The Source of Magic, page 4
He wasn’t sure how he was going to pay, though, if he was being sent on errands with Melanie then at least he felt he was earning his room and board.
“We’ll grab something on the way. I’ll show you my favourite shop.” Melanie was jubilant at the idea.
They headed off further into the warren of streets with Melanie pointing the way at intersections.
“So who is Greegson, and why wouldn’t Olga send you alone?” John asked.
“He’s a fence for charged totems. He has a lot of connections in the black market that exists for them," Melanie explained.
“If magic is black market, why is there a whole fancy school for it?” John asked.
“Magic is not illegal, it's what powers the Egg and protects the city. But there is a law in place that says that any charged totem has to be handed over to the authorities," Melanie said.
“Hmmm. I guess when you a sitting on the wrong side of the law you’ve got to deal with some shady people,” John observed.
“No, not necessarily. Everyone deals in totems, at least in the Nekovolk community they do. They are traditional gifts for entering adulthood, or to mark special occasions. You can give them in exchange for favours when giving money would be unseemly. We might get a higher price from Greegson because he has more connections and does dip his toe into the wider criminal networks, and will even sell totems to humans.” Melanie’s disapproval in this last point was apparent in the judgmental tone she took.
As they meandered thought the streets Melanie beamed a broad smile at the onlookers. She was enjoying the attention directed towards her and John. Almost everyone was Nekovolk, sporting a tail and cat ears. John spotted the odd human here and there but they looked nothing like him. Not only were his clothes vastly different in style and material but he was the picture of health by comparison. Standing six foot two inches wide at the shoulders with a musculature that had been bulked up his by manual labour on the docks, he was an Adonis amongst mortals. The other humans were often in the vary basic worn out clothes that the Nekovolk wore and had seemed to have a stature borne of mild malnutrition.
The Nekovolk on the other hand, though roughly attired, had a very different demeanour. They seemed a very jolly lot. Their laughter was loud and movements energetic. The one exception was when they came near John. He had the effect of brining about a nervous reserve in people, lowering their frisky tails and cowering away as the moved around him leaving as much space as the could. Regardless of the totem in Melanie’s bag John felt he already had some sort of protective shield on.
“What’s up with them?” John asked after a while, “I know we didn’t shower but I don’t smell that bad.”
“They just don’t know you like I do,” she chirped, “We’re not treated well by the humans here, or anywhere for that matter. If they knew how kind and brave you were, they’d like you.”
John shook his head and couldn’t help smiling to himself. Melanie was fun. He’d known a lot of women, hard women who wanted to prove themselves, sexy women who were looking for a quick fuck, and cold women who would curse you out as soon as look at you. He had never known a women who was fun before. He liked her. She was the personification of a pink frosted cupcake but with tits and an arse you would risk an AWOL charge for.
“I’ll be right back," Melanie explained as she quickly ducked into a bakery.
John watched through the doorway as a fresh tray of pies were moved from a large wood fired oven to a cooling rack. Watching the other pedestrians and loiterers pile into the shop he understood why he was left to stand in the street. There was a frenzy of movement from other pedestrians and they applied the same enthusiasm to securing a pie for themselves as they did with everything else.
John watched as Melanie deftly ducked and weaved her way through the rambunctious crowd to work her way to the front of pack. At times the only thing of her he could see was the flap of white dress and flick of her ginger tail. He also saw the use of such powerful legs: they seemed to be the key to her stopping her motion in one direction to pivot and dart off at right angles without loosing balance or speed. She wasn’t the only one moving with such acrobatic certainty – two boys about the age of ten had leapt, one after the other, over an elderly gentleman heading in the other direction. John surmised that their acrobatic skills were a racial trait.
After a short wait, Melanie returned and offered a pie the size of a quarter plate to John. The pie had a surprisingly sturdy weight to it, but also seemed to be made from the same light, flakey butter pastry as a croissant. He gave it an experiment sniff and he thought he could smell cinnamon.
Taking the lead from Melanie, who had already munched joyously into her pie, John took an experimental bite. He was surprised by the odd mix of textures and flavours and he paused with the hot filling in his mouth while his sensors adapted to the sensation.
The filling was an odd mix of sweet and savoury, a small amount of finely ground beef mince mixed together with mashed potato, but a potato if it had been designed by a bee. Once he got through the first mouthful and onto his second bite he had gotten used to its oddity and found it really hit the spot with his hunger.
They continued walking while they ate. By the end of his pie, John’s hunger was sated, surprisingly so from one small pie. He suspected that whatever that honey-potato had been it must have had a high protein count.
“See wasn’t that just the best?” Melanie asked in her buoyant manner.
“One of the best pies I’ve eaten," he humoured her, “So where is Storm Lane? Far from here?”
“Not far, this way.”
Melanie continued with her tour of the Nekovolk’s district. It meandered a bit but continued to follow the curve of the outer city wall. While the streets would have rows of shop fronts for decent stretches there were also large areas that seemed to be mostly housing. Like Melanie’s home, there were often houses stacked onto of shops and houses stacked on top of houses. The ground floor always had the look of something that was planned, whereas the second, and some third storeys, looked as if they had been hastily built in the knowledge that if city guards caught you building they would stop you, but if your home was already built they wouldn’t throw you out.
