Duality
Treasure Hunt
I couldn’t find anything at the first location. Same with the second and third. The fourth location was the most likely place to find a bag of money, according to Thoth. Still, I couldn’t help but feel like I was on some treasure hunt for the lost goods of an ancient pirate. Ares enjoyed pirate movies, so I had plenty of examples to go by.
In the movies, the protagonist always wound up with the treasure. The treasure was never a simple myth and if someone else had already gotten to it, the protagonist still managed to get at least some of it through trickery or guile.
Waving my flashlight around the condemned Miskatonoic University laboratory hall—they had replaced it with a new building a few years back—like I was looking for a lost puppy, I definitely did not feel like a protagonist. Maybe I was just worn down from crawling over the old shoe factory, the brickworks, and the wonderful insane asylum. Apart from a sense of wonder at just how many abandoned buildings existed in Ipswich, I hadn’t found a thing. Obviously. If I had, I wouldn’t have come here.
Well, I had found an old man at the insane asylum. I wasn’t sure if he had moved in since its closure or if he had simply never left. Thoth had suggested the latter option.
Unfortunately, this was looking like a bust as well.
“I haven’t found anything outside the building and the doors are locked,” I said back home in my normal voice. The me currently at the university building was wearing the face of a random man I had found while searching the internet for suitable people. It was stronger than Ares’ body, something I figured might have come in handy for the stamina and in the event that I had to move something heavy. “Shall I head on to spot five?”
“No. He had to have found a way inside.”
“Are you sure it was this building?” I asked with one body while I looked around with the other. The laboratory hall was an old brick building. Half the windows were shattered. Boards had been nailed up in all the windows on the ground floor, but some of the upper windows were just holes into the building. I hadn’t seen any ladders, but maybe that robber had an ability that let him scale buildings.
Apart from the laboratory hall, there was a library and commons building just across a small courtyard, a sports center for indoor sports just to the side of that, some large parking lots, and the main lecture building also attached to the courtyard. Plenty of other places around, but Thoth was shaking her head.
“The Farnsworth Laboratory Hall is the only abandoned building in that area. People would have seen and reported him walking around anywhere else—his name and face were all over the news for a good week after the robbery—but he might have gone unnoticed if he managed to slip inside. It is the perfect distance from where he disappeared from news cameras to where he reappeared a few blocks away. Check again, maybe one of the doors wasn’t locked or one of the windows is loose. If not, find a crowbar and get in there anyway.”
“A crowbar? Would he have had the time to break in like that?”
Thoth crossed her arms as I started circling the building. She looked smug. Her eyes were closed, her head was tilted upward, and her smile slowly grew across her face. It was that face she put on when she thought she knew something that nobody else knew. “There is actually a different location where he had slightly more time to hide the money. But, he worked for a contractor that did some work around the university. It is possible, though I think it is slightly less likely than breaking in, that he had in his possession a key to that building.”
It took another loop of the building before I found a side door that I hadn’t remembered checking the first time around. “The handle turns, but it won’t budge.”
“Put your shoulder into it! That’s got to be it!”
“You think I’m not trying?”
Having two bodies was an odd experience, or so I gathered based on my interactions with Toxx, Dice, Ares, and regular people around the Super Burger. One of me was panting and sweating. The door was moving a little, pushing in then immediately pushing back. I could see a little crack into the interior with every shove. Despite the effort I was putting into the door, my other body was calmly seated in the living room couch, talking with Thoth and Ares.
The two other girls were upstairs in bed already.
As far as I could tell, it was a wholly unique situation that no one else had ever experienced. Even with all the powers that existed out in the world, nobody duplicated themselves and maintained singular control over both bodies. Diplopia could clone himself, but the duplicate was a shadow that fell apart after a certain amount of time and had to order his shadow around verbally. Duplex also cloned himself, but the clones were essentially unique individuals. Or so said the Power List Wiki, anyway.
So, right now, I had the odd sensation of needing to breathe heavily for some extra oxygen while I simultaneously sipped calmly at a glass of water.
“There’s something leaning against the door,” I said, informing Thoth of my struggle as I continued pushing. “A bookcase or something.”
“You should have pulled up a video of Amazing and used his body. At least make him be good for something.”
“People would notice Amazing casually walking around.” As I spoke, I managed to shoulder the door a bit harder than before. Whatever had been holding me up fell away, landing with the crash of broken glass. “Got it.”
