Hopefully this one worked out better than the rest of Bedeckt’s plans.
Wichtig rode through grey streets. This Selbsthass had none of the life and bustle of the version in the land of the living. He watched people shuffle about the daily grind of being dead. Strange how similar it was to being alive. Bent old ladies shopped in the market for grey fruit while crotchety old men drank dark coffee and grumbled about their knees in grey cafés lining intimidatingly clean streets. Wichtig wanted to piss on a wall to mar the perfection.
Passing a side street, he spotted a half dozen white-clad kneeling priests—buckets at their sides—scrubbing cobblestones.
I knew it!
Bedeckt said to meet him at the Leichtes Haus. The name sounded familiar. Picking a street he thought he recognized, Wichtig pushed his horse forward with a nudge of his knees. When he spotted the tavern, he realized why it sounded familiar. They stayed at this inn when alive. With a quick grin, Wichtig remembered bedding that insatiable barmaid. What was her name? He couldn’t remember.
Tying the reins off to the horse-rail, Wichtig entered with a flourish and a grin. Though the few bored looking patrons glanced up at his entrance, all immediately turned away, uninterested.
Grey isn’t my colour. It was the only explanation. How else could they so readily ignore his stunning good looks and physical perfection?
Slinging the matched swords from his shoulders, Wichtig dumped them on the table and dropped into a chair, slumping into a comfortable slouch. He watched the bar staff putter. Each and every one looked grey and familiar. He even thought he recognized most of the patrons. And then he understood. They were familiar. He had seen them before. When he and Stehlen last left the Leichtes Haus, dragging Bedeckt’s unconscious and bleeding near-corpse, the hideous Kleptic killed everyone. All the staff. All the patrons. She said it was to cover their tracks, so that no one could describe them. She’d lied. Wichtig knew she murdered all those people to hide the one death she really desired. Wichtig spotted the bar maid he bedded the last time they were in Selbsthass. She served a drink to a man who sat on the edge of his chair, face mashed against the tabletop, arms splayed about his head.
Wichtig’s chest tightened with an odd emotion that might have been guilt were guilt not the kind of thing Gefahrgeist such as himself used to manipulate others. Stehlen had been jealous. Jealousy Wichtig understood all too well. Every woman wanted him, how could she not be jealous? But to kill a dozen people to annoy him? He’d no idea she was so madly in love with him. He’d been tempted to rut the murderous bitch, but shortly after murdering everyone in the Leichtes Haus, she bedded Bedeckt in some puke-filled alley. Probably a pathetic attempt to make me jealous. Since then, Bedeckt and Stehlen’s relationship had been strained. It didn’t help that the old goat killed her to save Morgen.
Are everyone’s relationships this complicated?
Probably. As long as women were involved, nothing was easy.
The barmaid approached, beautiful if a tad ashen in complexion. No hint of recognition lit her eyes. No warm smile graced her lips.
Hiding his hurt, Wichtig gave her a long, smoky look and said, “Hi.”
“Drink? Food?” She didn’t look at him, dead eyes staring at the swords on the table.
“Yes and yes,” he said, eyeing the curve of her arse appreciatively and making no attempt to hide his interest. He remembered how she fell into his lap the last time he saw her, laughing and teasing and giggling. “And maybe a little something else.”
“Roast chicken and ale?”
“Is it really chicken?”
She shrugged and left.
Wichtig watched the swing of her arse but couldn’t summon a lust for it. Death is a prophylactic. Maybe he’d find something to rut just to be sure he still could. Life—unlife, he corrected—wasn’t worth living without the fawning attention of women.
Wichtig’s mood soured further as he sat waiting for his food. The service wasn’t this bad when these folks were alive. People use any excuse for laziness. Including death.
He sagged back into his chair, feeling tired. Death is leaching the life from me. Perhaps he hadn’t lost his poetic edge after all. If Bedeckt’s plan worked, and they were returned to life, what would he do with his second chance? Should he continue his quest to be the Greatest Swordsman in the World? Maybe he should ride to Traurig, find his wife and son, return to his life as a poet of growing repute.
I could make different choices this time. I could be someone else. Whatever he did, people would love him for it; he had that gift. Short-sighted fools like Bedeckt called him a minor Gefahrgeist, but Wichtig knew the truth. He was talented and he was damned good looking. Men and women alike were drawn to him, pulled in by his wit and charm. No matter what path he took, others would follow.