A Clear and Feather Danger
Noah Murphy
Smashwords Edition
Copyright Noah Murphy 2011
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
To Rocco, Daisy, Louie, Sweetiepie, Elvie and all the other large macaws at the Wilson Parrot Foundation who inspired the avian characters in this book.
K23 Detectives Series:
A Clear and Feathered Danger
What Lies Within
The Impending Darkness
Website: http://www.K23Detectives.com
Twitter: @K23Dectectives
Prologue
Shivering under a flimsy cardboard box in some dingy warehouse, Eluna could hear them squawking somewhere nearby, tearing open boxes with their sharpened beaks. Their clawed feet clicking on the metal flooring rattled her tired brain as they slowly made their way through the warehouse.
Avians had been chasing her for days, weeks even, she didn’t know. Being a goblin shaman, she always knew where they were and when they were coming. But it made no difference because she was in no condition to fight.
She was filthy. Her grey skin and stringy black hair fused with a layer of dirt. She hadn’t slept more than an hour or two at a time in days. Food was scarce, as she had no money. She scrounged for rotten scraps in dumpsters and drank dirty water. On top of all that, they outnumbered her by a million to one.
She clutched a small metal shard in her palm. She slowly brought it to her neck, but it dropped and clanked on the floor.
A loud shriek deafened her as they descended on her. “You ours.”
The box was flipped over and one of the five foot purple birds picked her up with its beak and held her with its short, stocky, nearly laterally immobile arms, which were placed right where its wings attached to its large muscular torso.
“Kill me,” she muttered, too exhausted to struggle.
“No. Die. You help. Us. Now!” Another avian replied in the usual avian accent; a horribly butchered rendition of hominid languages.
Her captor flapped its wings and flew across the warehouse and out the large bay doors, her body dangling from its beak.
Chapter 1
Quintanelle Fillion quickly scanned over the job listings at a work station at the New Delta Unemployment Office, like she had been doing every day for the past few weeks.
The office was empty in the late afternoon. The only other job seeker there was some round thing with tentacles called a Brac’tai searching for some kind of work. Quintanelle wasn’t about to look over and see, but she could hear it slowly coo as its tentacles flashed over the keyboard.
Quintanelle yawned and continued on. She had moved from Teolos, the crystalline home of the Teolian elves, much to her family’s disapproval. Spending her life in civil servitude, like her father, or military service, like her sister, didn’t seem at all appealing. Her choice, her only real choice, was to move to New Delta, the technological dystopia made up of nearly sixteen-hundred mile-high towers. Residing within were every abomination and lesser creature that she had been indoctrinated to hate.
She was a newly minted mage, graduated at the top of her class, mentored by a high mage of the Mage Council of Teolos, a very prestigious honor, but nobody wanted her skills. There was no way she was qualified for summoned-item cost accounting, super-computer programming or DNA writing, despite her superior training and pedigree.
Granted, lighting your hands on fire and summoning things out of thin air weren’t directly applicable to many vocations. There had to be something, but she didn’t see anything. Well… there were jobs, but they were all for stripping, pornography, or legal prostitution, professions she wouldn’t enter even if she had a laser pistol pointed at her head. Not only that, being a Teolian Mage meant she was shut out of any New Deltan Government jobs, for which there were many, in order to prevent spying.
She felt a nudge, she looked to over to see the brac’tai looking at her, then the screen and then back at her. It whirred while it gave her a toothless grin, drool dripping down onto the floor. Quintanelle wanted to kick it away, it was slimy and ugly, but that wouldn’t be nice. It hadn’t actually done anything to her.
“You want me to look,” she asked, taking pity on the creature and giving it a break.
Its eye tentacles raised and lowered.
She leaned over and read out loud from the screen.
“Dear brac’tai designated Dave 237: Ashram-Uriah is pleased to offer you a data-entry position… Compensation is the use of a sleeping tank in our Brac’tai dormitory and an unlimited supply of nutrient solution. In addition, you will be allowed a stipend of twenty thousand credits a year for discretionary spending. Congratulations!”
Dave 237 let out a celebratory chirp, logged off, jumped off the chair and slid out the door, leaving a jubilant trail of slime as it left.
How dare that tentacle thing snag a job while she couldn’t find anything. Then again, the Brac’tai were famous for working twenty hours straight without a break as long as they were supplied with nutritional fluid.
