Chapter 10

Once they came to the city they asked for directions and they headed for the address they were given. They found themselves in front of a very large museum with rod iron gates that were swung wide open.

They entered and were shown into a very nice, but a very cluttered office. There were books stacked on every table. But at least the center desk was clear.

As the secretary showed them in she smiled big at Dusty and offered him her hand as she showed them all into the office. And once he shook it she didn't seem to be in too big a hurry to get it back from him as she smiled at him.

Dusty couldn't miss how attractive she was. The other women looked mildly irritated at him for it.

As they all entered the office a man came out from behind his desk to greet them.

"Ahh, you must be the ones from the 'Lion's Pride' guild?" asked the well dressed man. He was smiling in a warm manner, almost grandfatherly.

The man in question was an older man, with a full head of hair, but almost completely grey with small strands of black here and there. He was tall as Dusty, dressed in shirt and pants with a shiny black robe over his clothes.

"Yes we are. I am Marie. This is Suzan, Rachel, and Lori our mage. Over here we have our unarmed fighter Dusty," said Marie as she performed the introductions.

They decided to leave out that Dusty wasn't a formal member of their guild. Yet.

"I was expecting only four of you, but five is so much better than I could hope for. I of course will definitely pay for the increase in services. I'll just make note of it with my daughter Nancy of the change. She is my secretary and keeps my schedule. She was the one who just showed you in," said the man smiling big.

Dusty was taken aback by two things.

One, normally where he was from there would be some haggling about an unexpected cost. This lack of struggle told him there was more to this than met the eye. That bothered him a bit.

The other was that the lady who showed them in was a petite beauty. She must get her looks from her mother's side, but while the man looked to be about 50'ish the girl couldn't be more than 18-20 tops.

Noticing Dusty's expression, the man said smiling "I married late in life to a younger woman. Thankfully she is as beautiful as her mother."

Dusty had the decency to blush when the man explained what crossed his mind.

"Thank you for seeing us when we arrived and you are very gracious to increase the price for a fifth member. May we ask what the job is that we're going to be performing Mr... ?" asked Marie trying to casually change the subject.

She knew the name of the client but wanted to confirm this was he.

"Dr. Jerald White," smiled the man.

"The museum has had a few thefts over the last year, and after we worked very hard to finally convince a private individual to loan us his collection to display, we had to promise to step up security largely to ensure its safety," said Dr. White continuing to smile.

"But why our guild? We were three weeks away by foot. I find it hard to believe that you wouldn't have any guilds closer," asked Marie with a quizzical look.

"Well, ahem, while we were willing to pay well above their normal asking price, none of the other guilds could be persuaded to take the job," said Dr. White nervously.

"Excuse me, but why would they not take the job?" asked Suzan suddenly. Dusty figured that statement was bothering her as much as it was bothering him.

"It might be better to show you," said Dr. White quietly as he ushered them out the door headed out of the building they just entered.

"OH MY GOD! What happened here?" exclaimed Rachel looking around.

Dr. White had taken them to dormitory just off to the side, behind the museum. The building was a mixture of mortar and stone on the first story and wooden walls for the second and third stories. Once they went inside, he then took them to a room in the back corner on the first floor.

The room they entered had paper over the open door that was taped in place. But Dr. White tore it down so they could enter. The sudden stench was very overpowering.

Rachel as the tracker was totally baffled by the scene in this room.

"It looks like a wild animal got loose in a slaughter house in here," said Rachel with wide eyes looking around. "It smells like it too, but the layout and pattern is all wrong. The cross bar on the door has been split, but it's soaked in blood as well so whatever happened, happened behind a barred door."

"This is the way the other rooms looked as well. Whenever we could find someone to take the job to guard the museum displays, the night before a new exhibit was to open we found the hired guards rooms looked like this. Their body parts were found all over the rooms," said Dr. White. "Of course with no guards the displays were often stolen."

"Wait! Other rooms! These were the guard's rooms?! You're kidding! Did anyone investigate their deaths?" asked Marie shocked.

"Of course we did, but we couldn't figure out how they were doing it! The rooms had to be broken into from the outside because they were always locked on the inside. We just don't have any idea of how they were killed from inside a locked room," said Dr. White some what indignantly.

"Lori," said Marie simply.

Lori's hand started to glow blue as she walked around the room checking walls and the floor.

As Lori went around the room touching the walls and floors Dusty's skin again had that static feeling to it.

And again it felt like he could feel the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end. Was this what she was asking him if he was doing before? No one else seemed to notice, but he could clearly feel something going on here as her hand softly glowed.

"I can't find anything that has any magic residue to it. If magic was used it wasn't enough to saturate the room at all or leave a trail," said Lori simply with very little emotion.

Dr. White was surprised at her seeming lack of emotion at his suggested carnage. The other women and the man seemed to be looking pale as they looked around the room. But she had a look of disinterest as she worked. That was surprising.

"We of course had the rooms checked as well before we had the bodies removed from the rooms. In some cases the only thing left were parts. At first we just cleaned up the room and the new guards took over. But after a few more deaths in those rooms, new guards asked for new rooms.

"But that didn't stop the deaths. Eventually no one would take a job for us because they always died. We went through almost fifty guards both from private hiring to different guilds before no one around here would work for us," said Dr. White shaking his head.

