Salem's Witches (Neitherlands Book 1), page 19
“The secret service, uh?” The Dominatrix clicked her tongue several times as she looked around the room. “Doesn’t ring a bell, that name. Are you lying to me?”
Leggy sighed. “Assigned codename is Ecks-Ecks-Legolas-Ecks-Ecks,” said XxLegolasxX. “But I go by Leggy because—”
“Oh, Ecks-Ecks! Now I remember you. Why I came up with that codename myself. What were you saying?”
“I was saying it’s a great name,” said Leggy. Letting the Dominatrix know the codename she had personally assigned him was terrible would likely be just as terrible for him. “I go by Leggy because I like it so much. I’d rather make it something special and share it only with my close friends.”
“That’s not good. You should always use your assigned codename,” said the Dominatrix.
Leggy refrained from letting her know that not only did he hate the name, but he had an odd feeling he would get sued for copyright infringement whenever he used it. “Anyway, Ecks-Ecks, tell me again. Do you really know nothing, even when I pay you to know things? This Dominatrix doesn’t like being lied to, or paying for a service and getting no results.”
The Dominatrix smiled again. This time it was more of a toothy grin, and it made Leggy think she was about to bite off his head. He decided not to risk it.
“I did hear some reports earlier today. I believe some of the guards saw a woman get on an abandoned watchtower and throw a bunch of papers from there.” He omitted the winged part in order to try save his hide. He also omitted himself from the story, because why not. Better safe than sorry. He wasn’t necessarily paid to see things himself, only to know them. “I’m sure this was one of them, and—”
“Why are there abandoned watchtowers in my kingdom?” said Madame Xantiplam to no one in particular. Leggy hoped she wouldn’t expect him to know things that pertained to the City Watch. He had enough of a hard time dealing with his own tasks; ask him to know other people’s businesses and he’d enter the pub and never leave. “Anyway, I knew I could count on you, Ecks-Ecks. After all, all of my guards are exemplary. Non-exemplary people don’t last long under my leadership.”
Leggy gulped and hoped she’d consider the interview over and let him go. After all, this was Audience Day. She had things to do and people to jail.
Thinking about it, he had been a fool to go anywhere near the throne room on Audience Day. That kind of thing got people killed. If anything, he was lucky he’d found her throwing a tantrum over an illicit meeting and not something more serious.
“Anyway, I have peasants to attend, so…” Leggy started walking back in anticipation of the Dominatrix setting him free. Every second in her presence increased the chances of getting beheaded. He just had to make sure to walk, not run, out of the room, and he’d be safe. “I’ll be quick with your new task, Ecks-Ecks.”
Leggy stopped in his tracks. What was this about being issued tasks by the Dominatrix? He could only barely carry out the simple tasks given to him by his immediate superiors; any tasks she assigned him would end in an execution. Most likely his own.
“You’ll be attending this clandestine meeting and reporting whatever is said and done there directly to me.”
Leggy stopped in his tracks again, and this time he hadn’t even been moving. This task, it was all kinds of wrong. He couldn’t work Friday nights, that was when he drank.[25] Also, had she just said he’d have to report to her? His luck wouldn’t be enough to let him escape with his own life from a meeting with the Dominatrix twice. And then the whole idea of having him infiltrate a meeting like a spy was—
“It’s exactly the kind of thing the Secret Service is there for, after all,” said the Dominatrix. “And it’s a great opportunity for you to show me just how great an agent you are. Need I mention those who do good for the dominion often get rewarded? You may go now.”
Leggy bowed and left the room, dragging his feet. That offer she’d made of a reward was almost insulting. Of course he knew those who were good at their job got rewarded, and that was precisely the issue: There was only one thing in the world he was very good at, and he wasn’t even good enough at it to be spared the hangovers.
This would definitely be his last task for the Secret Service, for there was no way the Dominatrix would allow him to remain after he fumbled it.
