Keeping Hope for Christmas - by Pseudo Twili

Chapter 14: Into the Light

In the back room of Telma's Place, the other members of the group were present, except Shad. Seated between Rusl and Auru was a small man with a nervously twitching mouth, eyes that darted about shiftily, one of which was more red-rimmed than the other, and a shabby hat from under which his unkempt, uncut hair protruded. His clothes looked as though they were second- or even third-hand and were so dirty and flea-infested that they'd would better off being burnt than getting a good washing.

"Who's this now?" the wily little man questioned, his eyes lighting up with considerable interest and avarice.

"Never mind them," replied Telma shortly. "You were telling us about those crooks you say have been operating in town. How would you know about it?"

"Oh, I see things. Yes indeedy I do. And sometimes people don't know old Hoiger Howgendoogen is there, so I hear things too. These gangster types have been hanging around…well, I know where, and they don't like nobody else snooping anywhere near. They must keep their eye on the place the whole time. I went over there, just lookin' around, and a guy jumped me. Told me to beat it if I knew what was good for me. Oh, but I know they're hiding something in there! Probably all the loot from their holdups."

Zelda wanted to burst out with all the questions that flooded her mind, but she remembered what Telma had told her. She bit at the inside of her lip quite hard and clenched her fingers all the more tensely around her little handbag. If opening her mouth meant losing whatever clue they might have to Link, she'd wouldn't talk for anything.

"Cut the gab and get to the point," Ashei said as she glared at the man.

"What does all this have to do with what we asked you about?" questioned Auru.

Hoiger gestured to the photo on the table. "You wanted to know if I'd seen that guy, right? Well, one of them gangsters looks kinda like him. You lookin' for him too? I know where he is, but you have to pay!"

"Have you see the man in the photo?" Rusl pressed further as he stared down the shifty character.

The stool pigeon crossed his scrawny arms and frowned. "I ain't seen him. Hey, but I did see them carrying in a guy one night. He was so drunk he couldn't even walk. Two o' the others carried him in between them, and one of 'em didn't look too steady himself."

Zelda gasped and immediately covered her mouth. Her eyes were wide and moist and her hands shook. She felt her father move closer to her and take her arm; she reached over and grasped his hand.

"When was this?" questioned Rusl.

"'Bout two weeks ago, I guess," Hoiger replied. "I've wanted to get a look inside the place even before that… One of them's always there, though, keepin' watch. But I'll tell you where their hideout is…for seven hundred."

Ashei thumped the table with her fist and leaned forward. "Why you little…" she fumed, but kept herself from saying anything worse.

"You're getting greedy, Hoiger," chided Auru, his brows lowered and his mouth set in a frown. "You ask for too much and you're liable to get nothing."

The little man eyed Zelda and her father and blinked rapidly. "What about them, eh? You brought 'em in—now the price goes up."

"Just who do you think you're dealing with?" demanded Rusl. "You won't get a thing from anyone else!"

Telma folded her arms, staring at the stool pigeon. "I see now. You're playing both ends against the middle. You only came to us when you found out you couldn't blackmail those crooks. And now you're trying to hold us up! Well, I don't take that from anyone, especially not in my own place!"

The shifty fellow blanched and cowered before her words and her weighty glare. "I c-coulda gotten killed!" he protested weakly. "You gotta m-make it worth my while to spill what I know!"

Zelda trembled and clung closer to her father's arm. He patted her hand and then loosed his hold on her. He strode toward the table and thumped his fist upon its wooden surface. He reached into his pocket, held up a rupee of large denomination and tossed it to the stoolie.

"You will tell us where these men are hiding," he said, in his best booming, unyielding businessman voice. "I will give you three hundred more after you tell us, and the rest after you've taken us there. You try and welch on the deal and you won't have a safe place to crawl to by the time we're through! You understand me?"

Hoiger swallowed thickly and all but dropped the gleaming orange rupee. Rusl placed one hand on his thin shoulder and the stool pigeon knew he had no escape. He gulped again and squeaked, "They're in that old abandoned building on Mila Road!"

