22. Split

Kiren sat on the edge of his bed. He whittled away at a scrap of wood, letting the chips fall into a bucket.

It was supposed to look like Mug, but he wasn’t getting the shape right. He was looking too slim.

He’d been unable to stop thinking about the old bastard since seeing him in that cell.

They weren't good friends or anything. Kiren wasn't sure Mug had any friends, period. But he was a part of the bar, and that meant something more. It meant he was family, in a sense.

Maybe.

At the very least, it meant Kiren had to look out for him. That was his job, after all. To keep Xander’s Curiosities from coming apart.

What scared him the most was that he easily could have gone to that exchange with Mug. He could have been one of those guys, having to fight Excelerate. Best case, he would have been dead. Worst case, he would have ended up back in Wailing Hill.

The chill of that stone box, the utter darkness, still haunted him.

He took a deep breath before continuing with the sculpture. He added some more detail to the face, carving a scar across the wooden countenance with the tip of the knife.

The door came open and Lace barged into the room. Kiren quickly tossed the half-finished sculpture into the chest at the foot of his bed and kicked the lid shut. He brushed a few chips of wood off his hose.

“What are you getting up to?” Lace asked, shutting the door behind her. “I didn’t know you were a woodworker.”

“I’m not,” Kiren said. “Just… passing the time.”

“Oh, alright. Mind if I take a look?” She pointed at the chest.

“Don’t.”

She shrugged. “Fine. Worth a shot, anyway.”

She lay down on her bed and let out a long sigh.

“So,” Kiren said. “How did it go? With the bitch, I mean.”

“Pretty well, actually. I felt like I was doing actual Hero work, for once. Making a difference. Hulda, she’s not… as bad as she seems. She’s stuck-up, but she gets stuff done. And at least the day didn’t end with someone on the bad end of a rope.”

Kiren pursed his lips. “Sounds like you had a good time. Any closer to finding Maxim, though? We need to put him back in the ground as soon as possible.”

“I was going to brief Excelerate on what happened today,” she said. “You can come with me if you want.”

“Yeah, I’ll come.”

He licked his lips.

I should tell her about Mug and the book. If there’s anyone I can trust with this stuff, it’s her.

Kiren opened his mouth to speak.

Lace swung up into a sitting position. “Alright, let’s go. If I stay in bed any longer I’ll fall right asleep.”

Kiren nodded, biting back his words. “Sure.”

They left their room and went upstairs to the fourth floor. They technically weren’t allowed there, but it seemed that Excelerate wasn’t going to come down on his own.

They found his room after some trial and error. Lace knocked on the door.

No response.

She tried a few more times with the same result, so she put her ear against the door.

“Well, he’s definitely in there,” she said. “I can hear… snoring.”

Kiren shouldered her aside and tried the handle. The door swung inward, revealing a bare, darkened room with the shutters closed.

The only furniture in the room was a bed, and the walls were completely undecorated apart from a coat rack. Excelerate lay on his back, his naked, scar-crossed chest glistening with sweat. He muttered something under his breath in between snores. The covers concealed his crotch, but only barely.

Lace went and opened the shutters, letting in some light. Kiren slapped Excelerate’s cheek a few times.

He sat up with all the urgency of a waking kitten, looking around blearily.

“There better be a good reason for waking me up,” he said. “I’m not in my usual sparkling good mood.”

“You told me to report anything that happened with Hulda,” Lace said. “I thought you might want to know.”

“Oh. I see. Very well, go on then.”

He threw the covers off and stood up, completely naked. He ran his hands through his messy, grey hair a few times and took down a black outfit hanging from the coat rack. He began to get dressed, paying no mind to the fact that his dangling, shriveled manhood was on full display, root and stem.

Lace looked away and cleared her throat. “Well, we looked around the Slog for anyone associated with the fence. It took us to a dive bar, where we interrogated the staff and clientele.”

She hesitated.

Kiren stiffened.

Could that be…?

