6. Creepers and Peepers

They could hear the snores before the shed was even in sight, and as Jym and Maggie rounded the last bend and reached the clearing in which the shed stood, the noise was unpleasantly loud, and oddly gurgling. Jym glanced around the lawn and took stock. The shed was in the same tan clay as most of the structures in the village, tidy, and handsome like everything else at the King’s Wings. Whatever his hospitality shortcomings, Al the Barkeep ran a tight ship and Jym begrudgingly admired him for it. 

There were several rows of un-used planters stacked to the right of the shed, and an ancient weeping willow tree leaned heavily over it from the left, giving the structure a pleasantly sheltered feel. The landscaping extended all around the clearing, which itself was loosely oval and maybe a hundred feet by sixty. It was beautiful.  

Maggie must have been following his eyes as he took in the space, or perhaps was just on a similar train of thought. “He hosts weddings down here sometimes. Pretty, huh?”  

Jym nodded. A particularly loud series of snorts and farts brought their attention back to the potting shed. Maggie was staring with wide-eyed disgust, Jym leaned down and whispered “Your prince charming awaits”. He smirked and gave her a little shove on her right shoulder to propel her in front of him. She flicked her ears irritably, and shot him a quick wink,   

“He’ll be wonderfully refreshing after having to deal with you all day.” she wrinkled her pointed nose, stretched her neck and strode towards the door of the shed. From this close the snores had an almost physical presence. “Oh, this will be fun.” She sighed sardonically and pushed opened the door. Jym followed just behind her, ducking under the low frame as he entered.   

The interior, typically, would have been cool, and probably smelled of earth, mulch, and the bunches of lavender and rosemary that hung drying from the ceiling in orderly clumps. The interior on this day, was thick with a tang of stale drink, and was almost foggy with a sulphurous humidity of something very foul that probably shared a distant lineage with boiled cabbage. Jim bit down on his tongue and started taking shallow breaths through his mouth. He’d encountered worse, though in all of those instances a dead body had been involved. 

He saw Maggie in front of him stiffen right to the tips of her wings, she turned, and flashed him a panicked look that he immediately recognized. He quickly shuffled to the side to let her squeeze back out the door. The sound of her losing all her cider and tequila under the willow seemed the most fitting soundtrack to which the grotesque Bagge Trembley could rejoin the world of the conscious. Jym shifted the weight of his satchel a bit, put his hands in his pockets, leaned back on the door frame, where the air was just a touch more palatable, and waited, eyebrow arched.   

“Whasssss. Whassthat then, who’s that…?” Trembley rolled slowly over and vomited onto the previously immaculately swept brick floor. 

  

Jym pinched the bridge of his nose and leaned further back, sticking his head out the door to glance at Maggie who was still bent over next to the willow roots. He was adrift in a vomit sea of drunken idiots. He scrubbed at his chin, took a lungful of the fresh outside air and shifted back into the shed to watch Trembley groggily try to lift himself from the floor. Pixies and fairies were typically of a similar size, though pixies tended to run a bit stouter, shorter in the leg, longer in the torso and arm, not to a degree that they couldn’t be very pretty or handsome, and often, especially in the city where thinking was more modern, or along the borders between pixie and fairy communities, where temptation was more…tempting, pixies and fairies interbred. The fairy/pixie offspring, which were generally and fondly called ‘fixies" combined the best traits of both species, the lithe beauty of the fairies, the practically and steadiness of the pixies. Among Jym’s friend circle in the city were pixies, fixies, fairies, imps, and a handful of trolls. He had nothing but respect for pixies. That being said, the creature that now looked up at him with red rimmed eyes had to be one of the ugliest, most disreputable and vile persons that currently offended the surface of the earth. This person curled a lip at him then bent and offended the earth, or at least the brick floor a second time.   

Maggie was hovering just outside the doorway, wiping her streaming eyes on her sleeve. Jym gave her a once over and shook his head. She looked like shit, her mint colors paled that same sick green she’d been the first time he saw her, her hair damp with sweat, her eyes bloodshot. “Hey, Maggie, why don’t you go get something to eat. I’ll have a chat with your man here in the meantime.”  

She rolled her eyes and dragged a shaking arm across her sweating forehead, “I’m fine. Just pissed to have wasted good booze is all.” She lifted her chin defiantly and marched into the room, careful not to step in Trembley’s pool of sick.   

“What were you doing outside my stump last night?” She asked, low and even.

  

Trembley managed to haul himself into a sitting position, then ducked his head slightly. For a moment Jym thought he was being repentant, and then realized he was trying to look up Maggie’s skirt. Maggie noticed the same, swung back and kicked him hard in the thigh.   

“Ye bitch!” Trembley said and skittered away. With disconcerting speed, he was backed against a wall and then on his feet. He was a deep shade of navy blue from the tips of his lank thinning hair, to his filthy bare feet. Taller than Maggie by a head, shorter than Jym by a head, he was far thinner than most of his species, but wire-y not emaciated. Trembley clenched his fists and stamped a bare foot, stepping partially into the pool of vomit that was lazily making its way down the carefully crafted slope of the floor, towards a drain in the corner.   