"I know the place. It used to be a restaurant, but it was only a cover for the gambling that went on in the back rooms. It's been shut down for years," Telma said with a slight nod. She fixed her withering gaze on Hoiger again, "If you're leading us astray…"

"I'm not! I swear I'm not!" the pitiful man whined. He slipped the rupee into his one pocket that didn't have a hole in it, and then fixed his greedy gaze on Gustaf. "Where's the dough you promised?"

The wealthy businessman pulled two more rupees from his pocket—one silver, one orange—and set them on the table. Hoiger leaned forward and snapped them up like a chipmunk darting out of the forest for a delicious morsel. He rubbed his fingers along the smooth edges of the currency, beholding it as if it was his long lost love.

Zelda's heart was beating so hard that she folded both hands and placed them firmly over her chest. "Link… he must be there!" she exclaimed in a half breathless way, unable to keep her tongue still a moment longer. "Have they been holding him this whole time?! We must get him out of there!"

Her tone became more frantic as she went on, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. Her gaze flitted to the face of each the group members and then she turned toward the doorway leading back to hall and the front room. Her father placed a large, warm hand on her shoulder.

"You can't go there by yourself," he told her, his own tone gentle and firm at the same time.

"We're going to find your friend, little lady, don't you worry," declared Telma, coming to Zelda's other side. "But we're not so foolish as to try it on our own, so we've called for reinforcements. They should be here any minute now."

The group began migrating back to the bar, with Telma in the lead. She unlocked the door again and ushered out the only two patrons. Zelda kept her arm circled around her father's. Her heart beat a frantic rhythm against her ribcage; she wanted to fly out to the street herself, climb into the car and stomp on the gas until she went through wall of the building where she felt sure Link was being held.

Ashei took one glance at Hoiger and warned the other two men, "Don't let him out of your sight. I don't trust him any further than I can throw Linebeck Tower."

Needing no reminders, Auru and Rusl were already at either side of the unevenly-red-eyed stoolie. One or both of them had a hand on his arm at any given time. Hoiger squawked at their closeness and his own inability to scramble for cover like a dirty sewer rat, but the others either shushed him or ignored him completely.

Just as Telma had surmised, just a couple of minutes later a car pulled up to the curb and one of its occupants exited the passenger side and strode toward the building. Zelda recognized him as soon as he'd come close enough to the building to be caught in the light.

"Detective Zauz! What are you doing here?!" she cried, her brows suddenly scrunching as she remembered all the times that the man had discouraged her and told her she was wrong.

He was only partway inside. He glanced at her, let the door close behind him, and marched toward the group. "This had better not be a wild goose chase," said he. "I had to leave a fine party!"

"Of course it's important!" Zelda blurted out. "We know where to find Link!" She took a breath and continued, "We're sure he's there. He must be!"

Rusl gestured to the shifty stool pigeon at his side. "This character knows where the crooks have been hiding. He says he saw them take in a man who looked to be drunk. It matches up with what Purlo the cabbie told us."

The detective's brows were resting directly over his eyes, his mouth a scowl. His eyes flitted to Zelda's and then away. "It also matches up with a call we received."

"What do you mean?" demanded the young lady. Her eyes danced with all her pent-up, irate feelings toward him, and yet her lips trembled.

"You remember I told you of the false alarms we receive? There were many the night Wolfspaw disappeared, but I learned that one of them came from the Woodfall Tavern. It was some guy whispering that he'd found one of the men who'd robbed the store—he may have been referring to Rupin's. The line cut off before he could give more information. It was a sketchy call and when the patrolmen got there, no one knew anything about it."

"Do you see now, Detective? That was he! It was Link!" Zelda cried, the words turning into a little sob at the end.

Zauz folded his arms. "We've been trying to find the regular bartender, the one who was there that night. He was very close-mouthed about the whole thing when the patrolmen questioned him. I suspect he knows something, but he's run off somewhere"

"I might have an idea where he's hiding," Telma declared with a nod.