Quintanelle put her head down on the desk. Time was running out. She had rented a small apartment, but her savings wouldn’t last much longer, and once they ran out, she would have to scurry back to Teolos and beg her mentor for a job, her dreams of freedom defeated.
Quintanelle sat up, wiped her tears and starting searching one last time.
Then she saw it, an older listing she might be perfect for. She never bothered to interview because she didn’t think she would get it, but now it was time to try; there was nothing else.
Next to the picture of a scruffy looking human male, it said, “Private detective Alfonso Deegan looking for one assistant to help with cases on a full-time basis. Interview between the hours of 09:00 and 17:00, 3/3/10021 through 3/8/10021. Tower K-23, Height 4100, Suite B. First come, first served.”
Quintanelle checked the date and time, 3/8 at 16:39. Just enough time to get over there and interview. She summoned on her purple mage robes with blue and green trim, and dashed out the office looking for the nearest tram station to take her there.
It was either that job, or back to Teolos for a life wasted as a boring civil servant.
Chapter 2
Staring at the imposing tower K-23, an oval-shaped tower which took up her entire field of vision, which seemed to stretch forever in all directions, Quintanelle wished she could go back to Teolos. Teolos was on the ground. New Delta was not.
The aluminum walkway beneath her feet thumped with the rush of passersby. A gust of wind carried the faint stench of the sludge made up of chemicals, sewage and dead bodies found twelve hundred feet below. Far above her, the dense traffic of aircrafts, riding dragons, Uthirans and avians flying to their destinations whizzed by.
As she gingerly stepped into the east lobby, she could swear she felt the tower move. Even in her own apartment, in Tower B-13, she could feel the structure creak and move, making sleeping difficult sometimes. Some towers were better than others, but since she arrived, she had always been on edge. Fortunately for her earnings prospects, she was gaining her resolve, slowly.
Just inside the door, she summoned a small mirror to check her appearance as various individuals stepped around her to go home. Her silver hair looked fine, her light skin unblemished, emerald eyes clear and robes non-ruffled. She said a small prayer to Illwyn and walked towards the lifts.
A human male in a pressed grey suit stared at her while leaning against the wall next to the bank of lifts, gaze unbroken by the passersby.
Quintanelle hadn’t interacted with humans much at all in Teolos. All she really knew was that they had dark skin due to the Southern Deltan Plain’s harsh sunlight, worshipped Elohim, couldn’t use incantation magic, excelled in technology and took two millennia to build New Delta. Yet something about this human made her uneasy for the first time as he walked over with a smile.
“Emmanuel Jones, Hightower Detective Agency. Nice to meet you.” He extended his hand.
“Excuse me?”
Emmanuel retracted his hand. “Pardon me. You are interviewing with Mr. Deegan? If you aren’t, I’m sorry and you can be on your way.”
Quintanelle stepped backwards. “Yes I am but—”
“An elven mage checking her appearance with a nervous look on her face? There’s only one place she could possibly be going right now, especially using this lobby and these lifts.”
“So—“
“Anyways, I’m here to offer all applicants of Mr. Deegan’s the opportunity to interview with us tomorrow at 09:00.”
“But why—“
“We offer a salary, hours and benefits Mr. Deegan just can’t match. Plus you’ll have the opportunity to work with a large team of experienced individuals who will teach you everything you need to know.”
“But I don’t—“
Emmanuel pulled out a business card and handed it to her. “See you tomorrow.” He started to walk away, but then stopped and turned. “It’s 17:04, Mr. Deegan is a stickler for punctuality, so you won’t get a chance with him. We aren’t so strict, just don’t be more than ten minutes late and you’ll be fine.”
Quintanelle groaned. That man made her late, but with no other job openings, she didn’t have much of a choice.
Chapter 3
Very late that evening, Alfonso sat in his office smoking a cigarette behind his desk as a shaman named Ebb sat on the other side, eyes closed, holding a quill above a piece of parchment.
Ebb was a celebrity, being the only known shaman in the city. He had a talk show, a lecture circuit, a charity foundation, and a bestselling series of self-help texts. He also had a mate who demanded that he actually help raise their seven kids. But Ebb was always willing to take time out of his busy schedule to help a good friend hire the best candidate.
Slowly his hand moved to the inkwell and then down to the parchment. With his eyes still closed, he wrote something on the parchment. The message being complete, Ebb opened his eyes and handed the parchment to Alfonso.
