Chapter 8: Change of Plans

"Shush," Christian said, and practically dragged Innocent and the King down the stairs to the car. "What were you and-?" the King started as he clambered into the back seat, and Christian cut him off. "I said be quiet, my friend."

"Are you okay?" the King demanded. "You sound all weird."

"I am perfectly okay, thank you. I am okey-dokey." Christian turned the key in the ignition, pulled them out of the parking lot at an amazingly normal speed, and turned the corner at the next block, at which point he hit the accelerator with enough force to put his foot through the floor.

The King and the Innocent held on for dear life, the King screaming his head off and Innocent too terrified too make any noise at all. This was not Christian's normal crazy driving. This was Christian trying hard to get as far away from something as he possibly could in as little time as possible.

"What are you doing?" the King wailed. "You're going to kill us!" Christian muttered something under his breath which neither King nor Innocent heard, but slowed down and pulled into an empty parking space on the side of the street. He relaxed his grip on the steering wheel and sank down in his seat, his head coming to rest on the wheel. "Damn trapeze artists. Damn all trapeze artists. Damn damn damn damn damn damn damn."

The King and the Innocent stared at him. "I thought she seemed nice," the King said weakly. The Pickpocket didn't answer.

"What happened?" the King asked him, after a short pause.

"She is the one who stole the wand," Christian said matter-of-factly. "She is trying to kill the Trickster. She wants Kooza for herself."

There was another short pause.

"What?" the King almost shouted.

"Do you want to know what happened in that room, my friend? I will tell you. She told me everything she had done. She is proud of it. She wants me to help her. Apparently she thinks that because I am a thief I have no morals. She wants me to gather information about everyone who is sympathetic to the Trickster so she can get rid of them. She threatened me." He turned his head and smiled at them in a not-at-all-amused way. "Said she would kill me if I didn't help her. So I said yes. Are you happy now? Hm? Happy?"

"Wait," the King said in a not-happy-at-all tone. "You said yes?"

"Yes. I said yes. No, I am not going to help her. If I had said no in there, my friend, she would have beaten my head in with a trapeze then and there, just like she did to the Trickster."

"She what the Trickster?"

Christian looked at the King, deadpan. "She hit him on the head with her trapeze. It's not funny. It's a solid metal bar. She's strong enough to kill a human, but she decided after he survived that it would be more satisfying to let him die slowly. Because she's so nice like that."

"Hang on," the King said hurriedly. "This is still the Tia lady we're talking about, right? The one we had lunch with?"

"Yes."

"You took us to lunch with a crazy murderer lady?"

Christian groaned, and buried his face in the steering wheel again. "I didn't know, my friend. I suspected, but I didn't know. I remembered her as being a little bit crazy, but we're all a little bit crazy, and she was not this bad before she... uh, left."

"Yeah, and what's with that?" the King went on. "What's she doing out here if she's a trapeze artist, huh?"

"She was an experiment," Christian said quietly. "She went on aging even though she didn't have to. She got too old for trapeze. So the Trickster kicked her out."

"Pickpocket," the King said.

"What?"

"Your accent's slipping."

Christian yanked himself upright. "What? Really? Shit. In which direction?"

"It's getting more... English-y. I think."

"Oh. Okay. Thanks."

"So what are you going to do?" the King asked him, after a pause.

"What am I going to do?" Christian snapped. "I am going to do nothing whatsoever, my friend. I am going to take a drive around the city until whatever happens has happened, and then I am going to go find a job somewhere else. This is not a game, and I have no particular desire to either help Tia or save Kooza."

"Save Kooza?" the King said slowly.

"It's not going to stay alive without the Trickster," Christian said matter-of-factly.

"What about me?" the King demanded. Christian was silent.

"Pickpocket! What about me?"

"I don't know," Christian said eventually. "You might stay alive. You've been outside. I do not know how it works." His accent was slowly returning. Innocent thought this might be a sign that he was calming down, or perhaps not.

"I might stay alive, and you're going for a drive?"

"Yep," Christian said. The King gaped at him, speechless.

"You... butthead," he said.

"My friend, I am not going to get myself killed over you. I am not a Koozian, I am a criminal, and if you think I am going to sacrifice myself for you, you are very much mistaken."

So that was it, then. No more Kooza. No more Trickster. No more anything whatsoever.

Innocent felt like he might pass out. His vision was literally going white.

Christian glanced over at him, apparently noticing something out of the corner of his eye. He sighed. "I am sorry, my friend. But there is nothing I can do. She kills people."

"What do you mean, nothing you can do?" the King spluttered. "You can go and break into her house and steal the wand, can't you?"

"While she's there? She keeps the wand with her all the time. I am not suicidal. You can try it if you want."

"Buttface," the King said, apparently for lack of any more relevant comment.

"Please shut up," Christian said.

The next few hours were rather... tense.

Christian and the King were not speaking, at least no more than to throw occasional curses at each other. Well, to be fair, the vast majority of the curses came from the King, and after a while he apparently ran out of words and started blowing raspberries. Christian produced some headphones and put them on, blocking out the King's onslaught so that it annoyed the Innocent much more than its intended recipient.

Innocent was definitely not speaking to anyone, even less so than he had been before. He stared out the rolled-down window - Christian was indeed driving around the city, and it would have been rather interesting in a different situation, but Innocent didn't really see any of it.

He couldn't believe this. He should have seen it coming, he told himself. He had thought that the adults were going to go and fix everything, that they had some miraculous, fool-proof plan, and had forgotten that he was really dealing with some clowns and a criminal. Of course they wouldn't have been able to do it. Of course Christian wasn't going to do it, even if it was possible.

He didn't even have the energy to glare at either one of the people he was sharing the car with. He stared off into space and contemplated life without Kooza.

It wasn't like he had been living in Kooza before. It wasn't like he'd known for sure that he would ever be able to return. It wasn't like he really knew the Trickster, or the clowns, or the world. But in the last few days, he'd come to feel like it was part of him, something which he belonged to more than anything else in the world, the only place where he felt right. Even in its weakened, twisted state, it was a much, much better place than where he'd been before.

Oh, all right, he thought. I can always go throw myself under a train or something. It's not like the world actually wants me. A fat lot of help I've been to the only person who ever really needed me.

"Ow," said the King. "Ow ow owww."

A/N: Many revelations... XD And cliffhanger ending...

This probably really needs proofreading. I've been slogging through this chapter for a few days now, trying to get it finished (I had to rewrite it from scratch to account for a character discrepancy in the Pickpocket, it's going to be like that for the next few chapters), and Hum Jaisa Na Dekha is currently blocking out all my brainwaves. So point out to me if you see anything obviously wrong with this, please.