Session Thirteen, part two
The door to the Bureau compound opens like some sort of airlock. Invisibly small lines of warding text surround the door, keeping errant fey away and blocking general intrusions of evil spirits. Outside the threshold is a dark, wild forest where hidden figures dance and sing and lure mortals to nights of revelry and weeks of lost memories, while inside lies a maze of steel and modern office decorations, lines of cable connecting countless electronic surveillance devices, and written or digitally-stored records of the answers to thousands of millions of mysteries, all guarded by inscrutable agents in black suits, black ties, and black sunglasses.
Michael Dunne emerges from behind a wall of Bureau agents, his long gray coat and relaxed expression belying the imposing greeting. He looks out the door at the group gathered there, then lowers his gaze to the blood-soaked prisoner being carried between John and Scarpedin.
“If I give you the room you want,” Michael says, “will you tell me what this is about when you’re done?”
Robert says, “Sure.”
His answer both assures Michael that he’s telling the truth, and assures the others with Robert that they’ll tell Michael only what they damn well please.
The agents watch with bristling curiosity as Robert, John, Scarpedin, their prisoner Thevenot, Ian, and Bonnie walk inside, followed by a light-footed and grinning Wiji-wiji. Robert’s ghost Giovanni glares at the agents, while Terry lurks close to Robert, looking nervous. The agents all know something is amiss, but Michael has warned them not to push the group. They have perhaps the most valuable bargaining chip in the form of Terry, and if they’re here without the Chief it means something went wrong on Terra.
“You’re lucky,” Michael says. “You picked the entrance near the cafeteria. When you’re done, meet me there, alright?”
The group as one looks at him and shrugs. Robert gives him an encouraging smile, and then they follow one of the agents to the interrogation room.
* * *
They sit the unconscious Dick Thevenot in a chair in the center of the interrogation chamber, but don’t hand-cuff him, since Wiji-wiji says that would ruin the game they’re going to play. Wiji-wiji sits in another chair in front of the prisoner, and tells Robert to lean against the wall in a dark corner. Scarpedin is to stand close by, Bonnie is to sit in a chair opposite Scarpedin, and Ian is supposed to stand behind Wiji-wiji’s shoulder.
John stands on the opposite side of the room, behind Thevenot, out of sight. He holds a pistol and is to kill Thevenot if the man looks like he’s going to escape again.
Wiji-wiji holds up his deck of cards, and splays them in his hand.
“Gamu we pray is called, ah, Masquerado,
wakaru? I wirru be invisible to him, and you wirru pray role. Pretend.
Anno, rie to him,
hai?”
They frown, but go along with it.
Wiji-wiji shuffles the deck in his lap, and nods at John, then to Thevenot, indicating for him to heal the prisoner. John cautiously concentrates to perform a last bit of magical healing to bring Thevenot to consciousness, then backs away and aims the gun again, keeping an angle so if he has to shoot, he can’t accidentally hit anyone else.
Wiji-wiji continues to shuffle, and as the prisoner begins to stir awake and his eyes flutter open, his attention is drawn to the cards. Wiji-wiji shuffles again, the crisp snapping of the cards the only sound in the room, and then suddenly he stops. His gaze is intent on Thevenot, and without looking away he holds out the deck to Scarpedin him.
“Take cardo
kudasai,” he whispers, “and terru me what it is.”
Thevenot still lolls a bit, clearly out of it, but he doesn’t look anywhere but at Wiji-wiji.
Scarpedin draws a card from the deck. “Um, it’s the Jack with the red pointy thing on it.”
Wiji-wiji nods. “You are
kochira no ichiban tomodachi, his best friend.”
Thevenot suddenly sits a little straighter and glances at Scarpedin. He laughs slightly, then shakes his head.
“Jin,” Thevenot says, his voice still rough from the blood caked in his throat. “Did you save me?”
Scarpedin glances left to John, then right to Wiji-wiji, then nods. Loudly he says, “Yes. You know I wouldn’t let you get hurt, man!”
Thevenot grins. “Where am I?”
Wiji-wiji sharply extends the deck to Bonnie. She pulls a card and says, “Queen of Spades.”
“You,” Wiji-wiji says, “are woman he
reast wants to see.”
Thevenot glares suddently at Bonnie. He asks, “What’s the bitch doing here?”
Bonnie looks to Robert for help, then looks back at their prisoner. “What do you
think I’m here for?”
Thevenot growls. “Look, I know I screwed up, Jin, but you didn’t have to bring Dee in on this sh*t. They didn’t find anything out, and I probably killed a few of them. Plus, we know what they can do now, right?”
Bonnie says, “Is that what you think?”
“Lay off him,” Scarpedin says. “He did his best.”
When he speaks, it sounds like Scarpedin is legitimately pissed at Bonnie, but whether that’s because the magic is affecting him too, or because he’s just playing along too well they can’t tell.
Wiji-wiji lifts the deck over his shoulder for Ian to take a card. He does and says, “Five of clubs.”
Thevenot glances up and cocks his head at Ian. “Who the hell is this guy?”
