“Greg, Wait at the X marks the spot!” Fiona screamed out as the Lynxkin’s eyes widened. ‘X marks the spot’ was a new move they’d worked on, given her increasing magical powers. She shot out her grappling hook–her perennial favorite–and just missed the man, who dodged with incredible grace.

  “Ach! Run, Hans! It’s the ginger!” the salamander screeched out and bolted with incredible grace up the side of the shop; he then vaulted onto the roof with his sticky grip. She ignored him, and went after the Lynx, who followed his partner and had pounced upward to the roof, then vaulted over an arcane lamp post.”

  “Stop right there, Criminal scum!” She knew they wouldn’t, but she had a plan to snag one, and wound up her grappling hook for another shot. She swerved and pursued the fleeing observers as they both bounded toward the larger buildings, adjacent to the shop. She fired her grappling hook again at the street lamp and used the momentum to bound upward, scrabbling to catch the corner of the roof.

  To say they were in terror at her being able to keep up, was an understatement. The salamander looked behind him, yellow-green eyes alight with panic. Getting busted wasn’t part of their plan, nor tipping off Greg that he was being monitored.

  The salamander split off and climbed the vertical wall of a building, letting out a wheezing gasp as he impacted against the side, but quickly recovered and scrambled upward. She ignored him, she was focused on the lynx who didn’t have nearly as much spring in his step as his counterpart. It didn’t mean he didn’t make for a good chase as he bounded across the rooftops, dislodging shingles and sounding like he was winded.

  This guy wasn’t getting away from her. She was closing the distance to him, and he scrambled across a gap in the buildings, working his way south.

  “Miss, there’s a misunderstanding–”

  “Yes, there is! My shop has a no shirt, no shoes, no ruffians policy!” she snapped, and recharged the grappling hook for another shot. This guy was fast, but he was wheezing now, and slowing down.

  This time her aim was true, and she grappled the guy around the legs. He fell and hit himself right on his chin, groaning. “Ah come on, we haven’t done anything wrong–”

  “Save the sob story, we’re gonna be back in a flash!” she beamed as she reeled him in, cat claws screeching across the roof tiles as he fought to get away. Tucker put on a bigger effort when he was trying to avoid the bath, and he was smaller than this guy!

  Once she was in range, she spun him around, and put him in a bear hug. “Now repeat after me, Hans! There’s no place like home! Also, click your heels together and keep your arms and tails close by. I’ve done this like once,” she grinned.

  “Click my what–are you mad, woman?!”

  Poof.

  As soon as she appeared in the shop, papery snakes wrapped around her and Hans, binding them together–except for Greg loosening her restraints around her, and she slipped out, while the lynx toppled over, cursing and trying to claw at the papers.

  “Hey, what’s the big deal, I didn’t do nothing!” the lynx protested, and was now thoroughly pinned by the ensnaring sheets. Greg looked a little ruffled but kept his notebook open, and he leaned down. Lynx went pale. “Oh uh, well, this is awkward. Hi, Greg.”

  “The feeling is not mutual, Hans.” Greg glared at the man, before taking a step back and adjusting his glasses.

  “So, you know this guy?” Fiona asked.

  “I’ve known Hans for a while. I thought the mention of the lynx from Kali might be a match, but I was reserving judgment.” Greg tapped his notebook with his pen irritably while glaring at Hans, who looked equally nonplussed. “My notebook was recording that little exchange of yours, and your mistreatment of my employee. Try to lie to me, and I’ll let Miss Swiftheart have her way with you, before the town watch shows up.”

  Fiona interjected with a tongue click. “Sheesh, I’m not a brute, Greg. Also, we have a plus one, let’s be gentle first?” she reasoned. Theo was still staring at the spectacle.

  “You teleported,” he gasped finally.

  “Yep!”

  “You teleported.”

  “I know, right? We call it ‘X marks the spot!’ It’s a new tactic we came up with, in case anyone was giving us trouble!” she declared in a sing-song voice, before peering down at Hans. “By the way, don’t ever call me ginger again. We have a proud hairitage.”

  Even Greg groaned at that. “Fiona, I think your puns may inflict lasting mental damage on people. Please don’t make any more, for the sanity of the rest of us.” Theo was fighting back a laugh, but otherwise said nothing while Greg continued. “Now, for the preamble, I know Hans. He’s one of my father's ‘white glove’ operatives. He does the things that won’t land him in a jail cell. Usually. His sticky-footed friend, on the other hand…” Greg cracked his knuckles for emphasis.