“Excellent!” Thoth clapped her hands together in obvious excitement. “Now, look for disturbed dust, footprints, or anything else that might indicate that someone has been around recently.”
“Yeah, I got it. Same as the other places.”
I threw a quick glance around before entering. The crash had been loud, but it didn’t look like anyone was around to have noticed. It was still possible that someone in one of the distant buildings had noticed my flashlight from when I walked around the place. It would be best to hurry.
Slipping inside—I still couldn’t open the door fully—I got my first look at what had been stopping me from entering. A large metal cabinet, half again my height, was flat against the ground. Shards of glass had exploded out from under it in a halo. It was awfully similar to the cabinets we had down in the basement. A similarity that made me a little nervous given that clear liquid leaked out from under it.
Toxx was the only one who knew what all the bottles and jars contained down in our basement. Not even Thoth knew. And Toxx didn’t really know. Her power just gave her innate knowledge of how best to utilize various chemicals. She couldn’t name them.
I wasn’t too worried for myself. If this body died, I would simply make another one. But if those mixed together to create some eternal fire or heavy toxin that would stick in the area for years, other people might get caught up in the trouble I was causing.
But, sniffing the air, I didn’t keel over dead. The smell was more like that of a kitchen after a day of cleaning it. It probably was harmless. They would have removed any dangerous chemicals before abandoning the laboratory hall. Though they clearly hadn’t removed all the equipment.
The room was some kind of laboratory. Fume cupboards lined the exterior wall, large glass-protected chambers connected to the overhead ducts. We had two of those down in the basement as well, so I knew what they were. Even what they were for. Toxx used them to keep any dangerous chemical fumes out of the living space. Tables filled much of the rest of the room, each with a sink placed right in the center.
I clearly wasn’t the first to have been in here since the building was abandoned. Spray paint decorated nearly every surface. Some were fairly innocuous. Jamie and Leiah Forever. Kilroy Was Here. Professor Dinkle is a DICK. Interspersing those messages were some more worrisome emblems. Gang symbols. A crowned spade over the glass of one of the fume cupboards. A bulldog inside a buzzsaw. A stylized OREOS, who were defunct as of two years ago… as far as I knew. Crossed flintlock pistols over a skull.
Luckily, a healthy layer of dust covered the tables. No one had been inside for a while at least.
Which meant that the robber hadn’t come through here or, as Thoth suggested, he had entered through another door.
I made my way out of the laboratory and into the hallway. More graffiti covered the walls. Windows looking into the classrooms and labs had been broken. Shards were all over the floor. But… most of the shards had been shoved aside, pushed up against the walls. At the far end of the hallway were the main double doors leading outside the building.
“Looks like you were right, though it doesn’t look like someone rushed through in a hurry. More like someone took a broom and swept the hallway clear.”
“Really? That’s… Huh.”
Thoth actually looked stumped for once. Her lack of anything to say gave Ares a chance to speak. “Be careful,” he said. “I’m surprised nobody was living in those other places. That may not be the case here.”
“Janus can’t die,” Thoth said with a casual shrug. “It won’t be a problem.”
“Maybe not, but we shouldn’t disturb people just trying to live. And anyone living in a place like that is probably having hard times. No need for us to make them any harder.”
Thoth scoffed, but didn’t say anything more on that topic. “Might as well check it out anyway. Just hope that the hobos didn’t find the money before you do.”
Ares sighed and, in his own way, looked like he wanted to argue the point further. Maybe he realized that Thoth wouldn’t be convinced by a few simple words. He simply closed his eyes, remaining silent while waiting for my next update.
I followed the swept path away from the building’s entrance. It avoided all the laboratories, storage rooms, and classrooms on the first floor of the building, stopping at a staircase toward the back. It was only a two story building, which I was thankful for. Less area to look around in. The second floor was not the same as the first. There was still a lot of graffiti around, but the rooms branching off from the hallway weren’t made for general student use. They were storage rooms and faculty offices. I imagined that the storage rooms were for more dangerous chemicals that they didn’t want students to have easy access to.
As for the offices, they were mostly empty. A desk here. A chair there. Some filing cabinets. I peeked inside one only to find it just as empty as the rest of the office. They must have gotten new furnishings for their new building and had decided to leave their old ones behind. A calendar on the wall of one office dated back to ‘82. That couldn’t have been right, though. Although I hadn’t been alive at the time the building shut down, it had been a big enough event for the machine to pick up information about it. It should have only closed down a decade ago, at most.
