Chapter 176: The Enemy has Landed (Patreon)

Paul sat in his captain’s chair, glancing between the black book and paper in front of him, creating his Itinerary for the next week.

There was total chaos on the streets, and Paul was being pushed to the limit making shit happen and people die. Today he had to attend a ball and recruit the lady Vasquez to their side, tomorrow he’d be out cleaning up the last of the Iron Legion and Sixth Street Demons.

Damn, I’m exhausted, Paul thought, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

“Captain!” Simon shouted barging into his room.

“This better be important.” Paul said, glaring at Simon over his work.

“There’s Inquisitors in the city! They’re probably on their way to the south to kick the crap out of the woolies.”

Icy dread settled in Paul’s stomach. “I don’t think that’s what they’re here for. Simon, go fetch Carl and Ragnar. And take this back to the records room, would you?”

Paul motioned to the wooden box filled with doctored reports from the last three months.

“Can do!” Simon shouted, grabbing it and trotting out.

Wish I had his enthusiasm for everything, Paul thought, stretching in his chair and wincing when it tweaked his back. He got out of the chair with a groan, grumbling as he rubbed his back glancing out the slatted window.

What he saw gave him pause. An enormous stallion with a golden-armored man stopped outside the precinct, along with twenty legionnaires setting up a perimeter around the tiny little office building.

“Well, shit.”

Now jumping out the window wasn’t an option.

Less than a minute later Ragnar and Carl showed up. The Golden-armored man was still getting his troops lined up, and Don Lam was busily kissing his ass. Wouldn’t last forever, though.

Paul pulled a key out of his pocket and tossed it to Ragnar. “Escort Ragnar to the jail. I don’t want the inquisitor to see him in a place they weren’t expecting him, then get yourself to the records room and make sure everything is sorted by date.

Carl scowled. He found organizing the records room intolerable. Paul considered warning Carl about mind-magic, but what would be the point? Telling someone like Carl to not think about something was the same as underlining the thought three times.

Might as well just put him into a position where all he could think about was how much he hated his job and his superior.

“Get it done. Now.” Paul said.

“I find your plan slightly insulting, but seeing as I don’t have a better one,” Ragnar said, turning and leaving with Carl.

Paul glanced out the window again and spotted the Inquisitor being guided up the steps like royalty. All that Don Lam was missing was an unfolding red carpet.

Paul narrowed his eyes. If even half the things he’d heard about inquisitors were true, this was going to be a rough couple weeks. If these guys really did read minds, He’d have to start by applying a similar tactic that he’d used to fool Grass.

Boobs.

Better destroy the-

Bagels with cream cheese.

Evidence.

Paul opened up the bottom of his drawer and lifted up false bottom, revealing a tiny slime living in the musty container, not much bigger than his thumb. The bottom was coated with an acid-proof substance the little slime couldn’t eat through.

Paul grabbed the little black book and all his documentation and threw them to the slime. There were copies of everything in the Green Hell. Right now his priority was leaving nothing in his desk but a little innocuous contraband.

It’d be best to give them a red herring to chase after, rather than looking squeaky clean until they found his little document disposer.

The evidence Paul kept implicated him in a squabble between families, as nothing more than a minor pawn.

The tiny slime began to eat into it from the corner, very slowly engulfing the book of secrets and dissolving it.

Seeing that the creature was doing its work, Paul put the false bottom back on his drawer and shoved it back in, steeling his mind for the inevitable confrontation.

Lora’s tight ass.

Pizza.

*** Don ***

“Right this way,” Donald Lam said, escorting the inquisitor.

“I’ll need access to your records for the last six months.” The inquisitor said. He was a young man, maybe in his late twenties, with a severe look, as though nothing were good enough. His name was Richard, apparently.

“Of course.” Don bowed as he promised the kid anything he wanted. This is my chance! I can leverage this brat against Paul and pry that damnable book out of his hands! Don would also settle for Paul getting taken away and tortured to death by the inquisition, but the amount that the ex-detective knew about Don’s side-income made that a losing proposition.

