Dick Dalton, Private Eye -- A Journal

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Dick Dalton, Private Eye -- A Journal

Post by UD Confidential » Mon Jul 09, 2018 6:29 pm

A heavy air hung in the bar. The kind of idle stink, a restlessness that could curl a man's hair and send his whole body into a nervous itch. On nights like these every bottle ended in a fight. Quiet little wives felt the edges of a knife and studied their husbands' neck. A slave feels the weight of his collar and allows himself to wonder. On nights like these, anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge.

But tonight, I wasn't giving it any mind.

I was tired, and the dancer gave me a look I could feel in my hip pocket. I wanted to see it again, close, without those silly bars between us. But tonight, I'd have to settle for my own company. Already, the shark's money was burning a hole in my coat. Wouldn't be long now before I was waist deep in debt-- and in the Lowerdark, if a man can't swim, he'll drown.

I needed work.

She gave me that look again. Maybe tonight could wait. After all, in the City of Shadows, no one sleeps.

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Re: Dick Dalton, Private Eye -- A Journal

Post by UD Confidential » Tue Jul 10, 2018 5:46 am

He had "guilty" written all over his face. Didn't take a snoop to see that. But then-- he had something else too. Something that the red devil overlooked.

There was danger in his eyes.


I was halfway through a cut of questionable red meat from a nearby street vendor when I saw 'em. The devil cut a small frame, but carried a commanding voice all the same. Magical fire boiled out and around him, drawing a circle that I could tell was daring the other man to cross. At the red devil's side he owned a collared girl. She was pretty, and had a pair of legs I didn't mind watching closer. Maybe in another life, she could have been an angel with broad white wings. A deva sent down from heaven. But in this one, she fell too far. She fell past the gardens and into our deep, black tomb. If she had her own fiery circle, it was all but ashes now.

Shame.

The accused man stood across from the devil, with a blonde man in his own corner.

"You'd attack an unarmed man?" The accused asked, searching in the devil for something. Mercy maybe.
"Do not try my patience. If you did it, you owe a debt-- and if you lie otherwise, I'll know and your death will be painful and slow." Red words from a Red Devil.

Somehow, the accused man found enough of a pause to slip away in a poor performance of self-righteous anger, but no one-- not even the man in his corner-- really believed he hadn't done it.

The other human began to suggest the Strifeleader's attention to the matters at hand, and that seemed to make everyone forget their fire. I couldn't tell if they hoped he would take notice, or wouldn't. My guess was the latter.
"He did hear of the first incident."
"I consider that matter closed." The devil spoke. The two went on for a while after, but it wasn't long before the pale-haired man left the devil too.

The irony of it cuts a couple ways. When the accused man returned by leaping from shadow and plunging a blade through the devil's gut, he delivered his own truth by the cold touch of sharp steel. As far as I could tell, the Devil might have earned his arrogance-- but all the same, the smoke of his own fire pulled an ash-gray blanket over his eyes. Maybe he should have attacked an unarmed man, rather than die one himself.

The dame gave chase, and I did too. I don't know why-- I knew how it would end. The blade left through the door, and so did she. I could hear the magic, so my feet knew better than my eyes and stopped. It wasn't long before the accused man came back through. The girl didn't.

I asked if he killed her. It was a stupid question, and I didn't bother to wait for an answer, so I left.

Sorry, angel. Down here, sometimes its dog-eat-dog. The rest of the time, it's the other way around.

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