Chapter 116: Book 2: Chapter 17

Chapter 17

 

It took an hour for the Muskegon welcoming party to organise themselves. Along with Brant, I brought Anastasia, Kristoff, and LT with me. Shana and Jackson remained on the ship. I needed people I could trust to act in my best interest should things go pear-shaped during this conference.

It wasn’t that I expected a trap or thought the crew would leave me to die, so they could free themselves from my influence and steal my property if the opportunity presented itself. But you don’t truly know how people will react in extreme stress situations until they are in an extreme stress situation.

So, why take the chance?

Our hosts chose the venue. A large building with white stucco walls that housed a waterfront grill restaurant. This was to my specification. I was willing to come ashore with only a small number of my people to appear non-threatening, but I wasn’t going to let them lead us deeper into the city and out of sight of Marena’s Mercy where anything could happen.

The former restaurant had been emptied and prepared for the meet and greet. Brant informed me the triarchy of Muskegon had formed a council of nine. Each of the three cities contributed three members that they chose independently.

They weren’t taking any risks with me either and I’d be meeting with a single council member from each city.

Brant had filled me in as best he could, but his friends in the city had only divulged the basics.

North Muskegon’s representative was the mayor, Pete Daniels. He was a man in his sixties with a bushy white beard and a kind smile. Every year he would spend a day as Santa Claus, dispensing gifts to underprivileged kids whose parents couldn’t afford to take them to visit a mall-Santa.

The Muskegon Heights councilman was Reverend Rory Halloran. A thin man in his late thirties who presided over a Presbyterian church in the area. I could see distinct disapproval in his eyes. I’d thought it best that Brant didn’t try and sugar-coat or hide the truth of what kind of operation we were. Pushback on the morality of our activities was to be expected.

Finally, Norton Shores had sent Warden Sheila Locke. She was a small stern-looking woman in her late fifties. As her title suggested she had been the warden of one of the correctional facilities in the city. Brant didn’t know much about her as she was a recent transfer in from out of state.

We were seated at a large table that had been dragged from indoors out onto the patio area where we would be talking. Drinks and a small repast were served as both sides smiled pleasantly or scowled in the reverend’s case and sized one another up.

My initial plan had been to just get on with things. I had a stunningly gorgeous woman waiting for me to return and show her a good time back on the ship, after all. The hostility in the reverend’s demeanour had put a dampener on that plan, though. These negotiations might require a bit of finesse.

Mutual sizing up and banal exchanges could only go on so long, though.

“How about you tell us why a man of your ilk has darkened our shores, Torin? What do you want?” the reverend eventually challenged me in a frosty tone.

Pete Daniels winced at his opening words and Sheila Locke didn’t react, giving nothing away.

I linked my fingers behind the back of my head and leaned back in my chair. The very image of pointed relaxation. “Honestly, not a lot. Overnighting in the bay behind us would be mildly beneficial. I’d have to put fewer people on guard duty and that always assists morale.

“Our trip is taking us further south, past Lion’s Claw territory. We’ve been availing ourselves of the bounty left behind in the many abandoned townships down the coast. Stocking up for the winter, so to speak. I was hoping for a free exchange of information on how things are down there. Specifically, what do you know about the recent changes in affiliation of the larger population centres? Luca Gattosi and I are not exactly on speaking terms if you catch my drift.”

“We know,” Pete sighed. “Luca has sent us several…emissaries, I suppose you could call them.”

Sheila Locke snorted loudly at that. “Thugs with threats, you mean.”

Pete smiled at me wanly before continuing. “Your name was mentioned. As were the rewards for information about you and the dire consequences for any who chose to aid you.”

“Not to mention that you are the operator of the largest slave market in North America,” the reverend added heatedly, imaginary steam pluming from his ears.

“And that your crew is made up of criminals. Some of them formerly housed in my institution,” Sheila added with an arched eyebrow.

Interesting.

