"Witch's Fever"
Delaware Valley – 1984
He sat on a ratty swivel chair, its pink floral fabric faded and tattered. Tired of the sight of the dilapidated room he kicked at the floor, making the decrepit chair squeal on rusty bearings, turning to face the wall behind him. It wasn't an improvement. The sickly green wallpaper that met his eyes was just as much an eyesore as the rest of the Trenton safehouse.
"Green wallpaper," Black Hat muttered into the empty room, his bleak eyes shining with the reflection of a vulgar yellow sodium lamp hanging over the dark street outside. He drew a ponderous breath, soaking up the scent of mold and rot in the room. "Now what did they use to make green wallpaper back in the day?"
The answer came to him quickly enough. Arsenic, of course. He remembered that fad amongst the Victorians, as well as the aftermath: men and women falling to mysterious illnesses with no clear cause, and once-healthy children slowly wasting away into nothingness, all the while tucked away safe and sound in their brightly-colored nurseries.
Rooms that could kill, in other words.
Did they not know that arsenic was poisonous? Of course the Victorians did. They just thought they were safe as long as they didn't eat it up. They just assumed— God knows why— that they could be around it as long as they wanted, manipulate it for their own purposes, and make whatever uses they had of it— just not put it in their stomachs— and it was perfectly safe. They didn't see the danger literally hemming them in from all sides.
They didn't know that a room could kill.
Black Hat smiled at the thought. No arsenic coated the walls of this room, but that didn't make it any less deadly.
His eyes were drawn to the floor, where a tiny spider struggled to climb the battered baseboard and reach the wallpaper. He whispered into the dark room.
"The itsy... bitsy..."
His teeth ground together and he closed his eyes.
He moved in a blur, lashing out confidently and accurately; the tip of his umbrella slammed down on the baseboard, laying the little creature flat and squishing its arachnid innards out like pieces of a crushed walnut.
Footsteps sounded on the squeaky stairs outside. When the door opened and the light flipped on Black Hat was disappointed to see not that rude and smarmy cultist— Measan— but the burly black cultist with the strangely high-pitched voice, instead.
"You're here," the cultist noted.
Black Hat swiveled the chair around to face him. He spread his hands.
"I'm as good as my word. You're surprised?"
The cultist shook his head, walking over to a dresser near the entrance to the kitchenette. A wood-paneled Quasar TV sat atop it, and the cultist flipped it on and began fiddling with the silver dial.
"No. The Banrigh predicted as much."
Black Hat smirked, folding his hands behind his head.
"Your gal 'predicts' an awful lot, doesn't she?"
The man looked over his shoulder, doing his best to hide the cold scowl on his face while nodding.
"No dog?"
Black Hat shook his head.
"Oh, I've got ol' Trigg holed up elsewhere at the moment. I don't need her, right now."
The cultist continued fiddling with the clunky TV dials, trying to hone-in on a channel.
"You should be pleased," the cultist said. "Your trick with the FBI seems to have worked; many federal agents have come to both the Lower Trenton Bridge and the toll bridge, along with local law enforcement."
"A Trenton 'fake' the cops can 'take'." Black Hat set the tip of his umbrella down on the dusty wood floor, using it as leverage to rise up out of the chair. He stretched his limbs. "Now we see if your grande dame's plan is a bomb, or not."
An involuntary scoff and chuckle came out of the cultist. He checked his wristwatch as he continued fiddling with the dial.
"Oh, it is, Do-bhàis, and in more ways than one..."
Then, like a symphony director preparing to cue his orchestra, the cultist raised one hand, finger high in the air, eyes still fixed on his wristwatch, and after an awkward twenty seconds— during which Black Hat stared at him as if he'd lost his mind— he quickly dropped his hand, as if launching the orchestra into its first movement. At first nothing happened.
Then, after a few seconds, the rattle came.
Plates lining the drying rack in the kitchenette shivered, clanging together. An empty picture frame on the mantle over the cobwebbed fireplace hopped up, danced down the rotted wood beam, then tipped to one side.
