I curse you!
“Aaron!”
I curse you!
“Aaron!”
“What!” Aaron snapped at Jackie after the second time she called his name. He was more annoyed at himself for letting that strange werewolf witch’s voice stay in his head. There was something ominous about her, but the dwarf had more important things to deal with.
“You’ve been staring straight ahead for a minute now,” Jackie said. “It’s like you didn’t realize the portal had closed. You okay?”
“Yeah,” Aaron shrugged away the voice echoing in his head. He held up the gnome, who was still frozen and looking like a stone lawn ornament. “I found our gnome.”
“Oh, good,” Jackie asked. “That’s the gnome you guys were talking about before Tommy was shot, right?”
“Yeah,” Aaron set the gnome down on the grass, trying not to spill the tequila in the sombrero. “This is the start of all our troubles.”
“I didn’t realize you had lost your friend.”
“We didn’t lose a friend,” Tommy said. “I didn’t even know this little guy was alive until after he had gone missing. He ran away from my boss…” The large elf looked down solemnly after mentioning his boss. Speaking about his boss brought back the memory of his brief conversation with Yolo. Tommy sighed deeply, wondering what Yolo had done but not wanting to come to the most likely conclusion.
“Wait,” Jackie looked at Tommy and Aaron. “You’ve been looking for this gnome because of the gangster boss you work for, Tommy?”
“Yeah, I guess we forgot to mention that part,” Tommy rubbed the back of his neck. “Sorry about that, Jackie.”
“Oh no, you don’t need to apologize. Swift told me everything. However, I just need a little clarification. Why did your boss want this gnome?”
Aaron noticed Swift behind Jackie. The orc had been woozily staring off into the distance just a moment earlier but was now frantically waving his arms and rapidly signing something. The dwarf raised an eyebrow, unsure what Swift was trying to say.
“The boss has had that gnome for a while now,” Tommy answered. “He likes to bring it out at parties because it’s got this cursed hat of infinite tequila.”
“I that so…” Jackie slowly turned around to look at Swift, who quickly stuffed his hands behind his back and gave Jackie a large, beaming grin. She turned back to Tommy and Aaron. “And how did your boss lose this gnome?”
“Well, that’s the crazy thing.” Tommy laughed. “You see, I’ve never actually seen this little guy like. But in the pictures, he’s always looked like a stone statue—like a lawn ornament or something you’d use to decorate a table. I never realized he was alive—I think that’s how it was for almost everyone. Anyway, turns out he’s only like this when he’s scared. So, I guess one day he worked up enough courage not to be stone anymore, and he got up and ran right out of the boss’ mansion.”
“Huh…” Jackie took a moment to contemplate this information.
Swift was again waving his arms wildly and nearly lost his balance in the process.
Aaron shrugged, making it clear he had no idea why Swift was acting like this.
Jackie glanced back at Swift, who quickly returned to silently teetering and grinning. Jackie asked her next question while looking at Aaron. “Aside from the tequila, is there anything else this curse might be involved with?”
“Like what?” the dwarf asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it's something like freeing a bunch of spirits trapped in the hat? Or keeping a demon trapped inside it?” Jackie looked back at Swift. “Or maybe having some small bit in helping to save the world?”
“What?” Aaron looked incredulously at Jackie. “No! It’s just a hat full of tequila. I’ve been telling Tommy it’s hardly a curse. The closest thing I could think of to this being a curse is that it’s not whiskey. If it had infinite whiskey, then that hat would be a blessing.” Aaron grinned at the thought and licked his lips as he eyed the sombrero filled to the brim with crystal clear, beautiful liquid intoxicant.
Jackie was only looking at Swift. The orc smiled awkwardly at Jackie, looked in different directions, then smiled again nervously. The street elf remained stone-faced in her stare at the orc.
Tommy stepped in front of Aaron, breaking the dwarf’s line of sight with the tequila. “What’s going on you two?”
“Yeah, Swift,” Jackie asked coolly. “What’s going on?”
Aaron frowned at Tommy’s passive interruption but turned to face Swift and Jackie.
Swift quickly began signing to Aaron, rapidly saying something to the dwarf. But the dwarf held up his hands in frustration. “I don’t know what you’re saying, Swift!”
The orc’s hands and fingers fumbled as he realized Jackie was the only one who understood anything he had said. Swift stopped his effort to communicate and sheepishly looked at Jackie.
“Oh no,” Jackie responded with a wave of her hand. Aaron noticed Jackie was wearing clean white gloves on both of her hands. “Please, continue, Swift. Don’t let me get in the way of your conversation.”
Swift quickly began signing to Jackie, but she just held her white-gloved hand up and in the orc’s face, ceasing the orc’s attempts to communicate.
