was a pair of young lovers taking to the bushes for a little romance.
Course, I didn’t find no teenagers, thought Lee as he rejoined the other judges standing before the competing guild members. All I found was Ms. Vanik and Ms. Setine. He looked over at the Illeck women at the front of the Sisters of Night, and they both gave him knowing grin. Gwaugh, Lee thought, no meat on them bones. What kind of woman is that? He clapped his hands together, and cleared his throat to address the assemblage.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “Tonight, we announce the second of our events, which is as follows. There is an officer who patrols the seventh precinct, just west of this ‘ere park, by the name of Leonard Diggero. He is a Dwarf constable, a sergeant, and has been a footman now in this city for twelve years. Over the course of those years, he has affected three-hundred and eighty-two arrests, wiv all but six of them resulting in convictions.” He allowed for a moment of silence before continuing on.
“Your task, contestants, is to try and pick this man’s pocket during the course of his shift, which begins in roughly one hour from now,” Lee announced. “Should you be caught, you will of course be bailed out quickly thanks to certain channels being opened, but you will then be out of the running. If you are given chase, you are not to harm this man, for his protection against physical injury has already been guaranteed by the three of us to his department,” he said, indicating himself and the other two judges. “If more than one of you succeeds, the final winner will be decided by who was able to steal the most valuable item off of the good officer. Now then, let’s have your guilds’ participants for the event.”
Flint didn’t need to ask Anna for this one, and he stepped forth for the Hoods. From the Midnight Suns, Niles Potts, the Gnome Pickpocket, stepped up. From the Shades, a Human woman of indeterminate middle age, dressed in a dark blue house dress, stepped forth. Her name was Tania Hardin. From the Koikara Group, Norbert Channel, the technician and Pyromancer stepped forth. From the Pack of Liars came Seth Logan, the smallest and slickest of the bunch. From the Sisters of Night, Helen Vanik, the group’s leader, took up the challenge. From the Lenak Petara, Watari Ichigo, the Fallen Knight. How he would manage to pick the Dwarf’s pocket undetected with all of that armor on, Anna couldn’t even begin to guess. Lastly, from the Tacha Forus machine shop group, the man named Mr. Brady stepped up.
“Well then, folks, you’ve about forty minutes to prepare with your guild group before the game begins proper. Take the time and use it wisely,” Lee said, turning away toward his fellow judges. Flint, joining his boss and the others of the Hoods in their huddle by a small sapling sprouting up near a bench in the picnic area of the park, took in what he could of his opponents. He wasn’t feeling too good about his chances here.
“Okay, we’ve got one point overall thus far,” said Anna, addressing the whole of her group. “Fly’s people have three points, and our not so gracious hosts have two. We’ll be okay if we can place at least second and keep Potts and Hardin from taking a place.”
“How are we going to do that,” asked Norman Adwar, unable to quite join his arms into the shoulder-to-shoulder huddle.
“Simple. We cause a distraction,” said Anna.
“But we ain’t supposed to directly interfere,” said Calvin Licht, the brutish Jaft.
“Wrong, we’re not supposed to get caught interfering,” said Jerry Norbit, his smooth Illeck features showing off his foxy grin to its best advantage.
“Precisely,” said Anna. “We’ll split into two pairs while Flint goes to find Mr. Diggero and make his attempt. One pair to distract Hardin, the other to take care of Potts. Norman, you’ll go with Jerry to take Potts while Calvin and I go deal with the Hardin woman. She shouldn’t be much trouble.”
“I don’t know about that, boss,” said Licht. He was looking over his shoulder at Tania Hardin as she spoke quietly to one side of the Shades’ group with Mr. Twitch. “She could be crafty. I don’t like crafty.”
“Well that’s a shame,” said Anna. “I was thinking we could be too.”
Seth Logan traipsed along the seventh precinct streets, paralleling the Dwarf constable street for street, turn for turn. The game had kicked off about half an hour ago, and he’d already seen his cousin Flint lurking around Diggero once or twice, getting close but not quite going for the snatch. Too bad, too, because Seth would love the opportunity to learn from his elder cousin.
