FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

I woke up sprawled across Alice's bed. It seemed as if she had simply hauled me up on to the bed by the paws and just left me in whatever position I ended up in. I had a feeling that she had probably dragged me down the stairs the same way. I sat up and looked around, the rest of the night was pretty hazy but I vaguely remembered challenging most of the bar to a drinking contest and finishing off Alice's last bottle of moonshine. By all means I should have a vicious hangover, or be dead, but given my condition I had little more than a slight headache that was fading fast.

Alice herself was passed out beside me. She had a very... unique, almost feral, way of sleeping. She would curl up tightly around herself and rest her head on her tail. I'm still not entirely sure how she managed to pull it off without gradually uncurling as the night went on, or royally messing up her back. Her sides slowly rose and fell with her breathing and her normally attentive ears had relaxed and drooped slightly to the sides. Her eyelids twitched and a soft smile tugged at the corners of her muzzle. There was something outright adorable and it was difficult to resist the urge to try and scratch behind her ears. Last time I did that she left me tied up in the corner for a few days, its absolute torture to anticipate something that you know would never come.

She must have felt the bed move as I rose but all it got out of her was a slight twitch of her ears. As I walked down the hall towards the kitchen I caught a glimpse of Mr. Ward sleeping on the couch. The kid looked even younger for some reason. I know the ocelot tribes tended to look young and innocent but still... It didn't help that his tiger blood was barely evident other than a few stripes and a faint orange hue to his fur. Also his suit was starting to get wrinkled which lent a burnt out college business student kind of air to him. I knew that Ross would still be upstairs, as far as we know the Elder Spawn doesn't sleep.

I quietly shuffled through the kitchen and gathered a simple breakfast. Once I finished I returned to the bedroom and sat on the side of the bed. I killed time by running through what I learned from the homeless the other day. Everything they told us, what little of that there was, seemed to indicate that this group has been around for quite some time but only started making waves recently. Anything beyond that most of the homeless either didn't know or weren't willing to tell us. That tells me that this group has gone to them for information the same way I have. Only difference was that I'm pretty sure these guys didn't ask as nicely. The only other thing I had was the tip Mike had given us about the group sending a few of theirs to the library a few months ago. Despite the kid's claims, information tends to reach the homeless long before word of it gets to the rest of us. Until I hear from the Sergeant later today, looking around there would probably be my best bet.

From the corner of my eye I saw a soft glitter of crimson as Alice cracked open an eye. She glanced around for a bit before narrowing her eye to a thin slit. She yawned and slowly uncurled herself. She didn't say anything as she slid off the bed and stumbled to the kitchen. No doubt that she was pretty hungover. Sure enough I heard her rummage through the cabinets for a few minutes before a burst of some rather creative swearing. Still muttering to herself she stalked out of the kitchen and into the bathroom. I was still debating on making a comment about not knowing the inside of her own house when she came back out with an old brown glass bottle. She poured herself a measure of the potion, an anti-hangover mix that included some basic healing roots to reverse any liver damage, and tossed it back. She gagged and coughed as it went down. The stuff was foul enough to make my eyes water from where I sat, I could only imagine how much worse it was to actually drink.

Foul taste or not it did its job, she corked the bottle and put it in its proper place in the kitchen. Coming back to the bedroom she removed her back up arm and took her regular one from its tube. She looked it over carefully before reattaching it and stretching. The motions doing some interesting things to her impressive curves.

"Stop drooling, you're going to make a mess." she chided.

"Too late for that..."

She glared at me and I gave her my best attempt at an innocent smile.

"Needs work." she told me, "You're not that convincing."

I suppose my lack of clothes didn't help with that, especially with the thoughts running through my mind right now.

"So other than getting stuck in the gutter, what are you planning on doing while we wait for the Sergeant's message?"

I couldn't help but laugh and she whipped a wad of clothing at me. Luckily for me she didn't have anything more dangerous on hand, well, lucky for the wall panels at any rate. I get tired of casting repair spells on them every couple of days.

"I was thinking of heading over to the library and following up on what Mike told us." I answered.

"Beats sitting around with your thumbs up your ass. If you're going to be going around talking to people again all day you sure you're not going to want anything to wear?" She asked, that sly smile on her muzzle once again. I followed her gaze and saw the miniskirt amongst the clothes she threw at me.

"I think I'll be fine." I told her, holding up the tiny loop of fabric as if it were toxic.

"Oh come on, it looks good on you." She laughed and I heard a frightened whimper from the other room, the noise must have woke Mr. Ward.

I tossed the skirt aside and slung my sword across my back. Alice checked her gun and gave her arm a final once over. Satisfied we made our way to the stairs.

