A Marnian Welcome

[Manuel]

Manuel slowly, carefully pushed the door open, akin to a manner that one would use when there was a frightened animal on the other side. In his opinion there were two. Nonetheless he went on through.
He made quite the sight, covered in cuts and scrapes, his body bathed in splotches of drying blood. Even the table cloth he had just donned already have patches of blood on it. His hair had pieces of glass still stuck in it, and without his glasses he looked much unlike the lad he was, more like an invader with the intention to rape and pillage. As he stood in the doorway of the half closed door the thought of shifting crossed his mind -at least to his snake form- but he quickly dismissed it, at least in human form they may be less likely to attack him. He hoped.

He called out calmly as he crossed the doorway, "Don't suppose you would still be want those diced rabbits"

[Renee Raialagos]

No bombs had exploded. It dawned on Renee that she had been mistaken. A feeling of relief flooded her, but not for long. The shop window had still been broken, something had still been thrown into the shop, Brokk was up to something unknown and she could hear that things were going on.

A new voice could be heard, somebody was moving in the shop, speaking about rabbit meat.

Now, when the worst panic was over and it wasn’t needed for a quick escape anymore, the key moved smoothly in the lock of the shop’s backdoor to the alley behind. Typical. As soon as it wasn't needed anymore it worked. But she didn’t spend more time on it. Instead she went out to see what was happening. She wasn’t going to just abandon the shop, her wares and her newfound contact Brokk.

When she found the source of all the commotion she could hardly believe her eyes. It was the lad who had been selling rabbit meat in the street earlier in the evening, before the guards had come for him. It was beyond her to understand how he could now be in her shop. In addition, he was dressed in nothing more than a nice table cloth she had for sale. It was more decent than being stark naked, but not by much.

Renee was stupefied. She didn’t have the slightest idea what to do or say. She saw the lad and she saw Brokk standing there, looking defensive and tense. The time Renee stood watching them before next thing happened can’t have been long; it was likely just a second, but it felt long and surreal.

“Rabbit meat? What are you ... ” she started to say to the scantily dressed boy.

[Brokk]

Ren paused at the voice, but didn't lower her guard. The boy? How had he followed her here? More importantly, why was he following her? Changers knew that this enclosed hell was bad enough without vagrant amateur butchers chasing her around to boot. He seemed scared, and rightly so with those walls around him, and bleeding to boot. As she'd suspected, coming in face first through plate glass had not been conducive to good health. Still, she was very prepared to add an eyeful of ghost pepper, salt and chilli powder, before clocking him if need be. The weight of the roll of bishani was like a metal bar in her other fist, and as the door swung to slowly behind the boy, Ren stepped quietly between him and the exit.

A movement from across the room drew her attention and Renee came into view, looking just as skittish and nonplussed as the butcher boy. Her gaze took in both of them in one glance and Ren made no move beyond settling into her new position by the door. It would have been funny really, if it weren't for the imminent threat of guard involvement. Ren hoped that they had decided to take the scenic route tonight and gave them a chance to clean up before questions were asked. In fact, if all they did was give her enough time to scramble out the back window into an alleyway to freedom, she'd be happy. Pride goeth before the prison sentence and all that, and it would be a very long sentence with very little punctuation in her case. On the upside, Renee wouldn't come out of that arrangement too badly, as a titre she'd get preferential treatment and the hints of a scandal would only work wonders for her business.

All of this ran through Ren's head in a second as she surveyed her options. It sent a thrill rushing through her veins that drowned out the incessantly screaming voice in her head whenever she set foot indoors and focused her thoughts to a razor's edge. It was almost like that moment before a sale when the customer was examining an example of the finest craftsmanship she could scrounge, and then they would smile, nod and reach into their purses to make her a wealthier woman. All told, she had quite a good life, at least when skittish shop owners and mad vagrants gave her a wide berth. Perhaps that was unfair of her, but no amount of self deception was too much where her happiness was concerned. Watching both carefully, she made eye contact with Renee to let her know that she was, uncomfortably, staying to help, ignoring a fresh itch between her shoulder blades.

[Manuel]

Manuel was not as worried as he seemed. Although on the outside he appeared worried, scared even, his mind was whirring.
"My dear badly dressed customer is here, but where is the saleswoman....her scent led here" The hairs on his back prickled, something or someone was hiding and although he suspected it was Brokk he ignored it, choosing instead to focus on Renee.
He studied her, the poor woman appeared almost as scared as he was supposed to be himself. The mamba in him pressed forward willing him to change there and then, to sink his fangs into her neck and let the venom flow. But there was still that feeling that something unknown was watching him, waiting for him to slip up, so he pushed the desire back down from whence it came, suppressed but not sated.

