Scrooge winced at the taste of his beverage.
"Told you, you wouldn't like the tea." Goldie remarked coyly, a small coffee cup in hand.
Scrooge put his cup down on the wooden table they had sat down at. The café Goldie had chosen wasn't too far from the inn, though it was more of a coffee shop than anything else. They had chosen a table in the shop's outside area, which was an upraised stone platform overlooking the rest of the town. A shade umbrella shielded them from the sun's glare, allowing them to relax somewhat in their seats.
"'Fraid the only place you can find your precious five o'clock tea is further in the city." Goldie said, taking a sip of her expresso. "Out here, it's just coffee and medicinal tea."
"Feh. Never did like coffee." Scrooge muttered disappointingly. "Makes me heart feel like it's skippin' every fifth beat."
"Hah!" Goldie laughed. "Old Moneybags can't handle his caffeine. Makes sense, what with all the adrenaline you're constantly running on."
Scrooge pushed down the surge of annoyance he felt at that comment. Instead, he adopted a smirk of his own and replied tauntingly, "At least I can still handle my dairy. I know you're not takin' that coffee black out of choice."
"Urgh. Don't talk to me about dairy." Goldie said sourly. "One of the most important food groups in a modern diet, and I only learned that after realising I couldn't have it anymore."
"Hm. Shame." Scrooge replied casually, leaning back in his chair. "You're missin' out."
"Am I? Last I checked, you can't have salt without causing your blood pressure to skyrocket. How's all that unseasoned meat treating you?"
"Terribly. That's why I stopped eating it." Scrooge shrugged. "No loss. Half the kids went vegetarian anyway."
"Really? Which ones?" Goldie asked curiously. "Certainly not Sharpie. Can't see him advocating for animal rights."
"Nah, Louie's not fussy like that." Scrooge replied, frowning as he remembered, "I think it was June who started with it… and then May and Huey jumped on board a couple of weeks later. Everyone else is still carnivorous, though Webby's lookin' like she might convert. But now we really are dancin' around the elephant in the room."
Scrooge leant forward over the table, his eyes narrowed as he asked, "What are you doin' here, Goldie?"
"What do you mean?" Goldie replied innocently, sipping her coffee again. "I'm here to swipe something that you want out from under your spats."
"That much I gathered. What I'm having trouble coming up with are reasons why you would want the idol of Baphomet."
"I have a couple." Goldie replied, putting her coffee down. "Have you been keeping up with the politics in Demogorgana?"
"The demon dimension? Of course not." Scrooge scoffed. "I barely have patience for the politics up here."
"Well, it turns out that the leadership there has changed hands to the demon prince I helped back in '32… and subsequently abandoned to steal this."
She reached around her neck and pulled out a diamond-shaped amulet from her shirt, a blue and yellow eye imprinted in the centre.
"The Eye of the Demogorgon." Scrooge said in recognition. "Almost forgot you had that."
"Its owner certainly hasn't." Goldie remarked, putting the amulet back down her shirt. "And now he's in control."
"Ah." Scrooge frowned. "I suppose he's put a bounty on yer head, then?"
"Not yet. He's just sent a bunch of cultists after me. It's more than an annoyance than anything else." Goldie grimaced. "But it's only a matter of time before he starts sending more dangerous things. So, I figured the best way to placate him before it gets to that was to cripple one of his rivals."
"Should I assume that this rival's name is the Baphomet?"
"Bingo!" Goldie replied with a grin. "I figured I'd steal something important to the Baphomet and present it to the Demogorgon in exchange for him letting me off the hook. 'Course, the first step was to find out what I could nab, so I broke into your house to steal a couple of books on the subject. Luckily for me, you'd done all the research already! So, I just took that, and the rest, as they say…" Goldie leant back in her chair, propping her boots up onto the table. "…Is history."
Scrooge raised an eyebrow at her, unimpressed. "…You could always just give the amulet back."
"Ha!" Goldie laughed. "Good one, Moneybags!"
"It might be your only option, because I don't think the idol means anything to the Baphomet anymore." Scrooge explained. "Even if the Templars actually had been worshipping the creature, that castle's been abandoned for centuries. His cult innae workin' from there."
