Skydrop Gunshot

Stranger: open!

Stranger: i wish to take a peak in the kitchen

Stranger:

Stranger: then i take the sword

Stranger: well… i think ill turn the cd player off

Stranger: sounds like i won a weekend at a ski resort and it went horribly wrong

Stranger: i look the the wheat barrels

Stranger: i look into the wheat barrels

Stranger: i keep the sieve, take the key, and one rat nest

Stranger: as a good system should

Stranger: i bash it with the sword

Stranger: the door

Stranger: the one i just tried to open

Stranger: and no cd player

Stranger: i examine the manniquen for further assistance

Stranger:

Stranger:

Nicholas Woodard Short Stories

Gumby, Rexford, and Saul sat around a table in the lobby, drifting clouds sending strobes of afternoon light and shadow across their faces and into the deep corners.  They drank in silence.  To Gumby, the brandy taste much more bitter then it had the day before, but there was something about that was soothing away inexorible psychosis, so he sipped at it busily.  Saul was working on his personal bottle with olympian dedication.  He seemed to be channeling a great deal of stress at each glass, every violent swig sent Gumby back to counting the cracks in the wall.  Rexford looked oblivious, deep in thought, his glass mostly untouched.  He would fidget from time to time, drawing circles in the air and nodding to no one.  The silence persisted until he caught a gust of Saul’s aura and jumped a little in his seat.

“What’s with you?”

“I can still smell it,” Saul grumped.  He eyed his empty bottle regretfully.

Rexford chuckled and slid his glass in front of Saul, who took it with a grunt.  “Here.  Nothing particularly exciting happened to me today anyways.”

He turned to Gumby, “

Nicholas Woodard Short Stories

She continued to stare at him, her gaze now absent and unfocused.  He shook her a little and her jaw slackened.  Saul was beginning to get a little frustrated with what was shaping up to be his third wild goose chase of the night.  His voice carried an edge.

“Have you seen a priest-boy?”  His phrasing was unfortunate.  The girl’s eyes went wide.  She began twisting in his grasp and screaming.

“No.  No!  He’s mine!  You can’t have him!”  Suddenly, she was pleading, “please, I need him.  You don’t understand.  He’s important.  I can’t live without him.”  Pleading became threatening seamlessly, “If you take him, I will hunt you.  When I die, I will haunt you.  I will sing nightmare poems into your sleeping mind!” She was shouting again and kicking wildly at his shins, “I hate you!  Go away! I will become your personal banshee, your great misfortune!  I will be the pox on your pets and lovers, the scorpion in your birthday cake!  Aaaaagh!”  She took in a deep breath to continue and promptly passed out instead.

Saul turned his head slowly to the sound of Gumby emerging from the cave, yawning and rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“What’s all the-Saul!” he exclaimed when he saw the bewildered giant.  He started to run forward, but on the second step he caught a glimpse of the mess of pulp and bone that had once constituted a man’s face and promptly passed out instead.  Saul just barely managed to keep Gumby’s head from hitting the ground without dropping the girl.

It took Saul some time to navigate his way back to the surface.  As accustomed to strange and brutal sights as the citizens of the Gulan Underground are, there’s something about a two-story behemoth with a bruised and unconscious youth of both genders tucked under either arm that invites suspicion.  Saul would have to remember to have a talk with Rexford about the nature of his work versus that of nannies and midwives.

Once he was in the morning light of the Gulan Magnificant, he took a deep breath to purge himself of the unique rotten air-stench of the Underground.  He choked, however, when he realized that one hundred percent of that smell was still coming from the girl under his arm.

Nicholas Woodard Short Stories

While her guest soundly slept, Viola sat dangling her legs over the edge of the makeshift awning over the entrance to her granny’s cave.  She was attempting to think, in as straight of lines as she could manage, but her excitement was encouraging the madness nibbling on the corners of her consciousness.  Occasionally, a tick would escape, like a giggle or a yip and she would have to start over with a blank mind, then thoughts of simple pleasures.  After several tries, she finally managed to work up to the thought:

I have him, Granny.  What do I do now?

Which led to:

Colony Moondice Snowman.

And the thought process ended.  She let herself fall off of the awning, grabbing the edge with one hand and tumbling into an upside down crouching position.  She hooked her toes into a nook and began hooting at the ground.

A bludgeoning force slammed into her shoulder, tearing her from her perch and sending her crashing to the stone.  Madness and wind fled her in a hurry, and she gasped in sudden, sober pain.

“Where’s the priest-boy, loon?” a male voice asked, the question ringing through her ears.

She was too stunned to focus on her assailant, and too breathless to answer the voice, who sounded like it belonged to a second person.  The overwhelming pain was redoubled when a boot was thrust into her ribs, causing her to black out for a second.  When she came back, she applied her first free breath to a pitiful whimper.  With the second one, she howled and tried to scramble up, the tears flinging from her eyes.  The hulking brute she caught a fleeting glimpse of came down on her hard, pinned her to the ground with his weight, and held her head down with his hand.  She spit and flailed wildly, clawing at the air and fighting for fleeting breath.  The stout man who had spoken came walking into her controlled field of vision and grinned at her.

“Where is the priest-boy?” he repeated.  “Tell me now or I’ll let Gur do horrible Gur things to you.”

Gur let out a deep ‘hur hur’ chuckle and drove Viola’s cheek harder into the rock.  He began stroking her legs with his free hand.

“Arming flame…” she began shrieking.  The man turned his still smiling face to Gur and opened his mouth.  Whatever was coming out was stuffed right back inside by a fist twice the size of his head that had just reached the end of a powerful bull charge.  The astonished man’s abruptly lifeless body went flying into the cave’s entrance, leaving an airborne trail of blood and teeth.  The fist’s partner swept through this in the opposite direction and the weight on Viola’s back was suddenly gone with a deep ‘hhrrg?’ gurgle.  Both fists converged on her body.

Saul lifted the battered girl to her feet, supporting her gently by her shoulders.  She was giving him a half bewildered, half crazed, all panicked expression.