He started to talk as Renee did, cutting her off before she finished her sentence. "Why the rabbit meat of course! Twas just this morning that we were conducting our wondrous transaction, at least before those brutish guards came to interrupt us" His tone was oddly calm and upbeat, like there was nothing in the world wrong with his standing there half-naked, his blood pooling on the floor.
He made a rather convincing show of looking round, even staggering so badly it really seemed he was gravely injured. "I don't suppose you want to continue our little dance, I can offer other things apart from rabbit meat...costlier things"
He spoke with confidence at this point drawing on his memory of Renee and Brokk's show, the little he had seen of it had been enough to convince him that he could see Renee some of his "product" He didn't trust here, but he could damn well make a profit off her, perhaps a friend if time permitted.

"So, what do you say? Excusing my current state of course" He directed the question to Renee, but one question still troubled him.
Where in the bloody Changers was Brokk!?

[Renee Raialagos]

The boy was really weird, Renee got that. His oddly upbeat tone paired with his half naked state, the bleeding, the way he was staggering and the fact that he believed they had met in the morning when it had actually been in the evening, not to mention how he had crashed in through the shop’s window - it came off as confused and not totally normal.

She met Brokks determined gaze. It seemed like the other saleswoman wasn’t going to desert her, at least not yet. This was a true relief.

It was the first time anybody had broken into Renee´s shop. Because broken in was what the lad had done. It seemed more like the actions of a complete madman than a burglary though. Renee had no experience at all of dealing with people who weren’t sane ... she couldn’t know if the boy was sane or not though. Perhaps it was just the bleeding that made him dizzy.

Renee had volunteered to help out in the city hospital in the evening of the bombings, and so she had learnt a few things about emergency first aid. It was essential to stop bleedings. The rabbit lad was bleeding so much that his blood was pooling on the floor. If this wasn’t stopped, chances were his life would soon be over and Brokk and she would be left to deal with the dead naked body of a teenager boy who was wanted by the city guard.

Then again, would that be so bad? If it happened, they could tell the guards they had seen the lad crushing the shop window and decided to intervene and catch him, for the best of Marn. But having cut himself on the window glass, he had bled to death right in front of them. Or fallen unconscious. Perhaps this catch and it’s sinister outcome would gain her and Brokk the appreciation of the guards, as the lad seemed to be some kind of wanted criminal? In worst case, if the lad would up and die of blood loss, they could try to play heroines. Nobody needed to know they had actually just watched the boy stagger around and bleed after having behaved like a madman and crashed in through the window.

It was always good to have a plan B, even if this one was more than a little bit ruthless. Renee was however not a heartless douche looking to watch teenagers die of their own rash actions. Her reaction was in first hand to try do something about the injuries. If it was possible, she would try to patch the lad up a bit and stop the bleeding. Then they could interrogate him about why he was there and why he had destroyed the window.

“You are bleeding” she said cautiously to Manuel. “I think it’s best to have a look at your wounds before it’s too late.” She pointed at the blood that was pooling at his feet. “I don’t think it’s an artery you have cut because then you would already be down, but at the rate you are bleeding it looks bleak enough, if we can’t stop it at once.”

She wasn’t sure from where most of the blood was coming from. She couldn’t really know how bad it was either. And she wasn’t sure how much blood it was, but to her it looked serious.

[Brokk]

Ren was growing steadily less confident about this whole affair and more certain that this was going to end up with a visit from the Guard. Not that she couldn't deal with that of course; a woman of means such as herself had to deal with whatever difficulties life threw at her and the law was often the least of said difficulties. How would she get rid of the body though? Well, she had ideas, but moving the body without drawing attention was the real concern. More to the point, if she had to spend her night scrubbing blood off the shop floor and shoring up a broken window, then Renee was damned well going to buy something to compensate her for this insanity. Dear sweet changers, her skin was itching! How did they stand it in here?

