Chapter 7
1803 Words
7
I arched an eyebrow. “Magic?”
He adjusted his coat and nodded. “Yes. After traveling across worlds, does that surprise you?”
I shrugged. “I’m not really sure. Maybe this is just a dream and I’ll wake up-ow!” He’d pinched my arm.
I glared at him. “What was that for?”
He massaged his shoulder and I detected a glimmer of mischief in his eye. “Merely returning the favor, and to remind you that you don’t feel pain in dreams.”
“Not this much. . .” I mumbled as I rubbed my arm.
Shade stood and tossed the med kit onto the table beside the bed. “We should get some food and rest for the night.”
I tugged hard on the hem of his coat. “I’m not going anywhere until I get some-” My stomach made its anger known by a loud grumble. I hung my head and sighed. “Alright, food first, but then answers.” I looked up at him and narrowed my eyes. “Deal?”
“You’re hardly in a position to make demands,” he pointed out.
I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at him. “Unless you want me to keep this position-sitting right here on this floor and starving to death-then you’ll agree to my demands.”
“Suit yourself.” He walked past me and to the door.
I spun around on my rear and pointed at myself. “Did you really go to all that trouble of saving me just to have me die here?”
He opened the door, but paused and turned to me. His teasing tone was all I needed to hear to know he had a sly grin on his lips. “I’ll just on you in a few days to see if you’re hungry.”
My face fell and my shoulders drooped. He stepped out, and I scrambled to my feet. “Wait!”
Shade paused and held the door open, but he stood in the doorway blocking my path. “Have you changed your mind?”
I frowned. “This starving woman is going to change the look on your face if you don’t move.”
I ducked around him and stepped out into the hall. The sweet smells of the kitchen again wafted over me. I followed them to the open doorway of the cookery and was nearly decked by a young man carrying a tray burdened by an array of drink and food.
“Move it!” he snapped before he slipped past me.
I jumped when a hand grabbed my arm, but it was only Shade. “Only the dogs are fed in the kitchen,” he teased as he pulled me down the hall.
I puckered my lips out in a pout, but let him lead me out into the wide open world of insobriety and gambling. Half the tables were occupied by men drinking, and the other half by men playing cards and drinking. The server with whom I’d had that quick dance in the doorway scooted from table to table delivering food stuffs and refilling the goblets of the thirsty men.
Shade led me over to a booth in the far corner. The rear wall stood behind the booth and the seating had a clear view of the door. Unfortunately, the seating also had a pair of grizzled looking men who sported ZZ Top beards and a miscellany of odors that nearly bowled me over. One of them sported a gaudy gold ring on his right hand.
“We want your table,” Shade told them.
The men lifted their mud-smeared faces and leered at the unprepossessing man. “What of it?” one of them snarled.
“You need to move,” Shade explained.
The other scoffed. “Make us.”
Shade inclined his head. “If you wish.”
Shade darted around the table and grabbed both men by their collars. He lifted them out of their seats and carried them to the door, but not before he caught the attention of the young waiter. “The door, if you would. I have some trash to throw out.”
“Let go, you mangy monster!” one of the men snarled as both thrashed in Shade’s hold.
“Very well,” Shade obliged as the waiter opened the door.
Shade tossed first one and then the other out the entrance and shut the door behind them. He turned to the silent room, with most people, me included, gaping at him. “Would any of you like to join them?”
The interest in his antics suddenly ceased and everyone looked back to their card playing and drinking as though they were the most interesting things they had ever seen. Shade walked back to the table and took a seat.
I joined him and looked him over. “You’re stronger than you look,” I commented.
“I have to be,” he returned as he waved a finger to the young chap. The waiter came over to our table. “Two of your thickest steaks and a whiskey. No water.”
“Water for me,” I chimed in.
The waiter bit his lower lip and his eyes darted over to the rear hallway. “Um, sir. . .”
“What?” Shade asked him.
The waiter picked at the edge of the empty platter that was pressed against his chest. “You-um, you can’t really stay here. Fighting isn’t allowed.”
“I didn’t fight anyone,” Shade argued.
The waiter pointed a shaking finger at the door. “But those men-”
“I merely carried them out the door. They were going to leave soon, anyway,” Shade defended himself. “Now if you’ll fetch our food and drinks then we can get some rooms.”
