At Large

by Andrew Seiple

  Critical Success!

  Luck+1

  Your Short Vision skill is now level 2!

  “You were out for uh... fifty-eight minutes,” Renny said, checking the clock. “Not much time left. Do you want to risk another?”

  “No.” Chase said, checking how the light from the windows had moved across the floor. As a country girl, she was better at gauging that, then trying to read a clock. “But I think it’s time to break out the crystal ball.”

  Two minutes later it was resting on an end table, and Chase was standing on a chair, hands hovering above it. “Now all I have to do is figure out what I want to scry. I’m thinking... I’m thinking the werewolf leader is a good idea. The rest of the pack is going to be with him. What did Enrico call that guy?”

  “The werewolf Alpha.”

  “Okay. Crystal Ball, show me the werewolf Alpha.”

  She was just guessing at the terminology there, but whatever entity governed the usage of skills seemed to accept it.

  Your Crystal Ball skill is now level 2!

  Chase felt the familiar strain on her mind as sanity left... she was glad that she’d recovered some from resting, while the short visions were going on. The crystal ball glowed and seemed to fill with clouds. But one by one they thinned, revealing a figure standing in what appeared to be a tailor’s shop. He was tall, slim, and dark, with a dashing goatee and piercing green eyes. A pair of servants were fitting him with a crushed black velvet tunic and buckling a rapier at his waist.

  “Are you seeing this?” Chase asked Renny...

  ...and gasped as the man looked up in surprise, eyes narrowing.

  Did he hear me?

  “Yes,” Renny whispered back.

  After a few seconds the man shook his head and looked back to the servants. He said something and one of them laughed.

  And then the clouds were back, and the crystal ball returned to its previous, un-magical state.

  “I don’t know who that was,” Chase said, “but he was getting fitted for some very fancy clothes. And given that one of the targets on their murder list is throwing a ball tomorrow night, I’m pretty sure I know where he’s going to be going, wearing such nice clothes.”

  “So what now?”

  “Nothing, now. I have a lot to think about.” The Camerlengo’s hate-filled face crossed her mind again, and Chase shuddered. Will it come to THAT? “In the meantime, I didn’t level. But I’ve got a few tricks that I can use here, if you’re willing to help. Any objection to letting me heal and harm your fortune a few dozen times?”

  “None at all!”

  And in the time they had left before Cagna knocked on their door, Chase did level Medium and felt just a bit more prepared.

  As it turned out, she wasn’t prepared at all...

  CHAPTER 15: BLOOD AND CANNOLIS

  Well, we’ve got one thing in common, Chase thought, as she looked at the groaning tables full of food. Both gangsters and halvens love a hearty dinner.

  She really hadn’t known what to expect when Cagna led them through the darkening streets. Back alleys or maybe a tavern like the one they’d first come to in the Outskirts, something like that.

  What she got was a fortress. A literal fortress! The place was an old stone tower, surrounded by two walls, not even two miles away from the Doge’s palace. Sure, it was a little run down, and sure, parts of the wall had lost chunks off the top from sieges long ago, but the place was still not what Chase envisioned when it came to crime lords having clandestine meetings.

  While it had looked foreboding and run-down on the outside, the inside was another story. Luxurious furnishings, thick rugs, and roaring fires gave shelter against the late-autumn chill. Works of art stood strategically in empty corners and unused spaces, lined the walls stretching up the spiraling staircases, and sat around the great banquet hall that Cagna had led them to.

  Mind you, it took a while to get there. They had been stopped and questioned every step of the way, and her fingers still throbbed where she’d had to prick herself on silver needles. The place was crawling with enforcers, mercenaries, and mages. All sorts of races and professions were represented, patrolling the premises and generally looking badass.

  But the strangest thing of all, were the people who obviously weren’t hard-bitten men and women of action. They wore nice clothes... the men all had suits, the women all had dresses, and they were the sort of people who wouldn’t stand out in a crowd.