Wait a minute; why was she even worrying about this? She could just skedaddle and leave them to it, couldn't she? She hadn't touched anything and the items were unmarked, so they couldn't be traced back to her. The boy would be dismissed as a loon, but Renee was a different matter. Yes, she might be dismissed as hysterical, but they had been seen together and she wouldn't put it past Quirke to run her down just to win over Renee. No, she'd have to kill Renee to clean the slate and that was more work than she needed right now. It was easier to buy her way out of the situation than it was to kill, in any case, but right then, more than anything else, she needed some air.

"You see to his wounds," she said, without preamble. "I'll clean up inside."

So saying, she stepped around the still open door and into the other room, stepping quickly to shove her head out through the broken window and breathe the free air. It was an incredibly...intense feeling, and she savoured it for a too-brief moment before turning her attention back to the situation at hand. The room was a mess and there was blood and broken glass scattered across the floor. Not the worst situation, she supposed, taking another free breath, and scooping up a second table cloth and beginning to soak up the blood.

[Manuel]

Manuel glanced down at the slowly increasing pool of blood at his feet, although most of his wounds were already clotting, he was finally beginning to feel the effects of this charade. Tightening the ever dampening towel around his waist, he moved slowly towards a stool, idly noting that Brokk had moved to the other room at he sat.
That Brokk had escaped his notice in the first place baffled him, he should had sensed her, smelled her at the very least. If he couldn't even notice when a human was standing behind him, then what use was he as a hunter. Not much it seemed.
Glancing at Renee he studied her, she was handling the recent events rather well. Someone she hardly knew had broken into her shop and bled all over her nice floor. And what did she do? She offered to patch the half-naked loon up. Somewhere at the back of his mind, he felt he could trust her.

"Yea, I better get them checked out.... Sorry about your window by the way, wasn't really the smartest choice of entry eh?" He chuckled weakly. "Believe it or not though, I've had the worst turn of events today. The incident with the guards this morning, losing my clothes, the less than pleasant sensation of glass shredding skin."

As he rambled on, the skin on his back turned scaly as he faced her, healing the wounds on his back slightly. He kept talking as he watched her carefully, his back facing the open door Brokk had gone through.

[Renee Raialagos]

The boy sounded more coherent now. Obviously her words about the bleeding and the risk he ran if it wasn’t stopped had reached through and awakened him from the delirious state he had seemed to be in. His words and behavior made much more sense now. He wasn’t a total madman. And the sudden insight that death was a possibility, if he went on like he had done, seemed to have made him compose himself and think. She felt relieved that he hadn’t just become scared and panicked. She had seen a lot of panicking that night in the hospital, about people's own wounds, about other people’s wounds, about death.

She thought briefly of her memories of Azuel Vuaduka and his behavior. The man’s social standing was as high as it came in Marn; a descendant and a member of the city guard. But she had witnessed how even a man like that could be seized by emotional reactions when facing death and disaster. He had been ...totally carried away.

But she dismissed the memories. Instead she tended to Manuel’s wounds, and luckily she had learnt how to do it. She started by stopping the worst bleeding, from one arm, with a tourniquet she made of brightly colored and wildly patterned cotton scarves she had for sale in the shop. With this colorful addition to his already unusual attire, Manuel looked even more special than before.

It worried her with the glass she had to pick away from his body. She did her best and could just hope that she hadn’t missed any of the shards. Renee worked efficiently but without hurry, silently and patiently, the way she had seen the staff as the hospital do. It wasn’t just about being quick. It was also about doing everything the right way.

Renée had no medical training at all, bar for the one night of helping out in the hospital as temporary volunteer. At most she had assisted the skilled professional nurses by doing what they told her to do. She had nobody to give her instructions now. All she had was her scant insight in medical care. She had to trust her intuition. It seemed right to her to let the boy sit on the stool and rest and it seemed right to her to not rush him.

She finished the care of the wounds she could see from her position in front of Manuel. “Well, I can understand that you have had a bad day” she said. “But you still have a few questions to answer. Like who’s going to pay for my destroyed shop window. And if I may ask, why did you destroy it by jumping into ...”

At this point Renee had stepped around to the other side of the boy to have a look at his back. She saw the scales. It wasn’t like anything she had seen on any other person, ever. She couldn’t know what it was, so her first reaction was that the boy seemed to suffer from some kind of severe skin disease, which made it look like he had snake scales.

She was totally unknowing that Manuel was a mamba shapeshifter, so she had no reason to assume anything else than a disease. But she was definitely shocked by what she saw. Before she knew it, she had expressed her surprise in a loud exclamation and taken several steps back and away.

