The Glass Gargoyle (The Lost Ancients Book 1) (10 page)

Chapter 11

For a moment I sat there and took up space. They’d had some heavy-duty equipment back behind that fence. Things that would never be on a legitimate dig because of the damage they would do to artifacts.

And yet they’d moved it all out. Maybe I’d been more of a threat to them than I thought.

Or Marcos was back in town screaming about dead bodies in the ruins and made them run to get everything out. Which meant I was pretty sure the body would be gone as well.

“Damn.”

Covey cocked her head. “I thought you’d be happy?”

“Part of me is, the part that forgets I don’t have a patron,” I said as fatigue and the whisky of the night before caught up and slammed into me. “The smarter half just realized the evidence is gone.”

“The evidence that pointed to you, that is.”

“There is that. But it also might have pointed to whoever is behind this.” It was more than just my usual need to know, I cared about my fellow diggers and my patrons. That some of both groups may have been murdered made me want to find out by who. I started to get up, but my legs had gone on strike and dropped me back into my chair. “I don’t think I can make it back home. Do you think I could crash here?”

Covey looked at me carefully, judging my ability to stand against her desire to have a day off to herself. Compassion won. That, or I looked even worse than I felt. I had to admit the aftereffects of that whisky were hitting me hard.

“Go use the spare room. It’s small, but you’ll fit. You won’t mind if I shut you in there and ignore you though, right?” Her eyes were watching me, but I could tell her mind was on the jar the faeries had just dumped all of their information into. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that they probably also gave her more information than she could possibly want about the mating habits of any animal, person, or plant they’d come across lately. Let her find that surprise for herself.

“Thanks.” I forced my legs into a locked position and took a deep breath. Must not have improved my appearance any.

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Covey came to my side and took my arm. Real concern filled her eyes, nudging out her overwhelming search for knowledge.

“Sure.” I dipped a little bit, but I made it to her spare room moments before passing out.

***

What felt like moments later a horrific rattling filled my head. Once I’d fought my eyes open, I realized it was only the door, and some wretched person knocking on it.

“I’m alive.” That was as close as I was going to get to inviting someone in. It took a few minutes to figure out where in the hell I was, and inviting folks in when I wasn’t sure didn’t seem like a good idea.

“I’ll take that as a good sign.” Harlan’s voice on the other side of the door was a surprise. He’d just sent that runner a few minutes ago.

“Come in I’m not getting up yet.”

Two heads peeked in at me, well, two full-sized ones and three bright, tiny, and maniacal ones. Crap, last thing I needed right now was a group visit. Especially if the faeries were part of the group.

“What now?” I glared equally at Covey and Harlan, I didn’t have the energy to be wasting a good glare on the faeries.

“They’re reopening the dig.” Harlan rumbled forward, practically filling the room.

“I know you just sent that information. That’s great, but I don’t have a patron, remember?”

My two dearest friends in the world shared a look of concern. That alone made me sit up quickly. I ignored the painful sloshing of my brain smashing against the far side of my skull.

“What? What’s going on?”

“That’s one of the reasons I’m here, but I sent the runner hours ago. You’ve been dead to the world.” Harlan’s furred face closed in on itself. He wasn’t going to tell me happy news. Not by a long shot.

“Crap.” I didn’t feel like I had been asleep at all let alone for hours. But judging by his face that was the least of my worries.

“Now, it’s not like that,” he said in a vain attempt to cover up his body and facial cues that were screaming, ‘yes it is that and it’s going to make your life hell’.

“Yes it is. Just tell me. Can’t be worse than the way things have been going lately.”

Harlan mindlessly started purring, a last ditch attempt by him to instinctively keep things calm during a bad situation.

“You have an offer of patronage. Cirocco has signed to be your patron.”

The world started spinning as my entire career swan dived before my eyes.

“But he’s never been a patron. He just steals what he wants.” I slammed my hands over my mouth as my eyes went wide. I shouldn’t say that out loud. Especially now. Who knew where Cirocco had magical spies. “But why me?” I removed my hands long enough to whine.

