Chapter Eleven
Closing Up Shop
Lee Toren stood before all of the
gathered contestants, and once again he felt the tension among them. But this was a different kind of tension, an
expectant sort. Everybody was in place,
and everybody knew what they were supposed to do. He held up his hands to cut short their idle
chatter, and his eyes briefly passed over Twitch, who stood as confidently as
ever among his agents.
According to Flint, who had spoken
with him the morning after the meeting of the guild heads, his informant would
be in the park that night when everybody gathered, if Lee could get it
arranged. This, combined with the
recorded confession Portenda played back for him around noon, got Lee’s gears
turning in a hurry. If everything went
smoothly, the Games would be declared over, and the villainous Mr. Twitch and
his Shades would be dismantled and jailed.
Deus, Lee saw, was still trying to
whisper to Flint, whom she was pestering repeatedly to know who the informant
in the military police was, and how she intended to get the drop on Twitch when
the park was so open and viewable.
“Don’t you worry about that,” was all that Flint would say, which
infuriated her to no end. Still, Lee
thought, things are coming to an end.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased
to announce that we have the treasure event completed, and the following are
the winners. In third place, the Lenak
Petara. In second place, the Pack of
Liars. And the winners of the event, are
the Tacha Forus, thanks to their literarily gifted Mr. O’Toole,” he said. The Cuyotai Q Mage took a bow to the mild
applause of the guild members, and then stepped back. Now, Lee thought, now is my cue. I don’t know why, but Flint wanted me to be
sure about this. “Before we continue on,
I haven’t been very good about letting our hosts for this year’s Games make any
sort of announcements of their own,” said Lee.
Twitch gave the gathered agents a grin and a nod. “Anything to say to the contestants?”
And just before Mr. Twitch could
step forward to say his piece, Tania Hardin, who had remained relatively quiet
throughout the entirety of the events, took one step behind him, leveling the
tip of her auto-crossbow at the back of his head. “I have something to say, honorable judge,”
she called out. Ridley Poe and Wreck’s replacement, a gangly Human Pickpocket,
started motioning for their weapons of choice, but found themselves in the
crosshairs of several other crossbows trained on them by police officers who
had just sprung up out of hiding places around the competitors. “Arthur Longly, also known as Artemis Twitch,
you are hereby under arrest for conspiracy in the murder of Sylvia Sado, Koby
Nellis, and Seth Logan.”
“What the hell is this,” demanded
Poe before Kenneth O’Toole used a Silence spell to disrupt his use of
Aeromancy. Poe twisted his fingers, but
found that he could not bring his mana to bear.
Glaring daggers at the Cuyotai Q Mage, he was muscled to the ground by a
pair of arresting officers.
“By order of Special Investigations
Division Three,” called out Hardin, “I hereby declare that any other ranking
member of the thieves’ guild known as the Shades who is present at this
location may leave without charges being pressed against them. However, should these individuals remain
within city limits, they will be tracked and arrested for various crimes
committed throughout the city prior to the onset of these Games. That includes you, judge Tortulona,” she
said.
Twitch was placed in handcuffs then,
and screamed and ranted the whole way as he was dragged from the park. Tortulona fled along with Poe and the
replacement man for Wreck. When the dust
had settled, Lee Toren stood surrounded by the remaining participants, who were
all looking at him rather expectantly.
“There is no winner for these Games,” he muttered aloud. “And they are hereby declared to be over and
finished. You should all start making
arrangements to get yourselves home.”
The Games had certainly come to a
rather abrupt end, and although the winnings they had all been competing for
weren’t claimed, Lee Toren wasn’t about to let the money sit and rot. He
distributed the prize money amongst everybody that he could the next morning,
though the Sisters of Night and the men from the Tacha Forus machine shop were
already gone from Ja-Wen, off to their respective hometowns to get the whole
ugly business behind them.
At the primary rail station heading
west, bound back for Desanadron, the Hoods, the Midnight Suns, and the Pack of
Liars all stood about, the groups from back west getting ready to go. But Stephanie Claudis clung to Flint’s arm,
ready to board and go west with him and Deus, while Calvin Licht, the Jaft
Thug, had been persuaded by Esmerelda Logan that he might enjoy staying with her,
Gabe and Jefe. Jefe didn’t have any
problems with it, so long as the ‘blue boy’ did his fair share of the work
around the place. Calvin agreed quickly
to that stipulation.
The Midnight Suns representatives,
Thaddeus Fly, Akimaru Tendo, Rage and Niles Potts all stood a little way apart
from the other two groups. They had
learned a lot about Ja-Wen in their time here, and despite the fact that the
Games had basically been canceled, the contracts and agreements with certain
law enforcement officers proved to still be in effect. Thanks to that, Fly had been able to gain
access to the Ja-Wen Artifact Museum when it was closed in the dead of night,
and the security systems were on minimal alert as part of the Games
agreement.
He hadn’t been sure about what to
take at first, but the katana now resting in his long black traveling trunk
turned out to be his selection. He
wasn’t sure what it did, or how the weapon was enchanted, but the value tag put
under its display declared that the katana was worth thirty-thousand coin,
easily. He wasn’t about to pass that
up. That more than made up for having to
share out the prize monies from the Games.
