Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
CLAYTON
Clayton had been wrong. People didn't stop talking when they entered the bar. Instead, the whole room flew into chaos as everyone tried to escape by any means available to them.
One enterprising fellow dove between Clayton's legs—probably because he was blocking the door—so, of course, Clayton sat on him.
“If you value your lives, you'll sit your butts back in your seats!” Eira's voice rang out. “This guardian has some questions for you lot.”
Clayton had never felt so in charge before.
He found he quite liked it. “Gentlemen. And gender unknown person...” He gestured toward the person to draw closer, and when they refused to budge, he whisper-yelled, “Could I trouble you for your pronouns?” They scowled at him and gave him the finger, so Clayton bowed and proceeded to pretend that nothing had happened.
“Everyone, I am here to question you all about some missing toys.”
The entire room, including Eira, gaped at him.
“That is to say, several things have, ah, turned up missing... in this part of town, right?” The last bit was directed at Eira for confirmation. Perhaps he should have gathered more details before entering the bar.
Eira sighed and took over. “Half of the people on the west end are missing some of their personal effects. Random things, watches, eggbeaters... toys.” She threw an irritated look at Clayton.
“Most of the missing items are worthless, but some have sentimental value.
You lot have been pushing the good folks of this town around for too long, but that stops right now.
Someone who matters actually cares about what's going on down here for a change. Now, one of you had better start talking, fast, or this guardian is going to level this hovel to the ground, and some of you might even be lucky enough to survive the experience—if in pieces.” Satisfied she got her point across, she crossed her arms over her chest and waited.
Hearing her rousing speech made Clayton almost believe he was capable of such things.
He could probably manage to turn over a table if he really exerted himself.
They did look terribly sturdy and dense, though.
Definitely a chair at the very least. The occupants of the room seemed immune to the speech, and their dirty faces looked everywhere but at Clayton.
Clayton leaned back and gave his best man spreading pose—courtesy of hours spent watching Marshall and Jack lounge around the chapter house. Clayton’s squirming chair didn’t make it easy on him, but he managed a reasonable facsimile.
Well, Clayton thought he’d done a good job, but no one else seemed to be impressed.
“No one?” Clayton sighed.
How frustrating. This sort of thing never happened to Marshall. The most Clayton had ever seen him need to do was...
“You there,” he said to his chair, giving it a poke. “Help a fellow out and be my demonstration.”
His chair declined. When Clayton insisted, it tried to escape again.
The ensuing scuffle went in Clayton's favor for once, more likely due to a hiccup in fate and not because he had the high ground and some fancy Guard defense classes under his belt.
Whatever the case may be, he swiftly had the ruffian planted firmly under him once more.
“Ok, Fair Gentles, a demonstration.” Clayton held out a finger.
“As you all know, I am a guardian, and being a guardian, I can do many powerful and mysterious things to the mind.” He emphasized the word powerful and waggled his finger, hoping that—like most people did—the barflies would assume being a guardian and a dreamwalker were the same thing.
“This gentleman here...” He trailed off.
“Chester.” His chair bleated out, flinching from the waggling finger.
“Yes... er, Chester?”
“It's a family name.”
“I'm sure it is, dear boy.” Clayton shook his head and continued.
“Right now, Chester is mentally unspoiled—relatively speaking—but if I wanted, I could nip inside and do whatever I liked.” He looked around.
Everyone in the room was watching Clayton like he was about to strip, but no one appeared ready to spill vital, case-breaking information.
“I didn't want to have to do this...” He really, really didn't, but held up his index finger.
“I know things!” Chester began thrashing around under Clayton's hold. “I know lots of things. What do you want to know? I know that George over there is sweet on Evie!”
The gender-neutral person looked up with surprise at a suddenly bashful bruiser of a man, whom Clayton assumed to be George.
George, who looked to be part troll, kneeled to the floor and nervously pulled off his cap. “I didn't want you to find out this way, Evie.” He took their hand. “But it's true, every time you smile at me, my heart dances inside.”
Evie's grimy face recovered from their shock and gave him a gap-toothed grin. “George, all this time, I never guessed. Every time I poured you a drink, I was telling you I loved you.”
