Figleaf Leatherworks Ch. 07

Chapter 7

It was weird to miss your 'own' bed. It was probably stranger, when Glys thought about it, that by missing her bed she'd been reminded that the riches she'd helped generate belonged to someone else. She had been given a large bed with springs because it was her Mistress's desire that she had it. Not because it was comfortable, or because it's what she would've chosen given the opportunity.

Certainly not because it was fun to jump on.

There was peace and quiet in the estate; good food, plush chairs and beds with god damned springs in them.

In the Hung Buzzard there were no spring beds, the food and drink were stale, and people coming and going at all hours played across her senses. Even when she was letting her body rest, she could pick out their souls moving around the building. One emotion or a million at once. All breathing. Drunk with exhaustion, ale or lust.

Never ceasing.

But she was adapting, she promised herself.

She'd taken time to make this little room hers and it could remain so contingent on her ability to pay the rent. But how much of that was true? She hadn't made the stains in the woodwork or the bedding, she'd only cleaned them up.

The weapons she'd mounted on the walls were hers, the dioramas too, but how much else could she claim? What part of this place said 'I am here'?

Glysless ruffled against her body and dug her talons into her shoulders so her wings hung like a mantle. She stared into the mirror until she got her Glamour right. Maybe if the Mistress had a heart attack she'd take over the estate and claim her room as hers once more- take back what she'd helped earn. Some time far off in the future, she could look back and answer that existential question of her place in life with 'I was here'.

For now, though, there was a brothel keeper to meet.

Originally she had been going to go with the duelist persona- she'd even laid out the tight fitting trousers and half-skirt thing with the poufy sleeves. She'd spent a couple hours working out the ins and outs of why someone of her 'caliber' was slumming it at one of the Kosori family's brothels. There were twists and turns, and it was all very exciting.

Right up to the point where Glysless realized she'd need that persona for another phase of her plans, and if the duelist was caught hanging around the place she'd be implicated in the inevitable chaos around Kosori's holdings. Which meant she'd never be able to use the persona, and 'her' years of freelance dueling would be at an end. Starting over would take months, and the payments offered to people without a stamped Black Book were pitiful.

No, freelance dueling brought in too much money to just throw away.

So the alternative was the simple farm girl looking for work in the city, on her last few coins she comes to the brothel as a conquest in the making. The proverbial vestal virgin, a flower ripe for plucking! Until the secrets started coming out and Sibsor realized this girl knew a hell of a lot more about his workings than even he did.

Glys forced a smile to her reflection. This was destined to be exciting in its own way.

*

She'd been wrong before.

Not often, and usually not to this degree. No, it took the Fates themselves getting involved and having a good laugh at her silly little ambitions for things to go this lopsided. It was like they'd decided that on this day, in this place, Glysless was going to be fucked with.

The warning flags had started popping up when Glys rounded the corner and didn't immediately notice the laughter of children playing around the Satin Peach's building. The place, while simple, had a broad porch that could've been its own deck in many other places. This usually meant kids would be jumping- or throwing each other- off of it. The open windows were usually filled with women smoking or calling to passers by, or maybe the baying of infants.

It wasn't just quiet, though. The shops on either side were still closed, though when she passed there were shadows of movement inside. A quick glance with her full senses showed people scurrying about. Chasing something?

Weird.

There were no souls in the brothel- not a single one. Her reach only went so far, but usually it was enough to pick up traces- there was just nothing but the faintest echo of something having gone horrifically wrong. Like a whisper of a scream floating on the wind. Kosori had many enemies in crime circles, but this didn't look like a faction battle. It was too clean.

The Fates truly were having a laugh.

Glys walked a circuit around the building to make sure no one was around. The story was pretty much the same front and back. Someone or something had gotten in there and driven everyone away, leaving this vague sense of panic in its wake. Whatever had happened, she was late to the party.

Now normally, the plan would be to pick the lock on the front door and just wander in. But if this was as bad as it looked, who knew what kind of tricks and traps were left behind- if one of Kosori's enemies had gotten really serious in the last few days, and started knocking over their establishments, then it was very possible they were leaving things behind for investigators.

Damned if she was going to get caught by those kinds of shenanigans, Glys went looking for and found a window that was open. She had a quick glance around to make sure there were no witnesses and pushed her will into her calves, building up muscle mass and tendon strength all the way up her legs until she was confident in their power.