Then again, this would likely be his last task ever.
11
The witches chose to enter Salem’s house via the backdoor in order to minimize the chance of running into booby traps and to comply with Thieves’ Guild requirements.[26]
The place was imposing and uninviting, and Sarah dreaded entering it. She wondered why Salem would have such a scary home—or was it all just because they were risking their own lives by entering uninvited? Maybe had they been formally issued an invitation she’d feel different. Perhaps the front door was better.
Veronika used her special skills and had the door open within a minute. It was almost scary, how quickly she could get rid of any locks in her way. Surprisingly no alarms went off and no hungry hounds jumped at them. Instead they were greeted and attacked by nothing less than a nauseating smell of fried chicken.
“Just what is this?” said Sarah, trying to breathe through her mouth. The thought of all the fat floating in the air appalled her.
“Apparently someone has a taste for fries,” said Veronika, grinning. “Not what one would expect from Salem. I wonder how much the tabloids would pay for this information?”
“Nothing at all,” said Laura. “Because we won’t admit to having ever been here. Also, as a gossip item this is just not juicy eno—”
“You don’t consider fried chicken juicy?” said Sarah. Laura answered with a glare.
The kitchen was one of the dirtiest places Sarah had ever seen. Not only was the smell nauseating, but the walls were thick with fat and grime, and even the ceiling was in need of a good cleaning to get rid of those dark stains of what seemed to be chicken blood.
Either way, Sarah’s already almost nonexistent respect for Salem eroded as she walked the kitchen: It was one thing to be a fried chicken connoisseur, another one not to care enough to clean up afterward.
Curious to see the rest of the house, she went ahead of her friends and toward what she expected would be the dining room, or a hallway leading to it.
What she found there made her scream, squirm, and reconsider every choice she’d made in her life leading up to entering that room. Her friends ran in immediately only to find her perfectly fine, kneeling in a corner and screaming.
What wasn’t fine was the rest of the room’s inhabitants, for it was full of spiders of the live kind. They were in glass containers, all of them properly labeled. The danger level for said spiders varied from mostly harmless to if you can see it, you’re already dead, as was the case with the Eastern Nameless Spider.[27]
“I always thought Salem’s stories about letting spiders roam free through the house when hosting parties was just boasting,” said Veronika, ignoring Sarah’s despair. Maybe if she found herself alone in a room with some of those nasty spiders she’d learn.
“At least they’re properly cared for,” said Laura, pointing at a bag labeled Spider Chow. She was wrong: The only proper way to care for a spider was with a flamethrower and extreme prejudice.
After letting their friend cower in fear for a few more seconds, Laura and Veronika grabbed her arms, helped her get up, and helped her outside. Sarah expected things to get better, since the spiders were behind them when they encountered another unexpected development: They ran into someone.
It was a tall, somewhat old man wearing a suit that seemed about as old as he was. Instead of saying anything, as one would expect of someone who finds a thief in their home, the man just stared at them.
The witches stared back, silently.
The man kept staring.
The team played stare-pong for a while until the man seemed to understand the witches could do this all night and there were more of them than there were of him.
“Tabloid journalists?” His voice was emotionless.
“New Wakilork Times,” said Laura. “Anyone before us?”
The man shook his head. “The New Wakilorker came a few days ago, but no one today. The booze is kept in the northern basement, the parrotphone army in the first room of the second floor, and the master keeps all of his magazines with dubious content stashed under his bed, in the third floor attic,” the man said in the tone of someone who has done this far too many times to retain any interest. “If anyone asks, I did not see you. As for the master, I believe he is out tonight and shouldn’t be back until eleven.”
“You believe?” said Veronika.
“I rarely see him these days. I believe he went out, but I can’t be sure. For all I know, he left the house three months ago and hasn’t been back since. Or perhaps he hasn’t left the house at all in three months, I can’t really know.”
The witches exchanged puzzled glances while the man walked past them toward the kitchen.
