"I'm sorry," I said. "You must have mistaken me for someone else. I'm not for hire."
"I have heard otherwise," said the priest. "Indeed, we know the tales of your valour... you brought about the arrest of the infamous Johan Cross when he appeared in Northwell Mansion in the guise of a white Alsatian dog..."
Paladin will love that version of events, I thought dryly.
"That happened many years ago," I laughed. "I'd have been about twelve..."
"Not, if as I suspect, you are a Creature," he pointed out.
"You see, my son, I told you he was evil," he added to the novice as I stopped smiling.
"Yes, I was... involved in that," I said reluctantly. "But it doesn't mean I'm actually up for hire right now. In fact, I got dragged into that particular encounter... it wasn't an adventuring job in the normal sense of the word."
He didn't look like he was going to take 'no' for an answer so I paused, choosing my words carefully. "Hypothetically speaking, what sort of a mission are you thinking of?"
The priest stopped smiling himself now, and nudged the novice.
"We need you to... kill Charline," he said reluctantly. My jaw dropped. So did the crossbow, which promptly embedded a bolt in the wall. Even the priest looked terrified.
"No!" he said frantically. "No! Not that mission... the other one!"
"Oh!" said the novice, cheering up slightly. "Right. We are members of the Order of Saint Kelnar..."
"Never heard of him."
"He was a great man, a fox who came to study at the library in our city. During his stay he performed many miracles including the slaying of the pigs, turning the miser's gold into lead, and raising a child who had drowned from the grave. And at great risk to his life and soul, he drove out a great horde of Demons, Angels and Incubi when they tried to attack the city..."
"Has it occurred to you that he was most likely an incubus himself?" I asked, with a smile. The priest bared his teeth, but did not comment.
"Anyway, our then-King Zachamiar the Just decreed that a temple be raised to honour his great deeds in saving the kingdom. Until he left, our founders dedicated their lives to learning and preserving all his teachings, that we may strive to follow his example.
"Our order grew in numbers and tithings, until it began to rival the might of the King himself. This does not sit well with our present ruler, King Ordros, and his soldiers were sent to plunder the temple..."
The priest took over the story. "They took our most holy relics," he snarled. "And we seek an adventurer, a most skilled thief, to retrieve them." He slapped something down on the chest of drawers by the door. It looked for all the world like a shopping-list.
"Let me get this straight," I said incredulously. "You want us to rob the King? Forget it! I'm not interested in getting my head stuck on a pole." The priest looked crestfallen for a few moments - then his expressison hardened.
"As I said, we have great need of your skill," he began. "Much as I do not wish to have to resort to anything quite as crude as blackmail, it is a definite option. Think what those downstairs might believe if they saw you standing over their friend!"
To my horror, there was a whirring sound as the novice whipped out a camera and took a photo. It was a recent machine, one of the indigenous copies of the Polaroid system from Earth. I considered my options. If I were to transmute some of the air next to him, the gamma flux would fog the film, but it would probably kill him too and that was something I did not want. In any case, it was too late now as the film was already developing.
"You don't want me, you want Snell!" I said. "He's the master thief, not me..."
"We couldn't find him," piped up the novice. No surprise there, I thought darkly, he's spent the last two centuries perfecting his disappearing act. And I'd disappear too if I knew what these loonies wanted. Perhaps I should have done, but I was morbidly curious.
"Isn't this one of your feathers?" the priest added, proffering something small and only a slightly darker grey than my fur. It was around this point that I started to wonder whether the word 'evil' meant the same thing to the priest as it did to me. Perhaps it as some strange codeword for 'creature'.
"Very well," I said, a heavy sigh of defeat, "I can't make any promises, but I'll see what I can do."
"But you wanted the two of us though, didn't you?" asked the panther, whose expression had become curious when he'd learned the priests' affiliation. "Since is a pious cause, count me in as well."
"Excellent, my children!" the priest exclaimed, and giving us a small quantity of coins each for expenses, left with the novice. As they wandered back to the bar, I heard him discussing 'that mission' again.
"For Charline, we will need someone evil. But not too evil... we do not want them to join her cause, or take her place..."
I made the sign of the cross for whatever poor sod they might find to feed her with.
We made our way through the forest, towards the capital city. We spoke little, save to learn each others names, since the forest was home to a number of outlaws and we did not wish to attract undue attention to ourselves. Nonetheless, the silence between us felt unnatural and oppressive. Our luck had held so far, but I didn' want to be the one to spoil it. In the end it was Zivan who broke the silence.
