Skulduggery

by Logan Jacobs

  “No … ” he gasped. “I … sold her … potion.”

  “I don’t think you can afford my services.” I stood as he reached a hand towards me, and then I marched into the destroyed apothecary. The place was nothing short of a mess, with broken shards of glass and smashed shelves. The store was obviously the man’s life work, but I didn’t feel bad about it being destroyed.

  He had it coming.

  I stepped over the mutilated furniture and made my way deeper into the heart of the quaint shop. Then I reached the back-storage room and saw a shelf lined with copper pipes. They would work perfectly for what I needed, and the orcs even left the solder hidden beneath the pile, which I might have needed to connect a few of the pipes together.

  I bundled up the copper in my arms and walked out of the apothecary. The group of orcs were already a hundred or so yards away down the street, and they had probably forgotten about our deal since it was only struck a few minutes ago, but I gave them a little nod anyway.

  Then I saw the alchemist had died while I was looting his shop.

  I just stepped over his body and walked back toward the elephant stables.

  Chapter 12 - Penny

  It was my day off. At least, that’s what Hagan implied, but I never truly took a break from this life. I always worked, and today I planned to steal for someone besides the halfling Guild leader.

  I meandered down the road towards the outskirts of the Dwarves’ District to meet with my contact who said he could get me the fuel I needed. The dwarf I usually dealt with was a shady character, but from my time in the ghetto, I was used to these sorts of meetings.

  Everyone was shady.

  I pickpocketed along the way and casually filled the satchel at my waist with cheap jewelry, copper coins, and the occasional trinket. I liked to collect them, but no one knew about my secret stash. Not even Dar or Wade. I had small children’s toys, the occasional piece of art, and some miscellaneous keys.

  My friends wouldn’t find it, either, as it was hidden in the crawl space above Hagan’s office. A place no one had discovered and never would, unless they knew how to scale the smooth side of a building.

  I finally reached the edge of the Dwarves’ District and the small decrepit building where my contact conducted his business. It was on the outskirts of the shops that contained the dense hustling crowd of bearded men. This shop was known to deal in aftermarket items or cut deals for cute pixies who knew how to blackmail the right people.

  I pushed back the hood of my cloak as I sauntered into the shop. Unden, the dwarf in charge of the shop’s dealings, was asleep as usual in the wooden rocking chair, so I kicked the toe of his boot, and he sprang to life as he wiped the drool from his mouth with the back of his hand.

  “I’m up, I’m up,” the dwarf sputtered.

  “Good to see you too, Unden,” I joked as the dwarf scowled up at me. “Although, I doubt I’d ever hire you to watch my shop. Thieves would sneak in to steal all the merchandise, and you’d sleep right through it.”

  “Hop off, lassie,” Unden groaned. “I never asked to be the employee of the month, and I never will. Now what can I do you for this time? Another set of discounted knives or a precious gemstone necklace?”

  “Neither, although I have enjoyed the last knife set immensely,” I informed him as I pulled one from my belt and let it spin between my quick fingers. “Today, I need coal and a lot of it. What can you offer me?”

  “I can offer you a pound for ten coppers like anyone else,” Unden laughed.

  “What about our deal?” I asked him. “You know, the one where you help me out and I don’t tell your sweet wife about your trips to Madame Rindell’s?”

  The dwarf grinned as he reclined back in his chair.

  “Unfortunately, she passed away last week in her sleep. The poor lassie was so kind to me, but it was her time to go.” Unden shrugged as he casually discussed what I assumed could only be the murder of his wife.

  I leaned against the wall, crossed my arms, and carefully mulled on my next words. I knew my little blackmail game was up, but I figured I would have had a few more years before he murdered her. I wished I could have smacked the silly grin off his face, but I knew it would get me nowhere.

  “There’s nothing you can do?” I questioned. “You don’t even know anyone in the area who could cut me a deal?”