[Brokk]

There was a time, Ren recalled, when she'd promised herself that she'd never again be on her knees scrubbing bloodstains off the floor. Life had a way of poking fun at one's fervent wishes, she reflected, as she tucked the bloody and glass filled tablecloth inside a second, cleaner tablecloth and tucked them away to assess the damage. It still left the blood in the next room, but the other two were in there, which made it officially their problem. The window was a loss, but it would be hard to pass that off as petty vandalism. Besides, she'd already been slowed in her efforts by having to stick her head out regularly to breathe and not freak out, and she didn't have the energy to stage a different crime.

Pausing, she turned her attention back to the other room and her companions. There was little to no noise from there, which she took for good news, and the less time she spent in there, the more deniable her involvement became. Now, if she knocked over a few items, spread some glass around and made off with one or two of the nice ones, she could pass this off as another break in. Renee might complain, but if it kept the Guard from looking too closely at her business, then she'd see sense. She was about to put this plan into action when a cry rang out from the next room, and she moved to the door to see, suppressing the urge to run.

Inside, both Renee and Sir vagrant of house rabbit were still upright and not visibly bleeding or being attacked. The scream had come from Renee, clearly, as she was backing away slightly in fear, but why, was what Ren couldn't discern. Then the boy turned and Ren noticed the scales spreading across his skin. A shifter? That explained a few things but complicated the rest even further. Shifters were insidious and hard to kill, even harder to hide from, but Ren had had practice in that area at least. A knock at the door cut that thought short and she flattened herself against the wall, listening.

"Miss Raialagos," came a suspiciously familiar voice. "Is everything alright?"

[Manuel]

It dawned on Manuel, that he had messed up royally. The wounds on his back had proved troublesome, and his healing had kicked in almost unconsciously as he talked to Renee. Half distracted by the drowsiness he felt, he had failed to notice that she had moved to attend to his back. The scream from behind him quickly snapped him back alert.
Some choice swear words flashed through his head. And thought flashed back and forth.

"Shit. She was not supposed to find out, not so soon anyway."

The idea of attacking Renee popped up in his mind, at least until he heard footsteps behind and Brokk appeared in the corner of his vision. Thinking quickly he opted to treat Renee like a scared dog, he crouched down to make himself seem like a smaller threat, all the while making low shushing noises, his arms spread out to show that he meant no harm.
Scared that her scream had attracted attention, he moved slowly closer, talking low enough for Renee and only Renee to hear.

"Now....Ma'am, I know you're shocked but I'll rather you hear me out, I can explain.....mostly."

A startling knock came from the door sharp and loud, soon followed after by a voice from beyond it. The voice itself was somewhat familiar but Manuel couldn't be sure, and he didn't want to risk sprouting a snake tongue lest it shock Renee even more.
Still making calming motions he moved away from the knock, and closer to the door at the far end of the room, a finger held to his lips in a plea.

[Renee Raialagos]

Renée had been about to start to interrogate Manuel thoroughly of course, force him to tell her his reasons for everything had done and try to make an agreement about him paying the repairs. But when she heard the knock on the door and the yelled question, she understood that things were now getting more complicated by the minute. It was too late for interrogation and negotiation now. And when she saw the boy start to move towards the back door she realized he might try to disappear out through the back door and escape into the back alleys. And while it would be a pro to not have to explain him and his presence in the shop, it was also bad if he just disappeared, as he was her only chance to not have to pay a new window herself.

She jumped in between Manuel and the backdoor. "Hello there, where do you think you are going?" she said. "You have interrupted a business discussion and if you disappear without paying you will have interrupted it permanently, as I will have to pay for a new window instead of buying new interesting things to sell in the shop. I'm not going to let you out of here without a convincing agreement on how you are going to pay for what you have destroyed!"

At this point she continued to the back door, snatched the key and put it in a pocket on the dress skirt. If she had been able to guess that Manuel was something more than a skinny teenager dressed in a tablecloth and seeming to suffer from a skin disease, she might have been more careful. Perhaps she would even have been glad to shoo him out and never mind the money. But she didn't have the slightest idea what she was dealing with, so she went for locking him in and putting pressure on him to do right.

"Everything is alright" she shouted in response to the question from outside.

She couldn't hear the door open. It was locked. But she heard sounds, some of them a bit metallic ... and then the voice if Quirke, now inside the shop. At least one city guard had obviously entered through the crashed window.