The detective glanced at her briefly and said, "We'll look into that later." He faced Zelda again. "It's all rather circumstantial so far, but I'm willing to admit it fits together too well to be just coincidence."

"You mean…you're going to help us?" she queried, disbelief making her mouth go slack. "Aren't you taking an awful chance?" It wasn't as if she was worried about him, but more that she was asking because she couldn't quite believe it.

"Maybe… but it's a chance I choose to take. If we do not find him, then you'll have nothing to bother me about. If we do find him, then I can get you off my back," he finished with a grumble.

He exited the building almost as quickly as he had entered, with Zelda, her father and the group, with Hoiger in tow, following behind him. The detective climbed into the patrol car again, the father and daughter into their vehicle, and the group dispersed themselves between the two. The ride was filled with a silence so tense that broaching it was like tapping one's finger to get rid of a charge of static electricity only to find that the world had seemingly exploded.

Zelda couldn't stop the erratic beat of her heart, the raspy tremor of her breath, or the shaking of her hands as she sat squeezed between Telma and her father, the latter of whom was driving. On so many other occasions she had hoped to find Link, or that he would show up on his own again, but those were hardly more than wishful day-dreams, a product of her anguished mind, and because she missed him so. Now the possibility seemed much more real, and she kept her mind on that hope, as if letting go of it would cause it to vanish.

They stopped just up the block from the building Hoiger had indicated. Other patrol cars, summoned by the detective by radio, were also pulling up and the occupants thereof piling out in with little noise and practiced speed. One of the men hurried up to Zauz and reported that he'd just seen four individuals enter the building. The redheaded detective hissed out orders to surround the abandoned restaurant and cover any and all exits. He and a few more officers prepared to enter from the front. Telma and her group also insisted on accompanying him, and because of the military, police, and tough bouncer backgrounds, and because he figured they'd follow regardless of his orders, he allowed it. He glanced at Zelda and warned both her and Gustaf to remain in the car. Then he and the others moved toward the front entrance.

"Where's the rest of my dough?!" Hoiger whispered. "I kept my end of the deal, so give it here!"

The businessman gave him three hundred more rupees and the stool pigeon scuttled up the street in the opposite direction. That just left both father and daughter to sit and wait the results of the sudden raid. Zelda could hardly breathe, she clutched so hard at her father's arm that she all but cut off his circulation, and she couldn't take her eyes off the entrance where Zauz and the others were just disappearing. Would Link be coming from that same door? She ached and trembled to see him.

~O~

Link didn't have his watch on him and thus he would never know just how long it took him to set it up. By the time he was done, his head was spinning and his ribs ached fiercely with each gulp of air he greedily swallowed. He wavered and placed an unsteady hand on the wall, fuzzily glancing up at his handiwork. It was crude, but he could only hope that in the shock of seeing it, someone might not at first notice the imperfections.

He had constructed a dummy by stuffing pieces of the blankets into his spare clothing. He used one of the few unbroken bottles for the head and used one of his ties to secure it to the body. He wrapped the bottle with one of his extra shirts and placed his spare hat on it to disguise it further. Then, using the table and one of the chairs, he precariously climbed up and looped another of his ties over the exposed pipes in the ceiling.

Dragging up the dummy proved to be nearly too much for him in his much weakened state, with each breath creating a new spasmic fire in his chest. Somehow he managed to hoist the dummy into the chair he'd placed on the tabletop. He fumbled with a second tie around its neck, eventually knotting it with the one he'd fastened around the pipe. Once he'd finally done it, he started to climb down and, his head spinning, he nearly tumbled right off the table. He caught himself and lowered himself safely to the ground, where he leaned his head against the chair. He wanted to lie down and rest more than anything, but he was afraid that if he did he wouldn't have the strength or the willpower to rise ever again.

After a minute or two of painful panting, he staggered to his feet again and removed the chair from the table. The dummy hung as he'd wanted, but the legs of the trousers still grazed the top of the table. He pushed the furniture away, until the dummy was dangling freely, the knots he'd made holding true. With the table still nearby, it looked as though he'd jumped from its surface and hanged himself…and it seemed almost like his dream all over again. With dim lighting, he hoped no one would be able to immediately tell the difference between a real body and the dummy.

