The Phantom Thief

Prologue

“Ashque” he whispered, oh for the love of… “Go away, I don’t need you right now.” I whispered angrily. Here I was, in my own personal nightmare and my own personal ghost would not be quiet.

“Ashque, you’re in great danger, they know you’re here.”

I rolled my eyes, did he think I was a moron, of course I knew that they knew, they’re footsteps were right outside the bedroom I was hiding in.

In another circumstance I would have stopped to admire how grand it looked, huge bed, expensive rugs and books lining up all walls. Huge, like really huge wardrobe. But tonight I was possibly going to be skinned alive unless I thought of an escape route.

“I know you imbecile, and if you don’t help me I have no way of getting out.” I stopped the urge of letting out some harsher curses.

“I’m thinking, okay.” He mumbled. Oh great, now I had offended him.

“You’re going to have to hide under the bed.” He finally said.

“What?!” I swiveled around to look at him. “Even a green thief knows better than that, that’s the first place anyone will look.”

“Yes, but these men aren’t looking for a green thief, they’re looking for you Ashque, and you very well know how you’re reputation makes you sound. There’s more chance that you’ve vanished into thin air than you hiding under the bed.” This time he sounded exasperated.

I could hear the logic in his voice and as much as I wanted to sneak outside of the window I knew that that would be the second place anyone would look and plus, I didn’t want to plummet four story’s down to the garden.

“Fine, but if they find me, I’ll kill you.” I whispered rolling under the bed.

He sighed, “Never mind the fact that I’m already dead…” I heard him murmur to himself as he rolled under after me.

I held my breath as the footsteps approached closer. The door creaked open and two men walked into the room. They were still for one moment before both exploding into action. The first and burlier of the two ran towards the window and flung it open. I sighed and thanked my ghost inwardly for stopping me from walking to my doom, or hiding from my… whatever.

The second practically ripped the wardrobe doors open and hurled the expensive clothes on the bed. I felt a bit miffed. Being a very materialistic person, their treatment of clothing did irritate me. I mean, who treats pure silk like that.

I almost gasped when Mr Burly smashed a shelf and caused a whole row of probably invaluable books to fall to the ground. They did this around the whole room, but just as my ghost had predicted they didn’t look under the bed.

“I could swear he went in there.” Mr Burly was bristling.

“You cretin, because of you he’s probably gone now with that priceless necklace, we’re going to be dead by the time Lord Livion is through with us?” the second (smarter sounding) guy hissed. Then they were gone.

I gave it three minutes incase they decided to come back and thanked whichever god was looking out for me tonight.

My ghost cleared his throat waiting expectantly. I sighed “Fine, thank you for telling me where to hide but being utterly useless in all the other situations.” I was silent for a moment longer. “No really, thanks, if it wasn’t for you I’d be with them probably getting a dozen new scars, I don’t want to brag but clearly I’m the better looking of us two and…” My ghost rolled his eyes but there was a hint of a smile on his lips.

“What would you do without me, eh?” He laughed putting his arm around my shoulder.

I rolled my eyes again and then crept outside, I had probably ten minutes before I ran into the bicep brothers and that was not something I was looking forward to. I motioned for my ghost to follow me as we tiptoed down the stairs and you won’t believe it, walked out of the front door. What where these guys thinking, leaving it unguarded, we were facing some real idiots.