“The fook you on about! And here I was trying to have meself a pleasant sleep! Ye Eejit Banshee!”  

Maggie turned and gave Jym a little smile. “This is definitely our guy.”  

Jym took his hands out of his pockets and crossed his arms. “Is it, then?” He shot Trembley a sharp look. “In that case, I too would be very grateful if you would tell us what you were doing last night between the hours of say, midnight and 5am.” He kept his voice friendly, his stance casual, and watched Trembley’s face carefully.   

Trembley shook with indignation, or possibly the after effects of alcohol poisoning, it was hard to tell. He stood up just a bit straighter, and, identifying Maggie as the less threatening combatant, leaned in close to her. Jym saw Maggie flinch at the impact of his breath, but she didn’t give an inch. “The hell you think you are, barging in here on private property and badgering an innocent man. Who’re you, ya stupid cripple bitch” he reached out a navy hand and sharply flicked the tip of Maggie’s damaged wing.   

Jym launched himself forward the instant Trembley reached towards Maggie, but he was nowhere near as fast as she. Trembley’s finger had barely made contact before she’d gathered the collar of his sick-sodden button down blue check shirt in a fist, lifted him straight off his feet, and slammed him hard into the bare wall to their left. Trembley gasped, but Jym quite possibly gasped louder. She flexed her arm and lifted the scrambling pixie a few inches higher, tightening her grip on his collar. 

The color of his face moving from navy to indigo to almost black, Trembley finally shot a desperately pleading look towards Jym. He waited just a moment more, then strolled towards Maggie. Very carefully, he put a hand on her quivering shoulder and tilted his head so his mouth was close to her ear. “Private Brooke, that will do, thank you. Mr. Trembley and I are going to have a pint now, the two of us, and talk a few things over, very civilly. So, I would be much obliged if you could stop murdering him for a moment, and perhaps go ask that wonderful barkeep friend of yours for two mugs of his finest ale 

Without releasing or lowering Trembley, Maggie turned to look at Jym. There were tears pricking at the corners of her eyes. He tried to give her what he hoped was a meaningful and compassionate smile back. She breathed in slowly, gave him a tiny pained smile back, and released Trembley without breaking her eye contact him. He considered for the second time that day just how very bright green and beautiful her eyes were, then she was shoving past him.  

"Private!" He called after her, "Something to eat as well! I'm starving and I'm thinking you might be as well!" She didn't break stride, he could only hope she'd heard him. He watched until she'd stomped across the clearing and up the path, fully out of sight. He turned back to Bagge Trembley who had hauled himself out the of crumpled pile in which Maggie had dropped him. Jym gave him a warm smile and stepped forward, also careful not to step in the vomit, he reached a hand out to Trembley, a picture of good humor. "Captain Jym Smith, Central Fairy Intelligence. I am sorry we had to wake you Mr. Trembley, but I'm hoping we can handle this matter like gentlemen." 

Trembley nodded warily and reached out a to shake Jym's offered hand. Trembley's hand was slick with cold sweat and Jym, smiling broadly, shook it vigorously and stifled a cringe at the clammy touch.  

"Good, man Trembley! Right so, first just some important business-" He dropped Trembley's hand, reached out and straightened Trembly's Maggie- rumpled collar, grinned kindly, and clocked him in the face.  

Trembley wheezed and slumped. "The fuck!" 

Jym shook his hand and looked down to see he'd skinned his knuckles on Trembley's temple. He felt an odd glow of happiness, the least he could do for Maggie. He placed a hand on the wall next to Trembley's head and breathed into his stumpy ear. "Now Mr. Trembley, as we're both being gentlemen, I think we can agree that, for the harsh words you spoke to the young lady, that was entirely called for." 

"...eeep?" mumbled Trembley. 

"I'm glad you see my point." Jym stood back. "Second order of business. I would like to know just what you were doing just outside Private's Brooke's window at an ungodly hour last night." 

"Taking a piss, I was. And then she started shouting out! 'Shut up!' She screamed, loud as a cat in heat." 

Jym bit against a smile.  

"And AND me just minding my own business doing my business. So, I told to her to be quiet, very polite like..." Trembley continued indignantly. 

Jym cocked an eyebrow at him. 

"Well I uh... I mean, I called her an Eijet Banshee, but lad she was more than being one!" 

"Fair." Jym allowed. "So, we've covered a total of four minutes of the evening. There's a little dead girl all but in shreds at the base of a tree not five minutes' walk from where you were last seen that night..." 

At which point Maggie strolled up with a mousy little gal in tow carrying a tray. Maggie held two giant plates of fish and chips, and the tray bore two tall mugs of sparkling icy ale and two shots of tequila. She looked at Trembley's red puffy eye and then immediately down to Jym's bleeding knuckles.

 "Civil, eh?" She gave Jym a measured look.  

At the presentation of the ale Trembley's watery blue eyes lit up even though the left one was quickly swelling shut. Jym held his mug just out of reach. "Lad, patience for a moment just. Tell me a bit more about last night and then we'll toast." He gave the mug held aloft a little swish so its amber contents caught the light it a perfectly tempting shimmer. 

