“That is Duke Constantinius, possibly the single wealthiest noble in the Empire,” Miss Rosebaum announced quietly in my ear.

  “He looks like the Monopoly guy,” Kat muttered inside my ear.

  I wasn’t happy about having an intangible pixie in my head, but she had insisted on attending the auction; apparently, they were a big thing in her first life. Cultivation worlds sounded really odd, and based on my experience thus far this evening, boring as hell.

  Killrat, Gonglash and Boff did have a dress code, though, and sexy Pikachu simply wouldn’t cut it. They also had rules about species, and pixiephobia was extremely common among the humans of Helstat. So I had a passenger, like a giant, invisible louse in my brain.

  “And who’s that?” I pointed towards another guest who had just arrived. A tall and elegant woman with sweeping curves, flaming red hair and wearing a skin-tight black dress. She moved like a big cat, sinuous and graceful.

  “Some slut. Not a contender. Real powerhouses don’t flaunt their attractiveness. The one you need to watch out for is the guy or girl who looks run down but comes through with a surprise bid because they had some lucky encounter last month that left them wealthy enough to just beat out whoever they end up in a bidding war with over some seemingly useless item that turns out to be crazy OP,” Kat mumbled.

  “I love that dress,” Esme said from the seat next to me. She reached out and picked up her glass of bubbling wine to take a delicate sip. “I’m not sure how appropriate it is, though. That fat man is drooling.” She used her free hand to smooth down her own somewhat simpler silks.

  “Lady Artington is a wealthy heiress in her own right, but she is here on behalf of the Imperial Circle. She represents Emperor Madson himself!” Rosebaum said excitedly. “Can I get you any more snacks?”

  “Please,” I said, helping myself to the last of the micro-delicacies that were on offer and passing her the empty plate. As soon as our guide left the room, Kat popped out through my chest and helped herself to a glass of white.

  “Come on… when does the bidding start?” she snapped as she quaffed wine worth several thousand gold like it was bathtub homebrew.

  “When the guests have all arrived,” Rosebaum said as she silently re-entered the room. That hinge oil was amazing.

  Kat froze, blue sparks flickering from her cheeks as her tail twitched back and forth.

  “We were aware of your presence. Our detection spells and illusion piercers are very sophisticated. In light of Bob’s unusual circumstances and your being a bound minion, we decided to let it slide.”

  Kat smiled in a sickly way, then shrugged and fluttered over to perch on Esme’s shoulder with her glass. “So how much longer have we got to wait?” she asked.

  “Not long. Our final guest should be arriving shortly. With this limited run of items, we’re not anticipating the bidding to go on for long. Opening with the Tiara of Flickering, followed by the Lance of Solar Disinfectant, is just to whet their appetite before we get to the alchemical goods,” Rosebaum said as she retook her seat to the right of me.

  “I’ve got a lot more of that laser-themed pap to offload,” I grumbled. Killrat had insisted we limit this auction to a handful of items, so I still had a belly pouch full of crap.

  “And our establishment will be happy to facilitate those sales; however, that stock is much more… commonplace than what we are looking to handle this evening. Most of the public is simply unable and unworthy to afford a bid at this event. Your other goods are rather humdrum in comparison to the potions,” the guide finished excitedly.

  “What are these?” Esme asked, waving a sweet treat at Rosebaum.

  “Pickled Kalpot tail, pureed Bungstimper testicles in a puff pastry wrap.”

  Esme carefully put the nibble back on her plate, then Kat immediately snatched it up and took a bite.

  “I’m not sure this chef is a good fit for the Cod,” she muttered.

  “We haven’t met him yet. He freelances for Killrat and co, we could offer him a real job,” I offered.

  “You ever known any chefs? Divas, the lot of them. More trouble than they’re worth,” Kat argued.

  “Ah, here they are,” Rosebaum said hurriedly to cut off any bickering.

  I knew that outline. Not in a weird way, but a skinny thirteen-year-old followed by a looming cliff of a man could only belong to one group.

  “Dalgliesh,” I said softly.

  As if saying his name drew his attention, he glanced up towards our shielded booth and cocked his head to one side. He was dressed in a dapper evening suit, a purple flower pinned to his left breast, and Kenny wore a dinner jacket big enough to house three normal men. His eyepatch was sequined, for some unknown reason.

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  “Maybe he just likes to dress up as well sometimes?” Esme said as she stared at the new group taking their seats. I wasn’t ready to deal with these assholes tonight. I’d dodged them for the three days it had taken to organise this event, mostly by using portals and spending most of my time dealing with the day-to-day of the dungeon. By which I meant sleeping on my hoard and leaving things to Kat to deal with.

  With the last prospective buyers now in place, the room was perfect for a robbery. Greed rubbed his hands together in glee at the thought. I could… No. It wasn’t like they’d have massive piles of gold on them right now; the truly rich rarely carried money like regular mortals. Kidnapping? It could work.

  A man stepped out from behind a curtain on the stage and headed towards the podium in the middle. He oozed professional-ness, everything about him was neat and precise. From his oiled black hair to his shiny shoes, which I approved on principle, the man was immaculate.