"If you need anything talk to Ross." I called to Mr. Ward as we passed. We didn't hang around long enough to give him time to respond but I saw him give me a dirty look, I guess he's already getting tired of hiding.

Though it was morning the moons were still out as we left the bar. Side by side Alice and I walked through the crowded streets. No matter how many times I see it, I still can't help but be surprised by the constant flow of people through here. I guess when life is short you have to fit in as much sin as you could. Then again I've done it as well and I have all the time in the world. We're all going to Hell so might as well have your fun along the way. Tells you something of our nature doesn't it? Mortal or immortal, it doesn't seem to matter.

Our walk to the library was uneventful, well uneventful for the Heart at any rate. I suppose things like the protesting dwarves and vendors selling shrunken heads would attract a fair bit of attention in the sane parts of the world. We saw the Heart library long before we got close to it. It's a monolithic stone building that looms over downtown. A fortress in every sense of the word and it wasn't entirely meant to keep things out. There were certain books in there that had a mind of their own, makes them really hard to read by the way, and if they were to get loose things _will_get weird. That happened once about a hundred years ago, someone got checked out by a variation of the Necronomicon and next thing you know Nyarlathotep was leading a parade of madmen through the city center. It wouldn't have been too bad if they didn't all start to melt after a while. Needless to say, the stench was bloody awful. Took days to clean up too.

The front doors of the Library were roughly a foot thick and carved with a shocking array of mystical symbols and ruins. Many of which are from languages that are considered long since dead. Past the doors the overall décor was rather gothic and cliché. Lots of thick dark red carpeting, archaic statues and carved stone pillars, high backed leather bound chairs, etc. Tacky as it was the place had just about every book ever published and many more that weren't. Which left the question, what was our mysterious group hoping to find here? Something told me they weren't after Grandma's cookbook. Unless Grandma was a sorceress and her cookbook a grimoire. Hey, you never know.

I conjured a simple set of clothes, not that different from what I usually wear, and headed for the front desk. Someone must have spent far too much money in trying to make it look impressive, an overly extravagant mahogany lump it spanned most of the antechamber. Alice split off and headed towards one of the side wings. I sighed, like many placed in the Heart the library was far larger on the inside than outside, and given the labyrinth of shelves it would be an utter pain to try and find her later. Not to mention last time she was here on her own she made some interesting edits to the Kama Sutra.

"Ahh, Hello, Alex." Piped up the clerk, Todd. A young and rather effeminate wolfkin he wore his long mane tied back in a dainty braid. I had done a few jobs for him in the past and during that time I found that he moonlights as a dancer at a transvestite bar. I must say he, or perhaps she, is one of the most talented ones there. "And what can I help you with today?"

The library as a whole also owed me a few favors from when I helped track down a few missing books. Not as dangerous as some of the others kept here but they caused their own fair share of trouble during their hiatus.

"For once I'm not looking for a book but looking for someone else interested in books." I told him, leaning on the edge of the desk.

"You always have the most interesting requests." he responded, rubbing his palms together in response to my challenge. I couldn't help but notice that his nails were painted a soft bluish color. "And what might this person look like?"

I described the two pumas and the leopard.

"According to a contact of mine they, or someone similar to them, were here about four months ago. I have reason to believe they're trying to off my client with a pretty nasty bad luck curse." I told him.

"Interesting. I remember seeing someone with rune marked fur but I'm afraid I don't remember what they were looking for. Give me a second." He tapped the desk and a holographic screen popped into existence in front of him.

As he poked and prodded the screen I saw Alice walking by a few rows behind the desk. To my surprise she was carrying an armful of books, and there wasn't a pen in sight.

"Hmm, this isn't right..." muttered Todd. "We have records of them taking out several books but no records of what books were taken out. There's just blank fields in the checkout... Give me a few minutes, there might be a way to figure this out."

There was a flurry of frantic tapping and a muffled yelp as he whacked his finger against the desk at one point.

"Alright... here we go." He turned the hologram to face me while he sucked on his bruised knuckle.

I carefully looked over the results. It was just a list of books sorted by the day they were checked out. "What am I supposed to be seeing here?" I asked.

"The day they were here was a pretty slow one so there were only a few check outs. The middle six," He reached through the hologram and circled the ones he was talking about. "Are the ones that make the most sense."

I took another look at the books he indicated and my eyes widened. "Well fuck."

All the highlighted books focused on forbidden alchemy and ancient summoning rites. I've seen the results of some of the spells and rites one their own but I've never meet anyone stupid enough to try combining them. Something told me the results would be very BAD if this group has the skill to pull of whatever they were planning. Grandma's grimoire indeed. This was even worse.

"I'm afraid there's not much else I could do, they seem to have removed the tracking spells we use on the books and their library card was filed under a fake address." Todd sounded genuinely annoyed at that.