“Are you alright?”

Nicholas Woodard Short Stories

apologies for the SUPER delay
NOTE THE TENSE CHANGE I WILL BE REVISING THE EARLIER TEXT TOO

Though the unidentified corpse is one of the major exports of the Gulan Underground, Lascivious Rexford was uncomfortably certain that the body bobbing gently at his soggy feet belonged to his most promising lead.  LaCoy idly poked at it with a piece of charred flotsam, unsuccessfully trying to negate its slow, disquieting drifting.

Death is as regular to the city of Kara’Gozara as day and night.  Even in the light months he had been experiencing lately, Rexford had seen dozens much less beautiful stiffs than this purple masterpiece.  Still, corpses affect him in an embarrassingly unprofessional way.

“Sonnet and haiku.  Haiku, haiku, haiku,” he swore, turning in quick circles to dispel his rising bile and sending the body spinning off in the process.

“Rex,” LaCoy fished it back and deposited it unceremoniously on the ground behind him, “you’re adorable.  I can’t believe how soft you get sometimes.”

Rexford spoke carefully through his dead body calming exercise (a practiced separation of deductive necessities and the gross reality that they cling to).  “Before I question the suspect,” he asked rhetorically without turning around, “we are sure that this is Eddy Gambo, yes?”

LaCoy crouched down and Rexford risked a backwards glance at her and the obstructed body.  She pulled back the collar to examine the flesh on its neck.

“There’s that blunt badge the Ghost Talkers are dumb enough to parade around in,” she prodded the exposed crescent and square tattoo, “dumb, dumb, stupid tattle-tale mark.”  Rexford noted the promenent bruises surrounding it before turning away again.

“Ask him who throttled him so thoroughly, then was tactless enough to dump him behind his own shack.”

“And left him his wallet.”

LaCoy tossed a soggy hunk of crude leather over his shoulder.  It was bulging with cash and contained nothing else.

“Even the Gulan miserablities aren’t careless or dumb enough to walk around without their ID cards.  Where is it?”  He flipped through the bills, they were mostly small currency.  All together though, they easily made up several times the mercenary burglery standard.

LaCoy rummaged through the rest of the clothing.  ” Nothing else.  Maybe its in the shack.  Maybe just floating around somewhere.”

“No.  It’s got to be long gone by now.”  Rexford waded out of the water, kicking sludge off of his boots and walked back into the dimly lit common slums tunnel to think, “everyone seems to be in an awful rush.  Both murders have been so sloppy.  I’d say it looks like they’re tying up their loose ends, but it’s more like they’re frantically clawing at them instead.  I need to ask Gumby about something.”

He stopped talking as his thoughts caught up to him.

“Crap, Gumby is in serious danger.  LaCoy, they’ve got to know he’s working on this case.  Find him.  Run, please.”

LaCoy arched her eyeless eyebrow, but Reford’s face remained dire.  She took off sprinting up the tunnel, Rexford lagging considerably behind.

Nicholas Woodard Short Stories

Gumby sits solemnly regarding his fingers.

“Buck up mate, he were about to do the same on you.”  Viola seems trying to project cheer as she bounds down from her alcove, a smile on her face that seems genuine but with a look of concern of her eyes.  Gumby is taken in by her grace and the chance to focus on something other than murder, whether by him or upon him.

“My name’s Viola the Raving Lunatic,” she says through smacking lips.  “We’re going to get along well though, so you can call me Viola.”  She rubs the back of her unkempt hair and looks a more than a little awkward.  She shrugs after a silence and a blush spreads through her cheeks.  Gumby feels sudden great relief at finally encountering someone in these last couple of days that seems to have insecurities.  He laughs a little, and rubs his nose, smiling back at her.

“I’m Gumby the Inexorable Corpse.  Pleased to meet you.  Love to shake your hand, but I think I’ll rest a dozen years right here instead.”

She laughs easily, seeming to find comfort in the act.  Gumby spots a repression in the grit of her teeth before she meets his eyes again though and right behind the horizon of her baby-blue irises a red flash is fading away.  He wonders if his tired mind is playing tricks.

“Well then Gumby,” she giggles, approaching and stooping low to hoist him up under his shoulder.  It is Gumby’s turn to blush at this abrupt contact.  Though filthy, Viola is not an unattractive girl.

“Let’s get right acquainted while I help you to a proper grave.”

Nicholas Woodard Short Stories

I want to take a small amount of time now to re-examine the first 15 parts.  After I’ve edited and compiled them, probably losing some parts I’m not comfortable with (the hunter) and lengthening parts that I enjoyed (breakfast with Rexford), I’ll post the new version all together and work from there anew.

See you in a couple of days.

Nicholas Woodard Short Stories

Deep in the Gulan Underground, a place many people in the city do not even know exists, Gumby is unconscious.  He lies face up in a thin puddle, his small trickle of blood dyeing the water around his head.  His shoes have been pilfered dutifully by the denizens of this community that is somehow poorer than its surface counterpart.  Otherwise, he is being largely left alone.  After all, these good people might pass up to a half a dozen such bodies on their way to whatever collection of tin and timber and stalagmites they call a home.  In fact, just a few paces down this very tunnel another body lay prone and heavily bleeding from several large cuts, a nice pair of shoes locked in his death grip.

Viola the Raving Lunatic sits  bow-legged on a nearby elevation sharpening her razors and staring intently at passersby.  She gnashes loudly on a piece of gum and gives a fierce skull-eye to anyone who looks twice at her or Gumby.  She has placed herself right under one of the Underground’s gooselamps.  Most people who notice her quicken their pace, some just turn straight around for the comfort of a much longer route.

A stray droplet of water falls from the ceiling into Gumby’s gash and he awakens with a start.

“Bluh,” he says, then hisses and puts a hand to the stinging wound.  Though warm, he shivers a bit and stands up shaky, still holding his face.  Curiously he examines his bare feet and flinches, his panicked flight has left blisters all over his exposed heels.

