Chapter 9 Underground Lou and the Spiders
Crazy Annie grabbed Hafoc by the arm and rushed him out of The Happy Dragon. She had a semi-toothed grin that was infectious, making Hafoc smile, too, in spite of himself. He hadn’t had any serious fun in a while. She might be crazy, but I bet she knows how to party, Hafoc thought as she dragged him through an empty street.
She abruptly stopped short as they were about to cross a small intersection. Crazy Annie shoved Hafoc back behind a wall and put a half-gloved finger to his lips. She looked behind them and peeked around the corner to the adjacent street.
Finally, she waved him closer. He poked his head next to hers in silence. Farther down the road he could see figures emerge. The streetlamp cast long shadows that seemed to grasp for darkness along the cobblestones as they stretched ahead of the oncoming group. He heard the tip tak of high-heeled shoes, the clinking of glasses, merriment and singing, but, still, an aura of gloom prevailed.
“There they are—“ she pushed Hafoc back. “We’d better get going before those vampires find us, or we’ll be goners.”
As the Strige sauntered closer, they heard one of them sing:
C'è uno specchio rotto
E una macchia di sangue sul mio letto
Oh, noi siamo il vampiro
E tesoro, siamo vivi e morti
Ho i modi e i mezzi, è la tua gola che amo
O si
O si
The singing stopped. The dark chocolate voice laughed and a voice boomed as one of figures ran ahead of the others in the direction of Annie and Hafoc. “Hahaha. Amici miei, sento odore di sangue fresco!”
Crazy Annie gripped Hafoc’s arm. “This is bad! He’s smelled us.”
“I figured,” Hafoc grunted. “Which way?” He had his dagger ready.
She pulled him in the opposite direction. “Any way, as long as it’s away from here!” They hid behind another building as she grabbed Hafoc’s dagger, pricked her thumb and soaked a handkerchief with it. Her eyes scanned the dark, shuttered up residences nearby. One of them had a letter slot. She wiped her cut on the flap and pushed the handkerchief through before dragging Hafoc down the street in a run.
“That should keep them occupied for a minute.”
Hafoc looked back, “But, hey, who lives there?”
“Don’t know, don’t care,” she called back, out of breath. Finally, she stopped at alleyway, bent over, breathing hard. She pointed to a scrawled mark carved into the stone that looked a bit like a simple drawing of a boat with a mast. She pressed her hand to it until it glowed. A dark passageway opened, and she motioned for Hafoc to follow. He did.
"Don't worry, now that the Strige stroll the streets at night they leave the catacombs alone. Theys too proud to use 'em now, so folks like us do.” Crazy Annie grabbed Hafoc’s hand and dragged him into the nearest black passage.
He put on his rogue’s mask. Might do to hide my face down here. There was minimal lighting from more small glowing symbols much like the one Annie pressed. She pressed one behind them again and the alley disappeared from sight as the hidden door closed again.
She led him through a worrisome series of turns until it felt like they could no longer be under the city of Svlandir any longer...then Hafoc began to see others walking in the tunnels, too. Soon, he heard a crowd up ahead.
Hafoc's muscles loosened up and he almost cracked a smile under his mask. This is where he felt more at home. His senses were heightened, knowing it was more likely something dangerous would happen than not. His eyes widened, taking in every little movement in the tunnels, of the people. "This is more like it—the fecking grit.” And luck. It’s all down to luck. “Let's us find some coin and make new acquaintances, yeh?”
At last, they came to a makeshift arena filled with crude stone benches which seated drunk gambling fans, all facing an empty pit. This part of the catacombs had been excavated deeper so that it had multi-level balconies facing the main attraction to come. The walls were adorned with intricate bone filigree. Vertebrae chandeliers hung above and skulls that had lit candles perched on top dotted the walls like sconces from hell. The music, however, was jovial, and the atmosphere light, as bets passed hands before the first fight.
It might be hard ta place bets without knowing anything about the fighters, Hafoc considered. He wanted to see what a medium bet would be and bet on a random spider, just to get a feel for how things would go.
But first things first—coin. It turned out that both he and Annie were adept at pickpocketing, so it wan’t long before they had some gold to spend. Pretty easy pickins with this drunken lot, he noted, counting his spoils.
A voice rang through the arena, and a flash of multicolored lights appeared. "Last call for bets! First in the ring is our defending champ, Silquoog the Strong." At this, a wolf spider the size of an obese elephant ambled into to ring. "Next," the voice continued with a flourish, "is our newest challenger, Lucha!" On the other side of the ring stepped an equally giant, yet lithe, wolf spider that wore a red and yellow mask. Hafoc was surprised at how quickly it could move.
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Hafoc bet five gold on the defender Lucha, liking her speed.
When the spiders began their fight, it became clear that Lucha's agility only helped so much. She managed to avoid the behemoth spider champ's attacks, but time ran out and she still hadn't taken him down. At the end of the match, the mammoth champ flung her out of the ring for a win.
Crazy Annie looked at Hafoc, then at someone who can only be Underground Lou, a flamboyant bard who was acting announcer and bookie, both. “Do ya want to bet again, maybe recoup the loss?" She looked unsure of her own suggestion.
Hafoc looked him up and down. This guy is short on buttons, or he thinks his chest hair is part o’ the show.
Underground Lou smiled with a glint in his teeth and in his shirt pocket. “Yes, my friend. You’ve no chance of winning it back if you don’t bet, after all.” Hafoc narrowed his eyes. He didn’t trust any guy who could look good in a shiny, bright yellow shirt and who had a goatee and a man bun. He’s even doing a shell game racket on the side in between matches, for feck’s sake. Hafoc noticed, looking over the setup on the betting table. He was sort of impressed and disgusted, all at the same time.
