It doesn’t take long for the little griffon to make her way up the building. After all, she’s got wings, and she does indeed know how to use them. She clings to the windowsill, which is literally rotting away in clumps as she clutches it in her talons to get some semblance of a grip. As she’d so accurately predicted, the window does in fact pop out of its soggy housing. She’s careful to place it inside against the wall, into a room she can only describe as “dark.” She lets her eyes adjust for a moment or two, and she can make out what her surroundings look like. She’s in a spare room of sorts, she can see a collection of dusty-looking barstools and what looks like an upright piano covered by a cobwebbed blanket standing in the corner. The majority of the room is empty, and on the counter and around the kitchen lays a collection of toolboxes and a few cans of dried-drip-covered green paint. She vaults inside, landing noiselessly on the wood floor, and before moving on she halts for a moment, listening. There’s a persistent white noise coming from somewhere downstairs. It takes her only a second to realize what it is and she can’t help but feel a little dumb for not recognizing it at first. It’s the noise of the bar downstairs. She smiles. It’s a perfect mask for any noise she could make in the spare room. It may not be the most comfortable, but it’s a great place to hole up for the night.
She’s quickly able to scrounge up the blanket that once covered the piano (which she’s sure to carefully shake out and examine for spiders) and even a few pillows from the musty couch she hadn’t noticed behind an antique dresser. It’s not long before she has a fully formed nest to bed up in. But she doesn’t stop there. Her curiosity gets the better of her. She’d had the intention of possibly staying at the bar for the night, and with that mission accomplished, she had to address her second goal; surely the place has something she can take with her. It’s that side of her she’s so familiar with that’s telling her she has to see, and she eagerly obeys. It’s that side of her that’s not content with just a place to sleep, the crazy side that had drawn her into this mess in the first place. But, with her resolve strengthened and her nerves alight with the adrenaline from the excitement of her first break-in since she’d run away, she ignores all the warnings the other side of her brain’s throwing out to keep her safe. She couldn’t say no if she tried.
She pads her way to the door of the spare room, and carefully lets it creak open into the dimly lit stairwell. The coast’s clear. The din of the bar downstairs grows exponentially louder, and the laughter and shouting she’s hearing sounds merry and almost inviting, but she knows she’d stand out like a sore claw in the bar. The stairs are creaky, but it doesn’t matter, nopony can hear her. She reaches the second landing and, as usual, checks the door to what she assumes is another spare room. It’s unlocked. She knows that stealing from the bar itself is impossible without being spotted, so this is her only chance.
As she stands in the open doorway, it becomes immediately clear that she’s not in another spare room. It’s a full sized apartment, and quite a nice one at that. She pauses before continuing further inside. It all seems strange, this quality of apartment in such a miserable part of town. But nonetheless, here it stands. She takes a look around. She’s in a small entry foyer, the entire doorway lined with potted plants. Right off the foyer is a well-appointed kitchen and a living room full of antique-looking furniture. The chances of there being anything useful in the kitchen are slim, so she surveys the living room briefly for valuables, and she spots her mark immediately. There’s a coin holder on the coffee table. She’s on it in a second, and it’s definitely not empty. She can’t count the number of each domination in the dim light filtering into the unlit room, but it’s quite a number of coins, and they’re not small ones. She empties them from the bag and places it back on the coffee table. Considering the fact that she’s staying the night, something suspicious like an obviously missing money holder wouldn’t do favors in keeping her presence unknown. She briefly considers searching on in the apartment, but she decides she’d better not. She’s stretching her luck as it is. And as much as she hates to admit it to herself, she almost feels bad taking the coins she clutches in her claw now. With every other theft she’s done, it’s been a situation where she knows the owner won’t miss it desperately. But she considers the area whoever the place belongs to lives in and can’t help but think the money’s of some importance to the owner. Nonetheless, she needs to eat tomorrow. Sobbing about whether the pony needs it can come later, if at all. But a further search of the apartment is out.
The little griffon turns to leave, right back up the stairs, but she freezes. There’s hoofsteps coming up from the bar. Her heart jumps into her throat. For an instant, she wonders if they’re heading for this apartment or the empty one upstairs, but she realizes the chances of the latter are nil. Her eyes dart around the room, searching for cover, for anything as the clopping hooves continue their steady beat up the old wooden steps. She glances over at the window. If she tucked her shoulder and dove for it, she could bust through it without much trouble. Just as she prepares herself to sprint, exhaling in a fruitless attempt to gain some clarity in her brain which, screaming, tells her she’s done, she’s had, the beat reverberating from the stairwell comes to an abrupt halt.
