Chapter 24: The Peakless Lodge

Between his injuries and his newly existent dating life, Rick didn't rush to return to the Peakless Wildlife Refuge. A night of rest certainly did him a lot of good... but the next morning, the smell of all the jackalope bodies reminded him that there was no way he could ignore them any longer. They completely filled his old fridge - for once it was a helpful thing that he and Melissa didn't have much food on hand.

Rick got up and stretched, only then realizing that he wasn't terribly injured. He had healing scars from all the antler cuts, but they'd closed remarkably well. Presumably that was what Emily had meant about the drink she'd given him working with his defensive core. Thoughts of that kept him positive even as he got ready for an unpleasant task.

He discovered that Melissa had already left for work and wondered about how many shifts she was taking. For now, the relevant part was that she'd left a note on the fridge, implying that he'd taken a job as an assassin and was storing bodies there. Rick smiled and got to work.

Thankfully double-bagging the bodies with the canvas had prevented them from ruining the fridge, so it was simply a task of lugging them out. After having spent so long biking everywhere, calling for a taxi felt like a ridiculous luxury. He almost missed the bike ride out, the chance to meditate and get his mind in order. Given the new change in his life and the texts he'd exchanged with Emily, he could have used time to think.

Instead, he focused on work and summoned a taxi. The driver stopped, then took a long, hard look at his giant suspicious bag of bags. "What do you have there, man?"

"I went hunting." Rick opened the door and shoved the bag in, giving a smile that he hoped didn't make him look like an axe murderer. "I need to take all of that to the Peakless Wildlife Refuge."

"Uh, north of Branton? I can take you to the edge of the place, but you're not supposed to just wander in."

"Don't worry, I have an appointment. I can guide you through the last part."

As they drove he held the bag awkwardly. For a while he tried to resist looking at the scoreboard, assuming it didn't yet include his anomaly from the day before. Eventually he gave in and was pleasantly surprised:

[1) Pan Zhou - 155 merits

2) [redacted] - 151 merits

3) Kate Durham - 140 merits

4) Elliot Rutherford III - 137 merits

5) Damian - 131 merits

6) Heidi Cunningham - 124 merits

7) Oswaln - 122 merits

8) Jack Ganess - 119 merits

9) Machk Bearan - 113 merits

10) Skinmaster0 - 105 merits

...

10) Skinmaster0 - 105 merits

11) Rick Hunter - 102 merits

12) Javiera Banks - 86 merits]

He was close enough to the top ten that the display was repetitive. Though the competitors in the lead were still far ahead, he could actually feel himself catching up to many of the others. But there was no more time to look at the list, because they were almost there.

In the end the taxi driver refused to go on the smaller roads. Rick winced when paying him, even though the amount wasn't actually that much compared to his paycheck. Plus, those "merits" would translate into actual money soon enough.

Rick lugged the bag the last part of the way to the office, feeling like a murderous Santa Claus. There was no Delsin waiting for him this time, so he'd actually get to go inside. He was curious about some of the displays, but decided to look at them more once he wasn't carrying so many animal corpses.

Indoors, he found a pleasant if rustic waiting area and a wooden desk with no one present. Further inside he saw a few offices with the lights on, but glancing in he found no one. Rick didn't want to intrude, so instead he moved the other way into a large side room.

His first thought was that it was a dog pound before he realized that was too mundane of a term. There were cages along the walls, yes, but they didn't contain mutts from the streets. The first was empty but the second contained a dragon similar to the ones he'd seen, though it looked in much better health. It hissed and coiled back into a corner when it saw him, though, so he moved on.

The next occupied cage contained what he first thought was a white fox, then he reconsidered. It looked up at him, eyes as luminous as the moon, and Rick's eyebrows rose. Not quite thinking about it, he knelt down next to the cage, maintaining eye contact.

Was that a kitsune? That didn't make any sense, because he didn't think they were even close to native to North America. Dragons might be natural everywhere, but kitsunes shouldn't be if he remembered his classes. It seemed a shame for it to be locked up... Rick realized what was happening a second later and shook himself. The pale fox was beautiful, but it needed to be kept where it was until the experts could take it somewhere it belonged.

"Oh, good." A young man's voice came from the side and Rick jumped as if he'd been caught doing something wrong. "I thought I might have to snap you out of it."

Standing and hefting his bag, Rick turned to find who had spoken. It was a young man who immediately struck him as family to Delsin, though he wore skinny jeans and a t-shirt with a character that looked vaguely familiar, maybe from a game Rick had never been able to afford. Realizing he was staring, Rick took a hand off the bag and offered it to shake. "Hi, I'm Rick. There wasn't anybody here when I came in."

"Yeah, we don't get many visitors." The man shook his hand and then glanced behind him. "Your, uh, delivery is leaking."

"Really?" Rick looked back and cursed under his breath when he saw that some of the blood that had yet to congeal was leaking out of the bottom point. Just recently, since it hadn't made too much of a mess of the floor, but not what he'd wanted. Was the jackalope blood acidic or something?

"If that's an animal you wanted us to take care of, I think it's a bit beyond help."

