Starlight Over Detrot
Act 2, Chapter 12: Sneaky, Sneaky, Sneaky
Once, the diamond dogs were among Ponykind's many harriers; cruel slavers who kidnapped stray ponies and worked them, sometimes to death, in gem mines. The very ground beneath your hooves was both their refuge and ambush point; those terrible claws could grasp at your ankles anytime, anywhere, and drag you off into the darkness, never to be heard from again.
Now, they are not only a common, but a base sight in Equestrian lands. They coalesce in squalid underground warrens beneath major Equestrian cities, kept on leashes made of subsistence paychecks. The days when Equestrians feared them substantially more than they might fear mob muscle or irate-looking security guards are long gone. The dogs are now, if you'll forgive the pun, an underclass.
Interestingly enough, the dogs were not broken by a war of liberation fought on behalf of those they'd kidnapped. No clarion call of the Princesses, no grand stampede crushed their loosely-knit nation, and wisely so; attacking the underground home of an enemy capable of moving through and manipulating the very earth would have been a strategic catastrophe. No, the dogs were crushed without a lance raised, shot fired or spell cast at them, all by the economic fallout of a different war altogether.
The dogs' economy was based on the acquisition and sale of gems and minerals, and the two greatest consumers of gems in the land were the ponies and the dragons. When the dragons were wrecked by the Cutie Mark Crusades, the dogs lost their biggest trading partner, and the only creatures remaining and willing to buy gems in sufficient bulk to keep their economy anything close to afloat were, ironically, the very creatures they once sporadically enslaved.
Naturally, the trade treaty Princess Celestia negotiated with the suddenly contrite dogs was favorable for the Equestrians indeed, and included a provision that put a stop to their uncouth practices. But, without slave labor, the dogs' economy soon faltered.
These have not been a pleasant few decades for the dogs, though with that said, some of the more enterprising ones have recently tapped into a new revenue stream. Politely, this new revenue stream could be described as selling echoes of the past; Impolitely, it is perhaps best not described.
--The Scholar
Limerence was trying to fix his tux as his vision finally began to recover. Swift was attempting to make the torn remains of my jacket fit over her wings again, with no luck whatsoever. This wasn't a real problem; the lost deposit wasn’t worth weeping over unless Stella was intent on making me justify my expenses.
“Mister Ghoulini...before we go, why did you talk to us? Really. You could have pretended to have vanished. Miss Patter could have pretended to be simple. It wouldn’t have been that hard, would it?” I asked as we gathered ourselves together.
The great magician’s lips twitched into a very weak smile. “Well...I do speak to my fans, regularly, but...it is rare to be honest with them. I… suppose that a pony can only fake so many things for so long before they want to talk to somepony besides themselves about those things. I may be Miss Patter’s friend, confidant, and lover, but that does not mean I am… anything more than I am; wood… and enchantment.” He touched the mare laying at his knees on the tip of the nose and she giggled, then made a mock snap at his toe. “Once we confirmed you weren’t intent upon our deaths, I guess we wanted some genuine company. Show business is quite lonely, and after tonight, we must go back to being invisible.”
“That’s why nopony sees you outside of your shows!” Swift snapped her wings to her side and grinned at her own deduction. “Most of the time you don’t look like that, right?”
Ghoulini raised his well formed chin, sticking it out in a slightly petulant manner. “Let it only be said that Patter and I live under... other faces and other names. It’s not the life of permanent stage glamour I would prefer, but it’s a life.”
I looked down at myself, then at my partner. The two of us looked like we’d been in some sort of brawl, which wasn’t far from the truth. My shirt was torn in a couple of places and the sleeves had burst on the jacket when Swift was tackled with the other doll.
“We’ve got to get out of this building without Jade noticing us,” I murmured, trying to wipe the worst of the make-up off my muzzle. It was turning into a drippy, streaky mess. I’d lost my cotton balls at some point during the fight and didn’t much fancy trying to find them.
“Easier said than done,” Limerence commented, lifting Swift up by the scruff of her neck with his horn. She dangled there like an indignant kitten, rear legs drawn up, glaring at him as he patted the dust off of her, then set her back on her hooves. “The spell disguising our colors is wearing quite thin and I can’t cast it upon us again tonight without risking some... permanent changes. I, for one, prefer my natural colors.”
“Well, unless you can find another way out, you can kiss those colors goodbye; Jade's going to paint us blood red. We can’t go out the front. She'll be saying goodbye to everypony as they leave,” I grumbled.
Rising from her spot at Ghoulini’s hooves, Patter approached me. Her horn spat a few sparkles and I felt something shift within my body like somepony had given me an especially weird enema. The fur around my muzzle tingled, feeling chilly.
Limerence’s face dropped into an annoyed scowl. “Breaking the spell early is not what I had in mind, Miss Patter! Every news agency in the city will be ripping this foolish stallion apart and, sad as it may sound, I require him to finish my present task!”
I raised my hoof to look at it and realized I was, once more, a creamy gray.
Ghoulini trotted around my sides. "That spell only had about two minutes remaining,” he said, coolly. “And... as you saw fit to kindly converse with us and Miss Patter is uninjured, in spite of her somewhat foolish attempts at martial combat, I will tell you that there is a rear entrance to the building accessible from this hallway.“
Pulling the wrecked tuxedo’s wrecked white shirt over my head, I poked one toe through the gaping hole in the shoulder and growled, “That doesn't help the fact that if somepony spots me in here, they’ll be serving me for the second course at the main table, now does it?”
“No, it’s true.” Pulling his thick, curly mane down over one shoulder, he dragged his brush through it a few times as he - or maybe Patter - considered our situation. “However… A clever magician always has two exits when the stage is on fire.”
Patter’s horn started to shine and she snatched a dozen costumes off a rack behind the little dressing blind, dragging them over the top of it into a pile and dropping them across my back. I groaned under the sudden weight. Individually small, all those sequins were heavy.
The stallion shuffled through hats in a hat box one after another, talking half to himself and half to us. “You will be carrying my costumes out to the vehicle behind the building. Leave them inside, then make your escape. Now... we’ll need a quick thing for your head here... ahhh, this will do.”
The hat he’d picked was obviously one of Patter’s. It was a big, floppy thing with mounds of feathers sticking out of both sides that looked minutely like a peacock if one stood back a bit. Levitating it over my head, he worked it down until my ears stuck out through the holes. The brim was wide enough to cover my face.
