Greykin Mountain

| 49 | From One Friend To Another

⥐ ⋞ ☽ ⋟ ⥐

To Jackson's relief, Mrs Godie hadn't been hunted down. She was alive and well, and as a thank you for his determination to find these killers, she handed him an extra croissant when he ordered food for later.

          On his way back to Cliffton Hotel, he stopped by the pawn shop and handed everything to the owner, whose eyes widened twice as much as they had the first time.

          "Another trip to that ruin?" he asked, tallying up a price in his notepad.

          Jackson nodded. "I was tracking a wolf walker; thought I'd stop by and grab a few more things on my way back."

          "You catch it?"

          "Nah. The trail disappeared down by a stream."

          "Shame. The more of those murdering pests you hunting folk kill, the better."

          Jackson responded with a nod. Even though it was all lies, he felt uncomfortable talking about hunting and killing wolf walkers.

          "Much more this time, huh?" the guy said with a grin. "Ten coronam."

          "Come on, man. You know this stuff is worth ten times that."

          He chuckled and crossed his arms. "Twenty."

          "Fifty."

          The man inhaled sharply and hummed. "Thirty."

          Jackson didn't want to stand around here and haggle all day. The longer he did, the darker it got, and the higher the chances of his stalker appearing grew. "All right, thirty. But I'm keeping this," he said, taking the gold, onyx-encrusted ring."

          "What you want with it?" he asked, carefully placing everything into a box.

          "I don't know," he said with a shrug, putting it back in his bag. "It could make a nice gift."

          A suggestive smile crept across the man's face. "Ah...you found yourself a lovely lady?"

          "Something like that."

          Laughing, the man knelt behind the counter and opened his safe.

          Jackson listened to the sound of him shuffling through what sounded like piles of paper notes—what a cheapskate.

          "All righty. One, two, three, four, five...."

          As the man placed thirty notes on the counter one by one, Jackson glanced around the shop. A dusty stack of records caught his eye, but there was no point in looking. He'd only end up wanting to buy some, and not only did he not have a record player, but he also wasn't going to get too comfortable here. If he wanted to listen to music, he could just use Music Shelf on his phone.

          "Thirty," the man said, slamming the last note on the counter. "Pleasure doing business with ya. And hey, if you plan on going up to that ruin again, grab some more of these chalices. There's an old rich hermit up at Snowfare Manor who has a thing for 'em."

          Jackson nodded as he took the beige coronam notes. "Noted." He looked down at the wad of money. "Uh...you wouldn't happen to sell wallets, would you?"

          The man scoffed amusedly and nodded over to a pile of purses, wallets, and bags. "Take your pick, kid. It's on me."

          "Thank you," he said with a smile. Then, he headed over there and look through the pile. He wasn't looking for anything fancy, so he took the first leather wallet and waved to the owner. "See you."