"Don't worry" she heard Quirke say. "It's obvious that it's not alright. This looks like a burglary. Whatever is happening in here, we are here to save you miss Raialagos."

[Brokk]

Complicated was a word that was thrown around, often unfairly, these days, but right now it seemed something of an understatement to Ren. Why, she wailed in the privacy of her head, why did these things happen to her? She just wanted to make money, for Changers' sakes, it wasn't like she was blaspheming or anything! She didn't even wait for the voices to finish before she moved, casting about for somewhere to go. The window was an obvious choice, but Guardsmen never traveled alone at night, and if they'd heard the commotion they'd be coming for the alleyways, so that was out of the question. Anyone moving fast at night would look too much like a target. Tables were no good either, since the only long tablecloths were either wrapped around a shifter's midsection or hidden and soaked with blood, and there wasn't much merchandise to...

Hang on.

This was a display room, and yes, there wasn't much large, convenient pottery or tapestries to hide behind, but there was an Tian Xian Lacquered dressing screen against the far wall. It would be a squeeze, but she could fit there, she was certain. Any doubts she might have had were quashed by the sound of approaching footsteps and she crossed the room in a flash, flattening herself behind the screen as best she could. It was not a moment too soon either, as a muttered curse and the sound of creaking timber signalled an armoured body moving through the broken window. Long practice had taught Ren to keep still and silent despite her detractors often being a door's thickness away, and she listened, breathing silently, as the man knelt to examine the area inside the window. She kept her face impassive as the familiar voice boomed out again, and Quirke (Who else could it have been? She thought bitterly.) moved to the door.

So far, so good, she thought, now, do I stay here or make a break for it?

Staying put was an awful option, but the thought of being caught fleeing out the window was rather more dire, and she highly doubted that she had enough coin to convince Quirke and his companions to forget all about this, especially given the events of the day. Even if she had, the Guard were notorious gossips and it would all be out in the open before daybreak. That was, of course, provided that the other two could keep a straight face and say nothing. Either one could sell her out in a heartbeat and render all of this null and void. She fought the urge to grin as the adrenaline raced through her system. This was almost as good as the moment before a sale or a really good con, and she listened intently for anything to come.

[Manuel]

The situation had quickly slipped out off his control. Renee had no qualms about locking him inside, and the guards seemed to have drawn closer to their location. He remembered the voice now, it was the bull's partner, knowledge which only served to irritate him even more. Manuel tightened his tablecloth and a plan formulated in his mind.

It was a longshot but maybe he could play this off, say he was assaulted by a disgruntled customer, thrown into the window to teach him a lesson, but even if they did believe that he still had to hope that Quirke didn't remember him. Barring that, the story was somewhat believable, he hoped.

His skin crawled as he silently bemoaned his situation, it had been a terrible idea coming here, and Brokk -the only reason he had even come- had either escaped or gone in hiding. He wasn't sure what the punishment for breaking and entering was in Marn, but he was sure that it was going to be unpleasant. Part of his animosity for guards had come from the tales he had heard; broken fingers, broken knees, broken everything in some extreme cases.

But time was about to run out for Manuel, he turned to Renee with impressive sincerity on his face. "Look, Miss Raialagos, I understand that you want answers and your window fixed, and I promise to help with that" His voice dropped several tones to the level of whisper, and a look of slight fear came over his face. "But it wasn't by choice that I flew through your window, and if the guards catch me here I doubt they'll give me a chance to explain. Please don't let them see me here, I'll pay for your window"

The footsteps drew closer, it seemed Quirke was mercifully still a fair distance from the closed door, but time was running out.

[Renee Raialagos]

The promise to pay for the window was of course interesting to Renée. But she wasn’t sure if she could trust the boy. Maybe he was only saying this now as he wanted to avoid the guards. She wasn’t going to let him out ... not yet ... not without a written promissory note signed by him.

But there was no time to write papers right now. It was obvious that at least one guard had already entered the shop and it was no idea to just stand there stupidly and wait for being found. Not sure what to do with the boy, she hastily told him that if he managed to hide from the guards,they would make a deal about the payment afterwards, but in case the guards found him she didn’t know what would happen as she the guards weren’t under her command.

And so she left it to Manuel to find a hiding place as best he was able and went to meet the new “visitors”.

Quirke was already on his way through the shop and another guard was climbing in through the window. Renée couldn’t see who this second guard was but she feared the worst. It would perhaps be possible to make Quirke cancel the investigation if she spoke with him, but his colleague was another thing.