Alfonso stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray on the side of his desk. He opened the parchment and read it. “Hire the transplant mage from Teolos, in purple green and blue.” Alfonso crumpled the paper in his hand. “I never interviewed a single fucking mage this entire week.”
“Ye would have, if Mr. Jones no make her late,” Ebb said in the peculiar way goblins spoke every language with. “Ye still have time, she interviewing with Mr. Jones tomorrow. Catch her like Jones did.”
Alfonso smoothed the parchment. “But one mage in my life is enough for me.” He subconsciously rubbed his gold wedding band.
“Ulax say she best at present, so hire her. Ye adapt.”
Alfonso leaned forward. “Does this mage have a name?”
Ebb produced another piece of parchment from the bag at his feet, closed his eyes and wrote on it.
Alfonso took it. “Alright, I’ll catch her tomorrow.”
Ebb stood up. “Me suggest tonight. She maybe get annoyed if she get diverted twice.”
Alfonso thought about it and nodded. “And when I hire her, will you help me test her like you promised you would back when this started?”
“Yes.”
They shook hands, and said their goodbyes. Then Alfonso brought a screen out of the desk and went to look her up.
After finding her professional profile in the Teolian Embassy database, he cursed to himself he didn’t approach her first, and ran out the door.
Chapter 4
Quintanelle lay in her bed, watching some Teolian drama on the large screen attached to the opposite wall. Right now a mage was confronting his girlfriend because she was sleeping with the high mage he was apprenticing under.
She wasn’t paying much attention to it because she was nervous about the interview in nine hours. Emmanuel has been pushy, and it bothered her that he’d be stealing a competitor’s applicants, but if Emmanuel was right, then Alfonso wasn’t a great guy to work for.
Quintanelle flipped off the screen and turned off the lamp on the nightstand. She snuggled under her covers and tried to clear her mind and get some sleep.
Then the doorbell rang.
Quintanelle sat up and instinctively ignited her left hand, ready to protect herself if necessary. Nobody who rang the doorbell at midnight had good intentions.
Should she call the NDPD? No, the NDPD never responded, or so she was told. Besides, she was a mage. She could defend herself.
She squelched her hand and slowly made her way to the door in her nightgown. The doorbell rang again as she turned on the door console. It showed a scruffy human wearing some kind of pocketed Kevlar vest.
She instantly recognized him from the job ad. Still, showing up at her door at midnight only made Hightower look more appealing.
She pressed the intercom button. “Hello?”
Alfonso pressed the intercom button on his side of the door. “Ms. Fillion, it seems the scummiest bastards in the city prevented you interviewing with me. If you’re up to it, you can interview now.”
“But it’s midnight.”
“I know it’s midnight. But if you work for Hightower, you’ll be extorting the poor within a year and killing babies within two. Besides, and I know this sounds strange,” he pulled out the parchment,” a friend of mine with divine connections told me to hire you.”
Quintanelle opened the door just a crack, and stretched out her right hand, with the left flaming at the ready. Alfonso handed her the parchment.
She shut the door, turned on the lights, and her heart skipped a beat. This had to be legitimate, because how would Alfonso know what happened if she never made it past the lobby.
Just who was this guy?
“One moment, let me summon something more appropriate to wear.”
Alfonso nodded.
Quintanelle ran back to her bedroom and slipped on a casual dress.
Quintanelle opened the door.
She motioned him to the only thing in the living room, a few simple wooden chairs around a simple wooden table. “I don’t have the credits for a lot of furniture right now.”
“I don’t mind.” They sat down. “Ms. Fillion, do you know who exactly I am?”
“Should I?”
“Let’s just say Emmanuel Jones was siphoning off applicants to screw me, not out of concern for your career. You might think the comments I made earlier were jokes, they weren’t. Hightower is actually a very sophisticated extortion racket posing as a legitimate detective agency.” He took out cigarettes from his vest with a lighter and portable ashtray.
“May I smoke?”
If she was going to work for him, she’d have to let him.
He lit one and offered one.
“Thank you, but I don’t.”
He puffed and continued. “I investigate organizations like Hightower, one of the thirty-two most dangerous criminal organizations in the city, plus the one that controls them all.” Quintanelle was about to speak but he stopped her.
“You don’t need to know the specifics now. But all you need to know is that I need someone to work directly for me and help me investigate these organizations full time.” Quintanelle swallowed.
