A Serious Incident (Part 3/3) (Patreon)

Eighth Brother peered at the invitation in confusion. The contents were straightforward enough; a simple handwritten invite to his mother's birthday party. The problem was that the handwriting wasn't hers. Nor was she having a party. He knew that full well, because he'd apologised that morning for not being able to arrange one.

"Hey, what...?" he started questioning the woman who'd slipped him the card.

"Shhh," she interrupted, turning to walk away.

"Why did...?"

"Shhh!"

"But..."

"Shush!"

"I..."

"Shut up!"

Eighth Brother stared down in confusion, utterly failing to comprehend the message. It was always a risk when people started communicating in euphemisms or code, particularly when the people on the receiving end of the communication were a little slow on the uptake.

In this particular case, a group of homicidal cultists had reason to believe their organisation had been compromised, and were doing their best to ensure their members refrained from attending the next planned get-together, since it had a high probability of becoming an ambush. Of course, walking into someone's workplace and telling them that the long awaited fulfilment of their glorious revenge had been postponed would be likely to raise undesired eyebrows, so the message had been changed to something a little less direct.

Alas for Eighth Brother, it was a little too indirect.

That was why, at six PM on Thursday, he (briefly) found himself looking down the barrel of an empty crossbow.

Mr Black felt a pang of professional pride as he swiftly hid the body, listening intently for further footsteps. Alas, none came, with the other cultists being a little quicker on the uptake, and having avoided the trap.

He'd acted quickly, expecting the entire group to arrive at more or less the same time, but that meant he'd killed someone who would potentially have made a useful witness. Someone turning up alone had been unexpected. Was he here early to scope the place? To tidy up ready for their next real meeting? Would anyone notice his absence? Was he not associated with the cultists at all, and was someone attempting to infiltrate their activities?

Mr Black hastily searched the body, hoping it would contain some answers, but found only more questions. Tucked away in a pocket was a badge, stamped with the authority of the city guard, and engraved beneath, the name 'Ned'.

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First Brother paced around his room, a commode taking pride of place upon a small table.

"I picked out that sewer chamber for being directly beneath the Sprightly Street station," he murmured to himself. "I could activate it here, but what's the point? If the damn Serious Incident Office is onto us, they'll doubtless have a plan to contain the damage. Can't believe the damn thieves sold out to them. Don't want to waste our shot if it isn't going to take out the main offenders."

He ceased his relentless circling, then glared at the commode as if it had personally offended him.

"Guess I have no choice. If the sewer is compromised, we'll have to find somewhere new. Somewhere close. But it's all rich, snooty places up there. No handy abandoned warehouses to hide in. It's not like we can do it in the street, or standing in mid-air."

He blinked, coming to a sudden realisation, then smiled.

"No... That could work... How long would I need?"

First Brother grabbed a pen and paper, sat down and engaged in something rare. Something horrifying, that he knew would strike fear into the hearts of his fellow cultists. A foe tougher than any he had previously faced. But he was prepared to make any sacrifice to ensure the success of their plan. Even if that involved... maths.

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Mr Black peered into a wardrobe, simultaneously pleased and disappointed at what he saw inside: a blood-red robe, identical to the one worn by a recent corpse.

With a sigh, he left the apartment, carefully locking it shut behind him with the aid of a paperclip. The owner was another of the guards; the one who had first called out to Ned. It had been a hunch—based upon finding Ned and realising that the count of ordered robes matched the usual number of guards assigned to a guard house—but apparently a correct one.

He checked another few houses to make sure, then made his way back to the Jaunty Street guard outpost. It was always a shame when the fine people who were supposed to be protecting the city turned bad, but there was nothing to do other than clean house when they did.

The guard at reception looked up on his entry, the sharp intake of breath almost hidden by the clang of metal. "Can I help you?" he asked in a professional voice.

"I was hoping to speak to Ned again."

"He didn't show up for his shift today. Sorry, but we have no idea where he is. But if you do find him, please let him know he's fired."

"I see," replied Mr Black, sighing internally at the pair of guards taking up positions outside the entrance. How they thought they could move stealthily while wearing dozens of pounds of metal was a mystery. "Then may I speak to your captain?"

"He hasn't shown up for his shift either."

"Is that so? Very well then. Shall we get this farce over with?"

