Wolfe Bite Chapter 7
By Captain Gaul
At the knocking, Moe threw open the front doors of the house. He nodded politely to Chi as she stepped in out of the rain, and greeted her. “Hallo, Chi, old girl, how was your holiday?”
Chi shook her head in a futile attempt to dry her hair out, then stopped and stared at Moe. “Drop the accent, Moe, it doesn’t suit you.” Moe shrugged and took her journey bag as she stepped over to the coat rack to hang up her cloak. “Besides, I wasn’t on holiday. I was making a sacrifice at the family shrine. If you can’t accept my occasional departure for spiritual reasons, then remember you can’t fire me, because neither of us work for anybody.”
“Don’t be so snippy. I was just asking how your trip went.”
Chi frowned for a moment, then blinked and smiled. “Sorry. It’s been raining for a while, and I’m tired of getting wet.” She stopped and frowned. “Where’s Nicholas? He usually comes down to greet me.”
It was Moe’s turn to stop and frown. “You’ve got me. He left for Truce about a week ago, and he said that he’d send word when he got there about how long he was going to stay. So either he’s been real busy, or….”
Chi took her cloak back off the rack. “Don’t unpack my journey bag, Moe. I’m going to Truce.” She snatched the bag from him and started out the door. Moe hurried after her.
“Now c’mon, Chi, think here. You’ve been traveling all morning; why not rest up first?”
“I’m not the least bit tired. Now, where’s my horse? Ah, Lucere, come here.”
“And I thought you were tired of getting wet!”
“Better to go out again before I can dry off. See you later, Moe.”
“Now just wait…” Moe trailed off as Chi rode away. “…all right, I’ll stay here then.”
.
“What do you mean, I can’t talk to him?!”
“What I mean, madam, is that he is non-responsive. In a coma! A persistent vegetative state! Even if he did hear you, he couldn’t respond! That is why you cannot talk to him!”
“Can I see him?”
“No!”
“Why not?”
“Because, madam, you have annoyed me—annoyed me severely. And, I am in a particularly foul mood already, because the mayor’s little brat spilled some kind of stew on these very important documents, and I am stuck with making fresh copies. And for that, madam, I feel like being an ass. Besides, you’re Manatetan, and I am at perfect liberty to discriminate against you if I should so choose. Now go away.”
Chi did not go away. “If you don’t let me see him…I’ll scream.”
“Do your worst, madam, it will do you no good.”
The shriek that followed was one of Chi’s best. The windows in the room shattered, the candy jar on the desk exploded, the secretary’s desk fell over, and the secretary himself grimaced so hard his molars cracked. After a good thirty seconds, the man looked up at her. “Was that your worst?”
“Not quite. Shall I--?”
“NO!” The reply came not from the man himself but all of his coworkers in the open office space around him. Further away, one shouted—“For Deus’s sake, if you want to see the man, go in! Don’t wait on the government’s account!” Chi smiled slightly and walked up the stairs to the bedroom Gaul was being held in.
.
He was, as the man said, non-responsive. Chi’s limited experience in healing told her that he had suffered a nasty concussion, was definitely in a coma, and probably wouldn’t be coming out for a while. With a bit of resignation, Chi left his quarters and was about to leave Truce altogether when she realized that she didn’t know a lot about what had happened to him.
After talking with Commander Nocius and Lieutenant Ye at some length, she decided to head for Magus’s Castle instead of home.
.