“No, child,” Jackie said with outstretched hand. “I am not taking any more deer shits from you.”
Jackie turned to leave, but Swift quickly got in front of her, rapidly waving his arms and hands in sign. With a single sharp hand gesture, Jackie halted the orc’s attempts to communicate.
“You know, I knew the story you were telling me was laced with deer shit,” Jackie said with crossed arms. “Every male who tells a story to a female always laces their story with shit. It’s like you males can’t help yourself. And you know what: I can accept that. But you, Swift… You had me believing you were someone different.”
The orc started to sign again, and was again cut off by Jackie.
“Don’t you bring Corey into this!” Jackie spoke harsh, like a barbed whip. “Corey speaks words laced with something that’s next level to deer shit. I don’t what’s greater than deer shit.”
“Bull?” Aaron asked. “How about bull shit?”
Jackie turned to look at the dwarf. She managed a half-grin and a cursory laugh despite her anger. “That’s actually kinda funny, Aaron.” The street elf turned back to Swift. “Corey at least knows who he is, what he is, and doesn’t try to pretend to be something he’s not. Regardless of all the next-level shit he says, he remains true to himself.”
Swift started to sign but gave up before Jackie could cut him off again.
“If you can’t be true to yourself,” Jackie leaned in close to Swift. “Then you can’t be true to those who matter most.”
The street elf walked past the orc, through the trees, and away from the group. As she walked away, Aaron blinked several times, suddenly realizing he had no idea where he was. “Tommy, I don’t know what happened earlier, but when I left with Swift, we were home. This isn’t home… where on the foundation are we?”
“Seriously, buddy?” Tommy responded. “You’re just now noticing?”
“Give me a break, elf. I’ve gone through far too many portals and dimensions for one day, let alone two lives.” Aaron quickly took in the scenery around them. They stood in a copse of tall trees. Beyond the trees were open hills of grass, walkways sporadically lined with benches, and a small creek. People were bustling about, lounging on the grassy hills, and even a few were playing frisbee. “Are we in a city park?”
“Yep,” Tommy smiled. “Figured this was the safest place to be when going to get you. No one really noticed Jackie opening a portal back here, and it would be an easy getaway if anything bad happened.”
“But home, Tommy. Is everything alright at home?”
“Don’t worry, buddy,” Tommy placed a reassuring hand on the dwarf’s shoulder. “That’s the other reason why we are here. I didn’t want to chance to bring something bad when going to get you, so we left home to keep the family safe.”
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Aaron put his hand on Tommy’s hand and exhaled. “Good… good.”
Swift stumbled back to Aaron and Tommy, gave them both a rude gesture, and then flopped onto the ground beside the ceramic gnome. The orc breathed heavily as he closed his eyes to the world.
“What’s up with him?” Aaron asked. “Aside from that whole thing with Jackie just now.”
“Oh, right,” Tommy responded. “So, Swift’s hand is weird looking now. But his weird-looking hand has some connection to you.”
Aaron held up his mottled hand and stared at it for a moment.
“Huh,” Tommy grunted as he looked at Aaron’s hand. “Well, still weird, but I guess that kinda makes sense. Anyway, he could figure out where you were with his scrying skill, but he needed tequila as some sort of focus to help pinpoint your location. Once he scryed your location, Jackie was able to open a portal and I went through to get you.”
Stuffing his mottled hand into his trenchcoat pocket, Aaron nodded to the gently snoring orc. “So, what you’re telling me is that Swift is a drunken scryer?”
Tommy laughed. “Yeah, it’s ironic that it took him more than a few shots of tequila to pinpoint your location.”
“This is some bucket of beryl we got here,” Aaron muttered. “Well, we finally found our gnome. Now what? Take him back to your boss?”
“I don’t know, buddy,” Tommy spoke while looking at the gnome. “That talk I had with Yolo a while back felt pretty bad. He might be a troll, but he’s smarter than most. Yolo wouldn’t have been so brazen if he didn’t have a reason to be confident.”
Tapping his lip, the dwarf thought about the final words of the oldest wolf witch in the coven. “That witch said we should get this gnome back to his brothers.”
“Yeah, and that yakuza sorceress said she wanted us to give her the gnome.”
“And that coven had him, and Yolo wants the gnome, too.”
“There are far too many people who want this gnome.” Tommy bent down to look at the gnome from different angles. “What is it about this little guy that has suddenly caught him so much attention?”
“Obviously, it’s the curse.”
“Indubitably. Great job, Sherlock Gnomes.”
“Eat coprolite, Tommy.”
The bronze elf laughed as he sat down beside the gently snoring Swift. “Do you think it’s the hat that’s cursed or the tequila?”
