Broomstick - Part Nine

Greetings, and welcome to Inkweb! First of all, please click the link to Iron Wyvern to go and see the beginning of The Draconian Letters Book Two, opening with a letter from Smok's newly recovered uncle Trubodox!
Secondly, I am proud to announce that The Inspector Wolfe Tales, Part Nine, is below! I have also added it into the "Inspector Wolfe Tales" tab above, a nice little update if you want to read the whole of the project so far. Part 10 will be posted on Tuesday, April 23rd. Please enjoy!

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“Get in!” shouted Happy, shoving Grumpy through the doorway and into the vault. “Wolfy!”

I ignored him. My defense instincts had set in by now, and I was staring down a pack of turkey fiends. I growled, and they raised their feathers and gobbled menacingly.

The turkeys were pretty normal looking. Well, sort of. For the most part they were your average farm turkey: the colors, the shape, the beak, the feathers, the feet. They were what one might expect, except for a few things. First off: their teeth. Regular turkeys don’t have teeth, and these ones didn’t just have teeth. They had razor-sharp axeblade chompers, meant to maim and kill upon contact. Second point, the eyes. I shudder to think back on them. They were the most horrific sight I had ever seen in my life.

Well, they started shrieking like before, and I raised a growl before retreating back, my rational side overpowering my instincts.

“What was that, wolfy?” Happy barked as he shut the door behind me.

“Who cares right now?” Grumpy intervened. “Let’s find the key and go.”

This is Dopey. We’re retreating.

Bashful reporting. I’ve turned on the outer defenses for the vault and I’m making some upgrades. It’ll take the Peacefire team at least ten minutes to break in.

I looked around the room and was surprised at what I saw. It seemed that they didn’t keep the Nether key completely alone. Filing cabinets lined the room, neatly placed from A to Z. It was a big room too, and I hoped the dwarves knew how to get to the Nether key fast.

I heard a bang at the door. “That would be the turkeys,” Happy informed me. “Get over here and help look.”

“It should be filed under ‘Artifacts of Mass Destruction,’” Grumpy informed me cheerily. “Then under K, for ‘key.’”

“Okay,” I answered. “Where’s Artifacts of Mass Destruction?”

“In the D section, for ‘destruction, artifacts of mass.’ So, about nineteen rows back! Let’s get cracking.”

“How large is the section?” I inquired as we trotted down rows of filing cabinets. The werelights above followed us around the room, keeping everything nicely illuminated.

“Oh, probably about eight rows. But we’ll be looking at the beginning few shelves.”

I gulped. Eight whole shelves for the destruction section, and these dwarves were only after one thing. I reasoned that the Nether key must be even more powerful than rumored.

Grumpy led us down the nineteenth row, his eyes speedily scanning the shelves. “If only we had Sleepy with us,” he muttered. “He’s the most alert guy out of all seven of us.”

“Well, he is a neat carriage driver,” I remarked. “Speaking of which, what exactly is the getaway plan?”

“The getaway plan? Oh, that’s simple. We’ll—” Grumpy was cut off when Happy exclaimed, “Here it is! I found it!”

We rushed over to the other side of the row of cabinets, where Happy stood pointing at a single cabinet. “It’s in there, Grumps. It’s in that cabinet, by golly.”

I heard shouting and thumping outside. “That would be the Peacelocks,” I reminded them. “Let’s hurry up!”

“Well, the actual box is protected by more hexes,” Grumpy told me. “But we know our way past that. Bashful will take care of it when we get back to the King’s Men Club.” With those words, he pulled the whole drawer out of the filing cabinet and took the box from inside it. It was a simple black cube, and I couldn’t believe that such a powerful artifact was just shut up in there like a forgotten keepsake.

“They tried to destroy it, the Peacelocks,” Happy grunted. “But the idiots should have known. They couldn’t make a dent. It belonged to a king of shadows long ago. It was forged in the Nether realm, from the very essence of the ancient Titans. There’s no getting rid of that kind of power.”

“Let’s get out of here,” I said. “How are we doing that, by the way?”

“Oh, baby, you’re in for a surprise,” Grumpy chuckled, and then the doors blew open and the werelights turned crimson.

“Bouncing bugles!” cursed Happy, and ran toward the back of the room. Grumpy motioned for me to follow, and we all raced across the vault floor. I heard the shouts of Peacelocks and Peacefires behind us and saw the reflection of all the flashing lights on the walls and ceiling.

“Don’t look back!” Grumpy called as we reached the back wall of the room.

“What do we do? We’re at a dead end!” I gasped.

“Watch and learn, wolfy,” Happy sneered, and he pulled a playing card out of his pocket, on which was drawn a depiction of the seven dwarves’ room back at the King’s Men Club.

“Is that a veniflagrus card?” I asked in surprise.

“Absolutely, my friend,” cackled Grumpy. “Burns up as soon as we travel through. Grab Happy’s hand!”

I did as I was told, a thrill spreading through me. I glanced over my shoulder to see a line of Peacefire assault agents sweeping the room, crimson firebows at the ready, but that was the last I saw of that vault as I was dragged by a strange force into an interdimensional gap. It happened forever, and in a flash, and suddenly I was standing in the middle of the dwarves’ room in the club with Happy and Grumpy.

“Merlin’s bushy eyebrows!” I exclaimed. “That was jarring. Where’d you find a veniflagrus card?”

“We’ve got connections,” Happy said dodgily. “So who’s the wolf, exactly?”

“James,” I said, holding out a hand. Happy didn’t shake, so I dropped it. “I was sent by the Three to supervise the heist.”

“So you’re reporting how well we did?”

“Absolutely. And you did well.”

Grumpy grinned and set down the black box on one of the beds. “Well, we ain’t done yet. We have to crack the box open somehow.”

The door opened, and in rushed all the rest of the dwarves, swarming inside and pulling off masks. Grumpy, Happy, and I remembered to take our own masks off.

Bashful looked at Grumpy. “Where is it?” He looked tired and haggard, and out of breath. I wondered what toll magic must take on someone.

“It’s on the bed. Tonight we’re gonna crack it.”

I looked at the black box on the bed, the box that held death and destruction inside, all crammed into a few cubic inches. And then I made my move. “Actually,” I announced, “the Three said I was supposed to take it to a professional to get it open.”

“What?” Happy snarled. “That wasn’t what they told us! In fact, they never told us you’d be coming along, much less that you’d take our score. How do we know we can trust you?”

Grumpy frowned. “He has a point, actually. How do we know we can trust you?”

The other dwarves crowded around us, chorusing “Aye” with varying degrees of loudness.

“I never trusted him!” Happy growled. “And now he’s trying to rob us, ain’t he?”

“No, guys,” I tried to explain. “The bosses sent me, I swear!”

“Well, why don’t you prove it?” Dopey shrugged simply. Everybody turned and stared at him.
I gulped. This was going to be a hard sell.