For a moment Rick stared at the unsmiling man, then he smiled despite himself. If this guy really was related to Delsin, a dry sense of humor wasn't a surprise. "I killed a lot of jackalopes. I didn't exactly have a scheduled appointment, but Delsin should have told you that I was coming."

"Oh, you're the one that Uncle Delsin mentioned?" The man looked him over, then gave an easy smile. "I'm Wemilat - please don't shorten that to anything. We actually do pay a small amount for exterminating lucrim-using pests, though not a lot. Here, come this way."

Wemilat headed out into the main room and when Rick followed, he was surprised to see a young woman emerging from the offices, wiping something dark blue off her hands on a rag - the family resemblance was again obvious. When she blinked at them curiously, Wemilat gestured between them. "Adsila, this is Rick, the one Uncle mentioned. Rick, this is my sister."

"Do the two of you run this place?" His question sounded stupid to him even a moment later, but Adsila gave him a friendly smile and replied.

"Our parents own it and handle all the business and permits and stuff, but they do leave a lot of the day to day work to us."

"Bring all your corpses over here." Wemilat moved to an empty corner and spread out a plastic tarp. As Rick began to unload the bodies, he shook his head. "Poor things. I tried to domesticate some jackalopes when I was young. Nearly lost a finger."

"Because you're a dumbass."

Wemilat scowled at his sister. "It wasn't absurd. Humanity has domesticated many of its greatest enemies."

"Those freaks aren't animals." Adsila glanced at Rick and rolled her eyes at her brother. "Wemy here-"

"Don't call me that."

"Wemy has a huge bleeding heart for animals. I'm more interested in what can be done with these bodies, but that will come after."

"I'm so glad the Refuge isn't going to pass to you." Wemilat frowned at his sister while he tallied up all the bodies. Then the frown fell away and he smiled at Rick. "This is pretty impressive. We'll pay you 450 lucrim for exterminating the lot."

"Plus some of what we get out of it, because Uncle Delsin said we should treat you fairly."

After looking back and forth between them, trying to figure out if they actually disliked each other, Rick wasn't quite prepared to make a decision. The strange thing was, he didn't find the lucrim all that appealing. Once a bonus like that would have been a big deal, yet compared to his needs now, it didn't register that much. Now that he thought about it... "You can keep the money. Let Delsin owe me a favor."

"Oh, he's not going to like that." Adsila grinned and Wemilat scowled, but they seemed to accept his decision. "Okay, Wemy, help me move these things over for processing."

That turned out to mean getting a bin marked with a lucrim hazard sign and dumping all the bodies into it. As Rick helped, he looked over the siblings a bit more carefully. Wemilat had a generation rate of about 38,000 lucrim while Adsila's was about 32,000 lucrim, but her lucrima soul felt more polished. Maybe that had something to do with her work.

Physically, they were cut from very similar cloth as their uncle, though Adsila wore nice clothes underneath what appeared to be a lab coat. She was really pretty cute, but Rick found himself pushing that thought away. For the first time since adolescent dating in high school, he was actually in a relationship.

"Huh, this one is almost perfect..." Wemilat had found the separate bag that contained the jackalope that Emily had killed carefully and frowned at it. "Did you do this? That's very precise work."

"No, that... wasn't me." He almost said that his girlfriend did it, but wasn't quite comfortable with that. "But I did want one intact body. Does it have any use for you?"

"Not really. We can get the information and resources we need from all the others."

"Then is it possible to have it stuffed and mounted? Uh... wait, that isn't offensive, is it? I mainly wanted it as a joke for my sister."

Even Wemilat shrugged like it didn't matter, while Adsila leaned in to speak. "As it happens, we have a cousin who does taxidermy. She'd probably jump at the chance to do a real jackalope, so we wouldn't even charge you."

"Great, thanks." Since they'd finished their work, Rick got up, looked for somewhere to wipe his hands, and accepted a rag from Adsila. "Anyway, I'll be around periodically to work with Delsin, so there's no rush on anything. Maybe just have him tell me when it's ready?"

"Oh, we'll actually have something else for you." Adsila thumped the bin on its lid cheerfully. "The real reason we want these is to convert them into something useful. The lucrim would just pay you for exterminating them, but as a finder's fee we'd give you some of the result, too."

Rick considered that, not really sure what to think of it. "I don't know anything about processing lucrim-using animals. Would that be a useful substance to me? My knowledge of that kind of thing is pretty much limited to drinking serum or philosopher's elixir."

"Don't worry, it'd have value." Wemilat wiped off his hands as well and gave him a smile. "And this time we won't let you put it on Uncle Delsin's tab. We're not exactly big on the old ways, but you're due your share by rights."

"I can give you suggestions if you're not sure," Adsila said. "But first you need to give me a few days to process all of this stuff."

"Works for me." Rick shook hands with both of them and left with a smile. It was nice for an errand to go simply for once.

On his way out, Rick was just about to manifest his bike when his phone buzzed. Apparently they got reception out here, at least around the office. He noted that with mild interest until he saw that the call was from his old boss.

"Rick?" Jimmy sounded pissed. "Get the hell over here and talk to your damn sister. Now."

With that, he hung up, leaving Rick with only questions. He sighed and headed back.