The wizard looked around shiftily. He was trying to keep a low profile. Which is as hard to do with that hat on, but what are you going to do? Wizards are gonna wizard, no matter how many times I tell them that it would be better if they just came incognito.
“Hey, sparky!” I said, emerging from the shadows at my end of the alley. I thought the poor kid was going to have a heart attack, or throw some half incanted fireball at me.
“God’s TEETH!”, shouted the young man in the oversized purple pointy hat.
“Do you think you could keep your voice down?”, I asked him. “I normally find its better if no-one interrupts illicit transactions like this. That’s why we meet down alleyways and not in the café in front of it.”
He held his hand to his chest and tried to control his breathing. He was verging on hyperventilating. “Have you got the stuff?”, he managed to wheeze.
“Yeah, yeah. I’ve got the goods. Did you get the coin? And the answer to that better be yes, or I will be adding your life as a service charge.”
He nodded warily and showed me a purse that looked pleasingly full. “200. As agreed. I want to see the goods first though.”
I pulled a leatherbound packet from my jacket and tossed it to him. He completely missed the catch and it bounced on the mossy cobbles close to the alley wall. “Ahhh, shit!” he whispered.
“It’s a good job that’s only manticore fur and powdered griffon claw. If we had any elf blood or anything really explosive in there I’d have a lot of walking to do to pick up my gold from the neighbourhood”, I said, trying not to laugh as he scrabbled around.
When he had regained the packet, and his composure he checked inside. He sniffed and prodded at the items inside, and eventually decided to put a bit of the fur in his mouth to taste it.
“You have no idea what you’re looking for do you?”, I asked him with a grin.
“Yes, of course I do”, he said. “It’s just been a while since I’ve been able to get my hands on this sort of stuff so I’m rusty.”
“Ok, keep your hair on, we wouldn’t want it to knock off that bloody stupid hat now would we?”
“How did you even get this?”, he asked in reply.
I pulled a cigar from my top pocket and lit it with a small fire charm from my finger. I didn’t even really like smoking, but it was good for the image, and useful for future negotiations for him to know I was not without magical talent. “Well son”, I said patronizingly, “it takes balls, I’ll tell you that.”
“But…”, he started.
“Yes?”, I interrupted. “What?”
“Well, it's just that you appear to be of the, um, female persuasion.”
“I didn’t say you need your own balls. The balls of any young wizard will do the job. They just need to be fresh.” I blew a smoke ring from my cigar, and then with a flick of my wrist, I coaxed the smoke into the shape of a knife to make my point.
The wizard gulped.
“You want any further checks, or you gonna fire that cash on over, boy?”
He shook his head and tossed me the purse. I snagged it with my free hand and took a long drag with the other. “So. Are we done? Or shall we talk balls?”
The boy turned and fled. I smiled at the hem of the purple cloak flapping from under his coat. He was going to experience a pretty big bump in status if he put those items to good use. He wasn’t lying when he said they were in short supply. I’d pretty much cornered the market. Hunters these days could barely find unicorns, or manticores or vampires anymore. Let alone actually kill one. Most never even came back from the hunting trips. I pocketed the money and headed out of town. I had an appointment to keep.
____________________________________________________________________________________________ I could have made the trip in a few hours, but with the number of double backs, pauses, stopping to erase tracks and occasional detours designed to shed anyone that might be tailing me, it took the rest of the night. The sun was coming up by the time I saw the silhouette of my destination against the sunrise. The clouds were lit from underneath, so that the edges appeared ablaze, like paper burning away. The clouds were not a good sign. It was going to piss down later. I harrumphed to myself as I thought about the return journey.
“Maybe I should get a stupid hat. Keep my hair dry”, I said mainly to myself.
“Maybe you should let me fly you around, and then you and I could stay above the clouds, and not have to worry about wood rot”, said a voice from my back.
“Oh shush”, I said to my broom. “You don’t think people would notice that we have enough Unicorn droppings that we are wasting them powering you up to fly errands? Its not exactly inconspicuous is it, flying around.”
“Screw your logic, meatbag”, it replied.
“Get burnt, twiglet” I said with a laugh and knocked on the main door of the keep. Not that it looked like a keep. It looked like a small farmers cottage on a hill. But looks can be deceiving.
A gnarled old woman appeared at the door. She crept forward shielding her eyes from the rising sun.
“Ere, now. Who’s could this be, knockin’ at my door”, she quavered, then caught sight of me. “Oh. It’s you”, she said, straightening up and smoothing out into a much younger, much more male figure. “I thought you’d be back hours ago”, the now 6-foot handsome young man said.
“That’s what I was just saying”, said my broom.
“That disguise is a real pain in my back to go into. Why didn’t you just call out?”, asked the man blocking the door.
“And miss out on another world-class acting performance? No way!” I pushed the door and he yielded to let me in.
“All go smoothly I presume?”, he asked.
“Yeah. Course. I’m a smooth operator. I’m not just a pretty face.”
“You’re not even a pretty face. You did that schtick about cutting their balls off again didn’t you?”
“No”, I protested indignantly.
“Yes”, said my broom.
The man shrugged. “We’ve had some new orders in, so we better get to work. Come on”.
I followed him into the hill behind the cottage, down into the bowels of the hidden stronghold we ran together. “Any trouble while I was away?” I asked.
“No trouble for us. A couple of people tracked a rumor of a manticore here and then died, which I guess would qualify as trouble for them, but no trouble for us.”
I nodded. Adventurers and other hunters occasionally found us. Often, they were well prepared to deal with a single manticore, or vampire, or zombie or whatever. They were never prepared to deal with several of all of them acting together. We couldn’t afford anyone to leave alive. Which was a shame for them, but they knew the risk when they went hunting. It’s a very dangerous profession. Which is why Harald, the generally 6-foot man and occasionally 5-foot old crone had set this place up.
“REANNE!”, shouted a booming voice as I entered the main hall. “You get the cash?”
I flipped the owner of the voice the bird. “Yeah, I got the money. Do you want to explain why there were rumors of a Manticore near here? You been out rustling sheep again?”
The manticore looked sheepish and scratched at the recently shaved patch on his forearm. “Yeah. Shit. I know, Reanne. Harald already read me the rules again.”
The griffon sitting next to him cuffed him round the back of the head with its wing.
“Oww! What the hell?”, said the Manticore.
The griffon tapped him on the forehead with a filed down claw. “You are lucky my claws have been in such demand.” She leant forward. “Fortunately my beak remains sharp enough to keep you in line, should those sheep be too tempting for you again.”
“Guys, come on. It’s all under control”, Harald said. “I’m going to head out for some supplies. Reanne, just stick the gold in the hoard. The dragon will do the paperwork for it. I’ll just grab a few coins from ready cash.”
“Why are you going out for supplies now?” I asked, knowing the likely answer.
“Oh no reason”, said Harald. As he reached the door he paused. “In unrelated news, the next order is for zombie skin shavings. OK, bye!”, he said, fleeing the keep before I could think of anything to say.
I sighed, picked up a potato peeler and looked around the room full of monsters and misfits. “Where is Odod?”
A vampire and harpy both pointed to the back of the room, where a ragged figure was trying to shuffle away from me.
“UUUHHHHHH”, he protested.
“I know. But that’s just supply and demand, Odod. Come here.”
The zombie shook his head so hard his neck dislocated. Scrabbling to fit his head back into place, he took off again at full shuffle.
“Fuck”, I said, and trotted after him.