“I am not sure of that. He sent a runner to the Shimmering Dewdrop looking for you. Karys took the message, then came to find me.” He waved a slightly tattered scroll at me. Through the red haze of my vision was Cirocco’s seal. Most likely the document had gotten damaged by Harlan on the way over. He looked even more upset than I felt.

I took the scroll and slowly broke the seal and opened it. Yup, an official declaration that I now had the full patronage of Cirocco. Even on this official document the man didn’t list his first name. Maybe he didn’t have one, or maybe he did but had sold it. Wouldn’t surprise me.

Of course, any digger could decline an offer of patronage. A cold laugh—not unlike a death rattle, I would imagine—worked its way up my gut at the idea of rejecting Cirocco. Not unless I wanted out of this life the fast and messy way.

A note was pinned to the official paper, scribbled not by Cirocco, but one of his higher hench people. Cirocco understood this would be a shock and wanted to give me twenty-four hours to adjust myself to the honor bestowed upon me. Then he would like to have an audience to explain what he was looking for and where I would be digging.

I quickly thought of the fastest routes out of town. How far could I get before they got me? I shook my head. Not far enough.

“She’s thinking of running.” Covey’s thoughts brought me back to the paper crinkled in my hands. I quickly unclenched my fist. With my luck, Cirocco would want to see the decree he issued.

“Was not.”

“Was so.” Covey’s look reminded me that at times she knew me better than I did. Most of the time she was right. Like now.

“Doesn’t matter. I couldn’t get far enough away before he caught me.” I turned to Harlan. “Promise me you’ll take care of the girls when I’m gone?”

The faeries had been marching around the guest room— looking for things to steal most likely— but my words brought two of them to a halt. Crusty often forgot she understood our language and continued her hunting.

“You go somewhere without us?” Garbage flitted up to the bed, a scowl on her tiny orange face. Leaf joined her a moment later.

“No, girls. I’m not.” I said as I looked to Harlan for help.

“She’s just being melodramatic, a failing she has sometimes.” Harlan held out his hand which had magically filled with sweets. All three faeries slammed into each other as they raced to grab the treats.

Nice to know I could be so easily replaced.

“I am not. Why would he want to be a patron now?” I ran my fingers through my hair trying to remove the knots. Unfortunately, the twigs and leaves from my run through the woods with Marcos seemed to want to take up permanent residence. My distant dryad ancestors would be proud.

Marcos. That was a nice situation to take my mind off my recent disasters.

“And just what the hell were you thinking sending a gigolo to come rescue me anyway?”

I cringed as Covey’s face darkened. I forgot I hadn’t told her about that part. Ah well, the weasel was out of its cage so to speak.

“He isn’t a gigolo, he’s a well-respected archeologist.” Harlan puffed himself up, but he wouldn’t meet my eye. “I sent him to rescue you, nothing more. Although I did ask that he come back once he was done, rescuing you that is. I was most distressed to find that he had vanished.”

Had Marcos not made it out of the woods? Considering how fast he’d been running I doubted that. Besides, neither I nor the girls had seen any bodies or blood. That man could obviously take excellent care of himself.

“I had already been rescued, sadly, by Alric. He saved me from a watery tomb.” I didn’t add anything about the drink, my reaction, nor that it was a good idea that Marcos saved me from my own issues with my mystery man. Harlan had too damn much information already.

“A watery tomb?” Harlan asked as he settled precariously into one of Covey’s thin elven replica chairs. It was a contest as to who would pop first, Covey or the chair.

In the spirit of saving my friend’s furniture, I forced myself out of the bed. Things weren’t too bad, just sort of felt like I’d been run through a grinding mill a few times.

“I really should get back home. I need to rest before meeting with my new patron.” I held out my arm and wavered a little for sympathy. “I could use an escort?”

The groan the poor chair let out as Harlan jumped to his feet was terrifying, but the chair was still intact.

“Of course, my lady!”

“Thanks for your room, Covey.”

