Re: The Chain of Pursuit
Tracey dashed out of the shadows of an alley, and flattened herself against a wall. Four of her ogres followed her, with considerably less use of the dashing and flattening motions. They sort of just stood around between some trash cans, making a vague attempt not to be seen by anyone who didn’t bother to distinguish the green, smelly piles of paper and fish bones from the green, smelly piles of flesh.
Thanks to various contacts scattered across the city, and some of her own detective skills, she had managed to trace Cadenza Madrigal to this neighborhood. And now, she couldn’t be more than a few blocks away. In what direction, Tracey hadn’t the faintest clue, but a few blocks was a few blocks.
She sidled along to the end of the street; there, she heard a rustling from some dumpsters behind an inn. She waved to her squad, telling them to follow at a distance, and, gripping her pistol in one hand, she inched around to the edge of the building.
A pained groan sounded behind her.
The sleuth’s eyes shot back. Mentally, she counted heads. One, two, three…three ogres. She swallowed hard, and tried to remember names. Hammerhead and Gragnor were there. Mumbler…she waited for one to speak. Yes, Mumbler’s here.
Snotty was missing.
Confused, Gragnor struck a match off Hammerhead’s arm and waved it around in the dark alley. Tracey immediately shouted at him to put it out, but it was too late—the match came alight again, but this time, the flame had come from what looked like a Bunsen burner welded onto a metal poker.
“Oi, Señorita. First a’ time in Sereia?”
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He replaced the ring in the box, and shut it tight.
Just a few things to be taken care of. A few last jobs so that no one wonders. And then…
His eyes traced along the curve of the dark wood, to the last red-ash bits of the cigar beside it. The last few letters, a swirling, golden “al” of the tobacconist name, were all that were left of the thing aside from those ashes.
…and then what? How do I begin?
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Tracey staggered back, leveling her pistol at the big, oil-stained face that appeared in the matchlight. The man looked only marginally sane.
“What do you want?” she demanded, but the man’s eyes were not on her. He was looking to the alley; to the dumpsters beyond, and then suddenly his gaze swept angrily to Mumbler who gave a particularly metallic sounding crunch.
“One of these things made da lunch of some of my metal,” he said slowly, poker raised. His gaze flickered back to the dumpster for another second at the sound of claws scrabbling on stone, but shot back before Tracey felt free enough to follow with her eyes and look. Hammerhead and Gragnor thought they spotted something purple there, like maybe a wing, but their color vision wasn’t the best, so they shrugged it off and turned around to stare at Mumbler. It wasn’t often that they weren’t all in trouble together; they couldn’t remember the last time they were on the outside of the group to be punished.
“I’m…sorry. I’ll repay you later, okay? Right now I’m on--”
“One thousand zecca!”
“W-what?”
“That’s a’ how much your friend ate! One thousand zecca worth, like they were metallic churros!”
“A-ah, all right, I’ll, ah, make out a check tomorrow, to, ah…”
“Omar Vargas!”
“R-right, but ah…just, right now I need to investigate something before it runs away, and…”
Mumbler had gone unattended for too long; no one noticed how he had been eyeing the poker whirling about in Omar’s hand, doing tantalizing little figure-eights in the man’s madness. The ogre’s mouth had begun to water as he watched it—and now, with the spicy, fiery tip held right before him, he just couldn’t resist.
He bit the Bunsen burner straight off, and crunched.
Tracey and Vargas’ faces snapped to him, eyes gone alarmingly wide. The breath catching in their throats was audible; Hammerhead swore that the inspector had nearly choked for a moment there.
No words came for a long, tense minute.
And then the blacksmith gave a terrible growl, and pounced. Man and ogre rolled down the dusty street for meters, fists flying and hot metal bits scattering, and then footfalls chasing other footfalls could be heard going off down the street as steel crunched and clanged.
Tracey was just about to turn around and inspect the dumpsters behind the inns when she heard another footstep, like a boot lightly tapping on clay shingles.
“So these guys are your Baker Street Irregulars, are they?”
The girl’s head jerked up, as if on a string, and stared at the figure of Cadenza Madrigal on the roof of an inn. She felt goosebumps run along her arms.
These ogres are just as bad as the pirates in the bar, Cadenza thought, watching as Hammerhead dimly glanced around for the source of the voice. After a pathetic second, Gragnor tapped him and pointed up.
No, actually—to be fair, they aren’t. These ogres are smarter. And that was just about the nicest thing Cadenza had ever thought about any copper who wasn’t dead and named Johnny.
Tracey had nearly gone into adrenaline-induced convulsions. Her gun pointed at various points on the roof, none of which coincided with Cadenza’s actual location. “H-h-h-n…”
“Oh, come now, Inspector. I thought you’d seen me enough times that we’d at least be at the level of witty repartee now. If not already exchanging blows.”
“Y-y-y…”
Cadenza watched as a flash of purple shot up from behind the inns and into the next alley. Everyone else was too focused on her to notice.
Tracey was just begging for someone to cut off her yammering with another remark, so to speed things along, the gypsy went on, “Well, your boys can’t arrest me now anyway, Red—I’ve got a perdón from King Olmo himself.”
“Y-you’re violating your parole!” the sleuth finally burst out, the redness draining from her face like the air from a stressed balloon.
