Starlight Over Detrot
Act 2, Chapter 46
I'm Drunk, And Don't Call Me Shirley.
The image many ponies have of griffins is that of huge bloodthirsty beasts who love fighting one another almost as much as they love fighting other species, barely kept in check by a vague and convenient code of personal honor. While this is a recommended assumption from a standpoint of personal safety, it is a massive oversimplification, and does a disservice to the diversity that can be found between griffin tribes.
Some griffins have actually forsaken violence altogether, at least theoretically; the ascetic Daiji tribe of the northern mountains attempts to live a more contemplative, spiritual life. Granted, this is relative, so from a functional standpoint this typically means that they will count to ten before they claw out your pancreas, but the development of Birdhism is an interesting cultural direction for griffinkind. Ironically, some of them are even better fighters than a lot of their more warlike kin, having mastered a martial art they call kung pao.
The somewhat more civilized Poulet tribe, which exists mainly on the south border of Fancì, set aside their spears after a few disastrously chosen wars nearly wiped them out, but their reputation for fierce pride and competition didn't fade in the slightest. They simply began applying it to everything except battle. They will challenge anyone and anything to races, bake-offs, goof-offs, deep woods-offs and on-offs; they have record holders in the fields of Competitive Snuggling and Competitive Rationalization, and are the only group to compete in the 100-meter Stroke, in which a griffin who has a cerebrovascular event tries to make it that distance in the shortest time possible before collapsing. It should be noted that the record holder is currently in dispute; litigation is still pending on whether or not this distance can be traversed vertically.
This only touches on the more obscure communities formed by these avian-mammalian hybrids; the average Equestrian is rarely going to come in contact with these. When they do…
-The Scholar
Why did I think this was going to be a calmer endeavor than rooting out Astral Skylark?
****
The glass rained down around us as Taxi and I took cover in the car. A second later, a massive body crashed onto the concrete, snarling like a lion as it swept in a circle, back legs braced for flight and economy-sized wings outspread.
I found myself sharing the gaze of a griffin war-maker.
Until that moment, Sykes was the biggest griffin I’d ever seen. The creature I faced made him look like a cockatiel hopped up on steroids. His pelt was the color of autumn leaves on a bed of corpses and he wore a combat vest with more pockets than a tinker’s coat over top of a plaid kilt that stretched to his back ankles. A gigantic blade was slung across his back from which dangled a dozen feathers wrapped in what looked an awful lot like leather.
His gaze flickered in our direction for a moment as he prepared to take to the skies again, but something made him pause. He turned to the car and squinted down at me as I crouched low behind the window, gnawing on my gun bit. I didn’t remember picking it up.
Taking a couple of steps closer, he shook a bit of glass out of his mane of white feathers and turned his head to one side, studying me out of one of those piercing blue eyes like a specimen under glass. I swallowed as what I took for a smile spread across his avian features.
“Aye! Aye, boyo! Be ye the cobber what ol’ Sykes say comin’ down?”
It took me a worrying amount of time after he spoke to find my tongue. You try talking to a flying predator with a knife that could split you in two. Even so, I had to swallow a few times around a gorge that felt like a baseball.
Rolling down the window, I cautiously poked my head out and looked up. Several heads were peering out of a shattered window on the top floor. The front door attendant, with a put-upon look on his face, was grabbing a broom and dust-pan out from behind his kiosk and directing his porters to start clearing the glass off of the sidewalk.
“Uh...you know Sykes?”
“Heh! Oi kin the sniveling peacock well enough! He be me brudder!”
I mentally translated that, but it took a moment. Brother. Sykes’ brother.
“He asked me to come down here and see if I could help with whatever is going on,” I replied, warily opening the car door and stepping out.
“Aye, me boyo! Oi were havin’ me a dust-up wi’ the lads! Come along when ye ready! Them be let’ ye in,” he answered, waving towards the attendant who gave him a perfunctory nod. Spreading his immense wings, Sykes’ brother took off with a downdraft so strong it almost took me off my hooves, blasting up into the evening sky. I watched him circle higher until he performed a neat tuck and roll, vanishing into the shattered window.
A griffin of few words, thank the heavens.
I gulped a breath, then another, and eased up onto the curb. I’d met a fair few strange beasts in my time and known more than a few griffins. Night Bloom and her fangs were one thing. Stella was about as threatening as a pussy-cat, once you got to know him.
There was just something about a creature that big who is only civilized in the loosest sense of the word. Sykes’ brother looked awfully at ease in that kilt and bullet proof vest. He didn’t even seem to notice the weight of the axe.
What was that he said about a dust up?
“Sir, are we sure this is safe?” Swift whispered from beside me. I jerked, stumbled over my own hooves and fell onto my side. My partner rushed to help me up.
“Eesh, kid. Way to scare a guy.”
“Sorry, Sir. I had to sneak out of the other side of the car so I could get a bead on him,” she replied, raising Masamane a little.
“Right. As to safe? This is almost certainly not safe. Still, we’ve got enough hardware between us to take on a small army, griffins or not, and these guys won’t ask us to leave our weapons behind. Speaking of hardware, did you manage to prime that thing we got from the Archive?”
“I...um…” She looked sideways at the Hailstorm and sighed. “I have no idea. I flew around as fast as I could earlier and it made some whirring noises, then I started seeing funny lights. I’m still seeing funny lights.”
“What sort of ‘funny lights’?” Taxi asked, coming around the car to peer at the strange weapon draped across Swift’s back. A tiny glass window on the side of one the boxy, saddle-bag looking things seemed to have some sort of moving clockwork behind it and, buried in amongst the mechanism, there was a softly glowing crystal.
Swift‘s gaze nervously darted back and forth, then her eyes went out of focus as she peered at something only she could see. “I don’t know. It’s a lot of scrolling text that looks like runes and there’s...uh...weird. I just realized I don’t have a trigger or anything to fire it.”
