Chapter One: Dark City

The minute I woke up, I knew it was going to be a bad day.

I unglued the side of my face from the desk and took a look out the window. It was one of those days that looked liked it couldn’t be bothered. All grey and depressing. The air smelt like rotten oranges, but that was my fault for setting up shop downwind from the old orange juice factory.

I checked my watch and saw it was too late to get up and to early to go to bed. I thought about going back to sleep and decided against it. I thought about going for a walk, but my body decided against that. The night before I’d got in a tussle with Mickey the Cod over some dubious...stuff, and now the whole left side of my body was feeling the effects. I reached for a pack of smokes, shoved one in my mouth and lit it without really thinking. As it turned out this was a bad idea, as the smell of burning plastic informed me. I put down the packet of pens and looked for my smokes. I wish I could say it made me feel better. I can’t, but it made me feel remotely like a demi-human again.

Oh mother, if only you could see me now. Momma was a reformed Yog Sothothian from downtown Chicago. She went to temple every Friday and gave money to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Fish. Pop was a Zardarkian from the planet Mathlar. I’m told I have his eyes (they glow red when I’m ticked, and when I feel like doing a party trick. Not that I’ve been to many parties lately). I also got his strength, his sense of smell, unmanageable hair and a pair of arms that wouldn’t have looked out of place on an Arcturian Wolfbear. With big-ass gloves and sunglasses I can almost pass for human. It’s testament to the area I live in that I don’t look out of place. I couldn’t live Momma’s life, so I cleared out. Now I do...stuff. That’s what the sign on the door says. Vincit Omnibus. Stuff Done. Not all of the stuff I do is strictly legal, but hey, who’s nose is clean these days?

A knock on the door interrupted my reverie.

‘Yeah? Come in.’

A broad walks in the door. I say a broad, she was barely a kid. She had the reddest hair I ever saw. Her clothes were practically rags. She also had that look that said ‘trouble’, that look like a cat that’s down eight lives and just walked into Chinatown. I could smell the fear on her and it smelled like rotten oranges. But everything around here smelled like rotten oranges.

‘You do stuff?’

‘That’s what it says on the door.’ I waved a clawed, black furry hand towards the door. She didn’t react funny to the way I looked, like some backwater humans would. The broad had been around. She was probably a humanoid off-worlder.

‘I need protection.’

I looked at her over my cigarette. She was at the end of her tether. There must have been something really bad after her, and whatever it was, I didn’t want it after me too.

‘I don’t do bodyguard. It’s a fast way to a painful death.’ It was a lie, I’d done a little for a mobster’s daughter once, but I was getting bad vibes, and it wasn’t just the oranges. ‘Besides which, I don’t work for free.’

‘I can pay. Please.’ The broad’s voice was getting all quavery now. I hoped she wasn’t going to break down. She spilled a bunch of round crystals out of somewhere I tried not to think about. They were zylothian power crystals, they’d fetch a good price on the black market. But not enough to risk my neck. I’m kinda fond of my neck. ‘Who sent you to me?’

‘The man in the bar down the road. He said you could help.’

‘Dave.’ Dave was the werewolf who ran the Rotten Orange, my local drinking hole. He was a cryptic type, but a good man.....humanoid...to talk to. We had a kind of beastly comradeship. ‘Nice of him to send business my way, but this is a no-go, sweetheart. I don’t do Kevin Costner.’ I shook my head.

She turned on the waterworks and begged me to help her. I sighed and got out of my chair to look for a tissue or something. I’m not made of stone. If I was, I wouldn’t have to worry about my neck. ‘Look, if you need somewhere to hide, head down into the sewers and ask for Ketch. He’s a little ugly, but he’s a good guy. Tell him I sent you and he’ll hide you.’ The broad just stared at me, then pushed past me to the door and beat feet.

‘Well.’ I said to myself. ‘That’s gratitude for you.’ I shrugged and decided to go speak with Dave. I pulled on my coat and hat and headed out the door.

I took a deep breath and choked on the air. Then I walked through the grey streets to the Rotten Orange. The patrons were sullen as usual (you’d be sullen if you worked in the old orange juice factory) and ignored me. I took a seat at the bar. Dave was cleaning glasses. He was always cleaning glasses.

