Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
CLAYTON
When Clayton dreamed of his first field assignment, it hadn’t involved rats or garbage. Or that godawful smell. What the hell was it?
“It's like someone vomited on a large pile of dead rats.” Had he said that out loud?
The kirian, whose name he had learned was Eira, snorted. “Home sweet home, pretty boy. I hope those shoes don't leak.”
They did. Farewell, socks.
As they plodded through what felt like miles of abandoned subway tunnels, Clayton learned more about his first self-appointed mission.
Tommy, the little boy, had started noticing his things were going missing.
It had started with his Bun Bun and moved to his socks and his underpants.
Merry, his older sister, had thought he was telling fibs to make up for losing his belongings until she started missing things too.
“After a few days, we found out that many of the people in our town were missing things, but only people who lived near me and Tommy. We came to Eira for help,” Merry said as she sidestepped a pile of something nasty without even looking. She had clearly lived in Boston Below for a while.
“She's the smartest person we know,” Tommy piped in with a great sense of importance.
“And she took us to you.” Merry ignored her brother's interruption. “What are you going to do?”
“Well…” Clayton drew out the word with relish.
He wasn’t used to having people treat him like a guardian.
It wasn’t half bad. “First, I have to get the lay of the land, so to speak. Talk to people, knock some skulls together, you know, guardian-type things.” Clayton had no idea what he would do, but for a simple thievery case, he was sure he'd come up with something.
“Town is just around this bend,” Eira said, waving down the tunnel ahead.
'Town' turned out to be a surprisingly well-organized group of buildings made of anything the builders could get their hands on. He’d been expecting ragged boxes and human-sized rat nests, but he found small houses made from repurposed pallets, shipping containers stacked and turned into studio apartments, and in some cases, people had burrowed into the wall and made their homes there.
The whole effect was creative and oddly attractive.
They were walking past an enormous, brightly colored tent that appeared to be a mercantile of some sort. It seemed to sell everything from teapots to spell books.
A buxom woman wearing a costume made of strips of cloth that were just as colorful as her tent poked her head out and yelled, “No norms allowed, Eira! You know that.” Her eyes glowed with a golden light and illuminated everything in front of her.
Clayton winced at the sudden brightness and looked down at his newly pressed trousers and his pristine, white button-down shirt. Then he took in what everyone else was wearing and noted that the overarching theme was shabby and eclectic. To them, he imagined he looked a lot like a norm.
“Gelda, you overblown busy-body, he's a guardian. He's here to find out about the thefts.” Eira rolled her eyes.
Gelda’s demeanor made a complete one-eighty.
Her face brightened, and Clayton could practically see the dollar signs in her glowing eyes.
“In that case, I have a lovely journal you might be interested in, Guardian...” The woman trailed off encouragingly, toying with a dozen or so strands of beads hanging around her neck.
“Wood. Clayton Wood at your service, ma'am.” He bowed slightly with a small flourish he had been working on in his room late at night.
He was beginning to think he should have clarified his ‘not exactly a guardian’ status to the children after all.
But in for a penny… “Don't worry, I'll have the problem sorted out in no time.”
She raised an eyebrow at his name. In Other society, a name like Wood, Park, or Pond usually meant that the child was named after the place they were found.
“Well, look at you, coming from nothing and becoming a guardian.” Gelda fanned herself at the thought of the hours of gossip she could get from the encounter.
“Yes, well... quite.” It was true that foundlings usually ended up in places like the underground village they were currently in, rather than the comfortable home he had been brought up in, but Clayton never knew what to say when people brought it up.
He chose deflection. “Ms. Gelda, if it wouldn't be too much trouble, I would love to talk to you about what you think about the recent thefts in the village.”
Not being able to resist being part of the story she would soon be spreading around the town, Gelda nodded eagerly. “Of course! Anything to help The Guard.”
“Have you been affected at all?” Being a purveyor of interesting things, Clayton would assume she would have incurred some loss.
“Oh, no, not at all. These old eyes are too sharp for anyone to pull shenanigans on me. Besides, the only things going missing are coming from their part of town.” The way she rolled her eyes at the children as she said 'their' made it clear who she thought the culprits were.
“What about suspicious behavior? Seen any of that?” That seemed like a good question to ask. They were always asking it in crime shows. But to his consternation, both women burst out laughing.
“What?”
Eira was the first to calm down, and she wiped tears of mirth from her eyes. “Dear, look where you are. The only thing we get here is suspicious behavior.”
Clayton tugged at his collar. “I suppose you're right.” He thought for a moment. “I don't know this area like you do, Eira. Where would you start?”
He must have said the magic words, because Eira stopped looking at him like she had made a mistake bringing him here and instead grew thoughtful.
