Bad Dreams & Broken Hearts 18: “And tiny little monkeys to wind them.”

I sent Karin on ahead to her body while I waited with the firespiders. Jake opened the doors for me and I sent them back into their pens. They were amazingly well-behaved and I wondered how they had been trained.

I followed Jake back to his office. Karin was already sketching when I stood up.

Marji jerked her head towards the door as soon as she was sure I was back. I followed her out and Jake brought up the rear. The hallways of the business office were empty now, I checked my watch and was surprised to see the time. I was doing too much traveling in Nightmare, it made it hard to keep track of time on the Midworld.

On the way to the commissary Marji asked, “So what is this about a wolf's teeth?”

“Grandmother Wolf's teeth,” I explained. “It's how Tak keeps her under control. We find those and return them, and she blows the lid off the whole business.”

Marji frowned. “Not... Karin's involvement?”

“No, that'll be kept under wraps.” Privately I doubted that it could be avoided, but I was confident that the Lord Mayor wouldn't pursue charges against Karin. She was a very small fish and would be instrumental in delivering the main prize.

“And Karin's finding them now?” Marji went on. “With a picture.”

I nodded. “Grandmother Wolf gave her a token to guide her. Some hair.”

Marji frowned. “But you weren't physically in Verdemaire.”

“No,” I agreed. “It's not a physical token. The hair was just... how they did the magic, I guess.”

“Dream hair,” Marji suggested.

“The hair would have been physical,” Jake interjected, “but the token created by the act of severing it would be an informational artifact.”

Marji looked confused.

Jake sighed. “Very small springs,” he explained.

Marji laughed. “And tiny little monkeys to wind them. Got it.”

The commissary had a different feel after the suits went home for the day. Men in coveralls lounged over coffee and cigarettes, always keeping one eye on the status board that covered one wall of the big room. Jake received a lot of nods and waves, and a few questions about why he was there so late, which he shrugged off.

We got another load of sandwiches and soft drinks.

“You're going to get a heck of a bill when this is all over with,” I told him as I carried the box back.

He shrugged. “I'll put in some extra shifts,” he said back, grinning.

Karin had a handful of sketches completed when we got back. The girl worked fast. She handed them over and Marji started paging through them. I looked over her shoulder.

The first one showed a file cabinet secured with a large padlock. The second drawer from the bottom had an X drawn across it. Behind the cabinet was a suggestion of a brick wall.

The next drawing was a longer view of the same room. In addition to the file cabinet there were some chairs stacked against one wall. It looked like somebody's junk room.

Then there was a picture looking into the room from the outside, through an open door. I could see what Karin had done, focused on the teeth and then withdrawn her consciousness gradually, capturing the scene as she pulled back to her body. It was a clever bit of work.

Another sketch showed a hallway, the open door off to one side. Then stairs, with the hallway at the bottom. The hallway and the junk room seemed to be underground. Somebody's basement. The next sketch showed the top of the stairs, in what looked like a liquor storeroom for a bar or restaurant.

The one after that made Marji say, “Oh, dear,” quietly. It showed the storeroom door from across a crowded room. The figures standing around—each defined by only a handful of lines—were clearly dressed in evening clothes, suits and gowns. Karin's skill was amazing. There were big tables, surrounded by seated figures, but they weren't clear.

They were in the next picture. It was drawn from the perspective of what I guessed was the front door. It wasn't a restaurant, I saw, the tables were covered with elaborate military dioramas, tiny soldiers and siege engines. Some kind of wargame, I guessed.

The last picture showed a plate screwed to a brick wall. There was an address, and under it the words, “Fortune's Favored Club. Private. No admittance.”

Jake had come up behind Marji to look over her other shoulder. “Isn't that...?” he asked.

Marji nodded. “Yes. Oskar's gaming club. I had no idea that Tak owned it.”

“So what is it?” I asked.

Marji seemed surprised at my question. “You don't know about Fortune's Favored?”

“It's a gambling club,” Jake explained. “Very exclusive. Technically illegal, of course, but Oskar is very well-connected.”

“So it would seem,” I agreed. “If Tak is storing Grandmother Wolf's teeth there.”

“How do we get in there?” Karin asked.

“I'm working on it,” Marji said. “Getting in the front door isn't much of a problem, it's getting into the basement that's going to be tough.”

“Gambling,” I mused. “Did you see any rashlings?”

“Are you kidding?” Karin said, “It's like the damned Bascose embassy in there. More than half the staff, I'd guess.”

Marji frowned. “They must be veiled. I never noticed any.”

“You know the place?” I asked.

Marji shrugged. “I had a friend who liked to game.”

“Severin, yeah,” Jake said. “It's been a few years, do you think you could still get in?”

“Oh, I'm sure,” Marji said. “A place like that doesn't forget you.”

“That doesn't get you into the basement, though,” I pointed out.