Trembley scoffed and tried to scrape his feet clean on the brick floor. He shoved his hands in his pockets, took them out, straightened his suspenders, and finally gave Jym a sour eye. "I'll naught be telling ye anymore with that wicked one flitting about" He looked hard at Maggie and Jym clenched his fist, just within Trembley's line of sight. 

"---As the things I would tell you are not for the ears of such a-" Trembley coughed and looked down "Eh em, delicate and modest lass as she-".  

Jym and Trembley both looked at Maggie who was finishing the first shot on the platter. She caught Jym's eye, and with delicate modesty grabbed the second shot off the platter and backed away from the shed.  

"Wee divil, that one." Trembley said archly. 

"Aye" Jym said, watching Maggie's face as she backed away.  

Trembley tentatively reached his hand out and Jym gave him the glass with ceremonial sobriety. They both leaned out the door frame to ensure the ladies were well out of earshot (The young  barmaid appeared to be trying to teach Maggie a dance move that she was attempting with enthusiastic abandon). Jym tuned back to Bagge Trembley and took a long pull at his pint, by god it was good ale. He marked Al yet another tick higher in his estimation. "So, then, what were ya doing out there last night, Bagge?" he let loose his proper North swamp accent for good measure.  

Bagge Trembley wrung his hands and skipped from foot to wretched vomit soaked bare foot. "Ay uh, nothin much. Just... I uh took me a stroll, so I did on such a fine night!" 

Jim raised his eyebrows, "late night stroll, to just under the window of a young lady? Amazing the chances that find us, sometimes." His words bit, and Trembley flinched. 

"Just a stroll, ya see, not from around here, no idea who lives where, or... or any such." He stared down at a potted nasturtium with exaggerated innocence. Jym groaned. 

"You went off to take a piss?" 

"Aye, so I did, the cider." 

"Why didn’t you just use the toilet?!"  

 "Well was this pretty lass leaning up against the wall by the toilet door and well, I was a bit abashed" 

"So, you wandered off into the night?" 

"I took that track" he pointed to the one Jym and Maggie had taken to get to the pub, "Just teetered along it for a bit." 

"Did you meet anyone else on your teeter?" Jym asked, and remembered to take a long pull at his glass. Trembley's was already almost empty. 

"Pretty gal, aye. Small thing, not as small as your queer lass, but tiny still."  

"What did she look like?" 

Trembley's eyes were looking past him, centered on a memory, "She looked a bit worried, and was clutching something in her hand. Pink I think she was, and she might have been crying?" He shrugged, "I offered to accompany her, but she rushed away.  

"Which way did she go?" Jym asked sharply. 

"Eh, off the path, into the undergrowth, I don't know where she went. Took a bit more drink after that, I had brought my flask with me, see. And I saw the light from yon stump, took a piss. And um, enjoyed the view..." Trembley finished the last of the ale, and smacked his lips.  

"You were peeping in Private Brooke's window, weren't you." Jym said flatly, his anger seething just below the surface. 

"Never! On my life, and she was wearing all her clothes anyway." 

Jym considered smashing his glass on Trembly's head. "What happened after that?" 

"I finished me piss and wandered on a bit longer, then bumped into a nice man, the village baker he said he was, he did help me find my way backa here." 

Maggie had moved in, quiet as a a shadow during Trembley's story. Jym had felt her approach and edged towards her just a hair. He hadn't realized how very close they'd drawn together until he felt the top tip of her ear cuff his jaw. They both froze, then took a step apart.  

"Am I done?" Trembley cut in. "Cause I need the toilet something fierce." 

"For now." Jym said, "But don't leave town, I may want another word, and if I have to go looking for you, I will be less civil than this time."  

Trembley pushed past both of them and walked with an oddly uneven gate across the clearing. Jym realized one of his legs was quite a bit shorter than the other. He stepped fully out of the foul shed miasma and took several deep lungful's of fresh spring air, savoring it even more than the half-drunk ale in his hand. 

Maggie pointed to a little stone bench along the clearing edge, "You like fish and chips? Al makes a great batch." 

"I bet he does" Jym said and followed Maggie towards the food.  

They sat and then both started talking at once- 

"Do you think-" Maggie started. 

"Was that Nell-" Jym asked. 

Maggie shoveled a forkful of fish in her mouth and gestured to Jym to go ahead. 

"Do you suppose that was Nell that Trembley saw? The description fits. Which means she spent a considerable amount of time walking around that path near your stump last night." Jym took a bit of the fish, it was of course delicious. 

"Well, there's about three young pink fairies that live in town, but I'd say there's a fair chance it was Nell both times. I wonder what the hell she was doing out there all that time." 

"I wonder what it was she was carrying." Jym mused, his mouth full. 

They had both only managed a few more hurried bites when Jym heard Maggie groan. He looked up at her and then followed her gaze to where Captain of the Palace Guard Merribell Parks was striding towards them, the spike heels of her boots sinking into the springy grass with every step.  

Oh I don't want to interrupt your little luncheon date" she sneered. "But the king would like a word. With both  of you. NOW."