Shuffling unsteadily toward the door, he leaned against it and pulled out the forty-five caliber Boarschnout he'd taken from Dorffman. He made sure the safety was on, so that he wouldn't inadvertently shoot himself, and he held the pistol by its barrel, his hands shaking. He didn't want to be forced to shoot anyone else, mostly because he couldn't be sure of his aim, but he might have to pull the trigger if his escape depended upon it.

He hit the button for the light switch, blinked a few times at the sudden darkness, and then looked out the little window in the door. Now came the ticklish part of his whole wild idea. He knew someone was around because the lights were on in the next room and he'd glimpsed some movement earlier. But if no one was in the adjacent room, who knew how long it would be before one of the crooks would come in and he could attract his attention. He didn't think he'd be able to keep himself up much longer.

He could hear his heartbeat thundering past his ears, his legs felt like flesh without any bones, sometimes his vision seemed to go all fuzzy, and everything around him seemed so distant and detached from him. The gun in his hand was like a weight dragging him down into a sea of sleep and he had to grip it harder to keep it from slipping out of his grasp completely. He wasn't sure if it was all real or just another dream.

As if from far, far away, he glimpsed movement in the next room. It took his mind several muddled moments to recognize the man who entered as Zaht, the short-tempered, childishly volatile gangster whom he'd blitzed at gin rummy. Link jerked and stumbled over his own feet, the gun clattering to the floor. He gasped, pressed a hand gingerly to his ribs and then picked up both himself and the pistol.

He reached around for the bottle with water that he'd kept by his mattress. Wielding it with muscles that didn't want to obey him, he swung it and smashed it on the floor. He caught one brief glance of Zaht with his head turned toward the bolted door, whereupon the crook charged toward him. Link shrunk back behind the door, clutching at the Boarschnout, his breaths raspy and painful.

Zaht unfastened the bolt and swung the door open with an oath on his tongue. With more light entering the room from the open portal, he glimpsed what seemed to be a dangling corpse. He started and stared up, another curse fleeing his tongue. Then, with another astounded exclamation of "Holy mackerel!" he moved closer to what he believed to be the body of the prisoner, wondering how long he'd been hanging and if he was well and truly dead. Because it was a dummy, it did not struggle and merely hung limply.

The crook had moved slightly away from the open doorway, giving Link his opportunity. The prisoner crept from behind the door, hardly daring breathe as he neared Zaht. He must have made some small sound or perhaps the gangster felt something was wrong, for he turned partway in the last split second. But he was too late, for Link raised the pistol and swung it against Zaht's head, striking the side rather than the back as he had intended. The crook went down like a sack of cement, and the young man fell on top of him, toppled by the momentum of his action and his own dizziness.

Link almost passed out himself, so exhausted and breathless was he after his exertion. But Zaht was only knocked out for a minute and already he was stirring. The captive crawled over to his valise and brought over whatever he thought might be useful. He'd used all his spare ties in rigging up the dummy, but then he remembered he was still wearing one, which he used to bind the crook's hands behind his back. He stuffed an unused sock into Zaht's mouth and tied his handkerchief around the gangster's head to keep the gag in place. He thought he didn't have anything left to bind Zaht's feet, but he spotted the crook's garishly awful tie and used that.

He was about to leave the room when he thought to check for any weapons on the man. He returned to the gangster's side and searched him, coming up with a snub-nosed thirty-eight and two knives. By that time Zaht was gaining consciousness again; his eyes jerked open and then bulged as he strained against his bonds. He tried to speak through the gag but without success, and he glared at Link, who had scrambled slowly back so as to be out of range of any kicks, or jabs of the knees.

