Ogreness, Black Lake-book5

Chapter 46
~

“Just up the—uh oh.” Our troll was lookin’ in his rearview mirror.

With less agility than a brick I twisted to look out the back. A police cruiser with its flashy lights on. Our guy continued to drive, turned up an alley between highrises that created a glum setting matchin’ my mood.

A tinny voice boomed over a PA to stop. Our troll waved a friendly paw in the air, before he spoke on his radio. He slowed down to about fifteen miles an hour.

“Almost there,” he said.

“What about him?” Nuel thrust her thumb over her shoulder.

“Not a problem.” He plowed through an intersectin’ alley. Up a ways a door opened and a troll in a police uniform stepped out on the stoop.

As the two vehicles continued up the alley, one of those tall SUVs for trolls pulled in behind our trailin’ cop. Cop against cop. That is never good.

“I don’t want anyone gettin’ in trouble, or gettin’ hurt,” I said.

“We got this,” the troll murmured.

Nuel held a hand to each side of her head.

“Don’t dally getting inside,” our troll buddy said as he pulled up next to the stoop and stepped out of the truck. I tend to forget how fast trolls can move.

The uniformed troll strolled toward the cruiser with him. In a way I kind of wanted to hang around and see what happened, but Nuel was at my door pullin’ me out by my dreadlocks, which is horribly in bad taste.

Frip and Ponwr had our back now, and we climbed the four steps to the building entrance. The door banged shut behind us givin’ me a lively muscle tic, which I’d never admit to. But it wasn’t another gun explodin’, thankfully.

The hallway was only illuminated by emergency lighting, single sconces every thirty feet or so, givin’ it a mine shaft feel. Did Frip and Ponwr feel at home? I managed my phone out, found my network contact’s last call and hit Redial.

“I heard you’re in the hospital,” the woman blurted. “I’ve left you a thousand messages.”

“Well, I’m somewhere on the first floor. Can you meet me in the lobby or something?”

She blathered nonsense. But then I wasn’t truly listenin’. As though I cared what market and time slot the interview fit in. I asked Ponwr if he knew where he was going. Without lookin’ back he mumbled, “Not a clue.”

He’d already taken us down two corridors that led nowhere, so I don’t know why I bothered to ask. He crashed through a double fire door and bright light hit us. Eureka. Things were lookin’ up.

The network twit was still talkin’. I hummed a, hmm, where it seemed appropriate. Human women have way more words at their disposal than they need to use in any one day.

The floor of this corridor wasn’t just concrete, but it was still the service side, Linoleum tile style. Every thirty feet double doors led to our left, but each was locked. My snout picked up the typical aromas that waft from a kitchen ahead. My stomach growled loud enough to vibrate the pipes traipsin’ overhead.

“A little hungry, little guy?” Ponwr mumbled.

I’m just a little sensitive about my size, so I didn’t appreciate that. I really need to find who my real papa is. Prolly a height-challenged sax player in New Orleans.

The lady blabbin’ on my phone finally paused. “You there?”

“Wherever here is,” I said.

About that moment Ponwr pushed on what looked like an exterior door, which opened to a broad promenade. We stepped out onto the polished granite I expected, and two turns later entered a three-story lobby complete with a garish waterfall. Exactly what an ogre would expect to find in a human building.

“That you?” screeched in my ear. A woman forty feet away, fly away purple hair, black skirt to her knees, yellow blouse, waved at me madly.

I waved back. Got here without gettin’ shot again. Woo hoo. But how hostile would my interviewer be today.

Purple-hair wasn’t out of words. They kept comin’ as she escorted us up two separate elevators. We must be in the cheap seats. Really high up.

The second lift dropped us into a corridor flutterin’ with half-panicked humans streakin’ left and right. It takes a fire or really good barbeque to get an ogre that excited. These folks appeared as though this was their daily grind.

Purple-Hair rushed us through an office somewhat introducin’ me to a room of gape-eyed humans without slowin’ down. A new hallway, maybe offices to the left, workrooms of some kind the direction we fled. My heart might have started palpitatin’.

I was pushed into a chair and a stern-lookin’ human female loomed into me studyin’ my pores I think.

“What’s with the hospital smock?” she asked.

“I came from the hospital.”

“And you couldn’t stop for a shirt?”

What could I tell her. I didn’t want to tick her off. She looked like she could grind glass with her molars, and they say ogres look scary. Maybe it was the mole on her cheek that a quarter wouldn’t cover.

“Probably start a new fad,” she said, as she started applyin’ a froufrou brush to my face.

Another human female sat next to me apologizin’ for not havin’ the time for a proper pre-interview. She rattled off information that sounded like contractual boiler plate. I zoned out.

Five minutes later flyaway-hair-lady was pressin’ me into a human-sized settee without arms; my knees would point into the sky, and a tech wired me up. The lady who sat slightly facin’ me, grimaced. Someone shouted, light test, and suns went supernova in my eyes.

“Welcome back,” my interviewer said. Back? Then I realized she was talkin’ to the camera fifteen feet away. “Our next guest joins us right from the hospital.” She continued with the short bio the marketin’ department put together. The human female read it off the prompter with the interest of a slug.

When she turned back to me, I ignored the loaded question she opened with.

“When I lived here workin’ on my masters,” I started slowly, “a fellow grad student invited me to his home for dinner. He had a daughter just a bit older than toddler age.”

My interviewer blabbed. I waited until she finished and continued.

“It startled me the kid introduced me to his daughter with a preamble about our folk, ogres, trolls, being the basis for the stories he read her at night about fairies, gnomes—

“I sat shocked. He didn’t believe dragons ever existed. That fairies and gnomes were as fanciful.

“Less than two centuries ago the dragons hosted a conflab with the wizards who could touch the ethereal, and those from that realm. They all agreed it was time to shut the ethereal from this world.”

Whatshername tried to interrupt.

“They performed their majic to allow the dragons to return home, followed them, and sealed the fabric of time that connected the two realms.

“Today humans act as though that is fiction.”

“What are you talking about?” my interviewer screeched. I’d heard more screechin’ the last two days than I had my entire life. These humans aren’t happy with my presence. So why did they invite me here?

“Dragons and fairies? The Range is unjustly waging economic war with the North, and you’re here talking about fairies?”

“Yar race blocks out any reckonin’ that doesn’t fit yar story line. Ya don’t believe in majic, so fairies and gnomes are fiction. Ogres and trolls take advantage, it’s dandy to persecute them, murder them in the street.”

“Murder? No one is murdering ogres.”

“Ya hate ogres, so our lives are unimportant, ya look away, as our homes are burned, our younglings bullied in school, shot in the street for lookin’ frightening.”

“No evidence—”

“Last Saturday a state trooper shot me with no provocation. Yesterday I was ambushed walkin’ down the street.” I ripped open the smock. All the stair climbin’ and rushin’ down halls had allowed fresh blood to seep into the bandages across my chest.

“Very dramatic.” The interviewer rocked her head to the side, mouth open as though done explainin’ the idea of blue to a moron.

“Ya’re considered a journalist. Ya’re responsible for reportin’ the truth. Ya should try it one day.”

I ripped off the mic and walked off the stage, which is becomin’ a habit with me, maybe. This patient conversation stuff isn’t really what our ogre DNA is about.

~ Nuel ~

Maybe I was in shock. He’d been pretty rude to the biggest name on primetime television. Then walked off the stage, mid-segment.

What?

~