Shake Down

Sue kept an eye on the two guys across the street. They looked like typical gang bangers, late thirties, early forties, but she could tell they were weres. Wolves, she thought from the way they moved, and low status ones. Cannon fodder. She kept working. She was in the open garage of an old house that had last had any wiring work done in the twenties, back when they thought one outlet in a room was generous. That's one outlet, not a duplex pair. The service for the whole house was only twenty amps. Just pressing start on a microwave would black out the whole house.
It was one of her favorite jobs. For this, her small size was an asset. She had to wriggle through crawl spaces under the house and through spaces too small to call an attic. She pulled wire through spaces never intended to have it, and occasionally, reluctantly, she had to tell customers that she'd either have to run the wire through surface conduits or start tearing into lath and plaster for a lot of extra money. All the same to her, she'd do the lath and plaster work if it was her house; not that she could afford one of these houses. She could never understand someone that paid more than a million for a house and then went cheap on the wiring. Either way, it was work that satisfied her, and good paying work. Her bills always kept coming.
She was done inside and was pulling wire into the service box in the garage preparatory to mounting the breakers and hooking them up. The house now had modern wiring with plenty of capacity to meet all the demands of a modern life. She'd wired an entertainment room and a computer work office for the techie client and had tried to get him to let her set up a data closet and pull Cat 6 and fiber around the house while she was at it. He said, no, he'd use wireless and handle it himself. She didn't argue, well, not with more than a raised eyebrow, but thought it was a mistake not to set up for the highest bandwidth and transmission speed in the house. Nobody ever regrets too much bandwidth. He really should provide A/C for the computer room too. Relying on the central air to cool a room with that much heat load was going to run the air-conditioning too much in the rest of the house. That was going to cost money. Oh, well, his house. Inspector was coming today, and in this neighborhood that meant Tom Williams. That meant the inspection would consist mostly of shooting the shit while he walked around checking off boxes. He knew her work, knew that it was usually far better than code demanded unless the customer insisted on the cheapest job she'd do, and knew that she'd turn down sub-code work. She'd have to remember to ask if Marie had delivered yet. That was funny, calling it delivering, like she was a bicycle messenger, “Delivery! Here's your baby!” Sue wondered what the tip should be for delivering a baby.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw the two creeps across the way crossing the street toward her. She flipped back the flap in her custom tool belt to expose her thirty-eight, and mentally checked, yep, got silver loads today. Then she checked the pull on her gun and on the accessibility of her sleeve sheaths. Weapons don't do you any good if you can't get to them. The knives in her sleeves were also custom, made to her order, with just enough silver added to the alloy to make them effective against weres, but not so much that it would affect the strength or the edge. The balance was nice too, they were throwable, even though that meant blades a little thicker than she liked for a hand-held. The blades had to be heavier to offset the weight of the handles, even though the handles had been made light. It meant the handles were small for close-in work, and big for a throwing knife, but all in all, she was pleased with their versatility. Satisfied, she went back to her work.
“What are you doing here?” Sue kept on pulling wires to terminals and tightening screws and raised an eyebrow. “Working.” “You need to pay to work in this neighborhood.” Sue laughed and said, “Don't I know it.” The guys looked at each other with puzzled looks and then plowed on. “You've got to pay a toll to work in this neighborhood.” She glanced over at them and kept tightening one wire after another and said, “You have to pay a toll”. “What?” “You said you got to, it's have to.” “You some kind of wise guy? Five hundred bucks, now!” You'd think that they would be slightly concerned about her unconcerned attitude, but being were made them over confident. Oh, well.
She dropped her electric screwdriver toward the toolbox and as their eyes followed it she pulled her gun from her tool belt and slipped her knife from it's sheath. As the handle of the knife dropped into her hand she dropped and swept one guys legs. Immediately she launched up and onto the other guy and bowled him over before he could react. She had the knife to his throat and the gun pointed at the other guy's head. “Silver rounds, silver alloy, boys, you might carefully consider your next move.” Her decisive air did more than the threat of the weapons to freeze them into motionlessness. If she were pack, she'd be far above them in the dominance hierarchy, and both of them instinctively showed their throats.
She rolled off of the were and stood up putting her weapons away as quickly as she'd pulled them. “Did someone send you to harass me, or was this your own lame-brained idea?” They looked at each other and then back at her as if asking permission to speak. “Get up, and answer the question.” “It was our idea, to make some extra money.” She shook her head. “You guys shouldn't try to have your own ideas.” She considered for a minute, and said, “I should contact the pack about this, but this time I'm letting you go. You owe me though.” “Ok.” They still stood looking at her. “Go!” They scurried off turning down the sidewalk in a hurry to get out of her sight. If they were in their wolf form their tails would be tucked tightly between their legs. She shook her head and went back to work.