Wiji-wiji grabs the card out of Ian’s hand, frowns at it, then shakes his head.
“He no one important,” Wiji-wiji says. Then he looks at the deck face-up, picks a card out, and hands it to Ian. “Jack of clubs. You possible enemy of his.”
“That’s better,” Ian says. He points at Thevenot and grins. “You’re lucky we don’t kill you for screwing up.”
“Sh*t,” Thevenot says. “You ain’t nothing special. Jin, tell this steroid-popping Governator-reject to back off before I pull his heart out.”
“I dunno,” Scarpedin says. “I’m with. . . ,” he pauses and glances at Ian, “what’s your name?”
Ian glowers at Thevenot and says, “You know who I am. What’s my name, huh?”
The prisoner scoffs. “Oh, I’m real scared,
Vlad. Hey, I heard you were fishin’ for some rubles in your pocket and you accidentally popped off your testicles.”
Scarpedin grins, “Yeah, he gave ‘em to her. What’s
her name, Dick?”
Dick glances at Bonnie, then back at Scarpedin. He squints and cocks his head. “Wait, something’s wrong here.”
Wiji-wiji quickly pulls a card from the deck and tosses it to Robert. Robert catches it reflexively out of the air, then glances at it. King of Hearts – the suicide king.
“You are person,” Wiji-wiji says, “who he is most afraid.
Totemo kowai.”
Robert slips into his persona immediately.
“Enough,” he says.
Everyone looks at him, and Thevenot draws in a breath, then curses quietly.
“Why not tell me exactly what happened?” Robert continues.
“Sh*t, senator,” Thevenot says, “nothing went wrong. I got inside the Bureau, and I managed to find out what they’re using to still planeshift. They got the ghost of that kid Terry stuck into a bracelet, and he’s still able to do his magic. I managed to get the thing too, but . . . I dunno, something happened. I can’t remember. Where am I?”
Robert ignores him. “This could look very bad for me. I’ve got my constituents in New York to win over.”
Thevenot frowns. “New York? I thought you were in Illinois?”
Ian laughs and turns to Robert. “Yeah, who the hell do you think you are? Hillary Clinton?”
“Nah,” Thevenot shakes his head. “Something’s wrong here.”
“Yes,” Robert says. “What’s wrong is that you failed your mission. We might as well all just give up now.”
Thevenot looks at Bonnie as if expecting her to say something, but then he leans forward and sneers at Robert.
“You can’t pull out now,” he says. “You do, you’d better be able to go without sleep for a few weeks. Guards won’t stop us.”
The way he says it, it’s like he’s implying he thinks Bonnie, Scarpedin, and Ian are all dangerous.
Robert laughs. “You’re just going to teleport in and kill me?”
Dick shrugs, cocky.
Robert says, “Do you think your boss would be so rash?”
“Don’t f*ck with us, senator,” Scarpedin says.
The group, tensely hoping Dick would reveal something about who’s in charge, sighs in frustration. Robert simply glares at Scarpedin chidingly, then turns back to the prisoner.
“So,” Robert says, “what are we going to do now?”
“All of us can go next time,” Thevenot says. “You just report them as terrorists or something, and when they show up we’ll teleport in and take them out.”
“Don’t you think your boss would want to interrogate them?” Robert asks.
Thevenot glares. “You seem pretty interested in the guy you’re working for. Maybe you’re asking a few too many questions. He’ll do what he wants. You owe him for getting you elected in the first place.”
Robert laughs. “You don’t seem to realize how much you screwed up here. Look, I know you’re afraid of me, and you’ve got a good reason to be. Do you even
know the status of the project? Things have changed.”
Thevenot looks nervous. “Like what?”
“Why don’t you tell me what you know first,” Robert says, “and I’ll tell you what you got wrong?”
At this, Thevenot shakes his head slightly. He looks around at the group one by one, looking groggy and confused. Robert winces slightly, realizing he pushed too hard. Scarpedin suddenly leans in.
“Hey,” he says, “um, I forgot our boss’s name, and where he lives. Can you, like, remind me or something?”
Thevenot suddenly snaps out of his confusion and glares at Scarpedin. “You son of a bi-”
Three silenced pistol shots fill the room. Thevenot sags as two bullets pierce his lungs, and a third slices through his heart. He turns weakly and bares his teeth at John, then falls out of the chair.
“Damn John,” Ian says. “Don’t you think that might’ve been a
bit premature? We hardly got anything out of him.”
John shrugs. “We got enough.”
“We got enough?” Ian points at the body. “You just blew Marvin’s head off, Vince! This kind of sh*t doesn’t just
accidentally happen.”
John scoffs and puts his pistol away. “This goes to the American government? It’s not something we need to be involved with. Robert, go out there and tell the Bureau we’re out. They can handle this thing themselves.”
Scarpedin grumbles. Bonnie sighs and casually wipes Thevenot’s blood off her face.
Robert looks at the body on the ground, then sees Wiji-wiji watching him.
“I think we lost this game,” Robert says.
They take a moment to collect themselves, then head out to ask Michael for some favors from the Bureau.