Mad, Bad & Dangerous

“I said I wanted three eggs, over easy, and four sausages, you fucking numbskull, not three sausages and four fried fucking eggs!”

The loud voice was accompanied by a crash, and a woman’s sharp gasp. Kett met Bael’s eyes.

“I’ve never seen a fried fucking egg,” he said easily. “Possibly we should investigate.”

Kett gave him a smile that had little to do with kindness and rolled to her feet, fork in hand, turning to face the table behind her own.

Four large men sat there, burly with fat and muscle, unshaven, grimy, stinking of fish. Traders from the river. They were all laughing at the waitress, a dumpy girl with a red face, who was now wearing the fried eggs all over her dress and half apron. The shattered pieces of the plate rocked at her feet.

“Y-you said four eggs and three sausages,” she whispered.

“Don’t think I fucking did.” The main bully had a shaven head covered with a tattoo of a leering fish. Kett was impressed-she didn’t think fish could leer.

“I think you did,” Bael said from beside Kett. He offered the trader a friendly smile, but Kett could feel the tension in his body. There was a miniature crossbow hanging from her belt, a present from Tane, and she casually rested her hand on it.

The trader rose to his feet, his smile fading. He was built like a mountain, tall and broad, his neck about the same width as Kett’s waist. He towered over Bael, who wasn’t precisely tiny himself.

The cafe went completely silent. A couple near the door slipped outside, and for a moment the howling wind was the only sound in the room.

“What did you say?” the trader grunted.

“I think she brought you what you ordered,” Bael said, smiling at the terrified waitress.

The trader’s three friends rose to their feet.

“Where’s your boss, love?” Kett asked the waitress, and the woman pointed to a skinny man with a pencil moustache, cowering by the kitchen door. He didn’t look like he’d be a lot of help.

“Okay,” Kett sighed. She turned to the trader, who was glowering at a still-smiling Bael. “Here’s how it’s going to happen. You’re going to apologize to her, pay for your meal and walk out. All right?”

The trader turned his squinty eyes on her. “Don’t you fucking tell me what to do, woman,” he spat, making the word an insult, and Kett ached to jam her fork into his crotch.

“Not smart,” Bael said. “Really not smart. You don’t know who she is, do you?”

Kett flicked her eyes at him in sudden panic. No one ever believed she was her father’s daughter, and even if this monkey did, she didn’t expect it would do much but make him laugh.

“She is my woman,” Bael said, pride in his voice, “and if you insult her, you insult me.”

The trader peered down at Bael, breathed through his nose for a moment then roared with laughter. His big friends joined in.

Bael continued to smile pleasantly but Kett saw his outline shimmer slightly. Then, like water flowing to fill a shape, Var separated from Bael and took the form of a smallish tiger.

A tiger with canines the length of Kett’s forearm.

As if someone had stolen his voice, the trader stopped laughing, and under the laughter of his friends came the low growl of the sabertooth. It rose in pitch as the traders fell silent.

“And Var probably wouldn’t be very happy about it either,” Bael added conversationally.

“Don’t let him kill anyone,” Kett murmured, but she knew the traders could hear her. “The ngardai cells are bloody freezing this time of year and my dad’s probably not inclined to get us out immediately.”

She let that sink in then turned to the waitress, who was doing a decent impression of a statue. “How much do they owe, love?”

“Seven and six,” the woman whispered.

“And a decent tip. Couple of sovereigns should do it,” Kett added to the trader, who was staring in horror at Var and the drool dripping from his fangs. Kett was pretty sure he was drooling over the sausages under the table, but she wasn’t about to let on.

“Pay,” Bael said, and the man fumbled for coins, scattering a handful on the table. Much more than he owed.

“Leave,” Kett said, but the door was already opening, and two broad-shouldered young gardai stood there.

“Now then,” said the taller of them. “We’ve been told there was a disturbance going on here.”

“They got a wild animal,” said one of the traders quickly, pointing at Var, who leaned against Bael’s legs and purred.

“City ordinances state-” began the shorter of the guards.

“He’s not going to hurt anyone,” Kett said, and shot a warning glance at Bael. “Is he?”

“Not unless he has a reason to,” Bael said insolently, watching the traders edging toward the door.

“What’s been going on here?” asked the taller garda, eyeing Kett’s crossbow. “You got a permit for that?”

The other one said, “I’m going to call for backup.”

“Call Captain Tanner,” Kett said, because he was a friend of her family and a reasonable man. He also had a sense of humor.

“Call the captain out for this?” asked the taller garda as his companion took out his scryer. “On his day off? More’n my life’s worth.”

“Well, then who’s the duty sergeant?” she asked, hoping and praying he wasn’t going to say Lya.

“DS Lya,” he said, and Kett figured she might as well hold her wrists out to be cuffed straight away. Lya was a great garda and her father’s best friend, but as soon as Bael saw her, she knew he’d give up being reasonable.

Lya was a kelf.

***

Bael wasn’t sure who this Lya person was to make Kett suddenly look so dejected. He was enjoying himself immensely, and he hadn’t even had to hit anyone yet. The four traders had taken their seats again and were refusing to look at either him or Kett or the gardai or the waitress. This meant they could only look at each other, which Bael figured was punishment enough.

One of the gardai took out a scryer, like the little rock device Jarven had used, to call his superior and complain about “that bloody Almet girl again”.

Bael laughed so hard he had to sit down.

But when the superior turned up, he stopped laughing. Var, who’d been sitting quietly while Bael fed him sausages, suddenly started growling.

It was a kelf.

Bael stared, but there was no mistaking it. Four feet tall, with bright blue skin and green hair, it wore human clothes but that was its only nod to fitting in. The creature had bare feet-because who would make shoes to fit feet with three long frog toes? Its huge eyes were all iris with no whites, like those of a cat.

It carried a short sword in one three-fingered hand and a garda badge in the other.

How did something that tiny kill my mother?

“Uh, Kett,” Bael said, nudging her, and she turned from arguing quietly with the cafe’s owner. She saw the kelf and groaned.

“Look, I’m not actually going to shoot anybody,” she said.

“Aye, but the threat’s enough,” the kelf replied. It had an accent like a Zemlyan kelf, but that was impossible. Kelfs couldn’t cross the Wall. They just couldn’t. It was why there were no kelfs in Peneggan. Why he liked Peneggan. No kelfs lived here indigenously and they couldn’t migrate.

It was impossible.

“Kett,” he said, trying to keep his voice steady. “Did I eat something funky, or is that a kelf?”

“She’s a kelf,” she said, as if he’d asked her what a particular kind of sausage was called.

“And…we’re still in Elvyrn?”

She sighed, her patience clearly short. “It’s a long story,” she said, and flicked her eyes irritably at Var, who