After settling our arrangements with Alice, Tex took me shopping. I was aware that eating him was not an acceptable response; it would be bad for my soul, if not my digestion. But I really wanted to eat him as he led me from purveyors of fine goods to peddlers of tat.

  “Why the fuck are we buying fifty copies of Jandak’s Juxtapositional Joy?” I snapped as he was negotiating with a printer.

  “It’s the filthiest book in the world! Five silver per copy here is two gold whenever we sell a copy.”

  “It will be ten silver a copy,” said the shopkeeper. I glared at him. “Five silver for you, good sir!” he added hurriedly.

  “Aha! And is the Glow Mistress in the market for a smutty book, by any chance?” I enquired with a raised eyebrow. The poor shopkeeper was now moving a blank expression from one of us to the other, like he was watching a tennis match. We’d been arguing for about five minutes, and I didn’t see it coming to an end anytime soon. His establishment hadn’t been Tardis’d, so the roughly built shack on the edge of the Glooming was just as shitty and small on the inside as it was from the street.

  “Maybe,” he said guiltily.

  “So why the hell do we need fifty of them? Just buy your weird crush a copy and let’s go buy, ergh, a couple of barrels of whisky and get the hell out of this shithole.” I looked at the proprietor of said shithole and offered a thin smile. “I meant the city. I’m a country boy at heart,” I lied badly. He snorted, and his jowls wobbled. After crossing his arms, he switched from blank-faced bewilderment to narrow-eyed hostility.

  “There are lots of lodges on the way back to the Mill.” Tex shuffled from side to side.

  “Tex, if you say this is a good investment, I’m willing to trust you.” Thank you, ascot of not-eating-people. “But I’m not sure pornlit is entirely socially acceptable, based on the fact we’re in this shithole in the shittiest part of the city.”

  “Oi! This is a quality establishment and I sell only the finest of, erm, erotic fiction to the most discerning of the noble ladies!” snapped the bookshop owner. I turned a Hunter's Gaze on him, and he froze like a rabbit in headlights.

  “Please be quiet while I speak to my associate.” He managed a jerky nod. “Thank you. Now, Tex, is trafficking in this kind of… art frowned upon by the authorities?”

  “Well, not really. It will be fine. It won’t even be, you know!” He made mugging faces at my stomach that I am fairly sure the storeowner misinterpreted, judging by the way his eyes twitched up and down my body. I gave him another blast of Gaze, and he went rigid.

  “So if it wasn’t ‘you know’, it would be an issue?” Tex started twiddling his fingers in front of him.

  “Eh, kind of? But it’s fine. I’ve got a brother in the guard, remember?”

  “Do we need to kill this guy? You’re not being very subtle, Tex. If we do, you’re doing it. I’m trying to be good.” The shopkeeper blanched. He couldn’t move, but the blood was still able to drain from his face, leaving him pale as a ghost.

  “No! For god’s sake, what did you do to him? Joril is a trusted contact! Undo it!” Tex snapped. A bead of sweat trickled down Joril the book seller's forehead and ran down one of his wrinkles into his left eye, which started to water. Tears trickled down that cheek, and he was utterly unable to move to do anything about them.

  “I don’t know how. It’s a fear thing; it’ll wear off in a bit. Look, Joril, just forget what I said. If Tex says you’re ok, I won’t let him eat you.” Joril managed to twitch his right eye to point at Tex, and my man shrugged.

  “I wasn’t going to eat you anyway,” he said. The single functional eyeball swivelled back in my direction.

  “I’m on a diet. It’s a carnivore one, but it doesn’t include sapients. Don’t sweat it, dude. Fifty copies?” Tex nodded.

  “It’ll be worth it, Bob. We’ll double our money on this!”

  “Two gold is twenty silver, five silver a copy, that would mean we’re making four times what we spend,” I pointed out in a perfectly reasonable and not-hungry tone. I needed to get out of the city; soon, my biomass was dropping, and I was getting twitchy.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  “Ah, well, there are a lot of running costs to my –our– kind of venture. Fodder for the pack animals, lodging, and toll roads, to name but a few of the near infinite expenses of a wandering merchant. Guards! I’ll need guards this time! And I’ve got mouths to feed as well! You can’t expect me to cut-”

  “If you say ‘my own arm off’, I will see if a one-armed merchant is a viable possibility. Tex, you know what happens to people who steal from people like me?” I let the threat hang in the air and watched him shrivel like a bug under a magnifying glass.

  “You know what? I can probably make a few sacrifices here and there. How about I keep accurate records, and you can make your own mind up when I catch up to you in the north?” he asked with a salesman's smile.