Two things stood out from this short exchange. The triarchy council weren’t very good at this. They were interrupting one another and not acting with any unity. Thereby giving away more information than I think they intended.

The second was Luca seemed to have more information about me than I’d anticipated. He might have been guessing, but then again, he could have built something similar to my Strategic Command Hub and that could be feeding him some basic facts about my faction, like which markets I possessed. And it was likely he had been as far east as Ionia by now and discovered what I had done there.

“I’m not going to bullshit you. That is all true. But I’m guessing you can see past my flaws, or this conversation wouldn’t be happening.”

“Hardly,” Sheila barked with an unamused laugh and the reverend nodded enthusiastically at her comment.

“Then I can only assume that recent events have aligned our interests. Because if this is an ambush to get on Luca’s good side, it’s a pretty poor idea to tell me in advance.”

Sheila Locke squeezed her lips with a small frown and the reverend looked vaguely sickened.

“Ah, Captain Torin, you seem to have a firmer grasp of what is going on than we do,” Pete put delicately.

I didn’t really. I had no clue what it was they wanted or why, nor did I come here with much hope they could, or would, relay any useful information.

The real reason we’d even bothered to give this a try was that Anastasia sensed the golem-doll that we’d dropped in Grand Rapids over a month ago was on its way back to us and was passing through the urban area, following the main road.

The golem wasn’t capable of any kind of meaningful lateral thinking. Sensing its mistress, it would make its way directly towards her and that would mean the golem-doll would turn around and head south if we didn’t pick it up before we passed by. Getting the ship deeper inland for a few hours to allow the pickup simply made sense.

I flashed them a smug all-knowing smile anyway. My impressive social stats backing up my bluff. Ana picked up on my mood and chuckled along in harmony.

“We were indeed hoping that our ultimate goals would align, and you might be willing to cooperate with us in achieving them,” Pete asked nervously.

Still no wiser to where this was going, I played it cool. “State your case. I’ll give you a fair hearing and if I like what you have to say, maybe we can come to an agreement.”

The cards were face down on the table and I had no idea what they were. I’d made my bet blind regardless and it was time to see if they were willing to play.

“This is a mistake,” the reverend announced suddenly before Pete could continue. “We can’t trust him. You can’t fight the devil by bargaining with him.”

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Sheila sighed loudly. “You knew this part was coming, Rory.”

“I thought once you met him face to face and he admitted his crimes you would change your minds. Especially you of all people, Sheila.”

“Don’t play that game with me, Rory,” she spat back angrily. “I’m not a warden no more. There is nothing left of those prisons but the bricks and mortar they were made from. We can’t afford to turn the other cheek on this, no matter how desperate you are to convince the people otherwise.”

“We discussed this, Rory,” Pete wheedled. “We either ask Captain Carter for help or we give up our independence and submit to Governor Reynolds. Captain Carter is here, and the Governor is only God knows where.”

“Lansing,” I added helpfully. “He was on Mackinac Island when the change happened and that’s where he was headed after I dropped him off in Saginaw.”

Bulging shocked eyes focused on me following my blatant name-dropping. It may have been crass, but it had the desired effect. Pete’s posture became more confident and even Sheila’s examination of me shifted to speculative from vaguely unimpressed.

All apart from Reverend Rory Halloran.

“No, I won’t be a party to this,” he snapped.

“Your vote on this course of action has been noted. You are still outvoted seven to two. If you find this conversation upsetting. You can leave,” Pete told him firmly.

Without another word, the reverend got up from the table, tugged his shirt straight and with one last scathing look at my party, stormed off.

“Sorry about that,” Pete apologised to me as he laid out a map of the local area in front of me.

I leaned over to peer down at it. The Grand Haven area had been marked and colour coded. The Grand River split the urban sprawl with the town of Grand Haven itself on the south side of the river. To the north over the bridge was a small settlement called Ferrysburg and to the northeast was the town of Spring Lake which was separated from Ferrysburg by a tributary lake also called Spring Lake.