“Huh?” comes a booming voice from the doorway. She whips her head to face its owner. It’s a silhouette, a bulky black shadow whose head is tilted and staring at the open door in confusion. “’Coulda sworn I shut this.” The griffon freezes up. The window’s still an option, and the only one that’s any good. But where will she go from here? She’s got nothing. Without a second thought, she dives. Not for the window, but behind the couch. She slams bodily onto the hard wood floor with a resounding thump; the impact’s extremely audible. Exactly what she hadn’t wanted. There’s a pause. Nothing moves. “Whoever’s in here, give it up and I won’t kill ya,” The voice growls.
If she thought her heart was in her throat moments before, she had been wrong. She can hear it beating like a drumroll, she swears it’s thudding off the wood floor. The light flips on. Her eyes white out for a second in a blast of pain as they overload from the sudden brightness, and she lets out a whimper as she clenches them tightly shut. She can hear the pony’s head whip towards her. Hooves move in her direction. In a flash of light, she’s flying, her eyes pop open and she watches as the apartment falls away around her and, not a second later, she slams into the wall, an intense pain erupting from every nerve along her spine and head. The impact is so strong she can feel the wall give way slightly, making a dent in her shape. Her vision fades slightly, she can feel her consciousness leaving her as the pain in her back doesn’t stop. She hears the metallic tinkles as her claw falls open, the coins she’d been holding falling to the floor. She exhales, having no recollection of having been holding her breath, another wave of pain shooting through her as she does so.
“Oh, shit,” the voice gasps. “Oh, Celestia, you’re just a…a fledgling,” it says. The voice is tinny, like it’s coming through a broken speaker. Nonetheless, through her fading vision, she can see the pony. The bulky silhouette belongs to a unicorn, and she can see his salt-and-pepper beard and dark brown coat. His bright green eyes are wide in shock. “Oh, Celestia,” he repeats, looking at her with a clenched jaw. “I’m so sorry,” he says, genuine anguish growing in his furrowed brow and frightened eyes.
“I—uh—” She mumbles through the agony, which, oddly, is beginning to numb. Her nearly incoherent voice is amplified a hundred times and it reverberates around her skull. Her vision dims even further, and the white noise that’s been building in her ears takes over.
The unicorn’s eyes, now welling with tears as he shakes his head, willing her to come back, become pinpricks in her vision. Everything goes dark.
***
The warehouse where we’re meeting our client is, as promised, fully abandoned, and boarded up tight. The hot summer sun’s finally starting its descent, and, if my educated guess is actually accurate, it’s about 4. We’re right on time.
A warm, erratic breeze shuffles the assortment of litter and garbage that decorates the cracked and stained concrete slab this block of medium-sized warehouses sits on, making yet another flyer for a fortunately long-passed semi-legal rave think my face is a good place to come to rest. I peel it off and glance uncertainly over at Barrel, who’s scanning the building for an entrance. The place is abandoned for a reason. Weeds and grass poke out of rusted holes in the corrugated steel façade, and what were once brightly lit neon letters are now hanging by time-loosened screws and nails. Every window’s fully spider-webbed, be it either literal spider webs or broken glass. I can smell the Delawhorl River in the distance.
“You sure this is the right one?” I ask, glancing around at the nearly identical warehouses to my left and right.
“That spells Bit & Bridle Manufacturing, doesn’t it?” he asks, gesturing at the broken and dangling letters on the warehouse in front of us. He glances over his shoulder at the briefcase he’s got slung there. It’s the fifth time he’s checked, and yes, it’s still there.
“Try ‘it & Bidle Manfcting’,” I attempt to enunciate with a laugh.
He chuckles. “Close enough.” He takes another look at the warehouse before glancing back to me with a grin. “You’re the girl with the rap sheet, you figure out a way in.”
“Simple enough,” I shrug. A few seconds later, my entry tool’s withdrawn from its bag and I’m prying a sheet of water-warped plywood off of a large side window. It’s a great entry point: not immediately obvious to observers or police (of which neither are—nor will—be present) and it won’t give away that we’ve even arrived to our client once he shows. I let the pressed board fall to the concrete, and it lands with a huge puff of dust. “We’re in,” I say with a grin, simultaneously clearing off the broken glass from one of the windowpanes with a clean sweep of the entry tool.
“Ladies first,” Barrel jokingly calls, peering into the near-blackness of the warehouse’s interior. I give him a sidelong glance, and he grins in reply. I consider giving him a middle claw, but instead I draw the flashlight from my bag and make my entrance. It’s not easy, but I manage to slip between where the broken windowpane I’d cleared away once stood and the window frame. It’s probably a five-by-five hoof gap, so it’s not too much of a problem. Barrel peers at me through the window, and I hold up a wing, telling him to stay put. Fortunately, he gets it, and halts his attempt to climb through, which, judging by the looks of it was doomed to failure anyway. The interior is quiet, save for the familiar faint rustling of various rodents and the occasional creak from the old structure.