Jerry Norbit, the Illeck working
with the Hoods’ group, had felt a little devastated that he would not get to
enjoy the rest of the Games. “I grew up
hearing tales told of them,” he complained to anyone who would listen. “I was supposed to have a good time!” But even though he wouldn’t get the chance to
finish up, Deus told him he could have a little down time when they got back to
Desanadron to do what he liked, before returning to his usual duties. He was okay with that.
The 12 Line train pulled into the
station a half an hour past noon, its doors hissing open with a hydraulic
whoosh. The Hoods and the Midnight Suns
boarded, waving final farewells to the Pack of Liars while Flint gave each of
his cousins a fierce embrace, leaping on board at the last possible
moment. He walked back to the Hoods’
car, the door already propped open for him.
“You almost missed your ride, you know,” chided Stephanie as she popped
her head out of the car.
“I’m aware of that,” said Flint. He
gave her a peck on the cheek, breathing deeply of the strawberry-scented
perfume she wore, just enough to be noticeable, but not so much as to think her
a bimbo. “Hey, boss-man,” he said down
to Deus, who was seated in the corner of the car closest to the door into the
walkway. “Ready to get going home?”
“Actually, yes,” said Anna
Deus. “I’ve missed Stocky, and certain,
um, other people,” she said, meaning her husband. Flint understood the need for her to still
appear to be a man, until she could leave the guild hall and go topside. He wondered how Harold Deus was going to
handle the ‘welcome home’ sex this time, considering the fact that in Ja-Wen
two of Anna’s operatives had found romance, while she’d been left with
homesickness. He offered a quick silent
prayer for Harold, and took Stephanie with him to the adjoining car, the
bedchamber the Hoods all had to cram into.
“They’d better not make a mess,” was
all Norman Adwar had to say of it.
Sally Ridge rode along in the back of
her private autocart, smiling contentedly to herself. Yes, Lester’s passing had been a heavy blow
to her heart, and to the company, but because the man had been so meticulous,
she realized, anybody could take his place within the company so long as they
took care to read all of his notes, outlines and reports. If they could mimic the procedure the company
shouldn’t suffer too bad from elongated lack of efficiency.
But even though anybody could take
Lester’s place insofar as his corporate duties went, who was she going to use
as an envoy, as a silver-tongued diplomat to ensure that certain of the
company’s experiments weren’t investigated by the governments of the
world? The best Rogues she had ever met
had belonged to other thieves’ guilds at the Games, and she had nobody else who
she could think of right away.
She would worry about it another
time. For now, she only had to lean back, relax, and sleep most of the way back
home.
Portenda the Quiet sat anxiously
awaiting the verdict two days later in the trial of one Arthur Longly and his
accomplice, Wayne Traedo. The trial had
been mercifully short, with the prosecutor’s office presenting all of the
evidence that Akimaru had collected, the police had gathered, and the findings
recorded on a digital voice recorder, admissions of guilt by Wayne Traedo that
also implicated Longly, a.k.a. Mr. Twitch.
The Shades’ lawyer, a stout Kobold fellow assigned to their defense
through the city-state government, had not been given much chance to defend
them. Secretly, he didn’t really want
to.
When the jury of ten came back into
the chamber, there were some murmurings and mutterings amongst the crowd. The judge, a Minotaur who looked horribly
uncomfortable in his black robes, seated himself at his bench and pounded the
gavel for silence. “Order in the
court! Madam foreman of the jury, have
you reached a verdict?”
“We have, your honor,” said the
woman called upon, a humble looking Human civilian.
“Would you please read your
results?”
“In the case of the State versus
Wayne Traedo on counts of first-degree murder of Koby Nellis and Sylvia Sado,
we the jury find him guilty. In the case
of the State versus Arthur Longly, on charges of conspiracy of the
aforementioned crimes, as well as the first-degree murder of Seth Logan, we the
jury find the defendant guilty. And
lastly, your honor, on the charges against both defendants of the illegal
operation of an unlawful guild, we find the defendants not guilty due to lack
of evidence.”
The judge pounded his gavel three
times. Portenda started to rise, but
kept himself seated for reasons he could not quite explain. “Very well,” said the judge. “I have already taken the time to consider
sentencing in the event you found guilty on these charges,” he said. Ah, here we go, thought the Simpa. Let’s see what happens to these two. “Mr. Traedo, please rise.” The Sidalis butler-fellow, allowed to
continue wearing his usual garb, rose between two constables who kept
stun-sticks at their sides. “Mr. Traedo,
for your role in all of this horror you and your colleague have spread around
the city, I am hereby sentencing you to serve a term of no less than
thirty-five years at Ja-Wen City-State Maximum Security Prison. You will be held in the repression cell level
for the duration of your stay there, and your term shall last no longer than
forty years.”
The constables started escorting
Traedo away, the color drained from his face, his long, hawkish nose turned
down as he let the officers practically drag him out of the courthouse. “As for you, Mr. Longly, rise,” said the
judge. Twitch, real name Arthur Longly,
stood to his feet and still managed that smug look of self-satisfaction he got
when he was being clever. “Let it be
known that you are to be sentenced to death, Mr. Longly, the method of
execution to be selected by the family of your first victim, Seth Logan.”