I poked at the gun with one toe and it let out a series of clicks that sounded almost indignant. “I did mean to ask about that. Can you make heads or tails of what the lights might be for?”
Swift’s ears laid back against her head as she turned to look at me. “Um...yes. I’m pretty sure…" She trailed off for a moment. "...Oh, Sir, I don’t know if I should say this.” Her eyes were centered on a spot just above my eyebrows. As I watched, the protrusions I had come to think of as the weapon’s barrels twitched on hidden joints a few centimeters until they were both centered squarely on my face.
“There’s a targeting reticule on my forehead, isn’t there?”
She nodded, guiltily.
“Right. So, we’ve got a wartime weapon of unknown capacity, sans manual, without any knowledge of how to fire it. If that weren’t bad enough, it appears to be acquiring targets,” Taxi grumbled, going around to the Night Trotter’s trunk and popping it open. Swift followed her with her eyes and I got the distinct impression she wasn’t just watching my driver’s pretty flank. “Hardy, are you sure you don’t want to leave that insane thing here, at least until we can figure out how it works?”
“I would, desperately,” I replied, joining Taxi by the boot. I turned sideways so she could fit the chromed shotgun I’d confiscated from the Cyclones into my gun harness, then turned to help her with the P.E.A.C.E. cannon. “That said, I’m not going to. We might need collateral damage and having it is going to be better than not having it. Swift, you better think gentle, sweet-hearted thoughts while we’re in here.”
Swift’s nose wrinkled. “Why is that, Sir?”
“I remember hearing a few rumors of magical weapons developed during the war that fired on mental command.”
“Sir, why’d you have to tell me that?! Now I’m going to be trying not to think all the synonyms I know for the word ‘fire’!”
I grinned and stepped away from the ends of the Hailstorm’s barrels. They followed me for a good thirty degrees of rotation. “How hard could that be?”
She huffed and moved towards the hotel. “I’m a writer, Sir. I know lots!”
Rolling my eyes, I glanced at the attendant who was carefully plucking bits of glass out of the cobblestones, depositing them in a garbage bag held up by one of his porters.
“Good morning! You mind if I ask you a couple of questions?” I called.
He didn’t even pause or look up as he gathered bits of the shattered window from the street. “Detective Hard Boiled, unless you can get those insane creatures out of the top floor of this hotel, I doubt there are any questions you could ask me that I’d be happy to answer,” he growled.
“You know who I am?” I asked, examining the unicorn a little more closely. His mane and tail shimmered slightly as he moved, morphing from an off white to something a bit more grey. Probably an enchantment to make him look inoffensive and professional. For all I knew, he might have been a color worse than Swift, but no amount of magic could disguise the lines around his mouth that formed a permanent sneer.
“Your face is a news item, Detective. That I am not calling the police right now is a measure of how exhausted I am and how little interest I have in creating more havoc for myself. That and one of those beasts invited you in,” he replied, gesturing towards the door with a flick of his horn. “We value the discretion and privacy of our guests...so go about your business and be gone.”
All that starch and not an ounce of courtesy. I don’t know what I expect every time I deal with the upper classes. Celestia might have gone out of her way to remind them they’re still just ponies, but Detrot is a long way from Canterlot.
Stepping back, I reached up to my collar and flicked a stray piece of glass in his direction before starting up the short staircase to the darkened, glass door into the foyer. One of the porters quickly lit her horn and pulled it open, letting out a rush of altogether unwelcome scents; gun oil, sweat, and cooking meat.
“Remind me again, Swift...why are we doing all this?” I asked as my partner trotted up to my side, sniffing at the air.
“I don’t know, Sir. I’m pretty sure it’s just so ponies will say nice stuff about us after we die,” she replied, glibly. “Something in there smells wonderful. I think it might be...oooh...chicken!”
She darted forward into the lobby with Taxi and me in tow.
****
The lobby of the Moonwalk was what I think they call ‘sumptuous’, if your idea of luxury is lots of space and quiet. In fact, it was quiet in a way you usually only find in caves. The instant we crossed the doorway, my hoofsteps were muffled by a carpet you could have used for a mattress.
Sumptuous it might have been, but it also seemed to have acquired something of the character of an armed camp. Sitting in a pair of straight-backed chairs with a chess-set between them, two huge griffins were coming to the mid-point of an especially vicious bout. They were smoking something foul out of corncob pipes in defiance of a very clearly posted ‘no-smoking’ sign and making eyes at a comely mare wearing the armor of a P.A.C.T. trooper sitting at one of the nearby tables. She, in turn, was watching the two of them with a sort of cool menace, cleaning her already spotless fire-arm. Each griffin had one of those crazy halberd looking things that Sykes’ brother had with him close to their sides, within easy reach, and the trooper’s rifle looked like it could punch a hole in time.
A lone colt with too much product in his mane and a suit that fit him almost exactly wrong was peering over the Moonwalk’s customer service desk, watching all of them with a look of worry on his pasty, purple face.
The three warriors looked up as we came in, took in my friends and our armaments, and casually moved their claws and hooves closer to their own weaponry, but other than that they ignored us and went back to their various activities.
Swift was already inspecting a tray of griffin delicacies laid out on a short dinner service over by where the two war-makers were playing their game. They eyed her up and down as she loaded a plate with something I thought might be chopped liver and other bits of unidentifiable meat.
“Kid, come on...you can’t do this every time we go into a place that has a buffet,” I said.
She stuffed a roasted morsel into her muzzle. “Jusht caush joo can’t eat meat doeshn’t mean I should have to shtop. Beshides...you need shome breakfasht.”
“Give me a wall-socket and some bagels and I’m happy. I’m convinced you’ve got a black hole in your gut,” I replied, with a smirk, then picked up my own plate and began loading it with the few vegetarian options. “We need to go find Sykes and figure out what’s going on around here.”
I heard low voices and looked around to find Taxi chatting with the two griffins, casual as you please. They were giving her cannon lusty looks.
