Collectors of Paraphernalia Obscura
"Put down the vase, the painting, the lamp, the necklace… just put it all down, and come out with your hands in the air!"
"Shit!" Kevin said. "I told you this wasn't going to work!"
"Shut up," Francis muttered.
The two would be burglars slowly lowered their sacks of loot to the ground. The room flashed in brilliant reds and blues as the lights from the police cars shone through the large front windows of the antique store.
"Come on boys. Time to go," the voice of one of the Dwarfish Enforcers called out, amplified by the loud speaker he held in his stubby hands.
"Shit," Kevin said again.
"Would you keep a civil tongue about you? We'll get out of this somehow," Francis said, trying to sound sure of himself.
The two thieves were an odd pair. Kevin was a human/dwarf half-breed. From his mother, the dwarf, he inherited hair; lots of hair! From his father, an odd human who had a taste for short (not to mention hairy) women, he inherited… more hair! Kevin stood at four foot ten, had coal black eyes, and lots of hair! His whole, stocky body was covered in a thick layer of coarse black hair, which went nicely with his three day "stubble" currently hanging down to his collar. Still having most of his teeth, Kevin thought himself rather handsome.
Francis, on the other hand, stood at six foot six, and had no noticeable hirsute problem; in fact, with his long flowing blonde hair, deep azure eyes, high cheekbones, and fine, elegant features, Francis could easily get around in the small black cocktail dress he wore on those lonely nights at home.
Francis was an elf, whose parents (probably due to the "incense" they were "burning" at the time) had originally named Petal. An elf named Petal in high school… So when he graduated high school, Petal changed his name to "Francis", and his parents had much to say about this; things like "Whoa!"
Francis had never had a girlfriend, but this, friends say (his parents were unable to comment because, unfortunately, they had passed out at the table) is just because he wants no commitments…
Kevin stared through the window at the buildings on the other side of the street. Harsh neon signs flashed messages like "GURLZ!" and "PIXXXIES!" and "24 Hour Dark Rituals".
"What we gonna do?" he asked.
"Shut up! I'm thinking…" Francis grumbled, and then cried out, "I've got it!" He opened the front door a crack and called out. "We've got a hostage! Let us go or we'll umm… do really bad things to him! And I won't be cleaning up the mess!"
Outside, the dwarfs started laughing. "A hostage you say?" the one with the megaphone replied. "What's your hostage's name?"
"Think of a name!" Francis hissed at Kevin.
"Kevin!" Kevin said without hesitation.
"Not your own name!"
"Francis!" Kevin said after a moment thought.
"Idiot!" Francis cried. He opened the door again. "Ahh… He won't tell us his name…"
The dwarfs laughed again. "Alright lads. Fun's over. We're sending in a S.W.O.T. team for you. Just sit tight."
"What's a S.W.O.T. team?" Kevin asked, still half distracted by the pretty lights outside.
"A Stick Waving Ogre Trio! We are so going to the slammer! Do you know what they do to elves like me in prison?" Francis shrieked.
"Can't be any worse than what they used to do to you in high school," Kevin said matter-of-factly.
"I hate you," Francis said.
Right after the words left his mouth, the door to the antique store burst open, and the first of three ogres pushed his way inside, his shoulders cracking the doorframe and sending plaster raining down.
"'Allo my pretties," it rumbled "Time for sleepy." Its two companions came up beside it and glared down at Kevin and Francis. Francis gave a small squeak and crumpled to the floor.
Kevin, who came up to the nearest ogre's thigh, stared up at it. "Why you called Stick Waving Ogre Trio?"
To answer him, the ogre brought its club down on Kevin's head. Kevin's knees gave out under the force of the blow, and he too crumpled to the floor.
"Good job Steve," one ogre said to another.
"Shut up!" his disagreeable companion replied.
"Hey! I'll beat the both of you silly if you don't stop the fighting!" the third ogre (the more diplomatic of the three) said.
They squeezed out of the store and the Dwarfish Enforcers ran in and dragged the two unconscious forms outside, throwing them into their squad cars.
