Only Villains Do That

“Yeah, that’s great,” she said, planting her fists on her hips. “That’s exactly how a girl likes to be greeted, thanks.”

“Hey, I was specifically expecting someone else, and I get the impression you were well aware of that…uh—”

“Oh, this is rich.” Now she looked somewhere between incredulous and bitterly amused. “You have no idea who I am, do you?”

“Of course I remember you,” I shot back, and it was the truth. Among all the goblins I’d met, this combination of vivid purple-and-white hair, huge tits, and sour attitude was very distinctive. Unfortunately some of the details had slipped, because I rather disliked this woman’s company and made an active effort not to think about her. “Sneppit’s so-called hairstylist and actually… I’m guessing executive assistant or business manager or something, I do not understand how you people assign job titles. What are you doing here… Ah…”

She folded her arms and raised her eyebrows.

Fuck it, I took a shot. “…Zuka?”

“Zui,” corrected the goblin and Aster in one breath.

“Right, that’s practically what I said.”

“Well, thanks for not calling me Boob Goblin, I guess. An amazing number of you tallboys default to that.”

“I thought about it,” I admitted. “But then I decided that would be unnecessarily provocative.”

“Ya think?”

“So then I thought about it again, but then I considered that you’re apparently pretty close to Miss Sneppit, and I should consider how dealing with you would affect dealing with her.”

Zui mutely raised her eyebrows.

“So then I thought about it again, but then I—”

“All right, enough!” she exclaimed. “I get it, Lord Seiji says whatever he wants to whoever he wants and doesn’t care what anybody thinks. Can I come in already? This whole conversation doesn’t need to be yelled in the hall.”

I had to consider that for a second. I was waiting for somebody else… But, hell, there was no point in pissing off Sneppit unnecessarily, and the fact that Zui had bothered to come here meant she probably had something worthwhile to say. Also, I was curious how she’d managed it so damn fast.

“Sure.” I stepped back to allow her through the door.

“Wow.” Zui looked around at the room, with its displaced furniture and slimes stuck to the walls in several places, held up by the parts of them that were jammed into the tiny holes. “Y’know, just because it’s owned by goblins doesn’t mean you need to trash it.”

“We’re going to put everything back how it was before we leave,” I said in annoyance, shutting the door. “What do you want, Zui?”

“It’s not what I want,” she said, turning to face me once she reached the middle of the room. “It’s what my boss wants. You suddenly showed up on goblin turf and started beating the bushes, Lord Seiji, which gets attention. Among others, you got Miss Sneppit’s attention. It’s not hard to pick up that something’s gone wrong—you’re usually one to lay careful plans in advance, not rush off and suddenly do shit like this. Miss Sneppit has a vested interest in your continued financial viability, not to mention having you not arrested and being interrogated about your contacts by the Fflyr authorities. Not to further mention she also has vested interests in some of the particular bushes you’re beating, hence me getting here so fast. So, what’s up, and can we help?”

I stared down at her for a stupefied moment, blinking. “Wait. You’re here offering…help?”

“Look more shocked when you say that,” she snipped.

“I don’t think that’s unwarranted. How much would this putative ‘help’ cost me?”

“Well, that depends entirely on the details. Though despite what you seem to think, in a lot of the possibilities the answer could be ‘nothing.’ Miss Sneppit is a businesswoman, Lord Seiji, not a miser. Sometimes you gotta protect your investments, and it never hurts to be owed a favor.”

Damn, this was actually an opportunity. One I feared I wasn’t prepared to take full advantage of; my current plans were vague, but drawing on Sneppit’s resources was a possibility I hadn’t even considered. What could I ask for? What could she even offer? And what would be the hidden costs? Shit, this was exactly the kind of conversation I didn’t want to have without being prepared in advance. Fucking goblins, there was always an angle with them…

“How did you get here so fast?” I asked, stalling for time to think. “Cos I’ve noticed you goblins seem to get around a lot quicker underground than we can up here, but that was really pushing plausibility. I mean, for a message to get down to Sneppit and you to be sent back up in such a short time… Oh. Is her headquarters right under this pub?”