Perhaps the office’s former owner had simply enjoyed the scantily clad woman posting for the June month. Though, if he had enjoyed it enough to keep it around for thirty years, it begged the question of why he hadn’t taken it with him.
The swept path continued around a corner, passing more offices and supply rooms. But as soon as I turned the corner, I froze.
“There is a light on at the end of the hall. One of the rooms.”
“A light?” Thoth looked puzzled again. “That building shouldn’t have any electricity.”
“A flashlight,” Ares suggested. “Could someone else be looking for the same thing we are?”
“Maybe if this were the day after, but that was weeks ago. The more time that has passed since the robbery, the less likely two people would be looking for it at the same time.”
“Coincidences can still happen.”
“I guess I’ll find out,” I said, already walking toward it. I could smell smoke in the air. Cigarette smoke, not an open flame about to burn down the building. It smelled exactly the same as outside the back door of Super Burger. And the closer I got, the stronger the smell.
There was a window in the door. I could see most of it without even entering. It was a meeting room. A large table occupied most of the floor space. But only two chairs sat around it as far as I could see. There were far too many empty spots for that to have been all it originally held. Glancing into one of the adjacent rooms revealed the rest of the low-backed swivel chairs.
The motion of a sheet of paper joining a stack pulled my attention back to the room. There was definitely someone in there, but, even leaning at an angle, I couldn’t see inside far enough to spot more than a gloved hand holding a pen. They were clearly at the head of the table.
“Don’t just stand there,” a smooth voice called from inside. “Come in.”
I hesitated. I had been considering just leaving. If this was some university staff member going over some files that had been left behind, I didn’t particularly care to disturb them. I was just a treasure hunter. But since he had called out to me…
I pushed open the door and took a step inside.
“The man is obese,” I immediately began describing to Thoth. He was clearly not just a regular guy, but not someone I recognized. “He probably squats three hundred pounds every time he stands up. Charcoal pinstripe suit that somehow fits over his girth, bowler hat, black domino mask, pistol pointed at me, and a thick mustache. No beard.”
Thoth’s eyes started twitching as she tried to pull information from the machine.
At the same time, the rotund man looked up to me with a frown. “You the one making all that racket downstairs?” He waved his pistol, gesturing toward one of the two seats in the room that weren’t his.
Thoth answered before I could move. “King of Spades. Leader of the Spades. Powers unknown. He has never been seen using them in public, as far as I can tell. I wonder what he is doing in a run-down old building. Maybe he found the money.”
A pistol wouldn’t do much to intimidate me. I could have just left. I might have, if not for Thoth continuing.
“See if you can find out what he is doing there. And steal the money if you can.”
Both of me sighed. One shared a look with Ares before pulling over the laptop to double-check Thoth’s information on the man. The other slowly followed the barrel of the pistol.
The eyes behind that domino mask followed every movement I made as I crossed the room and sank into one of the chairs. “You alone?”
“Yeah.”
“Hmph.” Setting his pen in a holder next to a smoking ashtray, King of Spades raised his hand.
The shadows in the room, cast by an electronic lantern hanging from the ceiling behind King of Spades, shifted. The dark hues in King of Spades’ shadow lightened as a thin trail of darkness swept across the room and out the door. King picked up his pen again and, with the pistol still trained on me, started writing.
Neither of us spoke. He simply wrote down notes in a notebook, compared whatever he had written with a loose sheet of paper, and started writing again.
Shadows rushed into the room. Instead of rejoining with King of Spades’ shadow, they coalesced just behind him, forming into the silhouette of a woman. The shadow disappeared completely as a woman stepped out of the wall. She was tall—too tall and a little too lithe, like a shadow stretched out to awkward proportions by the evening light. Her skin was an unnatural black. An absolute darkness that reflected no light. Even her eyes had no whites. Despite being black, the slim suit she wore was not a perfect absorber of light. Even while standing there, clearly three dimensional, she would have looked flat if not for her suit’s definition.
“No one else inside the building,” she said, moving just a little closer to him with her hands tucked behind her back. As she got closer to the electric lantern, the entire room seemed to dim. “I only searched outside immediately around the building. I hope that was alright.”