“Captain Quirke”. Renée didn’t say anything more, because she wasn’t sure what to say. It seemed best to not say too much. She was just going to try to make them leave.

“What’s happening here miss Raialagos ... Renée ?” Quirke managed to sound both official and very guard-like in the beginning of his reply and far too personal at the end. “Are you unharmed?”

“Yes, yes, of course” she said like the question surprised her. “I don’t know really, it’s all very odd. The shop window is destroyed. I guess you noticed that. “

“We heard a scream. It seemed to come from this direction. What happened to the window?”

Quirke looked back over his shoulder at the other guard, who seemed to have some trouble climbing in. Renée did the same. The sound of plate armor and muffled swearing wasn’t promising and although it was slow progress, somebody was making progress and soon the guards would be two.

“I’m not sure” she said, stalling for time. It was odd how Quirke seemed much taller, larger and more dangerous than ever before. “I admit I screamed. I felt shocked. And I have been searching the shop to see if anything has been stolen, but so far I haven’t found anything missing, not that I know about. But I have so many things here, and ... oh dear! “

The second guard had lost his balance and fallen in through the window in a final mess of rattling plate and loud profanities. Renée grabbed Quirke’s arm. She half expected him to tell her to wait and rush to his colleague’s help, but he didn’t. Instead he took a step forward, put his other arm around his supposed fiancée like she had asked for it, and assured her that the city guard would take care of everything. Renée was too busy trying to avoid getting mauled against his chest armor to be able to answer at once. Meanwhile, the other guard came to the feet and advanced into the shop and now she was finally able to see that is was as she had feared : Constable Karris.

As he started to speak and was clearly aiming to start an aggressive interrogation. Renée went desperate, changed her mind and leaned into the uncomfortable chest armor of Quirke instead of trying to avoid it. She pretended to swoon, faintly mumbling something about fresh air. Perhaps this would prevent the guards from immediately searching the shop? She had no idea, but it had seemed best to avoid questions.

[Brokk]

Noise was a curious thing, well, noise and itching, really, Ren thought, doing her best to remain still behind the screen. This was a much more difficult task than she had at first imagined for a number of unamusing reasons, the largest of which was the growing itch between her shoulder blades that threatened to crawl across the rest of her skin. Slightly less irritating, although still mind gnawing in its persistence, was the fact that the screen made a lot more noise from little movements than something that size should have. She'd been lucky so far, in that the sounds were covered by the sounds of two heavily armoured oxen blundering across the room, but that wouldn't last. What was more, the noise level generated by the two loyal lummoxes was going to draw even more attention to them, which was going to make this very embarrassing for all involved.

Her shoulder itched again, the muscle twitching involuntarily at the sensation, and she tried to focus on her breathing, on her stance, on the nearest, lacquered rose pattern in the screen in front of her... anything to distract her and occupy her mind. It wasn't working, not by any means, but she kept it up, because it was that or scream. It didn't help that she had no idea what the other two were up to, but they were making some interesting sounds. Quirke was predictably focused on Renee, which did threaten to provoke a smile despite the situation, although Renee's attempts at flirting back were rather more surprising by far. Ren was impressed. A disgruntled growling and a set of stomping, angry steps signaled the approach of one who most certainly wasn't impressed.

"Changers, why do I ever listen to you?" Karris growled, unseen, but crossing the room by the sound of his steps. "Come on and lets search the place before the cavalry shows up."

Ren felt the itch in her shoulders spread again and bit her lip, fighting to stay still, but it had spread to her lower spine by now and her skin was crawling. She would not move. She would not! Changers, why hadn't they left the room yet? If they left, she could go outside, if she could go outside she could breathe and if the ceiling wasn't about to FALL AND KILL HER she wouldn't have to tolerate this rotten, poxy, flea infested.... Karris spoke again, thankfully derailing that line of thought, but not before Ren twitched violently, barely catching the screen, which wobbled precariously at the motion.

"At least we could make it look like WE weren't the ones who broke in," Karris went on, then louder, "especially since whomever did is still here."

She couldn't quite hear Quirke's response, but Karris' heavy tread moved further across the room towards the door.

"And he made off with two of your table cloths and quite a lot of glass it seems," he said, with a sound of a door opening. "We're here for your protection, miss. Help us and you can sleep safe, I assure you. Come. On."

The last seemed to be directed at Quirke, who was rooted to the spot.