Broomstick - The Inspector Wolfe Tales, #1 - Part Six

Sleepy drove the carriage. Judging by his name, I was scared to death that he’d fall asleep at the reins and we’d crash.

It was the other way around once he started driving. Sleepy’s the fastest dwarf carriage racer in the west. And we weren’t driving any old pumpkin. We were in the best: a TurboTroll XL12, with a team of two mean-looking horses champing at the bits. These guys were for real.

We all loaded into the back of the sleek convertible, and I was handed a mask by Bashful. “It’s so they don’t see your big wolfy face,” he told me, not at all bashfully.

“Sorry about him,” Grumpy said. “He’s always speaking his mind.”

“I can see that,” I said, and put on the mask.

Sleepy pulled us into Mach Four to exit the parking lot, ramped it up to Mach Seven for the road, and I was feeling very sick very soon, and also very glad we didn’t use the highway, for fear that Sleepy would have upped the speed another notch.

We had arrived, and at a criminal’s dream target. That criminal’s dream was a nightmare, mind you. And my thoughts on robbing the place made a nightmare look laughable. If this heist the dwarves were pulling off went sideways, and I got caught, it would be prison for life with me. Even if it wasn’t, by the time I got out, my chances of a good career in detective work would be blown.

Oh well. I’d already pitched myself in. And Alice was running out of time. I thought of Aleck’s dead body. Something was going on here that I didn’t understand, and I needed to find out what it was, before it was too late.

Grumpy opened the door to the carriage, and the dwarves cleared out of the cabin. I followed, and as soon as I was out, Sleepy was off like a shot. “He’ll pick us up when the job’s done,” Grumpy told me.

I looked at the building I was about to help rob. It was the Official Faeraway Magical Artifacts Impound. It stretched three stories high, was guarded by a crack team of Peacelocks and cannibal turkeys, and held within its walls thousands of confiscated magical objects, taken from various criminals by the police and stored here for safekeeping.

“All right, boyos,” Grumpy started, raising his voice so he could be heard clearly by everyone. “We’re only here to take the one thing. And that’s the Nether Key.”

My eyes widened and I gasped unintentionally. This was bad. Really bad.