Swift had both hooves stuffed halfway into her mouth as she watched the process.
“Something you’d like to say, rookie?” I asked, with a huff.
“No, sir!” she managed to gasp, sucking ferociously on her toe. “Nothing... nothing at all!”
“Good, because we’ve got to cover those lovely wings of yours somehow.”
Her amused expression turned quickly to horror and she backed away from me, directly into Limerence. His horn surrounded her in a shining field of telekinesis, lifting her off her hooves.
“No! No, it’ll be okay! Nopony will notice me!” she shrieked, flailing her legs and thumping her wings against herself.
I glanced at Ghoulini, who was holding his hooves at varying lengths along her side, trying to figure what the optimal quantity of spare costumes was to disguise her plumage, but her squirming was making it difficult. Finally, he gave up and tossed a polka-dotted cow’s dress - one which surely did not belong to himself or his assistant - across her back, then tied it in place with a bit of rope. He worked an oversized black bowler hat down over her ears, then Limerence plunked her down beside me.
“Perfect!” I clapped my hoof against the carpet and Swift rocked back onto her heels. “Nopony will recognize you and no sane being would be wearing that for any reason besides money.”
“S-sir... I... I feel sick.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not your look, but I put up with being pink all night, so don’t puke on that dress or it’s coming out of your paycheck.”
“I never got to collect my first paycheck, sir…” she replied, unhappily.
Before I could retort, Ghoulini was back at his wardrobe, sifting through it. “Now, one last thing. Archivist?”
“I will be fine, I assure you.” Limerence took two steps back, but I planted my hoof on his butt and gave him a push back towards the magician and his assistant.
“We’re not taking chances,” I said, trying not to sound too smug. I don’t think I succeeded, because Limerence took Patter’s little game of dress-up with all the grace of a cat who’d just found himself dunked in a bathtub, especially when a second feathery hat covered in fake, prismatic doves came out.
“Hard Boiled… you will owe me something for this. I do not know, at this time, what it will be; it may be one of your minor organs for me to shred and feed to my pet snake. I just want you to understand, eventually, you will owe me something,” the librarian growled as the hat was dragged on straight.
“Claim it soon. The psychotic mare just through that door wants full body dibs and intends to decorate her office with pieces of me.”
Once he was dressed, Ghoulini draped us in a few extra costumes for good measure. “Now, then, Detective… if there’s nothing else we two can do for you, we would like to be moving on. My apologies burning you, and for our rash behavior when we first saw you.” I brushed my hoof over the raw spot on my muzzle as Ghoulini went on, “I’m sure you understand. Being caught by a pony who most recently killed one of your former customers, who was incidentally being followed by a member of a group who makes it a point of professional pride to either employ or eliminate counterfeiters...”
“We are not assassins, Mister Ghoulini!” Limerence snapped.
The puppet waved his hoof, dismissing our librarian’s objection. “Be that as it may, you are well known for putting my professional colleagues in the hospital, forcing others into retirement, and causing more than a few to simply ‘disappear’. Caution is never unwise.”
Before the two could get deeper into a discussion of these semantics, I stepped up and said, “Apology accepted. Where can we find this ‘Drum Beat’ character?”
“I will guarantee, you will not like where I send you.”
“Theme of my life, lately. Go on. Where?”
“There is a… call it a… private club... some distance from the Monte Cheval, on Caparo St down a back alley.” Ghoulini’s upper lip twitched with apparent disgust. “It caters to those of a somewhat unusual taste. The pony name for the place is the ‘Mud Pie’.”
“How will I know which back alley?” I asked.
“I believe you shan’t have any trouble. You must tell the bouncer that you ‘always keep the tempo.' That will, at the very least, get you into the building. I don’t know that you will be able to speak directly with Drum Beat himself. His secretary conducts most of his business with clients from an outside office.” Ghoulini moved back to Patter’s side, laying his hoof between her ears. “That, I fear, is all the information I have. Once you are inside, you are on your own.” He nosed the air in Limerence’s direction. “I do recommend you disguise your unicorn friend, however. The locals in that area have… a prurient and disturbing interest in unicorns.”
I squinted at the librarian’s horn. “Any particular reason? I was sort of hoping to have him along.”
“A hat will suffice. He does look fetching in that one, doesn’t he? A mare could just eat him right up!” Ghoulini and Patter both gave Limerence a frightening, slightly lewd leer. It looked creepy even from my end, but seeing that same, identical expression mirrored on those two faces inches away sent him wheeling backwards onto his rear end, tangled in the costumes wrapped around his body.
Giggling maniacally, Patter unwrapped the poor stallion and began rearranging his disguise as he cowered at her hooves, both forelegs pressed firmly over his eyes. It was comforting to know that were upper limits to Limerence’s icy composure.
There was a knock at the door.
We all froze in place, waiting.
“Mister Ghoulini! The crowd would like to see you one last time before you go! Are you up to a brief encore?”
It was Chief Jade’s voice. She sounded like she’d just returned from a week long vacation to Tartarus, but it still sent squirmy little shivers down my neck.
My heart went into instantaneous overdrive, threatening to climb right up my throat and choke me. Swift was wide-eyed and trying to kick her absent gun-bit while Limerence tugged at his tuxedo with magic, probably hunting for knives that weren’t there.
Ghoulini, ever the quick thinker, raised his voice and said, “Now, you lot be careful with those! Put them in the car and there will be a ten bit piece in it for you!”
Before I could stop him, he or, more likely, Patter grasped the door handle with their magic and threw it open.
I ducked my head, staring at the ground in front of my hooves. The wide-brimmed hat covered everything but my ears. I prayed that Limerence and Swift had the good sense to keep their heads down.
There, inches in front of me, standing in the hallway, was a pair of lime green hooves.
Death cometh with carrot peelers, Juniper whispered in the back of my head.
“Now, go on. Out. I must speak to the Chief.”
Ghoulini’s voice got me moving. I forced myself to lift one hoof, then the other, brushing by Iris Jade who took two steps back to make room and said, “Leaving so soon, Mister Ghoulini? What happened to your three guests?”
Two more steps. I heard my companions moving behind me. Swift was a set of clicking iron horse-shoes, will Limerence moved across the floor with barely a whisper of sound.
“They went back to the party, I believe,” Ghoulini answered.