  And though it was risky, Chase started mouthing words as she moved through the crowd. “Silent Activation, Size Up. Silent Activation, Size Up.”

  Four skill levels, sixty moxie and thirty fortune later, she was certain of the commonalities. Most of these ordinary-looking people had charisma and willpower, though only a few could compare to her own charisma. But on the average they were only decent on perception, and wisdom seemed to be lacking in general.

  “These are the dons and their people, aren’t they?” Chase had asked Cagna on their way up the stairs.

  Cagna had confirmed that, then reiterated that she didn’t want any questions until they were there...

  And there had turned out to be the banquet hall, full of food, with guards at every entrance, and long, stained glass windows reflecting the lantern light in bright colors. Above the entire room hung a chandelier that dwarfed those she’d seen in the casino... a massive work of steel and glass with magical orbs playing around it.

  Chase would have been a lot more impressed if she, Cagna, Renny, and the Wizaard weren’t the only guests in the room at the moment.

  “We’re here, and it’s safe,” Cagna said, leaning down a bit to squeeze Chase’s shoulder. “You can let the questions fly now.”

  “I’m not sure we’re safe. Or that anywhere’s safe right now,” Chase said, feeling the truth of the words. “But right now I’m wondering why all the important people are downstairs, and we’re up here.”

  “It’s precisely because they’re important people that they’re downstairs. They’re using the time before the meeting to talk business, trade favors, and politick. Us? We’ve got nothing to offer and little to talk about that involves their business... save for one thing.”

  “But what about Don Coltello? Won’t he want to meet with us before things start?”

  Cagna nodded. “He will. I expect him to be along shortly. Really, the only one he did much business with anymore was Dona Tarantino, and well, she’s gone. None of the other dons like the old man that much. Which could hurt him in the long run, and us by proxy, if they decide to politic against him.”

  Damn it, I should be down there, Chase grimaced. She had honed herself for that kind of battlefield, and there was much to gain if she played her cards right.

  Instantly her thoughts went to her pockets, and the Gambler’s legacy inside them... the cards that were made for throwing, for killing.

  Wait a minute...

  “They didn’t search us for weapons?” Chase asked. “Why?”

  But it was the Muscle Wizaard who answered.

  “In a place like this, everyone’s armed. And given the situation, it would be foolish not to be.” He held up his hands, displaying the spiky silver knuckles he’d bought with his share of the jackpot winnings. The letters ‘MUSL’ and ‘WZRD’ traced a shiny path over his fingers, and the spikes looked like little conical hats. “I’m going to guess there’s a general prohibition against pulling weapons, yes? But nobody cares if you bring them.”

  “Something like that,” Cagna confirmed.

  Chase felt Renny shift in her pack, but he kept silent. Probably good, since quite a few of those guards were looking their way. She’d used the time she had left before the meeting devising a series of taps and raps and code words to let Renny know when he could and couldn’t do things. The cards in my pocket are an ace in the hole I suppose, but Renny... Renny’s my secret weapon. The werewolves know about him, sure, but the gangsters? Not so much.

  Not that she thought the werewolves
would be foolish enough to try anything, not here. She had taken their measure during the casino fight, and they had come up lacking, even with a player involved. If they tried the same thing here they’d inflict damage, sure, but the weight of numbers was against them. Between all the mercenaries and goons who were forewarned and armed with silver, assaulting the famiglias here would be the height of idiocy.

  Something flickered in the back of Chase’s mind while she considered that.

  The fight at the casino had been easier than it should have been. Not a cakewalk, not that. And true, Enrico was the one who had been stuck with the most dangerous werewolves, while Chase and Renny and the Wizaard had been hard-put to fend off the lessers.

  But still, given their reputation and the care that the familigias were showing here, that fight should have been a lot more difficult.

  Had the werewolves been holding back?

  If so, then why?

  Chase bit at her lip and started to shift her pack to the floor. She needed to check the cards. Not the silver-edged ones, but the fortuna cards. They’ve never steered me wrong. One quick reading should help me figure out—

  “Ah, mia piccola nipotina! Welcome!”