"Who is Charline, anyway, Jakob?" he asked.
"You don't know?" I returned, slightly bemused.
"I'm asking, aren't I?"
"Very well. She's a succubus," I replied. "A succubus gone bad."
"How bad? I have heard most evil tales of one called 'Destania'..."
"Well, Professor Destania just wants to teach people murder, torture, rape and soul-eating..."
"'Just' soul-eating?"
"...Whereas Charline wants to eat the souls of everyone in the world or something. Given the choice, I'd probably choose the Professor. It's a bit like deciding whether you'd rather be hanged or beheaded, but at least she looks cute."
We were approaching the realm when a crossbow bolt slammed into the tree in front of us.
"Hands in the air," said a voice from the trees in the rough direction it had come from. I looked around, but the panther had vanished into the shadows.
"What are you after?" I asked, raising my hands.
"Your money," replied the voice, belonging to a feline, apparently a Being. Emerging, he stood in front of me with a sword in his hand and behind him, a ferret was reloading his crossbow.
"Now then... be a good little doggy and hand over the money.." he repeated. With a sigh I reached for my pocket, when something big and heavy knocked me to the ground. Zivan had sprung down from the trees like his feral cousins.
Amazed, the ferret fumbled with the bolt. By the time he had recovered, the cat was in the way, engaging in a deadly game of swordplay. It didn't take a genius to see that they were playing for keeps.
I gave a gasp of horror as the cat feinted and made a quick diagonal slice, breaking through the panther's guard and slashing his exposed belly. The outlaw's expression soon changed as his victim ignored the death stroke. Unable to believe it his guard dropped for a second and he died as the panther's blade pierced his heart.
"Oh my gods, you killed him," I whimpered, kneeling by the cat and staring down at him, a pathetic expression of shock in his dying eyes. I don't know if he ever realised that his opponent could harden his skin on demand.
"You... you'll regret that," the ferret snarled at Zivan, catching the sword his friend had dropped and wielding it himself. His face was contorted with rage. "...you'll apologise to him... in person!"
He made a graceful leap and launched a blow that might have severed the Angel's head if I hadn't opened fire with my own crossbow, taking him in the shoulder and ruining his stroke. The panther reacted quickly, slashing his throat and causing me to vomit. I tried to keep my face from straying to his blood-soaked form, and instead laid a hand upon the cat's features, gently closing his eyes.
Now there was but one bandit left, a young wolf who tried to run, only to trip in a rabbithole. Before he could get up the panther was on him, sword at his throat. The kid knelt there, begging for quarter. Unsure what to do with him, we decided to bind his hands and take him with us into the town.
"No," I said, as the panther made to leave. He turned around.
"We have to bury them," I said. Zivan looked taken aback, but there was a hard edge to my voice and he did not argue.
It was some hours later when we finally entered the town. The wolf was arrested, and despite my protests and pleas for clemency, he was later executed in the square. I did not stay to watch.
Not long after we found ourselves in another inn. In the morning we would have to start planning our mission, but for now we just needed to rest after the journey. I was still cut up about the encounter we'd had in the forest.
"Well, at least they are all together again," I said dully. "The bandits, I mean..."
Why hadn't we just turned the wolf loose? He could have lived, could have started anew and made something useful out of his life. Now his body lay in an unmarked grave. His head would follow a few days later.
"Speaking of which, you didn't do very well against them," Zivan commented idly. "What were you going to do... pay them?"
"Yes," I replied in a surprised voice. He started and looked me up and down, trying to decide if I was taking the piss.
"You would hand over your money? To them? Just like that? What kind of an adventurer are you?"
"I'm not one at all," I said. "I'm just doing research."
"On what? Getting mugged?" he replied. "Come on. Why are you out here with me?"
"Well, as you may remember, I wasn't given an awful lot of choice in the matter,"
I pointed out. "I'll admit I could have split by now. Their hold over me vanished the moment I walked out the door. But I'm tagging along with you because you could be worth a lot of money to me." He stiffened.
"Not like that," I added hastily. "I'm researching a documentary about Creatures who have decided to take up the life of an adventurer, examine the pro's and cons. In effect, a careers video for the Succubus and Incubus Academy."
"An intriguing prospect," he said, "but one that must wait until after our mission is done."
"Mmm," I agreed. "Now, how are we going to do this?"
"I haven't the faintest idea," he said, and put his head into his hands.
Thanks to Charles and Charline. And Keaton for inspiring the darker sections...