“Oh… I’d hoped to meet them again.” Her tone turned inquisitive, though not yet menacing. “What’s that, if I may ask?”
My veins filled with ice. Was she talking to me? I couldn’t be sure. I kept moving, one step in front of the other.
“That? That’s just a bit of one of our props. Broken, I’m afraid.” Ghoulini answered, kicking something so it rolled across the floor. I realized it was the scraps of the timberwolf wood doll and he’d just shoved them back behind the curtain. “Such is the business of show. I will replace it on my own ticket, of course.”
“Ahhh… I see. Well, what about that encore?”
I breathed a relieved whimper then clamped my teeth shut, lest I be heard. The end of the hallway was only five meters away. I just needed to walk around that corner.
“The police have been more than generous, simply lending me a stage for my talents, but I’m afraid Miss Patter is feeling peaky, so an encore would be quite out of the question. Those fine ponies are my associates and will help me with the carrying.”
There was a pause, then I heard shifting hooves.
“...wait a second…”
Jade’s voice was like a bucket of ice-water down my neck.
I walked a little bit faster. The corner was just a meter away now.
"...is that…"
Three steps.
Two steps.
“...golden ...scales?!”
I looked back to see Jade’s eyes locked on my flank, where the extra costumes weren’t covering.
Our eyes met.
A slow, lethal smile spread across her face.
Before she could start the doubtless extremely painful process of taking me into custody, an explosion of light and confetti showered the hallway. Unfortunately, I’d been looking right at the point where the brilliant flash started. Everything went immediately dark and spotty. I staggered, tripped, and almost tumbled onto my face before a hoof on my backside shoved me ahead. The ridiculous hat came off. Somewhere in front of me another set of hooves grabbed me and pulled me out into a cool breeze.
The voice of a banshee with a hang-over shrieked bloody murder from the open hallway, cut off as the door slammed shut.
“Haaaard Booooooooiii-!”
****
Swift and Limerence kept close to my sides as we ran. I couldn’t see where I was going, so I trusted them to keep me from crashing into telephone poles and fire hydrants. Unfortunately, that didn’t include the side of the Night Trotter. I rubbed my eyes, cursing all unicorns, their progeny, horns, magic, and light itself.
“What happened?” shouted Taxi, yanking open the car’s rear door. I felt around until I got my forelegs up on the seat, then Limerence lifted my ankles and bodily tossed me towards the far door before throwing himself in.
“We need that getaway!” I called back.
Somewhere behind us, a door banged open and there were shouting voices. A police whistle sounded.
A small, soft body landed against my side, then the front end of the car hunkered down as the rear wheels spun madly, trying to find grip. Then we were off. I was still blind, but I could make out a few loose shapes around the edges of vision. Not ideal, but better than sitting in a holding cell.
“What about Ghoulini?” Swift asked from my side.
“Patter will be fine,” I assured her. “It’s not like the Chief can admit I was there. Sneaking into the police ball, right by her? She’s already going to have a hilarious time getting back into office come next election time. They can’t arrest the guests of honor, either. Not at their biggest annual fundraiser.”
“Oh... mmm… okay,” she responded, softly. She didn’t sound happy. I wished I could see her expression.
“Hardy, are you alright? You’re staring at Lim’s butt,” Taxi piped up from the front seat. I jerked my head away from where it’d settled against the seat, staring out what I hoped was the window.
“The magician helped us get out. Used some kind of light spell. We’re out, though, and we got what we came for. It’s... complicated.”
“Magician? What magician? Light spell? Was that Jade chasing you?!”
I stretched both forelegs out in front of me, sinking down into the familiar old seat cushions. “Yes, it was. Like I said, complicated. I’ll be fine in a bit and we’ve got our destination. Let’s head back to the Nest. I’ll tell you about it after I’ve had a beer.”
“Sir, your chest is flashing,” Swift informed me. I felt her hooftip on my muzzle, and she asked, nervously, “Didn’t Miss Patter burn your face?”
“Yeah, she did. Why?”
“I can’t tell which side was burned,” she murmured, pulling the remains of my tuxedo’s jacket and the various costumes off and dropping them on the cab’s floor.
“Make that a beer and a half hour with a wall socket,” I amended.
****
Ahhh, beer. Beer, my old friend. Nothing washes the taste of fancy food, torn tuxedos, bruised ribs, or gut wrenching terror out of one’s mouth like a good beer.
I wanted about twelve, but we only had a few in the fridge. Limerence contented himself with tea, though Swift and Taxi both snatched their own brews. From the sound she made after her first sip, I suspected Swift was new to the fine art of hops and barley, but she drank it anyway as we sat on bean-bags around the upturned industrial spool which had become our coffee table. I was plugged into the wall and starting, for once, to enjoy the subtle warmth of being recharged. Gale or whatever certainly seemed to be enjoying it. Every now and then my heart would give an extra beat I could only interpret as ‘happy.'
Sadly, my vision was taking longer to recover than my face.
----
“Alright, first thing's first. Ghoulini pointed us at a contact somewhere called ‘The Mud Pie.' I don’t know where it is and I don’t think we can go back and ask him to clarify his directions. Taxi, you have the map? We’ll need to know who we’re likely to be dealing with.”
My driver pulled her ‘special’ map with the local divisions of power amongst all of the city’s rival factions out of one of her saddlebags and laid out on the table. We all leaned over it.
“Caparo… I haven’t updated this for the changes since Cosmo’s death, but I’m assuming the Heights have expanded to encompass Monte Cheval,” Taxi explained. “There are a number of characters remaining who would pose a real threat to Stella and a couple of the ‘big boys’ who’re mostly from out of town. Some of the uptown Jewelers have connections in Canterlot, and there’s the Cyclones, if they think that territory is open. They’ve been reluctant to move on it, but if they organize a proper stomp, Stella might have her claws full. Aside that, I don’t know the shape of things right now.”
Limerence shook his head as he pointed out a dividing line between a blue section and a red section of the map. “Those other events do not interest me. Here. Caparo street.”
I looked over the spot he was indicating. A thin, darkly colored splotch ran up and down that area in both directions, bulging out in places to encompass specific structures. It might have been a coffee stain if it weren’t so regular, but my eyes were still blurry when I tried to focus up close.
“Sweets, what’s the brown one?” I asked.
