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kajones_writingIt took Peric three very long days to snap. Once the sedatives had worn off Bertram was, unsurprisingly, in a lot of pain. After a night of listening to the noises he made as he tried to get his wing comfortable Peric asked Meriwether for another room. The look in Bertram’s eyes, the mix of hurt and guilt, when that happened would have been enough to convince Peric to go after the pain he could feel, if he hadn’t been so certain that doing that was a bad idea. Even though a part of him couldn’t help thinking that maybe he was going to end up doing something that was supposed to happen he didn’t want to do anything that might end up causing them all more difficulties in the long run.
As he made his way towards the pain he couldn’t stop thinking about those three days and what it was like for Bertram. Poor Bertram. Sini decided she was going to stay in his room with him, after Peric explained, his voice full of emotion, that he didn’t want to move room but the pain Bertram was feeling was too much for him to deal with. Otherwise Peric would have stayed, because he felt like he was abandoning someone who needed him. It didn’t matter the Bertram understood. After spending so much time together it was easier for him to accept certain things that Peric had to do, in order to protect himself from the emotions that he felt coming off other people, than it was for him.
Every day Lucille had gone out, alone, into the city, and he’d been able to feel her hope that she would come across someone who wanted to hurt her, so that she could hurt them. Then, when she got back, she’d spend hours in Bertram’s room, telling him about the other worlds and what it was like to be a Moonjumper, doing her best to take his mind off things, the same way Sini did during the day. It was in the evening that Sini would head back home for a little while, to let go of everything she was feeling when she was looking after Bertram, because they were all hurting. Bertram was worst off, but it wasn’t easy for any of them. So it was their pain as well that had convinced Peric it was time. They needed something else to focus on, something different, even if it did mean that they might end up somewhere else – leaving Bertram behind.
Yet Peric couldn’t help wondering if he was making a mistake. The anger he felt at everyone else’s pain was enough to convince him that it was time to at least talk to the assassin and try to get her to tell them what she knew. If that didn’t work… he tired to tell himself he’d walk away. He didn’t want to hurt anyone, but he really wanted to hurt someone. It was that feeling he was having so much trouble coming to terms with. Biting hard on his lip, wishing he hadn’t picked that habit up for Lucille, he kept walking, kept focusing on the pain, knowing that it wouldn’t take him too much longer to find her. Once that happened… he didn’t know what he’d do. Walking away made the most sense, because if he didn’t…
The case had changed all of their lives, in both good and bad ways, and sometimes he wished it hadn’t. Peric had enjoyed getting to know Lucille, Meriwether and Sini, but Bertram had been hurt, he’d found himself stuck in a city that he sometimes thought was making him mad, and all he wanted to do was go home. He couldn’t help thinking that even if they did fix the counterfeit problem in Seahorse Port the ring would still be an issue, so that meant they’d have to move onto somewhere else, to try to bring an end to it all, otherwise he knew they’d be back to square one. Someone else would take on the job of smuggling the counterfeits into Sheepshank, the hard work they’d done in Seahorse would have been for nothing, and Peric hated the thought of leaving the job unfinished.
He was certain that Bertram and Lucille would feel the same way. Especially Bertram. After getting hurt in order to rid Quiar of the counterfeits he wouldn’t want to give up. That was one of the first things he’d said after waking up from his sedated sleep. “I’m not going home, Peric, I’m going to get better and then we’re going to find those counterfeiters and give them a taste of what they’ve done to use.” Peric kept that in mind as he felt the pain get closer than it had ever been before, which told him it would be a couple of minutes before he found himself facing the one remaining assassin. She was someone who would have killed Bertram if she’d had the chance, then Lucille, and he didn’t doubt that she would have been told to finish the job next time he left the bed and breakfast.
Unfortunately that didn’t make things any easier. Peric stopped, breathing deeply in an attempt to calm himself. Taking on a platypus, even one that was in as much pain as she was, wasn’t a task to be taken on unprepared, so he had a couple of Kaito’s charms with him. If the worst happened he’d use one of them on her, before making a run for it, even though that wasn’t what he wanted to have to do. Peric didn’t actually know what charms he had – they were just ones that Lucille had given him, just in case, because she was always ready for those moments. He found himself biting his lip again, which he told himself sternly not to do, before readying himself for the last of his journey. No matter what happened he knew he was doing the only thing that could be done, otherwise she was going to end up coming after them all to try to finish the job alone.
“I know who you are,” a voice said, surprising him, because he hadn’t really expected her to speak. “They told me to be wary of you, even though you are just a little mouse, and I was ready for that, but I wasn’t ready for the magic that your Moonjumper used or your raven.” The platypus took a couple of steps forwards, looking as though she might well have been drinking, which, actually, considering what had happened wasn’t really that much of a surprise. “My brother is dead because of them and I don’t know what to do now, little mouse, because we have failed. We never failed, that was why we were hired for this job, but we have this time, and now, if I go back to tell them what happened, they will kill me.”
Peric shook his head. “Tell me who hired you.”
“Little mouse, don’t be silly. I’m not going to make things easy for you. Why would I tell you something like that?”
“Maybe we can work something out for you.”
The platypus laughed. “That’s never going to happen, little mouse, because even if you do manage to convince the guards of this city to be gentle on me the counterfeiters will find me. When that happens…” She took a sip from a bottle that looked very much like one Lucille had convinec him to drink out of and he regretted that for a couple of days afterwards. “Being dead has never sounded like much fun. I like being alive, little mouse, and yet I know now that I have very few options. The days I have left are limited, because of what happened, because of your raven and Moonjumper, because we failed.”
“All I want to know is who hired you.”
“Honestly, little mouse, you’re better off walking away. If you walk away now they’ll stop coming after you and the raven.”
“What about Lucille?”
“They want the Moonjumper. She has skills that he wants and she will give them to him.”
“Who’s he?”
Again the platypus laughed. “I’m not telling you, little mouse. I know all the things you want to know and I’m not going to tell you them, because I know that I don’t have to.”
For the first time Peric used his empathy is a way that he would never have done it if wasn’t for the fact he did need to know what she knew. Gently he pushed his feelings towards her, making her hurt even more than she already did, because he knew that there was a chance he might be able to get her to tell him what she knew without doing anything more. As he did she took another huge swallow from the bottle, their eyes meeting, and a tear trickled down her cheek, but that didn’t change the way she was smiling at him, as though she knew exactly what he was doing.
Mirrored from K. A. Webb Writing.