‘Afternoon, Vinny.’ He said, grinning at me with that disconcerting toothy smile of his.

‘Afternoon, Dave. Whisky, straight.’ I went straight to the point. ‘What was with that broad you sent my way?’

‘Ah.’ Said Dave, looking cryptic.

‘You’re going to be cryptic, aren’t you Dave? Don’t be cryptic. I’m not in the mood.’ I downed my whisky.

Dave tapped his deceptively human-looking nose with the glass. ‘I was told to send her to you, Vinny. I don’t question these things.’

I sighed. ‘Told by who, Dave?’

‘The broad of all broads, Vinny. The big momma herself.’

‘And who would that be, Dave?’

‘Gaia, Vinny.’

‘Dave, you say that all the time. Last week you said Gaia told you a giant mutant squirrel was living in the sewers.’

‘I was close. It was a giant mutant hamster.’

I paused. He had a point there.

‘I still think it’s time for your checkup.’

Dave stopped cleaning the glass and leaned over the bar. ‘This is something big, Vinny. I can feel it. This is one of those times when stuff comes through. When people can shine. It’s your turn, Vinny.’

I shook my head. ‘No it’s not, Dave. There are no times for a guy like me. There’s no shine. I’m not that kind of guy. I don’t want that. All I want is a good broad, to pay the rent and not end up dead in a dumpster.’ I lit a cigarette and thought. ‘Though a cool million wouldn’t go down badly.’ I looked at him. ‘This broad’s problems are not my problems. I sent her down to the sewers to hide.’

Dave looked disappointed. ‘Well, maybe that’s the thing you were meant to do.’ He said. But he didn’t look convinced.

We sat in silence for a while. The smell of tobacco sat on the rotten oranges like a fat broad hogging the cinema seat arms.

‘I’ll go look for her.’ I said and got up.

‘I knew you had it in you!’ Dave called after me.

‘Shut up, Dave.’

His laughter followed me down the street like one of those mongrels you just can’t get rid of. I picked up the broad’s scent outside my door and got on it. She was headed down to the riverside. Perhaps she was looking for the sewer outlets. The trail led into an alley behind a grubby Chinese takeaway. In this town, you don’t go lightly into that sort of alley, especially since being outlined against the light makes you one hell of a good target. I slipped in sideways and waited for my eyes to adjust to the dark. Down the other end of the alley, I found what I was looking for.

She was dead. Very dead. No-one loses that much blood and stays alive. He clothes were practically torn from her body, as if someone had searched her really thoroughly. I felt a twinge of guilt. It had to be partially my fault. No sense crying over spilt milk, I told myself. Or spilt bodily fluids. I turned to leave, thinking it was better not to disturb the body. Or leave fingerprints. I’d learned to leave these things to the police.

Suddenly, something very heavy landed on my shoulders, and everything went dark. I hate it when that happens. Before I know it, I’m on my back on the floor with some crazy broad pinning me down, screaming ‘Where is it!!!!’ at me.

‘Where’s what? Where the f*** is what??!!’ I screamed back. ‘And get the hell off me.’

The crazy broad sticks her face right up close to mine. I see she has dark blue hair and scary green eyes. ‘It wasn’t on her, you must have it. Give it to me!’

‘Give what to you, you crazy murderous bitch?’ I shoved her off me. She was pretty light. I picked myself up and stepped out of the way as she hurled a fireball at me.

‘All I know is some broad shows up in my office and begs me to protect her.’ I said to her, deciding to play it cool. ‘She doesn’t say why and when I say no, she takes off without another word. I follow her, and you know the rest.’ Okay, it wasn’t strictly true, but she didn’t need to know about the stuff me and Dave talked about. It seemed to calm the psychopathic broad down a little. ‘Are you done being fireball happy now?’ Another fireball whizzed past my ear. ‘Guess not.’ I lit a cigarette on the smoking wall behind me. ‘If she hid it around here, I could find it for you.’ I suggested. I looked at her. ‘For the right price. This is my town, I know my way around. If there’s a brick she hid it under, I can find it, if she fed it to some rat, I can find that rat.’ I knew a few of the rat clans in the area. I took a deep drag and exhaled slowly.