“Now where did my shoes run off to?” he asks no one.

“Dun worry, mate.  They didn’t get far,” Viola replies anyways.

Gumby nods solemnly without looking for the voice.  Instead, he spots the other body and calmly moves to gather his shoes, applying a little grunt to overpower a dead man.  Once in hand he moves to a dry spot against the tunnel wall and sits opposite Viola, and slowly puts them back on, flinching harder this time.  After he finishes, he sighs, leans back, and meets Viola’s intense gaze.  A long silence follows, excepting the steady sound of chewing and smacking of lips.

“Whatcha doin’?” she asks, sounding disinterested, but clearly probing.

“Waiting for death.”

“Oh,” she looks at her crossbow, hidden in a nook, then back up at Gumby.  “Funny that.  You was runnin’ from it before.  Why the change a’ heart?”

“Too tired.  I’d look a sad sight shifting away from a murderer, might as well perserve some dignity.”  He felt nothing but pain and exhaustion now, his reserves of useful emotions had been depleted.

“Ain’t no dignity in death, mate.  The sod what was trying to do you in looked pretty ridiculus dead himself.”  She flashes Gumby a quick grin.  “Might fancy moves you got.”

Gumby stares at his left hand in bewilderment.

“He died?”

“Oh yeah.  Brutal thing, that.  Poor sod never stood a chance on ya, did he?”

Nicholas Woodard Short Stories

The sequence of events that follow Gumby would come to regard as a miracle.

The dagger catches his attacker’s edge with one of a dozen of it’s tiny teeth.  As the force of the blow drives into him, the weapons lock instead of ricocheting as he had been expecting.  He is pushed down and the dagger slides along the knife until it bites into the hunter’s knuckles.  He yelps and lets his hilt go, the momentum of his swing tearing away Gumby’s weapon as well, twisting him away from his opponent, back towards the dead end.  The disarmed blade scores a lathing gash on Gumby’s cheek as he spins before it flies away.

The truly miraculous part comes when in panic, fear and pain Gumby’s other hand whips around to catch the off-balanced and surprised hunter on the temple and sends him sprawling right after his knife.  Stumbling with the improvisational maneuver he hops a few times to avoid collapsing as well.  Dizzy from the exchange but pumped full of more adrenaline than blood, he takes off the last hop running towards the nearest stairwell without looking back and descends rapidly into darkness.

Behind him, the dazed hunter gathers himself slowly.  As soon as his senses are back in order, he darts to the same stairwell to follow the echoing footsteps.  With a shrill whistle, a small silver razor slices across the opening and through the back of his right hamstring, sending him cascading down head first instead.  A new shadow emerges from the alley, minuscule crossbow in hand, and bounds down after him with wild acrobatic movements,  fluidly vaulting over the hunter’s battered corpse, stopping once in a while to listen.

At the Jiki Joki, Saul checks the clock hanging over the mantle in his room.  Something has gone predictably wrong.  Humming, he gathers his shoes and opens the door.

Nicholas Woodard Short Stories

On the warm dusk streets of the Gulan Magnificent, Gumby is most certainly lost.  A desk clerk for all his working life, he has mastered the talent of backtracking to find his mistakes, but the forking stairwells and inexplicably overlapping tunnels of this clusterdump are defying all his efforts.  The frustration is welling up in his throat.  He is clueless in the most dangerous place he can name and the last trace of light is fading from the sky.  Unsavory characters are beginning to follow his pacing up and down the streets with hungry, glowing eyes.  For Gumby, it is a scene from his nightmares, but the feeling that seems to supersede his terror is one he has never had the pride to experience before: failure.  He has completely failed the detective who trusted him to complete a simple task.  The sensation is getting so overwhelming he almost stops at several dark corners to bawl his eyes out.

What prevents him from taking this noble course of action is that he is also most certainly being followed.  For some time now there has been the shadow of a man in a long coat hanging just on the edge of Gumby’s peripheral each time he takes a corner.  He has quickened enough that sweat is getting in his eyes, mixing with his tears, but turn after turn his pursuer is only getting closer.  Stressed, sick, and sniveling, Gumby suddenly finds himself at the back of a dead end.  Some talented artist has graffiti-ed a set of fake stairs here with comic intentions.  Its is borderline hysterical, just like Gumby is as he turns to face his coated hunter, whose footsteps have become slow and malicious.

He comes into sight strolling, whistling, and unsheathing a rusty half-meter knife.  He stops half a dozen paces from Gumby and holds the weapon low, adjusting an over sized pair of glasses with his free hand.  He is a small, skinny man with short cropped red hair and freckles.  He looks completely out of his element in his murderous stance, compared to LaCoy, but something in his bulging eyes and matter he seems to be tasting the air with his tongue affects Gumby enough to push him over the edge.  His right eyelid begins twitching and for good measure he begins whispering to himself.

“Step one,” he says in a high voice, “is usually the easiest.  Let me put you out of your misery, junior Gumby.”

Dashing forward, he jumps and swings in a high arc, bringing his blade down on Gumby’s neck with frightening accuracy.  Only the most basic of human reflexs allows him to get his dagger up in time to deflect it.  A gift from LaCoy, he had been nervously fidgeting with the ornate thing since he had left Falgo’s Standard, and had never quite found a moment he was comfortable enough to sheath it.  The force of the hunter’s blow against his arm drives him down and forward.

Nicholas Woodard Short Stories

“Certainly.  After you arrange a meeting for me with your buyer, I will disclose the current location of Benagin Little, and all of his present aliases.”

This time, LaCoy just lets the cigar fall right out of her mouth.

“Rex, you don’t mean it,” she says, standing up again and putting her hands on the table.  “It’s been ten years since I lost that prick bastard for the last time.  If you knew the scale of the resources I’ve blown hunting him since that day, you’d think twice about bluffing my hopes up here.”  Her attempts at a fierce demeanor are spoiled by her twitching fingers digging into the old wood.