“Um... I’ve got a legend in here…” she tugged out a tiny diary from her bag and flipped through it until she found a piece of paper with various colors listed next to the names of the major criminal organizations in Detrot. “Errr… It’s… oh poop.”
“What? What’s poop? Taxi, don’t leave us hanging here!” I blurted.
She set the legend on the table in front of me. “Dog territory.”
“Oh… poop.”
“What’s wrong, sir?” Swift asked.
“Diamond dogs. That entire zone is owned by the diamond dogs,” I replied.
Swift raised both eyebrows. “Is… that… bad?” she inquired.
“It ranges from just deeply inconvenient to downright dangerous, depending on which end of the stick you’re holding,” I answered, running my hoof up Caparo Street. The entirety of it was encompassed by the brown stain. “Diamond dogs don’t necessarily hate ponies, but they’re not friendly in general. They’ll do business with us. The really irritating thing is that they have no proper concept of what ‘architecture’ is and most of them are almost entirely nocturnal.”
“We can get in, but getting out will be hard,” Taxi mused, thinking. “Diamond dog enclaves tend to be like rabbit warrens.”
Limerence raised his chin. “I can navigate in absolute darkness.”
I snorted, loudly. “Yeah, but can you navigate with a yoke around your neck and a restrictor ring on your forehead? When Ghoulini said Diamond dogs don’t like unicorns, he wasn’t being clear. Diamond dogs love unicorns; roped, chained, and finding gems for them."
"Nonsense," said Limerence. "The practice of slavery was outlawed amongst the dogs shortly after the Crusades."
"Oh, yeah." I said, rolling my eyes. "Because everything that happens in Detrot is totally legal and above board. That's why we have a chorus line instead of a police department."
"...Point taken," he sighed. "The point can be hidden via hat, however-"
"Besides, that whole area is likely to be rich with gemstones.”
“...What does that have to do with anything?”
Taxi and I glanced at one another before I answered, very slowly, like talking to a child. “Lim… you… have been on missions before where you were faced with magically hostile territory... right?”
The librarian shuffled his forelegs, staring at the spotty carpet between them. I got the distinct impression he was embarrassed and when he finally spoke, he sounded very subdued, “I… have done restrictor ring exercise training. Father has other means of dealing with artifacts in zones of extreme arcane instability. He… has yet to see fit to send me on those missions. Why do you ask?”
“Riiight...“ I sighed, scratching my ear as I tried to figure out how to explain the situation. “Diamond dogs like to settle in places of extreme magical instability. Gems grow faster in places like that. Most rock farms are in areas with lots of wild magic. The upshot is that it’s very difficult to cast or maintain spells in those areas without heavy training. That must have been what Ghoulini meant when he said he would have ‘issues’ there.”
"Wait," said Swift. "If… Diamond Dogs work in areas of lots of wild, unstable magic… why… do they like unicorns? Wouldn't they just explode?"
"Sometimes, yeah, actually. They didn't typically bring unicorns back to their home lairs; they used unicorns to find new veins of gems and new areas of unstable magic. If a unicorn happens to explode... well... that's a positive result from the canary, isn't it?" Turning back to Limerence, I indicated the point on his forehead. "So unless you're hiding some alicorn powers or you’re used to handling fields of wild magic, you’re better off keeping your horn hidden and non-glowy.”
Limerence flicked his tail around his knees, then rose and went over to the pile of costumes Ghoulini had left us with. I hoped, one day, I’d get the chance to return them to him, though in the meantime if they were going to be useful I was glad we had them.
Sifting through the pile of clothes, Limerence pulled out the bowler that Swift had been wearing and tugged it on. It settled right down, leaving his horn sticking out at the brim. Pulling a few strands of his mane forward, he used them to wrap his horn until it looked mostly like an especially poor hair-cut rather than his nexus of power.
“Suitable?” he asked.
“Works for me,” I replied. “We’ll be underground, no doubt. Dogs tend to build their communities sub-terranean. It’s a tactical nightmare. Just don’t forget while we’re down there to keep your horn off. Police unicorns get extensive training for going into places like this and even then, most won’t. No magic. Got me?”
“I fail to see what the worst that could happen-” he started to protest, but Taxi cut him off.
“You could accidentally tear someone’s head off or your horn could spontaneously combust.”
The librarian drew back. “That… must be some kind of exaggeration.”
“Nope,” I confirmed. “Not a bit. We’re going to be magic free. Taxi, Swift and I are carrying. You know how to use any non-magical firearms?”
Limerence chewed his lower lip pensively before answering. “I am… aware of their function.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I… fear that my previous instructor in mechanical powder-actuated ballistic weaponry was required to take a… " the librarian sounded as though he were choosing his words very carefully, "...leave of absence for major surgery to replace his knee after a… sad accident. Unfortunately, nopony could be found to replace him.”
“What does that mean?”
“You do not want me handling a gun, Detective.”
Realization gradually dawned.
“...I do not want you handling a gun.”
****
I was tempted to lie down and try our luck in the morning, but though the hour was late, the bars were still open and therefore most criminals were still awake. Why bar-time and criminal operations are so intimately linked is a mystery for the ages, but it’s convenient for the thirsty officer of the law.
Diamond dogs are a naturally nocturnal species, rarely coming out during the day and most often irritable and bad tempered when they do. At night, they’re a friendlier bunch, though as fiercely territorial as ever. Like many of the sub-culture dominated parts of the city, a call out to the diamond dog territories was rare from Detrot Police Department.
Most ponies would have been shocked at the real attrition rate amongst some of the city minority species, but because they most often chose to handle violent deaths internally, whether with bribes, shivs, or a shrug and a kick into a deep hole, the news rarely got ahold of those events. In times past, there were issues with ponies and diamond dogs butting heads, but when the dogs learned that ponies could help participate in their species-wide addiction to gemstones, a relatively amiable business relationship developed.
This isn’t to say there wasn’t a certain friction. After all, the amiable business relationship usually only lasted so long as the ponies in question were better armed. Since the gemstone market collapsed thirty years back, the relationship had only decayed further.
****
It being just short of the witching hour, there were few on the roads as the Night Trotter tooled along the narrow avenues at low speed, with Taxi in the front glaring at any being who dared get within ten meters of the cab’s front bumper. More street lights in that area were out than not, leaving wide stretches of dark street where anything could have lurked. Limerence sat in the passenger seat, his eyes glued on the road ahead, his irises suffused with a faint green glow. More than once, he directed Taxi around what might have been an innocent card-board box or possibly a disguised pothole.