‘If you can find it for me, I will give you more wealth than you can imagine.’

I choked.

‘I can imagine a lot of dough.’ I said.

‘More than that.’

I thought about this. More dough than I could imagine. It was a tempting offer. Mystic destiny aside, I could do a lot with that sort of money. Again the guilt. Something was telling me she was bluffing on a non-existent hand. I took another deep drag. The broad looked at me disdainfully, like I was something stuck to her shoe. She was a foxy one, with a rack to die for. She would have been quite a looker if it wasn’t for the expression.

‘You will look for it, little man, and I will look for it as well. If you find it first, you will be paid.’

‘What is it?’ I asked. Little man. I’m twice your size, bitch. Okay, you could barbeque me with a flick of your hand, but that’s a different matter.

‘The 14th most powerful object in the universe.’

I frowned. ‘What happened to the other 13?’

She snorted. ‘Other people have those.’

‘Okay. What does it look like? Big, small, black, white, dull, shiny?’

‘Why?’ She looked at me, suspiciously.

‘Well, sweetheart, it’s kinda difficult to look for something if you don’t know what it looks like.’ I grinned.

‘If I knew what it looked like, I would have found it by now.’ The broad told me, as if this was self evident.

‘What do you want it for?’

‘No more questions!’

‘Just interested.’

‘GO AWAY!’

‘Okay, going, going.’ I backed off before she could get trigger happy with the fire magics again. ‘If I find it, how do I find you?’ ‘Call my name. Windsong.’ She vanished in a blue flash.

I backed out of the alley, my head in a whirl. It seemed like whenever things were starting to get clearer, they ended up like mud again. I’d just technically been hired by a fireball throwing maniac murderer who wanted me to find the 14th most powerful object in the universe. And I knew it was up to me to find it before she did, or something seriously bad could happen. It was then that things got worse.

‘Hello Vinny. I believe we have unfinished business.’

I turned around to see the fish face of Mickey the Cod and a couple of his henchmen. I laughed at the stupidity of it all. Mickey looked a little confused, but since Mickey was a ichthyanthropoid, it was never really certain what he was feeling.

‘Well, hello Mickey. This really is the icing on the cake that is my day. Would you believe there’s a dead broad in that alley who’s just been killed because she had the 14th most powerful object in the universe on her?’

‘What you do on your own time, Vinny, is not my business.’

‘That’s very considerate of you, Mickey.’ I said.

‘You owe me, Vinny.’

‘That stuff was good as far as I knew.’ I said. ‘The guy you ought to be beating the crap out of is the guy I got it off and WHAT THE F*** IS THAT!!’

Mickey and his henchmen turned around. I beat feet. I heard him yell his goons to get me, but they’d never catch me in this part of town. I doubled back a few times and lost them in the fish market. I caught my breath behind the haddock stand and then headed off back towards my apartment. Mickey knew where my office was, but I made sure no-one knew where I lived. I fished around in my pocket for another pack of smokes. I had a lot of junk in there.

‘9mm bullets. String. Notepad. Eugh....old piece of candy.’ I don’t eat candy, but everyone’s pocket seems to have at least one piece of old sticky candy in it. I threw it over my shoulder and heard it splat on the wall behind me.

‘Hey!’

‘Hey, sorry. Didn’t see you there, buddy. Packet of gum, rock, bug, roll of tape, ah, smokes.’ I pulled them out, then thought. I went back mentally through what was in my pocket. I reached in and pulled out a little rock. I didn’t remember picking it up or putting it in there. But then I did a lot of things I didn’t remember afterwards, especially after an evening at the Rotten Orange. I poked at the rock. It was an ordinary rock. I wouldn’t have thought of it again, if it hadn’t been that the only rocks you saw round here were bricks, concrete or in a museum. And this was most definitely a rock. It had a kind of bluish tint to it. It hadn’t been in my pocket this morning, I knew that. Of course! When the broad shoved past me, she must have slipped it into my pocket. That was why she beat it like her ass was on fire.