  “Nope. All business with the miners goes through me,” Unden explained as he pushed up his smoke-covered glasses, “and when I cut deals with thieving pixies, the other dwarves get pissed.”

  “Like you give a shit about what those other dwarfs think,” I hissed as I put the knife back in its sheath.

  “Not just that,” Unden said as he wiggled his bushy eyebrows at me. “You’re resourceful and generally pleasant to be around, but I’m not married anymore, and I’m not pumping that tight little body of yours full of my seed every night, so I’m not in the mood to give ya a deal.”

  “So, you’re saying I have to fuck you if--” I groaned.

  “You don’t have to do anything,” he laughed. “If you ever need a small order, like ‘dem knives I sell ya, feel free to come back, but if you want a larger discount on a commodity like coal, you’re gonna have to make up the difference with that tight little pussy of yours. Or you can pay full price like everyone else in this shitty city.”

  “Understood,” I growled before I walked out the door and slammed it shut behind me.

  Disappointed and unsure how I would find fuel, I trudged back down the smoky streets toward the Halfling District.

  How was I going to get fuel for the fire? I racked my brain for anything as I tried to think of ways to blackmail Unden or steal the coal from under their noses, but none of it was practical. All I knew was that I couldn’t go back to Wade and Dar empty-handed, because they would never let me live it down.

  Fuck, who was I kidding. I loved Dar like a brother, but I didn’t give two shits about disappointing him. I just didn’t want to disappoint Wade with his new business venture.

  My love for Wade most definitely wasn’t sisterly, but hell if I’d tell him that. He was already too arrogant for his own good, and he already thought he had me wrapped around his finger. Damn his handsome face. Damn his dark eyes. Damn his smile that made my stomach flip flop ever since we were kids. Damn his ideas that were far too clever.

  Damn me for being too scared to tell him all of that.

  Damn this world for making me afraid that every good thing I ever had would just get taken from me.

  “Come and see the zoo’s very own baby dragon,” a little boy called out as he handed out flyers, and I blinked a few times at him and pushed thoughts of Wade out of my mind. “The big reveal is tonight, and you don’t want to miss it!”

  “Dragon?” I took a flyer from the boy and studied the picture before me.

  “Aye, miss!” he laughed. “It’s just a wee thing that can lay on your shoulders, but it spits a flame like a hundred torches.”

  “Really?” I asked. “You’ve seen this?”

  “Aye, miss!” he laughed again. “They let me have a preview so I could tell ya all. It’s ‘mazing. Really. You have to see it. Flame so hot you can cook a sausage in just a second, and it’s cute enough to pet like a puppy.”

  “You said this was tonight?” I asked the thin young boy.

  This was the answer to my problem. It would cost much less than the coal even if Unden had cut me a deal. It would stay in the stables, and the walls were stone, so it wouldn’t be able to escape if it happened to light the entire place on fire.

  “That’s right,” the boy announced. “An hour after sundown they will reveal the creature to the realm.”

  The timing wasn’t perfect, since I would be forced to contend with not only the workers who milled about, but probably a boat load of guards who were hired for tonight’s event, but I knew now would be my only chance, because if I waited, I would never have another opportunity to nab the poor creature.

&nb
sp; I’d snuck into the zoo before, and it wasn’t a difficult task. I knew plenty of young halflings who had accomplished the same feat, but I’d never heard it end well when someone tried to steal one of their creatures.

  There was a group called the Magical Creature Protection Society, who consistently worked to free the animals contained within the Entertainment District’s zoo. You could find them handing out pamphlets on the streets or performing bizarre stunts to educate the public on the feelings of these creatures.

  The latest of their stunts involved a few people chopping off one of their hands in protest of the containment of a Hippocampus. They claimed its fins would begin to die if it was kept in the tank, so they took an axe to their hands to prove their point. It was a bit harsh for my tastes, and you could tell a few regretted their participation once the stunt was over.

  People were idiots.