“Perfect, Shade. Thank you.”
“He got in through the door with the broken lock.”
“Figures. Not that it matters. We’ll have a more permanent location set up soon enough.”
While they were talking, I described the woman to Thoth. Neither she nor the wiki had any information about her. I considered adding her to it. Her name was clearly Shade and she had some shadow-based power. However, if she suddenly popped up over night, it would probably be obvious who had put her there. This face might be disposable to me, but I didn’t care to bring trouble to the actual owner, even if he was some random person from who knew where.
Besides that, the moderators would probably delete it. I had never tried posting an article, but I looked up every powered person I came across and frequently found removed posts. If someone wasn’t publicly known, they needed a picture. I didn’t have one of her.
Nodding to King, she stepped back. Any normal person would have bumped into the wall, but she just… fell into it. In the blink of an eye, all that was left was her shadow. Even that disappeared after a moment.
King of Spades’ shadow darkened a moment later.
Lowering the pistol, King clasped his hands together, staring at me over the top of them. “You aren’t police,” he said, matter-of-factly.
I shook my head.
“And you aren’t a hero.”
Again, I shook my head.
“I don’t recognize you as being a rival of mine.”
“No, sir.”
“You could be a random unpowered soldier that I would never recognize, but no gang makes powered people start at such a low rung of the ladder. And you have a power.”
I was already been shaking my head as he talked, but that made me still. “H-How…”
“You’re far too calm. I had a pistol pointed at you. You saw Shade. But you aren’t even sweating. In fact, you look almost bored. So you’ve either got a power that you think lets you shrug off attacks, lets you escape, or some other method of avoiding death. Or you simply have a lot of confidence in your ability. Perhaps overconfidence, but that still leaves you with an ability. I am correct, am I not? And don’t lie to me now. I’ll know.”
Clearly, I needed to act more nervous when threatened. Even though lying to him could only get me killed at worst, I nodded my head. If he asked for anything more, I had a knife in my pocket. It was always a pain to lose a knife when disposing of a body—they were just another cost I had to tally up at the end of the month—but I would pick that any day over the possibility of leading someone to the rest of my family.
Thankfully, he didn’t press further. He simply nodded his head, content in his analysis.
“If you are not a hero, vigilante, rival, or aspirant to any of those positions, I must confess my curiosity as to your presence here. Was it a dare? Some frat house foolery to retrieve an item from the old haunted building? Petty thievery?”
“That one. Mostly. I thought there might have been a bag of money around here, but I was clearly mistaken.”
“Ah. Mister Williams contacted you as well? He claimed to me that he didn’t know how much he had stolen, but insisted that it was substantial.” He shook his head, flabs of meat around his neck constricting the motion. “Four thousand is hardly worth bending over to pick up, let alone organizing a prison extradition.”
Both of me blinked, confused as it took a moment for my mind to catch up.
“Williams,” Thoth said to the me that had been repeating everything for her and Ares. “That was the name of the robber.”
But even that hardly registered.
“F-Four thousand? Dollars?”
“Pathetic, isn’t it? Trying to hire me for pennies.” Derision leaked from his voice.
I could barely believe what I was hearing. Four thousand dollars was three months of pay. More, even. And King of Spades wouldn’t even pick it up? Then again, looking at him… His suit fit him well. It clearly had been tailored for his bulk. It might have even hid some of it.
He probably wouldn’t bend over to pick up a million dollars.
“Mister Williams is lucky that I found something far more valuable in this place. After finding his ill-gotten gains, I had been considering involving myself in his trial. To ensure his sentence was long and harsh as payment for sending me all the way out here for nothing. Instead, I’ve decided to leave things as they are.”
I couldn’t help feeling a spark of hope at that. Despite mostly agreeing with Ares about not bothering with the money, hearing how much it was… I got excited. Three months of pay would help so much. We could afford food and bills. We might even be able to afford that internet line to the basement that Thoth had been wanting for a while. But it all hinged on one thing. “Does that mean that the money is still here?” Two things, actually. “And… you don’t want it?”
King didn’t respond right away. His index and middle fingers drummed against the table. Each rhythmic thump carried with it a certain air that made my heart beat faster. I hadn’t really thought about it, but King’s power was a complete unknown. I rarely worried over my personal safety thanks to my power. If I got injured or killed, I would simply use my second body to create a new me. But, until now, until I was facing a villain whose ability I couldn’t guess at, I had never considered that I might be vulnerable in some other way.