‘So this is the 14th most powerful object in the universe. It doesn’t look much.’ I poked at the rock again. Well, it was only the fourteenth. I had two choices now. I could keep it and try to hide it, or I could yell Windsong right now and hand it over. My head said the latter, but my heart the former. I was pretty confident I could hide it where no-one would find it. At this point I had reached my apartment without noticing it. I walked in (I had to get that lock fixed). It was too much to expect that the place had tidied itself up. I stepped over my clothes and felt something go squish beneath my feet. I sat on the bed and looked at the stone in my hand.

‘Where’s the best place I could hide you, eh?’ I said, thoughtfully.

Almost as if it was answering, the rock seemed to get warmer in my hand and began to glow blue. There was a buzzing sensation in the palm of my hand. I should probably have dropped the rock at that point, but hey, I guess I’m just dumb. I just stared at it, stupidly. Then it kinda melted. I shook my hand, frantically, trying to get it off, but it wouldn’t.

‘You can’t hide inside me, damn you!’ I could feel it buzzing up my arm and then it was gone.

Then things got worse.

Again.

Mickey the Cod’s henchmen burst through the door (with unnecessary force, I might add, since it wasn’t locked). I was cornered and in a pretty pickle. The only way out was twenty stories down.

‘You ain’t getting away that easily, Vinny.’ Said the Cod himself, appearing at my door.

‘Oh, this just great.’ I said, sarcastically. ‘All I need now is for that Windsong broad to show up and my day is just perfe...’ Too late, I realised what I’d just done.

There was a blue flash and my tiny apartment was crowded.

‘Did you find it!? Who are these people?’ I don’t think that broad could do anything quietly. She looked around, angrily. ‘Is this a trap?’ I assessed the situation. I three people who wanted to do me serious damage, and one who would probably flame me in a second. I had some mysterious rock inside me, and my only escape was a twenty storey swan dive.

All in all, this was a pretty bad situation.

I did the only thing I could do.

‘The fishman has it.’ I said, pointing.

‘What?’ Mickey the Cod looked possibly confused.

‘Aha!’ Windsong smiled horribly and dived for him. The confused henchmen stood around doing nothing.

‘I’d protect your boss if I were you.’ I said to one goon. ‘What is he paying you for?’

They looked at each other. Then one of them went for Windsong and one for me.

I don’t really know what happened then. Things went into slow motion. I remember the guy aiming a punch for me and me holding up my arm to protect myself. Then I remember a blue flash and seeing the guy screaming. It was blood-chilling. I saw the flesh stripped from his bones and the bones vaporised. I’ve seen some horrible stuff in my time, but that topped it all.

Then I was just standing there with a wisp of smoke in front of me and everyone staring at me.

It was quiet for a while, then Miss Bigmouth had to ruin it all.

‘YOU HAD IT ALL ALONG!!!’

Uh oh. Busted. ‘Well, not all along.’ I grinned, sheepishly. Then I decided to go for broke. I guess I was little drunk with power. ‘And you better no tick me off, or I’ll vaporise you just like that guy.’ I had no idea how I’d done it in the first place, and no idea how to do it again, but she didn’t know that.

‘You don’t know how to use it.’ The broad smiled. ‘No-one knows how to use it. That was just luck.’

Okay, maybe she did know that.

‘Look, Windsong sweetheart, I’ll be straight with you.’ I tried. ‘The minute I found this rock, I was just about to call you, when the damn thing melts right into me.’

I noticed that Mickey and his remaining henchman were edging away from the scene, looking intensely like they didn’t want to be there (well, the henchman did). Good riddance, anyway. I had bigger things to deal with. Lucky bastards.

‘You’re a liar.’ She said, matter-of-factly. ‘I’ll tear it out of you.’

‘I resent that.’ I tried to back away. The bed was in the way. Damn it.

‘I’ll tear it out of you and take back my throne.’ She looked pretty determined. Frying pan, fire.

‘Can’t we cut some kind of a deal?’