Covey didn’t say anything as she carefully checked the chair for damage. “You don’t have to go.” An automatic response, and one not meant at all. I’d have to wait until another day to find out what all she’d gathered from the faeries’ information about the giant’s body.

“I’ll come by tomorrow sometime and we can finish our talk.” I didn’t want her to mention the body, nor the faeries’ information, in front of Harlan.

The walk back to my house was uneventful up until the point that I mentioned the bronze box I’d been trapped in. His excitement would be more soothing if it had been out of concern for my potential demise and not for the artifact.

“It had carvings? And life sized?” He was purring again. And drooling.

“Much bigger than life-sized and I almost died in it.”

The patting motion he made didn’t even touch me, just waved a few inches over my skin. “Yes, yes, so sorry, dear. Now were the designs smooth or hammered like done with small point tools?”

Giving up on any sympathy from him, I told him what I could remember about the artifact. I still had to kick him out of my apartment, since he wanted to go over it one more time.

“It’s getting late, Harlan,” I repeated for the fourth time interrupting yet another grilling session. “Won’t your wives be looking for you?”

His whiskers pulled forward in a pursed manner. That stopped him.

“Agreed, you should get some rest, you’ve had a trying day.” His eyes lit on Leaf. He knew she’d been with me. “Perhaps I should take the girls with me.”

By tomorrow Leaf would have forgotten what she’d seen, so would the other two. I wanted to tell Harlan about the body when I was ready, not now.

“No, they’ve had a long day too. I’d like them to stay in tonight.” Muttering about seeing him in the morning, and thanking him for walking me home, I escorted him to the door
.

Chapter 12

Just getting Harlan out the door made my life simpler. I trusted him completely, but that body had me worried. Not to mention he’d known Perallan before I started digging for him, so he was more than likely friends with the dead giant. I know he wouldn’t accuse me but the bodies were beginning to pile up. Eventually they might start looking into my past patrons. My track record of patrons dropping dead or vanishing was a bad joke among the digger community. No one took it seriously. Or they hadn’t until now.

I looked down at the wrinkled decree from Cirocco. I’d wanted a patron, and wanted one bad. Not this bad.

No mention of patronage had come up when he or rather his hench people had hired me to catch Alric. I’d never really met the man, and I had foolishly thought to maintain that status for a few more years.

Something had changed in his mind from when he hired me to bring in Alric and now.

Aside from my life throwing itself in the crapper, I couldn’t think of anything that would have triggered such a terrifying change in behavior. Or rather there were too many things that had happened in the last few days, any of which could have triggered something.

Did he know about the body of that giant? Had he been the one who put him there and knew I’d seen him? Crap. No matter how I put together the recent events of the last few days, none of them made me happy. They also didn’t make me feel safe.

I looked over at the faeries’ doll castle; maybe their maniacal cheerfulness could relax me.

Unfortunately, all three were passed out like little drunken harlots. Judging from the contorted limbs they’d fallen asleep in midair. No comfort there. Waking a sleeping faery was almost as difficult as sobering one up. With a sigh I scooped them up. I couldn’t tell if they noticed when I tucked them in to their little beds, but sleeping all twisted like that couldn’t be comfortable even for beings like them.

Laying the decree of my new patron under some dusty books to try and smooth it, I grabbed some toast and wandered to my room. I was sure visions of a short life as Cirocco’s digger would haunt my dreams. It spoke to the recent turn of events that I passed out as soon as I hit the bed and didn’t dream of anything.

***

A rare late fall sunbeam stabbed me in the eye, and I rolled over in a vain attempt to save my sleep. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept so heavily. Finding a sun-free position, I proceeded to try and fall back asleep.

Only to have my eardrums assaulted by an army of syclarions that was trying to use my bed for a landing pad. Bolting upright under the sound deluge, I smacked right into a bundle of pissed-off faeries.

Rubbing my head where Garbage Blossom’s pitch fork had glanced off of me, I held back my attackers.

“Slow down! And damn it, Garbage, stop waving that thing.” I held Leaf and Crusty in one hand, but Garbage was still flying about with her stick.

“Intruders!” She finally calmed down enough to get a word out in common. Thank the gods—the chittering faery language was hurting my head.

