Chapter 29.2: So Close

Penny watched Hazz and the newcomer ascend into the city, accompanied by a small group of other officers. With the exception of a remaining guard and secretary, Penny, Minkus, and Wepp were suddenly and eerily alone in the peacemaker headquarters.

“I don’t know what the hell that was about,” Penny muttered, “but let’s not waste it.” She returned her blade to the smartpack and hoisted the large device to her shoulder once more, taking a step toward the stairs with a short groan. The damned thing felt like it was getting heavier by the day, but at this point, Penny had little else to her name, so where she went, it was going too.

Minkus stood and lifted his pack. But he didn’t move after her.

“Did you hear, me, Biggie? We did what we came to do, and it didn’t work. Now let’s get out of here.”

When he made no response, Penny stopped to take a longer look at him. The smile that had nearly encompassed his face was gone now. She’d seen it dwindle throughout their meeting with the officer, but it had kept reappearing whenever their eyes had met. Now their eyes didn’t meet.

She took a step back toward him, leaning down to his level. “Are you listening, Minkus? They’re letting us go without getting into any more messes, and I, for one, would like to avoid any more messes. Are you coming?”

“An expunging,” Minkus said solemnly, beginning to move now.

His ears drooped as far as they had the night before, when Penny told him he was on his own. She shook the thought away, rising to full height again and walking alongside him toward the stairs. Their parting was still coming, and quickly, but Minkus would be fine; he had people. Penny didn’t, but she’d still be fine, like always. She didn’t need people.

She shook her head again, pushing all that away in favor of something more immediate and less threatening. “What is that, anyway?” she asked. “Expunging?”

“Triple expunging,” Wepp corrected. Oddly, he still trailed after them, rubbing unbound arms.

Penny raised an eyebrow, looking back at him at his waddling form. By now she was more than sick of him, but at the moment, she was even more sick of these little people and their asinine jargon. “Fine, expunging. Whatever. Can someone please just tell me what it means?”

“Murder. It means murder,” Wepp said flatly. “Now if you two would kindly never interact with me again, in any capacity, perhaps I’ll refrain from pursuing further legal action here in Rata Sum. You can be certain, Miss Arkayd, that you will never see your shop again, and if you step foot in Divinity’s Reach I will ensure the authorities there do not miss an opportunity to execute full punition for your crimes against me.” He huffed, still rubbing his wrists as he passed them and continued on out into that lower plaza deep inside the city.

Penny and Minkus slowed, coming to a stop just beyond the threshold. “You were the one following us!” she called at him as he disappeared into the crowd filling the plaza. “You little ass.”

Minkus locked her in a disapproving gaze. “What?” she stammered. “I didn’t say he was wrong— necessarily. I mean, he wasn’t exactly—” She shook away the feeling of being a reprimanded child. “He’s still an ass.”

“What do we do now?” Minkus asked, his face softening again.

Penny groaned, squinting to see further into the amassed crowd of little people. “Torment if I know. I told you this wouldn’t do anything.” She shrugged. “I guess this is where you go take those papers of yours to some big-headed, professional golem person. I can just find my own way back to that gods-awful asura gate.”

Minkus looked up at her, a strange fear filling his eyes. One hand wrapped in the other, he tried forming words, but nothing came out.

“What?” she said, surprised by how uncomfortable this was. “I told you this was coming. I have to— well, Lion’s Arch and all that.”

“Yes.” He stammered, raising a hand. “I know. I— I just— well, I think I know who I need to take this to, if she’s here. I hope she’s here. But I— I’m afraid. I also hope she’s not here, I guess? It’s— confusing.”

The silence sat for a moment before Penny really knew he was done speaking, and by that time, he was staring down at his feet.

“Minkus, what or who in Torment are you talking about?”

“Jinkke,” he said quietly, eyes still to the ground. “I needed to see if she was here, if she was safe. And if she is, she— well, I thought maybe she could help me, or maybe she knows someone who can. I don’t know who else I would go to.” 

Penny crossed her arms. “Yeah. I guess that makes sense. So what? Sounds like two birds with one stone to me.”

Minkus paused. “I’m afraid,” he admitted.

“You're what?” Penny gawked at him, putting a hand to her head. “What in the Realm of Torment are you possibly afraid of?”

Reaching back, he twiddled at the pommel of his sword, sticking up from behind his pack. “Seeing Jinkke,” he whispered.