A thought struck her- less a thought, more a sense of dread. Something deep within her staring back across the gulf, demanding an explanation. A reason. Justification. Why did she think she should be doing this? What right did she have to break her Glamour? She needed to hide, to fit in and not cause trouble.

Glysless stood there for a moment- where was it? Why was it? That lance of something coming. Something waiting for her. A passenger in her body, or was it in her? This was stupid- she was a demon. The world feared her, not the other way around. She shook her head, clapped her ears. Pop and she was back to normal.

Surely.

She haunched slightly, collapsed her wings against her back.

And shoved off.

The deck groaned, pain shot up her ass as a muscle tore in her lower back. It screamed out rejection of the abuse.

In front of her the building sailed by at a blur and before she even really noticed she was clutching the window sill. Her boot slipped on the wall.

Her weight shifted back.

She was going to fall-- that damned sense almost seemed to want it to happen. To give in. To stay 'pure' and 'right' among the mortals. Gylsless would break her purity if she let her Glamour break. But if she fell and was caught? What then?

Glys snarled against the feeling, she pushed. She scrabbled and clawed at the crumbling plaster. Her fingers started to lose grip- no. No fucking way. She was a demon. She snarled again and with some effort she swept her wings forward, drove them into the frame and used the tips of her talons to pull herself in to someone's room.

Startled by the appearance of a literal demon, a gaggle of rats stared up at her in what she liked to imagine was awe. Their beady eyes focused- gawked almost- as a collective the whole troupe of them scrambled out the door, climbing over each other in a flurry of panic. Their panic added to the atmosphere in a tiny way. Not enough to explain it.

The blood stain in the hall, however. That probably explained a lot.

Glysless eased in low, squinting to find detail in the room that might've explained where its occupants had gone. The shelves were empty, the dresser, too. Everything was emptied in a hurry, but it was emptied and not ransacked. Emptied by people who'd had time to do so.

Out in the hall, there were a lot of dead men who'd died close together. They were armed and had been killed in the usual ways. It had to have smelled horrible.

A long, low groan echoed from Glysless's throat as she took it all in. A brave mouse bolted from under one of the bodies with a bloodied snout, scampering off into the room at the end of the hall in search of shelter. Unfortunate for it, that was Glys's next stop.

She came into scene that cinched all doubts as to who'd perpetrated this act. It was almost poetic in its creativity, and while she'd never admit to them, Glys had to respect Vellmullod's choice. She'd never have thought to use a two handed sword to pin someone in their chair. It'd gone straight through into the floor boards so the whole thing arched the Sibsor back as if he was tied to a rock.

Maybe Vellmullod was still working through what Glys had done to them.

Good for them.

Bad for her purposes, though; the last fucking thing she needed was the Kosori family getting this message and immediately tying it to the attempted assassination of her Mistress. Glys sighed and wandered up to the desk. The safe behind it was sitting wide open with a fat sack of coin that just so happened to disappear into Glys's top. "You don't mind, do you?" She asked Sibsor's corpse.

"Not at all, help yourself!" Glys said out of the side of her mouth as she reached for the sword's pommel. She tapped it. It didn't immediately burn.

"Thanks. I guess that makes good for all the abuse you did here, huh?"

Tap, tap. "Nope, I was a true piece of shit! I totally deserve this, and we're all surprised it hasn't happened sooner!"

Glys tapped the blade. Not silver. Relieved, she braced a foot on Sibsor's and yanked.

It didn't give.

"Stupid Hound..."

She crawled up on the desk, one boot on his chair and the other on the desk. Firmly situated, she pulled until the floor gave up her grim prize. Once she had it in hand, Glys went about tossing the room to make it look like a robbery. She spent some more time arranging the bodies to hide the true extent of what'd gone on- there wasn't much she could do about the prostitutes' belongings having gone missing, but it was probably a safe assumption that Kosori's people would look to other families before even considering the Mistress or her servants.

All her planning was going up in smoke, and it hadn't even been two days!

Two could play this game, though....Glysless cleaned the blade and wrapped it in some sheets to sell later- because how else did you get rid of a murder weapon if not sell it to a rival crime family's smiths?

On her way downstairs she stopped by Claicey's room. Like the others it'd been recently vacated, but it was the only room that had Vellmullod's personal sigil burned into the plaster. It hadn't been painted over or smudged, meaning the woman still worked here as recently as a few hours ago. For want of a better lead, it was something. It beat the hell out of trying to send a letter to the Mistress's estate in hopes it both got to them and they could even read it.

So that settled it, next on the agenda was a visit to Vellmullod's wife.