  The elves usually laughed at them and cut the heads off the leaders of the society, but when they cut off one head it seemed like two more grew back.

  This group may never have successfully freed any animals from their cages, but they also never had me on their side to help them, so a plan cultivated in my head as I made my way over to the zoo and peered up at the tall gates they’d installed to keep unwanted visitors out. There was a large golden lock there that was obviously of elven make, so it seemed they were closed until nightfall.

  I wasn’t as good at picking locks as Wade, but a quick glance at the keyhole convinced me it would only take a few minutes to pop the fine lock.

  Still, I was never one to use the front door.

  I snuck around to the far side of the iron fence, grabbed the thin bars, and easily hoisted myself up. Spiders had a harder time climbing than I did, and I soon flipped over the pointed spikes at the top, landed in a crouch, and took in my surroundings. I didn’t hear anyone, but I knew I wasn’t alone.

  I crept along the cages of the zoo and passed by feathered hippogriffs, antlered jackalopes, and a herd of unicorns whose coats glimmered. The creatures paid me no mind, but my father told me to never let my guard down, and that was part of the reason why I was still alive.

  I wish he’d listened to his own advice, because it might have saved his life the night he died. He was on a mission with his sister in the elven capital. It was some heist they’d planned for months, but somehow, I knew the night they left it would be the last time I ever saw them.

  I didn’t have a mother, since she had died when she gave birth to me, but my father and aunt raised me the best they could. They were both members of the Thief’s Guild, but I was raised in squander on the outskirts of the elven city. Our house was little more than a single room hut, and we ate nothing but scraps from the butcher.

  Hagan hadn’t been around at the time I was born, rather, it had been someone much worse. Someone who didn’t care if a member’s newborn starved in a makeshift hut in the ghetto. Someone whose name was given to the Assassin’s Guild after he sold out my father and aunt to the elves for some coin.

  My father and aunt never told me what their heist was, and they kept it a secret from me. My father handed me a letter before he left, and he told me to only open it if he didn’t return.

  I opened it the moment he walked out the door, and my father’s letter told me not to watch his execution and to head into the next realm. I ignored both of his commands and trekked into the Elven District, so I could watch as elven guards chopped off his scarlet head.

  It was at that point that I knew everything I admitted I loved would be taken from me.

  I had no money and no idea what I would do if I escaped to the next realm, so I stayed. I monitored the activity of the Thief’s Guild and only approached them after I’d learned Hagan was appointed to take over.

  I’d been trained by my father in the art of thievery, but his sister was a master in the art of climbing and acrobatics. Together, they taught me everything I knew, and those skills are what convinced Hagan of my worth. I didn’t tell him my family name, but I didn’t have to, not when my father and his father before him had also been scarlet-haired Guild members.

  Hagan had asked me if my mother was a pixie, since no one knew who she was or what she had been, and I said “yes.” I lied, but he seemed utterly intrigued at the possibility, so I figured it would only help convince the halfling to let me join.

  Dar had joined shortly before I had, and Wade came soon after. I hated Wade at first, between the heavy country bumpkin accent, his good looks, and his clever ideas.

  The child Penny hated him because I knew I could never have him. Not if I wanted him to live anyways. That emotion had only lasted a few months, though. Now I was grown and knew I was foolish because I did love him, and trying to hate him just tore me up inside. It tore both of us up to ribbons, but it was the only way to be safe. We were thieves, and it was just a matter of time before I’d be in the crowd watching those damn elves cut his head off.

  No, it was best if Wade and I never were. At least, that’s what I told myself. Yet hundreds of other men told me they loved me, and some of them had been handsome. Some of them had been rich, too. Not human men, but most women wouldn’t have minded being a halfling, dwarf, or elf’s concubine if it meant she had a belly full of food and a baby in her womb.

  None of them were Wade, though. So, here I was trying to steal a baby dragon that I could use to help him cook whiskey.

  By the ancients, I was the biggest idiot in this shitty world.

