173. Fancyman: Wiremu.

Nyx suddenly arrived, flashing the emergency code. It was early evening, and I was preparing to head over to the Otto House. I checked the Hunters Marks, and Tabitha and Težka were together on the street between the gate and the Caravan compound. It would take me ten minutes to get there. I grabbed my weapons. Tāoke was with me as he was going to be my backup tonight. I took off at top speed. I didn’t care what it looked like, I pelted down the streets as fast as I could go. I had no idea what could threaten Tabitha, Težka, and, I assume, Modrica inside the city.

I came around a corner, and some people in uniform were turning people back from going down the street. I ducked into an alley and took to the roofs in stealth. It is just as well I did, as there were watchers on the roofs as well. I could avoid them, but hostile people behind me are a bad idea. I kept things ordinary for now and took one out with a knife to the throat and two with my new short bow. It took me three arrows, so I need to practice with it. The noise from below covered the falling bodies.

There was a standoff. Tabitha looked relaxed, standing next to Dusk. Modrica and Težka were next to her. Modrica had her mace out.

“No more stalling. The Watch isn’t coming.” This was spoken by one of three people in fancy armour. Two were at one end facing Tabitha, and the other was behind her. They were showing off their affinities, trying to intimidate Tabitha and Modrica. Twenty armed people backed them at each end of the road. I assume there were others on the roofs across the road.

Fancy Talker had wind swirling around him like Otto. The Fancy Lady was tossing fire from hand to hand. The Fancy Dwarf at the back had created a row of spikes across the road. They were not just earth spikes, there was something different about them. I assume he was here to counter Modrica’s Earth Affinity. This could really get messy, as in levelling several buildings messy. If this fight started, this whole block would become uninhabitable. Tāoke slid off my shoulder and made his way to the ground.

“Yeah, yeah, you said that. Just army buddies wanting the truth about Otto,” Tabitha sounded bored.

“Lord Otto, you disrespectful wench,” the Fancy lady was getting wound up.

“Yet here you are, abducting two ladies off the street like thugs. If you wanted the truth, the Watch would be here. If you wanted respect, you wouldn’t act like street thugs.”

“If we do this by force, the bear won’t live,” threatened Fancyman.

“I would put money on the bear living and you not living, but you won't be here to collect from.”

My hearing aid picked up, “She’s too confident. Something is not right.”

“The whore’s an actress. She’s bluffing.”

Tabitha heard that as well. “I hope you emptied these buildings because there is not going to be much left of them if you call my bluff. If you wanted the truth, the Watch Captian would be here. What do you really want?”

“We want the person who killed Otto, and you know who it is.”

“And you are willing to kill innocent people and level buildings for information on something I wasn’t even there to see.” Tabitha turned to the woman, “I assume you were one of his lovers.”

“Why you …” she lost control and threw flames at Tabitha. An earth wall rose up, intercepted the flames, and then sank back into the ground.

“Fredrik, you were supposed to stop her using earth!” she complained to the dwarf.

“Stop her?” the dwarf said,“ I created the wall. I will not let you burn someone because you lost your temper. That achieves nothing.”

“Why you… Nobody cares what happened to Otto!” She turned and stormed off, taking a number of people with her.

“Thanks for coming,” Tabitha quietly said next to me, “I might not need you now.”

“That's fine. Nyx is getting good at looking like you.” I said as Tabitha appeared to be still standing next to Dusk.

“I needed a distraction to slip away, so I had to goad her into doing something. I didn’t think she would actually try to burn me, though.”

Modrica had stepped forward toward Fancyman, drawing everybody's attention. She growled low and rumbled and took another step. The Fancyman looked like everybody had abandoned him.

Tabitha whispered, “I am going to have a chat with the dwarf, as he seems reasonable.” She disappeared into shadows.

I repositioned myself to keep Fancyman in clear bow view as Težka stepped forward following Modrica. The Fancy man was not confident on his own. He tried reasoning with Modrica, “Look, I am a Noble. If you mess with me, there will be trouble like you have never seen before.”

I think Modrica has already seen every type of trouble, but he didn’t know that. He didn’t want to back down in front of his men. Modrica had never bothered talking before and didn’t bother now. Težka gave a growl.

Then the dwarf yelled, “We are packing up, Hale. We are meeting with the Watch tomorrow.”

That gave Fancyman Hale the excuse to get his men moving and try to disguise that he was fleeing. The Dwarf made the spikes disappear and backed off with his men. Nyx / Tabitha led Dusk up with Modrica, and Tabitha joined me on the roof again. She could move faster than I could in stealth.

“The Dwarf didn’t know what the other two were planning. He was only asked to block the road. He knew what he was doing with earth. He felt that I wasn’t beside Dusk anymore, even though it looked like I was,” she said.

“How are you going to explain the three bodies I left.”

“Affinity kills?”

I shook my head, “Knife and bow.”

“Then I am not going to explain it. That is their problem.”

“Then I will go and grab my arrows. Do you need me to follow you?”