"And so ends another heated standoff between police and thieves," a red haired centaur woman said into her microphone. Her cameraman, two goblins, one sitting on the others shoulders, focused the shot away from the police cars and back to the reporter. "But we must ask ourselves; is the police's frequent use of violence really making our streets any safer? I am Susanna Lighthoof reporting live for Channel 31! Good night." The reporter smiled at the camera until the red light above the lens went dark. When the camera was off, she let out a litany of curses and pulled out a cigarette. "How was that?" she asked the goblins.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah! Real good! Real good!" the one on the bottom squeaked.
"Real pretty man!" the one on top shrieked.
"Man? Moron! Any of you little turds have a light?" she asked, giving the two goblins a look of disdain. Laws against the mistreatment of goblins were really just guidelines.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!" the bottom goblin said. He turned his head slightly showing her the single tiny flame that lit the end of his large, long, pointed left ear.
"Riiiiiiiight!" the centaur woman muttered but lit her cigarette on it anyway. "Go back to the van," she said between puffs. "Head straight for the TV station. DO NOT stop for coffee you little freaks! And don't crash the van this time!"
"Yeah, yeah man! Gimme a minute!" the goblins said as one, the top waving a green bony hand at her, but with a further glare from the reporter, they headed towards the cream van. As they opened the back door to the van, two more goblins rolled out, wrapped up in a dark mass of ruined tape.
"Turds," she muttered before galloping away.
After watching the news report about the two thieves, the CEO of Darkdawn Tomorrow indulged himself in a small smile.
"Those two will do perfectly, Jimmothy," Charles Feynorr hissed to his assistant, a weedy looking man with greased back greying hair. Charles himself was an elegant looking man, with short raven black hair, grey/silver eyes, and high cheekbones. He would have been considered handsome, were it not for the permanent scowl that darkened his face.
"Are you sure, sir?" Jimmothy asked.
Charles spun around in his expensive leather chair. "Of course I am sure you nitwit! Would I have wasted the effort on the words, were I not sure?"
"Of course not sir," Jimmothy said, his voice still a drone. "Shall I go and pay their bail than?"
"No, no. I think we will let them spend some time in the county prison. It will toughen them up a bit."
"Of course sir," Jimmothy murmured. The assistant took five steps back until his back pressed against the wall, and he stood statue still with his arms held together in front of him.
"I have big plans for those two Jimmothy. Big plans in…" Charles began. He was knocked from his seat as the whole building seemed to shake. "What in the name of all things feathery and purple was that?" Charles shouted at Jimmothy.
"I shall go see sir,"
"I'm coming with you!"
The two men made there way to the elevator and were quickly descending. On the ground floor, there were people all around, all of them in shock. As soon as Charles left the elevator, half a dozen heavily muscled ogres formed a wall of flesh around him.
"Get out of the way you fools!" Charles shouted at them, backhanding the closest ogre (causing himself more pain than he did to the ogre). The ogres let him pass and he immediately saw what had caused the building, his building, to shake. The Channel 31 news van was currently resting in the wall next to the entrance.
"Hey man! Did you –hiccup- see that explosion? It was like –hiccup- 'BLAMO' and all those –hiccup- people were like; 'AAAAAAAARGH!' We so gotta –hiccup- do that again!" the goblin with the flame on his ear said as he rolled out the back of the van.
"I dunno man –hiccup-. I think we're –hiccup- in trouble. That guy over there –hiccup- is looking like he gonna –hiccup- cut you real good," the second goblin said, pointing at Charles.
All four goblins were heavily intoxicated, with two of them passed out in the driver seat of the van.
"What have you done?" Charles screamed. "How could you do this?"
"Well, four legs said we couldn't get no coffee, so you know; we go and get some booze. She didn't say nothing about not getting no booze," flame-ear said.
Charles brushed back the left side of his suit jacket and was reaching for his gold plated, pearl handled, pistol when there was a siren outside the building.
"Is everyone okay in here?" one of the pyromancer fire-fighters called out.
Charles took his hand away from his gun and turned away from the goblins. "Have this cleaned up! Jimmothy, come! We still have work to do!"
Jimmothy followed his boss back into the elevator and the two of them returned to Charles' penthouse office.
"Hey man. He was like gonna do more than just cut you real good," the goblin said to flame-ear.
"I know man, but I would've been like, 'Hey man. You can't shoot at me man, because, I like know people; people which will cut you up real nice while you sleeping, man.'"