“A Power Authority audit would,” Jake said thoughtfully.

“You think?” Marji asked.

Jake nodded. “Sure. I pull an arc flash suits and an inspection order, and I can get in anywhere.”

I shook my head. “Ordinarily, sure,” I said. “But Tak's got to know we're coming. He'll have his goons on high alert. Even if he doesn't know we know where the teeth are, he'd be a fool not to beef up security. He knows who you are. He'll be watching for Marji, and he'll have told his folks to stall anyone from the Power Authority.”

“So we do both,” Karin suggested. “Hit him high and hit him low. Sam and Marji go in the front and draw their attention, meanwhile me and Jake sneak in the back.”

Marji nodded slowly. “That might work,” she mused.

Two hours later Marji and I walked up to the front door of the Fortune's Favored Club. Both of us had gone home to dress, and she looked magnificent. I looked and smelled like a drunk, having artfully spilled whiskey down the front of my dress shirt—an older one, but yet another casualty. If we didn't wrap this mess up soon my wardrobe would be empty.

I leaned heavily on Marji as we made our way up to the man who stood at the podium guarding the way farther into the club. It was a man, too, fully human. I checked, letting my eyes slide closed for a moment and looking at his spirit. We were operating on the assumption that Tak didn't let everyone know his business—if either Marji or I were blackballed at the front door then we'd have to figure out something else.

But though the doorman gave me an icy glare, he smiled at Marji and took the bills she proffered to him with a gentle nod and handed us a pair of numbered badges to wear. I made a great show of stabbing myself with the pin, causing Marji to take it away from me and pin it to my lapel herself.

As we headed down the hall, me weaving artfully, she whispered, “You think you're overdoing it?”

I whispered back, “I need to look like I'm going to pass out.”

“You do,” she admitted. “Let's get you to a chair.”

There were six huge tables arranged in a room that must have taken most of the ground floor. Each was surrounded by a crowd of bettors. Marji paused, scanning the room while I held onto her arm. She evidently saw someone she knew, because she guided me to one of the tables, giving a discrete wave. The room was mostly quiet, conversations in whispers broken by the announcements of the black suited judges at each table.

A heavyset middle-aged man looked up and smiled at our approach. There happened to be two empty seats together at that table, Marji took one and I collapsed bonelessly in the other. I let my eyes close and took another quick look through my spirit eye. There were two judges, one standing at each end of the long table. Both were rashlings. The people sitting around the table were all human.

I opened my eyes and raised my head, as if I'd suddenly started awake, and looked at the table itself. There were three armies, judging from the color of the standards carried by the tiny figures.

The red army—little reptilian creatures in bright copper armor—outnumbered the blue bird things and the yellow humanoids. The yellow troops seemed to be the defenders in this scenario, they had some kind of movable wall and a number of complicated looking siege engines.

“Gimme a hundred on the reds,” I slurred, digging in my pocket for my wallet.

That earned me a glare from the closer rashling. “Table bets will be accepted at the end of the round,” it said softly.

Everyone else was glaring at me, too. I flashed a sloppy grin. “Oh. Didn't know the rules.”

A matron who sported a diamond necklace sniffed. “That's obvious,” she murmured.

I pretended not to hear her and made a show of trying to focus on the table.

Marji, meanwhile, leaned to have a quick whispered conversation with the man she'd spotted from across the room. He gave a soft chuckle.

“Movement phase,” a judge announced.

The three players—three men, two fat and one thin, all old—stood and began using long pointers to nudge the tiny figures under the watchful eyes of the judges. Conversation around the table died as everyone watched.

Confident that I had demonstrated my bona fides as a candidate for alcohol poisoning, I let my head slump onto my chest and dropped out of my body. As a spirit I crawled across the floor to the back door. With any luck the rashlings would be intent on the games and not notice me. I made my way through the bar—the bartender was a lovely human girl—and into the kitchen. Another human there, a man bent over a grill, perfectly oblivious to my presence.

The building was warded, not heavily, but enough that it would be a pain for a spirit to get through, and it would probably alert the rashlings.

I stood and made my way to the back door. As I expected the wards were tied to the door, to allow magical goods to be brought in that way. Since it was a hot night, the door was also propped open, which defeated the purpose of having wards at all. Security had no chance against comfort.

Perfect. I ghosted down the alley. There was a heavy iron bench where the alley met the street and a pair of big men sat there. One had a paper cup of coffee and the other had a cigar, both had guns under their jackets. Neither took any notice of me, even when I sat on the bench with them.

I only had to wait a few minutes for Jake to show up in the truck. He'd managed to get a huge thing, with rugged off-road tires and a backhoe attachment. Orange lights flashed on the roof. It came to a stop at the edge of the alley and both of the men stood, looking worried.

