“Bloody world’s gone to muck!” Hughie swore while watching the commotion outside. He was crouched at the corner of the kitchen window, the tips of his fingers holding himself steady on the window sill. He could hardly blink with his heart drumming so harshly.

  A whole mess of lizardy, dog, bird looking monstrosities paraded past the Sleeping Dragon Tavern with the bloody merchant guilders at the front. Had the Guild Master finally snapped and joined forces with the kobolds? All Hughie could do was pray that they would not find him.

  Ding-ding-ding!

  Hughie toppled backward on the tile floor. “Oh, sweet Zyon!” The kobolds had come to eat him! He scurried on all fours underneath a table and squeezed his lumpy body as small as he could behind sacks of flour and spices.

  Ding-ding-ding!

  “Dear Zyon, protect me, dear Zyon, oh dear Zyon. . .”

  “Hughie?” a voice called out. “Hughie!” Ding-ding-ding! “What the—.”

  The kitchen door flew open with a thud.

  “No, no, please!” Hughie cried.

  Footsteps clapped toward him. He shielded his face. A thick hand squeezed his shoulder.

  “Ah!” He squealed.

  “Curse it all, you lump,” the voice said as he forced Hughie to his feet. It was Tavern Keeper Bano, balding head, his curling mustache, bushy beard, and caterpillar eyebrows making him look like an angry fried egg. “What in the Afterlives are you doing cowering on the floor? We got orders!”

  Hughie gulped. “Ah, right, yes. Sorry Master Bano, I meant nothing by it. I. . . orders?”

  Bano huffed. “Yes, boy. We’re open aren’t we?”

  Hughie feared to look away from Bano’s eyes, he hated it when he didn’t make good eye contact, but he couldn’t help but look past the angry tavern keeper to see if the kobolds were still there. Maybe it’d all been in his mind? No, not in his mind, they were definitely there!

  “Hey!”

  A wooden spoon walloped Hughie on the chest.

  “Youch,” he said. He snapped his eyes back to Bano while rubbing the wound.

  Bano wagged the spoon in Hughie’s face. “Ignore the cursed lizards. They aren’t hurting nobody right now, and while this place is still standing, we get orders. Hear me, boy?”

  Hughie nodded furiously. “Yes, Master Bano.”

  Bano titled his head. “Good. Now, try more salt or pepper on this next batch so people can’t tell how bad it tastes, huh?”

  “Oh, uh. . . right. As you say, Master Bano.” Hughie wiped his sweaty palms on his tomato stained apron as the tavern keeper passed the kitchen doors back into the barroom. He sighed. “Get it together, you oaf.” He went over to a window at the front of the kitchen which had several painted tokens, which denoted what had been ordered. Three green tokens for stew, two blue tokens for fish, two red tokens for bacon and eggs.

  “Right then,” he said, and turned to get to work.

  But the window was open.

  Why was the window open?

  Did he open the window?

  “Hello?” he croaked.

  There was no sound except for the rowdy kobold horde over at the merchant warehouse, yipping and hollering, and doing Celestials knew whatever kobolds did. Probably picking their teeth with the bones of some hapless warehouse workers, that’s what.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Just a breeze, Hugh. Come now.” He coaxed himself over to the window, tokens in hand, and closed it.

  He turned around.

  His heart stopped.

  The tokens slipped from his grasp and plinked on the ground.

  In the far corner of the kitchen was a cellar, which had most certainly been closed. It was now open. Why was it bloody open?

  No, that wasn’t the only thing wrong. That wooden spoon that Bano had whacked him with lay wet on a counter near the back, dripping with broth from the stew that was already bubbling over a fire along the back wall.

  Hughie stood there, absolutely frozen. He never considered himself a brave man, and he most certainly did not consider the supernatural worth trifling with, and the mixture of his fear of ghosts and his lack of self-confidence often coalesced into assuming anything he didn’t understand was cursed.

  He shook the thoughts out of his head. “Come now, it’s a rat. That’s what it is.” He inched his way toward the open cellar.