“None of that is anything you need to know,” she said, pressing her lips into an unhappy line. From a lot of people I’d take that for a tacit admission but Zui looked roughly that unhappy most of the time I saw her anyway. “Look, if it helps you, the fact that you’re having this conversation with me and not Gizmit is a big sign of good faith. From me, not just Miss Sneppit; orders or no orders, I don’t come up to this city and talk to tallboys without armed backup unless I’m pretty confident they mean well. If we can’t help you, Lord Seiji, then that’s that. No harm done or offense taken. But whatever you’re up to, if you need a hand… It’s offered.”

Between my deflection and her little soliloquy, I had actually had a thought that seemed worth asking about. Maugro’s help would be necessary to create a map of gang activity in the Gutters, but there was privileged information even he didn’t have, and I couldn’t get. Unless…

“Can Youda brew a truth serum?” I asked.

Zui shot me down immediately. “I can tell you’ve been in Fflyr Dlemathlys long enough to have read way too many novels. There is no such thing as a truth serum. The problem there is philosophical, not scientific. ‘Truth’ is a much more vague concept than it seems like it should be. Even if you wanna limit the effect to, say, factuality, that’s way too tricky in practice to be bottled. The conscious perception of reality is inherently mutable enough that everybody’s understanding of truth is already scrambled even before you scramble it further with drugs. Some basic mental training is all it takes to beat any tongue-loosening effect by turning your revelations into garbled nonsense. Hell, you don’t even need training; if somebody’s a little mentally unstable, or even particularly religious, forcing them to tell ‘truth’ results in a lot of pointless noise. And like I said, administering mind-altering drugs to someone makes them mentally unstable by definition.”

“Wow, that was a lot of fancy vocabulary all of a sudden.”

She curled her lip in contempt, showing off her jagged teeth. “For a goblin?”

“For a hairstylist,” I said sweetly, causing the sneer to deepen, “or anyone who doesn’t live in a library. Look, Zui, I get why you’ve got a chip on your shoulder, considering the way this country treats goblins, but you can really save that for somebody who deserves it. I’ve never thought goblins were any less smart than anybody else. Most of the ones I’ve talked to are noticeably cleverer than the average Fflyr I’ve been running circles around. No offense, Aster.”

“Offense?” She folded her arms and raised her eyebrows, almost exactly like Zui had a moment ago. “You sure as hell haven’t been running circles around me.”

Zui, somewhat to my surprise, actually seemed mollified by my speech. “Well, I suppose. Anyway, what you’re asking about isn’t completely off the table, I just wanted you to be aware of the limitations up front. You cannot feed somebody a potion and then just magically get good answers out of ‘em, but there are ways to break a person’s mental defenses, and the right use of alchemy can enhance that considerably. So you’re not asking for a potion, but for the time and talents of the professionals necessary to carry out the process. An alchemist and an interrogator, at minimum. Fortunately for you, Miss Sneppit has those.”

“Ah, right, of course she would employ an interrogator. Or, forgive me, that would be…what? A plumber? Fan dancer? Tactical underwater basket weaver?”

“A maid,” Zui said with a dry little smile. “That’s just one of Gizmit’s many talents. To be clear, Lord Seiji, this is not a small favor; we’re already past the point of anything Miss Sneppit is likely to offer out of goodwill, but for you I think she could agree to a deal. I can’t promise anything without her approval, but that’s my estimate. Also, it would depend on who’s being interrogated.”

I considered carefully under her patient stare before answering. Just revealing this was taking a risk… But Sneppit’s organization already knew a lot about me that could cause me serious trouble, and she hadn’t betrayed me yet. They might not have confirmation that I was the Dark Lord, but the game had been more or less given away. If she was willing to sit on that information… Then again, there might just not be anybody she could betray me to, considering how the Fflyr political powers felt about goblins. That would also suffice for an assurance, or as close to one as I was likely to get.

“An agent of Clan Olumnach. Possibly a member of their Clansguard.”

She didn’t even blink. “You got a name?”

“I don’t have one in custody just yet,” I admitted. “This is an angle it didn’t occur to me to pursue until you came along offering help.”

Zui nodded. “All right, I’ll pass the message to Miss Sneppit. I will warn you up front, Lord Seiji, she’s gonna want serious assurances for this.”

