Third watch always went on forever.
You’d think that it being ass-o-clock in the evening that there’d be more to do, but it seemed even the scum of the earth liked to keep regular sleep schedules. Even the drunks had long since shuffled off home or had otherwise been shoved someplace they could sleep it off. Liminessa pulled her helm off— a simple yet effective leather affair that was great for taking hits to the skull but was shit for breathing in— and took a moment to pull back the dark jade flyaways that had come loose from her bun.
A wipe of her brow to get rid of the sweat the unseasonably warm weather had brought on, and Nessa pushed her helm back on, cudgel in hand as she continued her patrol down the quiet, dark city streets. The worst part of it all was that she was only halfway into the shift, and the city bells seemed to be perfectly content to ring few and far between. No end to the evening in sight, and not even a skeevy pickpocket to make the night interesting.
At this point, Liminessa would have taken the drunks back. Even dodging poorly hidden attempts at copping a feel was better than being bored out of her damn mind. And at least some of those same drunks liked to sing. In the dark of the night, Maestoso was as silent as the grave, and that had to be the absolute worst part about it all.
Rubbing at her eyes beneath the faceplate of her helm, Nessa took a moment to pinch her cheeks and get some kind of feeling of alertness back as she stepped across the plaza, past the babbling water fountain in the center of the square, and down yet another city street as part of her designated patrol for the evening. Her squad each had their own patterns to follow, rattling hanging silver bells at street corners to signal that, as usual, all was well.
Gooooods, but third watch went on forever. Liminessa reached up, grabbed one such bellrope, and gave the device a quick ring to signal her own check complete. It made keeping in contact easy, required less overlap, and the soft ringing of the bells in the night was more than a little bit of a comfort to those good, decent civilians wrapped in bed. Liminessa wished this had been standard procedure when she was small— more than one night she had spent huddled in her bed with the covers pulled over her head, head full of some nasty tale courtesy of the kitchen staff and her own morbid curiosity.
That was years and several provinces away, now. But if this meant other little girls slept a little bit better, she’d go on ringing those bells. Or beating the absolute shit out of anyone who decided to make trouble. Speaking of…
Something moved in the shadows, far down at the other end of the street, and Nessa scowled as she gripped her cudgel tighter. Endless planning and repetition guaranteed that whatever was down there was not one of her own, and she gave a sharp whistle into the night air as her meandering pace was suddenly infused with a sense of purpose.
“Who goes there!” It was a silly call, but then, she never really expected lowlifes to respond to it. It was more for the benefit of her squad, though if she had her way this would end up with a vigorous foot chase and her knee in someone’s belly. “Identify yourself, now!”
Gritting her teeth and trying not to be too pleased when the shadowy something took off running in the opposite direction, Nessa bolted hard down the cobbled road, her boots thudding loudly in the otherwise pristine night air.
“Hold! Gods damn you, you son of a bitch, I am going to make you eat the dirt from my soles.” That last part was more a breathless mutter, but the sentiment was real nonetheless, muscles burning by the time she made it down the street and around the corner the shadow had turned, only to find that same side street completely empty. Cussing loudly, Nessa looked up towards the rooftops, trying to spot where the little skulky shit might have vanished off to.
Not that she got much a chance to really look— the bells were ringing then, and not in the short, even strokes that meant everything was fine, but rather in the loud frantic rolling that summoned everyone within earshot to the ringer’s location. Cussing in a way that would have horrified her mother to hear, Liminessa took off running again, back down the original street and across another, where the rest of her squad was quickly gathering around bright torchlight and splintered wood.
“What is it?” She asked, stepping up to the front door of an apothecary’s shop— or rather, what was left of it. An odd choice for an invasion, most being rather keen on keeping a lower profile than this.
“Robbery, ma’am.” Said another guard, moving away from the shop owner and holding something small pinched between two gloved fingers. A closer look saw a shimmering string, ghostly pale and almost translucent in the right light. “Door was kicked in and a couple jars taken. Yarrow, nightweed, and…”
“Banshee thread,” the apothecary said, huffily, and Nessa narrowed her eyes at such a tone.
“Funny collection you’ve got, there. You have any reason to be stocking banshee thread, sir? It doesn’t strike me as having many viable applications an upstanding gentleman such as yourself would be interested in.”
“I’m sorry, am I under arrest, or am I the one who got robbed, here?” he shot back, gesturing at the remains of his shop door. “Look at this!”
“I see it. What else do we have?” Nessa asked of the other guard, waving the apothecary to the side and leaving him sputtering in indignation for it.
“Not much, ma’am. No witnesses, just a crash and then nothing.”
“I saw someone skulking about just three blocks south. Take a detail and comb the area, anyone out and about I want brought in for questioning, no exceptions. Wake first shift if you have to. I’ll be down to the jails shortly.”
“Ma’am?”
“This is the third time this month. I’m going to check in on some of our old friends and see who’s back to causing trouble. If I’m not back by dawn, check the northside canals. That’s probably where I’ll wash up.” Nessa grimaced behind her helm, the gallows humor seemingly doing nothing to help the general mood. But, thankfully, no one argued, and so she was able to walk away from the crime scene, leaving her squad to keep examining evidence as well as start setting up the sweep of the streets.
She, however, had much bigger fish to fry. Tenderize and batter and fry. In that order. And with any real luck, she’d find her shadowy little friend out of breath and looking perfectly, smackably guilty. But that required finding him first, and if Nessa knew Quinlan Duirne, that’d be the real trick of the evening.
