14. Winter
Winter didn’t need to return to his post. Not yet anyway. Although he probably should, he could spare another hour or two before doing so.
A tingle had taken root in the center of his chest, and the only satisfying scratch would come from attaining more information on the intriguing newcomers.
Newcomers. A term he had neither thought nor spoken in well over a lifetime.
He leaned against the pub’s exterior brick wall.
The muffled sounds of conversation from within drifted through the window’s thick glass, the surrounding edges, and cracked sill.
Few discernible words reached his sensitive ears.
Still, at the border of the dark, quiet, sleeping citadel, Aoes’s establishment showed more life than it had in far too long.
The newcomers had somehow made their way into Winter’s citadel and to Aoes’s—or Earl’s—pub.
Who are they? Where did they come from? And how did they get past the citadel barrier?
He could think of one way that might provide him with one or more answers and help satiate the persistent itch radiating from his breastbone.
Circling around to the back of the building, Winter made his way to the pub’s secret cellar hidden entrance. An empty pallet leaning against the brick wall concealed a camouflaged door and passage descending to the room beneath the building.
No one, other than Aoes and Winter, knew about the space.
As far as Winter understood, even Earl no longer held awareness of the secret.
Not since he became afflicted. If Aoes hadn’t gotten sloshed with too many spiced spirits one night many years ago, Winter likely wouldn’t know about the room’s existence either.
But Aoes did, and now Winter knew. And considering the new development, he intended to put that knowledge to good use.
Winter let himself into the secret space.
With the crank of an ignitor switch, light flickered to life, illuminating everything in sight. The narrow stairs, the lower landing, the drunk tank set into the back wall spanning from side to side, the door beyond to the tunnels and pub, and the open doorway on his right to the adjoining room.
As far back as he could recall, no one had ever used the drunk tank. Why have it if not to use it? Well…
Employing the lockup would mean divulging the room’s existence, and Winter suspected that Aoes had no intention of ever doing that. Mainly because of the adjoining room Winter stepped into, shutting the door at his back.
The room offered several comforts: a lounge, a table with two chairs, a folding bunk anchored halfway up the wall that Winter had once used, a collection of shelved liquor-filled bottles, and a small library for which to pass time—if one didn’t busy themselves utilizing the many vision scopes and sound tubes to spy on the patrons in the pub above.
Unsure of everyone’s position in the pub’s open space, Winter began opening each tube, allowing the sounds from above to wash over him.
“As if I would ever.” Raven’s voice came through strong. A tad too strong. A clear indication that she’d raised her voice, and from the inflection in her tone, raised it in anger or frustration. “I should have expected this coming from you. A buffoon with no faith in others.”
A beat of silence, and Winter darted to the wall housing the various vision scopes. Aoes had one situated in each corner of the pub, one overlooking the back room, and two others covering the back hall and stairwell.
Winter gazed through one of the four offering an overview of the pub. A series of mirrors mounted at particular angles allowed the contraption to work. The resulting image came through wide and less than ideally defined, but he easily found Raven and Chace in a silent standoff beside the bar.
Even with the network of mirrors and tubes between him and the newcomers, Winter could feel the tension.
Aoes slammed two filled steins on the bar, the liquid sloshing up and over the sides. “Have another, on me. Might help wane the strain.”
He pushed the steins toward Raven and Chace. The one toward Raven slid a smidgen too close and too sharp. Froth slipped over the side, splashing across the front of her outfit.
She jumped back and glowered at her ale-soaked attire. “Fabulous.”
The word seethed from her lips.
Aoes grimaced and produced a less-than-clean towel with which he began to mop up the mess. “Sorry.”
Unable to see the scene with pristine clarity, Winter couldn’t discern the situation with certainty, but based on the crinkle of Aoes’s face, Winter suspected the spillage intentional.
Raven huffed and spun toward the back washroom. “I’ll be back.”
Without Raven’s attention on him, smug satisfaction lifted Aoes’s features.
Chace turned to Aoes, catching his appeased expression. “Smooth.”
“Thank you.” Aoes shoved the sodden towel behind the bar and took a bow. “It’s a talent of mine.”
“No doubt.” Chace lowered his elbow to the bar’s wooden surface with a thud. Leaning into the barrier, he closed the distance between them. “Now, what possible reason would you have to try and capture some alone time with me?”
Wishing for a more desirable vantage point of the potential confrontation, Winter quickly glanced through the other available vision scopes and found one offering a slightly closer view.
“I can’t shake the feeling that we’ve met before.” Aoes folded his arms on the bar and tipped forward, within a few inches of the newcomer’s face. Aoes’s eyebrow arched. “Did you lie to me previously? Have we, Ace? Met before?”
Chace shook his head. “First of all, that’s not my name—”
“Isn’t it, though?” A knowing smirk cut across Aoes’s lips. “An ace at the chase.”
“There’s no hidden message in my name.” Chace’s shoulders rose and fell with a deep breath. “As for having previously met…my answer still stands. I think I would remember a mug such as yours.”
“As I would yours. I have a rather excellent memory, and I’m quite good with faces and, well, personal energies.” He swirled his finger, gesturing to Chace. “Yours is…”’
“Could it be you knew my father?” Chace stretched his neck, cutting inches off the distance between them, and the two guys in the pub faced off as two assessing predators.
“Bogart?” Aoes rubbed the underside of his jaw.
“Badden.”
Aoes blinked, his chin jerking back. “You’re the one, aren’t you?”
Chace stepped away from the bar. “What are you talking about? The one what?”
The one?
Winter jolted, the motion knocking a standing flask on its side. It toppled and fell to the floor with a clatter.