He had said it best. I wasn’t worried about a gun. A gun couldn’t do anything to me that I hadn’t already suffered through with a knife… or worse. The shadow girl might be able to do something more. Her hands had looked rather like claws. But her power looked pretty straightforward, even if it also looked fairly versatile.
King of Spades wasn’t nervous at all despite sitting across from someone who he knew had powers but didn’t know what they did. He certainly didn’t have a physical power. Maybe he could shoot laser beams from his eyes or some other ranged attack. But that seemed far too flashy. King of Spades was not an unknown villain. People would have noticed something like that. His power had to be far more subtle.
If he had the ability to control my mind in any way, shape, or form, would he control me? Would it just affect one body? Could he possibly control both my bodies from here?
The thought was unnerving to say the least. I could feel sweat forming with every tap of his fingers against the table. So far, our conversation had been pleasant, aside from the gun at the start. But, without knowing what his power was, I could very well be putting Ares and Thoth in danger. Toxx and Dice as well. My whole family.
I opened my mouth, about to tell King that I really didn’t want the money after all. Four thousand was a lot. It would help a lot. Risking my family over it? I couldn’t even imagine what could possibly be that valuable.
But the tapping stopped before I could get a word out. That ominous silence felt even more oppressive than the drumming. While he had been drumming his fingers, he had probably been thinking. Now, he had likely reached a decision.
That decision started with a smile.
King of Spades rose from his chair. It creaked as the strain was taken off, but he didn’t pay that any mind. Instead, he walked around the table. I tensed at his approach until I realized that he was stopping at the window. A heavy board blocked it off, keeping the light inside, but someone had apparently installed hinges on the board. He swung it open, clasping his hands behind his back.
Shade reformed behind him, using her body and the strange way it interacted with light to keep the lantern from being seen outside. Apart from that, she didn’t move. She definitely didn’t look in my direction.
“I was drawn here with the promise of wealth. An easy jailbreak for a bag filled with money. I would not risk any of my subordinates for four thousand dollars. However, the visit to Miskatonic has not been fruitless. Two members of the women’s softball team are… interesting.”
“Miskatonic has a softball team?” I knew it had a fairly popular football team. The basketball team was less popular, but Super Burger still did promotions with them once a year. But the machine was the only reason I even knew what a softball was.
King turned from the window, flashing a grin of surprisingly white teeth. “By this time next year, they will be selling out more seats than the football games.” Turning back to the window, he pulled out a cigarette, though he didn’t light it right away. “Well, not literally. The football stadium has far more seats. It will sell more simply because of max capacity. But the softball team will be known.”
I… honestly didn’t know what to say about that. It sounded impressive, but… I guess I just wasn’t sure what his point was. Or what that had to do with the money.
“You see, I love humans. It’s the potential. Humans are a resource that should be cultivated and allowed to flourish to their utmost possible level.”
“So… you saw the softball team and decided to… train them? Aren’t you the leader of the second largest gang in the city?”
“Third largest,” he said with an odd sense of pride in his voice. “But that’s just a side project. Well, so is this. And, I suppose, I would pick The Spades over Miskatonic’s sports teams if I had to choose. For as much as an idealist as I am, there is only so much time available.”
“Oh.” Because what else could I have said to that. I still didn’t get his point.
Thoth apparently didn’t understand either. She chimed in, talking to my other body. “This guy is a whackjob.”
King turned away from the window, leaving it open as he pulled a lighter from his suit’s inner pocket. “Oh, he says.” He still didn’t light his cigarette. A flick of his thumb sparked a flame, but he closed the cap of the lighter with another flick of his wrist. He repeated the motion twice more before he pointed the lighter at me. “Perhaps you would understand better if I said that I was an investor. Those two girls I mentioned will be joining my organization. I won’t disclose details as to the why, but they are the true project here. The softball team is just a happy side effort that I am making.
“So,” he continued, though he paused long enough to finally bring the open flame to the end of the cigarette. “I was going to keep that four thousand, paltry a sum though it is. But I’ll give you a chance. What would I get out of investing in you? What would my organizations get?”
“You… want me to work for you?” He didn’t even know my power, but he still wanted me? Perhaps it didn’t matter to someone like him. Any special ability would benefit his organization in some manner or other.