"Yeah, I thought that too, until I got here." Goldie replied, her smile slipping somewhat. "But local news says otherwise."
"…What do you mean?"
"Heard from some of the people here that a girl went missing 'bout a week ago." Goldie replied with a grimace. "A fifteen-year-old kid called Filomena, fancied herself a rock climber. Apparently, she disappeared scaling the cliffs near the castle. Family's fearing the worst."
She took another sip of her coffee as Scrooge took a moment to recompose himself. "That's… well, that's terrible, but how does that prove there's a cult hidin' up there? I feel awful for suggestin' it, but it's much more likely that she just… had an accident."
Goldie shook her head, putting down her now-empty cup. "They would've found a body by now." She countered. "No, I reckon that she stumbled upon an entrance into that castle and met someone – or something – that would rather that she hadn't." She shrugged, adding, "Besides, centuries mean nothing in Demogorgana. That idol would be just as important to the Baphomet now as it was when it was made."
"…Alright." Scrooge said uneasily, filing that information away for later. "That's one reason. What's the other?"
Goldie took a moment to respond, staring into the middle distance for a few seconds before she reluctantly answered, "I… wanted to see you."
Scrooge didn't say anything.
Goldie sighed. "Look, Scroogie, you know how it is. We're both constantly travelling, and neither of us are in the habit of writing to each other."
"I wouldn't know where to send a letter. You've never told me where you live." Scrooge pointed out.
Ignoring him, Goldie continued, "We usually don't know how the other is goin' along until we stumble across each other. And the last time we saw each other… well, you weren't exactly in the greatest condition."
"…Ah." Scrooge muttered, taking his cane and gripping the handle of it. "Right."
Goldie looked at him from the side of her eye. "How… have you been doing?" She asked slowly, as if the sentence was unfamiliar to her. "That, uh, crystal-"
Get him out of here! Before the-
-Lodged in his head. Even if I had the tools to-
-Don't you dare die on me, McDuck!
"-hasn't been giving you any trouble?"
"…No, not really." Scrooge replied, trying not to sound evasive. "Barely thought about it, really." Noticing the uncharacteristic concern in Goldie's eyes, he added, "I've been havin' regular check-ups with me doctor, though, just to keep half an eye on it, but it's been benign so far."
"It hasn't grown or done weird things to your head, or anything?"
"No, it's just been… quiet." Scrooge lied.
Goldie sighed. "That's a relief. I don't mind telling you, that question's been keeping me awake for the past two years." She cocked her head to the side, asking, "What about lil' Sharpie? How's he recoverin' after Mexico?"
He'd forgotten that he told her about that.
"…The boy's still got a ways to go." Scrooge admitted honestly after he recovered. "But he's gettin' better. He's smilin' more often, talkin' to us again… I think the adventurin's helpin', really. It's gotten him back in the swing of thin's."
"You sure he's up for it?" Goldie asked.
Scrooge bristled. "What are you sayin'? Those boys are McDucks, through and through! Of course, he's up for it!"
"I'm not saying he doesn't have the courage for it, Moneybags. Just…"
"Just what?"
Goldie sighed again, although this time it was in frustration. "Scrooge, the kid was thirteen when it happened. Thirteen! You and I, the first times we killed, we were at least old enough to cope with what we did!" She shook her head, saying, "Scars like that don't just heal, Scroogie. You know that. If he's pushed too hard before he's actually ready-"
"I'm keenly aware of what could happen, Goldie." Scrooge said tersely. "And I wouldn't be doin' any of this if I thought Louie wasn't ready. Nothin's more important to me than family, you know that!"
"I do. I also know that you have a tendency not to think things through when you're restless."
Annoyingly, Scrooge didn't have an answer to that. He glared at her silently and sullenly, tightening his grip on his cane. After a moment, Goldie relented, saying, "Alright, alright. If you say the kid's ready, then he's ready. Just makin' sure you're not repeating old mistakes."
"The concern's appreciated, Goldie. But I know what I'm doin'."