George swept Evie into his arms, plopped their ample bottom on the table, and began kissing them soundly.
“How… lovely,” Clayton managed after a moment. He had to swallow several times before he could continue. “However, that was not the information I was looking for. In fact,”—he looked over at the enthusiastic couple making out on the bar—“that was something I never needed to know.”
“I don't know anything else!” Chester tried to cover his head, nearly bucking Clayton off in the process.
Clayton held out his finger again, only to have it covered with a sweat-stained shirt that came from the direction of the bar.
“For Vis’s sake, get a room!” Clayton flung it away like a venomous spider and spent a full minute shuddering before coming to his senses.
It was the closest he’d ever gotten to sex in his short life, and that was the saddest truth he’d ever encountered. Someone needed to pay for the blow his poor psyche had just taken.
Clayton’s eyes narrowed at his chair—the reason for his ugly confrontation with the truth—and decided instant karma for Chester was called for. He reached out and bopped Chester on the nose.
Chester went cross-eyed and flailed wildly, forcing Clayton to fight to stay on top of him. Clayton held on for an impressive amount of time. Field experience was doing wonders for his self-esteem.
When Chester finally managed to knock Clayton off his back, he began running around the room, smacking at his head, shouting, “What did you do to me?!”
“Only time will tell.” Clayton got to his feet, brushed himself off, and tried his best to sound mysterious. “Ok, who’s next?” He pointed his finger at random.
The room as a whole flinched away from him.
“Fine, fine, I'll tell ye. Geeze, such a ruckus over a few bits and bobs.” A quavery voice came from the back. The crowd parted enough to let a tiny, wrinkled old man through. His hair had long ago turned white, but the faded purple spots near his hairline identified him as a kirian.
Eira came up to him, “Grampy? What are you doing here?” She turned to face Clayton. “Guardian, this man is harmless. His mind wanders sometimes. Please don't hurt him.” Her face, once smug and proud, was now pinched with fear.
“He has nothing to fear as long as he tells the truth,” Clayton said, feeling grand and benevolent.
Being a guardian was amazing. No wonder Jack was always covered with ladies and gentlemen.
Clayton had never had so many people giving him attention in his life—unless he counted the time all the toilets backed up at the chapter house and he'd been the one who had to fix it.
Clayton tried really hard to forget about that day.
Clayton waved graciously. “Please continue, sir.”
Grampy shuffled closer, looking Clayton up and down. He didn’t seem impressed with what he saw, but then again, neither did Clayton when he looked in the mirror most mornings, so he didn’t hold it against the man. “Three days ago, I was taking my evening patrol—”
Eira tugged on Clayton’s sleeve and explained, “He used to be a night watchman in the old days back home. It was decades ago, but his memory has grown fuzzy over the years.”
Grampy held himself proudly and continued as though Eira hadn’t spoken.
“And during my patrol, I noticed something interesting.” He paused dramatically.
When he seemed sure he had everyone’s attention, he continued.
“There was this blurry, shiny patch of nothing that just popped up outta nowhere. It was gone in a flash, and afterward, our folding chair was gone with it.”
“Pay no attention to him, Guardian,” Eira said. “He goes on like this from time to time. He doesn’t mean any harm. He’s just confused.”
A flicker at the edge of Clayton’s vision caught his attention.
Right at Grampy’s feet was a baby earth elemental.
It wasn’t unusual. They liked kirians, even if they couldn’t be seen by them.
It was something about their energy, though they didn’t tend to stick around if the kirian in question was being violent, nasty, or delusional.
“He’s telling the truth,” Clayton stated.
“Guardian?” Eira’s eyes narrowed, but Clayton’s face must have been doing something particularly Marshally, because she nodded in acceptance and grew thoughtful.
Nice. If Clayton could replicate that face on command, he’d be unstoppable. It was probably because he’d been around Marshall so much lately. Clayton should definitely follow Marshall around as much as humanly possible until he could reproduce the expression on command.
“Please take me to the place where you saw the, erm, blurry, shiny thing,” Clayton said to Grampy in the most commanding voice he could manage. He took a chance and flashed a smile he’d begun practicing in the mirror the moment he’d seen Jack flash it at him.
The room flinched as a whole.
Perhaps it still needed work.