Cocking an ear, I tried to listen in as I chowed down on a thin-cut of iceberg lettuce topped with tapioca. It was disgusting, but it was food. Unfortunately, something about the shape of the space seemed designed to keep sound from carrying. Leaving Taxi to her interrogation and Swift to her meal, I headed for the service desk.
As I approached, the stallion behind the counter perked up. “Welcome to the Moonwalk! How can I help you? I’m afraid we’re currently booked for rooms, but I can recommend an excellent hotel just a block from here that-”
I held up my hoof and he trailed off.
“We’re here about the situation with the griffins. A friend of mine called me in, name of ‘Sykes’. You know him?” I asked, curtly.
A look of relief spilled over his high cheeked face. Something about him reminded me a little bit of a ferret, but I couldn’t figure out exactly what. “Oh bless the sun! You could not have gotten here at a better time! I would swear, our cleaning staff has been working for forty hours straight and the room-service crew is demanding hazard pay!”
“Yeah, the guy outside seemed like he’d just been told to eat a muzzle-full of that glass. What’s his deal?”
“Oh damn, did they break another one?” he groaned, then glanced towards the pair playing chess and lowered his voice. “Those griffins have been systematically disassembling this hotel! Our insurance policy is only good for forty thousand more bits this quarter and I dread to think what the mayor will say when he gets our bill.”
“Another one? You mean that wasn’t the first window?”
“Heavens, no. That would be four in the last two weeks. They’ve been here for almost two months and the local glass sellers are making an absolute fortune!”
“I take it nopony suggested bullet proof glass?”
“Bullet proof the entire building? I...I suppose if things keep up like this, we might have to! They fight, they destroy rooms, they eat things you would not believe-”
I stopped him and gestured over my shoulder. He glanced at my partner, who was happily tearing apart a chicken-wing and his jaw fell open.
“Trust me, I’m used to difficult housemates,” I said. “What is the P.A.C.T. doing here? I was under the impression this was some kind of diplomatic issue. ”
“A...duh…”
Reaching across the counter, I grabbed his chin and turned his eyes back to mine. “Focus. You want the griffins handled, you answer my questions. What is the deal with the P.A.C.T.?”
“I-I d-don’t know exactly,” he stammered, forcing himself not to look at Swift. “They’re here to keep track of the griffins and stop them from killing each other, for whatever that's worth. They’ve got a whole floor to themselves in all of the surrounding buildings, plus the bottom three here...but they haven’t been stopping anypony from coming or going. There’s also some worry about smuggling, but the top several floors are classed as an embassy, so they don’t have any jurisdiction.”
Smuggling? At an embassy? That stank of ‘regional security’. ‘Regional security’ is the excuse most frequently used to cover up law-breaking by those in power in Detrot. It’s been, for years, a bit of boldface on the long list of reasons being a cop in a town with a psuedo-militarized arm of law dedicated to policing mega-fauna is hard. Somepony in one of the city power structures needs you to stop sniffing around, they can happily just declare it a ‘regional security’ matter, drop a few names, and make everything go away. Granted, I wasn’t a cop anymore.
That the P.A.C.T. weren’t stopping anypony from entering or leaving struck me as pretty damn strange. If there was a genuine threat of violence, why not cordon off the block? It was the sort of situation that set my cutie-mark humming.
“Where is Sykes?” I asked, finally.
“If you mean the griffin police liaison, I believe he’s probably in the bar.” The clerk pointed towards a slightly wider hallway behind the counter. “I am afraid he’s been drunk for approximately three days. If only the rest of the griffins drank so quietly as that one.”
“Sykes? Drinking quietly? That’s… worrying. Alright, thanks for your time.”
As I stepped back, he reached out and caught my coat. “Sir, I noticed you are all heavily armed. I would not ask you to leave your weapons, as it would probably be similar to asking one of those griffins to abandon theirs, but I would ask you to at least consider the safety of the staff. Please, be careful...and polite.”
“Hey, polite is my middle name!” I laughed, but inside I was worried. How come it didn’t feel like I had enough guns?
Leaving the counter, I approached Taxi and her new griffin friends. They seemed to be having a grand-old time, laughing uproariously at some joke my driver told.
“Sweets? We good to go?”
“Hardy!” she chuckled, pounding one of the griffins on the back with one leg. “I was just conversing with my Hitlan friends here. You gents will have to excuse me.”
The bigger of the two who was wearing an eye-patch and had enough facial scars that it was hard to tell what his face might originally have looked like gave her a little stroke down the middle of the back. Instead of breaking his head, she giggled like a filly.
“Aye, lassy! Ye find yerself wantin’ fer company, ye come up around room six-oh-six! We have a right hooley!” he said, with a wink that managed to be a bit dirty.
“Oh, boys! I might just. My friend and I have some business first. Thanks for giving me the low-down, though. Come along, Hardy!”
Taxi took me gently by one leg and guided me towards the hallway. As we passed Swift, Taxi grabbed her tail in her teeth. My partner squeaked and dropped her plate back on the buffet.
“What’s the deal, Sweets?” I whispered once she’d hauled us into the hallway leading to the bar.
“The deal is bad, Hardy,” she hissed, hefting her cannon up on her shoulders. “Those were Hitlan. Same with that big fella we met out front. These griffins are itching for a fight, either with the P.A.C.T. or with each other.”
“That meshes with what the clerk told me. They’ve apparently been breaking windows-”
“That’s normal griffin behavior,” she replied. “It’s not that. Apparently, someone assaulted the Hitlan chieftan’s son and stole something. He didn’t see his attacker, but both tribes locked off their ends of the hotel and aren’t allowing any members of the other tribe to move back and forth. The P.A.C.T. is hovering over the whole mess, but nopony seems to know exactly why.”
“Yikes. I hope Sykes knows something. I don’t want to interrogate a bunch of unfriendly griffins.”
“Sir, speaking of him...where is he?” Swift asked. “Shouldn’t he have met us?”