  “I told Randal to just zip out of there. He didn’t listen,” Hans grunted. “Look, that moronic lizard is probably running back to your father to tell him that he screwed up. Which means my ass is on the line. Let me use my relay.”

  Fiona grabbed it out of his pocket. “Better be convincing. Tell him we’d like a chat about what is going on with the Santinos. We heard enough of your conversation.”

  “Damn golems. Nice trick, Greg. I didn’t think you’d mastered that one,” Hans grumbled. “Alright, get me on the phone with that dimwit, before he gets me lined up for a bruising I don’t deserve.”

  One terse conversation later, the lynx convinced his idiot partner to turn around, on the advice of ‘Greg’s dad will turn you into crispy lizard if you run and tell him’ and about five minutes later, the salamander knocked on the door of the shop.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  “Damn, I didn’t think he’d go through with it.” Fiona waved him inside, where his partner was now untied, and Greg was looking at them sternly, sitting at one of the coffee shop tables. “Start talking, boys. And I might forgive you for roughing up my employee, but that one is still going to cost you.”

  "Sheesh, no thanks for keeping the bird one piece? You chased me halfway across town and--"

  She slammed Randal against a support pillar, pinning him. "You know something, Greg? I always wanted to make a necklace made out of teeth, to expand my arts and crafts hobbies! Every time he annoys me, I'm taking one to add to my collection."

  Randal gulped at that, his eyes bulging. "You're crazy."

  She ground her teeth, glaring right at him, inches from his face. "You're damn right I'm crazy, when it comes to protecting my staff, and friends. Now, be nice, this is my house, and my rules."

  “Miss Swiftheart, ease off a bit. If your employee went in the door fifteen minutes earlier, he’d have been fried,” Hans interjected. “We probably saved his life. And your shop.” She let go of him and he gasped, looking anxious before he plopped down on a seat.

  “Why do I not buy that?” Greg asked, looking irked. “My father never does anything that doesn’t benefit himself. Not a single, damn thing.”

  “Whoa, Greg, tone it down a notch,” Fiona cautioned. “The Santino's tried to burn my shop? Why?”

  Hans sighed and gazed at her with sullen blue eyes, his face flecked with white and black spotted fur still covered in confetti pieces. “Santino hates the Lockheeds. He’d kill every one of them if he could. Some kind of bad blood from a business deal that went south. It was like, twenty years ago, when Greg was a kid.”

  “It’s Gregory, Hans. I’m not a child,” Greg warned him and loomed ominously. “Now regale us with a tale of a father who enjoys tormenting others.”

  “Ever since you left, your dad's been distraught,” Hans grunted. “He hasn’t been as much fun. And your sister? She turned rebel and she told him to piss up a flagpole if he ever expected her to take over the family business.”

  Fiona laughed at this. “'Piss up a flagpole'? Man, what a classy line! I’m pretty sure that one was stolen from somewhere else. I would know, because I was there!”

  Greg shook his head and sighed. “Please ignore the manic shopkeeper, let’s stick to business. I told my father under no circumstances was he to interfere with my life again. Did he not get the memo last time?”

  “You mean when you beat six men half to death?” Hans asked in an edged tone. “Yeah, the message was loud and clear. Steve still walks with a limp. And every time someone cracks walnuts in the room, he freaks out. And your father still keeps a bowl of them in every room in the house. Now the short version is, that he’s lonely. And has been…going legit.”

  Greg blinked, Fiona’s jaw dropped, and Theo looked confused. “So, this is a normal day for you guys?” Theo asked hesitantly.

  “My advice Theo? If you can’t handle drama of the sensational variety that would be better put in a soap opera, better to run,” Fiona replied. “I wouldn’t hold it against ya, and you had a fun first date, for the record.”

  “Why does that sound like it would be fun? Beats the office job. Now continue, henchman one,” Theo added, leaning into this.

  “Great. Are you all done being snarky? I’m not gonna spill the boss's dirty laundry, but I will tell you this: the Santino's have a beef with you, Greg. That was before you guys crashed their fishery cover shop. You’re lucky your shop is still standing.”

  “C’mon, don’t they have bigger fish to fry?!” Fiona declared, using her trademark finger pistols. No one laughed. “You guys are becoming such squares. Greg, your dourness is infectious.”