“I’m honestly surprised the idea wasn’t an automatic dealbreaker.”

“Oh, please.” She sneered again, though this time I got the feeling it wasn’t directed at me per se. “Nobody in the tunnels would shed a tear for anything that happens to the Clans or their stomp-booted lackeys. But pissing off the Clans is another matter; they cannot find out we were involved, full stop. So, assurances.”

“Stands to reason. Just let me know what she needs and we can talk details.”

“I will pass the message,” she repeated. “While I’m here, anything else you need?”

Suddenly I had a stray thought.

“Possibly. Say, Zui, explain something about goblin culture to me.”

“No.”

That actually brought me up short. Here we’d been having a civil conversation just long enough for me to forget why I didn’t much care for Zui. I was not accustomed to being curtly shut down like that; nobody talked that way to Lord Seiji. Nobody else, at least.

“Okay,” I said ruefully, “we’ll just dance around the issue of why you all have obviously fake job titles. All I really need to know is whether those are completely made up, or are you actually a hairstylist?”

Zui tucked her thumbs into her belt, on which I had noted the presence of bulging pockets containing a variety of tools and materials, including the protruding handles of a pair of scissors.

“I think you’ve misunderstood something. Mister, I am the hairstylist.”

The hairstylist didn’t walk around with all the tools of her trade, obviously, but she carried the basics on her person even when on non-hairstyling business, which I assumed was one of those goblin cultural things I was not allowed to ask about. So, no chair or styling products, but she had scissors and combs and Aster was able to fetch water from the pub downstairs. In the end, the only real problem was the lack of a mirror. The disparity in our heights posed a hurdle, but it worked out with me kneeling on the floor and her standing behind me. She seemed surprised I was able to hold that position long enough.

“Nihonjin desu,” I explained with a grin.

“You have to be aware I have no idea what you just said.”

“Nobody does,” said Aster. “You just gotta learn to ignore it. He talks sense when he needs to.”

“Up to a point, I gather,” Zui muttered, and then her fingers were rifling through my hair, fluffing it up. “Hm. Hmmmm.”

“Hm? What hmmmm? Exactly how worried should I be about that sound?”

“Just seein’ what I’ve got to work with, here. Interesting texture.”

“Is that going to be a problem?”

“Not for me, unless you want something real fancy done. Goblin hair is textured more like an elf or highborn—stiff and coarse. Easy to style, barely needs any product. This is new. Yours is glossy like a lowborn’s, but straight. Fluffy.”

“Fluffy,” Aster repeated, grinning. “I bet you don’t get called that very often.”

“Not twice, anyway.”

“Yeah, yeah, Lord Bigshot doesn’t take any crap from anybody, we know,” said Zui in a bored tone. “So you’re just looking for a trim? I’ll repeat what I said: you’re the one who consented to do this without a mirror. I’m good, but I won’t be held responsible if you don’t love what you get. I wouldn’t even agree to this if you wanted anything more complicated than a trim.”

“It’s fine, I just want it the way I used to have it in Japan. Aster remembers what I looked like when I first got here, don’t you?”

“Yeah, he was kind of…deliberately scruffy. It was longish and on the shaggy side, but it was… I dunno how to describe it, exactly. It gave off the impression he had it that way on purpose, to look slightly scruffy. Now he just looks like he hasn’t had it trimmed in months.”

“Say no more.” Zui began combing out locks and snipping at the ends; black hair fell to bedeck the spare blanket she’d wrapped around my neck. “Deliberately scruffy is a solid look, I can respect that. And you’re right, it needs upkeep, otherwise you just look like a bum who can’t be arsed to take care of himself. The right tinge of deliberate scruff expresses contempt for the lords of fashion. Totally different impression.”

“See, I knew you’d get it,” I said happily. “It’s rock ‘n roll.”

Zui sighed heavily but didn’t ask me to clarify that. “Tilt your chin up, please.”