“Telly should have let him know we were coming. He’s in the hotel bar,” I grunted, pulling my collar up and shifting my trigger bit a little closer to my leg.
****
Like everything else in The Moonwalk, the bar was a caricature of old Canterlot, with lots of wood paneling, tall ceilings, and gold furnishing. There were no less than three Equestrian bartenders behind the bar, all in sharp black vests, waiting for a crowd that hadn’t shown up and probably wouldn’t. That tension I’d felt since we first entered the hotel was still building along with a genuinely unpleasant burn in both flanks.
The bartenders paused as I trotted through the arch followed by my partner and driver, sizing each up for tip-sharing potential and deciding we weren’t worth the trouble. They went back to cleaning their glasses.
At the bar, I gave them one of my best four alarm smiles and tugged my coat back from my gun, showing off a heavily laden bit-purse dangling from it. Turning to peer at the seemingly empty bar, I leaned against the counter and jangled my coins.
The bar-pony nearest, a mare with razor-thin lips and too much mascara, scooted over quick as she could and set three glasses on the counter. “What can I get you, sir?”
“I will need drinks for my friends and some information. We’re looking for a griffin.”
“You can pretty well spit and you’ll hit a griffin at The Moonwalk, sir. I don’t recommend it, though. Was this a particular griffin you were looking for?” she asked, turning to the bar and snatching down a couple of bottles. She didn’t ask what we wanted, but instead poured a half-inch of scotch for me, rum for Taxi, and something fruity with a little umbrella in it for Swift. Rich tends to mean when you’re relaxing, you probably want somepony who can get you what you want before you know you want it.
“This particular griff goes by the name of Sykes. The clerk up front said he might be back here?”
“I don’t know these birds by name, I’m afraid,” she replied, laying our drinks in front of us. I rooted around in my bag and came up with a hoof-full of bits, probably five times what the booze cost, dropping them one at a time on the counter. Her smile widened. “Of course, if you were to provide me with a description of this griffin, it might jog my memory.”
“This one is the police liaison with the griffins. Charming fellow, accent you could cut with a knife. He’s probably drunk as a whole bunch of skunks.”
Her smile vanished. “Oh...him.” She pointed towards the back of the bar, where there was a set of upholstered booths. “Yeah, he’s over there. If he’s puked again, lemme know. He’s paying enough for that seat that I don’t mind mopping up.”
I couldn’t see anyone back there, but there were a few tables in the way. Taking our drinks, we edged around the tables towards where she’d indicated.
Sykes was only visible as one rear claw sticking out from under a booth. Most of him was on the seat, although his head was down by our ankles. He wore a rumpled, badly stained business suit that stank of unwashed poultry. Fifteen empty beer-bottles were heaped on the table beside him and he was snoring like a train engine.
I took a sip of my drink, contemplating my drunken friend. It was almost worth what I’d paid for it. Good scotch is a rare and wonderful thing.
“I vote we take him in the back and do that thing his people like so much. What do they call it? Rotisserie?” Taxi mused, swirling her straw around in her rum.
“Don’t tempt me, Sweets. Rehabilitating Sykes after a three day bender is not my idea of a good time. Lets see if we can get the staff to lend us a wheelbarrow and find out which room is his. Go through his pockets-”
“You go through his pockets! He stinks!” she snapped.
I reached forward, then hesitated and stepped back as the full smell hit me.
“Swift, go through his pockets and find his room key.”
My partner gave me a look like a kitten that’d been put in a blender, watching a toe hover over the ‘on’ button.
“Sir? Why do I have to do it?”
“I’m a detective. You’re a scrub. You dig through the smelly griffin’s pockets.”
“You can’t pull rank-”
“I know where you keep your braised pheasant hidden and Goofball doesn’t. Unless you want him to find out, you’ll do this for us.”
“Sir, I am so going to make you pay for this…”
“I’m sure.”
****
As it turned out, the hotel did have a wheelbarrow; one that was as spotless as the rest of the place, with a chromed wheel and cherry-wood handles.
The bartender helped us dump my friend into the dolly, emptied Sykes’ wallet, and tossed in a bucket for free. He was going to need the bucket as soon as he came to.
Wheeling him back down the hallway, we came back through the lobby and asked the desk clerk where the great lush was staying. He directed us to a room on the fourth floor. That floor was apparently operating as a sort of neutral zone between the two tribes of griffins as well as a place for the few unaligned individuals to stay.
Taxi led the party, with Swift at the back as we rolled down the hall. I was, of course, stuck hauling the body. My partner was still sulking over being made to root through a drunk’s pockets and my driver couldn’t be bothered.
We met nopony on the way and most of the floor was empty, although I could hear some kind of griffin dance music coming through what were supposed to be sound-proofed walls about twelve doors down.
Like everything else, Sykes’ room looked like it hadn’t been slept in. Nothing in The Moonwalk could be called cheap, but the city put my friend up in the closest thing that existed. It was still about two steps above my old apartment, but the telly didn’t work and the air conditioner was set permanently to ‘Crystal Empire’, so it was either sweltering if you left it off or snowing inside if you decided to run it.
I turned it on full bore and wheeled Sykes into the bathroom, dumping him face first into the shower like a reeking ragdoll. Turning on the water ice cold, I slammed the shower stall shut and waited.
Five minutes later, the screeching started.
****
Contrary to popular myth, cold water, coffee, and the hair of the dog won’t actually sober you up, nor save you from hang-over.
There is one cure I’m aware that operates alongside copious amounts of water and it’s one you only learn from your griffin friends. Therefore, I sent Swift on the only mission I could have for which she’d have been pleased to go just then; I told her to go find a carnivore shop and buy me some bacon.
Sykes taught me the supposedly magical properties of bacon some years back, but couldn’t convince me to try it. I’m no meat eater and felt no particular need to spend more time puking my guts up just to be rid of a hangover.