Wait. “Intruders? Damn. Where? In the house?” I couldn’t believe we’d been wasting precious seconds when someone had broken into our home.

“Not now, intruders before.” Leaf frowned and pushed only half-heartedly at my hand to be released. I always thought she and Crusty were a bit afraid of Garbage when she went full warpath.

“Before? Before what?” Batting aside Garbage Blossom, I stumbled to the front room.

The place had been ransacked. Everything up to and including the faeries’ castle had been opened, emptied, and/or turned upside down.

I couldn’t tell if anything was actually missing, and probably wouldn’t be able to for a while. It was too hard to tell where one thing ended and another began.

My foggy brain slowly caught up. Faeries were hardy sleepers, but not this hardy. They should have woken up. Hell, I should have woken up. I backtracked into my room. While not as tossed as the front room, things were obviously in disarray here too. I don’t care how tired I am, me staying asleep while a person or persons thrashed my bedroom? Not likely.

Swearing, I ran around to my few windows, all were locked from the inside. My only real door, the front one, was locked as well. For good measure I even checked the kitchen door. The thing hadn’t worked since I started renting here, and was currently blocked by a large green totem pole from the 5
^th
dynasty. Or rather a bad knockoff of one that I hadn’t been able to dump yet. Nope, still broken and still blocked.

So how had someone snuck in, left everything locked, drugged the girls and me, ransacked the place, and then fled again through locked doors?

I walked back to the sofa. I finally remembered I still held Leaf and Crusty. “Sorry, girls,” I said as I opened my hands. “Any chance you can find how they got in?”

Garbage had been pouting in the other room but flew out to join the other two. The three slowly flew in laps around the room, trying to find out where someone had gotten in.

After a few moments they stopped over the patron contract from Cirocco. Whoever had ransacked the place had tossed the books I’d put it under across the room. Garbage Blossom started quivering, and she stabbed the paper a few times with her pitch fork. “They came in there. Bad paperstuff, let them in.”

I snatched the paper before she could do any real harm. Through paper? I knew I was still groggy, but I’d never heard of anyone getting into a locked apartment through a piece of paper. But looking at my other two faeries told me they sensed the same thing she did. One advantage of being magic numb, very hard for anyone to put a spell on me; disadvantage, I couldn’t sense many spells at all.

“You’re certain? All three of you are completely certain that the person who did this, somehow got in…” I waved the paper at them, not completely ready to say it.

“No,” Garbage Blossom said with a fierce shake of her head. “Persons, there were peoples, more than one. Came through that. Did this.” She waved her tiny hands around.

Persons. Who could use a paper to break into a house, cast a sleep spell that was stronger than anything I’d heard of, then thrash my house? Good thing they hadn’t wanted to kill me.

At least hearing more than one meant Alric probably wasn’t involved.

I batted down the bit of comfort that thought gave. Since when did I care if he was a good guy or a bad guy? He was a bad guy, and I needed to keep thinking of him that way.

“Can you tell anything at all about who it was?”

Leaf and Garbage shook their heads, but Crusty of all people nodded slowly.

“Yes, it was here.” She flew over to my favorite chair and stomped on it.

Someone broke into my house to sit in my chair? While I was thinking the best way to clarify the question for my alcoholic little flying monster, the other two joined her on the edge of the cushion.

“Yes, here.” Garbage stabbed her pitchfork into the chair.

“So one of the people who did this sat in my chair?”

All three sets of faery eyes rolled at my obtuseness.

“Not this time. He sat here before.”

“Stinky man.”

Sat there before….crap.

“Grimwold? It was Grimwold?” But he worked for Cirocco, why would he need to break in if I was going to be working for him too? Unless the letter wasn’t a real offer of patronage. As pissed as I was about the break in, a tiny glimmer of hope reared up.

Why would Grimwold spell himself into my apartment? Come to think of it, how did he do it? He wasn’t high on the pecking order of major magic users. Which meant he had help. Big, scary, haunt you for years help.

