x
Three days had nearly passed since we saw the masked man, or even heard of anyone being murdered. Even with our strategic planning, we were still lacking a fair bit of information, so we were as prepared as we could be… which was... to put it in one word, poorly. Scott seemed to have a slight hangover, so he hobbled back to bed while I strangely had my best sleep in weeks. My personal belief is that this rest only came from the fact that Sela did not appear in my dream last night. However, I didn’t get any of my additional questions answered because of this. Iscariot had left late last night for his home in order to gather some tools for himself. I was a bit concerned since he had yet to return, but he could be taking longer because of the time displacement in his home so that alleviated some of my worries.
Waiting for my kidnapper to give us some kind of sign for where to meet was driving me crazy. We had no idea where we were supposed to meet the masked man and it would soon be time. The thought that my kidnapper might bail was on my mind, but it didn’t seem logical since he couldn’t trap me again and he needed my compliance.
As I was eating some breakfast, there was a knock at the door. Getting up in a rush, I accidentally spilled my food on the floor whilst trying to get to the door. To my surprise, when I opened it, I was met with a young paper boy dressed in soot-covered coveralls. However, the boy was equally as surprised to see me in nothing but my skivvies and unbuttoned coat.
“I have a letter for you,” the boy said awkwardly before handing it to me.
“Who gave it to you?” I asked as I took the letter. Looking it over, there was no sender or address, just a flat slab of wax sealing it.
The boy cocked his head to the side and bit his dirty lip as he tried to think. The expression on his face shifted a bit, as he couldn’t recall anything about the man for some reason. Though the boy recalled a few details, “Some old crone with a mask,” the boy replied in an attempt at sounding like he didn’t forget.
Tossing the kid a penny, I slammed the door and ripped open the letter, whilst ignoring the inappropriate remarks the boy made on the other side. Written in red ink… or perhaps blood, was the meeting place and a threat. I didn’t think this guy was one for aesthetics but to each their own. The letter read:
Meet at the bridge near Mitre square at 11:00 PM. If you fail or refuse to comply, then I will kill everyone related to the time traveler.
Charging over to Scott’s door, I banged on it a few times. After a good thirty seconds, he opened it, showing me his tired face of death. He looked like shit, however, he looked to be a bit more concerned with the reason for my knocking than usual. With a slow and tired gaze, he looked more confused than anything, as he asked, “What?”
I held the letter out to him so that he could read it. However, he just gave me a look of expectation without reading the note. “I just got a letter with the meeting place,” I said, ignoring the fact that he hadn’t read the note at all.
“What time?” he groaned, before letting out a yawn.
Without a look of consideration, Scott looked like he hadn’t a care in the world. “An hour before midnight,” I answered with a serious tone.
“Alright, then I’m going to finish sleeping off this hangover. You can go get Iscariot sometime around eight. Until then, do whatever ya feel like,” Scott said with a tired grumble.
“Are you worried at all?” I asked as I could tell that he didn't seem to care.
Giving me a questioning look as he swayed against the door frame, part of me felt as if he was about to vomit. However, he instead slurred his words slightly as he answered me in a fairly sarcastic voice, “The only thing I can worry about right now is this pounding headache, so no.”
“Sorry. Sucks to be you,” I replied with a monotone chuckle as he didn’t care about anything at the moment.
“Ain’t that the truth,” he said with a humoured snort before I shut the door. Part of me felt bad about my response, but another part of me felt that he knew it all too well.
Deciding that the others needed to know, I bolted downstairs to Elysif’s apartment and knocked on her door in the same fashion that I did to Scott’s. A few moments later, she opened the door wearing her nightgown and holding a lit candle as if it were the middle of the night. The light that enveloped her upon opening the door caused her to rub her eyes in the same fashion that anyone who had just woken up would… Only her expression gave off the desire to return to bed immediately.
“What is it? Do we need to go to our deaths now?” she asked with a serious look that was interrupted by a shallow yawn. Her hair, which she usually kept up, was down and in a mess, resting upon her shoulders. Several cowlicks, which she had yet to notice, stuck out at random, like Medusa’s hair.
“No, but I now know the date and times of our possible demise,” I answered with a joking look. However, it didn’t seem like she enjoyed my dark joke as she gave me a begrudging look of annoyance whilst listening to my answer.
However, she gave me a questionable look, before asking, “What time?” Her question hung in the air as if it were impossible to answer despite knowing it.
