 |
|
Chapter Six
Over the next few days,
Mercury and Marco went about their own business. Mercury searched for a job
tirelessly, while Marco began to review his performance and revise his attitude
in the ‘field.’ Finally, Mercury came home one night, happy smile firmly in
place, clearly having succeeded in his endeavor.
Marco noticed, but he said
nothing while they ate dinner. Even though they were almost never silent during
dinner, discussing their day’s work instead, they remained silent this time. In
the end, after both their plates were clean of food and both their glasses
devoid of water, Mercury spoke quietly and Marco’s patience paid off.
“I found us an extremely
intriguing proposition,” he said. Pausing, he glanced at Marco’s questioning
face. “I haven’t accepted yet, of course. But it’s interesting… very much so.
You see, a certain man has just moved in to San Francisco. A certain
Constantine. Never heard that name except out of history books. Anyway, he’s
got a supposedly precious medal. I hear it happens to be shaped like a keyhole
or some such thing. The point is, it is very valuable, and someone is willing
to pay big bucks for it. So, I’m going to ask you right now, without further
ado. Do you want to do this? There’s nor running this time – if we get in, we
get out with the medal.” He looked at Marco expectantly, but waited
quietly while he decided.
“I’ll do it,” Marco
finally said. “Mainly because I want to, but also because you’re going to do it
anyway.” He grinned, and Mercury smiled, recognizing the truth in the
statement.
“In that case,” he said,
“I’m going to tell our fence, a certain Carlysle, that we’re going to do it.
That’s tomorrow. After that, I’m going to go map shopping and see if we can’t
find ourselves a guard to bribe. We should be ready to go in one and a half to
ten weeks.” Marco nodded comprehension, and then went to his room. Mercury
stayed up a while longer. Questions were whirling through his head.
Why would a medal be
shaped like a keyhole, for one thing? And why would a simple medal be so
valuable? The fence had said it was solid gold, but who would waste some much money
to make a medal? He had said the word Keepers, as if referring to some group,
but when Mercury had inquired about it, Carlysle had said Mercury must have
heard wrong, for he had never said such a thing. This, of course, annoyed
Mercury. Hypocrisy was the thing he least tolerated, and this man seemed not to
be a fence. He knew enough about Mercury, but one visit to the Llama’s Tongue
would have told him everything he needed to know. So, even though Mercury was
prepared to take the job – Constantine was, after all, a rich person – he
wasn’t going to trust the fence any more than was necessary. And this was
Mercury’s last conscious thought as he drifted off to sleep.
When he awoke, it was
instantaneous. Every nerve in his body awoke at the same time as his brain. And
the new alertness that took over his body told him something was wrong. As his
eyes focused and adjusted to the darkness, his hand slipped under the couch
pillow and pulled out the concealed knife from under there.
He sensed a presence in
the room, one he couldn’t see. His eyes probed the darkness, his fingers curled
around the dagger, but still he neither saw nor heard anything. The furniture
was where it always was. Suddenly, however, he saw a movement directly in front
of him. It looked like a fluid shadow, but he knew it was human. He moved off
the couch gently and, landing on his feet, used the momentum to contribute
towards his jump. He collided with the cloaked figure, and it struggled, but
soon enough he had it pinned down and completely unmoving.
“Marco,” he called, his
voice still hoarse from recent sleep. “Marco, get over here and turn the lights
on.”
Marco burst into the room
and flipped the switch so that light now illuminated the strange scene before
him. The dark, cloaked man was sprawled on the floor, Mercury on top of him,
arms and legs restraining their equivalents. Marco made as if to help Mercury,
but decided against it. Instead, he pulled out his belt dagger and strode to
the door to make sure the man would not escape when Mercury released him.
Seeing that the situation
was fairly safe, Mercury got off the man. The man, in turn, struggled to his
feet, moaning. He pulled off his hood and revealed a sharply angled face with
hard edges and high cheekbones. His hair was brown, and his eyes were infinite
pools of blackness. He stretched his limbs out, as if he had just woken up, and
then looked at the two of them.
“You have a gift reserved
for a fortunate few,” he said in a deep voice that almost made the floor shake.
“But take my advice, stay away from the Keepers. And for the love of the
Builder, stay away from Constantine and the Trickster.”
Mercury was puzzled, and
he wanted to know who this stranger was.
“Who are you? What is your
name?” Marco gave voice to the question first.
“My name is Garrett,” the
strange man replied, looking straight at Marco’s ruffled face. “I am a Master
Thief in the City. Mastermind behind the theft of Bafford’s Scepter, former
Keeper Acolyte, enemy of the Hammerites and the Mechanists, and slayer of the
Trickster and Karras.”
“That sounds like quite a
list of doings,” commented Mercury. “It would sound even more so if I actually
knew who Bafford, the Keepers, the Hammerites, the mechanists, the Trickster, or
Karras are!!”
“You don’t know? Then… By
the Master Builder!” An expression of surprise crossed over the man’s face. A
hand came out of a cloak pocket and threw down a round item with a red button.
In a massive flash, Mercury and Marco lost their eyesight. Garrett, meanwhile,
had exited the house and was gone before the two recovered from the flash.
“Damn!” Mercury yelled out
as soon as he recovered his eyesight. “Damn it! We had him!!” Marco’s
eyes took a little longer to recover.
“This sucks! What
the hell?!” Marco exclaimed in a tremendous understatement. He calmed himself,
then continued. “We have to follow him. He can’t have gotten far.”
Mercury didn’t respond
with words. Rather he pulled on his cloak, opened the door, and walked out into
the cold night, followed closely by Marco. They were soon moving through the
alternating shadows, watching for the man who had called himself Garrett. He
could only go in one direction, as all the others were walled in. The alleyway
that held the entrance to their house was a fairly desolate place. Abruptly,
they felt the man’s presence in a nearby shadow. They both froze. They felt
their muscles tense as adrenaline began to pump through their veins. Slowly,
the thief moved out of the shadow and dashed to the next one. The two rivals,
however, could not tell where he was looking. So, as soon as Garrett made his
next move, they carefully dashed to the shadow he had been in just moments
before.
Arriving at the right
place at the same time as Garrett, Mercury and Marco breathed a sigh of relief.
They followed him, shadow to shadow, until he arrived near a graveyard. There,
he paused. Two guards with a gear on the front of their clothes were guarding
the entrance. Mercury slowly realized that the weapons they were carrying were
maces.
He glanced a Marco, who
was clearly just as surprised as he was. Then, Garrett raised his bow. But the
end of the arrow was not an arrowhead or a sharp tip. Looking closer, Mercury
saw what looked like a crystal with a greenish haze inside – a fog that cleared
in some places, but never in the entire crystal at once. As the arrow flew,
Mercury made up his mind that this Garrett character was not going to die if he
could help it. The arrow hit, and, hearing the tinkle of the breaking crystal,
the guards turned… only to breathe in the toxic gas that had escaped the small
crystal.
Mercury and Marco watched
in amazement as the two guards dropped, their maces hitting the guard loudly.
Suddenly, a deep voice near Mercury’s ear startled him.
“We’d better go before
their friends come,” Garrett said.
“Jesus!” Mercury whispered
fiercely. “You scared me half to death!”
“Sorry,” and he left,
going towards the graveyard.