“B-but-”
“It’s alright, Johnny,” Margaret spoke up as the hefty woman came up to our table. She jerked her head in the direction of the kitchen. “Get going and get their food cooking.” Johnny bowed his head and scurried off. Margaret turned her attention on us and crossed her arms over her ample chest. “You know the rules, Shade. No fighting.”
“I would hardly call that a fight,” he countered as he leaned against the cushioned back. “More like a stroll to the door.”
“With the men levitating because you have a hold of their collars?” she reminded him.
“Exactly.”
She sighed. “Not another fight, Shade, or you’re out, and-” She gestured to me. “-I don’t think you’ll want to be out there right now.”
There was a quiet moment before Shade closed his eye. “I understand.”
Margaret smiled. “Good. Enjoy your meal.” She moved over to the other tables to look over her guests.
I looked to my quiet companion. “So while we’re waiting for our food, care to let me in on what’s happening? That is why you earned us this table, isn’t it?”
Shade opened his eye and straightened. “What do you want to know?”
I snorted. “Where do I start? For one thing, who are you?”
“You can call me Shade.”
“Like everyone else does, but who are you?” I persisted. “I mean, why did you take me away from those pig guys. Who were those pig guys? And that creepy pale guy.” I shuddered at the memory. “Who, or what, was he?”
“The pig men are plentiful enough in this world,” Shade revealed as he swept his eye over the establishment, silently counting off the number of piggish men who drank with humans. Or at least, I assumed they were human. “As for the other man, he is Pawn.”
I arched an eyebrow. “That isn’t a very nice name. Did his parents hate him?”
“The word is more a title than a name. He is merely a tool used by another, more dangerous individual.”
“Used? Like with magic?” I guessed.
Shade nodded. “Yes.”
“And he’s the guy who wants to kidnap me for. . .some reason?” I wondered.
“That would be a better conversation to have in a less public space,” he warned me as his eye flickered over the room.
I sighed. “Then what can you tell me? What about you? Other than your name, I don’t know anything about you. Why do you want to help me?”
“I have been assigned to escort you to a certain gentleman who would like to meet you,” he explained.
I frowned. “That’s a little vague. Why does he want to meet me?”
“Again, that isn’t the best conversation to have in such a place,” he repeated.
At that moment the waiter returned with a platter that contained our steaks and drinks. He put them down and hurried away. Shade picked up his knife and fork, and aimed both toward the delicious meat.
I grabbed his plate and pulled it away. The ends of his silverware c*****d against the table. He looked up at me and frowned. “What are you doing?”
“Ransom,” I told him as I scooted to the far end of the curved seat with both plates in hand. “Tell me what I know, in the softest voice you can manage, and you can eat.”
His eye narrowed and he reached across the table for his plate. “Now is not the time-”
“This might be all the time I have left if those guys find me,” I retorted.
Shade dropped his arm onto the table and sighed. “We will not be found here. The magic barrier around the inn prevents its being discovered by those who are unwelcome.”
He winced and laid his hand on his injured shoulder. The little skin I could see of his face appeared paler than before. He lifted his goblet and I noticed his hand shook a little.
Guilt flooded over me and I pushed his plate back to him. “I’m sorry. I should have remembered that you needed to get your strength back, and you did save me from those pig men and Pawn.”
He inclined his head to me and dug in to his food. I set my plate in front of me, but my hunger had been stifled by what few answers I had wrenched from my savior. The steak felt the poke of my knife as I thought about Pawn and the mysterious person who had hired Shade.
I raised my eyes to the man, or so I assumed. “Are you human?”
He paused with his filled halfway to his fork and his body stiffened. After a moment he resumed his eating and answered between munches. “Does that matter?”
I swept my eyes over the room with its piggish men and people, and shrugged. “I don’t know. This is your world.”
That yellow eye flickered over to me before he returned his full attention to his food. “Species plays a very little part in the ‘humanity’ of the individual.” His attention fell on my tortured steak. “You’re not eating.”
I managed a crooked, though relatively shallow, smile and halfheartedly cut pieces off the hunk of meat. “I guess I lost my appetite.”
“You shouldn’t do that,” he warned me as he finished his steak and leaned back with his cup clutched in one hand. “We have a long journey ahead of us.”
“To your employer?” I guessed.
“Yes.”
I glanced up at him. “How far is it?”
“A few days ride, and more on foot,” he told me.
I winced and flexed my foot. “And you don’t have a horse, do you?”
“No.”
I sighed, but dug into my meat with more alacrity. I had a long journey ahead of me, and I would need all my strength.
And how terribly right I was going to be.
- Writer
