4. Cal
four
Cal
Cal’s stomach sank as he took in the Brotherhood goons crowding the entrance to his safe house. It figured. He should’ve known he was due some ill luck.
He shot a quick glare at the inspector’s turned back.
He didn’t care how attractive Griff was, with that handsome face and firm muscles hidden beneath his drab trench coat.
Without his meddling, none of this would’ve happened.
Cal had been free and clear with both his hefty payday and that void relic in hand.
Leave it to a Dark-cursed inspector to ruin everything.
After meeting him at the Siren’s Call, Cal had wondered if his newfound reputation had truly been earned. Now, he had his answer. No wonder the Watch had failed so spectacularly to catch a single thief when their top inspector couldn’t even conduct a simple investigation without being followed.
If you thought about it, this was really the inspector’s mess to clean up, not his. Let him deal with it.
Moving as quietly as he could, Cal kept up his disguise as an elderly woman while he hobbled away from the door deeper into the apartment. He knew of at least three different exit points he could use to slip away the instant he was out of view.
He would miss this safehouse, though. The apartment itself was nothing special, but the location near the docks had been mighty convenient. Plus, one of his downstairs neighbors routinely baked him sweets when he was around.
He’d only taken a handful of steps when the head enforcer’s beady eyes narrowed on him. “Hold up!” she said loudly, speaking over the inspector and her companions. She jerked a finger toward Cal. “Who’s that?”
Griff’s fingers hovered near his belt…and the artificer revolver holstered there. A handy tool, that. Cal might need to look into getting one himself someday. Though if things came to blows in his line of work, that usually meant he’d already messed up.
“An innocent bystander,” Griff said. “Whatever business you have here, you can take it up with me.”
“You ain’t the one in charge here, Inspector,” the woman snapped.
A gesture from her sent two of the Brotherhood goons stalking forward. They sneered down at Griff as they passed by, as though daring him to try and stop them. The inspector’s jaw tightened, but he made no move to intervene.
So much for my knight in shining armor.
Not that Cal had expected anyone else to fight his battles for him. As usual, he’d have to rely on his own wits to get him out of this mess.
Adding a quaver to his voice, he put on his best terrified face and gazed up at the two goons. “Oh, please, don’t hurt me. Can’t we talk this out? I don’t know what this is about, but I’ve never met a problem that couldn’t be solved with some tea and fresh biscuits.”
The two henchmen glanced at each other, clearly unsure how to deal with him. He smothered a grin. It seemed even hardened criminals didn’t much like threatening a defenseless old woman.
“Sorry, granny,” one of them muttered. “Just sit tight ‘til we get this sorted out.”
The Brotherhood thugs might have had qualms about attacking an old woman, but they didn’t seem nearly so concerned about an inspector. The remaining four enforcers fanned out to surround Griff, boxing him in. The woman in charge ambled up to stand in front of him, smirking at him.
“Let’s try that again,” she said. “You’ve got something of ours. Tell us where it is, and this’ll all be over.” She jerked a finger toward Cal. “Is this woman a contact of yours? Some sort of Watch asset?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Griff gritted out. “But I can assure you that, whatever you’re looking for, this woman had nothing to do with it.”
Cal muffled a wince. Oops. Guess he really had been super believable during their chat.
The woman, however, didn’t seem nearly so convinced. “Last chance, prottie. Hand over the orb, or we’ll do this the hard way.”
Griff didn’t blink, nor back down. Watching the determined set to his face, Cal couldn’t help admiring his courage—foolish though it might’ve been when he was so heavily outnumbered.
“This is your last chance,” Griff said, his voice calm. “Leave now, before I arrest you for breaking and entering.”
The woman snorted and shook her head. “You protties are all the same. You think that badge you hide behind can protect you? Things are changing around here, Inspector.” She grinned and loudly cracked her knuckles. “You know, I’ve always wanted to know what it feels like to punch a prottie.”
Her blow came lightning-swift, so fast that Cal almost thought it enhanced by soulflame.
Yet Griff appeared to anticipate it. He twisted to the side, letting her punch pierce the empty air in front of him.
Spinning, he brought his shoulder up and rammed it into her gut.
She stumbled back with a wheezing cough.
“Get them!” she bellowed.