There were a number of plazas and areas where streets opened wider and communal life of the Nekovolk spilled out to fill the space like liquid. To John the only difference between night and day in this part of the city was the density of citizens and the amount of light.
Upon reaching Storm Street John noticed the change in mood of the neighbourhood from the bombastic streets they had just been traversing. It was as if he turned a corner in an old school Hollywood film lot and stepped from a jolly musical to a grim dark medieval drama, possibly about the plague.
The building construction was a big difference. Wood gave way to bluestone cobbles and red brick stained black with ash. The thatched roofs were replaced by shingles made of clay and slate. This was a place that would refuse to burn.
Glancing into some of the openings John saw why this was important. A large bellows pumped a forge near overflowing with orange and yellow coals. This was a place of heat and fire and iron. There were a lot more humans here. They seemed like they were related to the humans in the rest of the suburb only by species. They wore hard expressions and scars from youth that had taught them lessons they carried to the present day.
John knew from his time working on ships and then the docks that there were some occupations that didn’t forgive mistakes in the way an office job would. If some law firm clerk accidentally shredded an important document because they were hung over and careless, the worst that could happen is they get fired. In these workshops if you showed up hung over or were careless in your youth, you didn’t get fired so much as catch fire.
The owners of the shops didn’t seem so far removed, either. Even the overly fat man selling cast iron pots and pans (the kind you could use to defend your home with after cooking your morning eggs), who was currently chortling with a little old lady while he sold her a small tea kettle, had the telltale warping and wrinkling of skin that indicated he had been caressed by fire once himself.
Greegson was a Nekovolk who was missing half an ear. By the looks of his shop he could have lived a perfectly peaceful life and just tripped into a display cabinet one day.
The bell above the door gave a hollow clang rather than a jolly tinkle, and Greegson licked his lip in a grotesque manor and adjusted his belt with both hands when he saw Melanie enter. He deflated a little when he saw John enter in after her.
John scanned the shop when he entered. He was no stranger to weapons but his experience with knives and swords was limited. His navy training was mostly in rifles, shotguns and pistols. He’d done karate as a teenager and boxing in the Navy but none of that involved weapons fighting. Rack upon rack of knives, swords and spears were on display. They ranged from ornate ceremonial swords for gifts, to no-nonsense, stab-a-man-thirty-times-in-a-dark-alley knives.
There was no one else in the front of the store other than the three of them, though there was a door leading out the back behind one of the counters. John wasn’t expecting trouble: Olga had felt that his presents was enough to sort out any trouble.
“Hello sweetness, what can I do for you today? Can I give you a dagger for your little sheath?” Greegson’s tone was as subtle as his innuendo.
Melanie didn’t speak. She kept a straight face and emptied the totem from the pouch into her palm holding the glowing pyramid aloft for Greegson to see. John felt Melanie’s body press into his side and he could tell that she was uncomfortable being in the same room as this oily fuck.
“A pretty totem, from a pretty girl," Greegson mewed while his tail swivelled back and forth on the floor.
The tail caught John’s attention and it made him want to spit in the man’s face. Like Melanie and the rest of her race, Greegson wore his emotions on the outside. Why lie about your feelings or suppress them at all if you had a tell as obvious as a tail, and ears that responded to your emotions rather than your reason?
“But I’m sorry I can’t give you much, what with the war and all," Greegson continued.
“Right then Melanie, let’s go.” John knew when he was dealing with a haggling trader.
A trip to South-East Asia with stops in Ho Chi Minh City, Manila and Jakarta had given him plenty of experience with this sort of transaction. It was the kind of thing that inexperienced tourists would fall for and end up buying something for ten times what it cost two doors down. And it was all made in the local mountains by some guy wearing nothing but a shorts working on a wooden mask he held steady with bare feet while he hacked at it with a machete.
“Wait. Don’t go!” Greegson called out as the two of them turned to the door, “Okay, I can give you two gold for it.”
“Two, you’ve got to be kidding. I for shield totem, during a war, do you think I’m an idiot? I want to see ten gold on the counter right now or we keep going out the door.” John was affecting a slightly insulted tone and his voice continued to rise.
At the mention of ten gold for the small totem Olga had said was worth three, Greegson's eyes bulged. Even Melanie looked up at John in surprise. He saw the expression on her face and silently hoped she would give his bluff away.
“I can do three gold and five silver. It really is hard to move things because of the war.” Greegson’s protestation seemed a bit feeble and John took a step in to lean over the weaselly little man.
“Five gold, now. Don’t. Test. My. Patience.” These words were spoken through gritted teeth.
Greegson ducked out from under John and the shadow he was casting and moved behind the back counter. He fiddled with a small safe and hastily laid five large gold coins on the counter top. In return Melanie took a cue from John and placed the totem down next to the coins so that all was fair and above board.
Suddenly, the sound of shouting could be heard from outside. The voices doing the shouting had a sharp and unfriendly tone which cut through the background street chatter, clanging anvils and bursts of raucous laughter an insults.