“Wait!” Laura said, “where’s the atelier? Is there anything good there?”
The man stood silent for a moment. If one paid attention, one could hear the gears turning while he decided whether to help these women further. “Third floor, big door in front of the stairs. As for what secrets it might hold, I wouldn’t know, for I am not allowed in there,” he finally said. “However, I might have misplaced the keys under the eggplant on the dining room. Please leave no trace of your presence here, and I’ll be expecting my usual check in the mail next week.”
The man then entered the kitchen, leaving the witches alone on the hallway.
“Who was that?” whispered Sarah, hoping the man wouldn’t hear her.
“The butler, I’m guessing,” said Laura. “I mean, he looked the part, and—”
“Why would the butler be selling him out? I mean, he’s allowing the press inside the house. Why?”
Veronika sighed. “Sarah, if he treats the butler as decently as he treated us then the real question is why this man isn’t leaking information to the press himself.”
Sarah assented as the witches moved on.
Not being one to refuse an easy break-in, Laura went straight for the key and to the third floor atelier. Veronika tried to dissuade her from using it, insisting that picking the lock was the proper way, but she wouldn’t listen. Even if there was such a guild regulation, which she doubted, the truth was that they weren’t a part of it, so they had no need to follow it. Also, since the butler had not only seen them, but aided them, they couldn’t be considered thieves anymore. If anything, it was the Journalists’ Guild who’d have a bone to pick with them.[28]
The huge door leading to Salem’s atelier was made of gold with inlaid diamonds and rubies, making it the single most ridiculously ostentatious door Laura had ever seen. Judging by her friends’ reactions they had also never before seen so much money spent in such a stupid manner. She couldn’t help but wonder why the Thieves’ Guild hadn’t raided the house yet, and why the hell Salem paid her so little if he was swimming in cash.
As Laura opened the door, she was greeted by the smell of spices and instrumental music coming form seemingly nowhere. The room had a huge panoramic window overlooking the state grounds, bookcases filled with books on design, marble sculptures that should have belonged to museums, and mannequins with clothes that looked like Salem’s new designs. A furry, expensive-looking and probably imported burgundy rug covered the floor.
A wooden desk with legs carved to look like parrots sat at the end of the room, right in front of the window. A parrotphone and some papers lay on top of it, and a huge portrait of Salem, his face hidden behind a folding fan, hung inclined over the desk.
While Sarah wasted her time looking for nonexistent secret rooms that used books as keys, Veronika cautiously scoured the room for any locks that needed picking. Her insistence on picking locks might have seemed ridiculous, but anyone who has ever found themselves on the wrong side of an oven door with a lock in the way will understand just why Veronika’s skills, when needed, were invaluable.
She didn’t have much success at first. To no avail, she browsed the bookcases, hoping to find a hidden keyhole behind a book. Without success, she examined the walls, hoping to find a keyhole hidden in plain sight as decoration or behind a painting to. She tried moving the sculptures, hoping that moving one of them would unlock a secret room, but found herself lacking the necessary strength to make them budge. Almost defeated, she went for the fluffy rug but also found nothing there.
It was when she was getting up that she hit her head on the tiny tea table with enough strength to flip it.
There was a safe underneath the table.
Only she wasn’t good at cracking safes. They had no tumblers and they were generally boring to open. However, not being one easily dissuaded, she started trying numerical combinations starting with 0000.
Meanwhile, Laura tried her luck at finding something, anything of use on Salem’s desk. First she looked through the papers. Most were newspaper articles mentioning him, with his name highlighted. The others were bills for what looked like an absurd amount of chicken and a few pieces of fanmail.
She then went for the drawers. The first one was full of collectible parrotphone figurines. They were beautiful but useless to the investigation, so Laura moved on. The second drawer was full of candy, from both the city and imported from about everywhere in the Neitherlands. For someone who always spoke about the importance of being thin, Salem certainly had a sweet tooth.