“Git bastard though I may be,” Rexford says with a laugh, “you know I’ve never lied to you.  I just happen to have extraordinarily long streaks of free time almost everyday.  I fill it in constructive ways.”

“Greatest detective Lascivious Rexford, deliver Little to me and I will split the sky for you.”  She has stolen a devil’s grin and her knuckles have gone white.  Gumby scoots his chair back.

Rexford’s own smile is less intimidating, and radiates heartfelt pleasure.

“Spectacular.  Things are most probably going to get ugly before payday.  We might even be able to avoid certain death with you in our corner.”

LaCoy straight up howls.  Her murderous aura has grown so thick even the bartender is absconding now.  Gumby swallows.

“What did you mean by ‘certain death?’” he asks quietly.

“I was referring to the death that any number of people directly involved or implicated by this case will attempt to visit upon us.  Also the death that maybe dozens of crazed cultists will overwhelm us with when we set about ruining their party.  Oh, and the accidental death we might experience if we get caught on the sharp side of this ritual.”  Nothing about Rexford’s tone or expression suggests he is discussing something alarming.

“I am quite alarmed by this.  Why do you seem,” Gumby searches Rexford’s face, “eager?”

“Because proper adventure always involves a better than good chance of death, of course.  That’s what makes it so exciting, right LaCoy?”

Her howling subsides, but her grin does not diminish.

“What’s blood for if not spilling?”

“That’s sortof it.  Get it, Gumby?  No?  You will.”  He waves his hand to dismiss the topic.

“Now that we have secured your help, LaCoy, we have to move quickly to the next stage.  I have to get to this Nightraid buyer as quickly as I can, but I also need Saul’s status.  I hate to do this, but I have to send you to him Gumby, while LaCoy and I pursue this lead.  I’m not going to bother asking you if you think you can handle this, because you don’t, but you can.  Saul has strict instructions to rendezvous with me at a hotel named Jiki Joki at the edge of the Gulan north.  Got it,  Gumby?  No?  You will.  We meet back here in twelve hours.”

Nicholas Woodard Short Stories

Deeper in the Gulan than any respectable citizen should ever expect to emerge from, Gumby and Rexford sit across from LaCoy at a particularly decrepit bar named Falgo’s Standard.  Tar-black tables are occupied by all manners of horrible rogues conducting their shady business behind an omnipresent cloud of cigar smoke and poor lighting.  Gumby is fairly certain places like this are why the gods blessed mankind with a backup lung, and a backup kidney.  He is beginning to formulate a strict dichotomy between the interesting and the safe things in life as he stares into his drink and experiments with willing himself into invisibility.

“I’m sorry you wasted your time coming out here, Rex, but I got out of moving Nightraid over a year ago.  Stuff’s way too hot these days.”  LaCoy has her feet on their table and is diligently adding to the atmosphere with her own cigar.  Her expression, Gumby believes, has become slightly more guarded since Rexford had gotten to the reason for their visit.

“She’s not telling the whole truth,” Gumby blurts out, taking himself by surprise.

“Wha-” there is a pause while her face turns a shade of pink Gumby would have identified as cute if he wasn’t busy recalling his own mortality.  She springs out of her chair, rage quickly taking over her features, cigar snapped in half by clenched teeth.

“Who do you think you are, you insignificant little git?  Nobody second guesses me on my turf and sees the next sunrise to brag about it.  I will end you promptly.”  A furious right whips the drink out of his hand and sends it crashing against the wall.  Gumby coughs and his eyes begin to well up.  Nearby tables are being vacated hastily.  A nervous bartender considers collecting tabs from fleeing customers, then doesn’t.  Rexford, who had been smiling at Gumby’s outburst, stands up with a patient expression now.

“Quite enough, LaCoy.  You’ll do nothing, because he’s not second guessing anything.  Stifle anymore violence towards my staff.”

“Rex, I swear-”

“I said stifle it.  I consider us friends, but I’m in a hurry this time around.  I want the buyer you’re protecting now.  Give him to me and we can discuss compensation.  Threaten my associate again and I will visit hell on you that will have you longing for your carefree days as a starving prostitute.”

LaCoy’s stare is hot death, but Rexford looks like he could be sitting through a dull play.  Gumby spends the long silence that follows inventing a new word for overwhelming awe and fear.  Eventually, LaCoy’s color fades and she drops back into her seat with a forced laugh.  She pulls out a fresh cigar, but her lighting hand is a little shaky.  After taking a long drag and exhaling slowly, she speaks again.

“I’d forgotten what a git bastard you are, Rex.  Let’s talk about that compensation then, since you just cost me an absurd amount of face.”

Nicholas Woodard Short Stories

“You mean you’re a criminal too?”  Gumby feels his gut wrenching up in apprehension.  His karma is finally catching up with him for those two good meals and night of proper sleep.  He wonders if jail would be much worse than his life up until now.

“Relax,” Rexord says, noticing this fresh despair, “it’s not as simple as breaking the law.  I honestly wish it were sometimes, but it isn’t.  It’s just,” he hesitates, the first uncertainty Gumby has seen crosses his face, “illegal for everyone else to do it.”

“Not a very clarifying explanation, is it Rex?”

The voice comes from behind and above Gumby, making him jump half a meter out of his socks.  He retreats to Rexford’s side, almost running straight off the bridge in the process.

“It’s good to see you too, LaCoy.”

LaCoy is quite simply the tallest woman Gumby has ever seen.  Towering head and shoulders over even the lanky detective, she resembles a tree taken root in the middle of the road, branch-like arms hooked in a sultry pose.  A roguish smirk decorates her probably beautiful face marred into simple handsomeness by an eye patch that is not quite covering the crescent scar running from her cheek to her brow.  She is dressed in dark-earth leathers that set her clashing with the citizens around her, who are busy trying very hard to escape her good eye.  A white bandanna with an simple red crest holds her waist long dreadlocks tightly behind her.  She strikes Gumby as having a serpentine grace, doubled by the manner in which she had snuck up on him without a sound.

She snorts.  “This little mouse have no manners, Rex?  He’s gawking.”