One day, though, I’ll put that man in the ground.

They clomped along through the precinct, drawing the awed stares of everyone present. Everyone knew Inquisitors were the closest thing to living gods, capable of things that boggled the mind.

The took the sharp left turn to records, where Paul’s crony was bent over a box of records with his brow furrowed in disgust.

Damn, what did Paul make him do in here? The most important question is, how does it effect me?

“What are you doing in here, Corporal?”

Carl gave them a glum look. His eyes widened slightly as he spotted Richard in his gleaming outfit.

“Aah oii aan.” He grunted pointing at the box in front of him.

“You don’t need to organize them for me.” Richard said, leaning forward into the claustrophobic records room with a scowl as he studied the dates on the boxes.

“I want these six months.” he said, pointing them out with his short sword. “Take them to the legionnaires downstairs.”

Carl paused, nodded at Don’s look and picked up two months and began trundling forward, the fat man barely able to navigate through the tight room.

“And be quick about it,” Don snapped, never missing an opportunity to make life miserable for someone who’d chosen the wrong side.

“I apologize for his incompetence.” Don said, bowing deeper, making sure Carl could hear him.

“The fuck are you on about?” Richard asked him with an unsettling frown.

“I-“

“I don’t care. Next stop, your office.”

“Of course.” Don kowtowed some more as he escorted the Inquisitor to his office.

When they got there, Don went to sit at his desk, but the Inquisitor pushed him out of the way, stepping behind Donald’s fine ironwood desk and rummaging through it. Don felt a spike of fear run through him.

He didn’t keep anything incriminating related to his side-businesses in his desk, but the mere fact that a Royal was searching through it made him paranoid that maybe he’d left some crucial piece of evidence behind.

Richard pulled out several of Don’s candies out, putting them on top of the desk, followed by some reports he’d forgotten to file, along with some paper clips he’d bent into little men with bows, and his pair of pliers.

I guess I don’t have anything that’s-

Richard pulled out an employee folder with Paul’s name on it, with nothing out of place save for the knife marks where he’d stabbed the entire thing until the center was falling apart, raining bits of paper.

I forgot about that.

“Care to explain?” Richard asked.

“I hate that guy.” Don replied. Which is true. If there was one thing Don had learned in his years of double dealing, it was the art of a confident lie.

“He and I have had…differences. A long chain of one-upsmanship that culminated with him getting my mentee terminated. However while we’re at work, I, at least, try to keep things professional.”

“Real professional.” He said, waggling the folder and letting more bits fall out of it.

“Didn’t do it to him, did I?” Don said.

Richard raised a hand, and the air itself clamped around Don.

“Cut the shit.” Richard said. “I may not be as good as my master, but you’ve been radiating intense hatred the entire time I’ve been here. The kind that leads to murder. I’ve been sent to investigate anything out of the ordinary, and a superior wanting to literally murder an employee without having the balls to fire them is rare.”

“Now, tell me everything you know about this Paul character, and don’t even think about lying.”

***Paul***

It had been five hours since the Inquisitor had come, and one person after another was called into the Chief’s office for ten minutes or so, then came back out looking like they’d been threatened with death.

Which was always possible. After they came out of Don’s office, they were allowed to go straight home for the day, and instructed not to speak to anyone. The sun gradually went down, marking the time Paul should have been heading back home, but anyone who hadn’t been interviewed yet was strongly encouraged to stay.

The order they were called in was by rank, Paul noticed, starting with the other captain, and working their way down, but skipping him.

Why would they be skipping him?

Because they were asking questions about him.

If that was the case, why not start from the bottom to avoid arousing Paul’s suspicion? Or call him in in the same order as everyone else and ask him normal questions? Paul’s eyes widened as he realized the entire thing was a ploy to put him on edge and get him to do something incriminating like make a break for it.

Sadly each of the Legionnaires stationed outside the precinct were stronger and faster than he was, with a combat oriented class to boot. There was no way he could escape on foot, even if he thought of some clever ploy

“Freakin’ idiots,” he muttered, sitting back down at his desk. What are you gonna do with a swordsman class when you start getting bone spurs? Your usefulness is gonna run out around thirty-five.