Seth cut down a small, unobtrusive niche between a pastry shop and a hardware store, the scent of cheese filled Danishes licking temptingly at his nostrils. “Ah, such sweets,” he whispered. A side door leading into the pastry shop creaked open, and as Seth slouched down to make himself appear as just another Wererat bum, his nose was assaulted by the lovely odors from within. Ah, just one bite, he thought, if I could just get one little snack. But no, he thought, this is not the time.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a pudgy Human in chef’s hat and apron shaking his head sadly and tossing an entire tray of pastries into the green metal dumpster bin down the alley a little way. “Too much, I tell him, not too much, and what does he do,” said the pastry chef to nobody in particular. “He puts in too much! Shlep!” He shook his head and went back through the door into the shop, leaving Seth all alone in the darkened alley. Unable to resist the temptation, Seth Logan sprang to his feet, darting down the way to the dumpster.
He threw the lid open, and saw the bounty of cheese-filled pastries that had been wasted. He could still feel the heat coming off of them as he reached in for one. When he took his first bite, his eyes closing as his mouth watered at the wonderful and sweet taste of the treat, Seth Logan was struck hard in the back of the head and lifted bodily into the trash bin. The bin was then wheeled down to the end of the alley, and then off into the benighted streets of Ja-Wen.
“Look, all I’m saying is that your tech is a bit out of date,” Norbert Channel said to Norman Adwar as the two Gnomes sat in a sandwich shop on Tennison Avenue in the seventh precinct. Jerry had turned out to be utterly unnecessary for distracting the Pickpocket/Pyromancer. Norman had located him, and sauntered right up, asking what the Koikara Group’s Head of Information Networking and Communications thought of his latest design for a wireless telephone. The blueprint lay on the table between the two, and at first, Norman had thought this little distraction too clever to be true. But as the two Gnomes sat discussing the layout and design theories, he found himself becoming genuinely involved in the conversation. After all, he was an Engineer who took great pride in his work. Even if the blueprint was from five years before, and he had never gone back to try and improve the design.
“May be, but it still works, at least, in principal,” said Norman. He took a bite of his sandwich and set it aside. “What’s so special about that pad you’re carrying about?”
“Oh, this?” Channel put his small device down on the table, moving his food aside momentarily. He plugged in the foldable keyboard and booted up the system, attaching a small radial device to a plug in the back, facing Norman. “See this,” he asked, tapping the radial. “This is what I like to call a long-range microwave feedback lojacutor. It basically locates nearby microwaves and uses them to bounce to the next available one on the edge of its range, and then piggyback onward and onward until it connects with the signal I want. I indicate that here,” he said, turning the device around to show Norman the display screen.
“It’s all just text,” Norman said. “Can’t really talk to someone that way.”
“You can if you’re a quick typist, which I happens to be,” said Channel. To say that he was distracted from the Games would have been a massive understatement.
Ichigo was nobody’s fool. He knew he couldn’t hope to pick the officer’s pocket, and he’d seen that damned rat from the Hoods lurking around the officer at least half a dozen times now. Why doesn’t he just get it over with, the Human wondered. Why’s he playing around? But as has been said, Ichigo was nobody’s fool, and he had ways of getting this little job done without having to resort to the sort of trickery he was no good at. He’d pick the Dwarf’s pocket all right, rest assured of that.
“Okay, that’s him,” he said to the Sprite hovering a few feet away from him. The Sprite, only a couple of inches tall and almost invisible to the normal naked eye, had been hanging around the park when the Lenak Petara had arrived, and Ichigo, always thinking ahead, had befriended the little magical creature right away. That wasn’t hard, though. Although the Sprite could never hope to mate with a Human, she did find him exceedingly attractive, as had many dozens of women in the Fallen Knight’s past. “You know what to do, yes?”