“An hour before midnight, tonight,” I eventually replied just as I had told Scott before.
She squinted her eyes at me as if judging me. “Why did you wake me up, then?” she asked indignantly. It was nearly nine, so I had assumed that she would have been up, but it seemed that Scott’s bad habits had rubbed off on her. To those viewing us, it may feel it was customary for people within this building to stay up late talking, before sleeping till midday. This is not the case. For myself, it had just become a common activity to pass time.
“I just thought you would want to know,” I replied with a quaint smile.
She shook her head out of disappointment before yawning once more. “I would have rather you not. Please, only wake me up an hour before we need to leave,” she requested as if it was common knowledge that she didn’t want to be woken up. Although, now that I think about it… it might have been, at least for today.
“I’ll wake you for lunch,” I replied as she shut the door. As soon as the door had shut there was silence before she replied with a tired “Thank you, please do,” from behind the door.
Turning around, I'd begun to return upstairs, when I saw Iscariot toddling through the door of the building with a large stack of boxes, or at least trying to. He was dropping stuff, and couldn’t seem to get through the door because the items he was carrying were large and awkward. The monstrous pile of various items that he held painfully on his person looked as though they were about to fall. How did he manage to carry all of it here by himself? It didn’t matter, because he was on the verge of dropping them all.
Turning towards him, I tried to figure out what the stuff was, but most of it was boxes of tools and old books. There were a few items that I didn’t recognize, like a kettle with a stem on either side and a weird bottle full of what looked like galaxy putty. “Would you like some help?”
“Oh, Mr. Barrett. That would be wonderful,” Iscariot replied in his usual squeaky voice as he dropped a box that made a sound like breaking glass. Under his breath, he cursed at the box before returning to his task of getting in the door. Taking several of the items from him so that he could then slip through the door, we slowly made our way upstairs. However, it took even longer because Iscariot kept having to stop and rest every few steps.
“What is all this stuff?” I asked as I set the last of the items that I had carried up here down on the floor of the apartment.
Upon setting down the stack of items that I was pretty sure he didn’t actually carry here, Iscariot plopped himself down on the couch with a satisfied breath. He looked worn out to a regular person, but I’ve slowly noticed that this was faked compared to when he is truly tired. “Tools to help me make the anti-magic gate. I would have done it at home, but time flies there, as you can guess,” he answered with a tired breath.
“What is this anti-magic gate, anyways?” I asked as I looked over the various tools he had brought. Many of them looked more like a drug dealer's stash than magic items, especially some of the glassware.
With his usual squeaky voice, he began to explain in simple terms. Though his voice made it difficult to listen to. “It allows me to temporarily stop the use of any magic so long as it has no sigils. Your knife would work just fine within it. However, if you were to attempt to manifest a magic flame then it would go out, or couldn’t even be conjured in the first place.”
“I see. Can anyone use this gate?” I asked as I plopped myself down beside him on the couch. Upon doing so, he gave me a look of aghast as if I had offended him by sitting next to him. However, he just clicked his tongue before answering my question as if nothing had happened. Nothing had happened, though, so I don’t know why he acted this way.
“Well, yes. However, I am one of a few people that know how to make one, and it’s a one-time use tool that breaks down faster the longer it is used for that once. The longest one can stay active is ten minutes,” Iscariot answered as he lifted one of Scott’s rum bottles from beside the couch, smelled the contents, made a disgusted look, and then put it back down before getting up to raid our pantry.
“Seems like that would be very helpful to the Table. Why don’t they make them mainstream?” I asked curiously, ignoring the fact that he was taking out our mildly expensive dried sausage. Cutting himself a few slices of the dried meat, he put the rest back and plopped himself next to me once again.
“They would. However, crafting one takes so long that they would have to create an entire faction of the Table just to make them en masse. That would require a massive amount of funds, which the Table lacks,” Iscariot said with an appealing smile, before passing me one of the slices of sausage. It was obviously a bribe since Scott would throw a fit if he knew that we were eating his fancy sausage. However, I couldn’t deny his offer, as I had spilled my breakfast on the floor earlier. In fact, I hadn’t cleaned it up, so I was pretty sure that my breakfast was currently underneath Iscariot’s tools.
“When we visited the Table, they seemed fairly well off,” I noted. He stopped chewing the sausage in his mouth and thought for a moment. With a loud gulp, he swallowed the piece of sausage he had chewed and turned to me.