Tabitha shook her head, “I will shadow them. I will let you know if there is more trouble, but I doubt it.”

I did follow them and caught up with the Canine Queens and the Catkin at the caravan yard. I was especially interested in the bonds. All the lions were adults now, even though they sometimes acted like kittens still. The wolves were in good health, which was not unexpected as Skavt was an animal trainer. Borec would be giving birth anytime now. The bonds were also healthy. It was interesting to feel the flavour of each and compare it with the longer-term bonds Skavt and Ört had. Astrid and her bond Trassig were not doing so well. It might be grief on Astrd’s part interfering. I wasn’t sure. I could analyse that something was not right, but helping fix it was another thing altogether. I would need some thought and longer-term observation.

It was after midnight when I left the compound. I decided to forgo Otto’s house and instead tracked down Fancyman Hale. I had not tried to tag him with a Hunter's Mark as his Wind would probably break it as Otto’s did. I tagged his key guard, the one he yelled at to get everyone moving.

I found him still with his boss in a fancy house in the expensive part of town. It looked like he was doing his best to get his boss drunk. It was probably a good move on his part. I scouted the place, and there were three guards on duty. The head guard put his boss to bed about an hour later and then left. I followed him, but he went to his own house in a middle-class part of town and went to bed with his wife, who was already asleep. There were two children in the house as well. He was a family man. He won’t realise how close his boss got him to being killed today. I killed a lot of people out at Otto’s ranch. Yes, they attacked me, but I wonder how many of them were family people. Did I really have to kill all the wounded? Killing them didn’t really accomplish anything. Word still got back to town.

I went back to Fancyman’s house. The guards only patrolled the ground floor, which was a huge weakness in security in a three-story house. I slipped into a top-floor window. This house was older, and the floor creaked. I was heavier than a normal person of my size because of my Granite Bones. It was a problem. The floor was less likely to creak if I walked near the walls. I was dreading trying the stairs.

The top floor was empty except for the master bedroom, where Fancyman was snoring and drooling. He is lucky I am only here to spy, not assassinate. The Kingdom would be really riled up if they lost two of their rare affinity users in less than a month. They very nearly lost two today. Maybe three, but I think the dwarf wouldn’t have pushed things.

The desk in his room had a note from Lady Mary, wanting to meet to discuss Lord Otto’s death. I am assuming Mary is the firey lady. and that meeting led to today's events. There was a return address on the envelope. Lady Mary is next for me to visit. The desk only had personal correspondence, and I left everything how I found it.

The secret to the stairs was weight distribution. I held my foot above the stair and created a thin rock plate to stand on, so the stronger edges of the stairs held me up. This was slowly putting my weight on that foot and then doing the same with the next stair down. I folded the plate up against my leg before carefully moving to the next step and folding it down again. It took me fifteen minutes to get down a flight of stairs, but I did it silently.

There were people asleep on the middle floor, an older lady and three children. I assume the lady was a nanny or something. If she was a wife, the marriage was not in good health. That meant the office I needed to get to was on the ground floor. I should have trusted Treasure Sense and not wasted my time. There was no way I could spend fifteen minutes on the next stairs and not be seen by the guards at the bottom. I made an exit and new entry from a second-floor window, time to scout Lady Mary.

Mary lived in a stone building, and all the furniture looked new. She probably lost her temper quite a lot. It was a squat two-story building with four chimneys on the roof. It was purpose-built for her and her fire affinity. There would be no problem with a creaky floor here. Everything was stone. My Granite Sense could tell me the layout, and I didn’t bother with a window. I lay on the ground, made a hole in the wall with Granite Manipulation and crawled through. I then closed it up again.

There were no Guards here. The ground floor had a kitchen, dining room, living room, and reception/office. The basement was storage and servant quarters. Two servants were asleep. Upstairs were bedrooms, with two people asleep in separate bedrooms. I concentrated on the office. Lady Mary didn’t own a ranch. She owned a prominent Blacksmiths, two restaurants and a distillery. She was quite the business lady.

I looked back at her correspondence and found a series of letters indicating she and Otto had been meeting up. She was a regular visitor to his ranch, often staying a week or so. She was trying to convince him to spend more time in town and less time on his projects. There was nothing written indicating what those projects were. She would know, though.

I went through her accounts. One of her restaurants was not doing well. Looking back at the correspondence, it was because she had fired the head chef and couldn’t get a replacement. She was quite the socialite. She had a connection with the Duchess and was strengthening those by helping with the Duchess's social initiatives, including the Theatre. There was a half-written letter to the duchess wanting the Comedic Rhythm banned from using the city Theatre as they were too crass and only appealed to the common people. I couldn’t figure out how she made the connection between Tabitha and the Comedic Rhythm, but I guess the gossip mill is still the fastest form of communication.

Interesting, but I am not sure how it helps. It will help Tabitha with the watch tomorrow if she lays a complaint against her for attacking her with her affinity. I will pass it on. I left the same way I entered.