Alkimiya - A Fantasy Mystery Series

Prologue Part 1 - The Heist

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James Clay laid on the thin wool blanket, staring up at the ceiling as winter sunlight filtered in through the cracked window. Sleep had eluded him once again. Stig's words from the previous week haunted his days and nights.

"For your outstanding bill." 

After the bar owner's unannounced visit to his hovel of a home, James had decided enough was enough and forcibly confined himself to his bed on the floor. A week of withdrawal was not nearly enough. His fingers twitched for a glass of whirl, but his vow to never taste alcohol again remained firm.

For someone who had been raised on false promises, keeping his own came naturally. He saw for himself what could happen to those who did not. Yet with all the will James Clay had he failed the one person who mattered. Vows, he had learned too late, weakened after every sip of alcohol.

A bundle of fabric on the other side of the room shifted. His little sister, who was a mere sixteen years of age, woke with a start. He watched as Rosemary's arms flung out wildly to smack the vestiges of her nightmare away. It seemed Stig haunted her too.

James sat up, licked the sourness of sleep from his teeth, and surveyed his younger sister's sniffling form at the opposite side of the dingy one-bedroom apartment they could no longer afford. The small pile of rags he had concocted into a makeshift bed for her had long since lost its comfort.

"I'm sorry," had become James' customary morning greeting since the attack.

Rosemary rolled onto her side to face him. Her white cheeks were spotty with dirt and tear stains. "I don't like being threatened, Jimmy. I don't like you being threatened. You're all I have."

"I know."

"That was all the money I had saved," came Rosemary's watery retort. "Everyone around here already knows what happened to us. They heard me screaming when Stig broke down the door. They heard me, but they didn't come 'en help. Mr. Alvyn wants us to leave by weeks end. Where are we gonna go? Can't he see we're victims?"

James folded his legs under his body on the cold and dirty floorboards. He wanted to say, "Everyone who lives in the Hovels is some kind of victim," but instead rested his hands on his knees and cleared the weariness from his voice.

"We'll get through this. We always find a way."

The whites of Rosemary's eyes were bloodshot. "They fired me, Jimmy. They fired me for having skinny fingers, but then they went 'en hired two foreigners. Split the salary they were giving me between them, I bet. It's not fair. I was good at washing. The steam never bothered me. Why's Mr. Alvyn kicking us out so fast?"

James' hands shook. He had a constant headache that made him sluggish and irritable, but Stig's shakedown gave him the resolve he needed to stay sober. "I'm going to see about a job today. Should fetch enough money to get us out of the UDF. We'll go someplace warm. How about the Kingdom of Marzhan or Vorroco?"

He didn't know if the job he spoke of would be as fortuitous as he described, but he promised his sister all the same. If he promised it, he would keep it. He had to.

Rosemary sniffled. Her voice, which was normally a soft melody, was thick with mucus. "Who you going to steal from this time?"

"Rosemary," James grumbled. "You know I've only ever stolen from people who can afford to lose a bit."

"And if you fail with this job, those goonies you call friends are going to come for us. I know how this works, Jimmy, 'en I want out."

"I'm getting us out!" James' hands shook and he was glad Rosemary's eyes were too bloodshot and puffy from crying to notice. More calmly, he added, "Just give me some time."