Cheyenne tried not to listen, although she couldn’t help it that her hearing picked up almost everything anyway. Maybe this is just an apartment building for magicals.
She made it down to apartment 14 on the right and stopped to take in the old worn metal door with seriously weird designs scratched into the surface with a nail or a rock or something. Up top was a crude eye with rays shooting out of the bottom. Below that was either a snake or a river—it was impossible to tell—and images that looked like a tree, a slightly offset moon traced over itself five or six times , and a 3D cylinder at the bottom beside a tall, thin rectangle ending in a point. The first thing it made Cheyenne think of was the huge black tower in the center of Rez 38—the one structure that had stayed where it was across all four Quarters.
Taking a deep breath, the halfling lifted her fist to knock on the door. The handle turned and the thick sheet of metal jerked open before her knuckles made contact, and she found herself staring at the center of someone’s chest. Slowly, she lifted her head to meet the orange-brown gaze of the Raug standing before her, one clawed hand gripping the edge of the door.
“Go ahead, then,” the Raug grumbled. “What do you want?”
If he already knew I was coming, why would he even have to ask? Cheyenne cleared her throat. “I’m looking for Gúrdu.”
“Huh. Course you are.” The Raug’s thin lips drew back from his sharpened teeth, his nose scrunching like a snarling dog’s muzzle.
“Is that you?”
He looked her up and down again, having to dip his chin all the way to his chest to get the whole view. The guy had to be at least seven feet tall. “Depends on who’s asking.”
“Well,” Cheyenne cocked her head, “I just did.”
The Raug sucked on his pointed teeth, then ducked his head below the frame of the door to glance quickly up and down the hallway. “And you’re here because…what? You wanna know your future? Trying to put a hex on some jerkoff who stole the rest of your clothes?”
“What?”
“What do you want?” He barked the last question, the words echoing down the hall before disappearing altogether.
“A friend sent me your way. Mattie Berg—”
“I don’t know anyone with a stupid fell-damn name like that.” The Raug started to shut the door, and Cheyenne couldn’t hold onto her patience any longer.
Her palm cracked against the thick metal door as the heat flared at the base of her spine and washed over her. If she hadn’t had her drow strength to fall back on, the door would have slammed shut in her face, but it didn’t.
The Raug’s eyebrows flicked up as he took in the transformation from pale-skinned Goth human to the purple-gray flesh and bone-white hair of a drow. Then he grunted. “She didn’t tell me what you were.”
It sounded almost like a question, but Cheyenne didn’t feel like giving him extra information just for fun. “What you see is what you get. Can you help me or not?”
“Sure, I can. Question is, will I? Do you deserve it? Who knows, right?” The Raug’s clawed hand dropped from the edge of the door, and he turned slowly away. The walls seemed to creak around him when he stepped back into his apartment, stooping below the exposed beams. A crooked hand waved for her to follow. “Hurry up and ask your questions, then. I’m busy.”
Cheyenne stared into the semi-darkness in front of her, then quickly slipped inside after him. The door shut with a loud, metallic bang behind her. At least I’m in. Pretty sure we both wanna make this quick.
Dozens of long, beaded strands hung across the entryway in front of her, clacking together after the Raug passed through them. The halfling lifted them aside so she could follow and found herself in what looked like an old smoking lounge. Round pillows were tossed all over the place, set around low tables with small, flickering lanterns. Two of the tables had tall glass pipes in the center, each with a long hose sticking out of the middle. Hot coals burned at the top of one of these, and the halfling smelled tobacco and something else that made her nostrils flare. Sweet. Sour. Not even remotely worth trying to find out more.
The Raug stopped at the far end of the room at a raised platform against the wall. It wasn’t so much a chair as it was some kind of giant throne, stacked with pillows. Silk drapes were tacked to the ceiling and floated down on either side of the largest pile of cushions. Her host stepped onto the platform, spun gracefully around, and tucked the loose end of some kind of long tunic beneath him as he sat. With one clawed hand, he gestured toward the cushions on the floor in front of him. The other hand twirled in a complicated pattern of gestures, and a tarnished silver tray lifted from the floor beside the platform before settling beside the Raug’s knee.
Cheyenne eyed the cushions in front of her, some of which were stained. One had a series of round burns dotted across the surface, tufts of stuffing poking through. The lanterns flared to life with a burst of intense flame before settling back down, and she thought she saw a cockroach scuttling across what little of the floor was visible beneath all the pillows. Maybe it was just the shadows.
“I wasn’t just being polite when I said I was busy,” the Raug grumbled, dipping his hand into a wooden bowl of water on the tray beside him.
I like this guy. We have the same definition of being polite. “Are you Gúrdu?”
“What the hell does it look like, drow?” The magical traced a dripping claw down his face from forehead to chin and sucked in a long breath.
He doesn’t know I’m a halfling.
“Okay, then. I’m Chey—”
“I don’t need your