  “No, explain why the Santinos have an issue with us. We’ve had no contact with them, other than a recent situation where we recovered a valuable relic for a friend. They were either taking or shipping fake coins. Is my father making them?” Greg demanded. Hans went blank, while Greg tapped a shoe. “Don’t play dumb. I know what my father does. Theft, assault, money laundering, gambling, extortion…he doesn’t have people murdered, which I suppose is a plus.”

  “We stopped all that crap after you,” Hans snapped. “That was…what, ten years ago? Honestly going legit is harder than it sounds. Anyone we give a bruising usually wasn’t on the right side of the law–”

  “The coins, Hans,” Greg demanded. “Who was the intended recipient? Why bother going through the effort of fake coins? They degrade, as Theo just found out.”

  Hans peered at the corrupted coin and frowned. “Oh, that’s bad. We heard they were near-perfect fakes. No one could tell the difference, except Pierre, but she couldn’t prove it.” Greg raised an eyebrow at that. “She uh…we do work for her. Sort of a hush-hush deal where we keep our nose clean, and she doesn’t look too hard when mischief is afoot in the upper quadrant of downtown.”

  “Go on,” he stated with an edged tone. “Where did the coins come from?”

  “Well, that might be a question for your father. Speaking of which…”

  Fiona turned to hear a tapping at the door, and she went to the entryway. She was surprised to see a man waiting at the doorway, with grey streaked, long brown hair, dressed in a business outfit and a jacket, and adorned with a single fancy ring on one hand. He had a close-cropped beard, grey eyes, and a weathered face. He was powerfully built and waited outside, hands clasped behind his back in a resting position.

  At first glance, she thought it was an older, more muscular version of Greg–but she knew it could only be his father. “Hey, Greg? Yeah, we have a visitor.”

  Greg sidled over to her, teeth gritted. “Don’t let him in.”

  “Do you ever consider that your perception of your father is skewed?” she asked quietly.

  “I don’t need to consider it. I know who he is. It’s always a scheme, or a ruse, or some other form of coercion. It’s always the same, every time.” They both stood at the doorway, while Fiona let out a huff.

  “All you have to do is hear him out, then tell him you’re done. Greg, I have a theory,” she pressed.

  “What’s that?”

  “Someone is stealing all the gold out of Fiefdala. A fakery that can’t be detected, except by maybe myself, or through some alchemical decay. Who stands to benefit with Fiefdala stripped of resources?” he glanced her way, stern-faced as ever, and folded his arms while she continued. “Vale tried brute force and got beat to paste every time. Who’s to say that those now in power didn’t start a big brain scheme to use the existing criminal elements to undermine the country, a bit at a time?”

  “We can find the answers without him.” She’d never heard Greg angry like this.

  “And what if we don’t?” For the first time, she wondered if Barry wasn’t running the country dry, but was just a giant idiot trusting the wrong people. “Look, Greg, we can just run this shop like normal, ignore the kingdom power player intrigue, and we’ll do well for ourselves. But I don't know if I could look the other way, while the kingdom slowly crumbles around us.”

  “You have no proof they’re all connected–”

  “Greg? They’re all connected. I’ll tell you this, as a woman who should have been dead and gone eight months ago, I’m here for a reason. Something bigger than you and me is going on. Do you think you could live with the notion of Fiefdala crumbling, a bit at a time as it gets undermined?”

  There was a long pause as he considered the evidence, eyes shifting to his father, then back to her. He let out a soft sigh. “Alright, Fiona. I’ll do this for you.”

  She opened the door slowly, and waved to the man. “Shop’s closed…but I’m guessing this is more of a family business matter, mister…”

  The man spoke with a deep, rich, and throaty tone, and bowed slightly–an honorific that seemed surprisingly out of place. “Greetings, Miss Swiftheart. I’m Thanatos Lockheed, the current executive officer of Lockheed Exports and Acquisitions. I believe you and I have a common foe. Can you forgive the improper office call?”

  She waited two seconds, then waved him in. “Give Greg any crap or try to coerce him, and I’ll export you to the next continent. Express shipping,” she threatened as she waved her hammer haft.

  Thanatos smiled. “Oh, I like her already, Gregory.”

  He's about to give an offer they can't refuse...

  Newly Broke Heroine. Go check it out in the clickable image!

  The TLDR on The Hallowed World

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