Other Places 1: Shortcuts Read online

  That got him to blink.

  "Um... I'm fine, no one touched me. They scared that woman, which was pretty bad. I mean, if they keep doing things like that, the police will have to come and check the area constantly and too many things around here would confuse them, which could cause problems. Too late to fix that part now." He didn't know what else to say about it. The whole thing had been scary, but it wasn't her fault.

  "Edom mentioned that part as well, that there were three of them, all moving many times faster than you were and that none of them managed to even brush your skin. That shows remarkable skill." She grinned, a hint of fang showing in it, since she didn't have to try and hide it as hard now. "Good then. I can go back to my work safe in the knowledge that you won't be filing endless complaints. It's within your rights, certainly, but a hardship for me since I'm the one that would have to do all the paperwork."

  She waved as she left, taking all the little cups and even the napkins with her. For the first time in weeks he felt comfortably full. A little hyper from the sugar, sure, but that was a side effect that Zack had to kind of welcome. He turned to mopping the floor again to make use of the energy. It meant pulling the little yellow sign that cautioned people about the wet floor from its plastic wrapping. It took several goings over and nearly three hours of repeated work to actually get it clean. Just as it was about to finish drying the first customer of the day came in. It was just before two, but a slightly seedy looking man sprinted in, his shoes leaving prints on the fresh floor.

  At least they'd come up easily enough. As long as the man didn't go over the whole room for hours, looking for just the right thing. He ran directly to the back room and pounded on the office door. Which made a nice straight line of footprints. Carefully Zack moved toward him, looking for the dry spots, hopping from one to the next, figuring that it was better to be safe than sorry. On the good side the back of the room was almost totally dry.

  The frantic looking man pounded harder, looking at the front, where a second man stood, a very sharp looking knife in his hand. It was decently long, nearly ten inches and had a nice gleam to it. Shiny.

  "Come on! Let me in Lisa! You freaking carpet munching lesbo! Let me the fuck in! Asylum! I claim asylum as a guild member in good standing!"

  He cradled a backpack to his chest, looking scared as the whip thin man started to make his way back. Finally the seedy looking man with short hair and a receding hairline pointed at Zack.

  "You! Protect me!" It was, oddly enough, a command. Zack had never really done well with people giving him orders. It was a thing he had. An issue.

  He sighed.

  "Shut up. Come with me. To the front counter." He gestured to the other man, who looked to be in a murderous rage. "You too, please. Notice how I said please, instead of just barking orders at people? That's the polite way of doing it." He glared at the first man a little when he said it, not trying to be funny.

  For some reason that got a strange look from the man with the knife, who put it away. Then the knife man pointed at the first guy and did his own evil staring for a bit.

  "I've come to kill him. He stole from me and lied. He can claim asylum all he wants, but that don't make a bit of difference unless you're going to die with him too, that your plan?"

  For some reason Zack laughed. He honestly couldn't help himself.

  Chapter three

  That got both men to freeze. The more dangerous looking one, the thin guy that had the knife, looked a little worried for some reason. Zack wondered if it was the nice clothing he had on throwing the man off. That could do it at times, if you looked rich or powerful, people thought you were. Most wouldn't even question it.

  "OK. Give me the situation here. I have to fix the floor, so I don't have time to put up with a bunch of stupidity. Don't lie, just tell the truth and if this is about one of you sleeping with the other one's girlfriend I swear I'm going to try really hard to lodge my foot in someone's ass." The words just popped out, Mirror Him taking control of his mouth for some reason. He almost never did that anymore. They had a deal. "You, snake man, tell me what this dumb fuck did, and we'll go from there."

  Zack cringed inside as the one on the left, the man that wanted protection, glared at him. He started to speak, which got Zack's left hand to come up.

  "Ah-ah. No. This other one first, then we deal with you. Go." He nodded to the thinner man who actually nodded back firmly.