Gumby yelps and moves forward a little, reddening with embarrassment.  “Name of Gumby, m-mam.  Pardon my affront, please.”  He bows deeply.

“That’s alright then, isn’t it Gumby?  Where’s that walking pile of beef you keep with, eh?”

“Saul is working a different lead for me.  We’re on an impractical time line this time or he’d be here.  Sorry to disappoint.”  Rexford seems completely at his ease, his tone friendly.  Gumby allows himself to relax most of the way.

“Not a deal to make, is it then?  Time is precious then, Rex, so make mine worth it, will ya?”

Lacoy’s eye rolls up with a sudden disbelieving expression.  One half of an instant later she is spun about, dangling a bug-eyed pickpocket by his wrist.  His shocked features mirror Gumby’s own.  He hadn’t even opened his mouth before she drove her open palm into his shoulder, dislocating the limb with an unsettling crack.  By the time he forms the idea to scream, she crouches low into her strike and sends him over the edge of the bridge with an elbow to his center.  Without breath, he falls silently as she turns back to them.  For a few seconds, Rexford and LaCoy are the proud owners of the only heartbeats on the bridge.

“So we should talk then, I suppose?  Not here though.  I don’t want to make a scene.”

Nicholas Woodard Short Stories

“I’m surprised you didn’t send me back to the church to get you more information, given our time limit.”

“What’s that?  You want to go back?”

“Not at all, sir.  But in the best interest of the case, I thought.”

“Perish it, Gumby,” Rexford snorts, “those gnarled chairwarmers aren’t going to compromise themselves.  I bet a more than a few of them would rather great disaster occur than be exposed.  I was hired as a fail safe, I imagine.  In the worst case scenario, they can point to me and pretend they tried to repair their mistakes.  If everything goes well for us though, they will probably just have to burn any papers that connect them to me.”

Rexford is standing on the lip of one of the many stone bridges crossing through the sprawling ghettos of the agricultural wedge known as the Gulan Magnificent.  Centuries ago, a desperately growing population had hired a small group of undereducated urban architects with experimental ideas about new ways to cram more people into less space to build it.  The result was a mismatched pattern of inefficent rising and falling houses navigated by an excessively complicated maze of stairs and bridges, following a mad design that probably made sense for the first week or so of construction.  Confusion between the designers and the labourers, and even just the designers themselves had led to all kind of mistakes.  People found windows in their homes looking in on other homes, doors leading to interesting places (like a sewage canal), and glaring construction flaws that would become a source of great amusement for anyone that didn’t have to live with them.  At the time, it had been called the Gulan Disaster.  But in the way history makes all old things grand, it got a new name when a collective no one was looking.

They had parted with Saul at a nicer part of the district, to engage in an errand Rexord had not let Gumby in on yet.  After the better part of the afternoon had been spent wandering, backtracking, and re-wandering through the Gulan Magnificent (it is said that no accurate map has yet been printed), they had come across this bridge.  By some invisible sign, Rexford had become convinced that they were in the right spot, and they had been watching the sun go down for just past an hour now, waiting for some contact.  The light human traffic flowing down the road ignored them with practiced disinterest.

Something about what Rexford said bothers Gumby.

“Sir.  You act as if the church distains your service.  Like you were a sewersman or something repulsive to be around.  You are the greatest detective in the city.  Why would this be?”

Rexford smiles wistfully.  “I am the only detective in the city, Gumby.  It is quite against the law to practice private investigation.”  He scrapes his boots against the stones and looks away like a guilty child.

Nicholas Woodard Short Stories

“I think, maybe, this fellow we’re after was…hired?  Not the guy who wants the book or whatever it is.”

“Go on.”  Rexford tips the bottle around idly while he listens.  His steady eye contact is disconcerting Gumby.

“Well, uh, since the information was so privileged, you know, enough so that they didn’t even tell you what you were after, sir,” he scratches his head, “it seems to me that the people that know about this don’t want to risk exposure, so…” he straightens his chair, “and like you said, the careless murder, which hardly seems secretive or anything.  I think maybe the killer had reason to panic.”  He looks around for nothing in particular before meeting Rexford’s eyes again and shrugging.

“I’m with you so far, please continue,” he fills Gumby’s brandy, stopping halfway this time.  Oddly, Gumby can’t remember tasting the liquor during his gorging, but as he touches his lips to it this time tentatively he is surprised that it is not as strong as he had imagined.  To his pleasure, it is actually somewhat sweet.  He takes most of it before continuing, his confidence growing steadily.

“I don’t know anything about explosives, but if it is a product sold on a limited scale, perhaps we could track it down?  Maybe if just to compare it to a list we draw up later?  I don’t know.”

“You sound like you do.  Keep going,” Rexford slides the vial back into his sleeve with a small smile.

“Sorry.  I think I’m out of ideas.  I can’t think of any importance there might be in the fact that our objective is a book.  It seems a little strange that a book would require so much secrecy and this murder, but…”

“That’s exactly it though Gumby,” he picks up the newspaper and rotates it back and forth, “a book would have to have some very comprimising bits in it for someone to take such measures locking it away.  But why not just destroy it then?  Either that, or as I suspect, the book is very powerful.”

“Powerful?  You mean like a book of poems?”

Rexford laughs, “My rates get ungenerously multiplied if I find out poetry is involved in a case.  No, I was thinking of something different, but sort of similar.  Something powerful in a religious sense.  Like rites and rituals.  The forbidden kind.”

“The Church of Romantic Virtue doesn’t have anything like that though.”

“That’s delightfully naive of you, junior priest.  Where power builds, it is applied, and the Church of Romantic Virtue is certainly powerful.  In all wedges of our city, all guilds have their good and less than good members.  Over the decades, I’m pretty sure that dozens of corrupted Romance priests have created hundreds of upsetting rituals.  Unless you have good reason to believe otherwise, I will be working on the assumption that we are chasing down this book in order to prevent its contents from being performed.”

He pulls Gumby’s briefing out of the folds of the newspaper.  The words “deadline: one week” have been underlined repeatedly.