The little quake made its way up Black Hat's feet; by the time it reached his jaw it was nearly nothing, but the delayed, muffled boom he heard outside spoke to the distance of whatever it was that had created that rattle, and therefore its great power.
Black Hat squinted.
"What..."
The cultist only smiled, teeth beaming with satisfaction.
"What has she done?" Black Hat demanded.
"Made the trap more obvious," the cultist replied. "More clear..."
The cultist found a local news station. Heavy grain and static marred the picture and the audio was worse than a drive-through speaker, but the anchors were barely intelligible, prattling on about some local shopping center in development.
Black Hat joined the cultist at the television just as one of the news anchors was handed a piece of paper from off-camera.
"Well, uh, folks, we're getting a report of some kind of major disturbance— possibly an explosion of some sort— on the Lower Trenton Bridge. Details are unknown at this time, however law enforcement has just issued a warning restricting all traffic around the immediate area."
Black Hat glared at the TV.
"I told you all that—"
"We've told you, I believe, that the Banrigh prefers to make her prey think it's in control of things." The cultist walked away from the TV, moving to the center of the room. "She prefers them to slip their own necks in their own nooses, all of their own accord. The child Penance will deduce this trap almost certainly, but since it is you he believes is behind it he will also go out to trigger it. The Banrigh has foreseen as much."
Black Hat, eyes still fixed on the television, ground his teeth together.
"Your 'Banrigh' couldn't foresee shitting in her own silk dress—"
As he spoke he turned around to confront the cultist, only to find the man holding what looked like a large remote control, complete with a long retractable antenna. Gone was any hint of a smirk from his face, replaced by a serene, almost zombie-like calmness.
"And now, Do-bhàis, your usefulness to our lady has reached its end."
Black Hat eyed the device in the man's hand, then looked at him with a dark scowl.
"I'm a little tougher to turn off than a television," he grumbled.
"Don't think we underestimate your abilities." The cultist extended his hand in the air, holding the device up. "We've prepared a worthy end for you, courtesy of several loads of Composition-4 secreted about this building."
At first Black Hat chuckled, staring down at the handle of his umbrella and shaking his head.
"Oh, my! I'll just have to zap you with the laser on my secret satellite, first!"
When he looked back up at the cultist Black Hat's smirk fell; the cultist still bore that serene, empty expression, and his eyes were as serious as a heart attack.
"Don't tell me you're actually serious?" Black Hat said.
The cultist drew a slow breath.
"Are those the final words that you would choose for yourself?" He whispered.
At this Black Hat swallowed a little lump in his throat. Again he stared down at the handle on his cane. He sighed.
"Oh, I've got a few choice words for you..."
X
X
X
While Penance's charms were obviously wasted on the restaurant's surly head chef he and Whip didn't go without a little charitable donation; the potato peeling assistant just 'happened' to leave some to-go boxes out on the back of the patio before his shift ended. No salmon or other delicacies to be found, unfortunately, but a smattering of steamed vegetables and rice made a decent meal for the pair.
They moved their operation a little closer to the front of the restaurant as the night wore on, still secure in their dense holly den, but within sight of the cheery restaurant entrance. They covertly watched patrons come and go as they ate. Whip massaged some of the soreness out of her overworked body, with the help of a few nips of whiskey to further dull the aches. She figured she'd had enough dancing for one lifetime, at least.
Penance stole a few glances at the girl as she delicately kneaded her own milk chocolate body, traces of cold sweat still lingering on her soft, smooth skin, every once in a while letting out a small mewl of relief as she 'loosened' a knotted muscle.
"You know, you're kind of 'tempting' me, right now," he whispered.
Whip blinked, looking over at the boy with very wide eyes.
"Uh, what?"
Penance motioned to the whiskey bottle.
"All that drinking..."
"Oh!" The girl chuckled, lifting up the bottle again. "I thought you— never mind. Anyway, I got aches in muscles I didn't even know I had, so consider it medicinal, white bread."
"That's fine..." Penance shrugged, a smile growing on his face.
When Whip took another dainty swig the boy rested back on his elbows, his grin as wide as a Cheshire cat's.
"...but it's just that you also look kinda hot, too."
