“Stop fidgeting,” I muttered.

  We were sitting in the main lounge of the Long Horn, right in the heart of Ankmapak. The blue glow of the portal shed an eerie light across the room that still tasted like stale smoke and spilt booze. I grimaced at the velvet covers on the brand-new seats.

  Esme was not allowed to go shopping with my hoard as her bloody credit card again.

  Beville glanced over at me and nodded slightly. Cyrus couldn’t see him; he had his back to the bar, just like mine was aimed at the door. Appearing vulnerable didn’t sit right with me, but it made it an easier sell to my prospective victims.

  “Someone just came in–”

  “I know, Cyrus. Eyes in the back of my head.”

  “Really? Some kind of forced aberration from the shapeshifting?” he asked. “It must be very confusing. You’d need to alter the visual centres of your brain to accommodate the additional perspective.”

  “You sure you’re a native?” I raised a sceptical eyebrow.

  “Born and bred. The de Bonevilles–”

  “Let me guess, the once and future kings of the town of Danglenugget?”

  “What? No. The Axegashes are prophesied to take over Danglenugget. My family comes from the Mourning Wood.”

  “Of course they do. This bloody world, dude… Where is he?”

  “Who?”

  “The bloke who just came in that prompted my man, the bar lord, to give me the wink–don’t turn and look for fucks sake!” I hissed.

  “Sorry. He’s just behind you.”

  “Thanks, Cyrus.” I turned in my chair and looked up. “Bulldo. A pleasure as always. I’ve got the next load of arkendrite for your boss.” I waved a hand at Beville, who pulled a beer and sent it to our table via a buxom barmaid. She was a pale imitation of my sultry gin slinger. Don’t think about Esme, Bob, you've got to keep your cool for this part.

  I fought down Wrath and smiled slightly as Bulldo pulled out a chair and took a drink.

  “Who’s your friend, Bob?”

  “Cyrus de Boneville, this is Bulldo de teleports.”

  “A pleasure, and my surname is Smith.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Ok.” I wasn’t sure how to react to a normal surname these days, so I chose to ignore it. “Cyrus works for me, and I need some, uh, niche alembics for him. I was wondering if you could help me out?”

  “For alchemy?” Bulldo glanced suspiciously at Cyrus.

  “I need them to step up to batch production for… certain potions.” Cyrus slid a note of paper across the table, then took a sip from his lemonade.

  “Hmm. We can probably make these available to you… But I’m not sure we can allow them to leave our facilities. They are very specific. And too valuable to be allowed out of our control.” Bulldo put the list in an inside pocket of his business jacket and smiled thinly. “But we can certainly come to some sort of arrangement.”

  “I need to move them back to the dungeon. Only reason I bought Cyrus along was to check that the alembics were the real deal. Lots of fakes out there,” I muttered.

  “We’re contract-bound to assist you, Bob,” Bulldo replied.

  “No. You’re not. Your boss can’t work directly against me, nor I him, but you remember the first time you took me to his lair? You promised me safe passage, knowing that if things didn’t work out, it wouldn’t be your fault. You wouldn’t have been responsible for the fact that you safely dropped off a corpse after my visit if it had gone down that way.”

  “You’re still bitter about that? It’s just business, Bob.”

  “So is this Bulldo.” I leaned across the table, sliding my glass of Golden Jack ahead of me before taking a sip. “This is serious. I don’t have the contacts needed to make it work, so I need to ask for a favour. I need those alembics back in the dungeon. Yesterday would be best, but today would be ok.”

  He straightened his tie. I didn’t reach out and use it to choke him to death. I was maturing and learning self-control. “We can’t warp time, but we can maybe manage something today. We’ve got a… cook house that uses them. I can take you there, and you could take a look, but they won’t be cheap, Bob.”

  “I sold an Immortality Injection.” I waved a pouch of holding in front of my chest for a second before hiding it back in my possum pouch. “Money is no issue.”

  Of all the things I’d endured in this world, having my scales ripped off and replaced by the god of smiths, being swallowed by a dragon, and having to endure these endless sparkles; nothing had hurt me quite so much as speaking that last sentence aloud. Greed started crying in the back of my mind.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “That… changes things.”

  “Money talks. Merit walks. I’m willing to pay heavily for them.” Greed curled up into a little ball of goblin, and even Wrath took a moment to pat him on the back.

  “The boss wasn’t happy about not winning that auction… we could maybe work out a deal. Would your friend be amenable to perhaps working for us part-time?”

  “Maybe,” I growled. I didn’t have to feign my reluctance.

  “As long as there are security agreements in place for my safety, and Bob is ok with it, that’s fine.” Cyrus sounded like a gazelle negotiating with a lion.

  “Then we can probably make something work. You’ve got a private room?” Bulldo asked. His beady eyes glanced between us, but all he saw was thinly veiled and completely genuine fear in Cyrus’ face, and reluctant annoyance in my own. I hoped anyway. I wasn’t really faking anything other than how badly I was suppressing my urge to literally eat the shifty little shit.

  “Sure. Beville keeps a room for me. Grab your drink.”

  I rose and headed towards the bar. Beville opened the door to the back corridors, and I led my compatriots towards the room we’d set aside. It turned out, after a couple of chats between Inedible-Reg and Incomprehensible-Simeon, that we could make things that would stop people from teleporting out.

