Stryx Pride raffle entries: Chapter 2

“So,” said the young man at the front of the line, with the self-indulgent smirk of a youth who thought he was hilarious, “where are the other four centurions?”

A few groans in the back. The cashier gave him the service industry’s signature thousand-yard stare. “May I please take your order, sir?”

“Oh. Yeah, uh, quarter wheel of cheese with pine nuts.”

Decima muttered to herself and mimed checking an invisible pocket-watch. The newspapers were calling this place ‘the best fast food in the piazza’, but she couldn’t quite appreciate the ‘fast’ bit when the queue was 8 people deep and barely moving.

“Unbelievable,” she said to Prendergast, whom she was using as a mobile handrail. “Doy blimey. ‘Oi, F.V., run down to the piazza and get us fifteen ‘mentatae right quick. Pay you back, for real this time.’ Think they’re all that ‘cause they’ve got the uniform.”

The casua rumbled his sympathy. 

The insufferable youth was still fumbling with his wallet, much to the ire of the queue. Decima took the time to scan her surroundings for tomfoolery. Technically, patrolling the piazzas was the vigiles’ job, but with the evening rush in full swing, even they had their blind spots.

“Huh, is that a… giant flying cat?”

Prendergast looked up. The ‘giant flying cat’ in question was just a regular chiro, but with a flatter face and big blue eyes that made her look like a cat. She was also stalking around the shadowy corners of the piazza like a real feline, clutching a wrapped bundle close to her breast.

“Looks mighty suspect to me. Whaddya say, Prends? Chase time?”

‘On what grounds?’ he said. ‘Looking suspicious?’

“You don’t think it’s weird that she’s just… creeping around the sides, instead of, y’know, flying?”

She got him there.

“Plus, yeah, that suspicious package she’s got.”

Prendergast watched the cat-bat as she finally sidled her way across the forum and vanished down Via Dodicesimo. That street could only lead to one place: The Aeolus district, the seediest neighbourhood in the City of Sol.

‘Okay, maybe you’re right. Plus, it beats standing in line for another 10 minutes.’

“We’ve only been here 5, and you were sitting down the whole time.”

‘And away we go!’

*

Aeolus was known for two things: Great hot stone thermae, and more crimes in a half square mile than every other district inside these walls put together. Something in the air, maybe?

Decima and Prendergast had trailed the suspicious cat-bat all the way into the heart of Aeolus, where the looming marble towers of the public thermae cast pillars of shadow on an already gloomy night. It had been easy enough blending in back on Dodicesimo, but here, amongst the city’s shadiest folk, their red and white regalia stood out like a great big bullseye target.

“Espee,” someone spat, but disguised it as a cough when Prendergast turned to stare him down.

A bedraggled figure grabbed her prosthetic leg, and she kicked them off, but not hard enough to get her in trouble with the commissioner, again.

“Oi, paws off. You wouldn’t hit a disabled person, would you?”

“Might, if’n that disabled person were here for one of my ken.”

Technically, no one had committed an actual crime yet, and Decima wasn’t about to go proving these bums right by giving them a reaction. So she just hiked her stola back up and urged Prendergast onward.

Her quarry had the disadvantage of having really pale fur, and thus, being easy to see in the dark. Not a few moments after they’d left the riffraff behind, Prendergast clacked his beak to get her attention. He pointed to the entrance of the largest thermae, where a twitchy old man was sidestepping out of the shadows, pausing every few seconds to glance about him. He genuinely thought he was being sneaky.

Prendergast pulled on the reins, but Decima held firm.

“Just watch. Let ‘em incriminate themselves.”

“...got the goods?” the man was saying.

Lolli reached under her belly and dislodged something from the depths of her fluff. Aha, just like she’d thought. A pretty little chunk of slab, all wrapped up in brown paper, but the size and shape were unmistakable.

Prendergast was really gunning for them now, and when a casua really wanted something, it was physically impossible to refuse.

“Just a little longer, we can get ‘em on distribution, too…”

Distribution, under Sol law, specifically required that the contraband change hands, with or without actual currency involved. The old man snatched the package out of Lolli’s wing-claw and tossed her a crumpled up chit of paper, which she bent down to sniff. Close enough.

“Got ‘em. Go time.”

Prendergast flared out his wings, tipped back his head, and screeched into the night sky.

‘WEEWOO WEEWOO!’

The man startled, and Lolli jumped, her tail and hackles standing on end.

“SPQR, put ‘em up! Drop the slab, now!”

“W-wait, do I drop the tea first and then put my hands up? ‘Cause if I put the hands up first and then drop it, it’s gonna hurt like a--”

Prendergast solved his conundrum by plucking it out of his hands with his beak. “Thanks,” he said, then remembered just how much trouble he was in. “Please, take pity on an old somniac, I need my cuppa in the mornings…”

“You know the rules, sir,” Decima said. “That stuff’s deadly. Nothing that keeps you up for 12 hours straight could possibly be safe.”

The cat-bat tried to run, but the urban cohort unhooked the lasso from her saddle and tossed the loop over her head. At that point, she just seemed to give up and accept her fate.

Since it was too much trouble for her to get out of the saddle, Decima escorted the two on casua-back down to the nearest patrol station, heralded by the boos and jeers of Aeolus vagrants. The chiro trailed after them, head down, her luxuriant tail dragging mud behind her. She looked so miserable that Decima just couldn’t stay silent any longer.

“Don’t mind my pryin’, ma’am. Did you even know what you were carrying back there?”

‘Cheeseburgers,’ she muttered.

“Come again?”

‘It’s those burgers from Quincenturiae,’ Prendergast prompted, ‘but with cheese. 20 bobs extra for a slice of processed cheese, dumbest idea I’ve ever heard, if you ask me.’

“Luckily, no one asked.”

‘Said I could has cheeseburger.’

“Who? Your suppliers?”

She shut up right there, leaving the two to put the pieces together themselves. Clearly, this poor chiro was a lost vagabond off the streets, coerced into running contraband with the promise of the tiniest morsels necessary to stave off her constant starvation. She didn’t even know what they’d set her up to do. Plus, with all that fur, she wouldn’t survive a day on the inside.

The patrol station was just round the corner. Decima had a decision to make.

“Okay, look, it’s clear you didn’t know what you were getting into, so I’ll cut you a little deal under the table. Show me who your suppliers are, and I’ll get you double the cheeseburgers they were paying you.”

Lolli lit up at once. So that was a yes.

“Do I get a deal too?” the old man asked. Decima was frankly surprised he hadn’t tried to run for it once. It was true what they said about tea drinkers: No sane person would drink hot leaf water at 7 in the morning.

“No, you’re not cute enough for that.”

“Aw.”

*

“It was his idea!” Luciranus cried. “I’m just volunteering, honest!”

“No! What the hell? I told you a hundred times, when the Espees ask questions, you shut up and ask for your lawyer. Nokt’s sake, Luci…”

Decima hadn’t gotten the station their burgers, but she’d gotten them something much better: The two most prominent suppliers of slab and ground within these white walls. As her fellow cohorts led the elves out of the popina, Decima turned back to Lolli, now chowing down on her promised cheeseburgers.

“You’re safe now, ma’am. They’ll be going away for a long time, and hey, if they find enough of the green stuff at their hideout, they might even hang.”

Lolli briefly looked up, her teeth sticky with melted cheese. Decima stared into the chiro’s eyes and saw the sly glimmer within. She’d known, all this time. She knew, and she’d gamed them all: Hook, line, and sinker.

‘Lolli has cheeseburger!’