“As if!” Nix snorted disdainfully. “Thorn, you couldn’t beat your way out of a paper bag. And even then the bag would win.”
“You must be suicidal,” Thorn proclaimed, astonished. “There’s no other possible reason why you’d be spouting such gibberish.”
“Okay,” I interceded, stepping between them. “Playtime is over, children. We have a job to do. Just follow my lead.”
Nix bowed mockingly. “Anything for you, glorious leader,” he intoned in a sombre voice. “We live but to serve.”
“There’s no need to be sarcastic,” I admonished, frowning at a giggling Thorn.
Chapter 19
We arrived at the warehouse where Max was presently incarcerated and found Fink there. Not surprisingly, he didn’t appear to be pleased to see us.
“What are you lot doing here?” he wanted to know.
“We wanted to ask Max a few more questions,” I told him.
“Max?” Fink questioned, puzzled.
“Mirnaxillum,” Thorn supplied, wearily.
“Why didn’t you say so, then?” Fink asked. “Anyway, what’s the point? We already know he’s a murderer. All that remains is to decide what to do with him.”
“I bought in some wine,” I announced. “Even murderers deserve a little luxury.”
“Go ahead,” Fink agreed, waving a dismissive hand. “It doesn’t really matter at this stage.”
I went over to Max, who looked even more dispirited than I remembered, and offered him the wine.
“Drink this,” I commanded. “It will make you feel better.”
“Who cares?” he muttered dejectedly, taking the wine. He drank it in one uncaring gulp and handed the empty container back to me. I went back to where Nix and Thorn were standing and commenced a close scrutiny of Max’s reactions.
“Do you three want anything else?” Fink belligerently demanded.
“We will in a few minutes,” I informed him. “I’ll be asking Max some questions and I’d like you to listen to the answers, if you don’t mind. It’s important. There’s more going on here than you realise.”
Fink puffed himself up. “Do you realise who you’re talking to here?” he spluttered, indignantly. “I’m in charge of this investigation, not you!”
“And a proper mess you’ve made of it, too, Fringapellumna,” Thorn snapped. “Did you know there’s a whole drug distribution network being run under your very nose? Well, did you?”
“What are you going on about?” Fink requested. “Stop talking rubbish!”
“It’s not rubbish,” Thorn insisted, angrily. “We’ve uncovered the network. We found the books with the names of everyone being supplied. While you’ve been swanning around here, we’ve found out what’s really been happening! So, for once in your life, listen and learn something!”
Fink’s mouth stayed opened in flabbergasted surprise as Thorn soundly berated him. At the end of her little tirade, I noticed that Max’s eyelids were drooping so I hurried over to his side. With a final glare at Fink, Thorn and Nix followed me. Fink came along also, unconsciously pulled by forces he didn’t understand.
I sat beside Max and showed him a small shard of glass I’d earlier picked up from the street. “Do you see this piece of glass?” I asked gently, twirling it in my fingers, letting it fragment the surrounding light into sparkles.
“Yes,” he answered, dully.
“Well, keep your eye on it,” I commanded. “Concentrate on the flashes. See how it glitters. Let it wash over you. It’s all you can see. There’s nothing else in your mind. Nothing. All you can see is how it glints and shines. It’s drawing you in. Deeper and deeper. You’re becoming relaxed. Peaceful. Calm. Nothing bothers you. You have no worries. There’s just the shine and the sound of my voice.”
I carried on in a similar vein for a few more minutes until my voice was barely audible and Max hardly conscious. I looked around and discovered Fink swaying on his feet, almost asleep as well. I smiled at Thorn and Nix who were wide-eyed with curiosity.
“Give Fink a nudge, will you?” I whispered. “He needs to be awake for the next bit.”
Thorn jostled Fink, none too gently either, I noticed. Fink’s eyes snapped open and he looked around in astonishment. As he began to form a question, I put a finger on my lips, cautioning him to silence, then I turned back to Max.