Cal didn’t wait for the two goons with him to obey. In the split second they were distracted glancing toward her, he made his move, slamming a palm into the face of the closest brute. The brute cried out, reeling back. Cal felt the satisfying crunch of snapping cartilage amid a warm spurt of blood.
While that first brute stumbled away, clutching his face, Cal wasted no time rushing the other. His sudden speed caught the brute off-guard, and he slammed into him, deftly hurling him to the floor with a twisting motion. The brute hit the ground hard with a muffled oof.
Cal seized the brief respite to draw upon his duskflame. The flickering dark fire infused his flesh, and within moments, his appearance had shifted to mimic the brute on the ground—just in time for the first goon whose nose he’d broken to recover enough to squint around.
His bleary gaze locked on Cal. “Where’d that Void-eater go?” he said, his voice high and nasally thanks to his broken nose.
Cal spun to the right and gestured frantically. “There!”
Confusion wrinkled the brute’s brow when he turned and saw his companion lying on the floor. Before he could figure out what had happened, Cal lunged forward and delivered several swift blows to his head and neck.
The thug dropped. Cal crouched down and scrambled at his belt, unhooking his cudgel. The brute hadn’t drawn it, either because Cal hadn’t given him a chance or because they wanted him and Griff alive.
Rising with the cudgel in hand, Cal shifted his illusion yet again in another burst of duskflame.
This time, he adopted his usual Blackjack persona these thugs would be familiar with from The Last Drop, only with a couple of select embellishments.
He added a nasty wound dripping blood down the right side of his face and made his right arm appear limp and broken, the cudgel tucked against his side out of sight.
By then, the second brute was stumbling back to his feet. His mouth twisted in a snarl. When he spotted Cal’s wounded visage, he grinned. “Looks like Dex got in a good hit or two. Guess it’s up to me to finish the job.”
Cal raised his free hand and took a step back, widening his eyes in feigned fear. “No, please! I’m sorry. I’ll be good, I promise.”
“Sure you will,” the goon chuckled. He hefted his own cudgel, slapping the heavy wood against the meat of his palm. “I’ll make sure of it.”
Cal waited until the brute had closed most of the distance and brought his cudgel back before darting forward inside the brute’s reach. The goon tried to grab him, punching at his wounded side…except of course, there was nothing actually there to hit.
Cal swung his own disguised cudgel into the back of the thug’s skull with a muffled crack. The brute collapsed, and Cal grinned down at him.
It was almost too easy when you could take advantage of your opponent’s misconceptions the way his power allowed. Fighting him, everyone was always off-guard. It was how he’d managed to evade capture all these years.
And now that the way was clear, it was time for him to make his great escape yet again.
He hurried toward the back of the room and the window he’d rigged for a quick getaway there, only to shout in surprise as something wrapped tightly around his limbs. He toppled to the ground, writhing to free himself. That was when he realized he was caught in a faintly glowing net.
What the Void…?
A click echoed above him, and he stilled, craning his neck to see Griff standing there. The inspector had his Vantoric revolver out and leveled at Cal, its barrel still smoking.
“I’d stay still if I were you,” Griff said. “I think it’s time we finish that chat we were having.”
Cal’s gaze flicked from Griff to the room behind him. His eyes widened when he saw the rest of the Brotherhood thugs laid out there. In the time it had taken Cal to deal with his two, Griff had knocked out two more cold and left the other two entangled in nets…just like the one now holding him.
Well, this isn’t good.
Cal scrambled desperately for an explanation the inspector would accept. Griff had been distracted by the fight. Maybe he hadn’t seen Cal use his abilities. Maybe this was still salvageable.
“Look man, I don’t know what’s going on here anymore than you do,” Cal said. “I came here to spend some time with my grandma. I was taking a nap in the back when you arrived. You must have missed me.”
“Save it,” Griff said, his face hard. “I recognize your aura. I thought there was something off about it, and I realize now what it was: duskflame. What were you doing at The Last Drop? Do you know anything about this ‘orb’ the Brotherhood is after?”
Okay, so the secret of his power was out. But that didn’t mean all was lost. He could still feign ignorance about all the rest. He’d talked himself out of worse jams than this one.
He did the best he could to cross his arms in the net and summoned a scowl. “I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I don’t know what’s going on here anymore than you do, and last I checked, being a duskflamer isn’t illegal here in Sanjarka.”