Penny blinked several times. She remembered this familiar question from the first days after meeting him, but she hadn’t asked it in some time: was Minkus for real? All asura were strange, but Minkus? For all his virtues—and yes, Penny now realized he had several of them—this little man broke any and every expectation she’d had the sense to put on an asura, or really anyone.

She pushed open palms through her hair. “So you’re afraid— of your sister.”

He nodded.

She couldn’t take it, “Biggie,” she snapped, “your sister is all you’ve talked about for the last day. About how she’s in danger, and you have to see if she’s OK, and we have to save her if she’s not, and on and on and on—and now you’re afraid of her?”

“I am,” Minkus admitted shamefully. “I just— the last time we talked— I said some things. They were all true, of course, but that— that didn’t make them any easier to say— or hear, I think. It’s— I want for anything for her to be safe, but it’s still— I’m— well, I’m afraid she won’t want to see me.”

Penny pressed her face into her hands. “Oh, for the love of the gods.” Minkus was having second thoughts about the first step to everything he’d set out to do, and now he was looking to Penny for encouragement, the one person who’d been perfectly clear she wanted nothing to do with any of it. She nearly laughed.

Before she could speak again, Officer Hazz burst from the milling mob and rushed up beside them. “Excelsior!” he exclaimed, breathing heavily. “You’re still here. Come this way.”

“Excuse me?” Penny asked stopping him before he could run off back into the press of little bodies.

He spun back. “The inspector,” he said, “has requested your presence, both of you.”

Minkus exchanged a curious glance with Penny, as a hundred curses coursed through her mind. She’d been so damned close to escaping whatever this was.

Noting their slowness, Hazz bounded back around them and pushed the pair into the throng. “This way,”  he repeated.

They pierced the edge of the crowd, driven by the peacemaker, and quickly found themselves funneled into an open lane, lined by other peacemakers who pressed the onlookers back. Officials, officers and otherwise, hurried up and down that corridor through the people, stopping here and there for various duties Penny assumed were related to this murder investigation. A small distance ahead, the corridor of little people expanded into an open ring at least fifty yards in diameter, with smaller groups of officers encircling what must have been bodies or pieces of evidence, or something. Standing almost two feet taller than everyone in the city gave Penny a good view of everything happening around them. She felt once more like the one adult in a world full of children—a frighteningly morbid thought at a murder scene.

That thought actually brought Penny back to the immediate question. Why were the two of them being taken to a murder scene? Of all the things she’d ever been involved in, murder was one she’d managed to stay a long way away from. And Minkus? Well, he couldn’t kill a mosquito, much less another person. Besides, they’d been in this ridiculous city for barely more than an hour. There was no conceivable way they’d have anything to do with whatever had happened here.

They passed out of the corridor of onlookers and into the circle of empty plaza. At the opposite end of the space was some kind of stonework building that had a platform jutting out toward them and was capped with a ring of those weird information panels the asura had everywhere. Not far from that platform was a waypoint, and little peacemakers rushed this way and that between what looked like three distinct points of heightened activity: one at the platform, one at the waypoint, and one farther on down the walkway that ran alongside the building.

As they passed the platform, Penny just caught sight of the first body, sprawled out behind the ring of data terminals. It was just an arm, extended out over the edge platform, beside a staircase that led toward the waypoint. Blood ran all down the side of the platform and pooled at the base. In a half-circle behind it stood a small group of peacemakers, inspecting the scene, taking notes, and discussing things Penny couldn’t hear. “Gods,” she whispered.

Still following closely on Hazz’s heels, they approached the waypoint. There, under its magical glow, she recognized the second body.

This one was slightly smaller than most asura she’d seen. Covered mostly by a dark, hooded coat, it was hard to tell at first if it was male or female. A pool of blood had spread beneath it as well—this was all gruesome work. The deep red stained the stonework path, strangely highlighting the crimson tone of the victim’s hair, which just peeked out from beneath the hood. A slight breeze swept across the body, lightly rustling the tuft of exposed hair. It was so thick, virtually bursting from the hood.

Just beside the body was another figure: not a peacemaker, but a civilian. Pudgy and balding, he knelt, hunched over the corpse and babbling incoherently. It was all so foreign but so eerily familiar.

“Wepp?” Minkus asked, leaning around Penny. He stepped toward the scene, his big eyes growing bigger still. He looked at the officer, aghast. “What— what is this?”

Penny looked more closely at the scene before her, wondering what Minkus was on about. It was then that everything clicked into place in Penny’s mind: the fat mourner, the dark coat, the crimson hair. And the lifeless, bright, yellow eyes.

“Gods no.” Penny whispered, her eyes widening as well. “Skixx?”