“Now, Max,” I continued softly, “go back to the night of the party a few days ago and tell me what happened. You remember the party, don’t you?”
“Yes,” Max’s slurred voice answered.
“In your own words, tell me what happened,” I urged.
Max was silent for a few moments, and then he began to speak in a monotone voice. “I was at the party. I was having fun. Belleamunia was there.”
“Do you like her?”
“Yes. But she doesn’t care for me.”
“Who does she care for, then?”
“Dugfingbux.”
I heard a startled gasp behind me from Thorn and Nix, but I waved my hand frantically in an attempt to keep them quiet.
“What did you know about him?” I asked.
“He was the one giving us the drugs. Everyone knew it.”
“Did your friend know it?”
“She had just found out.”
“And how did she feel about that?”
“She was distressed.”
“Was she taking the drugs as well?”
“Yes. We all were.”
“Did you kill her?”
“No, of course not. I would never hurt her.”
“Do you know who did kill her?”
“Yes. It was her father.”
I heard Thorn inhale sharply and I was tempted do the same. Her father? What the hell? “Do you know why he killed her?”
“Yes.”
“Why would he do such a thing?”
“He found out she was taking the drug. He is very strict. He was ashamed of her.”
“And so he killed her?”
“Yes.”
“Because he was ashamed of her?”
“Yes.”
I looked around at the horrified expressions on the faces of Thorn, Fink and Nix. The truth was more horrible than I had ever imagined. I faced Max again and we continued the interrogation.
“Did her father do the actual killing himself?”
“No.”
“Who did then?”
“He hired someone.”
“Do you know who it was?”
“No.”
“Do you know anything at all about the killer?”
“I heard someone say that it was a sommubant.”
“And that’s all you know about it?”
“Yes.”
“Then why did you confess to killing her?”
“I had to.”
“Why did you have to?”
Max became somewhat disturbed at this point and his head pivoted from side to side in mental anguish. I spoke soothingly to him until he calmed.
“Why did you have to?” I repeated, insistently.
“They took my sister and said they’d kill her if I didn’t confess.”
“Who took her?”
“The sommubant, I think.”
“The same one who killed the girl you liked?”
“Yes.”
“How did you know that?”
“Belleamunia’s father told me.”
“Was he the one who told you to confess?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know where your sister is now?”
“No.”
“Do you have any idea at all where she might be?”
“No.”
I turned to the others and shrugged.
“I don’t think we can get too much more,” I admitted. “I’m going to bring him out of it.” I went back to Max and proceeded to talk him back to reality.
“When I snap my fingers,” I instructed softly, “you will wake up, refreshed and remembering everything. You will no
t feel guilty about anything you have done and your only thought will be to help us find your sister. I’ll count backwards from ten to zero. At zero I’ll snap my fingers and you will awaken. Ten – nine – eight – seven – six – five – four – three – two – one – zero! Wake up!” Max blinked his eyes open.
“What the ……!” he exclaimed. “What’s going on?” Then, as the memories poured into his brain, he dropped his head into his hands. “My sister!” he groaned. “What’s going to happen to her?”
I dropped a friendly arm around his shoulder. “Nothing will happen to her, if we can help it,” I assured him. “We’ll find her.” I spun around and stared fixedly at Fink. “Won’t we?” Overwhelmed with what he’d just heard, Fink nodded agreement.
“You want Fringapellumna to come with us?” Thorn asked, aggressively.
“Him and some of his guards,” I detailed. “I think we’re going to need the extra muscle to rescue Max’s sister.”
“But we don’t even know where she is!” exclaimed Nix.
“I may have an idea about that,” I explained.
“Don’t you ever run out of ideas?” Thorn questioned, smiling slightly.
“All the time,” I answered truthfully. “But on this occasion I think it’d be a good idea to search that glade with the waterfall that the dwarf King told us about when we visited him.”
“Oh yes,” Nix recalled. “We never did get to search that area, thanks to the general mayhem.”
