Chapter Forty-Five

Noelle licked the blood off her claws. As he had asked, she left one for him, the man who had spoken to him once the ambush had sprung. The man with grizzled features was on his knees. He wore a stained white shirt, beige combat boots, blue jeans, and a watch on his left wrist. It had a crack on its face.

His rifle had been discarded to the side. His brown eyes were wide, staring in horror at the young white tiger that had torn his colleagues to bloody strips of meat. Blood had stained her muzzle and some of the fur on the side of her face.

“Come here, sweetheart,” Ambrose said to the tiger. She sauntered to him, purring as Ambrose scratched her cheeks and rubbed the blood from her muzzle.

“She’s a good girl,” Ambrose kissed her nose.

He turned to the man, his eye glittering.

“She deserves a little treat from time to time. I might give her you if you don’t answer my questions.”

The man gulped.

“Hey, mister, no need for that! I’ll tell ya whatever ya want to know. Just ask!”

Ambrose idly scratched Noelle’s head.

“You wouldn’t know this, of course, but I used to be the kind of man sent out to take care of things. Sometimes, that meant getting information from unwilling people. Do you want to know how I did that?”

The man’s eyes flickered to the tiger,

“I already said I’d tell ya what ya want to know! There’s no need to let that beastie eat me.”

Noelle growled, blue eyes flashing. The man yelped.

Ambrose chuckled,

“Might want to show some respect. She’s not a beast. Anyway, I would tell them what I would do to them if they didn’t tell me what I wanted to know or if they lied. So let me tell you.”

Ambrose spoke calmly, but his eye never left the man’s fear-filled brown eyes.

“First, I’ll break a finger. One at a time, of course. I wouldn’t stop to ask questions, wouldn’t react at your screams. Just break fingers, like I might snap a chicken wing. When that’s done, I’ll let you sit there and scream. No one will hear you here, and anyone who might come, well, Noelle’s always hungry.”

On cue, Noelle licked her chops. Ambrose patted her fondly,

“After that we’ll start on the feet, work out way up. After I get through all your toes, that’s when I might ask a question. Usually, people manage to hold out, though. But when I get to the genitals?”

Ambrose looked down pointedly at the man’s crotch.

“Oh, sweet Jesus. Look, ya don’t need to do this, ask!”

Ambrose nodded,

“I want to be clear about where we stand, that’s all. First question, what happened when the System integrated?”

The man’s eyes were locked on the tiger, but he stammered a response.

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“Crazy shit, that’s what! Cities, towns, all crumblin’! Animals turnin’ into monsters, attacking folks! Governments failing, dude. No help at all! These forerunners started organizin’ folks, had to fight off these incursions, see?”

Ambrose raised a hand sharply,

“Wait. Incursions?”

The man finally looked at him.

“Man, where ya been at? Under a rock? Those massive beams of light beamin’ down and whatnot from the sky? Weird fantasy shit comin’ out of them. Elves, orcs, dwarves, these rock monsters. It’s the end of the bloody world, man!”

He glanced fearfully at Noelle, clearly afraid his outburst might end with him being lunch. Ambrose didn’t care too much about these incursions. As long as they stayed out of his way, he didn’t much care.

“Does your town have a forerunner?”

The man’s eyes grew shifty, and he licked his lips. Noelle stepped forward, her rumbling growl echoing around the cave, bouncing from rock to rock. The man’s squeak was almost as loud as her growl.

“It’s Annie, okay? She runs the town.”

Ambrose leaned back, raising an eyebrow. That actually made some sense.

“Why is everyone so concerned with System Credits?”

He looked at Ambrose like he was crazy, his eyes contorted in confusion.

“’Cuz you can’t do anything in the settlement without it! Everythin’ costs man, everythin’. Buyin’ buildings, food, toilet paper, blankets, all of it costs SC! It’s not easy to get, ya gotta sell to merchants across the multi-verse through the System store, and ya don’t earn anything through killin’ monsters. There’s no loot chests in this world, man.”

That tracks with what I’ve experienced so far. Ambrose thought. It corroborated his story, at least.

“Why the ambush? You guy’s mug travelers for their gear and sell it on the store? Surely that can’t be all you do, you wouldn’t have gotten enough for everything you have in the compound. Furthermore, why not just use a profession?”

The man rubbed at his grizzled face,

“Look man, I tell you that stuff, they’ll kill me, ya hear?”

Ambrose leaned forward, eye-patch lighting up.

“Is there any doubt, any at all, in your mind, that if you don’t tell me, I will kill you?”

The man groaned, his leg was shaking like a jackhammer.

“Fine. Fine! I hated this place anyway. Look, man, it wasn’t my idea, okay? Ya don’t know how hard it is out here.”

Ambrose produced his axe, and his eyes widened at the sudden appearance of the weapon. Ambrose just stared at the man, saying nothing. He held up his hands,

“Whoa! Man, who uses an axe anymore? Listen, Annie and Troy run things together, okay? Annie, she’s the forerunner, had a head start. Troy, he’s a merchant, that profession ya were talkin’ about. No one else in the compound has one. Just Troy. Well, we tried to sell small monster carcasses, stones, stuff like that, to the System store. Wasn’t enough. It got…bad for a while, man. Real bad.”

He shuddered, looking away, retching and dry heaving. Ambrose gave him a minute, and he continued a moment later.

“I’m not proud, okay? Things I done. Not proud. I want to say that, ya know? For the record. I’m gettin’ to it! This ain’t easy to say. Well, Troy found this option on the store, this merchant that will take…I said I wasn’t proud…slaves. You sell ‘em people.”

Ambrose leaned back, something ugly, something hot beginning to simmer in his stomach.

The man winced.

“I told ya I wasn’t proud. Annie though, she started takin’ it farther. You get more for kids, ya see…” The man wretched again.

Ambrose felt everything leave him. His heart went as cold as the deepest heart of winter.

“Last question. Who’s Troy?” His voice was soft, devoid of anything at all.

“The guitar player, man.”

Ambrose stood. The man looked at him, eyes hopeful.

“So, can I go?”

Ambrose stared at him.

“I’m not a good man. I’ve done a lot of horrible things myself, so normally I keep my stones to myself.”

Ambrose raised his axe, studying it.

“But the one thing I have never done. The one line I never crossed?” He hefted his axe,

“Was harm a child.”

He brought it flashing downward. The man’s head rolled in a spray of blood moments later.

Ambrose had already dismissed him. He let the ice spread from his heart, through his veins. He unmanifested Noelle, who wrapped around him once again in cloak form. Wrath burned brightly within her, and it trailed behind him as a physical thing as Ambrose began his trek down the tunnel.

Hell came with him.