  There. Where. Sounds. Down. There.

  Hughie quaked in his shoes. He couldn’t go down. Ah, but he couldn’t go and call for Bano either, because Bano whacked him pretty hard last time there was a rat and Hughie was too scared to do something about it.

  He sucked in a long breath. “You want to be a coward your whole life?”

  He stumbled over to a kitchen knife and took it up in his two sticky and shaking hands. Could he really stab a rat? He imagined trying to cut through its fur, hearing the squelch and squeak of the deed done, and the blood and limp body. He shuddered and put the knife back, instead arming himself with a broom. He shook out his arms and legs and wiped his palms on his apron, then crept to the cellar stairs. There was no light down there, and so he took a lamp off a hook on the wall, lit it, and descended with the broom in his other hand.

  He started humming to himself to ignore the sudden scratching and sniffing noises that filled the cellar. The tune was terribly off tune and stifled, but he managed to take one step down, and then another, and yet another. He held the broom out like it was a spear. “Come on now, get out now, go now. . .”

  The lamp filled the space with a warm glow, casting tall shadows from barrels and hanging pigs. But there was nothing to see rat wise.

  So, Hughie forced himself to the bottom of the stairs and shuffled forward. He eased himself around each barrel, ready to swat at the little intruder.

  There was a crinkle to his right.

  He swung the broom wide and made an involuntary quack. The broom smacked a sack of flour over and it exploded on the cellar floor.

  And that’s when Hughie realized his greatest paranoia was more true than he could have feared.

  There was indeed a spectre that had invaded the cellar. It had been invisible, but now its body was caked in the white powder. It stood a mere few feet tall, and had a long tail and giant bulbous things upon its head. In front of it flouted a small sack of herbs.

  “G-g-gh—” He could get the word out.

  The spirit wheezed, spraying flour everywhere.

  Hughie coughed as the powder blew into his face.

  Then the ghost scurried for the stairs.

  “Wait, no you don’t!” Hughie swung the broom down at the mini-ghost, but missed.

  It hopped up the stairs, leaving behind a trail of flour as it did.

  Hughie ran for it, but slipped on a bit of powder and tumbled back down to the base of the cellar. Aching pain rocked his body from shoulder to hip, but he had to stop the ghost. He clambered up the stairs again and was ready to face the thing with bravery for the first time.

  But he stopped when he saw that it was not a ghost that had run from him, but a scaly kobold, which was now sprinkling herbs into three bowls of stew.

  “Wha-You filthy creature, get out!” Hughie yelled.

  The kobold’s big round eyes spun and then his whole body turned invisible again.

  Hughie smacked the counter, just barely missing the three bowls as they floated away and were whisked to the serving window.

  “No, no, no!” Hughie tumbled over.

  Ding-ding-ding! The bloody kobold rang the serving bell.

  Bano yelled, “Finally!” and snatched the bowls.

  “No, no, no,” Hughie cried, dragging himself up to the window. It was too late. The bowls were already at the table of a trio of townsguard, and they were already sipping the tainted broth. Hughie could do nothing but watch as the three noble guards were undoubtedly keel over.

  But. . . they didn’t. Instead, they looked up at each other with wide eyes. One shouted to Bano. “You get a new cook?”

  Bano raised a thick eyebrow. “Eh? Ah, no. Probably just put more salt in it this time.”

  The guards shrugged. “Well, tell him to keep it up! We might be back for supper later.”

  Hughie turned around slowly, utterly bewildered.

  Sitting cross-legged was the kobold, its little paw waving.

  Hughie waved back.

  The kitchen door swung open and the kobold disappeared again.

  Bano poked his head in. “Well done, boy. Keep up with that salt! More even!”

  Hughie simply swallowed and said, “Yes, Master Bano.”

  When the tavern keep was gone again, Hughie turned to the spot the kobold had been just a moment ago.

  “Uh. . . Hi?”

  “Hi-hi!” The kobold said, materializing again.

  “Uhm. . . Hughie.”

  The kobold gave a wide grin, “Kipsic!”