Scoundrels' Jig (The Chronicles of Eridia)
Page 42
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Sister Moshi had just reached the brown door and grasped its handle when she heard voices behind her. Looking back, she saw no one at first—at least no one alive—but then Kirby and Blunt rounded a rock formation, saw her, and froze with their mouths comically agape.
“Aw, shit,” she muttered. She had been hoping to get inside and grab the gold without any further loss of life.
Maybe she still could, if she played things right.
She flung open the door and darted into the building. The door banged shut behind her.
Ahead of her stretched a long, narrow lobby with a red carpet and dim round lights glowing in the ceiling. She stared at the lights with wonder. She had heard about electricity but had never seen it in operation before. She hadn’t thought anywhere still had it, aside from that weird robot city far to the southeast.
On the lobby’s walls were posters in metal-and-glass frames, each with the sign “Coming Soon” above them. One showed a green-skinned humanoid with long black hair and a pointed goatee, a microphone held in front of his grinning fang-filled mouth. A pair of antennae with pussywillow-like nubs at the ends sprouted from his forehead. Between them was a third eye, which, like the being’s two normally positioned eyes, was jet black. Beneath this image, the poster announced, “Salaab d’Sent Sings the Songs of Love and Sex! One Show Only! Sember Seven, 12,000,069 BP! Tickets on Sale Now!”
Across from this poster was one that showed a huge hirsute creature with glowing orange eyes, a pair of horn-like tufts of hair curving up from the top of its head, and a mouth lined with teeth like ice-picks. The fur on its face was black (which made its teeth look whiter and its eyes more orange), but chocolate-brown everywhere else, except for a few streaks of silver here and there. It was stretching one large furry hand toward the viewer, as if in invitation, and from the tip of each finger extended a long, thin, pointed cylinder (a claw? a needle?) that was striped with bright rainbow colors like some lethal candy cane. Below the picture were the words, “Ket Ket Terabon! World Tour! Come See! Janery Twenny! Fourteen Howling Songs!”
“What the fuck is this place?” Sister Moshi muttered as she hurried down the length of the lobby. As she went, she pulled the psycho-machine from her bag.
She passed more posters, each one depicting a different entity who would be “Coming Soon.” There was Sequilius, a rubbery cone covered with endlessly branching tentacles. There was Izazin Banaath, a column of viscous purple liquid. There was an extremely weird-looking thing named Shlee’kapanja with a small dark-red orb for a head (at least Sister Moshi assumed it was a head; it was situated in the anatomical position normally reserved for a head) connected by a short black-and-white striped column (a neck, presumably) to a dark-red, top-like body bristling with metallic rods and segmented tentacles. In all, there were fourteen spaces for posters, but one of them—the last one on the left—was empty.
At the end of this hallway was an unattended ticket booth, its counter thick with dust, and beyond it, a pair of swinging doors.
She took a deep breath and pushed through them.
On the other side was a spacious and nearly empty room. The walls were covered with a red velvet-like material. The floor was a checkerboard pattern of black and white tiles. Directly opposite the door was a wooden stage, on which a microphone on a stand stood in front of a red curtain. There were numerous spotlights on the ceiling, though only a few were on. Most of these were pointed at a slowly rotating disco ball that hung in the exact center of the ceiling. Flecks of light moved slowly across the walls, floor, and ceiling as the disco ball turned.
Directly beneath the disco ball, and in the converging beams of the few spotlights not pointed at the ball, sat the block of gold Ichabod Quackenbush had mentioned in Moe’s the previous night.
It was indeed the size of a troll’s head. Maybe even a little bigger. It twinkled lustrously as the flecks of light from the disco ball passed over it.
Sister Moshi reflected that there was something hinky about all this. Why was the gold just sitting there in the exact center of the floor with lights trained on it? It was as if it were on display.
Or as if it were a lure…
She heard running footsteps in the lobby. Forgetting her doubts, she dashed toward the gold. Before she had taken ten steps, the swinging doors flew open and Kirby raced in.