“What makes you think that she’ll be there?” Thorn asked curiously.
“Just a wild guess, as usual,” I told her. “The King said it was where the dissident group met – the ones who opposed his reign. Max told us that the killings were done by a dwarf hand, and if what you’ve told me about the dwarfs is correct, then I can’t see any of the normal ones practising murder or kidnapping, so the dissident ones would be the main suspects. They already oppose law and order by trying to overthrow their King, therefore why would they turn up their noses at a mere kidnapping? It’s worth a try.”
“I want to come too!” Max insisted fiercely.
“I don’t see why not,” I agreed, looking at Fink. “I presume he’s no longer under arrest?”
“I suppose not,” Fink reluctantly conceded. He stared at me suspiciously. “What did you do to him, anyway?” he demanded. “How do I know this isn’t some topworld trick of yours? You humans are so devious and underhanded. I don’t trust you at all.”
“It isn’t a trick,” I sighed, patiently. “It’s a method of finding out the truth. It’s called hypnosis. True, it can be abused, but all I did was to bypass Max’s defences and allow him to tell the truth, nothing more. Now, Fink, are you coming with us or not? We need you,” I added, appealing to his vanity.
He dithered and vacillated until Thorn impatiently exclaimed, “For heaven’s sake, Fringapellumna, just this once, do the right thing and come along! Admit that you’ve made a pig’s breakfast of the investigation so far, and go from there. You might actually learn something if you team up with us.”
Fink glared at Thorn, but finally surrendered. “Very well,” he muttered rebelliously. “I’ll come.”
“Excellent!” I said. “Bring a dozen or so of your offsiders too, please. We don’t know what we’re going to find there.”
Chapter 20
Fink gathered his forces and we prepared to depart.
“How are we going to do this?” Thorn enquired.
“I don’t know much about the protocols of the situation,” I answered, “but I assume we’ll have to ask the dwarf King’s permission first. I’m sure you can’t just take an armed party of soldiers into someone else’s territory without repercussions.”
“You’re probably right,” Nix agreed. “He might think he’s being invaded or something. We should stop there first. He’ll want to be informed about what’s going on, anyway.”
“We’ll have to be reasonably quick,” I told everyone. “I can’t afford to be away from my body for too much longer.”
“We’ll be as fast as we can,” Thorn assured me, grasping my arm. “We need you as the leader. Well,” she amended, glancing slyly at Fink, “at least some of us do.”
“Okay, I admit I’ve been a bit hasty about all of this,” he declared, bowing in surrender. “I may even have been ….. been ….. ”
“Come on, Fringapellumna,” Thorn urged sardonically. “You can say it. Go ahead.”
“…… may have been ….. wrong!” he blurted, the word ‘wrong’ obviously dragged up to the surface from deep within a buried vocabulary.
“Well done,” Thorn praised. Sincerely, I believed. “Fringapellumna, I think you’ve learnt a lot today.”
“I think that’s true,” he sheepishly agreed. Then he did an amazing thing. He turned to me and humbly said, “Thank you.” I was rather taken aback by his new attitude, but managed to respond graciously enough.
“All of us are learning all the time,” I told him. “Once you think you don’t need to learn, then that’s when the trouble starts.”
Fink nodded acceptance and turned back to his contingent of guards. “Let’s go,” he said.
We headed out of town, in a ragged formation. Thorn, Max and I were walking with Nix. Fink and his guards flew overhead.
“Who killed Dugfingbux, then?” Nix suddenly asked. “And why?” He looked at Max, who shrugged in a noncommittal way.
“I don’t know,” Max answered. “No one talked about it. He was in charge of the distribution, though. I imagine that sort of job may have incurred enemies. Maybe he stole some of the profits or something.”
“Or one of his clients may have wanted more than their fair share of what he was selling,” Thorn added. “What do you think, Stephen?”
