Keeper's Justice
Copyright© 2025 by Charly Young
Chapter 26: Quinn
Shit. A fucking slave kennel.
Quinn’s first coherent thought sunk in as he regained consciousness from the effects of the dart’s toxin. Dim yellow light cast from bundles of bioluminescent fungi on the wall on the other side of iron bars showed him a straw-covered dirt floor. The sound of heavy snoring and groaning came from twenty other beings as they tossed and turned in restless sleep: dwarves, asrai, and humans, along with three bear shifter-kin. He could hear sobbing that sounded like children coming from further down the passage. The sound and smell brought back memories—bad memories.
He sensed vast disapproval from the Other. Ever risk-averse, the fact that he had let himself get darted seemed to it the height of recklessness.
A pile of bowls that probably held the evening’s course of gruel and bread were neatly stacked by the iron bars of the kennel’s entrance.
The sound of footsteps came from down the tunnel.
Then came a voice:
“You are without a doubt the rankest sort of amateur.”
Wraith stepped into view, accompanied by one of Larissa’s daughters and a fat, miserable-looking leprechaun.
Quinn’s headache suddenly got a hundred times worse.
Sweet mother of All, please kill me now.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“My sisters are going to be so envious of me now.”
“Please shut up.”
“Here I come to save the day,” she sang.
Someone had been watching old cartoons. Like Saria and her sisters, television had hit Wraith hard. Quinn wouldn’t have been a bit surprised to find that she thought Mighty Mouse was real. Her sister, Saria, was convinced that the Disney princesses were alive and living down in Florida. Quinn had played a million pranks on a credulous Saria about them when she first came to live in Keeper House.
“Okay, Mighty Mouse, pick the lock and tell me what you’re doing here. I sent you guys to Keeper House to keep everybody safe.”
“You. Don’t. Send. Me. Anywhere, Lachlan Quinn.” She spat the words at him. “I go where and when I please. No one commands me, especially not you. I search for Niamh. She should have checked in by now. Katherine, Elisabeth, and the young ones are safe at Keeper House. They are dealing with the witches. I need your help. Niamh went to Chelan on some task for the Kin Council. No one has heard from her since. Elisabeth thinks she is in another realm.”
“Damn that girl, she’s got herself in trouble again. She always leaps before she looks. What does that asshole of a grandfather of hers say she’s doing?”
“The Kin Council claims to have no clue about her whereabouts. The Chelan Pack says they don’t know either. Her bike is in the police impound yard in Wenatchee. Wrecked. There is a bullet hole in the motor. Elisabeth says if she died, we would have known instantly. She is gone from the earth realm. I need your help to check the other realms, so I came to Oldtown only to find you wasting time meddling in things that don’t concern you.”
Quinn ignored her, too worried about Niamh to react to her snark. “I’m sure it’s her Goddess-damned grandfather and his plotting behind this. I need to have a chat with the Alpha anyway. But first, I need to have a long overdue talk with Mistress L’eena. You remember her, don’t you?” He watched her face change to something cold and feral. She remembered.
“Very well. We will keep you company. You are liable to stumble and break a leg without me to stand by you and catch you.”
Sweet Mother, come to my aid.
The cell lock clicked. Quinn pushed the door open and grabbed the leprechaun’s chin, forcing him to meet his eyes. “What is your name, slaver?”
“Dram Ilkwood, master,” he squeaked.
“Listen, Slaver Ilkwood, you have a choice here: guide us to your mistress or die here.”
The leprechaun decided to become a guide.
The tunnels were sandstone and salt, carved centuries ago by some long dead slaves. They were lit every fifty feet by a cage lamp affixed to the wall, stuffed full of bioluminescent fungi. The air was thick with the stench of unwashed bodies and human waste.
Every hundred feet, there was an iron-barred slave kennel. In each, beings huddled, their faces gaunt and eyes vacant. A mother clutched a skeletal-looking child to her breast, her cracked lips moving in silent prayer. An elderly man stared unseeing at the ceiling, his chest barely rising with each shallow breath. The sounds of quiet groans and crying children echoed off the stone walls.