Shamus flung the door open and leapt inside. Though she had her stun gun in hand, she'd mostly concealed her hand within her sleeve. I stepped into the doorway after her, and kept my bugs just out of sight. The office itself held only an old metal table and an equally old metal chair. The long, black hair of the chair's current occupant spilled over the back. A large book with a faded and well-worn cover lay open on the table.
Shamus spoke. "Sorry to drop in unannounced, but we really need to ta-"
Before she could finish her sentence, Ms. Readman leapt up with a yelp, whirled toward us, and the world flipped upside-down.
After a moment to right myself mentally, if not physically, I realized that that statement wasn't entirely accurate. Of course, I had been the one flipped upside-down, along with Shamus. Specifically, we both now dangled from the ceiling on oversized chains of paper wrapped around both legs.
While I was somewhat overawed by the speed of the response, I had to admit that this was pretty much what I had been expecting.
"Oh, come on!" Shamus said. As she attempted to keep her hat pressed firmly against her head-she really liked that hat- her stun gun slipped out of her sleeve and clattered to the floor. "I said we needed to talk!"
Ms. Readman placed herself between us and the book with the stance of a high-end bodyguard sheltering her country's head of state from an active shooter. She brandished a handful of white paper. Too late, I noticed that one of the one of the objects on the floor which I'd taken for a relatively innocuous bundle of something industrial was, in fact, a full, store-fresh sheath of office-supply-issue printer paper. Such were the limits of bug-based reconnaissance.
"You can't have this book!" Ms. Readman said, her words firm and her gaze resolute, even when viewed from my current inverted state. I could already feel the unpleasant sensation of blood rushing to my head. It seemed best to let Shamus do the talking for now, especially since I had to take care not to give Ms. Readman any clue as to my real identity. Fortunately, I didn't talk in class much.
Shamus waved her hands, and somehow contrived to look both irritated and wounded while being dangled by her heels from the ceiling, which was really no mean feat. "Like I said, we just want to talk!" she said. "Yes, I know we're the ones you took it from in the first place, but honestly, I'm not even that attached to the stupid thing. My partner and I just want to know the score, you know?"
I hoped Ms. Readman would go for it, but to be perfectly frank, we weren't working from the strongest negotiating position. I found myself slowly rotating to one side, and attempted to check the motion without the kind of violent thrashing which would probably not do wonders for Shamus's attempts to defuse the situation. The rush of blood to my head had now begun to leave me somewhat dizzy. Hopefully Shamus managed to keep a clear head so she could talk us out of this mess. I could've called my bugs, of course, but I didn't want to provoke a potentially more violent response until the situation absolutely demanded one.
Ms. Readman frowned. "Well, I should think you'd say that, now that I've got you tied up," she said. She nudged Shamus's fallen stun gun with one brown-shoed foot. "I did see you carrying this, you know."
I had to admit, it was a fair point. Or maybe that was the inherent authority of her thoroughly refined upper-crust British accent. It was like trying to argue with one of those documentary talking heads who sounded like they knew more about some ancient, obscure battle than you did about your own life.
With one hand still pressing her hat firmly against her head, Shamus essayed another attempt to prove our good intentions.
"Okay, cards on the table. I didn't like the look of the guy who brought that book to us in the first place, you know? Got kind of an odd vibe, but some kind of rare book antique caper was way too interesting to pass up, so we took it. Which, I don't mind telling you, I'm now very much regretting, since I don't in fact enjoy getting slapped around by overly aggressive tree pulp. It's pretty clear that you're the good guy here compared to that dick, so why not cut us loose?" Shamus waved her hat towards me. "My partner could have swarmed you with bugs from a block away if we'd wanted to hurt you, hon. You'd never even have known we were there. She was dying to do it after yesterday, too, but I put my foot down and said no, we're going to talk it out. And this is what I get as thanks?"
While being painted as a revenge-hungry maniac didn't exactly thrill me, the fact that my own costume made that tack a ready go-to for contrast with Shamus's good cop forestalled any real complaint on my part. That said, I wasn't a particularly effective bad cop. Was I?
Ms. Readman now appeared more puzzled than angry, which I took to be an encouraging sign.
"You mean you're not here to take the book?" she said. Her gaze softened somewhat.
"Yes, yes, that's what I've been saying," Shamus said. "Was that not clear? I mean, I thought it was. I can take it from the top, if you want. Evidently, I don't have much else to do right now." She gestured at her feet, then wiped at her mouth with the back of her free hand. "Ugh, this isn't doing wonders for my digestion."
On that point, I had to agree. I was feeling a bit light-headed already. Thankfully, the nausea afflicting Shamus appeared to have spared me. Throwing up inside my own mask did not sound very fun. Another thing they should really have put in the "So You've Got Superpowers" pamphlet.
Ms. Readman tapped her chin, her expression now entirely quizzical. At least, it seemed quizzical to me from my inverted vantage point. Gauging reactions while upside-down was harder than I might have guessed, if asked an hour ago.
"I'd love to trust you, but you could be lying to me, couldn't you?" she said. "That is a classic ploy, after all. The villain at the hero's mercy, then an insincere appeal to the conscience, and the tables turn." She brandished one paper-filled hand, and rested the other protectively on the cover of the book behind her. "I won't allow anything to harm this book!"
I was very glad Shamus, and not I, was the one tasked with verbally digging our way out of this situation.