"It's not as helpful as I would have liked but it's better than nothing. Thanks." I told him.

He nodded and leaned back in his chair. "By the way once you're done with this job you should come by the club. It's been a while and I hear you look real good in a miniskirt."

I raised an eyebrow at him and he gave me a sheepish grin.

"Alice sent me a picture." He admitted, there was a soft thump as I hit my head on a nearby pillar. "By the way, she's in the religion section right now, you might want to go check on her."

"Isn't that your job?"

"I like my bits where they are, thank you."

I sighed and began weaving my way through the shelves. It took me nearly ten minutes to just get to the religion section, and that's just because I ran. Now there's just the issue of finding her. Not an easy task when each section is the size of your average city block or larger.

After about twenty minutes of scanning the rows I found her. She was standing before a shelf, humming softly to herself as she carefully removed books and replaced them with others in her pile. I hung back and watched, curious as to what she was up to. Once she had swapped out all the books she split the new pile into several and tucked them out of sight behind the skirts of nearby armchairs.

"Do I really want to know what you've been doing?" I asked as I crept up behind her.

She leapt and her blade slid out with a harsh click. Once she saw it was me she relaxed and smirked.

"Just having a bit of fun." A wicked giggle added color to her words.

I glanced up at the shelves and immediately saw that she had replaced several of the more popular books with some very raunchy joke versions.

"That's rather tame for you."

"I know, I didn't have enough time for anything more interesting." She sounded a bit let down. I figured I didn't want to know the rest of what she had been planning.

"Why do they still let you in here?"

"Because they know there's no good way of keeping me out."

She made a good point. I sighed and shook my head before turning to leave. On our way out I saw Todd hit a few buttons on his screen and I heard the rushing footsteps of the library's staff and they rushed towards the spot Alice and I just were.

"Their damage control is getting better." Alice muttered.

"After some of the things you've done in the past I'm surprised it's taken them this long to get things together."

Her eyes glittered as she thought back on some of her pranks. Knowing her she was probably thinking back to the time where she borrowed several books, copied their contents with fading ink, and then returned the doctored versions. A few hours later they called back furious that all the pages had gone blank. She did that that more than once and was the reason why they started putting tracking spells on the books. Then there was the time she got her hands on some books on classic art... I'll say this, she's a good artist but she draws things that would have made H. R. Giger blush.

Our walk back was fairly calm, asides from a small scale gang war. It seemed a sect of warlocks got tired of a techno-cult that was trying to move in. Spells and lasers filled the air and the occasional explosion shook the surrounding buildings. The warlocks in question are a fairly old fashioned bunch and I must say, trying to turn a cyborg into a frog gets messy real fast. I stepped over a pool of oily blood and frog guts as the fighting paused just long enough for Alice and me to pass. A few people tried to follow us but they quickly found that the warring factions cared little for anyone that wasn't Somebody. Somedays it's good to be Somebody.

We arrived back at the bar and were greeted by Sergeant Keeler, who also happened to be the only one there for the time being. Most of the regulars were working at their day jobs or sleeping it off in the mouth of an alley somewhere. Ross was busy using the down time to repair the damage from yesterday's fight.

"Was wondering when you two would return. Ross told me you were following up on leads and I was starting to hope that you wouldn't need me." the Sergeant told us as we sat beside him.

"I know it's been a while for you but detectives have to do more than sit around waiting for answers to come to them." I told him.

He grimaced and turned an amusing shade of purple. He bit back a retort and took a moment to calm down.

"Ignoring that for now..." he said through clenched teeth.

"Doesn't sound like that's going well for you." Alice pointed out.

Keeler glared at her only to quickly turn back to me as her crimson eyes twinkled in the low light of the bar. I don't think I've ever seen anyone go from ruddy purple to deathly pale that fast before.

"Like I was saying, I've done some digging around in Records. No one fitting the description you gave me has been booked in the past fifty years. I also checked some of the testimonies, nothing. If you ask me you're chasing a ghost here."

"Everything I've found says otherwise. I think a more likely explanation would be that the folk we're looking for aren't stupid enough to get caught."

"Perhaps, either way I've done what you asked. We're even." He said, rising from his seat.

"I suppose we are. Until you find something else you'll be needing my help with."

"Let's hope that a long time from now." He all but slammed the door as he left.

I chuckled as we heard him stomping up the metal stairs. Alice poured two glasses of brandy and slid one down the counter to me.

"Has he ever done anything useful?" Alice asked.

"Not really I just like messing with him."

"Careful, you're starting to sound like me."