“The treasure is ours, missy,” he cried. Behind him, Blunt speed-limped into the room. “Don’t even think about—”
He finally noticed the gold. His eyes widened into moons, and his mouth curved into an amazed and ecstatic O.
Sister Moshi screeched to a halt, spun around, and pointed the psycho-machine at Kirby and Blunt.
“Do you know what this is?” she said. “It’s something that can kill you both. I stole it from the Snowman’s weapons depot. So unless you want to wind up dead, you’d better leave here right now.”
Blunt scowled at the girl. “That gold belongs to Mr. Kirby, and I’m gonna make sure he gets it.”
He strode toward her, trying to ignore the itchiness he now felt on his crotch, his belly, his back. It seemed to be spreading faster than ever now. Which meant he had better get Mr. Kirby that gold before he turned into a bunch of screaming mini-Blunts.
And then he froze when he heard a woman’s voice in the lobby whine, “And look at that: I stepped right in that puddle of gorg blood. I’m going to need a new pair of shoes now.”
Everyone turned to look as the swinging doors flew open and Gaspard and Merizen stepped into the room. The two of them gawped at Kirby, Blunt, and Sister Moshi.
“Ah,” Gaspard said, smiling his best smile (it had melted the hearts of many a wealthy lady, and cooled the ire of many a wealthy lady’s husband), “I see we’re a little late to the party, eh?”
“The gold is Mr. Kirby’s,” Blunt growled, unmoved by the smile.
“But it’s such a large piece of gold,” Merizen said, smiling her best smile (it had entranced many a wealthy man, and convinced many a constable to pretend he hadn’t seen her). “We’ll all be filthy rich even if we split it five ways. Why must we fight? Hasn’t enough blood been shed already?”
Blunt’s scowl softened a little. He had always been a sucker for pretty girls.
Kirby just rolled his eyes.
“Fuck you, babe,” he said to Merizen. “That gold’s ours.”
“Hey,” Gaspard said, jabbing a finger at Kirby. “Don’t talk to the lady that way.”
Sister Moshi groaned. “Oh, for fuck’s sake, don’t any of you understand that I am holding a weapon with a range of, like, fifty feet? What have you guys got, huh? A few swords and daggers? The gold’s mine. There’s no debate.”
The doors opened again, and Lucifer Brown strode in, Marcy floating close behind.
“Okay, folks,” Lucifer said. “Step away from my gold and go home. Thank you.”
Ignoring everyone else, he walked straight toward the hunk of gold.
“Weapon, dumbass!” Sister Moshi cried, waving the psycho-machine at him. “Back off!”
“Oh, my!” Marcy exclaimed, flying forward for a better look. “It’s a Psychotron Mark VI! I haven’t seen one of those since Captain Garlock’s vacation on Sybaritica! Please note, however, that Psychotrons do not work on machine intelligences such as myself.”
Sister Moshi blinked at Marcy as the drone and Lucifer continued advancing toward her.
“Shit,” she hissed. She hurled the Psychotron at the robot, whirled around, and dashed toward the gold.
At that point everyone sprang into motion, all of them racing for the block of gold in the middle of the room. Sister Moshi, being closest, got there well ahead of anyone else, but as she stooped to grab it, a gunshot rang out in the doorway.
Everyone stopped and turned.
Merizen screamed.
“Oh, fuck!” Kirby cried, “Not him!”
In the doorway stood a figure in a big round snowman mask, a dressy white shirt with a hu
ge bloodstain on it, and black slacks. The figure held a pair of semiautomatic pistols. One pistol was pointed at a small, round, brand new hole in the ceiling, and wisps of smoke still curled from its barrel. The other, as yet unfired, was pointed at the greedy crowd in the room.
“The gold is mine!” the figure snapped. Its voice had a gruff, choked quality, as when someone is speaking in tones lower than normal for them.
Still, odd as the voice seemed, no one present had ever actually heard the Snowman speak before, so they naturally assumed this was his normal voice.
Everyone started backing away from the figure and the gold.
Keeping both guns trained on the cowed gold-seekers, the snowman-masked figure walked forward to get its prize.