Almost at 73K!
“What the hell happened, Mira?” Although I could make what you’d call an educated guess. This alley had that slightly dazed look you get when something really hot goes screaming down one for a few seconds. The cooling bits of garbage were another clue; if you squinted, you could still see the trash golem they were before. It reminded me of my own date with a fireball, except the happy ending was different here.
Mira had been poking the trash golem with a stick, scribbling a few things down in her notebook, then poking it again. She didn’t look up as she said, “Hey, Tom. What do you think I should call this one? ‘Spontaneous unstable spirit manifestation?’ Or ‘rampaging foreign mage?’ Neither really sings to me.”
I looked at the obviously destroyed construct, then looked at the obviously glazed lines on the wall where the fireball had arced. “With a new ambassador in town? Nah, you go with the classics. This,” I intoned, “was obviously Old Man Cruz in a rubber suit, trying to scare away the alley owners.”
“Of course! It was the only way he could retrieve the Crystal Skull of Cibola! But what about the lines, Tom?”
“Two torches on wires. Don’t you remember, Mira? Old Man Cruz was a circus performer when he was younger. That’s how he knew where the Skull was: the circus owner brought it here when he retired. But he couldn’t get to the secret passageway in the alley, because of all the foot traffic. So he came up with the trash golem costume to scare people off.”
I poked the trash golem myself, with my foot. “Hey! You forget your lines? You’re supposed to say how you would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for us.” I then looked over at the cop looking over the scene. “You write that all down, kid?”