“I’ve never worked alone, it’s too dangerous, but my help has always been independent contractors who can’t be relied upon to help me at a moment’s notice. I think you’d be a rather good fit working with me, seeing as you just spent four years working directly under High Mage Dhalia Runeshadow, the espionage queen herself, investigating your friends and neighbors for the good of the glorious city of Teolos.”
Quintanelle blushed. “Not exactly…” He was absolutely right in ways he couldn’t even fathom.
“Whatever you did, you can do for me, and rest assured the people you investigate are the worst kind of scum.” He stood up and yawned.
“I need sleep and so do you. So let’s do this. Go interview with Hightower tomorrow and see if you see what I see. Then when you’re done, contact me,” he handed her a metallic business card. “And tell me yes or no.”
“Alright…” She took the card.
Alfonso gently closed the door behind him as he left, leaving Quintanelle wondering whether she had a job.
Chapter 5
Alfonso tiptoed into his dark bedroom, stripped into his underwear, and slipped into bed.
He felt stirring beside him. “Do you have an assistant?”
Alfonso felt around and discovered his wife was lying on top of the covers. He clapped on the lights to discover her, a middle-aged elf, was still in her pants suit. She hadn’t even taken off her black pumps.
“Interview with the mayor didn’t go so well, Leyla?”
“Everyone knows he bought that vacation house in the Mederwari with public funds, yet he still denies it.” She reached over and grabbed his hand. “I wish you could arrest him, Alfie.”
“So would every detective in the city.”
Leyla stood up and started undressing. “Have an assistant yet?”
“Essentially.” He explained the day’s events, with Ebb’s reading and the late night visit to Quintanelle.
“I know you’re only sending her to Hightower so you can get dirt on them as part of your investigation for the PDRA,” Leyla replied. “Did you tell Trogg and Mordridakon about your plan?”
“I did and Mordridakon’s got Selkath to help.”
Leyla laid back down. “But what if something goes wrong? Quintanelle doesn’t have any field experience. She didn’t do anything outside of Dhalia’s gaze. I know this because I went through the same thing, just in a different field.”
“I did mention Mordridakon’s sister is helping out, right?”
Leyla pulled the covers up and turned over. “Oh.”
Chapter 6
“What is a hot mage babe like you doing interviewing here?”
If Quintanelle listened to the thirty-two years of bigoted indoctrination she had been subjected to since she was a baby, the proper way to handle this was to lynch the Deltan elf that said it. Instead, she should’ve moved, but every seat in the Hightower lobby was filled with other candidates.
She turned, glared at him and said, “Excuse me?”
The elf leaned back and said, “Why do you hate? Anwen only gots the love for the Teolian mamas.”
Deltan elves were the descendants of the original Teolian immigrants millennia ago. The same sunlight which gave humans their dark skin also affected elves. It turned their skin dark purple, eyes red and hair silver. Teolos believed this was a sign of their turning to Armagda, the Destroyer, the forbidden deity who would bring about the end of the universe in a few billion years. In actuality, it was a simple adaptation and Deltan elves still worshipped Illwyn, took similar names and were as proficient in magic as their brethren. Logic never entered the picture.
Quintanelle thought of an answer to Anwen’s question.
“Because ever since I was a little girl, I’ve been told you were all evil beings who should be wiped from the face of Terrall.”
Anwen stiffened and his face turned purplish red. “Never mind.”
Quintanelle wasn’t about to tell him the real reason she was angry was because he was hitting on her, and was an idiot. Her bigotry over Deltan elves largely vanished as soon as she realized she moved onto a floor in which she was the only Teolian elf, and conversed with a few of her neighbors.
A human female on her other side leaned over and said, “Don’t worry, he hit on me too right before you walked in, that’s why you sat next to him.” Quintanelle chuckled. Anwen groaned. “I’m Contanza.” Quintanelle introduced herself. “Are you here because Mr. Jones approached you on the way out of Detective Deegan’s office?”
“Way in actually, I never made it to interview because Emmanuel made me late.”
“You’re lucky, I interviewed and was shown the door after two minutes. Detective Deegan never said why. And I have a degree in forensics from NDU.” She sighed.
Quintanelle motioned to Contanza and whispered in her ear about Alfonso’s late night visit, leaving the part out about Hightower being an extortion racket.
Contanza’s face lit up but Quintanelle put a finger to her lips.