Luck came to Laura when she opened the third drawer and found it was full of Quackology pamphlets and other such papers.
“This is full of Quackology stuff!” Laura shouldn’t have been shocked, but she was nonetheless. “Damn it, he is a quackologist. He’s been trying to protect his cult all along!”
Sarah ran to help Laura while Veronika kept trying to crack the safe. They separated the content in three groups: Copies of The Moat, newspaper articles on the Church of Quackology, and other documents.
While Laura expected the third pile would be the one to give them a hint on how to proceed, said pile was mostly made up of letters thanking him for appearing in the many talks the Church of Quackology held all over the city.
Which meant that apparently everyone knew Salem was a Quackologist, except for them.
It was one of the issues of The Moat, along with Veronika’s loud swearing each time her random safe combinations failed, that gave Laura the clue she needed. As she was about to put everything back into the drawer and call it a day, something scribbled in one of the magazines caught her attention.
It was a set of four numbers.
“I got the key!” she said, grabbing the issue and running giddily to Veronika, much like a child with a new lollipop.
Veronika took the copy of The Moat from Laura without asking, much as one would steal candy for a child if one had such proclivities. She complemented her heinous act with the kind of smile one would only expect from a candy snatcher. Without bothering to say anything she input the code herself.
Then a spark of light flew out of the safe accompanied by a bang. Sarah and Laura screamed and ran to hide while the room filled with smoke. Once it cleared, they found a toad in Veronika’s spot. It was the very same kind of silver as Veronika’s hair, and it had Veronika’s trademark mean stare.
Sarah rushed to pick it up while Laura ran to the safe to unveil its contents. She found a copy of Scametics and several Quackology brochures, among other papers but, as soon she grabbed them, someone speaking stopped her.
“What is going on here!” said the parrotphone, in Salem’s voice.
Sarah and Laura exchanged stares. “Salem, is that you?” said Sarah.
“Oh, but look who it is! The three Merry Criminals from New Wakilork! What are you doing in my house?”
“We are…just visiting,” said Sarah. It was a blessing that he could hear but not see them. “Salem, where are you?”
“I’M IN THE PANIC ROOM,” he said, in all caps. “Why are you in my house without my consent? I could swear I heard the thievery alarm go off!”
“Hey…” said Laura, “Why are you in a panic room, Salem?”
“BECAUSE I’M PANICKING, THAT’S WHY. Now answer me, did you try to open my super-secret lockbox?”
Veronika the toad croaked.
“I see. Good to know the feistiest one of the lot was on the receiving end of the curse.” Salem laughed and the toad gave the parrotphone an evil stare. “Don’t worry it’s temporary. You’ll be a human again when the Dominatrix sees you.”
While Salem spoke, Laura hastily went through the contents of the lockbox. She also needed to win time. “Wait!” she said, “First, can you let us know why? I mean, why join Quackology? And don’t deny it, all these papers, in a lockbox… You joined this and kept it secret, but why?”
“It’s the current hip cult! An artist such as I needs to keep himself on top of all cultural manifestations. I need to be en vogue or I risk losing everything. So when Quackology began trending I joined. It’s been great, too. They have such amazing perks for stars like me. Who do you think hired a warlock to put a curse on that safe? This house has been remodeled thanks to Quackology. They’re amazing, and you lot should try them!”
“You joined a cult…for money and fame?” said Sarah, while Laura read through the papers and Veronika croaked toadily. “Don’t you feel, you know…bad about this?”
“Why do humans do anything if not for money and fame? It’s what moves the world, witches. You can try to fight it, but you won’t be able to change it. May as well give up. I join what I can to survive, that’s all. Nothing wrong with—”
“Hold on,” Laura was reading the last paper from the safe. One with the Dominion Seal in it. “This… You sold us out? You helped the Dominatrix capture us, Salem? Really?”