John recognised this tone of voice. He had used it himself upon finding drinking in the midshipmen’s mess. At the time he had been disappointed in the junior officers, not for drinking, but for getting caught. Getting caught meant they had lacked creativity and forward planning. It was a tone that said, “You will do what I say, and if you don’t, I have the means, authority and willingness to make your life very difficult indeed.”
Along with the voice came the sound of running feet as shoppers ran past, and the goods and chattel of merchants being turned over. This was a police raid.
Melanie shrank a little as if some sort of obedience switch had been flicked in her head. Greegson, on the other hand, became twitchy and spontaneously broke out in beads of sweat. He swept his hand along the counter, gathering up the coins and totem in one swift movement, and rushed towards the front door.
John hand’t been quick enough to grab Greegson as he weaved passed on nimble legs. However, his tail was trailing behind him held long and straight with puffed up fur. John didn’t let the second opportunity pass him by and stomped down hard with his heavy boot nailing the tail to the floor two thirds from the tip.
Greegson came to a short stop, losing his footing and landing heavily on the ground in front of John and Melanie. The howl he gave was monstrously sickening and it was penetrating the commotion outside.
John reached down and pried the five gold coins from Greegson’s fingers. He grabbed Melanie by the hand and led her to the door in the back. He had no doubt that whatever passed for the cops in this world were headed straight for the knife shop.
Fortunately the door was unlocked. It led to an overstuffed store room which housed the shop’s excess knives, swords, sheaths and scabbards. There was a window high up the back wall that had shutter pined open to let light in. It was large enough for them to slip through though it did have crude wooden bars wedged into place. Being on the inside of the room with the valuable stock rather than the outside meant that the bars were quite a bit easier to remove. Grabbing a hold of two wooden bars, John was able to un-wedge the whole assembly from its place and, tossing it aside, turned to Melanie.
“Here, I’ll give you a boost,” he offered.
The words were only half out of his mouth when Melanie took two steps and leapt from the floor, pushed of a shelf midway up the wall and dove out the window. She landed in the narrow back alley with a graceful roll, stopping just short of the opposite wall.
John was taken aback for a moment, quickly shrugged it off as just another one of the many unexpected things he had witnessed and, jumping up to get momentum boost, pulled himself up and through the window far less gracefully that Melanie had managed.
The alleyway was stacked with discarded trash, empty wooden crates, and had a gutter running down its centre. John led the way heading, in general terms, back the way they had come. They didn’t run, John kept their pace brisk but controlled with the appearance of purpose of intent. The world belonged to people who acted like they knew what they were doing and everyone else just played along. It was John’s intention was to try and use the same bluff and bluster that had worked on Greegson on anyone else they came across.
Unfortunately, John’s clothes were a giveaway that he didn’t belong. After a short walk, they passed a T-junction in the alley and a voice called out.
“Stop there and be searched!” came a burly voice.
Melanie slowed to stop as instructed but John signalled to her to keep up and keep going.
“I said stop, or you’ll get the crossbow.” The voice sounded closer, its owner having turned the corner.
John pulled up short and slowly raised his arms up to be parallel with his shoulders, which were at this moment, clenching in anticipation of attempting to stop a sixteen inch length of sharpened iron. Turning around John saw that the man did indeed have a crossbow trained on them.
He was human, a guard wearing the same uniform John had seen last night.
“You two come with me, we’re going to go see the lieutenant.” The guard backed up and used his cross bow too quickly indicated that the pair should walk down the intersecting alleyway.
John approached the junction slowly but steadily, keeping his arms up.
“We haven’t done anything wrong.” John was keeping his voice as smooth and calm as he could.
“You’ve got some funny looking clothes there. Anything, or anyone suspicious gets a trip to the lieutenant,” the guard explained.
John stepped closer.
“You don’t have to worry about me, I’m just from out of town is all,”John stepped closer.
“Not my call, stop wasting my time and get moving,” said the guard.
John was now standing with his chest inches from the tip of the crossbow bolt. It didn’t look that sharp or elegant as a white feathered arrow would. Instead it looked more like an iron train spike. It would be effective at punching through armour, flesh and bone. It didn’t need to be fancy to do that, it had weight and speed to get the job done. The release mechanism was a lever on the top side of the stock and was operated by the thumb. John was relieved to see that the thumb was wrapped around the wooden stock keeping the crossbow steady rather than hovering over the release lever.
John’s right arm swivelled and in a quick scooping motion directed the crossbow up and away from himself so that it was pointing somewhat higher than his right shoulder. He stepped in and caught the guard on the chin with a tight uppercut sending him stumbling backwards.
The guard having been caught by surprise tripped on some rubbish and fell. John took the crossbow in hand and wrenched it from the cards grip as he fell heavily on the cobbles amongst some trash. Then, not knowing how to unload a crossbow, he aimed it into some nearby wooden crates and fired. The wood armature sprang forward, hurling the bolt into the crates, punching through the wood, and ricocheting down the alleyway causing sparks to fly whenever it struck the stone cobbles.