“Place is empty,” I say. My voice has a faint echo.
“It’s been a few years since I’ve done this,” Barrel warns as he begins his second attempt, which is preempted by him tossing the dented metal briefcase through the window. Rather than trying to fit between the gap, he simply slams himself into the wooden frame and knocks it out of place. He busts through with all the grace of a wounded ursa.
“Subtle,” I comment.
“Thanks,” he grumbles as he straddles the window. He throws himself over and stumbles to catch his balance, but thankfully does. I flick on the flashlight. As advertised, it lights up practically the whole warehouse and allows us to get our bearings. The warehouse was obviously cleared out in a hurry, and it’s also clearly been abandoned for a number of years. Stacks of water-damaged, dusty and bowing boxes line the walls, and a number of crates collect dust in a far corner. Piles of dirty and probably flea-infested clothing and blankets make some sort of makeshift bed, indicating that Barrel and I aren’t the only occupants this decrepit structure has seen since its desertion. The center of the warehouse is devoid of anything but random garbage, illuminated in flecks by the dull light that’s filtering in through the utterly grime-caked windows in the structure’s vaulted ceiling. I’m particularly intrigued by the tarps that have been laid out in an empty corner of the warehouse, and I let my flashlight’s beam linger there long enough to make out the fact that one isn’t a different color; rather, it’s deeply stained.
“Neither of us want to know what went down there,” Barrel intones, trotting up to stand beside me while levitating his briefcase back to his side. I cringe slightly at the thought of what must have happened there and quickly move on with my flashlight’s beam. “Someplace for you to hide, Nadia,” Barrel suggests. “We don’t have time to examine all the beer bottles and cigarette butts.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I reply. I whip the light around to face behind me, and my hiding place is practically staring right at me: scaffolding, partially torn down and stored along the back wall, about three meters high and easily capable of giving me a decent view of the action.
Barrel spots it as potential cover at the same time I do. “There, will that work for ya?” he asks.
“I think so,” I respond with a definite tone of uncertainty. The metal piping and plywood construction does look fairly rickety.
“Well, it’s the best you’re going to get. To be honest, I’m still not quite sure why you wanted to tag along so bad in the first place,” He grumbles.
“I’m not complaining,” I lightly reply. There’s no doubt in my mind I’ll be able to stay aloft and hidden, it’s just not my first choice over a nice, fully assembled structure. “And I told you—I wanna see who we’re dealing with here. You know as well as I do that anonymity in this business just doesn’t happen.” I continue, gesturing around the warehouse. “I mean, we’re used to meeting our client in an empty diner or a back alley, not an abandoned warehouse in the industrial district.” I shake my head. “And how many times have we dealt with a client who operates through letters?” I ask with some incredulity.
Barrel nods begrudgingly. “I guess you have a point. I could have just as easily filled you in once I got back, but no,” he chides.
“Ah, stuff it,” I laugh. “Just let me get up there, and I promise I’ll leave you alone.” With that, I unfurl my wings and give a solid flap to get myself airborne. I watch Barrel recoil as several years’ worth of accumulated dust blows up into his face from the initial backblast of my wings. I hover about four meters in the air, enough to get a good view of the dried condensation stains on the corrugated ceiling, and I hit the trigger on my flashlight to once again illuminate the scaffolding, which I quickly flap my way over to, descending to the upper level and landing on it as gently as I can. Even despite my attempt at the opposite, the rickety structure wobbles precariously, but thankfully it holds.
“Thanks for that,” Barrel chokes with a grimace, dusting himself off and brushing his coat free of cigarette butts. “So, is that gonna hold?”
“Yeah, it’ll work,” I reply, checking my view. It’s good, but thanks to the overhead windows, it would be near impossible for me to remain unseen in the beam of dull light that filters in if I stay on the top. “Just let me drop down a level, and I’ll be good to go,” I add. I sit on the edge of the fortunately reinforced plywood, kicking my hindlegs over, sure to grab the edge with my claws and dig in as I vault myself off, swinging easily down to the next level, where I land lightly, my tail instinctively steadying me as the whole assembly lurches once more.
“Nice,” Barrel compliments dully. “Anyway, you’d better get out of sight pretty fast; our contact should arrive any minute.” With that, he withdraws into the shadows. I hear him plop down on one of the crates below. I set the flashlight down next to me, and hunker into a prone position. Thankfully, the third level of the scaffolding has a vertical plywood board attached as some sort of bracing system, and it’s pointing so that I can mostly obscure myself behind it. It couldn’t get any better as far as cover goes.
