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Chapter 7: The editor is served
“Seymour Gellhorn?” The armored visitor who had wandered into the Barley Mow Inn fifteen minutes ago caught Seymour just as he and Trask were leaving Tottie’s Threads.
“Yes?” Seymour asked.
“I’ve got a letter for you.”
So he was a courier, Trask realized. That explained why he didn’t consider himself a tourist while also not knowing his way around Krim.
The man felt around under his brigandine and seemed surprised to discover that it didn’t have any inside pockets. “Ah, right, it’s in my briefcase.” He looked down at his empty hands. “Did I leave it in the restaurant? No, I distinctly remember bringing it outside with me—I’ve been robbed!”
Trask wondered how someone could steal an entire suitcase without the victim noticing. Then again, Larry the Lifter was in the area, and if anyone could do it, it was him.
“It must have happened when I was distracted by you yelling out the window,” the courier said.
“What did you have for me?” Seymour asked.
“Just an envelope,” the courier said, evasively. “Sealed with wax. I have no way of knowing what’s in it.”
“Did it have a return address?”
“I don’t know.”
“What color was the envelope?”
“I don’t remember.” The courier turned to Trask. “You’re police, right? What are the odds that I can get my briefcase back? There are legal documents inside.”
“I’m not police, I’m the chief of security for the Krim City Chamber of Commerce,” Trask said, tapping the badge on his chest. “But unless, for some crazy reason someone decides to turn it in to City Hall, my guess is that the odds of you getting the briefcase back are zero.”
“Tell you client to send their press releases to AviNewz care of the Krim City Post Office,” Seymour said. “We check our mailbox daily. Just don’t send it to my personal mailbox. That one’s full of junk mail and court notices.”
Trask didn’t ask why Seymour was getting court notices. There were no courts on Krim, so they must have been coming from off-world, from his real life. And, on Krim, asking people about their real lives just wasn’t done.
Seymour turned left, away from the city center and towards where the AviNewz offices were located and took a step in that direction, then stopped and pointed. “Isn’t that the griefer?”
Trask turned to look just in time to see a black-cloaked figure dashing across the street and heading for an alley.
“Well, it’s someone in a black cloak,” said Trask. “Could be anybody.”
“His cloak is bunched up,” said Seymour. “He could have a crossbow under there.”
The assassin turned for a second, spotted them, then vanished around a corner. But before he did, Trask got a glimpse of his face.
“I recognize the face,” he said.
“Great! Who is it?”
“Default assassin avatar seventeen,” said Trask.
Seymour wrote it down in his notepad. “At least that’s something.”
“I think I’ve seen that guy before,” the courier said.
“It’s a standard grid character,” said Trask. “You’ve probably seen him everywhere.”
“No, not the appearance,” the courier said. “Something about the way he moves.”
“You mean, like he’s trying to get away?” Trask asked. “That happens a lot on Krim, too.”
“Never mind,” the courier said. “I’ll just head back to City Hall, then. If you find the briefcase, I’ll be looking for it there.” He turned, and, with a slow, clanking gait, headed back to the city center.
“Well, let me know if you catch the guy,” Seymour told Trask.
“And let me know if you he tries to kill you again,” Trask said.
“Also, if you see Cyril, tell him I’m waiting for him.”
Trask was about to ask who Cyril was when he remembered. Cyril Booker was one of Seymour’s reporters, a regular contributor to the society pages. He also covered Krim’s fashion scene. Fashion was a big industry on Krim. Nobody wanted to be caught dead in a default freebie avatar.
Seymour was turning away when, across the street, the door of the Barley Mow opened and a group of inn regulars pushed and pulled to get a wheelbarrow out through of the entrance and down the steps. The injured tourist was in the wheelbarrow and her two friends were close behind, wincing each time the wheelbarrow was jolted. Once they got it on the sidewalk, Jarl and the others went back inside leaving the two tourists to deal with getting it back to the central gate.
As they struggled to get it moving, Seymour jogged across the street.
Trask preferred to avoid that whole situation and decided to stay on his own side but he didn’t get more than a few steps towards his office when he saw his deputy, Joe, come striding up.
Just in time, too. The griefer was getting away and it wasn’t like he himself was going to go running into back alleys.
Chapter 8: The griefer’s purse
The assassin ran down the alley and around the corner. There was shouting in the street behind him, but if he kept moving, he could get lost in the warren of back streets and passage ways that Krim City was famous for. Or infamous.
He turned another corner, then stopped and looked around. He could try to climb up another plumbing pipe. The assassin looked up. Even if he had the strength to make it up three stories, which he didn’t, there was the roof overhang to climb over. Maybe he should have gone to those thieving classes at the Aldwich Row Community Center, he thought.
Or he could take a faster route to safety.
He climbed up onto the lid of a closed trash chute, where he could just reach the pipe where it went behind a window shutter and into the building. But instead of continuing to climb up, he wedged the crossbow between the pipe and the window itself in such a way that it was mostly hidden by the shutter. Then he pulled a purse of coins out from under his shirt and stashed it as well. It used to be full of gold, but now had only a couple of gold pieces left and some small change. The general gloom and shadows in the alley would help hide the purse from anyone walking past.
He’d come back for it later.
The seamstress he rented the room from was impressed by how much money he was carrying, but, in the big scheme of things, it was actually an awfully small amount. Barely enough to put a even a whisper of a dent in what he owned. So losing it wasn’t that big a deal, in the big scheme of things. Plus, there was always that illegal poker game at the King’s Armpit later on that night. He could easily make all his money back and then some. All he needed was a small stake.
He jumped back down and stepped away from the chute to make sure that nobody could see the purse. It would be a shame if some passing miscreant grabbed it before he could come back.
It was perfect. Nobody would be able to find it in a million years.
He looked around and memorized the location, then cast a thoughtful eye at the garbage chute. He considered opening the lid and climbing in. Throwing yourself down a chute was the quickest, easiest, and least painful way to leave Krim. Pain wasn’t an issue for him, of course, but the convenience of a chute death was definitely tempting.
But then nobody would know that he was dead.
If they thought the griefer was dead, they’d let their guard down, and he’d have a better chance of actually killing the guy he was after. And not just him. The griefer had high hopes of killing a lot more tourists before he was done.
He pulled out his knife, checked its sharpness, and, before he could change his mind, tried to pull it across his own neck. Blood started flowing, but not as much as he expected, and he could still breathe. He hadn’t gone in deep enough. He tried again and this time felt something give in his neck.
He had expected death to be instantaneous. Instead, he dropped down to the ground, the knife clattering on the cobblestones, his hands clutching at his throat in spite of himself. He forced his hands down and away from his neck and felt blood pouring out. He must have hit his carotid artery, he thought.
How long did death take, anyway?
The alley got darker. A familiar face appeared above him, blocking what little of the sky was visible between the rooftops.
Larry the Lifter looked just like he did on his wanted posters.
The assassin tried to push him away but couldn’t lift his hands. Larry patted him down, then rolled him over halfway to check if anything was hidden on his back.
Then he pulled off each of the assassin’s boots, looked inside, and threw them down in disgust.
“Tourist junk,” Larry said. “You know they’re basically cardboard, right?”
The griefer tried to say something, but he couldn’t concentrate enough to move his mouth.
The thief looked around, then nimbly jumped on top of the closed lid of the garbage chute, reached behind the window shutter, and pulled out the crossbow and the bag of coins. He tossed the crossbow but kept the money.
The last thing the griefer saw was Larry scurrying up the water pipe.