"Well, if that's the case," Goldie said, standing up from her seat and stretching. "I'm gonna go get ready to swipe that idol, if it's all the same to you."
"Oh, no it ain't!" Scrooge cried, leaping up angrily. "If you think you can just sabotage me family's adventure just to claw out of a hole you dug yourself into-!"
"Uh-uh." Goldie pressed a finger to Scrooge's beak, her trademark infuriating smile back on her beak. "Save that indignation, Scroogie. Or you'll have none left when I leave you empty-handed."
With that, she spun around and sauntered away, leaving Scrooge seething behind her. "See you tonight!"
After a moment, Scrooge sighed, his anger leaving him somewhat. "…See you then, Goldie."
"Bosman?"
"Yeah, Trent Bosman." Louie confirmed, talking quietly into his phone so that no-one overheard him. He was alone, sitting on his hotel bed while Dewey had gone to the toilet, but he wasn't taking any chances with the girls in the room immediately next to theirs.
"He was a jock who used to go to my school." Louie explained, keeping one eye on the door in case Dewey came back early. "Played baseball. One day, teachers found a bunch of weed stuffed in his locker and he got expelled, but he kept saying that someone had framed him. Shoved it in there while he wasn't looking or something."
"…So?" Chanda asked from the other end of the phone.
"So, it's eerily similar to what Drake threatened to do to me. Which means that there's a chance that someone at my school works for him!"
A moment's pause before Chanda replied, "I've only ever seen private school boys working for him. But it's possible that he might have sold to some guys at Feathered Hill…"
"Either way, it's a possible info source. There're too many parallels for it to be coincidence."
"Assuming this Bosman guy isn't full of shit."
"Yeah, well, I've got a more reliable thread we can follow in case he is." Louie muttered. "What about you? Anything promising on your end?"
"Sort of." Chanda replied. "I've heard that one of the guys who dealt with me was dealing again at Quackmore Public. It's just a rumour, but it's the best I've got."
"And you reckon he'll talk to you?"
"I can make him talk, sure. But talk about what?"
"Anything. Who Doofus works with, where he sells, everything."
"And use that to blackmail him into letting us go?" Chanda asked doubtfully. "Is that where we're going with this?"
Louie sighed, scratching his head. "Yeah… yeah, that might be the way we do it. I don't see a negotiation on the table with him."
"Would that even work? He doesn't care what other people think about him. And the way I've heard him talk about his parents, I don't think he'd care if they knew."
"We threaten to go to the cops, then."
"…Oh, no. A rich white boy caught for dealing weed?" Chanda replied sarcastically. "What's the penalty for that these days? A slap on the wrist?"
"Do you have a better idea?" Louie demanded, annoyed at her lack of helpfulness.
He heard her groan in reply. "No, I don't. That's why I'm frustrated."
"Yeah, well, you and me both." Louie grumbled, leaning back on his bed. "Just learn as much as you can, and when I get back on Monday, we'll compare notes and see what we can do."
"Alright. If that's the best we can do…" Chanda sighed. "I'll see you then."
"Yeah. See you."
Louie heard the click of the phone call ending. He put his phone back in his pocket, then leant back to look up at the ceiling, sighing despondantly.
"Who was that?"
Louie yelled in alarm, sitting bolt upright to stare at the person who'd said that.
He saw Webby, leaning innocently against the doorframe into the motel room.
"Jesus, Webby." Louie gasped. "How'd you even- I didn't even hear you come in."
"Sorry." Webby said sheepishly. "I walk really quietly."
"No kidding." Louie muttered, sitting up on his bed. "Um… what's up?"
"Oh, nothing." Webby replied, strolling into the room. "Just, uh… wanted to talk about earlier, when you asked Dewey about that Bosman guy."
Louie frowned, immediately on the defensive. "Yeah? What about it?"
Webby sat down on the bed opposite his, looking at him with a playful expression. "Why were you asking?"
"I… was curious, that's all." Louie replied evasively. "Why do you ask?"
"Well, it's just that you never really do anything without a reason. And usually that reason is because you've planning something."