She could've gone all her life without experiencing the sensation of rotgut whiskey shuttling through her nose, then blasting out her nostrils like foam around a dolphin's blowhole, but then you don't always get what you want, do you?
When she was done coughing her guts out, wiping the train of whiskey and snot from her face, she glared over at the boy. Penance's grin had not diminished in the slightest. The boy spoke with horribly-feigned innocence.
"What?" He asked. "You're the one that kissed me, you know."
"I sure as hell got something for your kisser, you li'l asshole!" Whip raised a balled fist at him.
The boy's subsequent laughter made it an even-money bet as to whether Whip would make good on her promise to relocate Penance's jaw. The sudden yelp of a police car's siren, however, brought both of them to a tense hunch, like a pair of startled deer. The police car outside their holly den, however, was just warning people crossing the street to make way for it. An ambulance followed in the cop car's wake.
Whip forgot about her indignation, at least for the moment.
"How many has that been in the past hour?" She wondered. "Cops, I mean?"
"Too many," Penance grumbled, nodding his head sullenly. "Add in the ones that we've heard across the water, and..."
"Yeah," Whip nodded. "Way too many."
The pair sat in silence, the gears in each of their heads turning on this fact. Eventually Whip looked back over at the boy.
"D'ya think that—"
The boom was almost something like a misaimed firework, but Penance knew in an instant it was much more than that. The shock rattled their holly den, sending leaves quivering off the trees and onto their heads. Whip gripped her ears, grimacing in pain, while Penance instinctively dove atop her, doing his best to shield her larger body with his. Another second of rumination, however, led him to the conclusion that whatever just happened had occurred a good distance from them. Of course he only came to that conclusion after he landed on top of the girl, pinning her down by her collarbones, his face an inch from hers.
They were both too rattled to make another sexually-charged joke, so Penance merely rolled off her. The boy's eyes were drawn to the road in front of the restaurant and the waterline beyond that. He darted out of the den, Whip calling out for him before he disappeared into a stream of restaurant patrons also flocking outside to see what the commotion was about.
He reached the shoreline, Whip at his heels. The Lower Trenton Bridge stretched out before them upstream, the bright lettering on its side obscured by a wide cloud of smoke at the bridge's center. The boy frowned as he watched that smoke rise up into the night sky.
"That tears it," he mumbled.
"Almost in half, at that," Whip whispered.
Penance balled his fists, looking back at the girl.
"He's doing everything he can to make me want to hole up and hide," the boy said. "Everything."
"So what do we do?" Whip asked.
"We move." Penance motioned north, up the shoreline. "We make for a more northern bridge—"
"Won't he expect that, too?"
"Sure he will," an unhealthy smile formed on the boy's face. "That's part of his bait, too."
"Then—"
The boy held up a finger.
"But bait's only dangerous if you actually try eating it. We're going for the hand holding the snare!"
"He'll be up north, you mean?"
Penance nodded.
"Count on it. And odds are he doesn't expect me to expect him. I'm supposed to be spooked by all the goons we've seen around here, and I'm supposed to think he's going to be patrolling around here, too..."
"So if we go north, and if you keep your 'radar' on—"
"The hunter becomes the hunted," Penance finished.
Whip's face grew cold to match the boy's.
"In that case let's go take that hand off, and then some!"
The pair moved off up the riverside path, tromping like soldiers on the march. The memory of their dancing— and the resulting achy limbs— became just that: memories.
That was only the warm-up before the real performance.
As they walked off smoke still curled from the Lower Trenton Bridge, obscuring all the words in that bright city motto but the first and the last. They dumbly beamed their message into the darkness:
'Trenton Takes'.
X
X
X
Black Hat looked back up at the cultist, a sour twist to his lips.
"It is not personal, Do-bhàis," the man explained. "It is only her plan."
Black Hat smiled.
"Plans, huh? We've all been making enough of those, haven't we? And here I figured I'd covered every contingency, too."
The cultist nodded.
"You are resourceful, to a point, but then even with all your wits you were never her equal. You'll admit, for example, that even if you had that wonderful attack dog with you, now, your fate would be unchanged."