“I want you to reach your potential. It doesn’t have to be through working for me, though I would not let you go to waste. Society. Humanity as a whole. I would accept an answer regarding both, I simply didn’t list them because—” He shook his head with a hearty chuckle. “Let’s face it. If a few thousand dollars could change humanity, someone would have already done it.”
King stared at me, clearly expecting some kind of an answer. He wasn’t even smoking the cigarette he had taken the trouble to light. He was just staring.
Ares and Thoth were arguing over my repetition of the conversation. Thoth wanted the money. Her plan was simple. Agree to whatever King wanted, get the money in hand, then just stash the money and kill my self. It was sensible and simple to carry out, but I had my reservations.
I still didn’t know what King’s power was. It could be something that required a trigger. Perhaps agreeing to do something for him activated a mind controlling effect that would force me to carry out that task. Not to mention, it seemed extremely foolish to make an enemy of someone so needlessly. The exact makeup of his gang was not public knowledge. Who knew what kind of people he had working for him that might possess a power that could find a betrayer.
Which bled into Ares’ argument against antagonizing anyone, accepting stolen money, and, most obviously, working for a known criminal.
Not wanting to let the silence between me and King drag on for too long while we argued, I took a deep breath and asked a question.
“What is the difference between a hero and a villain?”
King didn’t answer right away. He turned back to the window. The embers on his cigarette lit up as he breathed in. Wind whisked away the cloud of smoke as he breathed out. Shade stood behind him, still unmoving, still blocking the light with that strange body of hers.
“A complicated question,” he said, tapping the end of his cigarette on the broken windowsill. “I suppose that the answer depends entirely on your perspective. Different people will say different things. For me… there is no difference but one of labeling. Heroes and villains both use their power to enact their will, their view of reality on the world around them. It is that world that assigns the label.”
It… was refreshing. My question hadn’t been laughed off. I wasn’t sure that King’s answer was particularly outstanding or revolutionary—though Thoth was nodding her head as I repeated it—but he had considered and given a proper answer. That was more than Amazing could say. More than a few coworkers had offered.
Still… “I’m sorry, King of Spades. You answered me, but I don’t think I have an answer for your question. Working for you is… too much. I would have to know a lot more and I would need to discuss it with my family.” I couldn’t help but let out a sardonic sigh. “And I’m far too concerned with my family’s survival to have ever thought about what I might contribute to society.”
Thoth started yelling at me as King closed the window. She was indignant that I hadn’t even tried to make up some answer to get the money. But I couldn’t just lie to him after his honesty with me, despite his answer being… not quite as in depth as I might have hoped.
I honestly couldn’t tell if King was disappointed. He turned his back to me as he made his way back around to the head of the long table. He stopped just before his chair to snuff out the cigarette. It joined a dozen others in the glass ashtray. Only then did he rest his bulk in the seat.
Shade started to disappear into the wall behind King again, but a wave of his hand stopped the shadowy woman.
He reached into his suit once again. Instead of withdrawing a cigarette, he pulled out a slim sliver case. A single card popped out at an angle. Plucking it from the case by the edges, he placed it on the table and slid it forward.
Of course, the table was designed for meetings. It was far longer than I could have reached even had I stood and leaned as far over as I could. That was apparently exactly why he had stopped Shade from recessing into her shadow form. Without a single motion from him, Shade moved forward, placed a finger to the table, and slid the card right in front of me.
I couldn’t help but notice the way she slid it across. Her finger, sharp and claw-like, didn’t actually touch the card itself. Her nail dug into the tiny shadow it cast from the electric lantern. Moving its shadow moved the card.
“I have things to do. I’m far too busy for a proper conversation at this time. Perhaps we can discuss further at a later date,” King said, nodding toward the card. “Unfortunately, I will be consumed with getting things set up here for the foreseeable future. Perhaps I will find time in my schedule for you in… a week. Perhaps two? If you call that number sometime soon, my assistant will set up an appointment for you.”
The card was a simple business card. It looked rather average considering a super villain had just handed it over. It had his name, embossed in small capitals right in the center. The top left held a phone number. The top right was a symbol. A spade like that from a playing card with a royal crown wrapped around its pointed top. There was no other information. No physical address. Not even an email address. Picking it up, I found the other side blank save for a larger and more detailed version of the spade symbol.
