Moth Bleedsode sat in the pointedly
uncomfortable chair opposite Hex's desk. His perfectly tailored suit,
impossibly white shirt and ramrod posture deflated the imposing sense
Hex expected the five feet of Torian Bindwood that was his desk to
impose. Sitting on his haunches, lazily flicking his tail from left
to right was a fat black cat looking intently at at small guilded box
emblazoned with a onyx H on its lid.
“Is that a cigarette box?” He asked
with a baffling mixture of excited indifference.
“It sure is. Never met a cat who
smoked.”
“Fang doesn't smoke.” Moth
interjected.
Fang turned his gaze to Hex and said,
“Maybe I want to try.”
“Don't be ridiculous, cat's don't
have lips.”
“You could turn me into fish. They
have lips!”
“You can't smoke underwater you
dolt.” Moth said as he closed his eyes and pushed his thumb and
index finger under the bridge of his glasses to rub his nose.
Hex smiled and cheerfully offered to
enchant the cigarette so Fang could smoke it under water.
“Would the both of you please shut
up? I am not a fan of this neighborhood in
which you have chosen to set up shop and would prefer to finish our
business as quickly as possible.”
Hex leaned back
into his overstuffed leather chair. The antithesis of the one which
Moth occupied and studied him intently. The founder of one of the
largest ad agencies in the country he was, ironically, almost as well
known for his reclusive nature. He was rarely seen out and about. He
seemed, unlike his comrades in influence who liked to flaunt their
status, to find the social scene distasteful. A ridiculous chore best
left to those who had nothing better to do than waste their free time
jockeying for position to place their fingers in the sweetest parts
of the pudding. It was said that he was offered an Attendant role at
the Tower of Scales and refused it without some much as a second
thought. It was also said that not only did the wildly successful
slogan, “The right beer for every occasion, literally.” only
hours after his firm received the pitch inquiry from Bloodweiser, he
also crafted he “inCANtation” spell which allowed people to
choose the style of beer before they opened the can.
Most people though
the former was apocryphal, and believed that only crackpots believed
the latter. Moth, after all, had never shown any indication of being
an Adept. When one of the city's more disreputable papers tried to
run an “expose” Moth sued them, forcing them to admit that they
had not been able to find any record that he had so much as made a
blip when he took the Test. Two weeks after the lawsuit was settled,
the offices of the paper burned to the ground while Moth was on a
business trip in Illiad. Nobody asked any questions, including what
the hell Moth would be doing having ad meetings with those
abominations up North. Hex considered himself a “crackpot”, but
he kept his mouth shut because he wanted to be the only person who
thought that. He also didn't want his office to get burned to the
ground.
“I'm on your dime
Mr. Bleedsode.” Hex said, spreading his arms and shrugging
slightly.
“I assume you
called me here because you found the reliquary Aethron?”
“Well. Kind of?”
Moth stood from his
chair with the kind of spry energy Hex did not expect.
“Please do not
tell me you had me come all the way down to this miserable part
of town to sit in the miserable office just to tell me you have
nothing. And why the hell is that window open? It's winter for fuck's
sake!”
Hex tightened his
jacket before responding.
“No, no, no. I'll
start at the end and work backwards. The window is open because the
heat is broken. Can't turn it off. It's either be a little chilly or
sit in virtual inferno. Possibly a literal one. The furnace is
absolutely ancient, and the dragon is a little funny upstairs. If you
know what I mean. As for the reliquary, I found it, it's just kind
of complicated. Like putting together an ad campaign for the tourist
board up North.”
Hex noticed a shift
behind Moth's eyes. It wasn't enough to tip his hand, but Hex was
pleased with himself at having been able to get a jab in. Fang yawned
lazily, but Hex swore he caught a hint of the closest a familiar in
cat form could come to a smile.
“I didn't want to
hire you, you know? You were one of the best private detectives in
the business. How many times did your name appear in the trades for
your work with the Shoba's alone? Reliable sources told me that
Porter Distaff herself offered you a fortune and unfettered access to
her vault of forbidden books. Yet you turned her down, disappeared
for two years, and returned as a disgraced public detective.”
