by Simon Archer
I shook my head. “I’m not saying that I would, but there’s really nothing stopping me. That feels like a fairly large oversight, in my opinion. Did you think this operation through all the way? See, that’s what I’m worried about when you say things like ‘perfectly measured’ and ‘all planned out.’ Help me out here, buddy. I need some assurance you’re not going to die or just kill them anyway.”
“What are you--? I have you completely surrounded!” he shouted at me, losing his cool dramatically. I had eroded it away slowly, as was my specialty, “You have no chance of surviving this encounter without my approval. Even if you forego the lives of all of the bunnies I have--”
“Which you’ve yet to show are actually real, by the way,” I specified. “Just making that clear to everyone.”
This giant, coated rat was in the corner. Made him dangerous, unless he didn’t have any fangs to actually bite me. He was all bark and no bite, no matter how much he wiggled that finger. He was wearing his heart on his sleeve in more than one way, and I’m to mix my metaphors. Point was, he was angry and stupid.
“I don’t have to show you anything!” he ranted some more, “You just have to shut up and do your job, or you can say goodbye to your mudspawn kin! Would you like to test me on this?”
“How would I even know you’re doing anything?” I let out a gust of laughter. “You’d just be flashing your cufflink over and over again, going, ‘Oo, ah, how do you like that? Super intimidating and scary, huh? I’m making it blink!’ Would you then waste time to take me to their dead bodies to show me the error of my ways? Nothing feels very thought out, here.”
“Are you trying to con me out of the hidden location of the cache?” He put that itchy cufflink back into the air, not realizing he’d confirmed my hunch about the location being a Hunter’s cache. “Do you secretly work for Preymeister, and that’s why you were looking for him? Why did you want to find him before, anyway? Are you his spy?!”
“How would that even work?” I sassed him. “I’m from way out of town. I don’t look like anyone else around the city, do I? And you’re the one who approached me! How could I have set that up? I didn’t even know you existed before you showed up here. This is all just you trying to throw me off, right? Keep me out of sorts so you can manipulate me?” I growled. “Well, I’m not biting. If this is the whole enchilada, then maybe I really overestimated you. No offense.”
“My plan is perfectly reasonable and effective and brilliant and genius, and you will follow it to the letter!” Paw-Paw threw his hands up in the air. “All of your complaints are just prattle and wind! This is why Rabbits shouldn’t be lords! I thought that maybe you were more clever than the average Rabbit, but it turns out that they’ll let just anyone who wears a blue coat be a lord where you’re from, so long as they have the lung capacity to speak as many inane words as you do! Do they give out medals for insanity in your neck of the woods? I’ve been catering to this slaveborn delusional fantasy for far too long as it is. None of your tools, runes, land holdings, or anything else will ever make you truly capable of handling a lordly title. You will cease your incessant blathering and obey me, or I will kill all of the bunnies with a push of my finger!” He lifted up the other cuff with the heart link and put a shaky finger up to it. “And you wouldn’t want me to prove to you how serious I am about this. Are we clear, you furry little rodent?!”
Not my proudest achievement, but I was getting good at inflaming a Wolf’s ego and arrogance. I might have made more money back in my world as a lawyer than a handyman if I’d thought to make the switch back then. Didn’t matter, though. Lordship was more fun than both of those, anyway. A dark part of me was curious if I’d actually made him mad enough to ruin his whole plan just to spite me at this moment, but that’d have to wait until I could ask whoever greeted me on the Other Side. He was worked up into quite the little blowout and was ready to listen to what I had to say.
“Ouch. Why are you so mean?” I pretended to sulk, my hands in my pockets and my shoulders hunched. “I just thought you would have wanted to hear my suggestion, is all. It would have helped you kill Preymeister just in case something happened with the poison powder. Redundancy’s a good policy to practice. If you end up dying, the signal gets sent to your kidnapper buddies, and no bunnies get saved, so I want to keep you alive to make sure that doesn’t happen. I’m trying to help here, and you’re just getting angry at me for no reason.”