Hafoc shook his head. He decided to keep hold of the rest of his coin. After a while, he whispered to Crazy Annie if it was safe to go back to the inn, or if they needed to hunker down somewhere else. She was too enamored with Lou to notice.
There was a faint rumbling in the catacombs and water dripped from many of the skull sconces. Hafoc briefly wondered...What could the others be doing right now? He assumed the rest of the group was in bed or being boring in some other way.
Crazy Annie placed a bet on Silquoog the Strong and the next match began, but as soon as it started, the rumbling became louder and the head of a giant mole burst out of the floor of the arena.
The spider handlers scattered, and, screaming, the spectators panicked. The mole tried to attack spider Lucha. While the nimble contender battled her new foe, Silquoog the Strong made his escape in the ruckus, and leapt out of the arena. He landed with a soul reverberating thud.
Suddenly, Lou, Hafoc and Annie were faced with the formidable arachnid who took a ponderous, but terrifying, swing at them.
Crazy Annie yelled, "Get back in that ring, dammit, I just bet on you!" and went for the enormous wolf spider with a roundhouse kick.
Man, Hafoc thought. If only she were a whole lot younger and a tiny bit saner, I could go for that gal.
Silquoog the Strong easily blocked Annie's kick with one of his huge legs and knocked her, stumbling, aside.
Lou looked furious at the turn of events. "Hey, quit that—I don't need any more damaged property tonight." He glowered at Crazy Annie. “Let me handle this. He's mine.”
Lou did his best to manage the beast, but the giant arachnid that loomed over them was unmoved, if not angry. It stepped back and raised its front legs, exposing its fangs.
Hafoc yelled at Lou, “Quiet your critters down, will ya? What'll happen if’n it bites us?”
Lou grabbed a bit of meat from behind his gambling table and waved it to get the spider’s attention. “Trust me, you don’t really want to know,” he said, throwing the morsel towards the pit. The spider followed. “Let’s just say they like smoothies.”
Now that the Silquoog wasn’t after them, they noticed other giant fighting spiders had escaped their pens as well. “Not again!” Lou thew his hands up in the air and looked towards the heavens, or, rather, at the top of the catacombs, which was the nearest thing. “I hate this business!” He threw a nearby lute over his shoulder and began to stuff his pockets and a satchel full of the betting cash.
Crazy Annie turned to Hafoc, and grabbed his coat, "Vamps or no vamps, I think we better head back to the inn..." Her face was pale. "I think it might be close enough to morning that we'll be safe outside, anyway. Whaddya say?" She tried to read his expression under the mask, but there was no need to wonder; Hafoc started pulling her back to an entrance before she finished her sentence.
Lou surveyed the chaos around them and swore. "Another fine business down the latrine," he growled, and with a deep sigh, he grabbed a final handful of coin off of a nearby table and followed quickly on Hafoc & Annie's heels. With one last look, he saluted Lou's Underground. "Time to take this show on the road..profits be damned."
They returned back through the catacombs much the way they came. When they made it back to the sigil entrance near The Happy Dragon, they could see through a gap in the old wall that the morning light was just barely visible.
Thankfully, the vampires had ended their nightly stroll along the boulevards, and getting to The Happy Dragon was slow, but uneventful. Hafoc was always happy to visit a tavern, but never so much as he was right then.
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Lou strode into the hotel with such confidence that, although he didn’t have a room, he was immediately mistaken for a patron. A maid spotted Crazy Annie and Hafoc in the lobby, however and began to shoo them away with a broom. She'd seen Annie thrown out often enough to know her on sight.
“Wait,” Annie screeched, “I’m legit today. Honest, I’m with someone…”
Hafoc pointed to himself, surprised. He couldn’t help but be flattered; his presence had never legitimized anyone before.
Annie continued stammering to the maid, “He went that a way,” she pointed, and hollered, “—O, Lou! LOU!”
Figures. Damn fancy pants bard gets all the women, even the old ones. Hafoc’s shoulders dropped and he seethed at the mere thought of anyone wearing a bright, yellow shirt.
Apparently, Lou overheard and came back into to lobby with a sigh. Hafoc heard him whisper in Annie’s ear as he walked past her to flirt with the maid, “You owe me one, old lady.”
Lou toyed with the maid’s apron strings and murmured something to her that the others couldn’t hear. She laughed and swatted the bard playfully. Hafoc heard him ask if she could let them use an empty room.
“Just for a few hours, my dear,” Lou tucked a bit of loose hair behind her ear. “You know…to catch a few winks.”
Then, of course, he winked.
Hafoc rolled his eyes. Oh, of all the corny…glamour boy’s gonna make me wretch. Annie looked nearly as smitten as the maid, though, he noticed. Ah well, if’n it gets us a room, I don’na care.
The maid looked truly sorry then, and said that, sadly, the inn was full.
"Oh, my sweet petunia, look at these two lost souls," Lou insisted. The maid turned to look at Hafoc and Crazy Annie, who were, indeed, worse for wear. Lou pantomimed behind the maid's back for them to look more pitiful. "Surely," Lou continued, drawing her close, "you must have an empty broom closet or something they can stay in at least? I mean, just look at them.”
Hafoc was ready to give Lou something to look at, but checked himself when the maid giggled and showed them to a walk-in storage closet. Lou waved as he and the maid head upstairs. Hafoc wagered Lou would have himself a bed, at least.
He and Annie settled into the storage closet for some rest until the tavern opened again. They found some tarps and Hafoc made her an improvised bed out of them, along with other items on the shelves. Hafoc curled up on the hard floor with his back to the old woman. “Don’t snore, you,” he muttered, half-asleep. “I’ve killed for less."