Now Hex felt a
shift behind his eyes.
“Well, you know
how it is. Money and access to books that could expand your knowledge
in ways you can't comprehend aren't everything. And I didn't
disappear, I took a sabbatical. Where I realized my true calling was
in serving the greater good of the people, like spouses who are being
cheated on or a ghost who lost their assigned haunting victims and
need help finding them. Look, what I'm trying to say is...”
Hex's hard work at
digging a hole into his hole was thankfully cut short as the
broadcasting stone tucked into the far corner of his office burst
into life.
“This week, on
Detective Bloodclaw! The case of the negligent necromancer!”
Images began to
flicker across the front of the smooth rectangular stone. A middle
aged man wearing a greatcoat and a hat of ambiguous style standing
across from a young woman in a generic lab coat. A steel medical
table between them.
“Dead bodies
don't just stroll out of here!” She said, her face forming the
perfect approximation of outrage.
“Don't they?”
The middle aged man oozed the kind of indifference that would put
Fang to shame.
“What are you
trying to say detective? We haven't a licensed necromancer on staff
for almost six months!”
“Who said
anything about licensed?”
The stone fell dark
and silent, and Moth sighed deeply.
“Why the hell do
you have one of those infernal devices if you don't even watch it
enough to avoid the compulsory ads?”
“I thought you'd
like compulsory ads?'
“Where the hell
is my reliquary!”
Hex leaned forward
and opened the cigarette box, pulling one out. It lit as soon as he
put it to his lips; the first “trick” he learned in high school.
His father was far more furious that Hex had learned such a silly
parlor trick than that he had started smoking. Hex, of course, was
far more pleased that he had learned something that impressed the
girls. He took a deep pull and exhaled through his nose, recalling
the time he was walking to his office and, passing some children, he
had done the same and they went into a frenzy of joy because he
looked like he was a dragon. As he remembered their cries to ask him
to do it again, he looked at Fang and winked. Fang froze, but, Hex
caught a hint of the closest a familiar in cat form could come to a
smile.
“Here it is.”,
Hex said as he gestured towards Fang.
“What the hell
are you talking about you blasted fool? This miserable servant has
nothing to do with Aethron!”
“Really? It never
occurred to you that you that the same day that your most precious
possession vanished without a trace under some of the best security
was the same day you summoned your familiar?”
Red flooded into
Moth's face as he began to realize how obviously stupid he had been.
His hands curled into white, balled fists and Hex became keenly aware
of a shift in energy. He had mixed feelings about not being a
crackpot as the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He took a
deep breath and prepared himself, summoning his own energies. Hex
didn't like not knowing what Moth was capable of, fortunately Fang
took the cue and, giving a quick wink to Hex jumped out the open
window. Moth jumped out of his chair with such force that it flew
against the back wall and shattered. Hex stood as well, his mind
focused on the wand on his inside left coat pocket.
“Son of a bitch!
What have you done? Go get that can now!”
Hex smiled and sat
back down.
“I'm afraid I'm
gonna have to say no to that.”
Cold blue fire
erupted around Moth's eyes.
“I hired you to
bring me Aethron and you will bring it too me!'
“And I brought it
to you. It's not my fault you let it get away. Now, you could hire me
again to bring it to you again, but I'm afraid this is my busy time
of the year what with cheating spouses and the whatnot. You can, of
course, lodge a complaint with the Detective Guild, but seeing as I
have completed our contract the the letter I think things aren't
going to go your way and it would be a real shame for you to lose a
complaint to the Guild. Even a man of your money can find it
difficult to find a detective when they've lost a complaint. Make it
a lot harder to find that cat of yours. Also, you seem to have shown
something that the MRC might be interest in”
Moth settled back
into the cool demeanor he had when he first walked in.
“You have no idea
what you have done or how much you will pay.”, He said calmly as he
turned and strode out the door.
Hex put his head on
his desk and began wondered if there was any need for detectives in
the Pastoral Lands.