She actually was a professional, tugging my head into place with just the right degree of strength, firm but not rough. This adjustment pulled me backward so she could lean over and get at my bangs, and in the next moment I found my head and neck cradled in the most delicious softness. Warm, plush and—

“Please,” the woman in front of me rasped in a faint rattle I could barely hear. I couldn’t reach her in time, I wasn’t fast enough. Heal, Heal! The spell did nothing, didn’t connect. It wouldn’t touch a corpse. The blood was spreading from beneath—

I jerked forward, gasping and clawing at the blanket around me. The inn room came back into focus; Aster had stepped toward me in clear alarm, and to either side of my frame of vision I could see a pair of green hands, one holding scissors and the other a comb, instinctively jerked out of the way.

“I don’t usually have to explain this part out loud, but I got sharp implements next to your face, here.” Zui snipped the scissors twice in midair for emphasis. “There needs to be a maximum of zero sudden thrashing around, or the best case scenario is you end up lookin’ like a particularly smug haystack.”

“Sorry,” I whispered, then cleared my throat and repeated more firmly, though my voice still held an embarrassing quiver. “Sorry. I, uh… Look, this is awkward, but, um. Can you…keep those things to yourself, please?”

“Heh.” I’d been afraid she would be offended, but the goblin just sounded amused. “Funny, most customers look for excuses to lean back into ‘em. Yeah, I’ve learned to just ignore it, but if it matters to you, no problem. Can do. I just didn’t figure you of all people for a prude, Lord Seiji.”

I was the furthest thing from a prude, and under other circumstances not even Zui’s abrasive excuse for a personality would have prevented me from fully appreciating her impressive chest, but… But. Even without the flashbacks, I had seen some shit recently. The memory of trauma had passed, and even still there was a lingering discomfort with the idea of touching a woman that way when she hadn’t specifically invited it. I was so much happier before I knew how much touching and worse they had to endure.

“Yeah, well,” I said weakly, “I’m just full of surprises.”

I was rescued from my own awkwardness by a knock at the door. It was still awfully soon for my message to have gotten the results I wanted, but at that moment I was too preoccupied with regulating my breathing to wonder about it too hard. Aster crossed the room to answer it while Zui resumed combing and snipping.

“Is this…a bad time?” Maugro asked pointedly from the doorway as soon as Aster opened it.

“Maugro!” I said cheerfully. “Perfect! Also, damn, you goblins move fast. I wasn’t expecting you to turn up till tonight at the earliest.”

“Yeah, well, lucky for you I was in the area. Maugro’s gotta make his rounds, after all. Thanks, doll,” he said, nodding to Aster as he stepped past her and not seeing her replying grimace. “Though I admit I wasn’t expecting anybody to beat me here. I see you’re taking full advantage, though.”

“Say, speaking of that! Would Miss Sneppit happen to be headquartered right under this inn?”

“Hey, now,” Zui growled, snipping her scissors in front of my face again.

“C’mon, Lord Seiji, you know how this works,” Maugro said, grinning. “That kind of intel ain’t free. Considering you’re asking me to piss in Miss Sneppit’s flower garden right in front of one of her top people, it ain’t even cheap. You sure it’s that important to you?”

“It definitely isn’t,” I acknowledged. “Certainly not what I called you here for. Thanks for going out of your way, Maugro. Do I need to reimburse you?”

“Oh, yeah, that little ploy,” he snorted. “Y’know, if I was a less honorable goblin I would totally bilk you for the amount. Two silver halos for a message? You sure know how to stir people up. But no, of course not, because I’m not stupid. When I suddenly started getting mobbed by idiots trying to collect that bounty it wasn’t hard to find out what was up without having to actually buy the info from any of ‘em. That was either a real clever play, Lord Seiji, or the desperate flailing of a man backed into a corner. Should I be worried?”

“I’m a bit out of my element, but desperate is overstating it. By the way, Zui, are you okay with us talking business while you work?”

“You’re kidding, right?” she snorted, snipping away. “What the hell do you think Miss Sneppit does while I’m working on her? Everybody who’s got business does it while they’re getting trimmed. Don’t mind me.”

“Perfect, thanks.” It seemed a little too on the nose to comment that anything we said in front of her would go right back to Miss Sneppit, so I didn’t bother. “I’ve been away on business for the last week, so I’m a little out of the loop. I need to know everything there is not know about Clan Olumnach’s movements into the Gutters.”