“Fine.” Paw-Paw’s blinking eyes flapped like they were going to fly away, and his teeth gritted like they were going to explode. “What. Is. Your. Suggestion?”
“I was just thinking,” I kicked an imaginary can, “that maybe I could pick a spot on a rooftop somewhere hidden and shoot at him a bunch of times with my tricked-out musket so you’d have a helping hand in the fight. Just to make absolutely sure he’s taken care of, and nothing happens to you.”
“The point of this whole ruse,” Paw-Paw’s forehead vein bulged, but his voice was calm, “is to convince everyone that I have used none of the tricks, underhanded tactics, and faking that I will be doing. We don’t want to draw attention to any foul play going on during the festival.” His nostrils flared with a carnival balloon’s worth of air. “How can you possibly think that TRIGGERING THE EXPLOSION OF A MUSKET WON’T DRAW ATTENTION DIRECTLY TO THE FOUL PLAY, YOU BALD-HEADED MEATGUMMER!?”
“It’s silenced!” I defended myself in the same tone a teenager might have used with their mother. “You said you saw how I killed your other guy. Check under his chin, and you’ll find bullets. No sound. Completely quiet. My musket is just like that, except it doesn’t fire off a blue light when I shoot from it. The silencer still only makes it lethal at shorter ranges, but the full range of this baby is phenomenal. You can put me on any rooftop you want in the city with a line of sight on the city square, and I can support you in your fight without ever being noticed. He gets distracted by a bullet, never wounded lethally, you land that critical blow, bing bang boom, you’re the newest baron. Then we meet up later, arrange a dropoff, and I’ll be out of your fur forever.”
I shrugged. “Even if they notice me, which they won’t, we can do the backup plan where you just say something like ‘oh, no, foul play that’s totally not related to me, how unexpected,’ then while they chase me around, you slip the poison in his drink yourself, I make the slip, you challenge him afterward again, and bazam! You’re still the baron.”
With the pull of a black hole, I mentally vacuumed all the crumbs of the anxiety and fear I’d ever felt in my life into a bag in the corner of my subconscious to display the utmost sincerity while I waited to see if he bought it. The moment he spent thinking it over as he looked at me was agonizing. I thought it might have been easier just to bust those knees.
“Here’s how this is going to work, then.” The crime lord’s breath intensified, but the pace of it slowed as he calmed down. “You will be escorted to a spot of my choosing with a detail to watch your every move, and someone else from your household will be responsible for the hellpoppy powder. Once I’ve challenged Preymeister, you will ensure that I am not harmed in the slightest and that you aren’t even noticed by the wind. Once I have been officially declared the new baron, you will be contacted with a location and a time to find your precious vermin. If anything goes wrong, if so much as one strand of hair becomes an inconvenience to me or my challenge, not only will I throw the blame for this entire plot on your head when Preymeister starts crunching skulls, I will have my men paint the forest red with the blood of those bunnies, as well as every bunny and hare in Jackalope that they get their hands on. There is no backup plan for you. Do we have a deal? Keep in mind that I will kill a bunny for every second that you do not answ--”
“Deal, deal!” I emphatically shook his hand. “Please have mercy on me. I’ve been biting off way more than I can chew recently, and it’s got me a little antsy. My mind is all over the place, making my mood so floppy. I’m sorry for being so difficult. Please don’t
hurt them. I’ll be good.”
“Go to the Mangy Hide Inn, speak with the bartender, and do not speak with anyone else.” With cane in hand, Paw-Paw signaled his thugs to disperse, flooding back into alleyways and out of sight. “You have three minutes to get there yourself. Consider it your first test of obedience, one of many to come by the festival’s end. Every failed test kills a bunny, maybe more. You will have to find the inn yourself, and I don’t care that you’re new to the city. There will be no mercy from me, little Rabbit lord. You should know full well by now that their safety is entirely up to your performance tomorrow.”
With that final thought, he stepped back into the alleyway himself to disappear to wherever he had come from. The street emptied of all life, save for just me, my boys, and Tinker standing in the middle of it.
Paw-Paw didn’t know how right he was.