We were taking no chances.
The P.E.A.C.E. Cannon lay across Limerence’s forelegs along with a full bandoleer of extra ammunition. I wasn’t inclined to ask Taxi where she’d managed to find police issue munitions considering our recent issues. I’m sure I wouldn’t have liked the answer.
Swift was back in her tactical vest, bunny patches and all, with Masamane strapped to her knee, and I wore a cheap combat jacket we’d picked up off a pawn shop owner, along with my trench-coat. It wouldn’t have protected me from anything bigger than standard munitions, but I felt better having it. The weight of my revolver on my thigh was a greater comfort.
The discussion over what to do about Limerence’s lack of non-magical armament came down to a second pawn shop run to pick up a goofy looking bladed mouth weapon he called a ‘katana.' It cost us twice what I thought we should have paid, but as we got out of the store, Limerence confided that whoever had sold it was giving up an heirloom from the Neighponese homeland and he’d have gladly paid several times as much. It wasn’t what I would have chosen, but after watching him do a few pirouettes with it, slicing through imaginary foes with the long, curved blade, I had to admit it had some good intimidation value, if he managed to get in close. He wore it in a cheap plastic scabbard slung across his back with the handle in easy reach of his teeth.
The dingier parts of Detrot come in as many flavors as the richer bits, but the diamond dog zone was almost entirely unique amongst them. Most of it looked like a construction site, absent all the workers. Roads wound between what appeared, in many cases, to be empty lots. Only a ‘Welcome’ mat in front of a large hole, here, or a mailbox stuffed to brimming, there, gave lie to the idea that this part of the city was a ruin. Mounds of dirt piled up high or quarried down low took the place of proper buildings.
Rattling across a small bridge marked ‘Digger Memorial Bridge’ on the map splayed across my legs, we entered the diamond dog territories proper.
No dogs were on the street, though some ponies wandered here and there between what few above-ground structures had managed to spring up like unwelcome weeds amongst the rough gravel heaps. It was an odd thing, seeing the tiny city within a city, home to a species whose lifestyle was so far removed from my own. The sensation was not unlike stepping onto another planet.
In the near distance, the skyscrapers clawed great holes out of the skyline while the vast cloud-tracks of the weather factories blotted out what few stars escaped the buildings. Darkness reigned amid the nearly unlit streets.
I did a few of Taxi’s breathing exercises, trying to relax my shoulders. The tension had been growing since we left the Nest, particularly since my eyes still seemed a bit out of sorts. Blots of strange blurriness drifted across my sight, sometimes leaving me momentarily disoriented.
No sense getting worked up about it. It had to be done. I turned to Swift, who was unloading and reloading Masamane for the sixth time, checking her breach, barrel, and trigger for any signs of wear.
“Kid, give it a rest. That shooter isn’t going to get any cleaner."
Swift pushed the clip back into her gun and wiggled down in the seat. “I know, sir. I’ve just been having… ugh. Before, it was just a gun. A really cool gun, but a gun. Now… after Grap- after what happened… it’s… like it’s part of me.” She rested her hoof on the gun’s slide, pushing it forward to reveal the bullet in the chamber. “That… feels like it’s an extension of me. I fire a bullet, and I’m firing part of myself.”
I rolled onto one shoulder, looking across at her out of the corner of my eye. “You worried about losing yourself to the gun?” I asked.
“...A little. Dad was always going on about how ponies should always do the least harm they can in the world and mom… mom would go through these weird phases where she’d only eat fruit that’d already fallen from the tree because she couldn’t stand to think the trees were suffering,” my partner recounted, stroking Masamane with the lightness of a lover. Lifting her head, she pulled her lip on one side back with her toe, showing the rows of dangerous fangs lining her mouth. “What will they think of me? I have to eat meat or I’ll get sick. I killed-” she stuttered, then lowered her eyes. “I killed.”
I blinked at her several times. “You haven’t called them?”
Swift shook her head. “Gran told them a month ago that I was doing some sort of under-cover work for the police department and had to vanish for awhile on short notice. Detrot P.D. reported me AWOL a couple of days later and they took it like I was on some kind of secret mission. I sent them a letter a couple of days ago to let them know I’m okay, but I still have to go see them soon...”
“Kid, the second we get out of here-”
“No, sir,” she said, firmly.
My brain skipped a track. Swift had never directly defied me before, which made it even more surprising that she’d choose to do it over something like this.
“You… mind telling me why you don’t want to tell your folks you’re back on the grid?” I inquired.
“I… I just can’t see them yet, sir. I can’t. Maybe in a few days, but I need to… I need to make sure I’m still me.”
Slowly, I lifted myself into a sitting position. “Alright, kid. You promise me something, though. You promise you won’t get yourself killed before you get a chance to have that talk with them, alright?”
Swift’s brow furrowed, then she nodded, weakly. “Yes, sir.”
"I hate to interrupt this touching moment," Limerence lied from the front seat, “But Caparo Street is our destination, correct?”
“That’s the place, yeah.”
“I… believe I see what Mister Ghoulini meant about us not having any issue finding the location. We are presently on Caparo Street, if the sign ahead is to be believed.” he said, contemplatively.
I looked up out of the windows to all-encompassing darkness. There was one lonely street light maybe a mile down the road, but I couldn’t make out any details of the area immediately on either side of the car. The headlights lit up the street and the sign Limerence was pointing out, but nothing else. “When did that happen?" I asked.
“It appears this area is designed such that several streets converge here, though I cannot fathom why,“ Limerence answered, then leaned over to my driver and said, “Park us, if you please, Miss Taxi. There are several carriages to your left, but I see a clear spot.”
“Why is it so dark on this street? There were a few ponies walking back there a few miles ago who had flashlights, but I can’t see a damn thing here!” she cursed.
“There is no better way to maintain discretion than to make a place mildly inconvenient.” Limerence murmured. “Make it too inconvenient, and somepony might believe there’s something valuable there. I think we may do well, once we’re out of the vehicle, to keep our light sources to a minimum until we’re inside the structure.”
“That’s easy for you to say… I don’t even see a structure!” my driver complained as she pulled the wheel hesitantly to one side, slowly edging the car over. The ‘spot’ Limerence referred to was between two unlit, empty carriages. Even their running lanterns had been doused and I hadn’t even noticed them until the car’s lamps played across the rear wheels. We worked our way in, though it took several complicated maneuvers to get the Night Trotter’s normally very nimble frame into the tight space.