“You would think that, as they have to keep up appearances. The Table has very few supporters during this age, and one of them is Mama Louise. Other than the fact that she is almost as terrifying as Mordred, she is also very wealthy and influential. Keeping her on good terms with the Table keeps a lot of us, including Scott, afloat,” Iscariot explained with a serious look, before putting another slice of sausage in his mouth… And no, he did not chew with his mouth closed.
“Then how are we even getting paid?” I asked curiously, trying to ignore the fact that he had just spit sausage all over my lap and the floor. We weren’t getting paid a lot, but we were getting enough to get by.
He thought for a few seconds, caressing his disturbingly shiny chin. Though, after realizing that some of the sausage grease had dripped onto his chin, I felt stupid for pointing it out. “I think there have been some budget cuts to some of the departments. One of which is the South American branch. I believe I heard from Scott that Compton became the director of that branch.”
“You heard correctly,” I stated before he handed me another slice of sausage as if it were a treat for answering.
“Well, he has his work cut out for him. The South American branch is currently the smallest of the branches, since it was just recently founded. On top of that, it only has seven agents currently working there. Since the South American people aren’t too thrilled with some Europeans coming to their home, they have started making deals with different creatures that we have never even seen before to force the Table's agents to leave,” Iscariot explained. His tone expressed that he was sorry for Compton. I expected that it may be a hard job, but Compton seemed excited about the job when it was announced. Did he not know what he was getting into?
“Sounds like it would be one of the most dangerous departments to be at right now.”
Iscariot let out a light chuckle from my apparent understatement, before answering, “Oh, it is; and it doesn’t help that their budget just got cut. Compton may be the Director of that branch now, but everything in the Agency is decided by a vote between the directors, with the Consuls having the final say. Director Langston and the Consuls have his back, but many of the other directors want him out due to his age. They have decided among themselves that he is unfit to be a director, because they think he is too young and lacks management skills. Compton got stuck with the hardest task of keeping South America in check. Sadly, many of the directors think this will be a prime way to make him look bad.”
“It does seem like everything is stacked against him,” I replied with a solemn look. I didn’t know that so many people had it out for him. As I finished speaking, a gust of wind blew through the street outside, causing the widow shutters to slap against the side of the brick building loudly. Following the slaps from outside, we could both hear a faint groaning coming either from Scott’s room or Elysif’s apartment. The walls here are like cardboard, after all.
Ignoring the groaning, and with a pitying look, Iscariot let out a deep sigh, similar to a parent lamenting sending their child to war. “He has very little chance of staying in that position for long if the directors have their way. He’s a smart lad with way too much experience for his age. He, and Scott. I know Mordred chose him for a specific reason, and I can assume it was a good one. Mordred has a good head on her shoulders. As for Merlin… he’s a genius. When it comes to understanding people, however, he is an absolute buffoon.”
“You think so?” I asked as both Merlin and Mordred were incredibly laid back each time I saw them.
He looked as if he didn’t like me questioning him, however, decided to answer anyway with a spiteful tone that was strangely normal-sounding compared to his usual voice. “I know so. Merlin has always left matters involving people to Mordred while he, on the other hand, has handled the tactical decisions. Any time he has handled things with people, he has tended to scare them off. Especially women. Though I sometimes believe it may be an act; and that he understands people more than he lets on.”
“I’m not surprised by him scaring them. How does Mordred deal with his behavior?” I asked as it seems like that would be a burden on negotiations and gaining allies.
“He was her father’s best friend, and she saw that throughout her time as a knight. She respects him endlessly for that, seeing him as someone who truly cares for her, and someone who can always be relied upon,” Iscariot explained as if he were reminiscing a part of his own past. On only a few occasions had I spoken to Iscariot alone, and this was the first time that he sounded sorrowful.
Not being able to piece together a single question to further this conversation, I simply agreed, “That does make sense.” There was a moment of silence that felt appropriate, as neither of us had anything to add. Out of seemingly nowhere, though, a smile began to creep up on Iscariot’s face.
“Now… there is the rumour that Merlin and Mordred once considered romantic relations at one point, since they were both immortal, but again, that is just a rumour. Don’t tell anyone that I told you. Mordred may request my head,” Iscariot said in a somewhat joking tone. Despite sounding like a joke, he seemed to be serious at the same time, which made me question it even more.
“I won’t tell a soul,” I answered with a chuckle.
ns 15.158.61.20da2
