Disclaimer: Nope, unless Terry Pratchett died and left it to me, I don't own Discworld, just my little fic here.
It was three nights later, and Damien was drinking his third glass of wine. It had been a long night preparing to meet the Patrician, and he now had little over a week. He had everything ready, so now all that remained was to relax. So he had come to the one place where the socially different could truly be themselves.
The place was called Biers, and was run by a man who went by the name of Igor. Not even Damien had been able to find out why, so suspected that not even the man himself knew. A haze of vaporized alcohol hung over everything, but through the fog Damien saw bogeymen, zombies and even a few ghosts. There were also vampires and werewolves – unless he was very much mistaken, which he rarely was, one of the vampires worked for the local newspaper and a werewolf siting in a corner was a Watch sergeant. But these were not his main interests. There was one woman sat in complete isolation at a table. She had pure white hair with a streak of black running through it, and even as Damien watched it began to change shape. She also had an apparently bottomless alcohol tolerance level – she had just ordered the most alcoholic legal drink in the bar and appeared to be suffering no ill effects. Well, two could play at that game.
Damien sauntered over to her. "Anyone sat here?"
She looked up, stared at him then shrugged. He sat down.
"I've never been one for indirectness," he said, "so I challenge you to a drinking contest. First one not to fall over wins."
The woman looked him up and down. "You're fourteen, kid. So just go away."
Damien felt something strange run through his body as she spoke these words. It was a familiar feeling – it was what he felt when he absorbed magical power to prevent it being used against him. But it hadn't worked in this universe – at least, it hadn't so far...
That wasn't the only odd thing. The woman in front of him appeared to be trying to look at her own mouth with considerable confusion.
Damien sighed. "I don't know what you tried to do to me just then, but I suggest you don't try again. That sort of thing just gets on my nerves. Another drink?" He picked up her empty glass without waiting for a reply and went over to the bar.
"Hey, Igor. Another one for me and another of whatever she was having." Igor handed over the drinks and Damien turned back to the woman.
To where the woman had been.
He sighed inwardly. Then he drank the drinks and left.
oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
Damien consulted the list he had been given as he stepped out into the chilly breeze. He carefully made a note on it and then examined it. "Where to next? Hmm...The Bucket..."
He wandered off. It didn't take him long to find the Bucket. He went inside.(1)
Damien had been given this list as a challenge, from an old friend. Identify the average clientele of all of these bars in three days, they had said, and you get twenty dollars. Damien didn't really need the money, but he did need the distraction. Besides, he intended to go somewhere during his wait anyway, and this was as good a place as any.
It was immediately obvious to him who the average customer was in this bar, unless the owner was hosting a dress-up-as-watchmen party.
In the gloom, a dozen or so pairs of eyes watched Damien as he went to the bar and ordered a drink.
Damien had never been very comfortable around officers of the law. Guilds and so forth very rarely bothered with any sort of justice besides that of the physical variety, and Damien had long since learned that this was no reason to fear them. The Watch, on the other hand, specifically tried to avoid killing you. Instead they captured you, locked you up and punished you. Damien had been fined twice and imprisoned an uncountable number of times before he had learned not to get on the wrong side of the Watch. He had been lucky once, though, and had been executed. It took him an hour to escape from the gallows, but it had been better than a month in prison.
Still, as far as he was aware he had not broken any laws in this city, so he did his best to relax. But after a few moments, a very tall man with bright orange hair walked over to him.
"Excuse me, sir. Captain Carrot Ironfoundersson, City Watch. How old are you?"
Damien stared blankly into his drink. Bugger, he thought to himself. With feeling.
"Er...How old is the legal alcohol consumption age around here?"
"Very funny, lad," said a voice from the corner. "I don't want my drinking disturbed. So go away and perhaps, just maybe we won't pursue this."
Captain Carrot leaned forward. "That's Commander Vimes," he whispered. "You had better do as he says. Please?"
Damien looked at the captain, glanced towards the voice in the corner and made a decision. He got up and left without a word.
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
The list came out of his pocket again. "Let's see...Biers...Bucket..." Damien paused, his face going blank and his eyes not moving. Then, with barely a sound, he keeled over into the mud. (2)
(1) I wish I could make this sentence more exciting, but there really isn't anything I can say about it.
(2)Well, as close to mud as makes no difference. No difference to those of a polite frame of mind, anyway. "Doggy doo" would not even approach what were Ankh-Morpork's streets after being lived in by people whose idea of sanitation was to make sure that the rubbish was outside the house.