It did leave the question of who was going to cook it. Thankfully, my partner volunteered and soon the tiny room was full of the scent of searing meat. It was enough to turn your stomach.
****
Sykes sat up in his bed, an ice-pack across the back of his neck and his second bacon sandwich on a plate on his breast.
We’d managed to strip him out of the disgusting suit and left it bundled up in the hall for room-service. The shower did wonders for the stink, particularly after I tossed in the soap and told him he couldn’t come out until he smelled like a floral arrangement. That left the headache.
“Oi me, boyo. Could ye have woken a mate kinder?” Sykes whimpered, before tearing off another bite of his pork sandwich. Swift had her own that she was cheerfully devouring and I’d insisted she at least cook up some breakfast pastries for Taxi and me.
“Sorry, dear. Did you need me to get you some warm towels and possibly rub your talons, too?” I quipped, flicking a crumb at his beak.
“How’d ye know oi were down here?” he asked, scratching at his neck feathers as he nestled down in the bed’s thick covers.
“You called me. More accurately, you called Telly and told her to find me. That led, through a series of extremely roundabout circumstances, to me calling her and driving down to what feels an awful lot like a no-pony’s land between two armies to find your drunk kiester slumped at the bar. Are you telling me you don’t remember calling Telly?”
Sykes swept a claw over his body as though it somehow explained something. “Oi been’ tanked a fortnight! Moi brain feels loike Celestia took a shite in it! Oi can’t remember half what Oi done today, much less what ye says Oi done last eve!” Wincing at the sound of his own voice, he pushed his icepack a little more firmly against his neck.
My patience, never one of my great virtues, was at an all time low.
“My talent says something in this building is rotten,” I growled, poking him in the side. “I need to know what is going on here and you’re the police liaison. That means you damn well liase or I’ll have room-service deliver me a pair cymbals and see how they agree with your headache!”
He tried to give me puppy dog eyes, but while Swift can pull it off nicely, Sykes was too big, too old, and too hung-over.
“Aye, ‘ave mercy!” he moaned. “Oi ain’t been roight since Oi hear ye gone off t’foight that Cosmo bloke. Croiyd moi eyes out fer three days, after they say ye die! Then Oi hear ye back and me kin all in town and...then Miss Jade, she call me and say ‘Get ye tail to The Moonwalk’ and how Oi’m suddenly the closest this city has to a griffin ambassador!”
The words tumbled out in a rush and I even saw a few tears trickle down Sykes’ cheeks. He covered his beak with a claw and took a moment to compose himself.
My driver, with more compassion than I thought she had for the big bird, laid a hoof over his talon and gently pulled the sandwich away, then offered him a glass of water from the tap. He took it, gratefully, and gulped the entire contents in one swallow.
“Why don’t you take it slow, and tell us from the beginning. These two tribes have been in town almost two months now. What brought them here and why are they only having problems now?” she asked.
“Sister Shine, ye’ don’t even know, do ye? These be the highland troibes, come down from their plateaus. They be what guarded Detrot’s early days! They...be the greatest war-bands this world ever has seen. These be Hitlan... the Claw, and Tokan... the Blood.”
His eyes flashed with more life than I’d seen in months as he described the two tribes, but after a moment, his expression fell. “And...these great warriors, moi kin, are driven to leave their ‘omes by dragons.”
“Dragons?” Swift asked. “Don’t the treaties with the dragons protect the griffin homelands, too?”
Sykes snorted. “Pony treaties protect griffins? The tribe lords be havin’ none of it! They be proud!”
“And...yet, they’re here,” I murmured.
“Aye, boyo...and yet here they be, crawling on bent knees to the door of Celestia’s land for protection...”
We all sat, contemplating that for a few seconds.
“That doesn’t make any sense. I mean, if...if the griffins could fight off the dragons during the Crusades, why couldn’t they fight them in their own home?” Swift asked.
Sykes shut his eyes, tightly. “Because, little birdy, ye must un’erstand. In those days, we be strong. Our eggs be strong. But...the tribes suffered during the war. Suffered more than any other race. More griffins died than dragons and ponies together. There be few left...and the Egg is weak.”
“The Egg...that’s the royal blood-line, right?” Taxi asked.
His beak clicked in a griffin version of a chuckle. “Aye, that it be. Chief Jade calls Oi, sends me down here a week ago to this here hotel. Moi brudder - a foiner griffin there never will be - he be the son of the tribe. He be the Egg. The Chief figures, somehow Oi has his ear or summat loike that.”
“Your...brother is griffin royalty?” I scoffed. “What does that make you?”
“A crazy turkey’s brudder, boyo,” he laughed, although there was an edge to it. “Grimble Shanks be his name and more power to ‘im. Oi want nothin’ to do with politics. Moi home is here, not some stinkin’ plateaus.”
Dragging a padded chair from the table over to the bed, I lifted myself up into it and crossed my forelegs.
“Alright, so...fill me in. We’ve got two tribes of griffins who’ve been chased out-”
“They weren’t ‘chased out’, exactly,” Sykes interrupted, flicking the tips of his wings as though trying to shake dust off of them. “The war-makers - most of them - be back at they posts, in the plateaus, foightin’ the dragons. These what came be the old, the sick, the leader’s children, and the young. Grimble Shanks leads them, because he be the Egg. He brings the great treasures, that no dragon moight add them to a hoard.”
“I...I think I get it,” I replied. “Your parents sent your brother, the weak, and the treasury out here to be safe from the dragons. That makes sense. So, your brother is leading the Hitlan. What about the Tokan?”
Sykes let out a breathy sigh. “Moi aunt, Derida leads ‘em. Her daughter is their Egg, but she’s crazier than a manticore wi’ an arse full of pepper-spray. They be hopin’ fer another child.”
I felt a twinge of worry.
“This...crazy daughter wouldn’t happen to live in Detrot as well, would she?”