The young man slipped the knives into his own pockets, along with both guns, and then he staggered right out of the room that had been his prison for what seemed like half of an eternity. Zaht was trying to shout at him, but all that came out were muffled, garbled sounds that Link ignored as he bolted the door… and this time he was not the prisoner! He moved forward into the next room, his step unsure and often throwing out a hand for whatever was nearby to steady himself. It felt as though he was walking through a world of dreams, with the floor beneath his feet and whatever he touched with his hands feeling like they were miles away.

The room in which he now found himself was at least twice the size of the one he'd just left. It had a couple of tables, one of which was coated with a thick layer of dust, and the other which looked like the crooks had been using it from time to time, as there were some cards, matches and a few empty bottles lying upon its surface. A couple dozen chairs were lined up and stacked against two of the walls, their seats or bottoms and every other surface also extremely dusty. There were some boxes and other odds and ends piled up, but Link paid no attention to them as he made for the opposite doorway.

He stumbled up a short flight of stairs, and at the top he found himself in a hall that was dark except for the light behind and below him and another sliver of luminescence that came from a partly open door at the other end. It didn't even occur to him to try to find a light switch. He wobbled through the inky black passage, going cautiously and stretching forth his arms to feel for the walls. He kicked and stumbled into a few small obstacles, bits of trash or debris that he could not see, but he did not trip. His ears thrummed with the sound of his heartbeat and his eyes strained for the light as he made his way toward it with agonizing sluggishness.

He emerged in another, much larger room with as many tables and chairs as would have been required for some type of eating establishment. There was a bar which was gathering dust, a small stage where musicians had once performed and played their hearts out, swinging doors that led to what must have been the kitchen, and a generous vestibule at the far end where the patrons had been welcomed and then escorted to their seats.

The young man started for what he foggily thought was the front entrance, but just then the swinging doors burst open when he was just in a few feet of them. He was suddenly face to face with a man he did not recognize, who had skin so pale it was gray, and whose gleaming, dark eyes had the look of a predator. Of all things, over his dark suit he was wearing an opera cape which was pulled back until all of its crimson underside was exposed.

"Zaht, you twit, your food is burning—!" he began, but then narrowed his eyes as he realized his mistake.

For just a second, he looked as surprised as Link did, but then he struck out with a meaty fist and caught the young man firmly on the chin. Link, who had been much too slow to react, went down, because he couldn't remain standing after the blow, and because it seemed much safer on the floor. Though he felt the yawning blackness of unconsciousness drawing at him, he managed to hang onto reality with a grip that was rapidly slipping. He closed his eyes and lay still, both as a chance to catch his breath and to see that the other man might just let his guard down.

The gangster, for he was surely one of them, moved around Link and muttered something under his breath. However, before he could decide what he would do next, he heard the sound of someone else storming into the place. He strode away from the sprawled form of the prisoner while he went to see who was coming. It was Dorffman, whose teeth were gnashed together and who was red in the face. Behind him was a sour-faced Vlaatin with folded arms, and Daupple and Griham were at his heels.

"Boss!" exclaimed the crook in the inverted cape. "The prisoner escaped!" He gestured back toward Link.

"Of course he did, Aghamn, you idiot! He took my piece!" Dorffman snarled, gripping the other man's coat and then shoving him away.

"Did you kill him?" questioned Vlaatin.

"I just hit him," Aghamn replied with something of a growl. "He went down like a ninepin. Hah! What a lily-livered, yellowed-streaked weakling!"

The gangsters passed through the largest part of the place, where all the many tables and chairs had been pushed aside to make more room. They were just approaching Link and were within some ten feet of him when he rose to one elbow and pointed Zaht's snub-nosed revolver at Dorffman, who was in the middle of the group of crooks. He'd been biding his time and trying to get enough breath back so his head would stop spinning, but he knew he couldn't wait any longer and slipped his hand into his outer pocket where he'd put his most recently acquired gun. The deep ache in his ribs renewed itself as he moved, but if he hadn't he would be like a hapless bird sitting before them.

"Put…your hands up…" he gasped, and even he realized how weak and ineffectual his voice sounded. He could only hope that the sight of the gun barrel pointed at them would be far more expressive than any words.