“Your masters support my theory.”

Nicholas Woodard Short Stories

He puts it down when he notices Gumby and eagerly motions at the chair opposite himself, his verbal greeting stifled a mouthful he is hastily swallowing.  Gumby takes his seat, relieved to finally get the load out of his hands and is now straight up starving.  Rexford notices his hungry look and conjures wrapped silverware from the inside of his robe with a magician’s flourish.  Gumby smiles despite himself and quickly digs into his pile.

“I’m glad you could join me,” Rexford says, setting his plate aside, “I’m eager to go over our evidence.  I almost got started without you, but Saul’s morning heart attack distracted me.”

“Mmff mm E mmmpppf?” Gumby asks, then blushes and covers his mouth with his napkin.

“Good question.  No, don’t mind me, keep shoveling.  Want some brandy?”  He picks up the bottle and reaches behind for a glass off of another table, slopping a little liquor on the table in the process.

Gumby hesitates before nodding.  He is pretty sure he came of age sometime during the last year, but can’t recall.  Rexford pours him a generous quantity and refills his own, near empty glass before continuing.

“I want you here every part of the way, I think your input will be very helpful in my investigation.  And I don’t think you want me to keep you in the dark on anything interesting, do you?”

Gumby shakes his head eagerly, sacrificing a half eaten sausage to the floor in the act.

“Right.  So I will lay out the evidence that interests me so far, keep your ears open and your mouth crammed for this part.”

Gumby nods, slower this time.

“First,” he sets the brandy bottle to his left to illustrate, “I have the knowledge that our suspect was more informed than we were.  That means secrecy.  Contrast that with the unprofessionally brutal murder and subsequent flight.”

“Second,” he drops the newspaper on the middle of the table, “I know they got what they were after, that much is clear by my services being hired alone, but the empty cellar reinforces it.  More importantly, I’m pretty sure the item we’re after is a book.  The dust patterns indicate something book-shaped at the least, and the room was abnormally watertight.”

“Last,” he pulls a small black vial out of a sleeve a places it gently to his right, “I have the residue our friend was gracious enough to leave us.  I happen to know one of the few sellers of Burglam Nightraid, which I’m hoping that this is.”

“I have a picture of what happened that unfortunate night, but I’d like to hear your ideas before I cloud your mind with my own.”  He spreads his hands in a presenting manner across his real and symbolic evidence.  His glass of brandy is sitting empty next to the bottle, but Gumby never saw him take any drinks.

Gumby swallows, his plate is just a gravy stained testament to Saul’s cooking now.

“Well,” he starts slowly, a little bit unsure and a lotta bit lethargic.

Nicholas Woodard Short Stories

Gumby wakes up and is overcome by restfulness he has never known.  He can scarcely deal with the energy he has this morning.  His first thought was that he had gotten sick from the large dinner Rexford had taken him to last night.  He is certain now that the rest of his life’s karma had been prematurely spent on a single, awesome day.  He had set about resigning himself to a joyless existence when the scent of eggs wafted into the spare room he had been bedded down in.  His stomach made an unseemly noise and he blushed for no one’s benefit.

Still dressed in the pajamas Rexford had lent him, he opened the door and followed the smell down the hall, almost completely unaware of his surroundings.  He opens a second, smaller door and shambles into a tiny kitchen.  Saul occupies well-on a full quarter of the room, wearing an red and blue striped, almost comical one-piece pajama suit, complete with attached night cap.  He is engaged in his cooking when Gumby wanders inside.  There is a plate on the counter covered in eggs and sausages and drenched in some sort of thick gravy, simmering with a delicious power.  It is the plate that summoned him.  He would do anything the plate asked him to.

Saul notices him and flips another egg on top of the plate before scooping it up and handing it to him.  Gumby regards him with shining eyes.

“Good morning, Gutsy.  You look like a new man.”

“Good morning, Saul.  I feel uncommonly great today.  I have your hospitality to thank for that.”  He bows just so slightly, as not to spill any of his quivering bounty.

“It’s nothing, Gutsy.  We don’t get to be hosts very often.  Rex asked me to send you to to him when you got your meal.  He’d like to break fast with you in the lobby.  Take the stairs up next to your room, they exit right to it.”

As Gumby walks out, slowly minding his balance, Saul begins flipping hot eggs directly into his gaping maw.  It would have been strikingly savage if not for the fuzzy ball at the top of his hat bouncing around.

Gumby navigates the stairs carefully, and gently nudges the door open with his foot.

The lobby of Rexford’s office is both cozy and unimpressive.  Easily the largest room in the establishment, its high walls are decorated only by stray shelves of brown glass bottles.  Two simple doors opposite Gumby serve as an entrance, and there are no windows here, or anywhere in the establishment.  For furniture, the room has a matching pair of glass cabinets and a half a dozen old circular tables with a couple chairs at each.  At one of these, Rexford is through the better part of his mountain of morning meat slop, washing it down with a glass of one of the brown liquids, the open bottle in the middle of the table.  He is dressed in an sheen purple robe worn over a simple shirt and a pair of shorts.  His posture is slack, and he is reading from a newspaper.

Nicholas Woodard Short Stories

Saul raises his monstrous fists and comes down the alter like a battle axe, sending shrapnel everywhere.  The lack of hesitation takes Gumby off guard, and he ducks.

Rexford wears a complicated expression, considering his command.  It is two parts concern and empathy, and a third unknown.  He speaks quietly to Gumby, but doesn’t take his his gaze off of the destruction.

“Say a prayer, Gumby.  He won’t and I-”

“Merciful saint!”  Gumby cries, bewildered by Saul’s woodthirsty rage.

“Straight to the point.  Good work.”

Saul is still now, breathing hard, his hand bloody and curled in front of him.  The alter is ruined as thoroughly as if it had been hit with a cannonball.  There is a moment of feral panic in the air, and Gumby’s fight-or-flight juices kick in.  Then the sudden intensity lifts without warning and they all relax, except for Gumby, who seizes up and prepares to run instead as Saul walks over to them.