Louie scratched the back of his head. "Uh…"
Webby leant forward, a glimmer of excitement in her eyes. "You're working on another scheme, aren't you? And it involves Dewey's baseball hero, right?"
Louie paused for a moment, thinking quickly to himself. Deciding to lean into it, he lied, "…Maybe I am. What's it to you?"
"Well… maybe I can help!" Webby offered. "I mean, you sounded pretty frustrated with whoever you were talking to. Me and the others could give you a hand. What do you say?"
Louie raised an eyebrow at her. "…You were eavesdropping on me?" He asked, deadpan.
"…I… might have overheard the last few bits." Webby admitted. "Not on purpose, though!" She added quickly. "I was gonna ask you about this anyway, and I didn't really hear anything specific… anyway…"
"Okay, well, that was kinda a private conversation, Webby." Louie told her. "Not gonna lie."
Webby giggled nervously. "Sorry."
"S'alright." Louie sighed. "Um… why do you want to help me?"
Webby shrugged. "I dunno, just… we don't usually help out with your schemes these days, and… I was thinking about the whole 'Louie's Eleven' thing we did…"
"My multi-part scheme that was doomed from the beginning, yeah."
"Right!" Webby said enthusiastically. "And we had so much fun with that, but we haven't really done anything like that for… well, a long time. So… I wanna help out! Maybe we can even get May and June involved, you know?"
As useful as Webby could be, Louie absolutely did not want to explain his current situation to Webby, or to anyone else in the family. Doing that would require him admitting that he got himself played like a sucker. Scratching the back of his head, he told Webby awkwardly, "I dunno, Webby. I've kinda already got someone helping me out with it…"
"The person you were on the phone with, right?" Webby guessed. "Is it anyone I know?"
"It is none of your business, is what it is."
Webby's smile slipped. "…Come on, Louie. I just want to help."
"I get that, but I'm fine. Really. It's kind of a… delicate operation." Louie tried to explain. "The more people I involve, the riskier it gets, you know?"
"I-"
"Besides," Louie added, standing up to try and get away from the conversation. "It's not really a job with your skills in mind. You're good with your fists and being stealthy and everything, but…"
"Okay, well, maybe I can help you with something else!" Webby offered quickly, leaping off the bed to stop him from leaving. "Maybe while we're in the castle-?"
"Webby!" Louie snapped, genuinely annoyed now. Webby immediately shut up, looking hurt, and Louie winced. Trying to sound calm, he told her, "Look, I don't know what brought this up, but I'm fine. I know that you just wanna distract yourself from what happened between you and Lena, but I-"
"Wh- That's not why-" Webby spluttered defensively. "I'm just trying to help!"
"You're always just being helpful, Webby." Louie replied dismissively. "But I don't need it. Okay? I can handle myself."
"…Yeah? Didn't sound like it, talking to whoever you were talking to." Webby challenged, looking offended. "I mean, you used to do everything with us, you know? And now you barely talk to us outside of school! Like… what happened?"
Louie shrugged as he left the room. "We grew up."
Webby watched him leave, standing unhappily and silently in the hotel bedroom.
After a moment, she left as well.
Jack sat in his office chair, staring up at the corkboard. He'd decided his system for this thing a while ago, tying each item name to McDuck's picture one by one. He used red string if he had proof that McDuck had it, and blue string if he had proof that the item was magic.
Only one item had a red string attached to it.
He kept staring up at it, the office light dimly illuminating the cramped room. The AC unit blew foul-smelling, but warm air into the room, counteracting the cold evening breeze. He glanced over at a nearby calendar, noting that date as the 19th of April.
If I still have nothing by May, then you can tell me that I've been wastin' resources.
Jack took a deep breath, then stood up, picking his jacket off the back of his chair as he did.
He made his way through the building, bidding goodnight to fellow agents and staff he passed by as he did. Usually he made an effort to be friendly to people as he was leaving, but tonight he just made a beeline for the carpark and from there to his car, with the intent of driving back to his apartment and sleeping this whole day away like a bad dream.
As he started to drive out of the parking lot, he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket. A moment later, his car dashboard lit up with the words 'INCOMING CALL' emblazoned on the screen. Jack sighed with dread, knowing exactly who it would be. Resigning himself, Jack pressed a button on his steering wheel.