“Aye, that she does. Oi ‘aven’t seen her comin’ or goin’, but ye can bet she’s somewhere waitin’ to make a hash of things,” he replied.
Swift dropped her sandwich on the carpet Taxi’s eyes widened. “Hardy, you don’t think-”
I shook my head and asked, “Her name wouldn’t happen to be Edina, would it?”
Sykes gave me a perplexed look. “Now, ‘ow do ye know that?”
Sweeping crumbs off the bed, I got out of my chair and opened the mini-bar under the counter. It was stocked with everything a drunk on an expense account could wish for. I quickly shelled open one of the little bottles of scotch and tipped it back.
“We’ve run into her. She has a very persuasive way about her with those whips,” I remarked, wiping a drip of alcohol off my chin with the back of one foreleg.
Sykes shrugged, then cringed and pressed a claw against his head as his hangover re-asserted itself. “Oi wouldn’t know. Oi ain't seen the Tokan out of their end of this ‘otel in a week. Not since me brudder was attacked. He’s fine, loike ye see, but...he thinks they stole ‘is blood.”
“His blood?” Swift asked, incredulous.
“Aye. It’d be funny, if it ain’t so deadly serious. He goes to have a slash one night behind the hotel, somepony brains him with a blackjack when he’s got his kilt all up around his backside, and he comes to wi’ not a cent on him and needles in his arse.”
I settled back on my chair. “Sounds more like he got drunk, pissed in an alley, and somepony mugged him, then some kids came by and stuck loose Ace needles in his rump. It’s happened to enough visitors to this city. That doesn’t explain what’s been going on the last few days that’s got you laying in the bar up to your beak in booze and placing calls you can’t remember to old friends.”
Sykes put his claw on his forehead. “Ach...this be one of them bastard ‘cul-tur-al’ shites Oi can’t explain roightly, boyo. See, griffins don’ play at blood. Blood is how ye pay yer way. The Tokan make their magic of blood. Stealin’ me brudder’s blood is like stealin’ his strength. Worse, it’s stealin’ his soul.”
My throat clenched at the mention of soul stealing; related or not, it rang a particularly nasty bell and a cold sweat broke out on my forehead.
“So...the Tokan are blood mages?” Taxi asked, raising one eyebrow. “Isn’t that like, nine kinds of illegal?”
“They be the keepers of the Blood, and illegal for ponies means nothing much for griffins, love. Loike Oi say.”
“I’m afraid there’s something I’m missing,” I said. “You make it sound like they’re some kind of...bank or something.”
“Aye! That’s the word. Bankers of blood, they be. They keep record of who owe what blood debt to who...and now, they’re holed up with all them records.”
“Blood debts are titles to revenge, right? Are you telling me these guys trade in personal revenge?” Taxi asked.
“Vengeance be the griffin way. Ye want to foight a griffin, by griffin law, ye must have blood to trade, either to his family if ye kill him or to him if ye fail. Now, the Tokan won’t open the books, the tribes be down to what blood they have. Blood of the Egg is the most valuable...”
“And...someone just stole the Hitlan Egg’s blood. I’m starting to see the shape of things here. Lemme guess. The Hitlan think that someone is setting up for a coup of some kind and wants to make it legitimate by being able to present adequate payment for the death of the Hitlan leader, right?”
“Ye got it, boyo. It don’t matter how they got it, neither. If me brudder can’t protect his blood and his life, he’s not worthy of bein’ the Egg, see?”
I set my drink on the end table and made a noncommittal sound that was a bit like the noise one makes when they finally comprehend a complex problem. I didn’t understand, but better to sound like you do and ask a question that matters.
Griffin politics. Sweet mercy. Equine politics mystify me enough as it is, but the politics of a species that eats meat and considers bleeding someone dry as more than a metaphorical term for collecting payment were completely opaque. That said, his explanation made a sort of twisted sense.
“What happens if your father dies, but your brother lives? How would the succession work?” I asked.
“If father is dead, the blood of the Egg can be presented to dishonor the tribe before the council of clans and claim roights of succession. The tribe’s eggs and treasury are given to other clans and the members can join family in other tribes, or leave the plateaus. Since the Tokan keep the books of Blood, the only reason Oi can think of to close them would be helping someone position themselves to take the crown. They would not have it known from where the knoife comes. Maybe an ally. Maybe another tribe. Either way, there be killin’ comin’. Tokan stand no chance against Hitlan in a straight foight. They’d be butchered.”
“So, what did your drunken mind call me down here for?” I asked. “If shooting breaks out, I don’t think Swift, Taxi, or I are equipped to take on a griffin war-band. Well, Swift might be, but we haven’t had time to test that insane thing on her back. Either way, we’re not any more qualified to guard your brother than anyone else.”
Sykes sank down in the covers a little, resting his head on the bed’s headboard.
“Boyo...Oi don’t know what me drunk self was thinking, but Oi need an ‘inde-pen-dent’ party. Tokan and Hitlan sees me as a cop. Oi can’t talk ‘em down and Oi can’t find me brudder’s blood...but Oi gots an idea.” Reaching out, he laid his claw on my shoulder. “If ye know Edina...if ye can make’er listen and the two Eggs appoint ye as judge to the tribes, ye can go where ye will an’ be safe. Oi will vouch fer ye to me brudder. Find who would dissolve the tribe and kill me father. Oi can’t be sure, but...me brudder seems like he’s gearing up to do somet’in mad if nothing changes.”
****
“Hardy, I’m feeling an awful lot like we should leave right now. My talent is howling,” Taxi said, quietly retrieving a flask from her saddlebag and passing it to me as we sat in the hallway outside Sykes’ room.
“And mine is screaming ‘stay or something bad happens’,” I replied, taking a belt from the flask and passing it on to Swift.
My partner nipped at the bottle, then leaned back against the wall. “Sir, I...I don’t know what to think. Do you think we could convince Mistress Edina to appoint you as a judge of the tribes?”
