chapter four ; the disappearing thief

Gary Barkovitch ended the day in the back of someone's shop, as always. They weren't aware that he stayed, of course, he switched it up often and only stole enough food from them that they wouldn't quite notice that someone had been there. His ability to be unseen when he wanted to be unseen helped quite a bit as well, because when they stumbled downstairs for God-knows-what, he could shrink against the wall and their eyes would pass over him like he had always been and would always be part of the background.

He settled himself in, pulling a tarp off of a nearby crate and huddling underneath it. It was a little chilly at night, nothing unmanageable, of course, but it was always a lot nicer to have something covering him. Not only was there the comfort factor, it did help out with being unseen.

There was a large pounding overhead and he glanced up. Dust scattered down from the ceiling, and Barkovitch wondered if this place was, in fact, abandoned rather than just a bit dusty. Everything around him looked dirty and unused.

Curiosity overtaking him, he stood up, brushed himself off, and made his way to the front of the storeroom. It wasn't empty by any means, though he wasn't quite sure what was in all of these crates covered in tarps. He would look in them on his way back out, if he had the time. That is, if it really was abandoned and he wasn't being chased by angry men with clubs or dogs with sharp teeth.

Which had happened before when he had misjudged such things. But he'd never been hurt permanently, so he chalked the beginning of his life as a success. The next thing he needed to do was get rich and get powerful, and then he would be set.

How he was going to go about this, he wasn't sure, but perhaps if he found that missing necromancer…

That would get his foot in the door, that was for certain. He would have to alter his overall plan a bit, but it was a good alteration, so that was fine. It was fine, he told himself as he creaked open the door to the rest of the building.

He was faced with a staircase. This was odd, because the building seemed a lot bigger than this back storeroom and a narrow staircase. He glanced on either side of it, wondering if there was maybe a space below that took up the rest of the space that was unaccounted for, but there was nothing.

He half-wondered what would happen if one tried to enter from the front, then decided that he could check that out if he really wanted to know later, too. The crates and the front door – he made a mental note in his mind.

He glanced back at the door and decided to prop it open, just in case. He dragged one of the smaller crates over and wedged it in-between the door and the doorframe, then headed up the stairs. They creaked under his feet before he adjusted his steps with his magic and was silent. He hand both hands on the railings, just in case the stairs decided to collapse. He normally wouldn't be too worried, considering that he was quite small, but they looked far older than anything else he had ever seen, like he had jumped forward in time hundreds of years and was in the same building he'd decided to spend the night in.

There was another door at the top of the stairs. He put his hand to the doorknob and there was a violent half-growl, half-bark from the other side. He jerked away, pressing himself to the wall, willing himself to melt into the wall. He waited like that for a few seconds, and with nothing more from the thing behind the door, he made the decision to continue on.

He didn't quite know why, but he felt like it would be necessary for his Plans to continue and prevail. He opened the door and was faced with something so huge and so terrifying that he nearly took a step backward in horror.

It was a dog, sort of – it had the same general shape as a dog, anyway, although the teeth were longer than any dog Barkovitch had ever seen, and the thing itself was bigger than he was. It had a hunched back and long, yellowed claws on its paws. It struggled to stand, and when it did, it loomed over him at about six and a half feet. He swallowed, but stayed still.

Its face came close to Barkovitch's, and he stared into muddy red eyes.

Before he could react, it collapsed into a bow. He stared at it, unsure what to do and why it was doing what it was doing. "U-uh," he said. It stared up at him, awaiting his order, and, after a moment, presented a bit of cloth that looked interestingly like Davidson the prostitute's shirt. Barkovitch took it from him, hardly aware of what he was doing.

"What are you?" he asked.

Your hound, Descendent of Agneza.

His grandmother. The one who had been full magic, the one who had been, supposedly, faerie. "So I… I control you?"

Yes. The informant has found my hideout, Descendent. Do you wish me to dispose of him?

Barkovitch, eyes wide, nodded. "Do you do whatever I want? Can I use you for my Plan-" he broke off when he saw the hound nodding.

That is correct. My first order is to dispose of the informant, then?

"Y-yes," Barkovitch said. "Yeah. Get rid of that prick. Can I stay here?"

Of course. There is a cushion in the room at the end of this hallway, Descendent, if you would wish to stay there instead of in the storage room.

Barkovitch nodded, and the hound led him down the hallway, which was dusty and spattered with gore, to a room with a few piles of bones and a large cushion next to the window.

Feel free to move the cushion if you wish.

Almost as if he were moving in a dream, Barkovitch gave the piece of cloth back to the hound and walked over to the cushion. He sat down on it, and the hound brought a blanket that was much more comfortable than the tarp he'd been sleeping underneath downstairs. He didn't quite feel like sleeping yet, so he leaned against the wall and looked out the window. It looked out into a dark alleyway with very little in it – there was a crate underneath the window, just tall enough so that someone of a nice height could reach and pull himself through.

That was probably what the 'informant', as the hound called Davidson, had used to get inside. Barkovitch wasn't sure why Davidson had decided to go into an abandoned building through a second floor window, but he had an idea that it had something to do with the kidnapping of Arthur Baker and Hank Olson's search for him.

In other words, it was all Collie Parker's fault.

I was originally going to have the hound thing kill Barkovitch, but then I decided on this instead. Davidson can have to fight for his life. Or die. I don't know what I'm going to have happen.