“Don’t you worry about a thing, sweetie,” said the Sprite in his ear. “I’ll do it.” She darted through the air toward the officer, and a few minutes later, returned to Ichigo with a small piece of parchment in her hands. Ichigo opened it up, and found himself looking at a tiny magic scroll, one that, when read aloud, would imbue the reader with the ability to use the spell ‘Haltus Momentium’, which could hold a person in place for hours. He gave the Sprite a quick peck on top of her head, and led her back toward the park. He would be the first competitor back with a successful try.
Flint kept thinking it might be the moment to strike, but each time he thought so, his keen eyes fell upon one of the other competitors. He’d seen Seth not too long ago, and though he’d only met his little cousin once before, he didn’t want to cheat the younger man out of a chance to make his move. When he spotted the Sprite flying back toward that armored son of a bitch, he knew he’d waited too long.
The Vanik woman had been clever, too, throwing herself out of a tavern’s front doors right on top of the constable, who, although offended at receiving an armload of drunken woman, seemed to shrug the whole incident off without a second’s thought. Following the patrolman through a back street, Flint saw a mass of shadows seem to move away from a wall and dart past behind the constable. Diggero stopped to look around with suspicion heavy in his eyes, but when he didn’t find anything to immediately address, he turned and continued on his patrol.
Wonder what that was, Flint thought. Never mind, go to get this thing done and out of the way. Through the darkness of the shadows he swooped forward, getting closer to Diggero than he had dared do so before. When he felt confident nobody else was around to observe him, Flint rolled a smoke bomb out into the back street. When it went off with a small ‘pop’ and a profusion of smoke, he sprinted into the cloud with his protective goggles on, located the coughing, wheezing officer, and rifled through his pouches and pockets, taking everything he could lay hands on.
Then he was off and away into the night, back toward the park. He wondered how his ‘distractions’ were doing.
While Norman had been enjoying great success with his distraction, Anna lay in a heap on the cold stone of Oakberry Lane. Blood trickled from her nose as she tried to get up, and she saw that Calvin Licht, big man though he was, was having a hard time fending off the punches and kicks that Tania Hardin was throwing at him.
One of those punches had struck Anna before she’d even had the chance to talk to Hardin. They’d been following the woman along Pine Street, and when they went to follow her around the corner onto Oakberry, Hardin had punched her hard in the nose with a left cross. The blow had been doubled in efficiency due to the sheer surprise of it, and Anna was only now regaining her woozy footing.
The bitch, she thought. How did I not see it coming? Calvin managed at that moment to hit a solid punch to one of the woman’s breasts, a blow that Anna could attest to hurting just as much as it would on a man, perhaps even more so. But Hardin didn’t stumble, despite the clear force put into the jab. She struck back with a hard line kick straight up into Licht’s crotch, and the blue warrior crumbled like a tower under the blast of demolitions experts.
Hardin was off then, racing away like a fugitive. Anna knelt down next to Calvin Licht, who was congealing quite loudly with his hands on his privates. “Are you all right, Cal?”
“What do you think,” he whimpered, tears standing out in his eyes. “Us Jafts heal quick, but there’s some attacks that are pretty, universal,” he said, coughing and wheezing. Anna rubbed his back for a minute and helped him up.
“Well, we did what we could. Let’s us just get back to the park, eh?”
“Sure, but I’m gonna take a few extra minutes. You ever been kicked in the nuts? It hurts like hell.”
“Yes, I’m sure it does,” was all Anna could think to say. What she wanted to say, of course, was that she had never had that problem, not having nuts to kick.
Each of the contestants back at the park had put their nabbed goodies from Diggero’s pockets and pouches on a long picnic table for the judges to survey. From sheer volume, it appeared that Flint and the Hoods had locked this event tightly. But Lee Toren could not declare the placements yet, as Seth Logan from the Pack of Liars had not as yet returned to the park.