  "I was called in on a job. A heist, you know, a security office, which no one would ever think to take on, right? So, he told me that he needed a snake to go through the ventilation system and let him in. Then he'd use his mojo to, you know, get the safe open. That went fine, and we got away clean, but when we got out he tried to claim they only had ten thousand in the safe. I know they had more than that, I saw it, it was at least ten times more. Mainly bonds. He has them in that sack. When I called him on his shit, he ran off and came here."

  Zack felt his face twitch at the mouth, then looked hard at the other man.

  "You, what's your story. That one sounds about right to me. Anything to add?"

  "I didn't lie, we got ten thousand cash. That's all I said we'd share. The bonds are different."

  Zack rolled his eyes. Then after a few seconds his left hand went out.

  "Hand over the bag. Now. I told you I don't have time for bullshit. Everyone knows that if you say you're going to split the take you mean all of it. Don't try to word lawyer this. I swear, if I have to come around this counter, I'm borrowing the snake man's knife and I will remove your right hand for stealing, even if I do have to clean up the mess. Yeah, it's in the guild rules, moron, look it up." The man hugged the bag to his chest harder, not willing to hand over anything it seemed.

  Putting his right hand out toward the other man got the knife to come out, which got the Mage to squeak and set the bag down.

  "Jesus, who the fuck do you think you are? I pay for protection..."

  Giving the man a long look the bonds and cash came out onto the counter top. It was even more than the Snake had said, nearly twice as much. Zack made two piles of each, the thinner man starting to look far more satisfied. As he started to reach for the loot, Mirror Him put a single finger up.

  "Arbitration fee. What do you think is fair?" He looked at the man who made a face.

  "Fuck. Well, fair enough, you're doing this right. Five percent? That's standard for the shifters at least. I don't know what you Mages do. I thought that was normally just ripping people off, but I can't complain about the service so far."

  Then the man smiled when that five percent got taken off of the Mage's pile.

  "What the fuck? How come I have to pay for this? I pay my dues, that should cover things like this. Arbitration of disputes and all that crap."

  Mirror Him stepped back, letting Zack have his mouth again. He smiled, which got the man to move away from him a few steps. Like he was scary or something?

  "Arbitration between Mage guild members is free. However, you came seeking asylum, which was provided in the most efficient manner possible, with a resolution of the problem you needed to be protected from. All of your wealth, at least what you carried in the door, was automatically forfeit when you walked in and said the words. As a rule, crimes that you commit in the greater community are not grounds for asylum, but I didn't want to be too picky, since I'm new. What that all means is that I could have taken all of it and you couldn't have done a thing about it. Consider yourself lucky that I don't add a fine for being stupid. All you had to do was treat your partner with fairness, but you couldn't let yourself do that for some reason. Didn't it occur to you that the two of you working together might have made a lot more over time than stealing from him now would?"

  The lecture seemed to fall on deaf ears. The other man chuckled a little and started picking up the papers with their gold letters and the stack of bills. It was a little awkward, since things were trying to slip out of his grasp a bit.

  "You should buy something. So
me nice candles maybe? Or incense. You're here, have the funds, and more importantly could use a nice big and innocent looking sack to carry things in. I have a whole stack of them down here... for customers." He smiled hopefully and found himself surprised when the man actually did it, getting a half dozen things. Mainly candles, but he also got a nice pair of stonework candle holders. The other man fumed for a bit, but selected a few things out too. There were no prices on anything, but they waited while he looked it all up. It was what he'd have to do next, marking everything. Otherwise real sales would just take too long.

  Then, as an afterthought, he got both men to sign a receipt for the settlement, the Mage making a point of writing out that he was doing it under protest. Zack shrugged.

  "It's just paperwork. This way I have proof that you walked out with what you're carrying, and no one will think I stole anything." He smiled when they were done and tucked the five percent under the till, then took their cash for the goods, making sure they got all their change back exactly.