Emmanuel walked into the lobby. “Thank you all for coming, if you follow me to our auditorium, I’ll begin our presentation.”
Emmanuel took a snaking route to the auditorium, giving a small tour. Hightower’s offices were located on the highest floor of Tower E-33, built in the shape of a step pyramid. Glass wrapped the entire exterior, and frosted glass interior walls let light in everywhere, save the rest rooms. There weren’t many workers around, mostly administrative staff as most of the employees were obviously detectives out working cases.
Quintanelle noticed something telling, which Emmanuel didn’t mention and the rest of the applicants wouldn’t have a clue about. The furniture was made from Kifari wood, which could only be obtained from Kifari trees, endemic to the Forest of Illwyn, and therefore illegal to log. Quintanelle knew this because Kifari wood had a distinctive red tint that was impossible to miss if one had seen it before. Unfortunately, it was way too late to alert her sister, a member of the Teolian Rangers, who protected the forest.
Quintanelle couldn’t help having a bad feeling about what Emmanuel was about to present.
Chapter 7
“This is not an interview,” Emmanuel said. “If you want to work for Hightower, you can all walk out of here with a job.”
He stood at a lectern at the bottom of the small auditorium. The fold-up seats were all soft leather. They were bathed by light from the glass walls in front and to one side. It was a cheery place, but Quintanelle didn’t feel cheerful. Constanza, sitting next to her, sat with her full attention on Emmanuel.
“I know we have at least one immigrant in the audience, so let me back up,” Emmanuel continued. “New Delta is simply too big and the city’s budget too small, for the New Delta Police Department and its various divisions to keep law and order. Private Detectives were the solution devised. Private detectives have all the rights and responsibilities the official police do, only we are paid by the clients, not the city. A conflict of interest, sure, but a necessary - and very profitable - one.” Contanza’s hand went up, “Yes?”
“But none of us are private detectives,” she said.
Quintanelle saw a purple flash out of the corner of her eye, she turned to look but it was gone.
Emmanuel smiled. “I’m glad you brought that up. To be a licensed private detective, you must pass the Private Detective Licensing Exam.” Sighs erupted across the room.
“The PDLE is widely considered the hardest exam ever created, with a ninety-five percent failure rate the first time, eighty-three the second, seventy-five the third. It is a grueling eight hour virtual reality exam that will test your abilities with a constantly changing bank of ten thousand simulations covering a millennium of history. It took me three times to pass and that is better than average.” There was a nervous silence.
“But there is a loophole, and it is called an Assistant Private Detective. APDs were designed to help candidates pass the exam. They can do everything a licensed detective can do, except close cases. That means that only cases reviewed and presented by a licensed detective to Legaltron are legally binding. If they aren’t, civil or criminal proceedings cannot be conducted. Plaintiffs cannot be sued; arrested criminals walk out the door.”
Purple flashed outside again and this time more people turned to look. Emmanuel didn’t notice.
“But while submitting to Legaltron is the preferred method, dealing with Legaltron is a hassle. It’s a computer! You have to present your cases in a certain format and even when you do, Legaltron could throw your case out on some technicality and order your payment be refunded to the client. We do things differently here at Hightower. We order the target of our investigation a choice. Pay us a whole bunch of money or be at the mercy of Legaltron. And we always make it so that the money demanded is a punishment in itself.” There it was, an admission that they were an extortion racket, without actually admitting they were an extortion racket.
Quintanelle stood and silently shuffled toward the door. Constanza was right behind her.
“You know you ladies are turning down six figures by leaving?” Emmanuelle said.
They ignored him and swept out of the room.
“Well, now that those who hate money have left us, let us get down to specifics.”
Chapter 8
“I think we’re lost,” Contanza said as they went the down the dead end hallway then ended in yet another office with workers who shooed them off.
“I swore the lobby was this way.” They backtracked and went left instead of right, and the lobby was in front of them.
They walked towards the lifts, when Contanza stopped them. The walls were turning purple. Or rather, whatever was hovering just outside was turning them purple. Murmurs could be heard all over.
“We need to leave,” Quintanelle said.
“No, you’re safe with me.” Contanza gripped her hand, hard.
Quintanelle faced her. “Why—“ An epiphany went off in her head.
“What aren’t you telling me? Did Mr. Deegan send you too? What is going on?”
Loud shrieking shook the walls.