"Nickel." A gravelly old voice growled through his car speakers.
"Assistant Director Charleston." Jack muttered in greeting.
"What's this I've heard about you conducting an interrogation in a high school principal's office?"
"Ah. Well…" Jack took a moment to respond as he navigated the car out of the gates. "It wasn't really an interrogation, it was…"
"Oh, really? What would you call it, then?"
"I was… just askin' a few questions. Just tryin' to-"
"Trying to what? Make the FBI look like a house of clowns?" Charleston demanded furiously. "Do you have any idea how many regulations you broke with your little stunt? Hell, how many laws you broke?"
"I know that I've-"
"I have half a mind to cancel your investigation right now! If you were anyone else, you would be-!"
"I made a mistake, sir!" Jack blurted out, cutting his boss off. Before Charleston had a chance to keep yelling, he admitted reluctantly, "I… I thought I had a lead in the kid. But I was wrong. I acted rashly and impatiently, and I was out of line."
He slowed the car down as he reached the intersection, the bright red traffic light glaring into his face. There weren't any other cars around at this hour. It was just him and the dark night streets, illuminated only by flickering streetlights.
"…It won't happen again." Jack muttered.
There was a pause. Then, Charleston replied icily, "See that it doesn't."
Click.
Jack let out the breath he'd been holding, his shoulders sagging somewhat in relief. The investigation was still on. But he'd lose more than just that if he made another mistake like this. And he still had next to nothing.
The light turned green.
"…Okay, Nickel." He murmured to himself as he started to drive off. "What's the plan now?"
He heard the sudden screeching of tires. He spun around to his right.
Something large, powerful and dark collided with his car with a terrible crash. His tires screeched against the road as the car was driven off the road and into the pole holding up the traffic lights. The side window shattered into pieces, showering Jack with shards just as the airbags went off, rapidly inflating to smother him.
He coughed and spluttered, trying to push away the air bag from his face. He looked around wildly, trying to get a handle on the situation. He quickly noted that the thing that had hit him was a truck, its headlights dimmed, and that it seemed to have somehow lifted his car up on an angle. It was a large vehicle, large enough to steamroll him and his car, and as he watched, he saw the doors open up and two figures step out.
Hissing in panic, Jack floored the accelerator, but with half his car raised in the air, all the wheels did was spin pointlessly. Quickly realising this, Jack shoved the car door open, tumbling gracelessly onto the sidewalk beneath him. He heard his attackers approaching and he fumbled for his gun, a gun he'd never once fired or wielded in action because he'd never had to. Once it was in his hands, he stood up and spun around to face the closest attacker, barely a foot away from him.
The Beagle Boy grabbed Jack's gun with one meaty fist, pointing it away from him effortlessly. Jack couldn't help but gulp as he stared up at the imposing criminal before him, built like a brick shithouse with the smell to match.
Then someone behind him threw a bag over his head, throwing him to the ground as they did.
Then they beat him for about a minute for good measure.
The next thing Jack remembered was blearily and painfully waking up on some kind of metal floor, his vision still obscured by the bag. It quickly became apparent that he had been tied up, his wrists and ankles bound and restrained, like he was a trussed-up hog. The deep rumble of a powerful engine told him that he'd been thrown into a truck, and the stench of fresh cigarette smoke told him that he wasn't alone.
He didn't say anything. He didn't try to move. Those thugs could have easily killed him back there. He was alive for a reason, and any attempt to free himself or talk his way out of this situation wasn't going to help. He just had to play this out, wait until he was in a better position, then act.
After about ten minutes, the truck came to a halt and Jack heard the engine cut out. A few moments later, he heard a pair of doors swing open, and the truck lurched as someone stepped in.
"He awake?" Jack heard a deep, gruff voice ask.
"If he is, he ain't showin' it." Another, closer voice replied. "You sure you and Burger didn't beat him too bad?"
"Nah, that was a love tap. He's fine."