"You no-good, lousy, son of—" Griham shouted as he stood rooted on the spot.

Dorffman beheld the young man with coldly calculating eyes, an equally nasty smile slowly taking over his lips. "You're in no shape for a stand-off. You haven't any hope of escape, so you might as well toss that rod over here right now."

"Look at him!" Daupple snorted nervously and without mirth. "His hand is shaking!"

"You better stay back," Link warned them, his voice raspy. "My hands are shaking…and there's no telling who I'd shoot first. So get back…all of you!" He made a motion with the revolver. "…And get your hands up."

The possible prospect of being ventilated did not appeal to any of the crooks, and they obeyed by raising their hands to some degree or another. None of them had quite enough courage, or stupidity, to try anything…yet. Their eyes were aflame with rage and hate, and Dorffman's olive face was darker still with the color of spoiled plums. His great pride had just received a tremendous blow, and he was at a disadvantage because he was without his precious gun.

Link struggled to find his way out of what seemed a frightful dream. His body did not want to obey all the things he wanted to do; he wasn't sure he could rise and remain upright, and his hand was already so tired, as if he was holding an anvil aloft instead of the comparatively lightweight firearm. Both his starved, exhausted mind and body cried out to him to close his eyes and let all the world fall away, but if he did, for anything more than a split second, he'd likely be dead at the hands of the crooks.

He tried to think of a way out, but the gangsters were between him and the door. Even if he could gain the outside, how would he make his escape good? He might be able to get as far as the sidewalk but his spaghetti legs wouldn't support him a further distance, that was certain. And how could he prevent them from following him? If the unused restaurant was the abandoned building it seemed to be, then it was probably in a part of town that wasn't much frequented and he couldn't count on seeing a taxi cruise by. Oh, if only his thoughts weren't such a jumbled mess, like a hundred cat's cradles gone wrong!

"How long do you think you can hold out?" asked Dorffman, his deep tone like sandpaper on Link's nerves.

"Get back! Get back, all of you!" the young man commanded, attempting to put some strength and forcefulness behind his words. He was largely unsuccessful, and also sounded quite hoarse.

"You can barely hold that heater up, I can tell," the big man continued, a nasty sort of smile slowly creeping to his lips again. "You don't have a chance of getting past us. You put that thing down now and we'll take care of you, bring you food, whatever you want." He slid one foot slightly forward and then leaned further upon it.

"No, no, no…" muttered Link in something of an agony. He waved the gun dizzily, carelessly between the five crooks before him. "Don't come any closer!"

"Boss, what are you doing?!" hissed Daupple out of the side of his mouth. "D'you want to get us killed?"

"He's not going to shoot us," the big man replied and turned back to face their escaped prisoner. "You're not the sort of kid to help us. I don't think you have the guts to knock anyone off, or do you?"

"Don't…try it," cautioned Link, both his vision and his hand wavering.

Some of the men were starting to buy their leader's clever-sounding words, but not all. Vlaatin and Aghamn weren't yet ready to take their boss at his word; they knew that even the best of men could do something drastic and unexpected in an intense situation. On the other hand, Daupple and Griham found false courage in his big talk and they tried to crept a little closer; Daupple was thinking that if he could get to his shiv, he was sure he could throw it at Link without missing. Dorffman, in the meantime, stood as he was. If anyone did get cooled off, he was just fine with it being any of his underlings and not himself.

"I said…get back!"

A small explosion erupted from the piece he held. His hand jerked at the last second, and his aim was already off, thus the bullet went tearing harmlessly into the ceiling, its trajectory angling diagonally up from the floor. He hadn't quite meant to pull the trigger, but he was panicked and desperate to keep them away from him. He had to get out! He couldn't let them put him back in that room that he'd thought would be the last thing he'd ever see! But even he didn't think he could just kill the five gangsters, even if he had five hundred bullets instead of the five in the revolver. The exit was just yonder, but it might have been hundreds of miles away for all the good it did him!