“My name isn’t Contanza, she didn’t make it in this morning. My real name,” her brown eyes shimmered a deep red as a primeval growl escaped her throat, “is Selkath.”
“You’re an—“ Her mouth formed the first syllable of “Uthiran” as the exterior walls shattered.
Screams echoed and blood began to spatter and stain the remaining walls.
Selkath slammed Quintanelle to the floor and resumed her true form, a red-scaled dragon ten feet tall and thirty feet long. She coiled her tail around Quintanelle as the lobby walls shattered and several avians armed with various melee weapons and guns flew in for the attack.
Selkath incinerated them with short bursts of fire. She swung Quintanelle onto her back as another red Uthiran stormed past, chewing on an avian while Alfonso appeared behind him, blasting away with twin laser pistols.
“I hate you!” Quintanelle screamed.
She was drowned out by the final glass walls shattering as an ogre smashed through, batting one avian with another.
By that point, the avians had begun to flee via the now numerous wall absences.
In what seemed to be only a minute or two, the fancy Hightower Detective Agency was nothing more than a blood-covered wasteland of glass, wood and corpses, ruffled and tossed by the winds who now resided within.
Chapter 9
Quintanelle jumped off Selkath’s back and ran towards the stairs in the destroyed Hightower lobby. Trogg, the ogre, bounded over and grabbed her hood. “Where are you going, Quintanelle?” The eight foot ogre said in near perfect Common, a rarity among ogres.
“I quit!”
The dragons sat back on the haunches and chuckled.
“Good luck with that,” Mordridakon, the other red Uthiran, said.
“Why?”
“Because if you walk away,” Alfonso said, “Dahlia is never going accept you back, knowing that you are a wimp and a failure. Even I know Teolos doesn’t accept failure from mages. You knew full well what you were getting yourself into. You’re truly an idiot if you thought I’d send someone like you over to the competition without something up my sleeve.” Alfonso was right. She knew there had to be a reason why he was sending her over, she just didn’t know what it was.
The survivors, everyone from the auditorium not named Emmanuel Jones, slowly made their way through the rubble. They were shocked and scared, but otherwise unharmed.
“Trogg, lead them downstairs, there should be a lift to take them to the walkways.”
“I—I— drove here in my aircraft,” one person said.
“I’m not going to be responsible for you crashing because of your current condition. Go home, rest, get some therapy if you want, then come back and get it,” Alfonso said.
“What do you want me to do when I let them go?” Trogg said.
“Don’t you have a class to teach?” Mordridakon said, “I’ve always wanted to audit ‘Representations of Ogres in Elven Culture’. I heard it’s quite practical.”
Trogg snorted. “Not funny, it’s a serious class that deals with serious issues.” He checked his watch. “It’s in less than an hour. I’ll check back later.” Trogg and the survivors walked down the stairs.
“He’s a professor?”
“Yes,” Selkath said, “the first professor of Ogre Studies, ever. Now,” she looked at Alfonso, “what do you want us to do? Mr. Hartigan wants me back as soon as possible. I’m using leave for this.”
“Go,” Alfonso said, “the three of us can handle this, right, Mordridakon?” Selkath started towards the edge.
Mordridakon nodded.
“I can stay. You’re paying me a lot more than you are them.” He looked at Quintanelle and growled, “He better not be paying you more than me!”
Quintanelle nervously stepped back. Alfonso put a hand on her shoulder.
“I’m paying her plenty.” He whispered in her ear,”250k a year plus health insurance.” That news took some of her fatigue away.
Mordridakon growled. ”I heard—“
“Sorry to interrupt your whining, brother,” Selkath said from the edge, “but you’ve got company.”
Selkath flew off just as several large NDPD Tactical Assistance Unit ships arrived, with their entourage of a hearse-craft from the Coroner’s Office at the Medical Center. The ships gathered around the perimeter of the floor.
Officers clad in full black body armor, some orcs, some humans, even a dwarf, jumped out and began going through the rubble. They bagged corpses and put them in the back of the hearse. Any non-broken screens went into the hold of a designated gunship.
“They’re taking your crime scene,” Quintanelle said.
“I know, something’s not right…”
A middle-aged human woman with short hair and wearing jeans and upper-body armor walked over to the detectives.
“Glenn, how did you—“
“What I’m about to show you is classified. If you leak this to your wife, I’m going to have your license revoked and throw you in prison.”
Mordridakon thumped his tail. “There’s nothing classified about what just happened.”