  I heard the distinct syllables of an elven guard and the pound of their feet upon the pavement and froze in my tracks.

  “We will run the perimeter two more times, then we will take our posts by the gate,” a distant voice said.

  “Agreed,” the other guard responded as I ducked into the shadows of the Leucrota enclosure and tensed as they marched by.

  I heard the crack of a twig behind me, and I jumped away as a Leucrota lunged at the cage. Its golden eyes pierced me as its elongated fangs shimmered in the lamplight. The beast had the mane and tail of a lion, the body of a hyena, and a set of hooves.

  “Penny? Penny, where are you?” the Leucrota whispered in my mind in Wade’s voice.

  These creatures were known for their ability to mimic humans through telepathy to lure them into their traps, but I’d never seen one before for myself. I might have thought Wade was next to me instead of the carnivorous beast if I hadn’t heard tales of their questionable abilities.

  I backed away and took off in the opposite direction, certain that the elven guards would be back to find out why the Leucrota had made such a racket.

  I wasn’t sure where I would find the baby dragon, but I knew it had to be close. So, I crept along the edges of the cages as I struggled to push Wade’s rough country voice from my mind.

  He intoxicated me with a single glance, and I wished … I wished … fuck my wishes. Life was hard, and I needed to focus on this task. I was all mixed up. I knew it was because of that dancer Wade introduced Dar and me to. Cimarra. She was beautiful. Much more so than me, and the way Wade looked at her was the way I wanted him to look at me, but I was being dumb again. He did look at me like that. I just never reciprocated.

  The elven executioner brought down his axe, and my beloved father’s head rolled off his shoulder with a spray of too-bright blood. I knew the image was a picture of my future as well as my past.

  I slowed my silent walk through the zoo as a variety of sounds met my ears. There was the pound of a hammer and the chatter of men, so I hid behind a bush, peered through its branches, and saw what the commotion was all about.

  I observed as elves, halflings, and humans ran in and out of a tall ivy-covered stone building with a variety of supplies as they rushed to set up for the evening reveal of the baby dragon.

  A deafening roar cut through the air from inside of the dense building. I guessed that had to be the mother dragon, and her baby was sure to be close by. I just needed to find a way into the impenetrable structure to get to them.<
br />
  I took out one of my knives and played with it between my fingers to help me think, and the cool steel was familiar in my practiced hands. I needed a distraction, but what?

  It required something big, something that would catch the eyes of every worker in the vicinity.

  “Where do you want me to put the fireworks, boss?” a dwarf asked as he carried a crate of fireworks.

  “Just throw them over there beside that cart,” a halfling commanded as the dwarf nodded. “We will move them to the back later.”

  Oh, this was too easy.

  A few dwarves moved the explosive boxes, and I waited until they were finished to make my move. The boxes weren’t far from me, but far enough to make it nearly impossible to light them from this distance.

  I tucked my knife back into my belt and shoved my cloak into my satchel. I was lucky I’d worn something better for thievery, as my leather pants and vest somewhat matched the attire of the workers, rather than the silk skirts I normally wore.

  I stood and picked up a pile of banners that someone had left a few feet in front of me and a lantern which was already lit in case the night elves took control of the moon. Then I entered the swarm of activity and carried the banners over to where the fireworks had been placed by the dwarves.

  I placed the banners and lantern beside the boxes of fireworks and “accidentally” knocked over the lantern I’d positioned. If all went as planned, it would light the banners and the boxes of fireworks on fire, then it would cause an explosion that would knock anyone nearby off their feet.

  I hurried back to my spot before anyone saw me, and I soon heard the cries of “fire” at my back. I knew they would be too late before the big finale, and a moment later a thousand firecrackers went off.

  “Hit the deck!” one of the workers yelled over the din of the explosion.

  All the workers ducked for cover, and I ran to the backside of the stone building. I might have tried to walk through the open front doors if the pointy-eared elven guards hadn’t been standing there, unfazed by the commotion around them.