Dead Waters - Anton Strout [94]
Connor chimed in, “I’m sure it’s not easy trying to fence miniature sea creatures.”
“No, I don’t suppose it is,” the Inspectre said, shaking his head. He stroked his mustache, and then stopped, pulling away with something pinched between his fingers. “There are scales in my mustache.”
Something caught Connor’s attention back in the center of the room, and he turned.
The student was attempting to lift himself up onto the desks and pull himself along the tops of them while trying to kick his legs free from all the rope. Connor reached the open circle and grabbed one of the dangling ends. “Not so fast,” he said. He pulled the student back toward him like he had just roped a steer at a rodeo. “Going somewhere?”
“N-no,” the student said, looking a little crazed. “I was just trying to get free of all this.”
“Uh-huh,” Connor said, not letting go of the rope.
“I was,” the student said, still sounding uncertain. “What? You think I was trying to escape with the rest of those guys?”
“Trying, yes,” Connor said. “Succeeding, no.”
The sounds of several Harpy cries came from out in the darkness along with the sounds of a few chairs falling off the tops of desks.
I lifted up my bat and readied it. The Inspectre unsheathed his sword from the cane and looked around.
The student looked at me with recognition. “You again,” the student said. “The guy from the bar who followed us to our studio the other day.”
“That’s me,” I said, looking around the room for more enemies.
“Relax,” the student said. “I don’t think you have to worry. Those things won’t last long. They lose their juice faster than a laptop battery. That’s part of the problem.”
“What problem?” I asked.
The student stopped fussing with the ropes and went silent. He must have forgotten who he was talking to and clammed up when he remembered. He shut his mouth and shook his head.
“What problem?” Connor repeated.
“I don’t think I should say anything more,” he said.
Connor stepped closer to him. “Oh, I think it’s in your best interest if you do,” he said.
“They were going to kill me,” he said, still in shock.
“I might kill you, too,” Connor said. “Making me destroy all of this classic memorabilia.”
“What?” the student said, snapping out of it. He looked over at the Inspectre. “You look old enough to be in charge here. This one isn’t really going to kill me, is he?”
“Don’t look at me, young man,” the Inspectre said. “At least not for sympathy. Your friends were the ones who unleashed those things on us, after all.”
“They aren’t my friends,” the student said. “They had me tied up.”
The doubtful look on the Inspectre’s face got a little doubtier.
“Okay, fine,” the student said, looking away. “They were my friends, but not after today.”
Connor walked back over to him. “You want to tell us what they were about to do with you, then?”
“Want to tell you?” he said with a nervous laugh. “No. You’ve seen what Elyse, Darryl, and Heavy Mike can do. I think I have more to fear in retribution from them than I do from you.”
“We still beat them,” I said.
“They still got away,” the student countered.
I really couldn’t argue with that, but I didn’t have to. Connor already had him by the front of his bloodied shirt.
“Make no mistake,” he said. “Your friends ran like cowards. Trust me when I say you have more to fear from us.”
The kid finally looked scared, but he also looked a little pale in general.
“Maybe we should get him to a hospital,” I said. “He is bleeding, after all.”
Connor looked down at the gash on the boy’s side where Elyse had cut him. He reached into his inside coat pocket, pulling out a Departmental favorite when it came to combat in the field, a tiny wound-up piece of cloth that looked like a human digit and bore a sectional crook in two places along it.
“What the hell is that?” the student asked.
“Mummy Fingers,” I said.
Connor nodded. He placed it against the student’s wound, and at contact, it unfurled itself, running its bandage back and forth over the spot until it staunched the flow of blood. The student