“I think I could do it, sure. I’ve got an idea for how I might, actually. It’ll just be a matter of finding the little demon.”
Swift raised and dropped her wings in a little shrug. “Miss Stella will know where she is, but the only person I know of who can control her might be Mistress Zeta.”
“Crazy is crazy, kid,” I answered, getting to my hooves. “I know crazy and Edina is not any flavor of crazy that I haven’t seen before. The nature of crazy is that it is highly predictable. She’s crazier than most and that means we just have to know which buttons to press. We need to find a phone and see if Stella can get us a line on her.”
****
“My dearly beloved Detective...where have you been?”
I didn’t know how they’d gotten together a phone line into Stella’s underwater cavern, but I could hear water dripping in the background as I stood in the lobby of the Moonwalk. The clerk behind the desk had given me a disapproving look when I asked him to dial the Vivarium, but he’d passed me the phone anyway.
The two griffins who’d been there before were still at their game of chess, which only looked to have advanced a couple of turns in the last hour or two. The P.A.C.T. trooper had been replaced by a fresh faced stallion who was also in the process of wiping down a positively sterile gun.
I cocked the phone under my chin and leaned it against my shoulder, turning so my lips couldn’t be read if somepony happened to be trying.
“Stella, I’m down at the Moonwalk. I’ve got a doozy of a situation down here,” I said.
“A situation involving griffins, I assume? We’ve already effectively taken over a half dozen local food banks and homeless shelters since you delivered the Church of the Lunar Passage to us. My lawyers will handle the rest.”
“Delivered them to you?”
“On a platter, Detective,” Stella crooned. “Their remaining leadership - what little there is of it - seem to be in a panic, but they appear to be attempting to handle the situation quietly, largely by emptying the accounts of the Church and leaving town. Our eyes at the local air-chariot field have reported no less than six ranking members of the Lunar Passage leaving for parts unknown in the last seven hours. We’ve had our investment broker purchase a controlling interest in the company that owns a majority of the local properties the Church holds. Should they, for any reason, fail to make payments we can take direct ownership and evict them. Or, alternatively, take over. Had I known employing a detective would prove so lucrative, I might have done it years ago.”
“I’m glad I could provide,” I said, dryly. “Still, I need help and this favor involves what you can provide for me.”
Stella hummed a little tune to himself, thinking. “Those highland griffins are very strange creatures. What I know of their culture leads me to imagine you are in over your head. How, then, did you find yourself at The Moonwalk?”
“A friend of mine who is a bit of an idiot has relatives in these two tribes. Sadly, he’s also the police liaison with them and neither one will talk to him. I suppose you’re aware you employ one of those highland griffins, yes?”
Stella hesitated for several seconds, then answered, “If...you’re referring to Edina, then yes, I was aware she was of the highland tribes. I’m also aware that, during your association with her, you cannot have failed to notice that she is somewhat unstable.”
“I did pick up on that. Did you know the little psycho is royalty?”
At that, there was a splash and an undignified squeak on the other end of the line. Scarlet, somewhere in the background, whimpered something that sounded like, ‘Please, watch your tail, Mistress!’
“Royalty, Detective? Do explain,” Stella said. It wasn’t quite a request.
“She’s the Tokan Egg. So far as I can tell, that means she’s next in the line of succession and they apparently put a fair bit of stock in that up here.”
“So...what am I to do with that information? Edina lives in Detrot for her own reasons and my employees are independent contractors. They rent space from me, but I can only order them so far and the insane ones not at all. For all I am aware, she and her family do not speak.”
“Yeah, but she’s got something I can use, regardless. Apparently if I can get the heirs to the heads of the two tribes to appoint me as some kind of judge, both groups have to let me investigate this situation. My friend thinks he can talk his brother into it. That leaves-”
“-Edina. I see. I take it you have a plan for convincing her?” Stella asked, sounding skeptical.
“Something like a plan, yes. Half a plan, maybe. Possibly thirty percent. Can you put Scarlet on the phone? I’m going to need his expertise.”
“I must ask...am I later going to dislike what I hear you doing with my employee, Detective?”
“Almost certainly. Put Scarlet on.”
There was some shuffling and the sound of moving water, before an effeminate stallion’s voice came down the line.
“Detective? What can I do for you?”
“I need you to go find Edina, if you can, but first I need to know if you’ve got access to her private medical records.”
Scarlet tapped a hoof against the phone. “Whatever for? I mean, I do have her medical records; it’s a condition of her employment here. Why?”
“Edina’s too crazy to have absolutely no mental health history. I’m betting somepony, somewhere along the line tried to treat the little train wreck. I need to know what they tried and if it worked.”
“I...huh...let me go check.”
I stood and clicked my tongue for a good ten minutes, feeding the phone bits like a needy marefriend. My night was already ruined so listening to Stella cleaning his scales and singing couldn’t make it terribly much worse. At least he had a decent singing voice, even if his song of choice was a mouldy oldy.
Finally, Scarlet returned.
“Detective? I’ve got Mistress Edina’s medical information.”
“Alright, let’s hear it.”
“She’s...goodness...you weren’t kidding about ‘treatment’. She’s been treated by a dozen griffin and pony psychiatrists and psychologists for everything from schizophrenia to severe depression and everything in between.”
“Yeeeah? I figured something like that.”
“It looks...well, I don’t know if this will help, but there is one treatment which apparently had some positive effect...”
“I’m not gonna like this, am I?”
“I don’t think so, no.”
I rubbed at the spot between my eyes. “Lets get it over with. What does she need?”
“It was extremely experimental and Edina was one of only a very few subjects in this study, but...apparently a simply gigantic dose of Beam would improve her condition, if somewhat temporarily. Beam is not addictive, but the amounts she needed to take to maintain the benefits were apparently impractical.”
“How much Beam are we talking here?” I asked.
“Over...nine hundred CC’s a day, administered orally.”
“...Skies above! That’s enough to kill a minotaur! Twenty minotaurs!”