  The ins and outs of it, all the technical bullshit, were way over my head. The enchantomancy needed was really technical, and so was some of the engineering. Fortunately, I had a pair of half-mad orlic “scientists” and all the resources of a dungeon on hand. It hadn’t been that hard to sort out.

  As the door closed behind Bulldo, an invisible field came into effect, surrounding the open space in the room. At least I really hoped it did.

  “How much arkendrite have you got?”

  I patted the pockets of my fancy nobleman’s jacket. “Oh, I picked up the wrong pouch. I’ve got it back at the dungeon.”

  “And you want the alembics, but you’re fucking with me on the rest of the deal? You’re contractually bound, Bob,” Bulldo growled.

  “To not act against your boss, Bulldo. When was the last time you saw Agatha?” I asked softly, putting my glass down on the table, but turning to face him afterwards.

  “The Library? Not been there in weeks. You want to see her again? All guys do, she’s got a way about her, right? Maybe I can set up a more private meeting next time she’s allowed up on the surface,” he said nervously.

  Cyrus had backed slowly into a corner and was clutching at a bangle on his wrist. He was as subtle as a sledgehammer. Don’t grab a hold of your secret shield item and start whispering prayers. That’s just stupid.

  “I saw her the other night.” Bulldo paled and took half a step backwards.

  “Oh? How did that go?”

  “Not like you arranged. I think I figured it out. Your boss said something like: Oh, it would be great if someone had a word with the ancient order of vampire assassins about taking out Bob.” My smile was toothy and unsympathetic.

  “I had no part in anything you might–”

  “Drop the shit, Bulldo. You’ve got a very limited number of options to get out of this alive.”

  “You can’t act against me! You’d be surprised at what I’ve got up my sleeve!”

  “I can’t act against your boss. Hey, if you don’t make it, I haven’t attacked him, have I?”

  He glanced left and right, but I was watching his hands. The right one was hidden behind his back, while the left fluttered against his collar, obviously a distraction.

  “You're not as smart as you think you are!” he declared proudly, then looked at he ground in front of him in consternation.

  “Won’t work, matey. This room is sealed for teleports. The Library do something similar as well, right?” I asked casually as I moved slowly towards the suddenly frightened man. “I’d like to know how to break in.” I stopped in front of him and adopted a sympathetic expression.

  “They’ll kill me,” he whispered.

  “Me too, kill you, I mean. If you don’t do what I want.” My right hand flashed out, and I clamped a bracelet down over his left forearm. “My teleports work just fine in here.” I opened a new portal behind Bulldo and shoved him in the chest to push him through to the dungeon.

  Cyrus followed us, stepping hastily to one side before moving quickly towards the iron staircase that led up to the next dungeon floor.

  “Becoming a necromancer is apparently a really evil thing?” I asked coolly.

  “I’m not a corpse shagger!” Bulldo objected. He began backing away, looking to open up some space between us. Space meant time to react.

  “I am. Wait, that’s not what I meant. I am a necromancer, so even if you die, I’ll get what I want in the end. I’m told it’s very unpleasant, having one's soul yanked back and forced to inhabit a rotting flesh sack. Enslaved. Forced to tell the truth if you’re asked.”

  “I don’t know anything about it,” Bulldo snapped. “Agatha came to visit the boss.”

  “At your invitation? You’re Dalgliesh’s right hand, aren't you? The one he wipes with.”

  “I delivered a message! That’s all, Bob! A piece of fucking paper! You’re still alive, so you must have survived the attack.”

  I let the portal behind me snap closed, the blue glow vanished, and the only sources of illumination were from mushrooms high above us and the bloody golden sparkles I shed like skin cells in the wind. I couldn’t help it, my blood was up. The next part of my long-winded revenge was a few moments away. Wrath stopped patting Greed on the back and started punching him in the face. The various aspects of my psyche expressed their feelings in weird ways.

  “You knew what the message contained.”

  “Well–”

  “You knew a direct attack on me wasn’t likely to work. So Agatha was sent with instructions to make me angry, make me overextend.”

  “I’ll just excuse myself now,” said de Boneville.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” said a deep and familiar voice from behind me.

  “If there is one thing I really fucking hate, it’s ninjas,” I said. I flashed forward and snatched Bulldo up by the back of his neck. I might have hastily broken both his wrists with my free hand, just to be safe.

  I ignored the teleporter's alleged screams.

  “Release him,” rumbled an empty space that was holding Cyrus up by his collar, much as I was dangling the unhappy Bulldo.

  “Kenny,” I said.

  “Big Kenny.”

  “Don’t you think it makes you look insecure to have to stress the big part? We’ve each got the other by the danglies.” I shook Bulldo back and forth to emphasise my point.

  “I’ll stress your big part, Bob, if you don’t put my man down.”

  I chose not to take that particular bait. “I don’t think Bulldo here is yours, is he? He belongs to the tiny Scottish wanker who doesn’t want to live through growing hair on his balls again. But right now, young Bulldo belongs to me, doesn’t he?” I shook Bulldo again, and he did what people usually do in that situation. I’d worn cheap boots on the understanding it was inevitable.

  As Cyrus dropped to the ground, I opened another portal, lobbed Bulldo through it, and immediately sealed it closed. There was a reception waiting for Bulldo, one that he probably wouldn’t like. Kat was rather fond of Esme, after all.

  “Ok, big guy, let’s do this,” I snarled as I shifted into my true form, and all the lights on the dungeon floor went out.