He thought he was dreaming again, for suddenly the front entrance burst with men who all held guns of varying sizes. There were several voices lifting into the air, both of the newcomers and the crooks, but most strident of all was the one that commanded, "Hands up! Get those hands where we can see them!" More bodies in blue spilled into the room from the other exits, surrounding Link and the gangsters. More steady hands leveled firearms at the crooks, leaving no escape for any of them.

"Drop the gun, you!" came a startlingly loud voice just behind Link.

He needed no prompting, as the snub-nosed thirty-eight was already slipping from his fingers. A pair of feet kicked it away, where it was out of reach and could later be picked up carefully to avoid smudging prints. He watched with disbelieving eyes as the men in blue cuffed the crooks, searched them, and removed their personal arsenals. They, who had kept him prisoner, were the captives now! He wanted to laugh but the only sound that escaped his throat was a groan.

Someone came up to him and crouched beside him, breaking through the fog that seemed to surround him. He lifted his head and glanced at the man, his heart almost stopping when he glimpsed the red hair and brows. Link thought he was Dorffman, come back to torture him with tempting words. His eyes wide and not quite focused, he tried to back away.

~O~

The street was eerily quiet, except for the sound of a shot just after the police had gone into the building. It was slightly muffled and could have as easily been the result of a backfire. Zelda sat bolt upright, clutching at her father's arm with one hand and the side of the seat with the other. She knew the sound was of a gun being fired and her breath constricted in her throat, nearly making her lightheaded before she remembered to suck in another lungful of air.

Several moments of silence passed. They heard some faint shouting from within the building, but then everything seemed to go quiet again. The falling snow only served to deaden any slight noises that might barely have reached them otherwise. Zelda kept stilling her breath and holding herself nearly immobile as she strained to hear something, anything!

"What's happening in there?!" she whispered, her eyes seemingly attached to the entrance of the abandoned building.

Her father had no way of knowing and could not tell her. He patted her hand and absently ran his gloved fingers through his beard.

After a few more minutes in which each second dragged its feet like a century, she couldn't stand it anymore. Her heart was in her throat and the only thought in her mind was of her friend as she pushed the car door open and climbed quickly out. She hastened across the street as quickly as the accumulation of snow would safely allow, hardly hearing her father's remonstrations to come back. As she stepped up on the opposing sidewalk, she almost slipped and caught hold of a lamppost to steady herself.

Then, just as she was approaching the building, some of the policemen came out with the men they'd arrested. She stopped in her tracks as she spotted a man who looked a bit like Link. She knew immediately that he was not her friend, and she suddenly understood the supposed sightings of Link in the last two weeks. All of the crooks were irate to be handcuffed and hauled away, each protesting or threatening in his own way.

Just before she passed them, she heard one of the policemen say, "…and you're wanted for arson, among other things. I suppose you don't know anything about that either, do you? Come on with ye now!"

She was beyond them then, and heard nothing more. She passed through the open doorway and into the vestibule, her heart in her throat. She heard—or sensed, whichever it was—her father's heavy steps behind her, but she didn't slow her own pace or wait for him. The police had caught the gangsters, but what about Link? Was he really in there, as the shifty Howgendoogen seemed to think? She couldn't wait. She had to know!

~O~

Link couldn't stop trembling, from the cold, from fear that still held him in its unyielding grip, and from sheer exhaustion. But then he saw Dorffman being led away and his mind slowly told him that the other redhead was someone else… and that the man was speaking to him.

"You're Wolfspaw, I take it?"

"…Yeah," he replied, and grimaced when he tried to gulp a lungful of cold air.

"I'm Detective Zauz," the man told him, and he eyed the sub-nosed thirty-eight that one of the officers was picking up with a pencil. "Do you have any more weapons?"

Link fumbled with his topcoat and the many layers underneath. Seeing his trouble, Zauz reached over and helped him, relieving him of Zaht's knives and Dorffman's big forty-five. The detective stood and handed them off to another policeman. Then, before Zauz could bend over him again, the young man saw something that seemed quite out of place just after a raid and with policemen swarming all over. What he saw was the legs of a woman, between her fur-topped boots and the hem of her skirt. He looked up a little bit more and with bleary eyes he glimpsed her face.