“’Everything there is to know’ is one of those phrases I keep having to train my clients not to say,” Maugro sighed. “It sounds impressive, but in reality that’ll be a lot of junk intel that you don’t need and won’t want to pay for. Think in terms of what you’re trying to do and what you need to know in order to accomplish that.”

“Okay,” I drawled. “I am trying to break Olumnach’s hold on crime on Dount, while it’s still fragile enough to do so.”

“That’s a tall order,” he said skeptically. “I know you’re aware he’s got a monopoly on the gangs outside the city.”

“Correction. I have a monopoly on the gangs outside the city. Highlord Caldimer went and left them understaffed and undefended while he focused his attention on Gwyllthean.”

That caused a moment of silence. Even the scissors stopped for a few seconds.

“Told you,” I said smugly. “I have been busy this week.”

“Well, damn,” Maugro said at last. “I’m not the only one who works fast. Okay, then… You’ll want to know the locations, strength, and fighting style of the gangs as they stand?”

“That’s a good start. Also the relevant data about his own people. I’m assuming Clan Olumnach personnel are of a higher caliber than the bandits he’s press-ganged into being fodder for this.”

“I can get you a bit on that, but there’ll be blind spots,” he hedged. “For obvious reasons, the Highlord’s cagey and has made an active effort not to reveal the full capabilities of his Clansguard and household Blessed. I’ve never seriously tried to ferret out that intel; the effort would’ve likely caught his attention and pissed him off, which I all kinds of don’t fucking need.”

“Whatever you’ve got, then. I have other options for gathering that information.”

Maugro glanced at Zui. “Y’know what, I believe you.”

“I’m also kind of in the dark about what kinds of operations are being fought over, here,” I admitted. “I know pretty much all of the gangsters I recently killed, and those I’m about to, are street muscle. Gray’s and Olumnach’s, both. But I assume those can’t be all of crime in the Gutters.”

“Yeah, you’re not wrong,” he agreed. “Muscle like them did a lot of stealing, both burglary and mugging, and Gray leveraged ‘em for the likes of extortion and protection. Olumnach’s goons won’t have the know-how to do that as well, not right off the bat, but they’ll catch on pretty quick. None of it’s heart surgery. In fact, getting rid of Gently and the Rats will create more opportunities for spying and pilfering work once things start to settle again. But in terms of actual businesses, there are several fences and fixers who do discreet work with the more well-heeled types up in the middle ring; they go where the wind blows and will happily bow to whoever wants to claim they’re in charge, so long as they get to keep doing business as usual. Some of Gray’s moneylending and debt collecting operations may still be intact, if they’re using independent muscle in place of the gangsters who got rounded up or knifed. The rest will just be gambling and drug dens. A lot of those got smashed when the Kingsguard went on their little rampage, but you can’t really shut that shit down, it just pops up elsewhere the next night. The one thing Olumnach’s people probably know about that Gray’s didn’t was smuggling. Most of that trade goes around Gwyllthean, not through it.”

I started to nod and Zui grabbed my skull, holding me in place.

“Right,” I said instead. “Then I need to know who’s doing what, where. As complete a map of crime in the Gutters as you can get me, as up-to-date as possible.”

Maugro let out a low whistle. “You’re talkin’ about a sizable research project, Lord Seiji.”

“I know. And I need it fast. As fast as you can manage.”

“If I pull all my people and put ‘em on it… I can get you files by tomorrow. Do I gotta clarify that this will not be cheap?”

“This is no time for cheapness,” I agreed. “This is the endgame, Maugro. Whatever you need, I’ll get you, so long as you can get me what I need.”

He studied me in silence for a moment.

“This really is it, huh? If you pull this off… Gray’s broken, and Olumnach would be out. It’ll be you, lord of all crime on Dount.”

“That’s the plan,” I said, smiling coldly. “Which makes this the last opportunity for anybody who wants to be in good with me to get that way before they have to beg for my attention.”

Zui snorted, but didn’t stop clipping.

“Well, all righty then,” Maugro said with sudden good cheer, grinning his shark’s grin. “Then here’s to a dark and glorious future! Let’s talk particulars.”