“All done,” he says.  His ferocity seems diffused.  He smiles at Gumby like before, but there’s something new in his eyes that Gumby couldn’t see at first, but he had never been without.  Some kind of incomprehensible fear.  What enters Gumby now is an unfamiliar sort of pity, and his tension dissipates as well.  He smiles back.

Rexford just pats Saul on the shoulder blade while moving past him without saying anything.  He drops to a crouch in the middle of the wreckage and starts brushing away the bits of wood and splinters to reveal a trap door.  He pulls on the latch and it comes open, its mangled and twisted lock brought to display.  A heavier rot-stench sets into the church.

“How-”

“Low-power explosive, common among robbers in certain districts.”  Rexford scraps some powder off the surface around the lock.

“I meant, how did you know about this door?  I was not briefed on this.”

“Our friend was, though.  I don’t think the dead guy knew a thing about it.  Hm.”

Something pulls at Gumby’s brain, something in his tone and look seems to startle Saul, and his skewed gaze grows hard.

“You, Lascivious Rexford.  How did you know?”

Rexford laughs and claps his hands.  “There’s something at stake here bigger than our case, Saul.  I’m properly thrilled for the first time in weeks.  Your curiosity is setting my man off, priest, but I’m delighted for it.  Short version is that I would have, given probably quite some time, deduced that the alter had been tampered with.  I cheated instead, and let my brain do the work for me.  The pitcher is broken now, let’s see if I can figure out what it is we’re actually chasing.  Stay here please.”

He puts a hand on the door, the other over his nose, and jumps into the cellar.

Nicholas Woodard Short Stories

Gumby hesitates, “for your observations and notes sir?  You have been examining the room quite carefully for some time now.”

Rexford shakes his head.

“No, Gumby,” he says with a smile, “I have been examining this room quite carelessly.  I have painstakingly failed to make a single conjecture about what happened here.  I’ll try the easy way first, you go ahead a write a bunch of stuff you imagine I would have said.  That should make your masters happy.  Don’t spare my reputation.  Saul, ready when you are.”  He turns around and closes his eyes.

“Right, boss.”  Saul brings his hands up and braces Rexford firmly by the shoulders.  Rexford begins counting softly back from ten.  Gumby tenses.

After seven, the detective snores the remaining numbers.  Gumby opens his mouth and keeps it there for good measure.

Dream church is a much nicer place to pray, which Rexford is doing passionately in a pew when he tunes in.  He shakes off the dream script and wills back the fog cloaking his scene a few meters to expose the whole thing.  The place is in proper condition here, but decorated by the standard amounts of nonsense and repressed sexual desires.  The walls meet at angles that don’t add up, and there are blurry pictures hanging on them that he is positive are just shots of himself mounting the various women he crossed paths with throughout the day.  Certainly worth investigating, but not why he came here.

There are two other actors, who are playing their parts as soon as he looks at them.  Every ten seconds, they skip track and start over, jerking from shot to shot like a simple and short slide show.  The first is a man-sized white pigeon who is laying in a incandescent blue puddle in the aisle and thrashing wildly under the weight of the second, a malevolent wheelbarrow driven by a mutilated little pony doll with a disconcerting grin.  In a normal dream, this would have made much less sense, and only been a small part of the whole play, easily forgotten.  Rexford is exercising a practiced manipulation of his subconscious by forcing it to work right after seeing a crime scene without focusing on any details.  It is an incredibly complicated and unique ability he had spent hundreds of laborious hours developing and thousands more perfecting in order to avoid doing work.

The symbolism here is blunt, but not nearly as important as the shattered pile of glass behind it.

The easy way pays off this time.  Rexford summons too much will for his subconscious to sustain and leaves the poor battered fowl to its fate.  At least it will have peace when he tracks down that bastard pony.

Rexford blinks a couple times and wiggles out of Saul’s support.  Gumby is scribbling a story of proper investigation as he wakes, using the alter as a desk.

“Come here Gumby.  How is it coming?  No, don’t show me, I trust your imagination is coiled enough to serve.  Here, stand with me.”  Gumby gives a curious look and comes over.

“Saul, kindly devistate the alter.”

Nicholas Woodard Short Stories

Gumby and Saul stand next to the alter in back of a small commonplace church, one of about a thousand of the same exact build in the Inner Ring.  These so called ‘prayer dumpsters’ were constructed at the climax of a particularly pious fever among the city’s populace.  In the more decadent present, most of them had fallen into horrible disrepair or were inhabited by vagabonds who hardly prayed at all.  This one was in a respectable state of decay itself.  The walls are spotted black by water damage, their insides laid bare in some parts thanks to unchecked termites.  Half the pews lay lopsided on broken legs.  Stray rays of sunlight leaking through holes in the roof give birth to vibrant green patches of moss.  The whole place stinks to high heaven of wood rot.

It is not, however, an abandoned prayer dumpster.  For several years, a young junior had been making rounds at this and twenty other such churches.  Each day, he had rushed in during the late afternoon to deliver a hasty sermon to the better part of nobody before taking off just as quick.  It was a miserably stupid existence that someone had cut abruptly short two days earlier.   The large stain of dark red dried blood in front of the entrance  has been holding Rexford’s attention for some time.

Gumby reflects sadly on the death of his fellow junior.  The church had not hired this detective to investigate his murder.  Ironically to Gumby, they hadn’t even given him a funeral.  He had been burned with simple rites, his ashes shipped back to his family, a generic note of apology attached with the archbishop’s personal signature.  It was a fancy one Gumby had worked hard to develop over the thirty thousand such notes he had written.  He hopes it might give the family some comfort.

Rexford has moved to pacing around the room, bobbing his head up and down slowly and not stopping to examine anything anymore.  He had been irked to discover the junior’s body had been destroyed and no record of his wounds made in the case details Gumby had filled him in on, but his mood seemed to change when he got to the scene.  He had immediately gone silent and still, just staring at the blood.