Zelda saw him and froze for just a moment. "Link! Oh, Link!" she cried.

She rushed forward and knelt beside him. She knew she was crying but she didn't care. Here he was, alive and breathing and frowning confusedly up at her, as if he didn't understand how she came to be there. He was the most beautiful sight in the whole of Hyrule, no, the whole world! She suddenly wanted to kiss him and she didn't stop to think twice about it. She threw her arms around his neck, her pink lips grazing the side of his mouth and landing mostly on his stubbly cheek. She pulled back and stared unabashedly at him.

His chest heaved with each lungful of air. He couldn't get enough of it and yet it pained him so. "Zelda…? What… what are you doing here…?"

"Why, I came to find you, of course! Though I had some help." She glanced up at Zauz and the members of the group who were gathering a bit closer. "Quite a lot of it, in fact."

Everything felt like a dream. Her warmth seemed to tickle his very soul, but he wasn't quite sure how real it was. She had her hand on his shoulder, and then moved down his arm until she reached his fingers. He was just faintly aware of some other people hovering over him, but he was much too tired to try and figure out who they were. He glimpsed Gustaf behind Zelda, the businessman's hand upon her shoulder. Link remembered his talk with her father that one night after dinner and he suddenly thought that he shouldn't be holding her hand. He tried to push her fingers away, but her healthy grip was too much for him.

Zauz crouched at the young man's side again, giving him eye contact. "Cripes, am I glad we found you. Your girl here wouldn't give me any peace while you were missing. Now I can forget about this case and go back to the others!" He sounded grumpy and was as sour faced as ever, but there was a kind of gladness around his eyes and a sudden looseness about his mouth.

Link's gaze was on the detective momentarily before he drifted back to Zelda. She was staring at him like she was starving for sight of him and her hunger was only beginning to be sated. He was still supporting himself by his elbows, but she sat on the cold floor and gripped his chilly fingers between her own. Her cheeks were wet and he slowly realized she'd been crying, or perhaps she still was. His heart constricted and he wanted to tell her she shouldn't weep over him, but oh, how his head swam!

"You don't look too good. Are you all right, fella?" came a voice from above. Zelda didn't look up, but she recognized it as belonging to Ashei.

At those words, Zelda suddenly realized, with a sharp intake of breath, that he didn't look well at all. He was very pale, his cheeks were sunken, his whole face gaunt, he was frightfully thin, and she could just about see every heartbeat in his neck, every swallow he took. There were a couple of bruises on one cheekbone and around an eye, and there might have been more on his jaw, which was covered with two weeks' worth of whiskers. His lip was split and swollen, with a trickle of blood running partway down his chin. His eyebrows were scrunched, his whole expression a pained grimace. His eyes had a faraway look in them and though he tried to focus on her, he seemed to have some difficulty in so doing.

"Link…" she murmured as more tears fell.

"I think… I'll be fine…now."

Zauz didn't believe him for a second. He cleared his throat. "You don't much look like you're able to come down to the station."

"But why?" Zelda cried, clutching all the more at Link's hand as she snapped her gaze to the detective. "Why do you want to drag him down there? He hasn't done any of those things! It must have been those other men!"

"We still have to clear up this whole mess. I have a report to fill out, you know. If he's done nothing wrong then you have nothing to fear." Though he knew that would hardly satisfy the young lady, Zauz eyed Link again. "But first, you need a doctor. Can you get up?"

"S-sure I can…"

He rose to a sitting position and then to his knees. Zelda and the others noticed how slowly he moved and how he trembled and shook as he did. He stumbled to his feet and swayed there for a moment, his head spinning worse than ever with the blood rushing to his brain. She caught at his arm and her lips were moving with his name. He didn't hear her, however, and the floor came up to meet him. He fainted.

Hoiger Howgendoogen is an actual Zelda character.

01-15-2020 ~ Published (7,096 words)