“Sir, I’m... um…” Swift’s ears laid back on her head. “I can... sort of see here.”
“It’s pitch black out there! How can you see anything?” I asked.
“I don’t know. It’s like... ever since I came back, everything is brighter, especially at night.”
“You didn’t feel the need to drop that tid-bit of information?” I growled.
“I thought it was just my imagination until now,” she replied, defensively.
Deciding not to pursue the issue, I checked my revolver’s hammer and magazine, then said, “We’re having you checked again when we have a spare minute, but right now, I’m not going to be real put out by that. What do you see?”
Swift swung her head back and forth, peering out the windows. “There’s...a big building to our left. Two of them, actually. That’s all there is, on either side of the street. Everything else is empty lots full of holes. I see an...alleyway of some kind between the buildings and there’s this big...uh...thing. It’s standing beside the alley.”
“Standing… like as in ‘alive’ standing or is that ‘inanimate’ standing?”
“It looks… furry,” she clarified, squinting at a spot to our right that looked entirely black to me. “I think it might be a diamond dog, sir.”
“Alright. Get your guns. Ghoulini said we were going to meet a former employee of Cosmo’s. No idea who that might be, but I’m not going down there without an escape plan. Limerence, how is your horn feeling?” I asked the librarian.
“It...is a most odd sensation,” he replied, forehead wrinkling at the sensation. “I believe I can still cast, but the closest equivalent I can grant you to what I am feeling, even trying to maintain my dark-sight spell, is being very, very inebriated.”
“It’ll get worse. If we’re heading into some place run by the dogs, we’re headed underground. I don’t know why Cosmo would be employing a diamond dog-” I said reaching under the driver’s seat and pulling out a duffle bag. Unzipping it, I began passing around flashlights with forehead straps. Limerence pulled his over his bowler, while Swift attached hers to a clip on the front of her tactical vest. “-but keep these with you. Keep them off, for now, but don’t lose them. I want to try to get in, talk to our guy, and leave with a minimum of fuss. Diamond dogs don’t like bright lights, so if things go south, point the torch at their eyes.”
Taxi grabbed her cannon out of Limerence’s lap, opened her door, and hopped out onto the road. She stood a moment, arranging the giant weapon on her back with the flashlight strap around its barrel. I eased out after her, tugging my coat straight and covering my gun with my sleeve as Swift and Limerence joined us.
After several seconds, the car’s lights dimmed, then faded, and we were left in a dark so thick it felt like a cloying soup. I’d thought my sight would adjust at least a bit, but even after a full minute I still might as well had have a blanket over my head.
“Sweets?”
“Yeah, Hardy?”
“Can you see anything?”
“A little. Not much.”
“I can’t.”
A masculine voice chimed in next to my shoulder. “Detective, you were looking directly at that light spell this morning. It wouldn’t surprise me greatly if it had damaged your vision in some way.”
“I’m going to take some time out of my day here soon to hunt that magician down and drop him off at the zoo’s beaver exhibit so they can build a dam out of him,” I grumbled. “Swift? You here?”
“Right here, sir!” she replied.
“That’s not helpful.”
“Oh! Sorry...” I felt something soft slide across my shoulders and realized it was her wing. She clenched it around my side and I stepped in close. Despite our size differences, she managed to guide me over to the curb. Guiding me onto the curb was mostly accomplished with a face-plant into the sidewalk and a great deal of quiet cussing.
We moved, three abreast, down the side-walk in the direction my companions claimed was the one with the alley. I became aware of a shift in the flow of the air that seemed to signal we were beside the building. I still couldn’t see much and the moon was barely a sliver, but I did my best to look like I could. Shelling out for some of those sun-glasses enchanted with a night-vision spell was starting to seem like a good idea considering where all we’d been lurking lately, especially with Stella paying for them.
Swift tugged me sideways with her wing. I turned to face the pitch black wall.
“Sir, he’s r-right in f-front of you,” she whispered.
“What’s he doing?” I asked.
“N-nothing. He’s just leaning against the w-wall. Celestia, he’s big...”
Of a sudden, two brightly glowing red coals lit up, hanging in the air in front of us. I took an involuntary step back, but the the pair just regarded us for a long moment. A voice like a train engine coming up to steam spoke from a mouth full of glinting, yellowed teeth.
“Pony,” it rumbled.
I pushed my hat back, feeling myself sinking into those two gleaming pits. The dog must have been simply enormous if the distance between its eyes was anything to go by. “Uh...evening. I’m...um, I’m here..to talk to the Drum Beat.”
“Password, pony,” it growled in a deeper tone, sounding displeased. I definitely didn’t want it displeased. Displeased didn’t seem healthy.
“Err... I always keep the tempo.”
The towering figure seemed to take a long time to send those words down through whatever byzantine system that diamond dogs used for brains, but when it did, it was as though I were watching tectonic plates shifting. The creature moved back and to one side.
Again, the shockingly deep voice, “Pony use only lights inside. Pony either watch show, do business, or play pet. Pony leave after. If pony make trouble, dog tear pony into tiny pieces. Pony understand?”
I gulped and wondered at my decision not to bring additional armaments. It’s always a tricky thing to do the mental sums when you’re incorporating the strengths of ponies into a risk equation. In all likelihood, in hoof to hoof combat, me being an earth pony might have evened things considerably. His greater reach might be an issue, but compared to unicorns and pegasi, we’re pretty hard to kill in close combat. I didn’t care to make trouble, but it was worthwhile to at least have it as an option.
“Understood.”
The creature I began thinking of as 'Dog Mountain’ banged on something metal that swung slowly open, emitting a strange illumination. The sidewalk began to shine as though it were lit internally and I could finally get some idea of the shape of the diamond dog.
He stood taller than a pony by a good half meter, with muscles on top of his muscles, and his eyes glittered with a malevolent intelligence. Nopony could mistake him for a minotaur, despite the upright posture. Nothing so noble ever graced that being’s genetics. He looked like an unholy mating of a grizzly bear and a timberwolf.
Dog Mountain wore only a vest or shirt of some kind whose color I couldn’t distinguish from the surrounding tangle of fur. It might have been luminance, but the odd wavelength of light cast from inside the building was stingy with details and didn’t reveal much of his craggy features.
