14

Greedy Ferret

RINGËD

I kicked the splintered wreckage of a broken crate in Nulani’s bazaar, the streetlamps dimly showing me the crappy state of the place.

I bent to touch my fingers to a dried spot of blood on the cobblestones, my Third Eye opening as I evoked my prophetic Hallows. Through someone else’s eyes, a scene played like a film.

Screams ripped through the bazaar, shifters scurrying out of the aisles and toppling booths, Necrofera ripping off arms and cracking open ribs in a splatter of blood.

The narrator of this scene heaved raw breaths, his heart thundering and panic hurling his legs forward to find an escape—

Pain shocked his brain, a claw pushed through the side of his head as he collapsed…

The vision ended, and my own perspective blinked back to the dark street in the present time.

“Artist sink me,” I cursed, rising. “A Fera attack? Way out here?”

“<What!>” the breathy snickers of Kurn piped, the feral ferret’s head popping out of the messenger bag at my waist. He was chewing on a dried apricot he’d apparently stolen from the box in there. His round ears swiveled as he got a lay of the land, the mask-patterned fur hugging his eyes now sweeping over the ruined bazaar. “<What danger have you brought me to this time, butler! Demons, here? You assured me they were in the valleys to the east!>”

“They were,” I said, getting out a smoke and lighting it. “They moved a long way to get here. But why, damn it? It doesn’t make sense.”

Kurn’s breaths were questioning. “<So then? Where is the strange-eyed one? Whatever transpired here seems to have passed hours ago.>”

I took a hit from my smoke. “I don’t know. But I can start with Rochelle, find where she lives.” I dug into my satchel and lowered a handkerchief to his nose. “This used to be hers, see if you can get a scent off it, Kurn.”

Kurn sniffed at the cotton fibers, then his ears swiveled right and he swung his head that way. “<Ah, yes! I remember that scent. The woman who smelled like buttercream and apples, some years back. That is a scent I won’t soon forget.”

He tossed the dried apricot he was nibbling on and scurried out of the bag, touching to the stones and hobbled rightward. “<Come along, Ringëd! Perhaps if we’re quick enough, she’ll make those scrumptious raisin cookies she used to make!>”

Suspicious, I rummaged through the bag and snatched the box of apricots I was saving for snacks. I shook it, and a small tpt, tpt, tpt rattled. One left. It had been a full box.

“You fat little bandit!” I stomped after him, and he scurried faster, seeing he was in for some real trouble now. “You’re damned lucky I don’t have claws! I’d scratch you up so bad, those snacks would pour outta you like a split waterskin—”

“Hey!” a guy shouted at me from down-a-ways. He fumbled over the bazaar’s wreckage to get to me, hefting his spear and pointing the tip at me to stop me from going forward. “You’re in a restricted area, and it’s past curfew—!”

“Yeah, yeah, pipe down will ya?” I zipped open my vest to show him the badge pinned to the inside fabric, the brass shield reading Officer Ringëd Fleetfûrt, B.B. Seeker Department. “I’m exempt from curfew, just like you, pal.”

“Oh.” He lifted his spear and leaned on it instead. “Sorry. Guess I’m kinda jumpy, after what happened this morning.”

“No kidding.” I pulled the cigarette free from my lips and waved it in a smoky circle. “So, uh, about the Reapers that were here for it. You don’t happen to know where they went, do you?”

His eyes splintered open, his grip on the spear starting to shake. “Th-th-them…? Why do you want to know that?”

“I got my reasons,” I said. “Do you know where they are or not? I’m in the middle of an investigation, I don’t have time to dick around here.”

The spear-toting Runner rubbed his neck nervously, hound ears growing from his head. “You didn’t see the news?”

I raised an eyebrow. “No. Why?”

“They got his face on camera during the attack,” he said, shivering so bad I was worried he’d have a seizure. “One of the Grimlings. He… he’s…” He lowered his tone to a frightened whisper, leaning closer to my furless, human ear. “He’s the son of Lucas Devouh…”

I frowned. “Uh. Who?”

He jumped back like I’d bit him. “You don’t know who Lucas Devouh is?!”

“I was raised on a Marincian island,” I said. “I don’t know half the damn nobles in Everland, let alone Grim.”

“Shel, mate, all you have to know is to stay away from them!” he squeaked, shuffling back. “They’re bad news, all of them! They’ll chop off your head as soon as look at you! Trust me, mate, you don’t want to go looking for his son!”

“Uh… right,” I muttered, chewing my cigarette. “Then, uh… do you know where they went so I can… avoid them?”

He shook his head, cheeks flapping. “No idea and I don’t care to know. Seriously mate, stay away if you want to keep your head.”

I pursed my lips and nodded once. “Ah, yep. Will do. Have a good night.” I spun on my heels and hurried after Kurn, who was waiting for me in the streets. I stuffed my hands in my pockets. Pschal frettre renn, feather-headed idiot.

The kid wasn’t going to cut off my head, and neither was his old man. Bloods, the only one who’d come close to it would be their mother, but even she had standards. That kid may as well be like a nephew to me, in a weird way. I mean, I’d been seeing visions of those two for twenty damn years, it was hard not to know just about everything about them.

Well, except their family names, apparently. Weird, how that one thing never came up in the visions. But even weirder was how that Runner reacted to them. I knew the Grimlings down there had that reaction around them, but I didn’t think it extended up here to High Everland. Weird.

I tossed my smoke and crushed it under my boot, following the feral ferret who scuttled down an alley to find Rochelle.

With some luck, maybe she would know where to find that kid.