14
Upon Big Paw-Paw’s insistence, a group of his thugs had been assigned to follow us wherever we went, keeping us confined in the city. We had even been assigned our own individual living quarters in the Mangy Hide, which turned out to be the old-timey equivalent of a cheap motel. Still, despite the obtuse amount of babysitters we’d been given, at least twenty-one on any one shift for just the seven of my followers and another ten constantly on my tail, I was feeling confident that Hopper had successfully smuggled herself out from their notice and out of the city to have my troops sweep the city territory for the weapons cache, and to signal me as soon as the bunnies were safe. I was also confident that Paw-Paw hadn’t let go of his anger towards me yet. He had my guns taken by my babysitters until we were ready to leave.
The morning of, we were all pushed out of our quarters to get ready for the festival, and for all of our jobs in the assassination of the baron. Our equipment was returned, my guns included, and we were reminded of our individual tasks. I covered Paw-Paw as the secret sniper, my boys were dealing with any outside interference in the fight beside me, and Tinker was now responsible for putting the poisonous powder in Preymeister’s drink. Her feather hammer was now disguised as a gigantic feather fan so she could pose as one of the baron’s fan wavers.
“What if he notices me?” Tinker snuck a hug with me in the chaos of us all piling out of the inn, clinging to me like someone clinging to a buoy in a storm. “What if someone else drinks the drink I poison? What if the drink spills? What if I mess something up, just like you said?”
“First off, I was completely pretending with ‘Wristicuffs’ about that,” I whispered to her as I kissed her. “I didn’t actually think there’d be a foul-up on that end, and I didn’t much care for the poison plan. Also, I was talking about me messing up, not you. You’re as sharp as a tack. You’ll think of something, no matter what they throw at you. Even if something crazy happens, I’ll have my eye on the whole festival. Anyone who so much as growls at you will get a silent bullet to the head. You just watch, it'll be hilarious like they were pushed over by an invisible giant. I’m betting one of them will even flip. And we won’t even have to worry about the poison or Paw-Paw once Hopper gets back. Worse comes to worst, just hit that size-up charm you put on the hammerhead and just start swinging. I guarantee you’ll clear some room for yourself, even if you don’t turn off the feather to hit some people. If you’re still not feeling like you can do it, even though I know you can, I can take the spot myself. That big lug needs this powder more than he hates us, though not by much right now. He’ll let us switch out if I ask real nice about it. Hell, I bet I can convince him to let you be the sniper. You’d be as far away from the danger as possible. Would that make you feel better?”
“No, no, I can do it, sir.” Tinker looked at me with those adorable eyes of hers. “I want to help out as much as I can. I’m just nervous. I can do this. I’m going to do this. I’m not sitting by and watching you get hurt, either. We’re all a big team. You, me, Hopper, the Wolves here, the search party, we’re what’s between that buttface noble and those bunnies. And we’re going to save them. I promise that you won’t have to fire a single shot to save me.”
“Damn, that’s more courage than I’ve ever had.” I stroked the hair on the side of her head. “You’re a little spitfire, Tinker.”
“I am definitely not courageous.” She tucked her head back as if repulsed by the very idea. “All of these thoughts are going through my head, like what if Preymeister doesn’t want to drink, or what if he doesn’t show up, or what if he’s just as invulnerable as they say he is? If I can’t weaken him with the poison, then he’ll be unstoppable, and Paw-Paw will blame us, and--”
“Nobody’s unstoppable, darlin’.” I cupped her chin in my finger and thumb. “Not me, not Paw-Paw, not the Regent, and certainly not Preymeister. From what Paw-Paw let slip, the big baron’s got two different forms, and only one of them embodies the legend. He’s got some sort of reason to slip between the two, and once we find it, he’s as good as gone. We’re gonna be just fine. And what do you think courage is? Brave is just as stupid as Stupid is if it’s all by itself. Courage is when you make your bravery strong with a healthy dose of fear. It’s overcoming your fear when you have something you just gotta do that’s what makes a hero, or heroine, so strong. You’ve got strength, honey. Don’t ever let anyone tell you differently, not even yourself.”