Taxi gave me a light push and I scooted around the diamond dog, tipping my hat as I stepped into darkened room. Limerence was ushered in last and the door slammed shut behind him, leaving us standing in the odd half-light waiting for our eyes to adjust. It came from a dozen purple, neon tubes on the ceiling. They were not unlike the ones in Stella’s foyeur, though these seemed less decorative and more utilitarian in nature.
“Black lights,” Taxi murmured. “That’s genius…”
“What is?” Swift asked. Hers and Taxi’s already impressively bright pelts were practically shining, while I just looked like an especially grumpy shadow. Limerence seemed to be a dull white, though his horn glittered brilliantly.
“Black lights must not interfere with the dog’s natural night vision and it’s just enough for us to see by,” she answered as she began examining the space. It seemed like it should be much larger, at least based on the outside dimensions of the building. “Ghoulini said this was a club, right? A club for what?”
With a loud clank, the floor began to shift under us. I leaped off to the left, while Taxi and Limerence jumped to the right. Swift, using generations of pegasi logic, immediately spread her wings and tried to take off, but she wasn’t fast enough. The trap door slid back and she vanished into the depths. I heard several thumps, then a soft squeak, followed by, “Oooowww…”
“Kid? Kid, are you alright?” I called, standing at the edge of the hole that’d been opened. It looked like an old mechanic’s pit, with stairs leading into darkness.
“Y-yes... maybe... Owie."
There was a soft crackle, then a buzz as more of the purple lighting came on down below, revealing Swift sprawled at the bottom of the steps. She’d come to a rest with one wing at an awkward angle, but looked otherwise uninjured.
I started down the steps, taking them two at a time. Reaching her, I hooked one leg under her middle and lifted her onto her hooves. “You sure?”
Swift, experimentally flexing each limb, winced when she got to her left wing. “Eep... oh… ouch.”
“Is it broken?” I asked.
“I don’t... think so.” She worked the appendage in a circle a few times, then pulled it to her side. “It’s just bruised. I’m fine, sir. Really,” she insisted.
I gave her a skeptical look, then shook my head in defeat. “If you die of a broken neck at the bottom of some stairs, your grandmother’s going to see to it I have a similar fate.”
Swift giggled softly, then fluffed her good wing a couple of times and began inspecting our environment as Lim and Taxi descended the steps. I gave the floor an experimental kick, leaving a thin divot in it. It seemed to be dirt. Hard packed by many beings' feet, but still, dirt.
The sub-basement had concrete walls, but a second hole, this one rougher, lead away through one of them and down a long, barely lit corridor. More of the purple lights had been half-hazardly hung with cheaply installed electrical wires and a plethora of cable that dangled just above head level. It provided enough light to see by, but a pony would be hard pressed to read their watch.
The place would have been a stunning fire-hazard if it’d been built of anything but sod.
“Hardy, this whole place is giving me a big case of the creepies,” Taxi said with a shiver.
“We’ve been in worse. Remember Sunny Days? Heck, Juniper and I went into this weathervane o-once…” I felt a mental bucket of cold water and my muzzle clenched shut.
“A weathervane, sir?” Swift looked suddenly very interested.
“I’ll tell you about it... sometime, kid. We’ve got work to do.” I sighed and looked off towards the hole. “It worries me that the guy at the door didn’t tell us to leave our guns in the car.”
“It is easily explicable, I b-believe,” Limerence said. There was a note of strain in his voice that raised my hackles. “G-guns have limited efficacy down here. The f-fighting conditions favor d-diamond dogs. They can burrow through the g-ground.”
“Lim?” I asked, worriedly. “You copacetic? You’re shaking.”
“My horn still feels very strange, Detective.”
“Worse than before?”
“It is...buzzing. There is so much power here. So much... raw... magic. I can feel it. It’s coursing through the ground. It’s burning in the dirt. It’s... singing to me, Detective...” he murmured, licking his lips lustily. We all stared at him for several seconds, until he gave a start and blinked several times. “That was... unsettling.”
“You’re telling me,” I said, half expecting him to start cackling like a loon. “I’m starting to think the car might be a better option for you-”
Limerence shook his head, firmly. “No… I have experienced magic sickness before, though nothing this powerful. Mmm… I may have a solution.” Stuffing his hoof into his vest pocket, he fished around until he came up with a thin, black ring. He held it out to me. “If you please, Detective. I can’t do it myself.”
My lower jaw almost hit my chest. “You want me to put that on you?! Why do you even have one of those?”
“After Miss Patter, I thought it wise to acquire some option for dealing with other unicorns besides killing them. I do not wish to be left behind, and in battle, it is conceivable that I may act on instinct and training-”
“-and detonate yourself trying to throw a pebble. Alright, give it here.”
The librarian pulled off his bowler and lowered his head while I worked the restrictor ring down his horn to its base. As I did, he let out a faint noise of relief. “That is much better,” he said, replacing the cap and re-arranging his mane to cover everything once more.
****
The tunnel was longer than I’d expected, with unlit branchings in both directions. It descended at a fairly steep angle, and the further we went, the more sounds we began to pick up. From one branch, there was what I felt sure was the sounds of construction intermingled with shrill screams that devolved into laughter after a few seconds. Down another, music and the beat of many hooves. Down a third, wet slapping. We hurried on from that one pretty quick.
About five minutes into our journey, Swift put her good wing across my chest, bringing us to a halt.
“What is it?”
“I… hear something, sir. Hoof-steps… and yelling,” she said, warily. “They’re coming towards us.”
I cocked one ear down the dirt hallway, holding my breath. At first, I heard nothing, but after some seconds I picked up what seemed to be somepony shouting and the thump of hooves. They did seem to be getting louder, but it was hard to tell just how far away the sounds actually were.
Without warning, a shrilly shrieking stallion wearing some kind of wooden yoke broke around the corner at a full gallop, hitting the far wall and regaining his balance. “Meeerrrccyyy! I swear, I won’t do it again!” he called back down the hall, then turned to run in our direction.
I was about to kick my gun bit into my mouth, but as he turned to look where he was going he noticed the four of us and began to slow. Trotting to a stop, breathing heavily, sweat pouring from his forehead, he leaned on the side of the tunnel to catch his breath. He was perhaps a few years my senior, though still in excellent condition. He stank of sweat and thick layers of cologne, and barely an inch of him was clean. The yoke was covered in layers of caked-on dirt.
