Legendary Detective at the World's End (Volume 1) (12 page)

     Exiting the tight space of the city, they entered the open fields of the Outer City limits. There, they heard the whooshing sound of the ocean and could see the dazzling view of its warped and swirling waters crashing into the sandy beaches filled with the iron and steel carcasses of large ships long forgotten.

     Kirin looked on with wonder in his eyes. “Wow! Talk about a graveyard.” he said looking through the darkness of the night at the ocean. “I never saw the whirlpools surrounding the island before.”

     Jake looked into the darkness. “You still can’t see them clearly in the night.”

   “But I can hear the water turning rather than flowing in waves.”

   “Remnants of a world long gone.” Jake said finally making out the wreckages by the beach.

   “We’re almost there.” Lace said pointing out to an old pier in the distance. “The warehouses should be closer to the fields before we reach the beaches.”

     Jake looked ahead. “What are we talking about when we say warehouses?” he asked.

   “The abandoned type, where no one dare travels, but evil men make their homes.”

     Kirin laughed. “Quite the poet, are you?”

     Lace ignored his snipes and continued his drive downhill towards the large abandoned warehouses that filled the foot of a hill leading to the sandy beaches and its pier. Driving up to the decaying walls of the abandoned yard, Lace turned off the headlights of the jeep and slowed its acceleration forward as they approached the side of the warehouse space.

   “Hey,” Lee said sitting up. “Why are you parking so far away?”

     Lace looked back. “Because from here on out, you’re sneaking in.”

   “We are?” Jake asked.

   “Yes.” Lace nodded as he parked the jeep. “Listen,” he said turning off the engine. “I sympathize with you, and will help you anyway that I can… That doesn’t involve engaging in any heavy combat, I’m not one for such violence.”

   “You sure about that?” Kirin asked. “You did blow a hole in Kray’s shoulder.”

   “That was a necessary factor for our plans success, which would have been effective if you hadn’t destroyed the den with your ‘detective’ work. Anyways,” he said turning back to Jake and Lee. “You’re on your own from here.”

   “I’ll take you up on that offer.” Kirin said sitting up right as he opened the door. “You have an extra bag I can use? And maybe something more.”

     Lace narrowed his eyes with suspicion of Kirin’s actions. “What are you planning?”

   “Well, if worst comes to worst, I plan on buying someone’s freedom with the clothes off someone else’s back.”

   “Not your own, right?”

   “Never.”  Kirin said dismounting the car. “Where?”

      Lace looked towards the back. “It’s there with the threads.”

     Kirin smiled as he ran towards the back cab to gather what he wanted. Meanwhile Jake and Lee exited the vehicle, their nerves building as they realized what they were about to do.

     Lee leaned into Jake as they stood in the darkness of the night beside the decaying wall of the warehouse space.

   “Can we do this?” Lee whispered.

   “We have to.” Jake replied.

   “Yeah.” Lee nodded. “We can do this.”

   “We can do this.” Kirin said emerging behind the two holding a small duffle bag. “Just follow Jake’s lead.”

   “Yeah,” Jake nodded before realizing what Kirin had said. “Wait, what?”

   “What?” Kirin raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you used to doing odd jobs as a messenger boy: tracking, tracing and the like, this should be small potatoes for you.”

   “Yeah, but this is nothing like delivering goods to some low life gamblers apartment. These are traders, part of the Merck Unions, and you don’t want to mess with them, they’re as cut throat as the Gambling Unions, even more so.”

   “Then tread carefully.” Kirin said with a serious look in his eyes. The same look he gave him in the Courtesan house the other night when the guard took him by the neck. He trusted his judgment then, maybe he should trust his judgment now, Jake thought. With this in mind, he took the lead.

   “Alright, follow me.” Jake said. “Stay close to my back and don’t make a sound. You understand Lee?”

   “Hey, why are you looking at me?!” Lee complained.

   “Because you a have tendency to let emotions get the better of you.”

   “No I don’t.” Lee said angrily before catching himself. He then looked back at Jake. “Alright, you might be right. I’ll try to control myself, happy?”

   “Very happy.” Jake nodded before looking back at the jeep where Lace sat idly at its wheel. He then looked back at the wall they stood by.

     Kirin took notice of his wandering eyes. “He said the auction should be in the center warehouse out of the three. There should be green lights on the floor guiding the guests. If we follow those, we’ll be there in no time.”

     Jake nodded his head. “Alright, let’s find those green lights.” He said crouching by the wall as he made his way across its broken face with Lee and Kirin following closely behind. Hugging the wall as they made their way down the sandy covered plains at the side of the wall, Jake led them with careful and deliberate steps until they reached a collapsed side of the wall they could use to climb into the warehouse yard.

   “Here we go.” Jake whispered as he grabbed hold of the two broken halves of the wall and climbed in between its cement walls. Lee and Kirin followed, entering between the folds of the wall until they made it inside the yard where three abandoned warehouses towered over them in all their decrepit glory. Looking at their old worn out wooden exteriors, Jake caught the glimmer of a green light from the corner of his eyes. Turning to his right, he saw the faint flicker of a line of green lights leading to the center warehouse.

   “There.” He whispered while pointing in the direction of the lights.

   “Good.” Lee nodded as he began to make his way for them, but as he did, Jake extended his hand, holding Lee back. “No.”

   “What? Why? All we need to do is follow the light.”

   “That’s if we want to get caught and killed on the spot. We’re not trying to get in the auctions—we’re here to find Davos.”

   “But wouldn’t he be inside the auction?”

     Jake let his thoughts organize themselves as he considered Lee’s question until he finally reached a proper answer. “No,” he said. “Davos is still in hiding, he has the Gambling Union after him now, he can’t go to a place even in the Underworld without drawing attention. No, for him to make a sale, he would have to find a buyer outside the auction.”