  Chase pulled her hand back from the pack’s lacings and looked up to see a familiar, ugly smile.

  “Nonno,” Chase said, feeling the wrongness of the word as she smiled back at Don Coltello. “How have you been?”

  “Not so great,” he confessed, taking a seat at the big table, the only one that wasn’t laden with food. Beside him, Lachina stood silent and solemn. The Don took no notice of her as he kept staring at Chase. “Someone I trusted very much has betrayed me. He stole something from my house and vanished.”

  “That’s horrible!” Chase said. “Is there anything I can do to help with that?” She grimaced. “Well, to be honest, the werewolf thing is keeping us busy, so I don’t know if I could. But I could try, if you needed...”

  About that point she noticed that Cagna had snapped to attention, and the Muscle Wizaard was surreptitiously stepping into position to put himself between Chase and the Don. “Ah... wait, what?”

  The tension had crept up on her without noticing. Reviewing the Don’s words, now she marked the tone that had been behind them. An expectant, menacing tone...

  Chase blinked. She’d been distracted, and now, now this might get ugly.

  “Sir?” Cagna asked.

  “You really don’t know?” Don Coltello asked.

  “No sir,” Chase said, keeping her reply short, studying him. “Should I know something? Please tell me.” This is frustrating! Chase thought. It’s just the sort of thing that silent foresight would help me navigate, but he’s staring right at me, he’d surely notice...

  The fat man grunted. “Either you’re one hell of a liar, or somehow you’re being truthful. Cagna?”

  “I’m pretty sure that both of those statements are true,” said the beastkin. “I’m also pretty sure that she’s smart enough not to steal from you and would have the wisdom not to get within arm’s length of you if she did. So if you’re trying to figure out if she’s involved with whatever you’re talking about, I’d say she isn’t.”

  “That’s very strange,” said Don Coltello. “Because that stugat Tom is.”

  Chase’s eyes went wide. “Oh gods, what did he do?”

  That threw him for a loop. The Don’s mouth opened and closed, and she saw his eyes narrow as he considered her again. Finally, he grimaced. “Your man came to my home. He sat at my table. He ate my food. He helped me with some minor things, trivial favors, really. And then he stole from me, and fled in the middle of the night. What have I done that he should insult me so? It wasn’t anything of real value that he stole! Just that stupid—”

  A gong sounded, and the massive doors across the room creaked open.

  “We’ll talk about it afterwards,” the Don said, and the small group turned as pale figures appeared in the darkness beyond. “For the love of gods say nothing more on it until we’re done here.”

  Chase nodded... and then she had no more time for Don Coltello, as the foremost figure approached.

  Tall, thin, dressed in black from head to toe, with a sweeping red cape that called to mind shimmering blood, the man glided across the rugs with a fluid grace that wasn’t natural, couldn’t be natural. His eyes were crimson, his skin pale, and his hair a waterfall of black strands that somehow moved in perfect unison as he turned his head to consider the group before him.

  “Massimo...” he whispered, and Chase felt the word push against her ears with unnatural pressure, his dry, deep voice echoing through the room in a way it had no business doing. “I expected you to arrive with the others.”

  Chase shuddered. Somehow the implied possibility of a rebuke was terrifying beyond words, even if it wasn’t directed towards her. But Don Coltello was unruffled. Either the benefits of good willpower or long familiarity, it was hard to say.

  “Just some business to take care of beforehand, Prezzo.” The Don leaned back in his chair, and Chase jumped a bit as it creaked. “Had to sort some things out with my investigator.”

  “This is the one, then?” Red, red eyes turned toward Chase.

  And she froze.

  Every instinct was telling her NOPE.

  The back of her mind was reminding her where every exit out of the room was located and busy doing math to figure out how to get her there in the most efficient fashion. This man standing before her... this thing, whatever he or it was, this was danger. This was death.

  “She is,” Don Coltello confirmed, in the silence.