  Before he closed the drawer he glanced at the paper they'd both signed.

  "Before you go, Cyrus and..." The Mage's name was kind of sloppy, but he could just make it out. "Hiram, I'll be checking on you periodically over the next six months. If either of you dies, it will not go well. You both get the idea, right?" Zack waited, knowing that he couldn't do anything if one of them did kill the other. It was just something to try and keep the peace. They both nodded anyway, as if they actually thought the idea had teeth for some reason. "Also, Hiram, if you come to my attention again for stealing like this, I will take your hand. Think about that before you try to rip off a partner next time. I don't know you yet, but as a guild member in good standing, I'd expect better of you. The next time we meet, I hope it's under better circumstances."

  The skinny guy smiled as he left and headed right, the Mage leaving the other way, glancing back at him with an angry expression.

  Sighing he went back to cleaning the floor. He half expected someone else to run in, but no one did. It was kind of a shame, since that part was way more interesting than the tidying he was left with otherwise. At least there had been people to talk to.

  At about four the phone rang. It was sitting on the counter, so he presumed it was actually for the store, not Lisa. She mentioned that those kind of calls would be transferred to her directly.

  "Candles and More, Zack speaking, how may I help you today?" Honestly he expected a wrong number, that or someone asking what the more was. Instead it was a nice sounding man that had a slight chuckle to his voice as he spoke.

  "This is Bob Millhouse. Is Lisa there by chance?"

  "I'm sorry, she isn't in so far today. Can I help you with anything?"

  There was a significant pause, then the man continued as if it were his plan all along. Some people were really good at that, seeming like nothing really ever threw them.

  "Possibly. Did you happen to have two men in there earlier? A bit of a dispute over a disposition of funds?" Another pause came, giving him a chance to answer.

  "Yes. Very interesting gentlemen. Is there a problem?"

  "Well, one of them, Hiram Stone? He called in a complaint, something about you threatening to cut his hands off?"

  Zack nodded, but corrected the man. "Hand. Singular. The second codex allows for a known thief to have his right hand taken off as punishment. Section three... seven or eight. It's been a few years since I read it. I don't think that's been repealed, has it? I was just saying it to save his life though." He didn't explain what he meant, figuring that the man would have gotten that part of the story, but Hiram didn't seem to have shared it, or at least that had gotten lost in the endless game of telephone that had been played with it all.

  "What? I'm sorry, you lost me." Bob said politely.

  "Oh, he committed a crime and his partner chased him into the store. He claimed asylum, but you know, I'm just a store clerk Lisa hired to get that part of things in order. Clean up, maybe take some phone messages. I figured that if I denied it to him that the other man was going to kill him, which, you understand, would leave me with a body and a messy floor. So I made him follow the deal he made originally and then took an arbitration fee, which is in the third codex... Um, section seventeen, about halfway through? I can't remember the sub-heading on that one. That way the other guy would feel like something was done to punish Hiram, so he wouldn't feel like killing him as much. I can't fight or do magic, so if he really has a problem with it, Hiram should feel welcome to go and explain that to Cyrus."

  The words were a little harder than he meant them to be, but the voice on the phone just sounded slightly distracted, with clicking, like he was tapping on a keyboard.

  "Here we go... You... are indeed correct, those are both still standing and it seems properly applied. Good job. I'll make certain that's noted with the guild's senior members. This won't be a problem. It wouldn't have been even if you were wrong. Hiram Stone has been a long term problem child. Lisa probably would have thrown him out and damn the consequences. It seems he was lucky you were there today instead. Well, I'll let you get back to work. I'll probably be in soon. I know I should be in more often, but my wife hasn't been well."

  Zack nodded, "I've heard something about that. Let me know if either of you need anything. I don't know what I'm supposed to say in cases like this, but seriously, if I can do anything, I will."

  "Thank you. I'll let Evelyn know you said that. I'm sure it will make her feel better."