   “Nice thinking.” Kirin said. “Where do you think he might go?”

   “Easy.” Jake said looking at the two warehouses to the side of the center one. “The warehouses to the left and right of center. And if he’s as desperate as you think he is, there’s only one choice for a desperate gambler fighting against the odds, and that’s to put themselves in a corner, a place where there’s no blindside, only the forward path. The warehouse by the sea is most definitely where he is.” Jake said heading to the side of the warehouse to the left. “We have to make our away around the center.” He sprinted as he lowered his head. Kirin and Lee followed out of reflex, chasing his wide steps over the broken grounds of the yard until they reached the front side of the left warehouse. There, under its cover they looked out from a corner at the shadowy collection of guests walking down the light paths towards the center building. Looking at the dark figures dressed in their fine suits and older women wearing their conservative dresses, you would think there was some sort of extravagant dinner being held behind the old rotten walls of the warehouse. As they walked with their different assortment of guards, these important people chatted casually with each other while they looked into pamphlets about what was on sale tonight—referring to the people on sale as stock and their attractive features as their selling points. Most of the figures entering being males, discussed female proportions while others, spoke about searching for strong stock to help construction for some dubious project, and lastly, there were the few odd men speaking fondly of the youth on sale.

   “Him.” Jake said pointing at the specific older man with blonde hair speaking of the youth at the auction. “That’s him.” Jake turned to Kirin. “If there’s anyone that might be interested in a sale with Davos now, it would be the merchant Kartier.”

   “Kartier…” Lee gritted his teeth.

   “Who is he?” Kirin asked Jake.

   “He’s an upstart merchant from Nodham. He used to manage the mines there, now he’s moved to Teigen to start his own mining projects within neighboring parts of the Grey Forest.”

   “That’s dangerous, isn’t?”

   “But it’s been successful.” Jake said.

     Lee clenched his fist. “So successful that he goes trolling the lower half of the Downtown Sector giving away toys to children, he’s even bought a few kids from desperate mothers.” Lee threw the dirt at the wall beside him in anger. “I hated him ever since he’s been eyeing Jade specifically on his most recent trip. I knew there was a reason why Davos was so intent in gambling me so often, always raising the stakes…” Lee lowered his head sulking. “I’m such an idiot.”

   “Hey,” Kirin said. “No time for sulking, I think we just found our link.”

   “What?” Lee said looking up to see someone approaching Kartier just before he entered the warehouse. “Wait,” Lee said noticing a familiar face in the stranger approaching him. “That’s…”

   “One of Davos’ men.” Jake nodded. “He’s trying to make the sale.”

     They all watched them as they talked for a brief moment before turning away from the center warehouse together and headed towards the warehouse on the far right. “There they go.” Jake said.

   “Dammit.” Lee clenched his fist.

   “Calm yourself.” Jake said. “Let’s hurry our way around this building.” Jake turned away from the front side of the center building and headed towards its backside to make a quick cut to the right warehouse. As they skulked their way around to the back end of the building, they could see the glowing lights inside flickering as a voice amped through a stereo system spoke aloud in words of welcome to the guests arriving. Turning a corner to the back-end of the building, they picked up their footsteps and ran across the rubble until they reached a gaping hole behind the warehouse where bright lights flowed out from the interior.

   “Whoa.” Jake whispered, extending his arm out to slow Kirin and Lee behind him.

   “We need to crawl.” He said, causing Lee and Jake to lower their heads along with him. They then began to crawl past the hole in the wall, however, as they did, the voices from inside increased in volume while they approached this hole in the wall. With all of them lowering to their bellies, they crawled under the voice of the auctioneer as he described a slender woman on sale from the northern tribes. Jake gritted his teeth at his graphic description of the woman, but crawled forward anyways, ignoring the rage building up inside of him at the events occurring nearby. Moving into the cover of the wall again, Jake picked himself up and turned around to see Lee and Kirin had reached the cover of the wall already and were getting up as well.

   “Let’s go.” Jake whispered as he clenched his fist while wearing a grimace on his face. Heading forward towards the end of the warehouse, Jake could hear the bidding starting at fifty pieces and skyrocket in price as the auctioneer called out numbers until he reached the staggering value of two thousand gold pieces. Reaching such a high price, the auctioneer hammered a gavel and announced a sale.

   “Sold at two thousand gold pieces to Mr. Gentz in the back.” The auctioneer said to the displeasure of the crowd and to the anger of Jake who stopped dead in his tracks to look back at the lit hole in the wall.

   “Hey,” Kirin said grabbing onto Jake’s hand. “Do what you can now, save the world later.”

     Jake snapped back to reality in an instant after hearing Kirin’s simple words. Slowly turning around, he headed towards a fence dividing the center warehouse with the next. Lucky for the three of them, someone had already cut a hole through it. All they had to do now was slip in carefully between its rusted ends. Each of them ducked down and carefully made their way between the jagged edges of the torn fence to the last warehouse. Standing at its foot, they all took a deep breath in before continuing on, still following the guidance Jake provided them as they skulked behind him to the side of the warehouse.

   “Okay,” Jake said as he peeked from its corner to see Kartier and a henchman of Davos entering the warehouse from its front door. “We need to follow them.” Jake said jumping out as soon as they entered. Lee and Kirin followed the sprint of Jake as he ran towards a side door of the building, swinging it open before returning to the careful pacing they had been doing all along. Lee and Kirin did the same as they entered after Jake. Following his lead, they walked through the decrepit hallways of the warehouse, turning at the whim of Jake until their eyes fell upon the ginger steps Kartier made going up a flight of stairs with Davos’s henchman in the main lobby hall.

   “We’re going up.” Jake said exiting the hall into the large barren lobby space where the stairs were located.