Aoes’s attention shot directly to the spy end of the vision scopes, his gaze swinging past two until he zeroed in on the one scope through which Winter peered…as if Aoes could capture the sight of Winter monitoring the inner pub activities.
Aoes and Winter knew each other too well.
Winter mentally cursed.
A door at the back of the room slammed, and Raven stalked over to her drink.
Noting the tension between Chace and Aoes, her forward motion hitched. “Did I miss something of interest?”
Chace shrugged and leaned against the high wooden counter.
“Not at all.” Aoes waved the question away and sauntered out from behind the bar. “I was just going to poke Earl and pull together some grub for the two of you. There’s nothing more you can do for your friend tonight, and he’s in good hands. Try to check your stress and relax for an hour or two.”
Aoes exited the main room, leaving Raven and Chace glaring at one another in silence.
Winter adjusted his stance, and his foot kicked the fallen flask. It skidded across the floor. With a grumble, he retrieved the vessel and slammed it flat side down on the desk.
A second later, a click and a creak had Winter spinning toward the door. Aoes stood in the now-open doorway.
Winter opened his mouth to speak, but Aoes raised a finger to his lips, halting Winter’s forthcoming words.
The pub manager stalked the fringes of the room. After closing every single sound tube, he grabbed a bottle of liquor, plus two empty glasses, and set them on the table.
His gaze met Winter’s, and then he swung a hand to indicate the tubes. “When open, sound carries in both directions.”
Of course. Of course it does. Winter winced, recalling his grumbles and curses.
“Don’t worry.” Aoes smirked. “I don’t think they noticed.”
Aoes dropped into a chair, swirled the amber liquid within the decanter, and then poured them each a drink.
Taking a seat across from him at the table, Winter accepted the offered glass and downed a sip.
The liquid fire burned the back of his mouth and the length of his throat.
When he had emptied his glass, he set it firmly on the table and tapped his finger against the rim.
“Who are these newcomers really?” he asked. “I heard the interaction between the two of you. Who is Bogart? Or Badden? Who is this one you think Chace might be?”
With a sigh and a following frown, Aoes slouched into the back of his seat. “Bogart was a guy I used to do business with. Badden, I don’t know. I never got all the names of Bogart’s associates.”
“Would this business of yours be illegal?”
Aoes swallowed a healthy gulp of his drink, and a look of contemplation flickered across his features. “Life would be so boring without a dash…or several hundred scoops…of spice.”
“Mm-hmm.” Winter tapped a finger against the table.
A smile cracked the lines of Aoes’s face. “Admit it. Most days, life here in the citadel can be less than exciting. You’ve got to be craving spice as much as I do.”
As hard as he tried to hold his expression neutral, stern even, the edges of Winter’s lips twitched upward. He did so enjoy spice. And adventure, puzzles, mysteries, new curiosities.
“Raven,” Aoes said with a lift of his chin. “Is she your current spice?”
Winter narrowed his gaze. “I just met her.”
Although, he wouldn’t mind getting to know her infinitely better. She was, after all, a midnight dream wrapped in curves he’d enjoy memorizing.
“And?” Aoes rubbed his chin with a curled finger.
“And…” Winter leaned into the table. “Who is Chace to you?”
“Ace?” Aoes barked a laugh. “That bundle of excitement isn’t much to me. Nothing more than a boarder.”
Skepticism swept over Winter, but he held the emotion at bay. “But?”
“But there’s something about his energy. Something familiar.” Aoes’s eyes glazed over, his thoughts appearing years away.
Winter waited. His friend would eventually return to the conversation…and the specific point of discussion. For as long as Winter had known Aoes, he usually held his focus and followed through. Usually.
Aoes rocked forward, planting his elbows on the table, and weaved his fingers together. “What do you remember about the time our dear citadel succumbed to our current cursed state and the first few years thereafter? Do you recall the many years in between then and now?”
Winter remembered a lot. Probably more than he cared to recall.
“What event or aspect has your mind occupied?” he asked.
“Well.” Aoes heaved a breath. “Some strange things happened back in the beginning of all this.”
He waved a hand around his head as if he could trace his fingers along the edge of the curse enveloping the citadel.
“But about twenty or so years ago, give or take, something possibly more curious went down. Something that included a handful of unusual visitors who happened to exude somewhat similar energies to Ace.”
He finished his drink in one swallow. “I didn’t learn much about them, other than the reason for them being here stemmed back to the start of things, the birth of the curse.”
“Really?” Winter arched an eyebrow.
Before the change to the citadel that dampened the magic within Veritas, Aoes had a rather strong ability to read individual energies.
“These unusual visitors managed to get past the confining magic and into Veritas?”
Aoes nodded.
“And you think Chace is somehow related to these unusual visitors?”
Aoes shrugged.
“What about Raven?”
“Yeah.” Aoes plucked the decanter from the table and refilled his glass. “She’s intriguing but unfamiliar in that manner.”
Winter nodded as Aoes reached across the table and refilled Winter’s drink. The pub manager raised his glass. Winter rose to the request, clinking his glass to Aoes’s.
“To the dashes of spice,” Aoes said and took a swig.
“And the fire they ignite in our bellies.” Winter smiled and followed suit, privately toasting to Aoes’s gift for reading the energy of others. “Life would be bland without them.”
Newcomers with intriguing energy—Chace, particularly. Winter knew not of the visiting strangers from two decades ago, but he now planned to uncover some answers and unravel the mystery of the current pub guests.
If any chance existed that Chace, or even Raven, were somehow related to the affair that led to the citadel’s current jinxed state, he would uncover that connection. And then he would take control of the situation…of their role in fixing what had been broken.