“I'd start by going places I wouldn't have dared to before I had the backing of a guardian.” Clayton didn't think he liked where the conversation was going.
“There's a bar at the end of town that most people don't go to,” Eira said, tapping her chin. “You might want to question the people there.”
“Let me guess, dingy, dark, and everyone is going to stop talking when we enter?”
“So you've been there, have you?” Gelda looked absolutely ecstatic.
“You people don't watch much telly, do you?” It wasn't really a question.
For most of the Other, there was too much magic being cast in, on, and around their houses for an electronic device as complicated as a television to be of much use. Not like Clayton’s home.
Clayton’s magic had never managed to mature during his formative years. Tests had been done, and the results had been inconclusive. Everyone agreed that he had it, but no one could figure out where he was keeping it.
Clayton thought it was probably being stored inside another guardian with more magic than their share *cough* Marshall *coughcough* and they needed to give it back already.
Clayton tried not to let it get him down, though.
Instead, he worked twice as hard to learn as much as possible, so he could be a useful member of the Guard.
Samantha certainly never found fault with him, and she always forgave his little…
peculiarities. Especially since he was always ready, willing, and able to clean up after everyone.
There were identical looks of confusion on both women's faces. “Telly?”
“Television.” Merry rolled her eyes as if to say, adults, right? “Nobody has one of those down here.”
Tommy pulled on Clayton's trouser leg. “Merry and I sometimes watch cartoons at Walmart. We can't stay for too long, or the norms'll get suspicious. I like Thomas.” The last part was a whisper, as if he were imparting a precious secret.
Clayton crouched down and whispered back, “Me too.”
Maybe he could buy the children an iPad. They were young enough that they probably wouldn’t have come into their magic yet. An iPad might survive around them for a few months if they were lucky. They wouldn’t be able to connect to the internet, but he could load it with games and videos.
“If we’re going to the bar, we’ll have to leave the children behind,” Eira said. “They may be part of the case, but they’re too young.”
Clayton stood back up, wincing when his hand brushed against a mysterious wet spot on his trouser leg.
“Agreed. Okay, you two, go stay with your parents while I'm gone,” he said absently, his mind already furiously working away at the ‘how best not to die while at the bar’ part of the plan.
He could do it. He could channel his inner Marshall.
Probably.
“We don't stay with our parents.” Merry looked at him steadily. “I take care of us. That's how it's always been.”
Clayton gaped at her. “But you're just children. What are you, seven?”
Merry hesitated before saying, “I’m six.”
“Six?! What happened to your parents?” A familiar pain reared up in Clayton’s head.
It liked to show up whenever he found himself getting overly invested in something. Fortunately, it was no more distracting than the wet, squishy sensation slowly overtaking his left foot, but he’d need to keep an eye on it in case it got any ideas.
“They died. We don't remember anything about them.” Merry caught her brother’s gaze in an odd way before adding, “It's probably for the best that we don’t.”
Before Clayton had a chance to process the odd little exchange, Eira answered his question.
“They showed up here alone about six months ago.” Eira's face was sad. “We get a lot of orphans down here. We feed and clothe them as best we can, but they learn young how to fend for themselves.”
Clayton's face grew hot with anger—probably making him look like a lumpy beet because his complexion wasn’t his best friend. He may have gotten green eyes out of the deal, but being a ginger had its downside.
Clayton chose not to voice his ire at the injustice of children being left to fend for themselves because it wasn’t the time or place, but he was going to have a talk with Samantha about the conditions in Boston Below the next time he saw her.
He turned to Eira and asked, “Will you stay with them?”
“I think you're going to need me, dear. Don't worry, these two are used to being on their own down here.” She patted his arm.
Clayton didn't like it, but short of hiring a nanny, there wasn't much he could do about it. For now. He mentally stabbed a pin directly into the heart of that for now and gave it a stern look to let it know he wouldn’t forget about it, then he relented and allowed Eira to pull him down the battered tracks leading through the center of the shantytown.
Merry
Merry hugged Tommy to her chest as the grown-ups walked away.
“Go on home, you two, shoo!” Gelda swatted at the two children with her broom. “I'd like to keep my inventory intact, thank you.”
Merry turned her body to shelter her brother from the blow. “Come on, Tommy. Let’s find some food.”
Tommy watched Clayton leave with a funny expression on his face. “He seems nice.”
Merry eyeballed Gelda’s broom warily as she answered, “Very nice, but don’t get attached. You know how things are here.” She pulled on her brother’s arm to get him moving.
“I don’t like it here,” Tommy informed her before reluctantly allowing her to drag him out of swatting distance.
“It won’t be forever,” Merry promised. “We have an important job to do first, right?”
Tommy soldiered up, squared his shoulders, and said, “Right!” before immediately crumpling and whispering, “I miss home,”
“Me too, Tommy. Me too.”