Saul and Gumby have been making easy conversation, and Gumby is beginning to feel much better.

“What is mister Rexford doing, mister Saul?”  He gestures to the roaming detective.

“Neither of us are cultured enough for your misters, Gutsy.”  Saul had laughed when he learned Gumby’s name and insisted he was a ‘Gutsy’ on account of he was a ‘bold customer.’

“Sorry, uh, Saul, uh, sir.”

“Nevermind it, Gutsy.”

He opens his mouth again to answer Gumby’s question when Rexford comes directly over to them.  Gumby reaches into his robes eagerly.

“I’m finished,” Rexford says to Saul.

Gumby pulls out a notebook and a feather pen, “I have instructions to act as your scribe too, sir.  Please begin.”

“Begin what?”

Nicholas Woodard Short Stories

The young priest keeps staring back at Saul, confused.  When he realizes Rexford has been silent for a while, he starts in abruptly.

“It is as you say, sir.  I am the junior priest assigned to you by the Elder Bishops of Romantic Virtue.  I uh, am not actually your case though.  Sorry.”  He manages to look authentically ashamed about this.

“It can’t be helped.  Did your masters assign you a name as well?”

“It’s Gumby, sir.”

Rexford takes Gumby in with undisguised scrutiny.  This makes Gumby nervous again, he is not much proud of himself.  A directionless orphan out of primary schooling, he was swept into the clergy by a charismatic couple of missionaries who celebrated the nobility and charity of their work with him, then collected healthy commissions when he had signed up.  He spent two years as a fledgling, living in the dormitories and taking on epic quantities of paperwork, which consumed his waking life and half of his sleeping.  His body adjusted to these rigors by carefully destroying his muscles and decorating his eyes with permanent dark lines.  He had exceptional penmanship, though.

Yesterday, he had been promoted unceremoniously to junior rank and sent out into the daylight to meet with this man.  He had been talking himself into walking right through the gate and never turning back when Saul had hailed him.  Even now, he is considering taking off.  Only his submissive demeanor, lack of any friends or family to turn to, and a newly discovered vampire-like weakness to the sun keeps him where he is.

To his surprise though, the detective seems pleased by the time he finishes looking Gumby over.  He gives Gumby a smirk that sets him at ease involuntarily and wraps a lanky arm around his shoulder.  Rexford leads them over to Saul, who has returned to crowd-watching.

“Saul, my man, I believe somebody messed up.  They gave us an agent we can actually use.”

The gigantic man reveals a feral grin of well-kept teeth.  He resembles an amused bear.

“Mister Rexford, sir?” Gumby says, hunched in Rexford’s grasp, “what exactly gives you so much esteem in me already?”

The detective gives him a puzzled look, “because you have no loyalty to your masters, Gumby.  The wistfulness in your eyes is almost palpable.  You will be a tremendous asset to my investigation because it will be fantastically more interesting than your day-to-day work.  And you will tell your masters anything I want you to tell them because while you are in my charge I am going to engage your mind in ways they never have or intend to.  Also, my team sleeps proper nights and most mornings, right Saul?”

“Like a baby, boss,” says the bear.

“Right.  And that’s why you are the perfect start to this case, Gumby.  Because we sleep well.  What do you say?”

“I say,” Gumby says slowly, “would you like to see the crime scene, sirs?”

Nicholas Woodard Short Stories

A spring wind blows through the Heavenly Steps,  a series of immaculate plazas that lead to the inner alleys of the Pious Wedge.  As it climbs, carefully designed tunnels of various lengths and widths between each plaza transform this wind into a beautiful and peaceful music to champion the piety of the better part of the city who want nothing to do with it.  At the highest step, standing before the Gates of Virtue, the greatest private detective in city history, Lascivious Rexford, is thoroughly spaced out and the music is not helping.  He ponders the tiny tributaries that flow in maddening patterns over the surface of the shining crystal pavement.  The lines are speaking secrets to him, soaking his socks with divine power.

His stalwart man Saul watches the gate with arms folded.  He scans the pedestrians milling out into the plaza with an unfriendly expression.  As massive as any three of the people he is scrutinizing, he is having an effect on this morning’s traffic.  People are giving his wide girth a wide berth.  Rexford is left to himself in the center, his addled daydream complimented by the clergymen keeping their distance.  His unsettling grin is keeping as many or more people off.

Saul spots his man and bellows across the concourse, startling a young priest and most of the crowd.  The priest shifts and excuses himself through a number of people gathering dropped papers and crying children.  He comes up to Saul slowly and waits.  His visible shake makes him seem unsure.

“Don’t be nervous,” Saul barks in an intimidating way.  When it becomes clear that the priest is only going to try to communicate by widening his eyes Saul extends his hand.  The priest takes a long ogle at this lethal-looking offer of peace before swallowing audibly and taking it.  Saul seems delighted and proves exceedingly gentle.

“Ar-are you the detective?” he asks finally.

“Boss says I haven’t got the wits.  You want the guy playing in puddles behind me.”

“Right.  I’ll just, uhm, then,” the priest says as he skirts around Saul, “engage him then.  Thanks to you, sir.”

“Yep.”

Rexford has his legs spread wide, bent-over, attempting to block two streams at once.  His attention is completely on the ground when the priest approaches his rear end.

“Mister Rexford, sir?” the priest says after unsuccessfully trying to meet his eyes.  Rexford collapses at once, but tumbles into a standing position, alert.

“Gad!  You can’t come up on man while he is channeling lay-lines.”  He looks around as if unsure where he is.

The priest makes confused apologies, but Rexford talks through.

“You have to be the client.  I have deduced that you are my client.  Yes, the letter was from the Church of Romantic Virtue, and here you are, clearly a lackey of some church or another.  Ah, there it is, the heart on your collar tells me everything.  You’ve given yourself away.  Was that my case?  That was easy.”  He rocks up and down on the balls of his feet energetically.  “Lucky you got here when you did, my man, I almost found a new calling.”

Nicholas Woodard Short Stories