Scarlet turned a couple of pages. “Most of the actual study isn’t in here, but according to this, the griffins have an especially robust pancreas, kidneys, and liver. Some function of their feline heritage. It would take almost twenty times that dose to be dangerous.”
“That does explain how I never beat Sykes in a drinking contest. Doesn’t explain how Taxi did, mind you. Does it say what that dose of Beam did to Edina?”
“Mmm...nope. Afraid not, Detective. Just ‘significant improvement’.”
“Yeesh. So, you’re recommending I capture a sadistic, schizophrenic dominatrix and dose her with more illegal psychedelics than I’ve ever seen a single creature swallow without exploding. Is that about the shape of things?”
“I...well, capture might be a strong word, but yes. Mistress Edina is presently in a session. I can have Mistress Zeta do the ‘acquisition’ part, if you’re willing to come get Edina and transport her. That is, assuming Mistress Stella approves of this.”
“Good. I’ll be there within two hours. I’ve got a stop.”
****
We left Sykes to sober up in his room and went to collect our supply of Beam.
Swift was extremely pleased to hear where we were going, if only because it meant she could see a friend again.
The drive to Supermax gave me time to reflect on the situation as a whole.
Some element of this was wrong, but I couldn’t figure exactly what. Sure, the Tokan might be doing some sort of ridiculous power play, but the timing struck me as extremely unfortuitous. There were too many consequences if it failed, too. I wouldn’t have wanted to get in a tussle with the Hitlan, weird blood powers or not.
I’d only run into a couple of instances of somepony using blood magic and while it is magnificent for wreaking havoc on groups whose blood you’d acquired, the police response that worked most consistently was gunfire. It tends to disrupt a caster’s attention when they’re digging lead out of their organs.
That did leave one big uncertainty in this mess. Edina’s help was going to be essential, but I couldn’t say how inclined she was likely to be after being trussed up and drugged. I hoped, if nothing else, that I could appeal to her desire not to see her family slaughtered.
When we crossed into the badlands around Supermax, I rolled down the window and let the spray off the slightly damp road cool my face. Swift was out there somewhere, flying along behind us and enjoying the chance to stretch her wings while we took a leisurely drive to one of the few places I could say we might be genuinely safe.
Night crawled across the landscape, bringing with it another round of refreshing rain.
****
Supermax, from the outside, looked like a gigantic box somepony had dropped in the middle of the perfectly flat fields surrounding it. It was only close up that one could see the fences surrounding it. They came in two layers and were almost entirely superfluous to keeping anypony in. To my knowledge, no-one had ever made the lobby during an escape attempt.
It gave the outward impression of being entirely abandoned. Dust-devils danced in the empty parking lot, but some unnerving sixth sense whispered that we were definitely being watched.
Taxi pulled us into the parking lot just as Swift swung down out of the sky and landed in front of the prison, sending up a spray of loose sand. But for a couple of drips of oil in some of the parking spaces and a cigarette butt that could only have been a couple of days old, there was no sign that anypony had been to Supermax in months.
As I slid out of the back seat and looked up at the imposing edifice, a tiny door set to one side of the two much larger portals that led into the prison proper opened and a stallion wreathed in shadow stepped out with a flashlight in his teeth. I couldn’t make out many details as he shone the torch over us, but after a moment he poked his head back through the door and nodded to somepony.
The double doors, each five times the height of a pony and made of reinforced steel thicker than I was tall, began to swing inward on silent hinges. A rush of air blew out and swept over us. I flipped the brim of my hat down and waited. Behind the door, an enormous room that looked something like an air-lock was lined on either side with a half dozen white suits and associated gas masks hanging on pegs driven into the stark, concrete walls.
A familiar mare was waiting for us with a familiar sour expression.
“Detective! First you trap me here alone, with those stupid cultists trying to bribe me every which way, then you flood the place with these demented Cyclone gangers!” Geranium complained, trotting forward and poking her nose into my face. “Are you just trying to make me insane? Is that the goal here?”
“Ambulance chasers. So ungrateful,” I chuckled, trotting around the lawyer into the air lock. “You sound like you’ve had a fun couple of days. What’s the scoop?”
“The scoop?” she snapped, turning around and showing me her tail. “I don’t work for you!”
“You might as well. It’s this or prison,” I replied, tugging one of the suits off a peg.
“Oh, very funny,” she grumbled, snatching down one of the suits. “Whatever. It’s not like it matters. I spent the first day drunk. Then the second day, all these psychos bust in upstairs wearing haz-mat suits. Since then, Tourniquet has been giving orders to the crazies and I’ve been trying to find more alcohol.”
“Sounds like you’ve had fun, then. How is Tourniquet doing?”
“Yeah, how is she?” Swift piped up. “I haven’t gotten to talk her yet, today. We’ve been so busy and there’s been so much awful stuff happening...”
“Ehhh...what can I say? She’s happy as a clam,” Geranium replied, tugging one of the gas masks over her face. “She’s holding twenty conversations at once. These Cyclones tooled up just before dawn two days ago and drove off with every single car in the parking lot, then came back and got into their suits. Tourniquet cracked the door and in they come, free as you please. I had to convince them not to shoot me on sight and there was a bit of a kerfluffle when Tourniquet started talking to them, but they put in a call to something they keep calling ‘De Ancestors’ and it was alright after that. Then...I don’t know. I’ve mostly just been sitting back and watching. Not much else to do. It’s not like there’s a television signal out here.”
“You could help, you know,” my partner grumbled.
“I’m not pissing in the hallways or attempting to free other prisoners,” the lawyer griped. “Until I can get a cappuccino and my record collection without worrying about somepony trying to kill me because you screwed them over, that's the best you can hope for. I don’t work well with a gun to my head.”
I snorted and adjusted the strap on the back of the gas mask. “I’ll settle for that. It’s your boredom, after all. Now, lets go get some Beam from our lovely neighborhood Temple of Ultimate Evil.”