NEVER SPLIT THE PARTY: The Adventures of the Creeping Bam (BOOK 4: The Hunt)

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO: DRAMRATH

When Vandryss walks into the room it's all I can do not to stalk right up to her and behead her on the spot. I've just gotten so thoroughly sick of all of this shit, I truly don't care what might happen anymore, I just want this done with, and to never have to look at her hateful smarmy face again. Their plan has gone to hell in spectacular fashion, leaving my friends in a genuinely terrible situation, and she just looks bored. It's honestly a miracle I don't kill her right now.

The fact we're stood at the back of the main upstairs lounge of Hontiresk's gods-awful gentleman's club, with more than a few of his fellow idle-rich peers present to witness such an act, is just about the only reason I don't. As it is I still break away from my position leaning against the impressively tall bookshelf to approach her as she joins us now, my still empty hands itching to commit magnificent violence upon her. Trouble stays where she is for now, still cradling her sword like a mother with her child, trying to ignore the disapproving looks the distinguished highborn gentlemen around us aren't even trying to hide. She hates this place even more than I do, that much has been clear since the moment we set foot in here, but while the general atmosphere of unnecessary opulence and unrestrained arrogance just makes me ill-tempered, she's become a good deal more meek.

"Perhaps this isn't the best place for you to be right now, Mallys." she sighs as she looks me over, her expression slipping from apathy to irritation now. "You might be better off joining your companions, helping them complete the task you've so far spectacularly bungled."

"Shut up." I snap at her now, stepping close so I can tower over her as I glare down with all of my enraged intensity. "Your idiotic little enterprise, as you so charmingly call it, has turned into an incredible clusterfuck. You better pray none of my friends end up getting hurt by what you've done here, or I really will have to end you on the spot. Regardless of where we are."

The way she just rolls her eyes as she cranes up at me, like she doesn't care a single jot about the fact she's barely more than half my size, is so infuriating that I feel the fire raring up inside me again. "Calm yourself, Mallys, you're creating a scene. You wouldn't want your employer's business being aired in public now, would you?"

"It already is, you stupid cunt. The Playhouse is burning down. As soon as the Authority find out what you idiots have been doing down there in the catacombs, there's going to be absolute uproar. There won't be any covering this up any more, it's already out there for anyone to see. In a few hours you'll be done in Untermer."

"Calm yourself, Mistress Mallys." Hontiresk produces a cigar from somewhere inside his robes and starts rolling it between the fingers of his right hand while his left starts rummaging through the various layers of rich grey silk and linen draped over him. He's sat there in that ridiculously opulent soft leather armchair like he doesn't have a care in the world, sniffing the expensively rolled tobacco, looking almost as bored by all of this as Vandryss. "The Oceanic has been insured for centuries, and this ... unfortunate incident is clearly no fault of mine. I stand to be recompensed significantly more capital than the entire business is even worth. I can rebuild it finer than it already was and still pocket a substantial profit on top of it." He finally finds the silver cutter he's been searching for and snips the tapered end of the cigar with swift efficiency. "Perhaps I should invest it in some form of expansion. What do you think I should try?"

Gubal doesn't even have to move from where he's been stood the whole time since we first arrived after we all arrived here together from the Playhouse via swift private carriage, he simply leans over the back left corner of his master's chair as he strikes a match. Hontiresk doesn't even glance in his direction, simply turning his head just enough to meet the flame with the cigar he plants between his lips. Their complimentary actions unfold with such startling precision it's clear they've done this a thousand times before.