  “A strange choice...” the man said, squatting down and somehow making it look graceful, like it was the most natural thing in the world to be crouching, looking her in the eye. “She’s paralyzed by fear, just from my presence. So how would she even be effective against those beasts?”

  “We, er...” the Muscle Wizaard said, and the hot red eyes left her, just for a second...

  But it was all the time Chase needed to recover herself, to bounce back, even just a bit. “We aren’t supposed to fight them, just find them!” she said in a rush. “Though, uh...” she quailed again as Prezzo looked back to her.

  “Though we already did,” The Muscle Wizaard backed her up. “Fight them, I mean. Briefly. They got away.”

  The pressure that seemed to be pushing against Chase, the raw force of the man’s presence, eased up. He smiled then. “Did you? I look forward to hearing all about it. As I’m sure the others will.” He offered a hand. “I am Don Sangue. Welcome to my home.”

  Chase shook it and hid a gasp. His hands were cold as stone.

  She wondered if all of him was so. He was easily the palest human she had ever seen... no. No, he wasn’t human. She wasn’t sure what he was, but it wasn’t good and it wasn’t human.

  But then he was standing and moving toward the head of the table. The other pale figures who had emerged from the doorway joined him, but Don Sangue was the only one who sat down.

  “You sit at my left,” Don Coltello told Chase. Then he looked to the Wizaard. “You, big guy, you stand behind her, with my bodyguards. See to our needs and keep an eye on stuff. Don’t talk unless directly addressed.”

  “Standard bodyguard rules then,” The Wizaard nodded. He was wearing his robes again, newly sewn along the easily-rippable seams.

  “Standard rules,” The Don confirmed, nodding.

  Then the rest of the guests started filtering in from downstairs, and Chase watched them come.

  It was a similar setup across the board. One of the ordinary looking people would take a seat, and some of the obviously stronger or more magical people would take up position behind them, or nearby.

  As they sat down, Chase’s people-watching instincts came to the fore. There was an etiquette to it, she realized. An unspoken dance, as the guests studied each other, and chose their places due to politics or relationships that she couldn’t begin to guess at without context.

/>   But as the crowd thinned, and the final people settled around the far edges of the big table, Chase determined two things.

  The first thing was that the dance was important, that it was an old custom and respected. Nobody rushed it; nobody showed impatience, or even much emotion at all, really. Keeping your cool was a big part of the game, and that probably affected the seating order too.

  The other thing that she noticed was that Don Coltello, by taking his seat before anyone else got here, had disrupted things and pulled attention to himself. And though nobody said anything, the way that the seats around them were the last to be taken spoke volumes. Disapproving, heavy volumes.

  PER+1

  Chase inhaled and almost coughed as the cool, overly-dry air hit her throat. The fireplaces, though huge and stacked with blazing wood, were far across the hall and the tower was drafty. It had a warm facade, with rugs and well-cushioned chairs, and tapestries and big fires... but it was a facade, really. This place was not built for comfort. It resembles its owner, Chase knew and didn’t dare lift her eyes toward Don Sangue. Beautiful on the outside. But death itself, once you can see past the facade.

  But at last everyone was seated, and the dinner began. Don Coltello snapped his fingers and Lachina brought him a plate of goodies. Whole baked pheasants on penne pasta, with a delicious, cheesy sauce over it all, and salads chock full of the finest fall vegetables made up the majority of the Don’s selection.

  After Chase whispered a few words over her shoulder, the Wizaard returned with a plate heaped full of meat and cheese. A few more whispered words and he brought her bread, and pasta, and a quiet apology. “Sorry. I’m used to sticking to protein.”

  Chase was worried that he’d broken the ’bodyguards don’t talk’ rule, but a glance around the table showed nobody had noticed. Quiet conversation rippled and mixed in among the clink of silverware on plates and the subtle slurping of heady wine from tall glasses.

  She did note that Don Sangue’s own glass remained full of wine as the minutes crawled by. I suppose he doesn’t drink wine, she thought.