A solid ten minutes pass without a peep from anything other than Barrel and the clan of rats that call the warehouse home. Barrel’s been half-whistling the theme to an action movie for the greater part of the wait, and if I’m not mistaken, he’s on his eighteenth round of the chorus when the sudden sound of a nail pulling away from its home echoes from somewhere near the entrance. The nail lands on the concrete outside with a muted tinkle. It’s followed by several more, and finally by the loud thud of the plywood sheet itself. Whoever it is, they’re persistent, and not exactly aiming for stealth. The perpetrator has fully uncovered the steel door, and its rusty hinges squeal in protest as it swings wide. I can’t make out much, but it’s a unicorn, and judging by the strong jawline it’s a stallion, slimly built but I can tell he's no weakling. I see his silhouette tuck away a similar entry tool to the one I’ve got, enveloped in a deep scarlet magical glow. In the dull light from his magic, I can make out his coat color; it’s a muted tawny brown. He trots forward with light hooves into the dull light in the center of the warehouse. Its then that I notice he’s wearing a shape-concealing coat with visible bulges from gear stowed beneath it and an empty saddlebag. He glances around, crimson eyes flashing past my position without so much as a second look.
Barrel decides to make himself known. He clears his throat loudly below me. In one smooth motion that takes less than a second, our contact throws himself onto his hind hooves, simultaneously drawing the pistol holstered under his coat. It’s aimed at Barrel, and the contact’s expression never changes from his cool stare during the entire action.
“Mr. Tavern Barrel?” He asks in a gravelly drawl.
“Yeah,” Barrel replies as he steps out into the light, briefcase levitated beside him. “Let’s leave the heavy artillery out of this, shall we?”
The contact snorts, and immediately holsters his weapon, falling back down onto all four hooves. “My apologies,” He begins. “I wasn’t expecting you—” he consults his watch with a raised eyebrow. “Twenty minutes early. But what matters is we’re both here, right?” Barrel nods nonchalantly. “I take it you’ve already separated the cuts for yourself and your…thief?” he asks.
Barrel nods with a faint smile. “I prefer business associate, but, yes, I have separated them out. Otherwise we’d be here all night.”
The contact chuckles. “Business associate. I like it.” He looks expectantly at the briefcase, which Barrel sets down in front of him. He slips it into his saddlebag. “Good doing business with you,” He says, turning to leave. “I think we’ll be seeing each other again in a few days if your uh—business associate— can pull off the new job they’ve scheduled.”
“Wait, they?” Barrel repeats.
“Yeah, they. What, you think I run this show?” The contact chuckles, stopping mid step before turning back around to face Barrel. “No…the bosses are much more secretive than that, in case you couldn’t tell,” he drawls.
“Well, ok, then, who are the bosses?” Barrel asks. “All this anonymity is ridiculous.”
“I just told you they’re secretive. The anonymity is something you’re going to have to get used to if you plan on working for us,” he replies with a smirk. He obviously doesn’t plan on actually answering the question.
“Give me a break,” Barrel mumbles. “Fine then, I’ll settle. Who are you? I don’t like the prospects of working for anypony if I can’t even know their name.”
“Sorry. Give it some time; you’ll come to know our inner workings and who we are after we come to trust you. It was the same when I started with them.” The contact denies with a faint look of smug satisfaction.
“Sweet Celestia,” Barrel intones, shaking his head. “I can say one thing in your defense: the pay is good. If it wasn’t, there’s no way I’d put up with this. But I suppose if your bosses can keep up this level of compensation you can expect more of our business, but on one condition: you’ve got to let me in on something eventually, or we’re out.”
The contact chuckles. “The pay is decent. It’s why I’m working for them, in fact. As for ‘letting you in’, I guess I’ll make you feel a little better. You’ve got exactly one question. Ask away, and don’t bother asking anything you already have.”
“Huh, I feel better already,” Barrel sarcastically exhales, pausing to think for a moment. He finally comes up with a question. “You’re obviously pretty well established in whatever sort of business this is. What is it that you do, exactly? Are you the official errand pony or something?”
The contact smiles. It’s a devilish grin, and it looks to carry more than what his words present. “You’d do well not to bite the hoof that feeds. I’m no errand pony,” He growls. “By the way, that was two questions, I guess you’re lucky. You want to know what I do?” He stops, waiting for Barrel to look him right in the eye. “I finish things.” He turns on his hoof and trots away, his hoofsteps echoing around the warehouse.