Friday, December 11, 2015

Hex Monroe: The Case of the Curious Case

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.