"Villains?" Shamus said. "We're not villains, Ms. Paper. We're independent. I run a private detective agency." She waved a hand at me. "Flutter here is my partner. We take cases. We don't rob banks." She abruptly lost her grip on her hat, which promptly dropped the four feet from Shamus's head to the floor. "Oh, dammit. Don't step on that, would you?"
Ms. Readman appeared puzzled. "You're not villains?" She turned to look at me. "But you broke in on me here, and that costume-"
Shamus cleared her throat. "Okay, I can see why somebody might get that impression, but we're clean. Scout's honor. And, hey, you broke in on us yesterday! Totally unprovoked, too. You trashed my office!" She waggled her fingers, which were still lacerated with paper cuts. "I nearly bled myself dry trying to clean that place up, and it's still a horror show. But we're the bad guys? Frankly, I'm offended."
Ms. Readman's grin was somewhat sheepish. "Erm, well, I suppose you may have a point. I may owe you an apology. It's just that, you see, I was so sure you were villains, and so, I didn't want to take any chances. I'm sure you understand." Her last sentence sounded more hopeful than confident, perhaps not without reason. Normally, I liked to think of myself as pretty understanding, but my good graces had begun to wear down alongside my memory of what it felt like to stand normally.
"Yeah, sure, no hard feelings, and all that," Shamus said. "Now, how about letting us down, so we can keep this conversation going on more congenial terms? I think every red blood cell in my circulatory system is sloshing around inside my head right now."
Shamus's request fell on deaf ears, for Ms. Readman had already turned back to the book on the table and held it up for examination. Shamus favored me with an impressive upside-down shrug, then twirled one finger next to her head and mouthed This lady's nuts. I returned the shrug, slightly fumbled due to the circumstances.
With the book clasped to her chest, Ms. Readman turned back toward us. "Did the man who hired you tell you what makes this book so interesting?" she asked. "It's rather remarkable."
"You know, I've been wondering the same thing ever since I got myself buried in a paper avalanche over it," Shamus said. "I've got no idea, and I hate having no idea. If that's an offer to fill us in, I'm all ears, at least until I pass out doing my Incredible Upside-Down Woman here."
Ms. Readman beamed. "Oh, wonderful!" she said. This last subtle request for release had flown so far over her head that it was heading into orbit. She held the book out to us, and tapped the cover. "This is an ancient text authored in the third century A.D. by a Roman writer living in Britain, Claudius the Learned. He was raised in the province as a boy, and started writing at the age of twelve. Even his earlier works, such that we have, are actually quite good. He must have been a very talented young man to have produced such a remarkable body of work from such a young age-"
Shamus cleared her throat. "I hate to interrupt, but could you maybe fast-forward to the part which explains how we ended up hanging from the ceiling in this dump?"
Hear, hear.
"Ah, er, absolutely. Where was I…oh, that's right! Claudius was somewhat of an occultist, and traveled the length and breadth of Britain, and later Gaul, seeking out reports of individuals with abnormal abilities or impossible talents. If his writings are to be believed, there was a substantial outbreak of such incidents during his lifetime. This volume of Claudius's in particular contains some passages which may be verifiable once we check against other texts in the records."
Shamus nodded. "So, whichever set of stuffed-shirt archivists you work for thinks that this book might give us some insights into what's been going on with this messed-up world since the eighties, is that it? They think it's happened before, and we can learn something from that?"
Ms. Readman nodded. "Yes, that's precisely it." She set down her fistful of papers and folded a paper crane with a few flicks of her fingers. With a wave of her hand, the crane fluttered through the air, circling around first Shamus's head, then mine. "These powers are still a mystery to even the greatest scientists in the world. It's quite possible that we may have overlooked vital information bound up in splendid books just like this one. This text was found in a private collection last month. I was bringing it back when that horrid man took it from me. I followed him to this town, but when I found him, he hadn't it in his possession. It seems he must have delivered it to you two in the hopes that you would keep it safe from me until his associates could come to claim it."
I still didn't feel very invested in the ultimate fate of some dusty old book, but at least that took some of the sting out of how much we had botched this one.
"Clearly we've disappointed on that front," Shamus said, her tone dry enough to be used for kindling. "There goes my bonus. Anyways, we get it now, and since we don't like people yanking our chain any more than we like doing our best bat impression, as far as I'm concerned, you can keep the book. I'm looking forward to personally putting the thumbscrews to the chump who used us as a safe-deposit box." She gestured at my feet, then hers. "Now, if you'd be so kind as to let us stand up under our own power, we can be on our merry way."
Ms. Readman clapped a hand to her mouth. "Oh, dear! I'm terribly sorry to have left you like that all this time. Please forgive me!"
I eyed the ground beneath me, and braced for the possibility of being dropped directly on my head. I wouldn't even mind that much. Anything that reunited me with sweet, sweet terra firma was worth a couple bruises.
Opposite me, behind Ms. Readman, a mass of gleaming steel crashed through what might have been the last intact window in the entire building. Steel rasped on concrete as what could only be Hookwolf slid to a stop and leered at me with a murderous gaze.
At the exact same moment, another figure vaulted a windowsill in the far corner and landed on heavy feet with a thud.
Elaborately-inked dragon tattoos wound their way up the shirtless and impressively-muscled torso of the second newcomer. He thrust a tattooed index finger at Ms. Readman. "Paper woman!" he roared. "Now you learn a lesson in respect!"
"Oh, you've gotta be shitting me!" Shamus said.