Although I had already written down the number back home, I made a show of pocketing the card in front of him. No sense further aggravating him by throwing it in his face along with his question.
“I’ll see about it,” I said.
“Excellent.” He picked up his pen again, holding it over one of the many sheets of paper that littered the desk. “You’re free to go. I would ask that you keep my presence here… discrete. It would be irritating to pack everything up before I am ready.”
“You don’t have to worry about that from me,” I assured him. Completely honestly at that. If all he was doing was helping a softball team, then what did I care. None of my family would be impacted.
“Good. Good,” King said, looking down to his work.
Apparently, that was it. I was dismissed. The gun was still on the table, but King wasn’t even looking in my direction anymore. The same couldn’t be said for Shade. She stood in a somewhat eerie manner, hardly having moved from where she ended up after sliding the card across the table. I walked out. She didn’t follow.
Walking into a deserted hallway full of broken glass and empty offices was a shock. I had almost forgotten that our conversation had been in the middle of an abandoned building. For a man who considered a few thousand dollars to be so far beneath him, it was a bit surprising that he would willingly work out of such a dump. Or that he had come to collect the money in person. With Shade and who knew what other subordinates, I couldn’t believe that he ever left some comfy office in his main base.
Thoth suggested that it was something to do with his power. King needed to be physically present for it to work, or something similar.
I walked out in a fairly languid manner. There were still eight areas left to check on Thoth’s map, but I supposed that it didn’t matter much anymore. While I hadn’t actually seen it, the money was clearly with King of Spades.
“It’s a shame,” Thoth said, her cartoonish guise lying flat against a table with depression-filled rainclouds hanging overhead. “Couldn’t you have spun some tall tale to tell the fat man?”
“Thoth,” Ares said with a voice full of admonishment. “We shouldn’t just agree to what he said. As… nice as that meeting seemed, villains are villains for a reason.”
“We didn’t have to follow through. Just get the money, wander off, and never call him up again. I am obviously not advocating for working underneath some human.”
I held up a hand, stalling any further argument between my two siblings. “Hold on. Something is happening.”
I was almost at the exit of the building, just inside the laboratory room with all the fume cupboards. The shadows from my flashlight were shifting in a way that was obviously unnatural. Turning, I just about jumped out of my socks.
The wellbeing of that body did not mean anything to me. But there were still ingrained reactions built into everyone. Turning around to find the shadowy form of Shade standing right behind me triggered one of those reactions.
“Apologies for startling you,” she said, tone pleasant. Even her mouth was like a black hole. If she had teeth in there, they were not pearly white. Or even off white. My attention on her face was drawn away as she held out a sack. It was a thin material scrunched together at one end by drawstrings. The kind of thing gym-goers often came to Super Burger with. “Upon further consideration, King of Spades wishes for you to keep this. As a… reminder of your meeting tonight.”
I stared at her. At the bag. A moment passed until Thoth screamed, “Take it!”
My hands brushed against Shade’s as I accepted the bag. They were surprisingly solid. And she had been actually holding the bag by the strings rather than the shadow of its strings. As soon as the bag was firmly in my grasp, she nodded her head and sank into the floor. With another shifting of the shadows, there was no sign of the woman anywhere around.
Dumbly, I peeked into the bag.
Money stared back.
Bundles of twenties. A few hundreds. Loose smaller bills filled out most of the space.
I walked out of the door, past the fallen cabinet, with a small smile on both my faces. I couldn’t help it. It was… probably nothing to King of Spades. To me, it was so much more. I could hardly imagine what we could do with four thousand dollars. I would have been happy with four hundred. I would have been happy with forty.
Thoth was grinning like a madwoman. I couldn’t tell exactly what Ares was feeling. His eyes widened as I told him that I had the bag in hand, but he hadn’t said anything, choosing to close his eyes and remain silent instead. Knowing him, he wasn’t too happy that we were acting so familiar with a villain, but he wouldn’t say anything either.
He knew how much the money meant to us. To the family as a whole.
Our good moods came to a sudden stop as Thoth’s workshop darkened. Thunder struck outside the window behind one of the large machines in the background. “You can’t bring that bag home,” she said in a rush.
I was barely off Miskatonic’s campus, nowhere near home, but the urgent tone of her voice made me stop anyway. “Why not?”
“Where is that shadow chick?”