The walk to Sheppard’s was short enough in the scheme of things, and by the time she stopped in front of the entrance, the halfling was starting to feel a lot like she was missing something. Not that she’d picked the wrong place from that stupid clue. More like she’d picked the right place and couldn’t see why the hell gu@rdi@n104 had chosen it.
She stopped, ignoring the chick with the almost creepily pale skin staring at her in the restaurant window’s reflection, and her gaze settled on a flyer taped up on the window.
Flamin’ X Wings. You’ll wish you never tasted hot like this before, and then you’ll keep coming back. Just don’t forget to wear gloves and wash your face when you’re done.
“Huh.” The halfling glanced down at the map file on her phone and the blown-up text of the most useless directions ever. Except they weren’t. Not really.
This has to be the right place. So what the heck am I looking for?
Cheyenne moved slowly down the sidewalk, peering through the windows into the restaurant and wondering whether she’d see anything more than menus, fresh food on plates, and customers ready and willing to burn off their taste buds. She got to the end of the restaurant windows, wrinkled her nose, and stopped when her shoe scuffed against something in the middle of the sidewalk.
It was just a broken piece of concrete, smashed in by who only knew what. But just on the other side of the upturned chunk was a dotted black line shooting diagonally away from Sheppard’s Hothouse and into the alley on the other side. That’s too easy.
She zoomed out on the map on her phone and found the area where she thought she was right now, which was harder to do without any street names. There was one of those dotted black lines that cut off right about where she was standing before picking up maybe three or four blocks farther east.
Maybe it was a total long shot. But with heavy metal blasting in her ears and the cool, crisp air blowing through her hair, why not step into an alley beside a hot wings joint and poke around for some other weird-ass clue?
Cheyenne moved slowly to the end of the sidewalk, watching the dotted black line that was scratched and scuffed with so many footsteps. These have been here a while. How old is this crazy map?
Turning into the alley, she scanned the middle-height walls on either side, noted the dumpster halfway back, and checked out the fire escape. The dotted black line ended at the wall on her right without picking back up again. The halfling followed it anyway, thinking maybe she’d find something at the place where the dotted black line and the wall met. But when she got there, that was all it was—just a wall in an alley.
I’m an idiot for thinking a map from a dark-web forum admin would actually—
She stopped and cocked her head. Then she slowly took the earbuds out of her ears and tried to figure out if this was real. System of a Down was replaced by the pedestrians’ voices, the rush of cars making their way down the street, and birds cawing annoyingly, but the tug between her shoulders was still there, like someone had pulled a string of Cheyenne’s senses right out of her back between her shoulder blades and was trying to jerk her toward something else. Definitely a new feeling.
Slowly, she turned around and faced the other wall of the alley. The little tug spun with her and moved through her chest now, leading right to that other wall and…what? Cheyenne crossed the alley, frowning at the bricks, and the pull by an invisible hand got stronger with each step she took. Then she was standing right in front of the wall with only a few inches of space between the toes of her black Vans and the bricks.
“What kinda weirdness is this?” She studied the wall. There was something there. She could feel it.
“Mommy? What’s that scary lady doing?”
Cheyenne turned to see a three-year-old on the sidewalk outside the alley, one hand in her mother’s and the other pointing at the Goth chick staring at bricks. The mother gave Cheyenne an uncomfortable apologetic smile and tugged on her daughter’s hand without answering the question. The half-drow turned back toward the wall and rolled her eyes.
“Just another crazy person talking to herself in an alley,” she muttered under her breath.
She lifted a palm toward the wall and drew it over the bricks, almost but not touching them. There was still air between her hand and the wall, until it wasn’t. A sharp tingle like an electric shock without much power behind it zapped through the center of her hand. Cheyenne frowned and drew her hand away. The zap returned when she passed her fingers over the same brick, and she couldn’t help but glance around the alley to make sure this wasn’t some kind of joke meant just for drow halflings.
There was no one here but her.
Feeling like an idiot, she pressed her fingers to the brick that had not quite zapped her and heard something click behind it. “No.”
She pressed harder, and that brick withdrew into the wall like a secret doorway opening. There wasn’t much space there for much of anything, but the bright-blue piece of paper wadded up and stuck into the recessed opening caught her attention. When she reached in to pluck it out, she still hadn’t written off the possibility that she’d lost her mind.
The paper unfolded easily enough, and then Cheyenne was looking at the same cramped, tiny handwriting that had been too hard to read on the decrypted file at normal size. It was clear enough now.
Roses have thorns. That’s just how they’re made. This one has rough edges all around, but a few pokes never hurt anyone much. Especially