“And?” Excelerate asked, finally covered up by his normal robes. He wrapped a red face mask around his neck. “What did you find?”

Lace blinked rapidly. “Not much, really. No one would talk, on account of us being with the Guild. Hulda called off the search for the day so she could review her leads.”

Her body language was off. Jittery.

She’s lying, Kiren realized.

Excelerate scoffed. “I’ll bet. Hulda isn’t the type to stay still for long. You should have stuck with her. It was probably just a ploy to get you off her back.”

“I did my best,” Lace said. “From what I’ve seen, so is she. Although, it seems you don’t find this very important. You somehow found the time to sleep all day after all. And yet, you’re complaining about the one Hero actually doing any work. It’s like you want Evangel to get away.”

The Hero stared at her, blank-faced.

“That’s the end of my report,” Lace said before storming out of the room.

Kiren shrugged before following. Excelerate remained still as a statue as Kiren closed the door.

He hurried his steps and caught up with Lace as she was going down the stairs to the third floor.

“Listen, Lace,” he said, walking in step with her. “We need to talk.”

“I’m not really in the mood right now,” she said without looking at him.

“It’s important.”

She stopped at the bottom of the stairs. “What is it?”

“The bar you went to. What was the name of it?”

“Why does it matter?”

“I just… need to know. Please.”

That made her look back.

“Please? From you? This must be important.”

“Yeah,” Kiren said.

“It was called Xander’s Curiosities, I think.”

Kiren gritted his teeth.

Oh, shit.

“Were they hurt?” he asked.

“I mean, yeah. They tried to attack us, so…”

“Unmaker’s scraggly cunt.” He was already taking off down the hallway. “I have to go.”

*****

Kiren was acutely out of breath after running most of the way to the Slog. He refused to let himself slow, even for a moment, as he zig-zagged between the forlorn shacks.

He had known that this job would get messy. It was too closely connected to him for everything to go smoothly.

He hadn’t anticipated that things would go so badly so fast, though.

A pillar of smoke in the direction of the bar, dark and thick, didn’t ease his nerves in the slightest.

He reached Xander’s Curiosities and pitched onto his knees, gasping for breath.

What was left of it.

Where the bar had once been, there was now only a wreckage of smoldering wood. Not a single wall remained intact.

Drifters rummaged through the still-hot wreckage, wearing cloth masks to help ward off the smoke. They gathered bottles, coinage, and trinkets into their shirts.

No sign of Ratfoot or Tryss.

“Twin gods,” he muttered between breaths. “This is worse than I’d feared.”

Thanks to his Power, it didn’t take him long to catch his breath. He walked over to one of the bums working through the ruin and grabbed him by his shirt, making him spill his salvage over the burnt planks.

“Hey! The fuck gives?” the man said.

“What happened here?” Kiren asked, in none-too-kind a tone. “To the place and the owners. I’m not in the mood to waste time, so you best tell me all I want to know.”

The bum wasn’t intimidated by his words, but a couple well-placed punches made him more agreeable. The other vagrants gave Kiren a wide berth, glancing and whispering.

“I-I didn’t see it all!” the bum spluttered. “I only got here once it was almost over! Some Hero and her pet just rolled up, beat up the little dude and his woman, and once they had been taken away in chains, the Hero lady set the whole place aflame! That’s all I know!”

Kiren let him go. The man gathered up his blackened bits of scrap and ran off.

He wandered out of the wreckage. He needed a plan, but his mind was just… blank.

Xander’s has been my home ever since I got out of Wailing Hill. Now it’s gone. Ratfoot, Tryss, Mug—arrested. I knew I would have to sacrifice things to become a Hero, but this…

It’s too much.

I won’t let it stand. I have to do something.

“You did this, Lace,” Kiren whispered. “At the very least, you could have told us. But you covered for that bitch.”

Given a minute to cool off, however, his anger subsided a little.

He sniffled and shook his head. “Don’t be crazy. She was probably just roped into it. If I explain it, she’ll help me.”

He nodded, steeling himself. “I know she will.”

She has to.