We shared a warm laugh and started trying to plan what we would do next. Unfortunately the best either of us could come up with is checking our contacts in the black market. Even here where there were no laws to speak of there were still things that few people would touch. If you want those, you needed to know the right people and even then you needed to know where to find them first. I knew of a few of those people and one or two of them specialized in ritual and alchemical supplies.

As I pondered the most likely of my contacts to visit today, I was dimly aware of another round of Mr. Ward's curse slamming against my barriers. At the same time the bar door swung open. A tall dragon-kin ducked through the low door. His red streaked black scales sparkled dimly in the soft light and his eyes matched the colors of his scales. It was a rather creepy look really, the crimson streaks looked far too much like blood splatters and to see the effect mirrored in his eyes was quite unsettling.

"Well speak of the devil..." I muttered.

"And he shall appear." The newcomer answered.

"So what bring you out of your hole?" Alice asked.

The dragon-kin sighed. "Some people have no sense of dramatic timing."

"Oh...?" Alice asked, a harsh edge to her voice.

The newcomer grinned and conjured a graceful scimitar. "Perhaps a lesson or two, my dear."

Alice vaulted over the counter and settled into a low crouch. I sighed, these two could never just say "Hi" and leave it at that. Alice rushed forward and swung her blade in a tight arch. Sparks flew as the dragon's sword swept the blow aside. The sound of steel on steel rang through the bar as the two danced, trading vicious blows that never seemed to find their mark. There was something captivating about the blur of the blades and the way they sang as they slid through the air.

Finally Alice saw her chance. The dragon swung for her head and rather than blocking it she dropped into a crouch and retracted her blade. As he tried to compensate for the sudden movement she caught the conjured blade, twisting it out of his grip. As she came back up she kicked him hard in the stomach knocking him back against the wall. The scimitar vanished and her empty hand slammed into the wood panels just inched from his head.

The dragon looked up at her and laughed, it sounded like two boulders grinding together. "Good to see some people never change."

Alice smiled and returned to her spot behind the bar. She tossed him a bottle of gin. "Good to see you again too, asshole."

He caught the bottle and sat down beside us. He smelled like he had crawled out from under a dumpster and probably had. "Alex I hear you're chasing your tail looking for some pretty elusive folk this time. As much fun as that is to watch, I bet that you would love to hear what the bird's been singing."

"News has a way of traveling fast even when you don't want it to." Few things stay secret for long around here, which can be amusing but usually it's irritating.

"Works both ways, come on you should know that by now."

"I can dream can't I?"

He chuckled. "Relax, I heard it from Mike, other than the few you've talked to I'm pretty sure not many others have heard. Either way I've got some info that might help."

"Well let's hear it then, Malak." I have no reason to doubt the dragon-kin. He's lived on the streets by choice and little to nothing escapes his notice. Also he's a friend of my father. Which, aside from proving his strength of character, also goes to show just how long the dragon-kin can live for.

Malak cracked his knuckles and leaned forward.

"Best write this down, there's a lot to go through."

I grabbed a pen and the pad that Alice usually used to write down orders.

"Go for it."

He told me every conceivable detail concerning both the man I was looking for and the group he was associated with. The group seemed to be one of those classic conspiracy theory rule the world sort of things, though that haven't quite gotten there yet. The man on the other hand was a new member but has risen quickly through the ranks, mostly because of his talents with magic. Though his tendency to kill superior officers when they disagreed with him also helped.

"So where can I find them?" I asked after he finished his description.

"That's the one thing I don't know."

I sighed.

"What I do know is that several of their members are meeting with a black market trader in a few days to finalize a pretty important order. Not many places around here with that kind of privacy I'm sure you already have a few ideas on where to look." He told me.

"Let's just hope I get it right."

Malak was correct, I knew of the black market traders' favorite spots for conducting business but that didn't mean I'd wind up at the correct on at the right time.

"Don't know a time where you haven't." he chuckled.

We shared a toast before the old dragon left. Not long after the door shut behind him the door to Alice's apartment creaked open. We turned to see Mr. Ward standing there looking rather disheveled in his wrinkled suit. He seemed rather irate.

"As fun as all this hiding is I would appreciate the chance to get not only some clean clothes but some fresh air as well." The venom in his voice nearly melted a hole in the floor.

"You remember there's someone trying to kill you, right?" I asked.

"I'm well aware of that. That's why you will accompany me." Damn, his arrogance was back in full force. This could be fun.

"I suppose I don't have anything better to do for now." I gave him a lazy smile.

"I would hope not considering that I'm you current client."

I wondered if he would pop a blood vessel if I kept this up.

"You got me there. Alice you mind if I take the kid on a field-trip?"

Alice nodded her permission, she looked like she didn't trust herself to speak without bursting into laughter.

I chuckled and rose, "Come on kid, don't want to miss the train."