  “Define accurate?” I snapped. “Never mind. Swear on the system and the contract.” He hopped from foot to foot, then settled onto his heels with a resigned expression.

  “Fine. I swear to keep accurate records and share them with you once I reach our planned destination.” It was a bit mealy-mouthed; there was some wiggle room in there. Accurate? And ‘our planned destination’ both left him some space to screw me over. But I could see in his eyes that he wouldn’t try to push his luck.

  “And get a copy for Kat, as well.” She’d wanted a souvenir.

  We concluded our business with Joril, emerging the proud owners of fifty copies of this world's version of Fifty Shades of Middle-aged-lady-literature. I’d be smuggling them out of the city in the old belly pouch, so the customs blokes wouldn’t be an issue.

  What followed was a whirlwind tour of distilleries, borderline legal stores, and blacksmiths. We stocked up on booze, drugs, porn, and this world's equivalent of AK-47s. They were magic swords and spears, but they fit the same role.

  I had taken rather a lot of gear into my belly pouch, wavy hand gestures being used to cover the goods disappearing into my pocket universe of tat.

  As we got back into the yard outside the Long Horn, Tex babbling away happily in my ear, I looked up and made to move forward, but Seb, the betrayer, caught our movement in the corner of his eye and bolted for the stable. The doors slammed shut, and the sound of frantic hammering ensued.

  I walked over and knocked on the hastily barricaded doors.

  “I know you’re in there!” I yelled. “I think you owe me an apology, kid!”

  “I’m forty-three years old, you pillock!”

  “Still. Apologise!” I yelled, pulling back a foot that I intended to use to make kindling of Seb’s defences.

  “An odd way to treat a child. I am pondering whether this is a suitable contract for me. I am a Burgundy Tier Adventurer, and I am afraid, sir, that I am most perplexed by your fury at the child.” The voice was sharp and precise, and an accent that sounded faintly Germanic clipped the end of his words to make them snap. I turned towards the source and blinked slowly. “I am the Worm. I’d like to say it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, but I am as yet unresolved on that score.”

  He was short and thin. His grey suit was well-fitted and only served to highlight his diminutive stature. High cheekbones framed a neatly trimmed moustache over a mouth that I doubted was capable of smiling. I got no sense of threat from the man; he wasn’t in the same league as Kenny and Cyril, but he carried himself with a quiet confidence that bespoke some kind of strength.

  “Why do they call you that?” I asked as I walked over to loom over the man like a henge. He raised a hand, and tiny, pale, wriggling things squirmed out of the skin of his palm.

  “My methods are a little invasive, but their efficacy cannot be doubted. Sometimes sending a worm to catch a worm is the best option.” He shrugged and dropped his hand to his side after I pointedly refused to shake his seaweed-like hand..

  “Suit yourself, dear employer. I trust we are ready to depart?” He slapped a leather satchel on his hip. “I am fully equipped. It’s strange, I can’t see your level. Alice told me about this oddity. Perhaps you’d be willing to submit to a little internal inspection, or is it an item? That would be a rare find! So, are you a freak, or are you lucky?”

  “He’s both. I’m Tex, nice to meet you. I’m the noble trader of our outfit, a full partner. You look like you might have a lady friend who would be interested–” he oofed as my elbow found his ribs.

  “I am quite sure I don’t have a lady-friend, dear sir. I’m afraid that my interests and calling don’t bode well for a successful relationship. I want to understand what makes people tick. Physically, not mentally. I’ll leave that for the pimps and pervs in the Scanner Guild. I like to really get inside people and make them work better. Not smarter or harder, just better. Have you seen how inefficient most digestive systems are? Not just people but animals too. With a little help from the wigglers, I can–”

  “That’s fascinating, mate. Tex, go grab your shit. “Seb! I won’t eat you!” I got a strange look from The Worm at this comment. “Get Tex’s wagon hitched up, we’re leaving town in the next half hour.”

  “The Dodgers’ll kill you if you do owt to me, fella!” came a call from within the stables. It would have sounded more impressive if his voice hadn’t broken up an octave when he said ”owt”.

  “Threaten me when your balls have dropped again. If you don’t get cracking, I’ll break my way in there! I doubt Beville will mind. I’m mates with his cousin and I’m in the enviable position of being the customer!”

  Scraping sounds echoed from the other side of the thick oak planks, and after thirty seconds, a boyish face peeked around the gap in the middle as one door swung inwards.

  “You won’t punish me?”

  “Not this time, you backstabbing little shit. Get the wagon ready to ride!”