She grabbed his hand and leaned into his side. Kit understood the message, forced himself to relax, and guided them forward, swinging their arms like they were an absentminded, loving young couple. They trailed behind their target as the dusty parking lot of the arena turned to cracked sidewalk and musty, nasty smells. Stubborn desert weeds occasionally caught the hem of Kit’s jeans, which he kicked off with a practiced step. As Gentry was on the inside of the sidewalk, they hit her more often and she was only wearing shorts. She plowed through them as they pricked her ankles, her emerald eyes flinty with determination.
Kit bit back a curse when he saw the target going into an adobe-colored building with the flashing signage of ‘PAWN SHOP” above it. The "W" was missing and merely outlined in dirt at the top. He looked down at Gentry. She was gripping his hand, hard enough to where he felt as though he was almost losing circulation.
"Public place," she said. "He definitely knows we're following him. You go in through the front. I’ll go to the back. If we don’t flush him out, he’ll hide in there until close.”
He grimaced at her. "It's worse than that," he murmured. "That is a public store, and there’s a very good way for him to lose us."
Gentry frowned up at him, bits of her dark hair blowing in the breeze. "So what? Are they going to give him a broom?" she asked. "You'd be able to catch him." But then her eyes widened. “The shop has an entrance to the Underground. Shit.”
Not surprised in the least by how much the magic-less woman knew about the city, Kit dragged her into the shop. It was a mess. Most everything was locked behind glass counters, and Kit knew from the magic buzzing from them that he'd get a nasty zap if he so much as cast a spell in there. Loud voices naming pricesfloated in the air, as about five witches manned the counters and dealt with hordes of shady characters.
One woman was arguing adamantly that she had an original grimoire from the Great War hero, Zabib. Another said that he'd found the cure of magic sickness. A few others, non-magicals, were bidding their valuables of gold and silver for bits of prepared potions and charms, which Kit could just tell were scams.
Gentry's father was nowhere to be seen, just as Kit had predicted. He tapped the closest witch in the back of the line on the shoulder.
"Where's the staircase?" he asked, cutting to the thick of it right away and he was thankful when the man pointed to the back right of the store.
They half-jogged to the back door and down a steep staircase. The cracked concrete steps slowed their progress.
Two flights down was all it took for them to enter the Underground version of the pawn shop. It was much the same as the one up above, only the ambient light came from flickering light bulbs. The bidding was far more extreme than it had been above.
"This orc head is in fine condition," an old, prim woman argued grandly. "Preserved in prime form for display or harvesting. It is well worth this $15,000."
"12 grand is my final offer!" the counterperson said firmly, his arms crossed as he looked down at the head that was every bit as wide as the countertop and as tall as his collar bone. "Now, I suggest you get going."
The woman left in a huff, and the man took out a small hand broom to clean off the stray white hairs that had fluttered off the severed head.
Kit held back a whistle as he looked at some of the merchandise. This was far more than he'd bargained for whenhe'd come into the room. Most of the valuables had come from the Wilds, including shimmering scales, chital cat teeth, and griffin beaks. All stuff that was very difficult to get in Skadra due to the barrier being up.
"Over there," Gentry said, redirecting his attention to the hunt.
Sure enough, a Hawaiian shirt was going out the front door. The exit noticeably added no light, as the Underground didn't fund its corridors, and the vampyres liked it that way. Unfortunately, he didn't want to chase a man in complete darkness with a helpless, non-magical girl at his side. A wonderful, horrific challenge.
He looked down at Gentry and that large backpack she had.
"You need to go get him," Gentry said. "I demand it."
"That's all well and good, sweetheart," he said, his tone hard as the Favor burned on his collarbone. "And I'm gonna need you to keep up. Do you have a flashlight in there?"
Gentry scrunched her nose and nodded, quickly producing a large police-style flashlight that looked capable of bludgeoning a man's head in.
"Let's go, then," he said, and they jogged out the door together.
The corridors of the Underground were only about wide enough for four people to walk side by side, and general courtesy had people sticking to the right. There was a hum of gasoline from tiny carts people had concocted to get around. The Underground also smelled of piss and blood, all a lovely combination.
Kit sprinted with his witchlight at his side, distantly aware of Gentry falling behind. All his focus went to his target. To his surprise, her father managed to dodge all the other pedestrians with no lights on.
He must’ve spelled his eyes, he thought. It made sense for a past gambler who owed people a shit ton of money to hide in the Underground, so he'd have to be equipped for it.
Kit dodged the bikes and the bums lying in the tunnels, the Favor on his shoulder burning, as it demanded he fulfill his promise of bringing the man back to Gentry. His breathing had been tight when they’d tempered their pursuit above ground, but it came easily to him now that he was trying with all of his ability to fulfill that promise. He didn't want to think about what would happen if his target got away. Would the Favor choke him to death? The archaic, barbaric magic likely didn’t tolerate failure.
Gentry’s father led Kit down smaller and smaller tunnels. Only when his shoulders brushed stone on either side did Kit lose his patience. The stun spell left his palms like a gunshot. His target buckled gracelessly into a heap.
Kit stopped running, his breath heavy in his ears and his mark threatening to catch fire underneath his shirt. He then grabbed the man by the collar, dragging his bounty across the crumbled, nasty Underground floor to a gasping Gentry a few tunnels over. She was panting, tucked into a closet-sized imprint in the wall. She’d picked one of the few well-lit areas as someone had hung lanterns onto the walls, her flashlight still on and clipped cleverly to her belt.
“Here,” Kit panted as he dropped her father down at her feet, giddy that his mark cooled instantly, “woof.”
Second Favor down.