Paul pulled his shaving and makeup kit out of his desk and got to work, giving himself a smooth shave and hiding the purple bags under his eyes.

Even in a world where it was possible to read another man’s mind, Appearance was nine-tenths of the law.

Paul had only finished when Simon barged his head into Paul’s office, breaking the eerie silence of the almost empty precinct.

“Paul, er, Sir!” Simon said.

“Yeah.”

“the, um…the Inquisitor wants to see you now.”

“’bout time,” Paul said, standing up and heading for the door.

“You on your way home?” he asked as he got into the hallway and saw Simon digging through his desk with shaking hands.

“Yes sir.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow then,” Paul said, heading for Don’s office.

Paul stopped in front of Don’s office and knocked.

“Come in.” he heard the Inquisitor’s voice.

Paul opened the door and found Don’s corpse sprawled against the shelves on the left side of the man’s office, bloody handprints where he’d tried to lift himself to his feet. From what little Paul could see, Don had his throat slit.

“Huh,” Paul grunted as he took a seat in front of the inquisitor, who had a notebook filled with scrawling script. People’s statements.

“He tried to lie to me.” the Inquisitor said. “Badly. You won’t do that to me, will you Paul?”

“Badly? No. I’m very good at lying,” Paul said. The corpse in the corner of the room was there to alarm him and throw him off his game, which meant this whole ordeal was going according to a carefully trained plan. Paul knew this game.

“Really?”

“Back in time, I shook hands with Garth Daniels himself before engaging in a wild orgy with the local flora and fauna,” Paul said deadpan. Which was fun.

The inquisitor blinked.

“Maybe you are good at lying. It would explain the difference in opinion regarding you.” He said, tapping the notebook with his pen.

“Your former contemporaries have nothing but good things to say about you. I believe the words ‘straight arrow’ and ‘brilliant detective’ were used more than once. But your superiors… he flipped back to the front of the notebook where his senior captains and Don’s testimony lay. “The emotion I got from them was anger masking a fair amount of fear.”

He narrowed his eyes and studied Paul for a good minute.

“What motivates a man who’d been content to be a detective for ten years to suddenly want to blackmail his way to the top?”

“Just wanted a better life for my wife and kids.” Paul said.

“I’m unconcerned with your criminal enterprises, Paul. Surprising, isn’t it? An inquisitor overlooking a crime. I’m going after bigger fish than you, and I’d be perfectly happy if you were to lend your…unique insight into flushing them out.”

“How’s that?” Paul asked, concentrating on Lora.

“In your business of blackmailing Don there and rising to the top of what passes for police in this shithole, did you come into contact with anyone from out of town trying to move in on a family’s territory or establish a large supply line out of nowhere?”

“Who are you looking for?” Paul asked, frowning. Those were awfully specific questions.

“My master taught me not to reveal the subject of my investigation. It tends to…skew the answers I receive.”

“Now that you mention it,” Paul said. “I have seen an upstart out-of-towner, looking to make a name for himself. I laughed him off at first, but he’s got a lot more staying power than logic would suggest.”

“Really,” The inquisitor asked, leaning forward. “Where is he? Does he associate with anyone?”

“He drifts in and out of the city semi-regularly, gives big orders to the local crime scene, then fades away for a few days to a few weeks at a time. I can help your people set up a net to catch him when he drifts in again. As for associates, I’ve seen him spending time with a Denton Girl on a regular basis.”

Paul casually slipped that half-truth in there, struggling not to feel a sense of antagonism toward the Dentons.

Lora’s tits. There, calm.

“No, that won’t be necessary,” The inquisitor said, leaning back in his chair as he made notes. “I’d like to ask you a couple dozen more questions, but first I’d like to ask a philosophical question. What seperates men from boys?”

“Something worth living for.” Paul answered.

“Good answer.” The inquisitor said, chuckling as he scribbled in his notebook. “Now this person, what does he look like….”