“We don’t know at this stage,” I said, “although it’s a good guess that it would have been the same dwarf who did the killings. Both deaths were almost identical.”
“That sommubant dissident group sound fairly nasty,” Nix pronounced.
“That’s why we bought in Fink and his cronies,” I remarked, pointing upwards to our overhead support. “I think we’ll be needing them before the day is out.”
A sombre silence greeted my words as I recalled that violence was virtually unknown in this society. Yet, here we all were, marching off to war – well, as near to a war as we could manage. We reached the dwarf territory and Nix suggested that the three of us, plus Fink, form a delegation to see the King.
“That way we’ll have a representative group, rather than a war party,” he advised.
“Good plan,” Fink grunted.
A short time later, the four of us were standing before the King, explaining the whole situation, or trying to, at any rate. We were greeted with incredulity, outright disbelief and an obviously dismissive attitude.
“But it’s true!” Nix protested.
“If I wasn’t so polite,” the King intoned, “I’d be inclined to call your wild tale a lie. Drugs? Murders left, right and center? Kidnapping? I know the dissident group isn’t particularly law-abiding, but you’re accusing them of some very serious crimes. My people are a peaceful race. What do you hope to gain by spreading these falsehoods? I’m very much inclined to throw you all in a dungeon!”
Luckily for us, and to my utter astonishment, it was Fink who saved the day. He drew himself up to his pompous best and lectured the King in no uncertain terms.
“Your Majesty,” he began, “far be it from me to accuse you of being callous and out of touch with reality, but I happen to be the Chief Security Officer of the One, and I’m telling you face-to-face that everything said here so far is the absolute truth. Do you doubt my word? I find that insulting! If you weren’t the King, I’d challenge you to a duel to settle our differences! You may wield power here, but my authority at home is almost the equal of yours. At first, I didn’t believe what I was told either, but I now know it to be true. We’ve both turned a blind eye to what has been happening to those we
’re supposed to protect, so it’s about time we took some notice of what’s going on around us. I hope you take what I’ve said the right way, your Majesty, but if you ignore what we’re telling you, then you have only yourself to blame when your kingdom falls apart.”
The King appeared stunned at Fink’s tongue lashing, and I didn’t blame him at all. Probably no one had ever spoken to him in such a chiding manner before. I could see him juggling various responses, some benign and others downright nasty. In the end, however, he came down on the side of ‘benign’.
“I still find it almost impossible to believe you,” he announced, ruefully, “but I think I must. To think that any one of my people would resort to these tactics is truly horrendous, but to ignore the possibility would be folly indeed. To that end, and with your permission, I would like to send a contingent of my personal guard with you as observers, but they will also function as your protectors.”
Fink bowed. “We welcome them, your Majesty,” he said, gratefully. And so, there we were, about ten minutes later, forty strong, making our way towards the dissident stronghold.
“What do you think is going to happen, Stephen?” Thorn asked, thoughtfully.
“I have no idea,” I shrugged. “Before we do anything drastic, we should have a council of war and decide the best approach. If they do have Max’s sister captive, then we can’t afford to do anything foolish. The worst thing that could happen would be for us to rush in blindly.”
“I’ll let Fringapellumna know,” Thorn declared, taking to the sky. We all watched her as she spiralled gracefully upwards.
“She’s quite something, you know,” Nix murmured, giving me a poke the ribs. “You’d be mad to let her get away.”
“What are you talking about?” I said, flustered.
“It’s so obvious that she fancies you,” Nix replied, to the wide-eyed fascination of Max. “Surely you’ve noticed it? You can’t possibly be that blind.”
“I have noticed some interest on her part,” I told him, stiffly, “but I hardly think that it’s any business of yours.”
“Of course it is,” Nix cheerfully proclaimed. “That’s what friends are for – to poke their noses into things that don’t concern them. Now, come on, Stephen, do the right thing and tell me everything. I want all the juicy details.”
Dangerous Desires (2) (The Underground Kingdom) Page 7