He felt someone lift him up by the scruff of his jacket, dragging him out of the truck and into the dirt outside. Jack could hear the sounds of fires crackling as he was dragged through wherever he was, and it wasn't long before he could hear a symphony of jeering and shouting, formed from the voices of what seemed like a hundred young men. The smell of burning steel and plastic permeated his surroundings, giving him a pretty good idea of where he was, though he still couldn't see.
Sure enough, as he was dropped unceremoniously to the ground and propped up on his knees, he heard a loud female voice shout over the cheering and the mockery, "Pipe down!"
The chatter died immediately. The bag was ripped off Jack's head and he winced as his surroundings were abruptly made clear to him.
He was in the Duckburg Junkyard, kneeling in the dirt and trash before a crowd of Beagle Boys, all of whom were glaring at him with disdain, hate, and not an insubstantial amount of sadistic anticipation. Immediately in front of him was a mountain of wrecked and crushed cars, leading up to a single caravan at the very top. The lights in the caravan were still on, despite the fact that its occupant was currently standing at the edge of this handmade mountain, glowering down at Jack from atop her ramshackle throne.
"Howdy, Fed." Ma Beagle uttered disdainfully.
"…'Howdy.'" Jack replied, wincing through his bruises. "Look, I dunno what this is about, but I feel I should inform you of what happens to people who try to kill a US federal-"
"You're not the first fed to go missin' in my junkyard." The elderly crime boss interrupted him. "Doubt you'll be the last, either."
Jack looked around, trying in vain to find at least one friendly face. "Ok… what the hell changed? The other day, we seemed to be-"
"'I'm not a villain like you, I'm just tryin' to reign in McDuck's chaos.'" Ma Beagle uttered, speaking in a mockery of his accent. She looked down at him derisively, saying, "That's what you said t' me, back at your office."
Jack stared at her warily. "…Yeah?"
"Yeah, that phrase stuck out to me, Fed. Felt like I'd heard it before." Ma Beagle told him as she started to step down her mountain of cars, making her way to him. "So, I racked my brains, and I realised that I had – from the other side of a glass box, bein' spoken down to by a self-righteous, coin-counting, vulturous suit."
Jack stiffened in fear. Ma Beagle was no more than ten feet away from him, at the base of her mountain of cars. Suspicion and evil intent dominated her eyes as she narrowed them at him. "You're not a fed at all, are ya, Nickel?" She accused him. "You're F.O.W.L."
"…I, uh…" Jack stammered, at a loss for words. "I dunno what you're talkin' about. Never even-"
"No?" Ma Beagle pulled out a plastic envelope from her purse as she marched over to him. "Then how do you explain your name bein' in these? Couple of years ago, your own FBI released the F.O.W.L. database to the public. Agent files, secret projects and the like. So, I got a guy to spend a few days trawling through the stuff in there, and sure, he never found a specific file on you, but you were mentioned in this thing. By name."
She threw the folder at his feet. Sure enough, Jack could see two documents within, with the one at the front baring its contents to him. 'DISCIPLINARY REPORT #0738' was the document's title. And, to Jack's alarm, he could see halfway down the report, circled in red pen, were the words 'Agent Jack Nickel'.
He'd missed one.
He heard Ma Beagle start to chuckle, and he looked up at her. "You did a pretty good job of coverin' your tracks, Nickel." She told him, lighting up a cigarette. "My guy found plenty of references to an FBI mole, but this was the only thing that had your name on it. I'm not surprised you missed it. You seem like the type who'd get a lot of 'disciplinary reports'."
She reached into her bag again, this time pulling out an iron crowbar.
"Now… Lord knows I hate McDuck, but I'm not in a hurry to get shoved in a glass container and brainwashed again." Ma Beagle said in a low, dangerous voice. "So, you best tell me what you're doin' here and what you're plannin', or they'll be findin' you in a gutter with a cinderblock where your head used to be."
She placed the hook of the crowbar underneath Jack's chin, lifting him to look at eye level with him. He stared at her fearfully, the cruel laughter of her Beagle Boys filling his ears.
"Come on, city boy. Start runnin' your mouth." She taunted him with a grin. "It's what you're good at, after all."