“Give me a sip of that sombrero, and I will let you know.”
“Ha!” Tommy shook his head in answer to Aaron, then continued. “Seriously, though. The gnome didn’t just get this curse. The boss has had him for a while. Why all this attention now?”
“To figure that out,” Aaron rubbed his temples and groaned. “We need to go back, way back. Like to the beginning of this day—which has been the longest, most miserable day of my life, I will add.”
“It’s not what I expected to drag you into, buddy. For what it’s worth, I’m glad you’re with me.”
Sitting down across from Tommy, Aaron began to put together the pieces of their case. They found the missing gnome, but the investigation was far from over. “You’ve never actually seen the gnome until now, right?”
“Yeah. Boss always kept it locked up, I guess. I’ve seen pictures of the gnome, though it’s always kinda in the background—the pictures were never of the gnome itself; they were of different important people who spent time with the boss. Well, that and his family.”
“Your boss always kept the gnome locked up? You realize what you’re saying, Tommy?”
“Yeah, well—” Tommy’s brows furrowed as he leaned away from Aaron. “It’s not like that, Aaron. I meant locked up like in a liquor cabinet. The boss is a good guy.”
“Your boss is a crime lord, Tommy.”
“It’s not like that.” Tommy pushed his fist into the ground. Concern and frustration began to etch their lines across his face. “He’s not like that, Aaron. I chose to work with him because he was a decent human.”
“Decent humans still do bad things, Tommy. Gangsters, races, beliefs… there are no exceptions. No matter how good you think you are, you can still do bad things.”
“Look, I don’t want to talk about this right now,” Tommy waved away the conversation. “Can we just get back to what’s at hand?”
“This is what’s at hand, Tommy.” Aaron remained firm in the pieces that he mentally assembled for this case. “You hired me to help you find a gnome that escaped from your boss. The gnome has stolen MIST merch stuck on his head. MIST and the yakuza want that sombrero back. They did not know where this gnome was until it had escaped your boss. Yolo wants the gnome—though, to what end, I’m not sure. Then there’s the fathoms-old coven we magically stumbled into; they wanted that gnome’s curse, too.”
“What are you getting at, buddy?”
“What am I getting at?” Aaron raised his hands as if the answer was as obvious as the sky. “What am I getting at? Tommy, you hired me. Now you need to decide: what are we going to do? Do we take this gnome back to your boss? You know he will lock up that cursed little ass, never to see the light of day. Do we take the gnome to the yakuza? You know if we don’t, they will light our asses up before tomorrow’s light of day.”
“You don’t know if the boss will lock the little guy up.” Tommy sounded like he was trying to convince himself.
“Tommy, I haven’t even used any of my skills to figure this slag out. Your boss knew that gnome was not a statue, and your boss still kept that gnome locked in a room, only to be brought out for servicing high-end customers.”
“Siti, Aaron. Do you have to say it like that?”
“Yes, Tommy, I do!” Aaron leaned in. “Locking an individual up and only pulling them out when you need to make someone happy is treating them like a depth-damned whore.”
The two friends stared at each other with a hard, defiant intensity. Aaron only now realized he was on his feet—but this just made him more level with Tommy’s line of sight. Neither spoke, and they barely noticed as Swift sleepily rolled to his side.
Suddenly, Swift leaped from his sleeping position and rolled head over heels, severing the intensity between Tommy and Aaron. The orc collided with a tree, rolled about to all fours, and then pointed at the spot where he was sleeping. The dwarf and elf both turned their heads to look in the direction where Swift was pointing.
There, in the grass, stood the cursed little gnome. He looked up at everyone, and tequila splashed as it spilled out the backside of the sombrero. The gnome sported an oversized black mustache with curled tips that easily covered half his face. Despite the mustache, a broad, tooth-filled smile could be seen under the facial hair. He made a few short hand gestures and waited for a response.
Aaron and Tommy looked at each other, then turned their heads to look at Swift. Swift shook his head, trying not to look cross-eyed, and hesitantly crawled closer to the gnome. He made a few hand gestures to the gnome and waited.
The gnome responded with sign language again, though not without hesitation.
Swift motioned for Aaron’s Hacklet but was alarmed when he looked at the screen. He shook Aaron’s shoulder, pointing at the screen, clearly disturbed by what he saw.
The dwarf looked at his Hacklet screen and grunted. “Oh yeah, I forgot. After that slag with the interdimensional travel, or whatever that was, the language on my Hacklet was changed. I haven’t figured out how to fix it yet.”
The gnome waved at Aaron and pointed at the Hacklet.
“And that’s the other thing,” Aaron said as he begrudgingly moved his arm over to the gnome. “Apparently, this gnome can type in the language my Hacklet is set to.”