We were a little familiar with the area as we had sailed through three times already. There was a second bridge that linked the two small towns north of the river

“As you can see, Captain Torin, Grand Haven is only five or six miles from here and it has recently joined the Brotherhood of the Lion’s Claw. The good news, sort of, is that they had a similar joint township situation going on there as we have here. Ferrysburg and Spring Lake did not submit to Luca.

“We got along with our southern neighbours quite well for the past month, but the Havenites always seemed nervier than the rest of us.”

“They were blasted cowards,” Sheila interjected vehemently. “And their cowardice has put us all in a bind.”

“Yes, well…” Pete continued. “As I said, they were scared, perfectly understandable. That led them to turn down our offer to join up with what we were building here and sign on with Governor Reynolds when his request came in a few weeks ago. I suppose we have you to thank for that, but we bore them no ill will for their decision.

“Well, as you can imagine, that didn’t help them none. It’s the main reason we resisted his call up in the first place. We figured we would be on our own anyway.”

“And that double R is as corrupt as they come. Most of the inmates in my prison had shorter criminal resumes than our Governor,” Sheila muttered.

Pete continued, unperturbed by the former warden’s commentary. “Then not long ago the Lion’s Claw overran Holland by force.”

That matched my earlier assumption of what had happened there. “Let me guess, the Haven leadership panicked, and decided surrendering would be better than trying to fight them off.”

“Correct,” Sheila confirmed with a sour expression.

“Yes, but before the Claw’s troops could arrive,” Pete went on. “Ferrysburg and Spring Lake asked for help, and we felt obligated to assist and sent as many fighters as we could spare to hold the bridges and keep the Claw contained south of the river.

“Now we are in a kind of standoff. Both sides holding their respective territory.”

I smiled along, having guessed the problem they were facing after seeing both Ludington and Manistee. Growing monster incursions from the national park to the north of them. They couldn’t afford to spare the fighters to hold the line against the Lion’s Claw. If they couldn’t push them out soon, they would have to cede those towns to Luca and then they would have him on their doorstep.

Not to mention that Luca would likely be able to bring greater force to bear once things in Holland had been settled.

I didn’t want this happening any more than they did, but my advantage was they didn’t know that. Brant had been under orders not to divulge our full intentions. As far as they knew we were merely picking the bones of the abandoned settlements along the coast.

“That was very neighbourly of you. What does any of this have to do with me?” I asked, knowing the answer.

Sheila took over from Pete and decided not to sugar-coat it. “The situation is untenable. Crossing the river is problematic. Gunshots might be oddly survivable since the shift but get hit often enough and you’ll die just the same, and it is too far to cross not to get shot up. Both sides have attempted it and been forced to retreat. Flanking won’t work either. The next bridge is six miles upriver. Too easy to spot and too many blasted creatures waiting to jump you in between.

“The fighting outside the cities against the creatures gets fiercer every day. What we need is someone who can change the game. Someone who has the ability to get behind Gattosi’s people and hit them from a direction they aren’t expecting. Someone like you,” she finished pointing at me.

“You are proposing a pincer attack? We hit them from the south and when they pull men back to deal with us, you hit them from the north?”

“Precisely.”

This was turning out much better than I’d hoped. We were going to assault Grand Haven first anyway. If we had a little help all the better.

LT tutted beside me and blew out a disbelieving breath. “This is bullcrap, Boss. They just wanna’ get us to do their dirty work for them. Hell, I bet they ain’t even planning on joining the fight. Gonna’ leave our exposed asses swinging in the wind.”

“How dare you!” Sheila screeched, mortally offended at the implication.

“He may have been overly direct, but LT brings up a very valid point. You are asking me to risk my crew with no guarantees that you won’t betray us.”

“We’d be willing to sign an official Framework contract to guarantee our participation,” Pete said quickly.

“Excellent,” I said, steepling my fingers under my chin. “Then I guess all we have left to discuss is the price.”

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