What was I, a man or a mouse? Well, neither, but I was getting sick of running. I didn’t really want to hit a broad, but it was me or her. Eyes blazing, I pulled her own favourite trick on her and dived, teeth and claws before she could raise her hands for a fireball. I was going out fighting. I’d forgotten how light she was. The two of us landed against the wall and slid down.

She screamed like a little girl. I was taken aback. Okay, I can be pretty scary when I’m pissed off, I look a lot more like my dad, but she was some hard-ass sorceress, wasn’t she?

I pinned her arms down. They were so thin. It hadn’t really occurred to me how small she was. She talked big. And loud. I stared at her, my anger fading.

‘Please don’t eat me.’ She whimpered.

‘You can’t be more than sixteen.’ I said.

‘Fourteen. Don’t eat me. I wouldn’t really have done anything to you. You have to believe me.’

I felt almost embarrassed that I’d been scared of her. Then it struck me that this might be a trick, she could be pretending to be helpless. I kept her pinned down, showing my fangs and digging my claws into her. I think I was drooling too. Hey, hot girl underneath me, I’m only human...sort of. ‘Now you answer my earlier question. Why do you want this thing so badly?’

If she was pretending, she was a damned good actor. ‘My uncle, stole my throne, killed my parents, exiled my little sister, she’s lost now. I heard about the...it and tried to get it so I could defeat him. The people who guarded it hid it from me, took it away. I....’

‘Killed them.’

‘Yes. It was easy.’ She looked nasty. ‘The last one got away from me.’

‘That’s not something to be proud of.’ I growled. ‘She flinched.’

‘If I get it, I can kill him. Take back my throne.’

‘Can’t you kill him without it?’

‘I....’ She stopped.

I decided to let her up. No-one pretends to be that afraid and smells like that. It was stronger than the oranges. I guessed no-one had ever fought back before and I’d caught her off guard. She looked at me, surprised and rubbed the life back into her wrists.

‘I want him to be completely annihilated for what he did.’ She said, nastily.

I laughed. ‘You think I can’t smell you lying?’ I asked.

‘You can’t know that!’ She shouted at me.

‘Uhuh.’ I grinned and sat back against my bed. ‘Whatever you say, sweetheart. Now tell the truth.’

She clammed up and sat on the floor, fuming. She looked like an arrogant, stupid kid. I found it hard to believe I’d ever been afraid of her. ‘I think...ah..my nose tells me that you’re afraid to go back. This is all a diversion to avoid going back and facing your problems.’ I found my smokes on the floor and lit one with a match struck on the bed. ‘Am I right?’

‘No.’ She replied, angrily. We both knew she was lying. I just grinned and took a drag. ‘Yes. Stop smiling.’ She buried her head in her arms and started sobbing. I sighed. How many weepy kids was I going to be afflicted with today? Still, it was better than people trying to kill me. I passed her the first thing which came to hand, one of my old shirts. I felt horribly uncomfortable, and a little like a bully, making little girls cry. I wondered if I should give her a hug or something. I waited till she stopped and wiped her eyes on the shirt. I hoped there wasn’t anything on it.

‘Go home, sweetheart.’ I said, staring at the ceiling. ‘There’s only one more person who needs to die. You have to face that, tough girl.’ I looked back and she was gone. God knows where. But, she wasn’t trying to kill me any more as far as I knew, so score one to Vinny.

Outside, night was falling. The day from hell was over. I left my apartment to think. And wandered in the general direction of the Rotten Orange. Suddenly, I didn’t want to hang around here any more, doing stuff. There was a big universe out there. And maybe there was someone who could tell me how to get this stupid rock out of me. I went to bid farewell to my only friend in the world.

‘Are you off then, Vinny?’ Dave asked, cleaning a glass.

‘How did you know?’ I asked, open-mouthed.

‘You have that ‘I’m off’ look about you, Vinny.’

I shrugged. ‘Destiny awaits, Dave.’

‘Come back and visit sometime, Vinny.’ Dave said, looking smugly cryptic.

‘I will, Dave. I will.’ I smiled.

Then I walked right out of that city and left the goddamn smell of rotten oranges behind me.

[ Index | Chapter Two: The Nature of Things -->