"After awhile since we had no way to prevent the thefts and with no one willing to hire on either privately or from a guild we stopped having anything to show. But now we have a real chance to start over. We just needed someone who wasn't scared off by what happened here to work for us," said Dr. White with a pleading look.

Marie looked around at everyone and then turned back to Dr. White.

"Let us discuss it and get back to you," said Marie with a grim look.

"Thank you. We'll pay up to three times your previous asking price for your help, but please at least join us in the dorm cafeteria for dinner tonight regardless of what you decide. If you head back the way we came it's in the basement at the bottom of the stairs," said Dr. White as he turned to leave to let them discuss the situation.

After waiting till he was far down the hallway Marie turned to the group.

"What do you think? He said they had been killing guards for the last year who tried to guard this place? Do you all think it's worth it?" asked Marie.

"Kill or not kill I don't care. I doubt whatever is happing is magic in nature. I couldn't find anything that made me believe that was it. Not with the way that the bodies are being destroyed. So we should be able to figure out what is going on and help," said Lori.

"I'm not so sure," said Rachel. "What bothers me is it definitely looks like a wild animal, but how is it getting inside of a barred room? Ghost? Maybe we should pass on this job?"

"My problem is they are so desperate for help. I wouldn't be able to look at myself in the mornings if I didn't at least try to help," said Suzan. For someone who always smiled she seemed to be pretty grim looking.

"What about you Dusty? What do you think?" asked Marie

"I don't believe in ghosts. Not from just what is happening here. But something is not quite right. But I agree with Suzan, if I don't look further into this I'll not respect myself in the morning either," said Dusty as he looked at Suzan.

Suzan at first shyly smiled at him as he backed her up, but then her face took a stricken look and then she looked quickly away blushing.

"What was that reaction for?" thought Dusty.

"I agree with Suzan and Dusty. We should look into why this happening. At best we can get more jobs for the guild," said Marie. "Is that ok with you Rachel?"

"I'm fine, I was just voicing a concern, but I have to admit I'm curious too what is going on," said Rachel with a smile. But her smile seemed more directed at Dusty.

"Ok let's tell Dr. White we're taking the job. But we want new rooms," said Marie with a smile.

"Fantastic! I'm glad you decided to take the job! I should have told you I had one other guild of four accept as well. This way we can alternate the nights you are needed. The showing will be for only a month, but we hope to have everything work out," smiled Dr. White widely. "Let's see Dr. Carmichael about your rooms after dinner. He's in charge of staffing."

Everyone sat down to a good meal before they headed to see Dr. Carmichael.

Dr. White dropped them off into another room and headed off to other duties he said. This room was the same size as his, but they all noticed that it was kept in immaculate order as they waited. They only had to wait a couple minutes before Dr. Carmichael swept in and introduced himself.

"So you are the other guild come to help us solve our problems? Welcome, I'm Dr. Carmichael," said Dr. Carmichael reaching out to shake Dusty's hand.

As Dusty shook his hand he felt weird. He didn't like the feeling he was getting from this man. Dr. Carmichael looked at him for a second and smiled bigger.

The women all seemed to smile big at Dr. Carmichael, but Dusty instantly disliked him. It wasn't anything that he did, but Dusty didn't like him as soon as he set eyes on him.

Dr. Carmichael was probably not much older than they were. He had straight brown hair that was tied back into a pony tail. He had baby blue eyes and a small moustache. He was wearing a white shirt and black pants and the same shiny black robe that Dr. White was wearing.

In all he was a pretty boy.

Dusty wasn't sure if that was why he disliked him or the way that once he was introduced all the women seemed to take an instant liking to him. Even Lori seemed to be instantly taken with him. He hadn't seen a smile like that thrown his direction by her ever.

That ruffled his feathers a little. Dusty knew he had to prove himself to Lori before she showed him the slightest interest and here she was grinning at Dr. Carmichael like he just saved the world. That was very irritating.

Dusty knew that he himself wasn't ragingly handsome by anyone standards, but he knew that he wasn't that bad looking either.

But he always hated it when men that women considered really handsome got those unearned looks the women were now giving Dr. Carmichael, just because he walked in the room.

Only Suzan seemed to be immune. Dr Carmichael only shook Dusty's hand, but he bowed to the women.

Suzan smiled at him but as he turned to talk and bow to the other women, Dusty noticed her smile was quickly gone. Like she was just putting on an appearance that once finished she no longer had any need of it. Dusty was glad for that at least.

"Well if you would write down your first names here, we'll know who was assigned what room and I also keep track of who to pay once the showing is over as well," finished Dr. Carmichael.

"Here?" asked Marie softly as she looked at a book with many empty spaces in it. She seemed to be trying to swallow his eyes with her. Her voice seemed to have dropped two octaves.

"Sure anywhere on the left will work. Are all of you ladies sharing a room together or is one of you sharing a room with the gentleman?" asked Dr. Carmichael smiling.

Dusty thought the way he asked his question gave him the impression of probing them for who was involved with whom.

Everyone had already signed their first names and by the time Dusty got there he simply signed it as Dusty. He had been using that since the sixth grade and saw no reason to change now.

"Well I know I would like..."started Lori.

"No the ladies should get a room and I should be by myself. That way no one can question their honor," answered Dusty quickly.

He knew what Lori was going to suggest. While he was sure that nothing would happen, he couldn't take that chance knowing that while he found her very appealing that they would be confined to close quarters. He didn't ever want another STD as long as he lived.