"Oh, Trigg, you mean?"
The cultist nodded.
Black Hat scratched at his chin, a sudden mysterious smile on his face as he looked away.
"Well, that's the thing. Trigg is actually not an attack dog."
Black Hat took three quick steps towards the cultist, coming within a few feet of the man. On the first step the cultist pushed the button to the detonator.
On the third step, when the C-4 had failed to blow, the cultist's serene face suddenly changed, and not for the better.
Black Hat leaned forward, whispering to the man.
"Trigg, you see, is an explosives detection dog."
The cultist quickly reached into his pocket, fumbling for a small pistol hidden there. He got the brunt of Black Hat's umbrella sheath instead, and the superhuman force of the blow sent him crashing into the wall, sputtering blood and coughing up broken teeth, mewling through a shattered jaw.
Black Hat, meanwhile, ran his finger along the holey black couch beside him, chuckling as the man gasped for air through his disfigured mouth.
"That's the thing about sniffer dogs that they never show in the movies and on TV shows, you know. On TV whenever they find something— drugs, explosives, whatever else have you— the dogs bark and bray and dance around and make ungodly spectacles of themselves. Perfect to let the TV viewer know that they've found something. But in real life that would also be perfect for letting the perps know that they're toast and giving them time to possibly do something extremely... unwise."
Black Hat circled the couch, again coming up to the cultist. He knelt down near the man's head.
"So you know what a sniffer dog does in real life when they find what they're looking for? They sit, nice and quiet, totally inconspicuous, as if they're uninterested in what they're doing. Now Trigg is a good girl, indeed, and I found a motherlode of explosives everywhere she chose to sit while she was up here this morning. And you know what: I do feel 'respected', in a way, because you had enough boom-boom here to level the entire block. But then that just makes it all extra stinky to the right kind of nose."
The cultist managed to draw breath through all the blood in what was left of his mouth. He looked up at Black Hat, lips trembling.
"It is not personal," Black Hat mocked the man's serene cadence. "But your lady seems awfully keen on using explosives to keep other immortals around her in line. I learned that lesson during breakfast in the Aurelia Arms. And then I figured she's the kind of old dog that would repeat a trick twice..."
To his credit the cultist was able to get a few gurgling words out.
"Please, Do-bhàis," the man bowed his head. "I would ask for the honor of death by an immortal blade."
Black Hat smiled at the man, and his smile was indeed calm and serene. He could see why Nicnevin's cultists would consider that kind of death an 'honorable' thing.
So he shot the man twice in the head, instead.
He figured that there would be back-up, no matter the amount of explosives involved, to help ensure that the blast had done the job. Never mind the fact that this much C-4 would not only be enough to separate Black Hat's head from his body, but scatter his bones across half the city. The old bag was cautious, if nothing else.
And frankly it was starting to look like there really wasn't much else to her at all.
He guessed right on the matter of back-up; one of her cultists was waiting in a van down the street. He never saw Black Hat approach, and he likely never even felt the tip of his blade slam into his ear and tear out the other side of his head. Black Hat tutted at the man, wagging a finger as he pulled his sword from the skull.
"It's a nice night," he admitted, "but you should've had your windows up. That explosion would've deafened you, my friend." He chuckled. "So don't blame me for the 'ruptured' eardrum!"
He laughed at this.
He laughed longer than he should have.
But who could blame him?
It was a nice night. Nice enough for a drive, at least. Perhaps a spin around the perimeter of the 'buzz zone' of the Aurelia, then across the Delaware, and then southward. He opened the driver's side door of the van and pushed the unfortunate cultist down against the passenger seat floorboards.
"Don't you worry," he giggled. "I'll drive. And we'll let that old biddy stay safe and sound in her gilded tower."
For now, at least. Once he was finished dealing with his prey, then who knew? He was certainly riding high, and so why not tear down that wrinkly old paper tiger once his 'business' with Penance was completed?
Perhaps he would. But for now he couldn't see past Penance, and as he started the van and gripped the steering wheel he salivated with savage pleasure. These two unfortunate cultists were mere appetizers for the evening ahead.
And he was ready for the main course.