Jefe paced back and forth, worried that something might have caused Seth such a holdup. What could he be thinking, he wondered. Diggero might not even have anything left on his person by this point, seeing all the swag already collected. When the sun threatened to bring dawn with it, Lee had no choice but to declare the event over, with Seth being disqualified for not returning by the deadline of dawn.
The Hoods took first place for the event, having garnered the highest collective value of goods. Second place went to the Lenak Petara, for Ichigo’s stolen scroll measured up to be worth more than the pouch of coins that Vanik had taken. As for third, well, nobody could argue that the miraculous theft of the constable’s nightstick by Mr. Brady earned him the spot. Anna was well pleased by the fact that neither the Shades nor the Koikara Group was able to place at all, because now they had a one point lead over the Midnight Suns. As she headed away from the park, she didn’t notice Flint engaged in conversation with the Pack of Liars, most of whom he was family to.
Flint felt every hour of consciousness since his last decent rest, perhaps two or three days ago, weighing heavily on him. Still, he could not ignore Jefe’s request for help in looking for the missing Seth. “He’s always getting himself into some kind of trouble,” Jefe had admitted, “but he wouldn’t risk it during the Games. He’s been looking forward to this too much to just get himself mixed up in something distracting.”
So Flint dragged himself along on the outskirts of the city to the north, in the city of Ja-Wen’s northern slum districts. He had already stopped and questioned every disreputable looking person he could spot, regardless of Race. But no, nobody had seen anything suspicious the night before. Typical, he thought. When I need to find the kid, I can’t. Turning onto an unmarked street, Flint found himself almost snout-to-snout with Stephanie Claudis.
“Oh, sorry,” she squeaked, taking a step back and rubbing her forearm awkwardly. She looked away from Flint, who only had an inch or two in height on her. Still, they did make an odd looking pair, she dressed in her casual jeans and denim jacket with bow on her back, he looking like an urban military operative in his black and white camos, muscular for a Wererat. “Any luck yet,” she asked.
“Nothing, and I’ve asked the usual suspects,” Flint said. “You know, if the situation didn’t seem quite so bleak, I’d take this opportunity to ask you on a date, if you’re game,” he blurted. Always dive face-first on these things, he thought. After all, what’s the worst thing that’ll happen? Rejection? He’d dealt with that dozens of times. You build up an immunity after a while. Stephanie, he could see, was visibly flustered by his sudden and frank advance, but she didn’t shake her head.
“Let’s take care of finding Seth first, all right?”
“So that’s a yes,” Flint said. Stephanie rolled her eyes, but her whiskers twitched amiably.
“Sure. Now please, let’s see about finding our boy,” she said, heading off in the direction from whence Flint had just come. Scarcely believing his good fortune, the Prime of the Hoods picked up his pace, rejuvenated for having secured himself at least a date in the near future. Even if it went badly, so what? At least he’d have tried with the girl, and she wasn’t bad looking.
“Now I just have to hope she isn’t some kind of psychotic like the last one,” he muttered to himself.
Darkness, all consuming, all encompassing. The reek of wet, molded garbage and refuse, the slimy touch of something possibly organic, perhaps some sort of vegetable gone to waste. These were the first observations Seth Logan made as he returned slowly to consciousness. The lightless condition of his predicament was not so bad, really. Wererats are, by and large, able to see quite swimmingly in the dark as part of their nocturnal nature.
When he tried to stand up, Seth banged the top of his head on a metal door, clanging loudly and cursing even louder in his native tongue. “Brala mufanda,” he shouted, rubbing the top of his head and seating himself on the piles of waste. He groaned, trying to listen for any sign of life outside of his confines. He heard shuffling footsteps and then the soft sound of someone clearing their throat.
“Mr. Logan,” an unfamiliar voice called in to him. Seth reached up and tried to push the lid door off of the dumpster, but found it tightly locked. Well shit, he thought. No interior locking mechanism. Best play along for now.
“Yeah, that’d be me. It’s Seth, by the way,” he said to the darkness. “I don’t like to stand on tradition. Or manners. Or garbage,” he added lastly with a grin.