The four of us gaped at him for a long minute before he grinned, chest still heaving, and trotted up to me. I noticed a thin, stubby horn sticking up from his mane with yet another restrictor ring locked around it.
“Huh… whoo… Don’t recognize you lot! Must be new. Welcome!” he said, cheerfully.
“Uh… yeah… new. Are you… okay?” I asked, uncertainly.
“Oh, yeah! Hah!” he coughed, then slipped around us. “Won’t be if she catches me, though!” A howl rose up from the earth. It sounded like some sort of wild animal, or maybe a whole pack of them. I could almost feel it vibrating in my legs.
The stallion’s ears flattened to his head. “Oh bugger… Must dash!” He broke into a gallop, heading down the semi-lit hall, and within seconds he was out of sight.
That howl came again, this time much closer, and Taxi pulled her P.E.A.C.E. cannon down from her back as Limerence loosened his sword in its scabbard. Swift’s ears kept moving as she tried to pinpoint the source, but the sound was coming from everywhere simultaneously. It felt like a rock had dropped into the bottom of my stomach as the primal voices screamed for me to follow the stallion with the sense and get out of there. I stood my ground, gun-bit at the ready, but still dangling.
Around the corner, at speeds nothing that size should have been able to achieve, a creature unlike any I’d ever seen came barrelling at us. I got an impression of fur, teeth, and lots and lots of buckles, before my knees turned to jelly.
If the bouncer was a mountain of canine, the beast sweeping toward me, knuckles dragging the dirty floor, was a small moon. It was something out of my darkest, childhood dreams. I knew, in my gut, that there was no weapon in our arsenal that could bring such a monster down. We were all going to die. I shut my eyes, waiting for the inevitable.
Ten seconds later, I was still standing there and the noise had died entirely. Slowly, I peeped out of one eye, then opened the other, finding myself looking at a wall of thick, brown fur. I gradually tilted my head back and felt my rear legs go out from under me, flopping onto my haunches.
****
There are just those times in your life where preparedness doesn’t cut it. I was never a scout. I never tied knots. I never made campfires. That’s more Taxi’s thing.
A police pony can fall into a rut where he believes his gun makes him prepared for damn near any situation that comes up. Being proven wrong repeatedly won’t really fix the issue. It takes a complete reordering of mental priorities to come to a fresh conclusion. Sometimes, it takes a really big diamond dog.
****
“Pony! You should watch where you sit. I almost ran over you!”
It took a little bit for me to register that the monster had spoken and even longer to realize that the voice was very distinctly feminine. I looked back at my partner and driver, who were sitting in similar positions to my own, eyes peeled wide. Limerence was several meters back, his sword hanging loosely from his mouth, crouching in a combat stance. His bowler lay on the floor beside him and the fear in his eyes mirrored my own.
I turned back to the diamond dog and swallowed, trying to think how to respond.
“Uh...s-sorry?”
The creature’s lips peeled back from pink gums as it revealed two lines of sharp teeth. I realized it was smiling, though it was hard to tell. “You see my prey come this way, pony?”
“Um...little guy, yoke, covered in dirt?” I asked, lamely.
“Yes! Which way has he gone?”
“That way.” I murmured, waving down the hall. The diamond dog made to squeeze by us and I quickly made room, though she stopped again, looking at Limerence who was still clutching his sword.
She flicked her glittering, beady little eyes down at me. “Pony, are you lost? You bring weapons here, you must be lost or on business.” Returning her attention to Limerence, she raised one tree-trunk sized leg and pointed at his mouth. “You should be careful with butter knife, little stallion, lest you cut yourself.”
“Um… do… I… are…” I closed my lips abruptly. No thoughts were really organizing themselves into sentences in the presence of that enormous creature. It was down to Taxi to finally find some words and put them in an order.
“We’re here on business, but... I... d-don’t think we know where we’re going,” she murmured, weakly. “We’re trying to f-find someone named... uh... The Drum Beat.”
The diamond dog’s demeanor immediately darkened. “The Drum Beat? Are you here to do...business...with him?”
I finally found my voice. “We’re... here to talk to him," I specified, "then we’ll leave. You know where we can find him?”
The female dog’s upper lip twitched with irritation, bordering on antipathy. “From guns, I say you here to kill him. I say, this fine with me.”
“
You’re not a fan of this character?” I asked.
“Dog only fan of dog. That one bring drugs. Bring tainted gems. He do business and dog way say he stay, but I not like it. You sure you not here to kill him? I would like his tail as trophy if you do.”
I blinked a little as the inquisitive parts of my brain took over from the terrified bits. “He’s...not a diamond dog?”
“Dog never treat dog like pony treat dog.” the monster growled. “You want Drum Beat, go all the way to end of the central path. There be little dogs there. Ponies not like big dogs, but like have little dogs guard them. He sec-re-tary there. You want see Drum Beat. He see you, or maybe shoot you. If he shoot at you, you shoot and bring me tail. Okay?”
“I...heh. If it comes to taking his tail to get what we want, I’ll bring it to you in a bow. Thank you,” I replied.
There was the sound of hooves from down the hall from the way we’d come and the stallion, still dirty as could be, trotted around the corner. He halted as he saw who we were talking to, his face spreading into a smile. “I reached the other end! Is this... still coming off of my time?”
The diamond dog bared her teeth, fiercely and snarled, “I not see you reach end, pony! Now, you run!”
Throwing herself over our heads, she performed a complicated mid-air maneuver, digging her claws into the ceiling so she could get by the four of us with a minimum of pushing and shoving. Dirt rained down on my head and she landed with a ground shaking thump behind us. The stallion, for his part, immediately wheeled and started for the other end at best possible speed. As the two vanished behind him, Limerence let his sword drop from his mouth.
“Detective… is this sort of interaction going to be indicative of our entire working relationship?” he asked.
”Them’s the breaks, I’m afraid. At least she wasn’t trying to mate with us. Or eat us. Or sue us. This time."
Limerence didn’t look much comforted by that. “I... usually deal with such things with a cup of tea. It calms my nerves and provides a centering action in trying times. I must say, I do not believe there are enough cups of hot tea in the world to make that-” he pointed in the direction the two strange characters had run off “-alright.”
I laid my hoof on his shoulder and exhaled a long, slow breath. “That, my friend, is what booze is for.”