Passing around my small living room, I tried to think of the best way to approach this. I couldn’t very well march up and accuse Cirocco of breaking into my home. Nor could I ignore the summons if it was real. A few minutes more of treading circles on my worn rug left me with no more answers. I had no choice, I had to go meet with Cirocco and find out if this was for real. Best-case scenario, he had nothing to do with it and had Grimwold executed for abusing his name.

Doubtful.

But the glimmer of hope was enough to get me through a shower and breakfast. It started fading about half way to the meeting. Actually, the glimmer was stomped into oblivion by the abject terror that was swarming up from my gut like so many rats in a garbage dump.

I’d never been to Cirocco’s neighborhood before, far too high-end for the likes of me. His house, if one could call it that, covered more ground than the entire block my little apartment lived on. The gardens surrounding it were immaculate, coiffed, and probably never visited. There were probably whole sections of the estate the man didn’t even know existed.

It took a good ten minutes winding through ornate hedges and flower beds before I finally reached the front door and pulled the bell cord.

The low bells that echoed around the cavernous insides of his mansion took another two minutes. With all the wealth and opulence, I expected a snooty upper crust butler to come kick me away from the door.

However, I wasn’t as surprised as I should have been when a short, round thug opened the door. He looked me up and down, and hitched up his pants. No leather knotted belt for this man, he relied on some of the new city-style suspenders. I had heard of them, but never seen them.

“Reason for being,” he grunted out before pausing, “here?” The emphasis and strategic pause wasn’t wasted on me.

“Cirocco sent for me.” I refrained from shoving the document in his greasy face as I handed it to him. The walk over hadn’t calmed my nerves. They were now tighter than a nun’s chastity belt.

No-neck-slow took his time sounding out the words on the decree. The problem was his lips moved faster than his brain.

A chill that felt an awful lot like someone having drinks on my grave wound its way through my gut. A deep frown slowly imbedded itself onto his forehead, after another minute it worked its way down to his mouth.

“Mr. Cirocco ain’t takin’ on no diggers.” His face scrunched up as it morphed from confused to annoyed. “What you playin’ at?”

A deep breath forced the screaming inside my head to shut up and see this through. If it wasn’t legit maybe Cirocco would pick up Grimwold’s scent on the thing and smash him a little for me.

“All I know is someone left this at the Dewdrop for me.” I tried to make the quiver in my voice sound like a growl. Minor thugs could pick up fear faster than a faery could get drunk.

“You think I’m takin’ a chance on not showin’ when
he
tells me too?”

In answer the thuggish little man grunted and wobbled back a few feet. Without looking to see if I followed, he turned down the hall behind him.

Taking the open front door as an invitation to follow, I did so.

The hall was ornate, yet didn’t look like anyone lived there. Like a show room simply to impress. Which it probably was. Cirocco’s dealings would more likely take place in a low-ceilinged, dimly lit room filled with smoke and surrounded by ancient elven artifacts.

My guide pushed open a fancy door carved in old style larkian relief. “Wait here. I'll see if he can talk at ya.”

A large part of my brain screamed that the door to the front was probably still open and that I could get out and be safe before anything else happened. However, the other side of my brain, the one that unfortunately was controlling my feet at the moment, pointed out that I needed to stay.

Since I didn’t trust my voice to work, I just went and sat down. The thug closed the door without another word. Too late I realized that I didn’t get my original papers back.

The room really was quite lovely. Golden tapestry covered mock stone walls, small elven artifacts filled the delicate shelves lining the room.

But thoughts of what Cirocco could do to me if he thought I was pulling something faded all the beauty in front of me.

The tiniest of squeaks as the door opened almost sent me into the ceiling. I held my breath as a skeleton hand opened the door. A huge skeleton hand, it swallowed the door knob completely.

Just as I was trying to find anything I could dive under, the rest of the skeleton came into view.

It actually wasn’t a skeleton, but the skinniest dwoller I’d even seen in my life. Dwollers were an odd race. Very secretive, and extreme loners. They only got together with others of their own kind every ten years for mating, and even then they barely tolerated each other.