And here was the surprise that
Portenda had sensed coming, why he’d sat back down. The rear doors of the courthouse opened, and
in stalked Jefe Gabriez, Gabe Logan, Esmerelda Logan, and Calvin Licht, who
darted into an open seat near the back of the building. The three Wererats approached the judge’s
bench, and spoke in hushed tones back and forth. Finally, the judge nodded, and
called on his analyst. A reedy-voiced
Elven gentleman in a business suit approached, nodded, and then walked over to
Longly. He cast some sort of spell,
observed Longly, and then returned to the bench and gave a thumb’s up.
“The Logan family have just informed
me, Arthur Longly, that you are to be burned to death on a pyre of shame,”
announced the judge, to which Longly appeared to twitch and then start
grinning. “In one month, then, Arthur
Longly, you will be taken to a location of their choosing and set on fire in a
chamber or container of their choosing.
There will be several guards present, so escape is not possible. Until such time as the date of your execution
arrives, you will be held in Ja-Wen Medium Security Prison. Guards, take him away,” said the judge,
banging his gavel.
Portenda met the Logans outside,
along with Calvin Licht. “So, what was
with the Elf there,” the Simpa asked the Wererats.
“Oh, he’s an analyst. Makes sure the offender is susceptible to
whatever form of execution is selected,” said Jefe. “That son of a bitch is going to burn, Mr.
Quiet. He’s going to burn.”
“Indeed,” said Portenda, stalking
away. “And that likely won’t be the last
place he burns, either.”
Flint was the first one off of the
train with Stephanie, the two of them running off down the street like a pair
of teenagers, giggling and laughing together as Flint pointed out the various
nearby landmarks and points of interest.
Anna rolled her suitcase behind her, her rucksack securely on her
back. The scents of the city of
Desanadron, the mixture of food fumes, coffee vapors, the working class’s sweat
and the slight essence of the ancient mortar that still lay between the bricks
of the city’s most ancient buildings, all combined to give her mind a single
thought. I’m back home, and it feels
great.
“I am glad to see that Flint-san is
happy with this girl,” said Akimaru as the white-clad Ninja stepped up next to
Anna. “The way he is with her, he has
never had a real relationship before, has he?”
“Only one that I know of,” replied
Anna. “And that didn’t work out so well
for him. She turned out to have a bounty
on her head, and the status was dead or alive.
When the hunter finally came for her, the poor girl didn’t stand a
chance, but she fought him anyway.”
“Was it,” Akimaru began.
“No, goodness no,” said Anna with a
grin. “Flint told me it happened about a
hundred years ago, and Portenda the Quiet is still a very young man. I doubt he’s much more than sixty, an that’s
very young for the Simpa race.”
“Indeed. Then his skills are remarkable,” commented
Akimaru, mostly to himself. “So young,
and yet so fierce. I will have to
meditate on this,” he said, bidding Anna farewell.
“You do that,” she said. She sprinted ahead to give Flint a letter
containing instructions for himself and for Stockholm. She would not be returning directly to the
guild, and she wouldn’t be around for probably a week or so. She had time to make up with her husband,
after all. All of this she had written
in the letter, so that only Flint and Stocky would know why she was really
gone.
Flint took the letter and, making
his way to the nearest manhole, helped Stephanie down into the underground
system like a true gentleman. Through
the darkened twists and turns he took her, until finally he stood before the
vault-style door that cranked open and exposed the main den of the Hoods’
hideout. “Well, here we are, my dear,”
he said to Stephanie. “Oh, you know,
I’ll have to take this notice to Stockholm, and then get the paperwork squared
away,” he said. “Just have a seat on one
of those sofas, and I’ll be back in a jiff,” he said, pointing to a plush
crimson couch.
“All right. Hurry back,” she said, giving him a quick
peck on the cheek. Flushing under his
fur, Flint darted away into the tunnels and hallways, quickly coming upon
Stockholm’s office door. He was about to
knock when Hollister, the turtle-man Sidalis in their employ, approached him
from one end of the hallway.
“Um, Flint, sir,” he asked
sheepishly.
“Ah, Hollister, yes. What can I do for you,” asked Flint, turning
sideways to the door.
“Well, um, that is, sir, um, I think
Mr. Stockholm is likely to be rather, um, angry with you,” said Hollister
haltingly.
“Angry? Why would he be angry?”
“Apparently you sent him a birthday
present,” said Hollister. Flint frowned
at the man, and then remembered the prostitute.
“Oh, that. What, did she short change him on time or
something?” The door to Stockholm’s
office flew open then, and all Hollister saw was an enormously muscled red
furred arm snatch out, the fingers wrapping around Flint’s neck. “Hey, buddy,” Flint gurgled, hands
immediately trying to pry himself free.
“Let’s have a little chat,”
Stockholm’s voice echoed down the hall.
Flint flew back with the arm into the office, the door slammed, and then
there began much shouting and crashing as Hollister made a quick retreat.
The End
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