“Oh,” Cadenza said incredulously, “am I? I thought Mrs. Montag was behind me this whole time. Guess that reek was just rotting fish then.”
Tracey said something else, but the woman wasn’t paying attention. She had to pull Avello’s fat out of the fire here as Omar had tried to; if she didn’t, she’d be right back on the most wanted list for a count of “Having a Pet Ravage an Officer”.
It wasn’t a very common crime for anything but dogs.
“Look, de Carlo,” she continued, waving off the girl’s ramblings with a hand, “I’ll be back in Blancwood in time for my first appointment with the life coach. I just had to pick up a present for my dad for when he gets released the day after.”
“And you couldn’t find it in Blancwood?”
“It’s a case of Sereia’s special rum, Red. They only sell it here.”
Hammerhead nodded emphatically in agreement with this. Gragnor smacked him across the forehead.
“Okay, okay,” Tracey said, pacing away, “I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, Madrigal. Benefit of a lot of doubt.”
Cadenza watched as the girl walked up and down the alley, hands held behind her back as she pondered things over. The little sleuth seemed to think she knew how to play the game; and hey, if it wasn’t going to harm her any, she wasn’t about to disillusion the fool.
Tracey went on, chest and voice puffed out with feigned confidence. “I’ll give you the rest of the night,” she said, “but after that, you have to return to Blancwood, or…or we’ll be back for you. Understand?”
The stammer hadn’t helped her image here at all, but the girl forged on, trying to brush it aside. “One night, okay? And no more.”
Cadenza smiled broadly. Tracey wished she could read the thoughts behind that smile. “Sure,” the gypsy said. “One night and then I’m back to Blancwood.”
“Good. I’m…glad we understand one another.”
As satisfied as she could be that the matter was settled, Tracey whistled to Hammerhead and Gragnor, and then marched off into the night to retrieve Mumbler (and, when she was far away enough out of Cadenza’s sight, call Moreno to make sure the deal she had just made was all right.)
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Mrs. Bratwurst made her way along the stalls of fishmongers, eyeing their goods with the sort of disdain only one chief of industry could show towards a rival. It was a little like a McDonalds manager strolling through a Taco Bell, she thought; both sold food for the unwashed masses, but if people were spending money with them, and then they weren’t spending that money with you. It didn’t matter that one sold burgers and the other tacos. Or, in this case, one sold fish and one used to sell sausages.
“So, ah…Sir, what do you call these little things on their sides?”
The man questioned followed the line of her pudgy finger to one of his fish.
“Pardon, Señora?
“The slits on the poor dears’ sides…what are those?”
The fishmonger scratched at his moustache, and ran an appraising eye over the bodies of his wares. “The, ah…gills, Señora?”
Montag shot him a disgusted look. “Do you always scratch that crumbduster of a moustache over your food? You could get stray hairs in the…the gills!”
“Uwah? Get away! Get away from my stall! I will not have the cleanliness of my goods questioned here!”
Offended more than she could remember being in quite some time, Officer Montag scuttled away from the enraged fish seller and proceeded along to the stalls where pieces of shell jewelry were being hawked. With her head turned back towards the mustachioed merchant to ensure she wasn’t struck with an unexpected mackerel or whatever it was they had in these parts, she didn’t see that she was about to run straight into a redheaded girl and two ogres.
Her bulk hit the pavement with a resounding thud!
“Gragh?” Hammerhead said. He wasn’t used to being knocked flat on his back so easily.
“You just bumped into some lady, Hammerhead! Apologize right away!”
The ogre looked up at his employer, and grumbled. His aching bottom seemed to think that this lady should apologize to him for the making the world shake.
“Officer Hammerhead, you heard me!”
“Righ-ragh.”
“Hammerhead!”
“…Gragh-morg,” he muttered reluctantly, not meeting Montag’s gaze.
“Thank you, Sir,” she said, and then looking up, she added in what she thought was a quiet tone, “Sometimes these beasts don’t know any better. Not too bright in the head, you know.”
She slowly became aware of the two huge, green hands that had wrapped themselves around her wrists.
“Where are you from, ma’am?” the girl asked, pointedly ignoring how her lackey was mistreating the woman.
“I’m an officer here,” Montag said with some hostility, “but I’m originally from Stuttgart.”
Meat sprayed across Tracey’s face. A disinfectant wipe was not offered afterward.
“Stuttgart, eh?” Tracey went on, talking through the sinking feelings of disgust and embarrassment as she raised a hand to clean her face, “What pea-brained idiot names these countries?”
The parole officer struggled forward to deliver a firm reprimanding smack for that insult, but Hammerhead’s grip proved to be too strong. She growled.
“Well, here, Officer,” the sleuth said haughtily, “we don’t insult people when the remark will go over their heads. It’s not right. The ogres should have a fair shot at responding back.”
It was a shudder; just a small, indistinct movement, but it confused Hammerhead enough that he lost his grip. A meaty, freckled fist snapped up and caught him under the chin, and then, shaking with the effort, grabbed Tracey by the collar and pulled her close until they were nearly nose-to-nose.
“I have not had a good day, Fraulein. It started well—but it’s been taking a dreadful turn for the worse. And personally, I would not suggest making it any worse.”
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Last edited by Altamira; 12-25-2007 at 09:06 PM..