  “Ladies and gentlemen. Thank you all so much for attending a very special sale at Killrat, Gonglash and Boff this evening. As you’re aware, we have some exquisite pieces on offer this evening. The first of which is the Tiara of Flickering.” He paused as an assistant wheeled out an ornate trolley, above which floated the Tiara.

  It was a beautiful piece of craftsmanship. Fluted, delicate lines of silvery metal, crusted with translucent gems, with gold filigree added around the base of the crown-like piece of jewellery.

  “The work is exquisite. Barnabus Stoat was known for his precise setting, and this Tiara demonstrates the artistic flair for which he was famed. Commissioned by Priestess Glowing-Cheeks of the Illuminated Order during the War of the Four Indigoes and enchanted with powerful Light affinity magic, the Tiara was believed lost four hundred years ago when Sharkwort the Stank stormed the mountain fortress of Bottom’s Bastion in the western range. Capable of cleaving through armies and blasting apart walls, the enchantments are some of the most powerful ever created. Perfect as a coming-of-age gift for a beloved daughter or as the centrepiece for a well-equipped squad of mage-engineers. I’ll open the bidding at a hundred thousand, do I hear a hundred thousand?”

  Greed-goblin sidled over to Lust, who was a bit out of sorts after all my free time with Esme, and poked the monkey-like demon to see if it was awake.

  Paddles rose and fell, but the number kept going up. The fabulously wealthy fought in the way they always did: with their wallets. I watched avidly as the Imperial emissary duelled with the Monopoly man, driving the price up to one point four million before the beautiful woman bowed her head in defeat.

  “And sold to Duke Constantinius for one point four!” declared the auctioneer. I rubbed my hands together greedily, mimicking what Greed-goblin was no doubt– I sealed my attention away from my inner menagerie after a brief check in.

  There were some good-natured back-and-forths from the participants. Dalgliesh hadn’t moved throughout this round of bidding, other than to sip from a glass of whisky.

  “Our second piece is the Lance of Solar Disinfectant. While this item needs no introduction, suffice to say it is the crown of Alderant the Abliterorican’s career.” The assistant returned, this time holding the spear out to one side and adopting various poses with it. One moment coquettish with wide eyes staring at the tip above her head, the next a snarling faux-lunge. “Thank you, my dear. That’s enough of that. Created to defeat Unbreakable Unbraxis in single combat and wielded by the hero Pollip, it found its way into the owner's collection via a circuitous route, and now he is looking to permit a suitably invested collector to take it off his hands. We will open at three million.”

  Constantinius was once again bidding eagerly, but this time the battle involved four others that Rosebaum had introduced as wealthy nobles, whose names were as unmemorable as their appearances compared to Monopoly man himself and Lady Artington.

  It got to five million, then eight. Constantinius was outbidding a thin, squirrelly-looking man with a drooping moustache when Dalgliesh suddenly raised his paddle.

  “Eight point one to Mr Dalgliesh. Lord Constantinius?” The auctioneer asked.

  “That shady welp has no right to bid on this item,” objected the moustache in a loud voice. Even behind the privacy shield, a floor above the audience, I heard Big Kenny’s muscles creak inside his suit.

  “My money’s the same as yours, Habberwell,” he drawled in a thick Glaswegian accent.

  Habberwell raised his own paddle again. “Eight point four!” he snapped, raising the bid. “A Lance of Bulb cannot fall into a criminal's hands.”

  “We’ve all got towns we want to wipe out,” Dalgliesh said, raising his paddle to bid again.

  I had understood that both the Tiara and the Lance could technically be referred to as weapons of mass destruction. It was part of their allure. However, the thought of the tiny psycho having access to such power hadn’t crossed my mind. In light of the sudden but inevitable betrayal that I had planned for the little shit in the near future, I was having second thoughts.

  “Rosebaum, can I bid on my own items?”

  “I’m afraid not, Bob. That would be gouging the market.”

  Shit.

  It got to nine point three before Constantinius once again raised his paddle, and then the three-way war continued. All thoughts of the danger Dalgliesh could pose with a lance designed to kill an evil dragon in his hands vanished as we passed twenty million and just kept going.

  My hand was resting on Esme’s knee, and her own hand came down over it and squeezed tightly. Then started pulling to try and get me to let go. I released my grip with a quiet apology as she wiggled her foot to try and restart her circulation in the limb.

  I sat there, holding her hand as the number kept creeping higher.

  “I’m starting to see the appeal, Kat. We should do this again.”

  “There’s no pills available, and I’m bored,” she replied, swinging her slender yellow legs back and forth from the table she was sitting on with a tiny book open in front of her.

  “If you would like a selection of narcotics brought up, I can arrange that, Miss Kat,” Rosebaum offered.

  “Not those kinds of pills. I’m good, thanks.” She nudged her glasses up her nose, jumping as a spark leapt from the metal to her finger, then licked the singed digit to turn her page.

  “Sold for eighty-six million to Mr Habberwell!”

  I am not ashamed to say I wee’d a little bit. That had single-handedly… my mind wasn’t working right, but I’d just increased the size of my hoard fortyfold or so, and that wasn’t even the real money maker on offer tonight.

  “Honoured guests, the prize exhibit this evening is a single Immortality Injection.” This time, the platform levitated out on its own, the assistant merely posing behind my floating vial of milky liquid.

  “Meep,” I whispered.