Bowed No More

The group stood about the image of the city and studied the disposition of guard, the banners, the steady stream of supplies trains and the disposition of troop encamped about it. “See Sire, it's just as he said.” Angelique glanced aside at John kneeling, weighted with his magical chains just as he suppressed a groan of pain with a shudder of effort. “Why couldn't you find it before?” “As he broke out of their magic bonds and stepped away with a league step there was a twist he didn't understand. When he was describing it again to me a detail of the description made me realize that the night wind shifted ninety degrees as he left. We were looking in the wrong direction, in the wrong place.” Rupert snarled, “It's still all lies, he couldn't have escaped if they hadn't let him go, see how the Liè chains keep his filthy magic captive now! Lets see him explain that!”


The King turned to John. “Well, John, what say you. How could you have escaped from their Liè chains if you can't escape from ours?” John struggled to raise his head and speak, but was too beaten and his throat too dry. “Give him wine.” Petr leaned his halberd against the wall, grabbed a mug and splashed an inch of wine into it. With the help of the other guard, he gently raised John's head and supporting it, raised the cup to his lips and coaxed him to drink. Finally, able to respond, voice rasping, barely more than a whisper, John replied. “Liè chains only suppress evil magic. They don't contain me.” Rupert began disdainfully to speak again, but a gesture from the King stopped him. “Then why do you kneel suffering before me if you could be free?” John's voice had already weakened, they had to lean closer to hear, “Because you command my suffering Lord.”


“Ridiculous! Don't believe this slime!”, Rupert spit on John. The guard shifted minutely, but Rupert had not the skill to see and realize that only their loyalty to the King kept him safe. Again silencing Rupert with a gesture, the King told John, “If you can be free, then be free.”


Gradually a light, white and beautiful, began to arise about the kneeling man. Within it could be seen ghostly angelic figures rushing to minister to the suffering man. The reaction of those in the room varied with their hearts. The guards, loyal and true, knelt and wept tears of joy, Angelique's face shone in the light, soaking it in and then shining it out again. The King was startled to see that her feet were at least an inch from the floor. Rupert hid his eyes, crouching and turning his face away. Only the King himself seemed unaffected. John's chains fell to the floor all at once with a thudding clang instead of the ring of clean steel. The terrible suppurating sores covering John wherever the chains had been in contact with him began to close and fade before their eyes. The bowed suffering man seemed to unroll, to lengthen, his muscles relaxing away from their terrible twisting and cramping and regaining their tone. The angelic figures faded away one by one until finally the last, with an accusing glance into the King's eyes kissed John on the forehead and disappeared.


John knelt, head down, and the King was amazed to see that even his clothing was clean, the evidence of two weeks in the dungeon gone. “John, look at me.” John raised his head and looked at the King. The nobility of the gaze affected the King in a way that the sight of the angelic beings had not. It was an effort not to turn away from the love and beauty in that look. “Stand.” John immediately arose, lithe and strong, as if the weeks in chains had left no effect at all. In the background, one of the serving women sobbed.