A few minutes of metallic clanging, sharply curtailed screams and wet splashes followed, after which Mr Black once again left the guard outpost, still with clean shoes and neat suit. His tie was a degree or two askew, though, so he corrected it with one hand as he set off towards the home of the captain[1]. None of the stolen items were stored at the guardhouse, the guards had fought to the death rather than talk, and it was unlikely he had the time to drag them back to Professor Venenum, so tracking down their captain was the best bet. Alas, the items weren't at his home, either, and neither was he.

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"Sorry, what?" asked Mr Canon, owner of Canon's siege, ballistics and artillery emporium[2].

"I said there's no need to wrap it. I'll use it here."

Mr Canon gave a careful look at First Brother, and then at the freshly purchased, fifteen-foot trebuchet.

"As you say, sir," he agreed, with the usual Glimmerhome nonchalance of someone who had already been paid and didn't much care about the consequences. Then he watched on as First Brother donned a heavy backpack, carefully aimed the thing, turned the winch, and sat in the projectile bucket.

"If you would, please."

"As you say, sir," repeated Mr Canon, reaching for the release. "Not the way I'd have chosen to commit suicide, but to each their own."

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Mr Black had made another logical leap, and hence was walking towards the Sprightly Street guard station. It was only a suspicion, but given the positioning of the cultists' little get-togethers combined with the way they were all guards, it seemed possible there was some sort of feud between the pair of outposts.

He was thus optimally positioned to hear the shrieking.

"Now there's something you don't see every day," he muttered after looking up and seeing First Brother in free-fall, furiously mixing ingredients together in an upside-down chamber pot, screaming his head off the whole while.

A second later, a crossbow bolt struck First Brother between the eyes. A few more seconds and his unfinished concoction and lifeless corpse splattered onto the floor.

Mr Black smiled the smile of someone who had, once more, saved the day.

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"So they planned to abuse this holy relic to get Graxilox all drugged up and unleash him on Glimmerhome?" asked Graxilox's local high priest, switching from one finger to the next as he completed a batch of a thousand press-ups. "Why?"

By way of answer, Mr Black gestured around the room. Given the numerous gods and their rather niche portfolios—resulting in low worshipper counts per god and hence low donations—many of the poorer congregations shared a building. While the muscle-bound priest didn't let the news of the day's near-catastrophe interrupt his workout, neither did the priestess giving a sock-puppet show to a bunch of giggling children, nor the one meditating in the worm pit, nor most of the others engaged in their respective divine activities. The one nailed to the ceiling was at least paying attention, but only because there wasn't much else to do up there.

"A god told them to?" queried the priest? "Which one? If it's that damned Jurgulez again, it's going to come to blows."

"No, I was just pointing out that nothing that is currently happening in this room makes sense, so why would you expect anything outside it to?"

The priest gave a look of incomprehension, beads of sweat dripping from his chin as he continued his exercise.

"Never mind. Talking to the captain of the Sprightly Street guard station, I think there's just a lot of general unhappiness at the way guards don't actually do very much, between the guilds policing themselves and the Office dealing with anything Serious. Then the Sprightly Street station beat the Jaunty Street station at football—which was something Jaunty Street had historically been the champions of—emotions boiled over, and someone decided the best way to resolve it was to level the city."

"... Football? Seriously?"

"I have recently spoken to a man who developed an entirely new branch of magic to avenge a stolen sandwich."

"Really? I hope it was a good one. Bacon or something. Would be weird to go that far over cheese."

Mr Black opened his mouth to reply, then thought better of it. It was a perpetual hazard of his job that he often needed to talk to people, but the more he talked to people, the less he felt they were worth the effort to keep saving. Continuing the line of questioning could cause him to finally abandon Glimmerhome. "Well, thank you for your time, and please take better care of your relics. Or... well, any care really. I understand it had no protection whatsoever and was left on open display."

"We're fully paid up with the thieves' guild. We don't expect people to just walk in here and take stuff," complained the priest, switching finger again with a grunt of exertion.

Mr Black held his tongue, wandering back out of the shared temple and onto the streets.

Yes, Glimmerhome was a very silly place, but it was his silly place. "It's a pain being the only sane person in a hundred miles," he muttered, once again straightening his tie, and then employing some very complicated spatial magic to step through a pile of manure. If there was one thing about Glimmerhome he wished he could change, it was the amount of effort he needed to put in to keeping his shoes shiny.

[1] In a fight between someone who sees the necessity of easily washable, carefully coloured clothing and someone who doesn't, always bet on the one who doesn't.

[2] And also the one time winner of the Glimmerhome aptronym championship. He had, alas, been disqualified the following year on account of one of the judges knowing how to spell.