  "Bye." He hung up, hoping that it was really alright. The guy on the phone seemed to think so, but that could mean anything. Mirror Him was being very quiet about the whole thing, probably worried that his little take over event was going to get them fired.

  It might, but so far it seemed alright. It was close to the first time that had happened. Most of the time when M.H. came out, he was out of a job almost instantly. He tended to yell at people.

  By five he actually ran out of things to do, so wrote up a list of stuff to make the store seem like a real place of business, instead of a warehouse for unwanted bits of wax. Some kind of music might help, as well as a little bell for the door. The old fashioned kind, not an electric one. They had some little wind chimes in the "and More" section that might work he decided, so he found a ceiling hook in a package in the supply closet and a step ladder in the far back space. It took about ten minutes to put up and only made a little noise when the door opened, but it was a pleasant sound, not an abrasive thing that would make him regret doing it.

  "Oh, you hope. That kind of thing can wear on a body after a while." Mirror Him said, turning to look down the main hallway, toward the outer door he always used. "Hey, it's your new boyfriend the Vampire from last night. 'Oh, Lenore... he was so good looking and well dressed...' at least you told her she's hot too. Otherwise she'd think you played for the other team."

  He hopped down from the green step ladder with its black rubber steps. The male Vampire saw the movement and nodded his way, his face relaxed and slightly stern looking. Across the way he saw Lenore speaking to the man, and pointing to things in a black book she pulled from under the counter. It didn't take long and she went to the back, coming out a few minutes later with a nice trench coat on, walking out quickly without even looking his way.

  There was another call at about seven, which turned out to be a wrong number. The man hung up so fast that Zack wondered if he'd accidentally insulted him. It wasn't a thing he ever meant to do, but it happened sometimes. It was the problem with only being able to tell the truth.

  After that he had nothing to do at all. Looking around the store he decided that meant it was a good time to work on Christmas displays. They didn't have any boxes of stuff hidden in the back like most places did, unfortunately. What they did have was a lot of extra fabric, most of it silk, since that was used in ceremonies, and obviously, tons of candles of various sorts. The rest of the night was spent on that, the foot traffic outside the door increasing, most of it going in
to Yoghurt World. It meant that by the time he was locking up and changing the sign to say they were closed, at nine, the place looked halfway festive. They needed a lot more to really make it all work, some holly and garlands maybe, but it was a start, and anyone walking in would at least think they wanted to sell something. He didn't find the price gun until it was nearly time to leave, and didn't have a clue what to do with the till. In the end he counted the whole thing and made a point of balancing it, working from the subtraction of what had come in that day, not having a starting amount at all. It had just been sitting there when he came in.

  It was more than a little weird that Lisa hadn't been by at all. It probably meant he was supposed to open again the next day as well. It would have been harder for him, with only twelve hours between the two things, but really what else did he have to do? On the way out he waved to Edom, if that was his name, and headed out. He had a pack of Ramen left after all.

  The walk home was cold, but fast, and he was back in his own place before he really had a chance to get too chilly. This time there had been no Vampires waiting at least. Troy was gone and while he could have played a game, or watched one of the three channels they got, not having cable or a good antennae, he opted for sleep instead. On his bed was a pile of folded clothing and a note telling him to pick what he wanted.

  It was nice stuff too. Troy was being really generous, but then, he always was.

  He cleared it off and hung it all up, not wanting it to wrinkle, and did the same with the clothing he'd worn that day, in case it needed special handling or care. The Ramen had hit the spot and he felt sleepy. It was a good feeling, knowing that he was pulling his own weight again.

  In the morning he didn't see Troy at all, but that happened sometimes, especially if he brought home a lady. Most of the time he didn't see them when that happened. This time was no exception, the sounds from his roommate's room making it clear that she was a screamer. Zack felt slightly jealous for a moment, since it had been far too long since he'd convinced a woman to do that with him, but that would change soon. Mirror Him thought so anyway.