"Alright boys. This is the eleventh time this week. I think I have to take you downtown this time," a Dwarfish Enforcer said to the two goblins. He pulled out two pairs of small handcuffs, and slapped them around the goblin's wrists'. The handcuffs were many sizes too big for the goblins tiny wrists, but the goblins looked at them with delight.
"Hey man. We gonna go serve time! We gonna be real tough after this!" flame-ear said, grinning at his companion as they were put in the back of the police cars.
Like a savage beating, consciousness was all over Francis as the darkness was abruptly torn from his mind. All around him he could hear shouts and screams, taunts and far-off giggles. He sat up with a hand held to his forehead, trying to fight down the nausea that swept through him. Gloriously losing this battle, Francis rushed over to an aluminium toilet and let the contents of his stomach pour into the dark stained water. His mind clearing, he peered around his location.
"I'm in gaol, aren't I?" he moaned.
"Of course you is, me dearie," a rather odd man said to him, sitting on his own bed in the prison cell. The man wore an old and ragged wolf suit, and was dressed up in a woman's nightgown and sleeping cap. "Come over to Granny, and let her give you a hug."
"Bugger," Francis groaned. "You're the sodding Big Bad Wolf, aren't you?"
Francis had heard of this nutcase. He had apparently stalked a little girl all the way to her grandmother's house, donning a stolen wolf suit, and then murdered the little girl and her granny, eating both bodies. When she… he… it was arrested, all the Big Bad Wolf wanted to do was bake cookies for the arresting officers. The dwarves had found no problem with this until the Wolf has told them that the special ingredient was the skin off the lumberjack's back; the lumberjack that had tried to rescue the poor girl and her granny.
He was also linked to breaking into three separate houses of three sentient pig brothers, and murdering, roasting, and eating the lot of them.
"No, no, no dearie. I'm your sweet darling Granny. No need to get all flustered. I'd bake you some cookies, but I'm afraid the nice dwarves took all my ingredients. Where am I going to find flour, sugar, and goats blood in here?" the man-wolf pined.
"What was that last thing?" Francis asked, suddenly feeling sick again."
"Umm… let's see… flour, sugar and chocolate! Yes that's what I said. Chocolate. Nope, you won't find any goats blood in Granny's cookies." Granny said somewhat sheepishly.
"Where exactly am I… err Granny?" Francis asked.
"Why, you're in the Palace of the Lolly Gods! Wait… no. That's not right. The Palace has finer drapes then these ones," Granny said whilst fingering the dirty grey bedspread he was sitting on. "Oh! I remember! You're in the Lake Styx Correctional Institution. Where all the good boys and girls go, but only after they've eaten all of Granny's cake!"
"Yes, I can see why they'd come here." Francis muttered dryly.
"Francis?" a voice called from across the hallway, outside the bars of the cell. Francis rushed over to the bars and pushed his head between them.
"Kevin! Is that you?" Francis cried.
"Yep!" Kevin sang happily. "Who's in your room with you? My roommate calls himself the Tooth Faerie"
Francis groaned again. The Tooth Faerie was another criminal who had been all over the news. This nut job had broken into a series of houses and stolen everything, even one families darling Great-Aunt Petunia. After taking everything from the houses, he had then gone back inside and left a pile of old (and apparently stolen) teeth on the pillows of his victims. He had been caught "obtaining" more teeth from an unconscious leprechaun, still wearing the Faerie wings he wore during his heists.
"Come back to bed darling!" a voice called out from behind Kevin.
"He's silly! He was next to me when I woke up, and now he seems to be really tired," Kevin said to Francis with the dumb, stupid, bloody thick naivety of a dumb, stupid, bloody thick seven year old.
"Kevin, stay away from him. Sleep in your own bed. Okay?" Francis said, trying to hide his rising terror. Beside him, Granny waddled over to the bars and peered over at Kevin.
"That boy has quite a lot of hair," he whispered to Francis. "Perhaps Granny could get his fur and knit something with it."
Francis squeaked in terror and moved as far from Granny as possible. He was terrified of this self styled Big Bad Wolf, even if he only seemed like a dotty old woman.
"Francis! Where'd you go?" Kevin cried across the hallway.
"Oh, he's hiding in the corner, dearie," Granny called back to Kevin. "Would you like some cookies?"