It's not having a karate class to go to this weekend or last that does it. Hanging around, nothing to do, the mind starts naturally gravitating to thoughts of murder. So anyway, here's the introduction to the most deadly killers in the whole of The Land: Laurel and Hardy.
Cully reached a thumb into his nostril and scraped out something like a green cornflake. He examined it in the lamp-light with pretended interest to keep the fat one waiting, then flicked it into the road.
“So, who are you that I should help you look for someone?” he asked. His mates were watching from across the street and looking forward to seeing some fun here. Wouldn't be friendly to disappoint them, would it?
“We, sir, are in the employ of the great Mage, Maldon.”
A claim, thought Cully, that could be made by half this continent. Cully himself had once listened to a midden-cleaner boast of how he had carried Maldon's own dung to the compost pile. He'd punched him out for going on about boring shit, a line that had got a good laugh from the lads.
“Oh yeah. An' what do you do for him, then? Lead his armies into battle, eh?”
“No, sir, we undertake a variety of tasks for him. Most recently we were employed in extracting teeth from someone at his orders.”
“Yeah,” said Cully, “I've heard of that. Dentists is it?”
“No, sir, Stanley and I are torturers. We hurt people professionally.”
Something in Cully's hind-brain tried to warn him that the fat man wasn't taking the piss and that that statement was too ridiculous to be anything but the truth, but his mates were watching and the fat man and his thin, stupid-looking mate were just too funny to be any kind of threat, so he ignored it. And laughed.
Later, the lads agreed that the sequence of events must have been something like this, though it happened too fast for anyone to be sure. The fat man had given some kind of nod (Little Davy said it was a hand signal, but the others said bollocks). Then the little one, who wasn't holding a knife or anything, must suddenly have been holding a knife, but then definitely wasn't holding a knife again, 'cos they never saw it. Somewhere in there Cully's face picked up an expression of almost comical surprise, while his throat started wearing a smile that went from ear to ear. They checked that later and it really did, that wasn't just something they said when they told the story. Then the fat man and his thin friend had turned and come over the road to ask them all to help with looking for a man and a girl. And Cully bled his life out through his throat and they all watched, too stunned to do anything about that.
“Good manners, Stanley.” said the fat man, ambling along the road and raising his hat to a pretty young Mage girl, who smiled indulgently to him. Probably because she hadn't seen what had just happened. “They are what separates us from the animals.”
“Yes Olly.” replied the little man, probably not understanding, but always keen to please his big friend. “They really are. Should I clean that one up Olly?”
“No Stanley. His friends can do that. It will give them something to think about.”
Stanley didn't understand that at all. Getting rid of inconveniently dead bodies was usually a thing Olly entrusted to him and which he was very good at and did without much thought. Often, he would cut them up into smaller bits so as to be able to move and hide them more easily, but generally the hardest part was keeping the blood off his clothes. Olly always complained of the mess if he got blood-stained.
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