Tommy chuckled as he watched Aaron unhappily wait for the gnome to finish typing.
When the gnome finished typing, Aaron shoved his Hacklet into Tommy’s face. “Everyone gets a turn. Here, can you read this?”
“Hmm…” Tommy looked studiously at the characters on the screen. “Actually, I think I can. It’s a different dialect, but I am pretty good at pidgin-speak.”
A conversation quickly began that Aaron did not want to be a part of. Tommy would say some words, and the gnome would sign and then type a response on Aaron’s Hacklet. Swift and Tommy would study what was signed and typed, then attempt to respond in their respective languages. With each pass of his arm, the dwarf steadily grew more and more annoyed. He was ready to tell them to use their own fracking arms when Jackie burst through the trees, breathing hard.
“Guys,” The street elf tried to speak through her breaths. “We’ve got to go.”
“What’s going on?” Tommy asked as he quickly rose to his feet. “You look like you’ve been running hard.”
“I was running hard,” Jackie had just about caught her breath. “But big girls can move, too, you know. There are guys in the park looking for you and Aaron.”
“Who?” Aaron asked.
“Black suits, white shirts, all of them look mean.”
Tommy and Aaron exchanged glances. Aaron spoke for both of them. “It’s the blasted yakuza.”
“How did they know to look here?” Tommy asked.
Aaron placed a hand on his trenchcoat's breast pocket, feeling the vial that contained Tuber arcanatum dust. It was something the yakuza sorceress had given him—and he was not ready to let go of it. The dwarf looked at his friend but did not say a word.
Swift signed something, and Jackie frowned.
“I’m not ready to talk to you,” The street elf looked through the trees to see if she had been followed. “But I’ll translate so everyone can know what you are saying.”
“Hey, Jackie,” Tommy spoke as he knelt down and extended his hand to the gnome. “The yakuza don’t know you’re with us.”
“You sure about that?” Jackie turned to see what the larger elf was doing, and her face lit up. “Oh, you’re awake! How are you feeling?”
The gnome smiled large and bright as he signed something to Jackie.
“Oh, my. That’s a different language—certainly not what I expected.”
“What do you mean that’s a different language?” Aaron asked.
“I mean, he’s not using standard sign language. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s a language from the southern continent. I’ve seen it before but am not fluent in it.”
“Wait, you mean there’s more than one kind of sign language?”
Jackie looked at Aaron with her own perplexity. “Uh, yeah. Why would you think there would only be one standard sign language in the world when the world speaks in so many unique languages?”
“I don’t know,” Aaron looked about in his head for an answer. “I guess that’s just something I never thought of before.”
“Focus, guys,” Tommy interjected. “Jackie, how many ports do you think you can pull off with those gloves that Tinā blessed?”
“I can open more than a few portals. Tinā just said to make sure I don’t overdo myself.”
“Good. Do you have more than one safe house in the city that you can port to?”
“Of course.”
“Alright, here’s what I’m thinking,” Tommy checked to ensure everyone was listening. “Jackie. You, Swift, and our gnome will port to one of your safe places. Aaron and I will get the yakuza’s attention and draw them out to a place that will keep them busy. Give us about one click of the sun. You can use Swift to find us and port back to us.”
Jackie frowned as she eyeballed Swift. “You expect me to spend a whole click in a safe room with this joker. Nah, you need something better than that.”
“Jackie, I’m trying to keep you safe,” Tommy snapped to get the street elf’s attention away from Swift. “I don’t care what you do at your safe house or if you even stay in the safe house. I just need you to stay safe. Got it?”
“I don’t like it, Tommy. But I don’t have anything better.”
“Well, if you think of something better, let me know in a click. Cool?”
“Sure, Tommy, cool.”
Tommy turned to the gnome and used his pidgin-speak to let the gnome know his plan. The gnome nodded and signed in agreement.
Jackie waved her arms and pulled open a small portal in front of her. She peeked in to make sure the location was still safe, then opened the portal wide enough for her and the other two to walk through. The street elf spoke sternly to Swift, “Get you’re lying, skinny, green-skinned ass in there.”
With head bowed the orc quickly shuffled through the portal. The gnome followed, and Jackie stepped in after the gnome. She turned around and looked sharply at Tommy. “One click. You better be ready for me and not dead in one click.”
“Thanks, Jackie,” Tommy smiled. “We’ll see you soon.”
The portal closed, leaving Aaron and Tommy standing in the copse of trees. The dwarf looked up at Tommy. “So, what do we do now?”
Tommy’s smile did not waiver, but it did not carry the same friendly weight either. “Now, brother, we go to pay my boss a visit and find out what he really intends to do with that gnome.”