“How do you stay so positive all the time?” The worried little bunny pressed into me as she rested her head on me. “No matter what, you’re like ‘don’t worry, it looks bad, but we can fix it if we just do the thing,’ and then you do that. How do you know you can fix something if you’ve never done it before?”
“I don’t.” I was blunt with her. “I just know that, as long as people are safe, especially my people, and especially my girls, things are gonna be fine, no matter how it turns out in the end. I let whatever’s coming do what it’s going to do, keep my eyes on all of the possibilities, and push for the best one. Every situation can be a good situation if you spin it right. Some people might say that nothing bad ever happens to me, and they’d be right just because I know how to look at a bad thing and see something that makes it good. If someone else were me, they might think things are pretty bad, but they just aren’t seeing the good in it. It’s the good that survives a whole mess of bad that’s the best that good’s got. That’s always worth looking for.”
“Well, how do you do that?” Tinker let out a smirk as she looked up to sneak a kiss from me, “All of those sweet words and inspiring speeches. Do you just get a notebook to write them all down at night so you can use them later?”
“Now that’s you giving my words that good spin.” I kissed her back. “I’m just putting them together. You’re the one who sees the good in them.”
“You make it easy.”
“Move it!” One of our babysitter thugs grabbed my shoulder. “We’re not paying you to do your gross Rabbit stuff.”
“You’re not paying us at all.” Tinker detailed, “You’re holding people hostage to force us to do your dirty work for you.”
“Yeah, I know.” The thug failed to hide his awkwardness. “What I said is still true.”
“So what exactly, then,” I gave Tinker a peck with my lips, “is stopping me,” I smooched her again, “from doing,” another kiss, “all of this,” one more for good luck, “gross Rabbit stuff?” Tinker giggled as she neglected to block my onslaught of rapid-fire kisses.
“Could I pay you to stop?” He pleaded with me as I paused my assault on Tinker’s face.
“Well,” I kissed Tinker one more time, “I’ll consider when I see the money.”
“Here.” He pulled out a coin purse filled with silver coins. “This is all I got on me.”
“Hm.” One final, quick smooch on Tinker’s lips. “For that much, I can only promise to hold off my smooches for a little while. As you can see, they are in high demand.”
“I’ll take it, just please stop.” He handed me the purse, a hefty twenty coins filling it as I looked inside.
“You’re a shr
ewd negotiator, and I respect it.” I broke away from Tinker and walked toward the inn’s exit. “Pleasure doing business with you.”
“You guys didn’t say anything about my smooches!” Tinker jumped on my back, reaching over to kiss me on the cheek as I reached the door behind my other boys.
“Hey, we had a deal!” He shook his head, following behind me with other thugs in tow.
“Which Tinker was not in any way consulted,” I was held up from talking by a pair of bunny lips assailing my lips for a moment before they moved back to my cheeks, “or included in if you recall the exact wording. We had no formal written agreement, so our memories will have to suffice. My personal smooches have been halted, as per said verbal agreement. I am a man of my word. You will get your money’s worth and no more.”
“Damn you, Rabbit lord,” the thug admitted defeat. “Damn you.”
“The name’s Hank, by the way.” I pushed out the door. “Hank McCallum, but most people call me Dragonoak these days. It’s a long story.”
“It’s also very descriptive,” Tinker added with a wink to me before bringing herself right to my ear to whisper. “Very, very descriptive. Is it wrong that the thing I’m the angriest about is Paw-Paw putting us in separate rooms?”
“Honey, it is definitely in the top ten of his most reprehensible crimes,” I whispered back. As per my agreement, I couldn’t initiate a kiss but heavily implied an invite with my eyes that Tinker picked up on. “He’ll get a bullet for every moment I missed you and Hopper when she gets back. Remember, when I get to the square, get to me if you can so we can switch back--”
“Quiet back there!” One of the thugs ahead of us whipped his neck back in his suspicion of our act of conspiracy. “You making secret plans? What are you two whispering about, huh?”