Glenn pulled out a screen and handed it to Alfonso. “This was sent directly to me about half-an-hour ago, right before the attack.”
The message read: ‘We have shaman, feel our wrath. Go to Tower E-33 to see our power.’
It was signed by Sisqub, Flockmaster of the Avian Syndicate.
“This is bad,” Quintanelle said. “A shaman in the wrong hands can be devastating.”
Glenn looked at the elf. “And you are?”
Alfonso introduced Quintanelle.
“I’m Glenn Lowery, Commissioner of the New Delta Private Detective Regulatory Agency, as well as the Tactical Assistance Unit, since their job is to assist detectives. As for the message, we have to assume this is legitimate and I’m taking it very seriously.”
“There’s only one shaman I know,” commented Alfonso as he handed Mordridakon the screen, “and he would rather die than help the Syndicate.”
“That doesn’t mean there isn’t a corrupt one out there,” Quintanelle said. “The problem is finding him. They are invisible to divination magic of any kind. Shamen and seers are useless in this matter.”
Mordridakon handed the screen to Glenn. “Look for the goblin standing next to Sisqub, not too difficult—“
“Except for the several million hostile avians perched between us and them,” Alfonso said. Quintanelle swallowed, hard.
“Correct. If the city is going to launch a campaign against the Avian Syndicate, I need definitive proof that they are using a shaman and that they are an active threat to the government or megacorps.”
“So we’re looking for a clear and feathered danger?” Mordridakon asked.
“Yes,” Glenn pulled a currency card and gave it to Alfonso. “Even though I’m going to have to rethink the Hightower case internally, I’m paying you the rest of the full fee since I unfortunately can’t pay anything upfront on this new, potentially devastating, matter. As we all know, the mayor’s official line is that the Avian Syndicate poses no threat. Even so, I need your full attention on this. If there’s another attack, I need you there immediately.”
Alfonso put the card in his vest. “You’ll have it.”
News aircraft were now circling. “Remember what I said about your wife.” Glenn turned to the TAU officers. “We’re leaving. Is everything done here?”
An officer tossed a corpse into the back of the hearse. “Now it is.”
“One last thing,” Alfonso said, ”The Hightower detectives that were out during the attack. What do you want me to do when they decide to come after me?”
“Don’t worry about them. We’re rounding them up. Just focus on your new case.”
Glenn and the officers jumped back into the aircrafts and flew off. Most of the news aircraft took off after them, except for one, which flew inside and parked on the floor.
Alfonso took out a cigarette and lit it.
Quintanelle had a million questions, but decided she should save them as the door opened and Leyla walked out followed by a camera pod.
Mordridakon transformed into a human, took Quintanelle by the wrist and led her away.
“What’s going on?”
“You don’t want to be standing around when the argument starts.”
“Why? They don’t get al—“ Glenn’s earlier comment suddenly made sense. “Oh my!”
Cognitive dissonance shot through Quintanelle’s mind. Leyla Linour, a famous and well-paid Teolian elf reporter married to… a human? Everything Quintanelle had learned about good race relations evaporated into thin air.
Chapter 10
“Tell me again why Alfonso and Leyla shouldn’t be married, but this time you can’t use the words bad, affront, insult, abomination or immoral. You also cannot mention the myth that they can’t have children, I’ve got several half-Teolian elves I can introduce you to.”
Quintanelle groaned. Mordridakon was right, her argument was faulty, but thirty-two years of indoctrination ruled. “But she’ll out-live him.”
“Not by much, she’s sixty-six, he’s thirty-six. She’s already said she’s magically slowing his aging so he looks and feels fifty when he’s one hundred. When he croaks the day after his hundredth birthday, she’ll be one hundred and thirty, an old elf. Besides, you don’t age like humans normally do. There are female elven sex symbols who are over a hundred—“
“That’s enough, you win,” Quintanelle sat down on the stairs, ”tell me about you.”
“I was hatched from an egg. I had thirty-two siblings of which only Selkath still survives because my father ate ten others; five more got dehydrated from laying out in the sun too long; six were squished…“ Alfonso and Leyla walked down the stairs together, rescuing Quintanelle. “Divorced yet?”
“No,” Leyla lightly gripped Alfonso’s hand. “I’m not stupid enough to report that message. Causing a city-wide riot is not good for my job.”
“So what will you report?” Quintanelle asked.