Jake hopped out, dressed in a slick yellow insulated suit. Karin came out of the other side, dressed the same. They looked like bath toys.

That was my cue. As the big men went to argue with Jake I went back down the alley, through the kitchen and wormed across the game room floor to my body.

I opened my eyes and looked over to Marji. She raised her eyebrows and I nodded.

“Hang on just one minute!” Marji said loudly, pointing at the board. “Where did that come from?”

Both judges turned to stare at her.

“Is there some problem?” one asked softly.

“You bet there's a problem,” Marju said, raising her voice still louder. People at other tables were turning to look at her. “That bastard's cheating!”

I closed my eyes and let my body go limp again. A moment later I was back in the alley.

Jake was marching resolutely towards the the door to the kitchen, ignoring the protests of the big man who walked along side him. The other big guy wasn't in evidence. He'd probably ducked around the building to the front. With any luck Marji would be kicking up so much of fuss that no one would pay him any mind for a while.

The big guy got ahead of Jake before they got to the door and he started to reach inside his jacket. I stepped into him then and grabbed his spirit. With a yank I tugged his soul free of his body. His body slumped to the ground, asleep. His spirit thrashed in my arms, but I tucked him under my arm and headed back towards the street.

Jake looked around, then stepped over the fallen man and went into the kitchen. Karin looked over at me and I could tell she saw me. She smiled and nodded, I jerked my head for her to get moving. What I had just done was a clear violation of the terms of my residency and while I didn't think he would file a complaint I didn't want to have to hold him any longer than absolutely necessary.

I took him a couple of blocks down the street, then spun him around a few times to make sure he was completely disoriented before giving him a shove. He'd find his way back to his body, of course—I hadn't taken him out of the Midworld, after all—but we should be long gone by then.

Back in the kitchen there was no sign of Jake and Karin. The short order cook was standing beside the door to the gaming room, listening with a grin on his face. There was a lot of yelling coming from in there.

There was a third door from the kitchen, though, and it was ajar so I went through it. I saw steps leading down and a moment later was in a small windowless room. Through another open door and I was in the hallway I had seen in Karin's sketch. The door to the junk room was open. Inside it I saw that Jake had broken the padlock with some kind of industrial cutter and Karin was defusing what I guessed was a magical trap—lots of glowing filaments with the angry red color of lethal wards. She was running her fingers around the structure without touching it and somehow making it unravel. It looked like it wouldn't last much longer.

I went back upstairs.

Marji was on her feet, but she'd stopped yelling. Instead there was a loud three sided argument going on between the players, with the judges trying to calm things down and the side bettors throwing in random comments. I went back to my body—which had slid out of my chair and was half-lying on the floor. I get back in and sat up, then got to my feet. I had a crick in my neck.

I took Marji's hand and whispered to her. “They're almost in. Time to go.”

Marji nodded and we slunk out, pausing to hand our badges back to the doorman. He was watching the fight, too, and took them without looking at us.

We got into Marji's car and drove around the side of the building, parked where we could watch the flashing lights from the power plant truck. After a few minutes we saw Jake and Karin pile into it and drive off. Marji followed.

“You think they got it?” Marji asked as we pulled onto the parkway.

“They wouldn't have left without it,” I said.

Marji waited outside the gates while Jake drove the truck through. It was a longer wait, maybe ten minutes, before Jake and Karin—minus the insulation suits—came back out. Karin Held aloft a little black drawstring bag.

Marji let out a deep breath. “They got it.”

It was a squeeze to get us all into Marji's car, with Jake and Karin crammed into the tiny rear seat. I held onto the front set—I've got long legs.

“She's on her way, the old bitch,” Karin said triumphantly. “She's coming on a Ferose ship. Should be at the docks tomorrow afternoon.”

“Good, I need to make some calls in the morning, set some things up,” Marji said. Then, to me, “Do you want to contact the mayor now?”

I shook my head. “Tomorrow morning.”

“Let's go home,” Jake said. “I need a drink and then I'm going to bed.”

“Tak knows we have the teeth,” I said. “If not now, then soon. By morning, certainly.”

Everybody got quiet.

“His only move now is to get them back before Grandmother Wolf has a chance to tell her story. We should find someplace to lay low.”

“That's not going to happen,” Karin said glumly. “No way I can veil these good enough to block the kind of talent he can hire. He'll find us.”

“What do you think?” Marji asked. “Back to the plant?”

“No,” Jake said quickly. “Remember, he's got political pull, too. Home's our best bet. Summerisle isn't easy to get into, and we can call up reinforcements.”

“Beckett owes me,” Marji mused.

“Who's Beckett?” Karin asked.

“Beckett Voltz,” Marji said. “He's in the armored car business. Some of his boys are very rough customers.”

“Is he clean?” I asked.

“No,” Marji answered simply, “that's why he owes me. But he's not in Tak's pocket, I'm sure of that.”