“Well then, Seth. I have a proposal for you,” said the voice outside of the dumpster. Whoever was out there, he thought, they sounded slick. Too slick for their own good, as a matter of fact. “You would probably like very much to come out of there and be free to go back to your friends, yes?”
“Well, that would certainly be nice,” said Seth, laying back on the mound of refuse, his hands behind his head. “Or you could just open up long enough to toss in a hooker or something, I’m easy to please.” A brief grunt escaped his jailor.
“Is that typical Wererat wit you’re offering up, Seth? I would certainly hope not. My associate Mr. Wreck does not indulge in such low humor, and he’s a Thug.” Wreck, Seth thought, sitting up suddenly and missing bashing himself again by scant inches. That was the name of the dark brown furred rat working with the Shades! Then, he thought, I think I know who the other voice is.
“Mr. Twitch, I presume,” Seth called out. The silence meeting his question gave him all the answer he needed. Sons of bitches, he thought, they’re breaking the rules! “You know, the judges probably wouldn’t be too keen on letting this incident slide.”
“That is why they shall never learn of it,” said Twitch. His voice, while loud enough for Seth to hear it, didn’t have the echoing quality he might expect if he’d been carted to the sort of typical hidey hole he had come to know in Arcade. “You have two options, Seth. You can choose, of your own free will, to act as our spy within your group and thus, help us win these Games. If you choose to help us, regardless of whether or not we win the Games, you’ll be handsomely compensated and join our ranks within the Shades. A great honor, to be sure,” Twitch said. Seth could hear the smirk the smug bastard wore.
“And my other choice,” Seth asked.
“I had a number of accelerant chemicals put into the container you’re inhabiting at the moment,” Twitch said. Seth looked around quickly, his heart rate picking up. Several plastic containers, he saw, all of them capped and looking suspiciously cleaner than the other tossed boxes and cans around him. Oh, he thought, not good. “And I wouldn’t try to pop them open, Seth. There’s a blue powder lining the inside of the container, and if it comes in contact with the liquids in those containers, it’ll go up in flames without any assistance from me.”
“You bastard,” Seth screamed, pouncing his useless fists against the metal wall in front of him. He heard the flick of a cigarette lighter, and the satisfied exhale of Twitch as he chuffed blue smoke.
“Well? What’s it going to be, Mr. Logan,” Twitch asked, his voice barely carrying through the metal of the container and the stark crimson mist filling Seth’s field of vision. The lycanthrope rage was almost upon him, and for once in his life, Seth welcomed it if it would come. All lycanthropes in the realms of Tamalaria could fly into sudden, berserker rages, fits of violence that gave them incredible strength, speed, and agility. But the Wererat Race, along with the Cuyotai and the Ursas (werebears), were slow to achieve that state of mind, and only the elusive Snow Tribe Werewolves had ever mastered consciously choosing to lapse into the rage state. He could not just wish for it to happen.
“Master, we can’t linger here all day, sir. They may be looking for him,” said another unknown voice outside of the dumpster bin. That one Seth knew very well, for it was the northland accent belonging to the butler fellow working for Twitch, Wayne Traedo. His presence pushed Seth’s anger to its utmost limit, and he watched as the darkness around him filled entirely with a sanguine glow. His arms began to expand, the pectoral muscles stretching his thin vest to its breaking point, the buttons flying off and striking the walls of the container. A raspy snarl escaped his throat as his claws began extending into blades.
“It doesn’t matter now,” Twitch said, hearing the transformation taking place within the container. “He’s made his choice.” Twitch took one last drag on his cigarette, and then tossed it into the pool of petrol that led off in a trail up the side of the bin. Flames raced up the stream and into the bin, and as Twitch and Traedo walked away, the dumpster erupted in flames, the thrashing, screaming Seth Logan left to burn to death or suffocate on the fumes of the toxic accelerants Twitch had placed inside with him.
Nobody saw the pair from the Shades leaving the junkyard in the southern districts of Ja-Wen.
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