“I reported that avians attacked Hightower due to an attempted coup. Probably close to the truth.”
“Anyways, we have to get investigating. Ebb is the best place to start. Leyla has offered to drive us. We’ll grab food on the way.”
“Can we stop by the Plains Diner? I know it’s on the way,” Mordridakon asked.
Leyla and Alfonso both said, “No!” and walked backed up the stairs.
Quintanelle and Mordridakon followed. “What’s the Plains Diner?”
“Take-out place that has a live food menu for Uthirans.”
“I think I agree with them.”
“I know, I just love riling them up with that.”
Fortunately for Mordridakon, the fly-through the hominids chose was right below the Plains Diner. So Mordridakon broke off and went.
Because it was impractical for Uthirans to carry currency cards, all Mordridakon had to do was get his retina scanned. A set amount of money was deducted from a pre-paid account. He then flew into an expansive field and picked off a tasty looking goat.
Mordridakon was happily chewing it to a pulp by the time the hominids made it to the order kiosk, paid, got their food and exited. He spit out a cleaned bone into the abyss and fol-lowed.
“I think I’m going to wait until we land to eat this,” Quintanelle said. Flying thousands of feet up didn’t help. She placed the bag down next to her.
“You get used to it,” Alfonso replied from the front passenger’s seat, and then dug into his cheeseburger as Leyla pulled onto the skyway.
“Why does he work for you? He seems unstable.”
“Don’t underestimate him. Mordridakon is a great private detective, one of the very few Uthirans who is licensed. He mostly does work for the Department of Uthiran Affairs, checking on Uthirans to make sure they’re following the rules. The DUA doesn’t pay a lot, so he supplements his income by contracting with me.”
“But everything that comes out of his mouth is either sarcastic, a joke or ended with a weird comment.”
“Most Uthirans are crazy to varying degrees,” Leyla said. “You just never noticed it in Teolos because there were so few of them. Living centuries does that to them. Insanity is their coping mechanism in dealing with an ever changing Hominia, or boredom on Uthira. I know this because I did a long feature story on Uthiran mental health a few years ago.”
“Selkath seemed well adjusted.”
“She’s a shopaholic. Her den is crammed full of shit she never needs or wears,” Alfonso replied. “When it gets so full she can’t stretch out in her natural form, she dumps the contents and buys some more.”
Leyla tapped her heels against the floor. “I have twenty pair of shoes and wear all of them throughout the year. The last time I visited her place, she had a pile of unopened shoe boxes fifteen feet high.”
“In an apartment,” Quintanelle asked.
“No,” Alfonso replied once he finished his soda. “Uthirans live in specially modified warehouses. They’re the only common structure that can accommodate their size. Their rent is practically nothing compared to ours.”
“If had the disposable income she has, I’d be a shopaholic too.”
“Not as long as I do the finances you fucking won’t.”
Leyla laughed as they pulled into the parking garage. Alfonso and Quintanelle got out as Mordridakon landed behind them and transformed.
As Alfonso kissed his wife goodbye, Quintanelle scarfed down her food.
Mordridakon watched and smiled. “You should really try the goat sometime, it’s quite filling.”
Quintanelle pretended not to hear.
Chapter 11
Ebb was loaded, but instead of hoarding his wealth, he gave it away to his suffering brethren via the Ebb Foundation. The Foundation took up Tower A-39, an old and decrepit tower in the city’s south west corner. It contained a school, rec center, day care, dormitory, job training and placement, as well as various financial assistance programs. Ebb didn’t have time to oversee the program, even though he was often there giving free consultation sessions to the downtrodden goblins who needed guidance.
And the downtrodden were many. So many that the line stretched nearly a quarter-mile in a straight line to Ebb’s office, starting from just inside the parking garage door. The hallway was surprisingly clean and well lit, but the downtrodden needed clean and cheery to lift their spirits.
Alfonso, Quintanelle and Mordridakon tried to shimmy past the line, but a goblin woman with a baby on her back grabbed Alfonso’s pant leg. “Getting me mate to support me is more important that what ye here for. Get in line!” And so they did.
“I’ll be napping in the parking garage if you need me.” Mordridakon walked out.
“Why do so many need guidance?” Quintanelle asked.
Alfonso pointed to a male with only one arm further down the line. “Man with the missing arm.” The man turned around.
“Yes?”
“Would you mind telling my assistant exactly why you’re here?”