Jump to content

Shell Game


admiralvorkraft

Recommended Posts

*Disclaimer; I'm a recent convert to Malifaux, I've only read the fiction from the new rulebook and a few pieces that appeared in Wyrd Magazine, so if there are some Canon issues I apologize. This is a fairly big departure from what I usually write, but I thought it had a Malifaux vibe to it. I'll welcome any comments you guys have, positive or negative, and I'm always looking for constructive criticism on my work.*

 

Shell Game

 

It was all going to come down to the thrice-damned bag. I had pulled off enough jobs to know that much. I had known it boarding the train, this train going the other direction, I had known it as I watched the Breach swallow everything I knew and spit me out into this madhouse mirror world.

 

I figure I even knew it the night Joseph Ache broke into my room at the Hotel Sachette with a knife in his hand.

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

He was a lousy second story man and I was the sort of paranoid who slept with an open window and a length of piano wire, high E I believe, tacked across the opening. He took the path of least resistance, tripped and fell into my room with a curse loud enough to wake the dead and I was awake with my hold-out pistol in hand long before he’d recovered.

 

I’d have shot him then, I’m mean the moment I wake up, but I’d fallen to sleep with my glasses on and so I recognized the bastard and held my fire.

 

“So what’s it going to be?” I asked him, when he’d sorted his head from his arse.

 

“I dunno what you mean.” Joseph was a worse liar than he was a cat burglar but that’s why Scarlett sent him on these kinds of runs.

 

“Sure you don't. You’ve been let off the leash then? And the first thing you do is break into some poor, wealthy merchant’s hotel room and try and rob him? Much as that sounds like something you’d do I’ve got to give Scarlett more credit then that. What does she want from me?” I watched him carefully as he picked himself up off the Persian rug. He was a bear of a man, well over six feet tall and barrel chested and I’d seen the devil brawl before. I didn’t mean to let him get near me with that knife.

 

“She’s got a proposition.” He stumbled over the polysyllabic word.

 

“Good, stick to your script and we can both walk out of here.” I had to prompt him to keep going with a waggle of my gun.

 

“Scarlett says you’re gonna steal a soulstone.”

 

“You may inform her she will be hearing from my lawyer if she keeps spreading that kind of slander.” I admit I was intrigued, but as the bear blinked dumbly at me I realized my mistake.

 

“She said if you weren’t that I were to stick you one.” It wasn’t a threat really, just a statement of fact and we both knew it.

 

“Fine,” I replied with a sigh, “How then am I going to steal a soulstone, and what in the black God’s name is in it for me?”

 

--------------------------------------------

 

I still hadn’t worked out the problem of the bag six weeks later as I boarded the train into Malifaux dressed in my top hat and tails and carrying the a cardboard suitcase proclaiming me The Great Orlando.

 

--------------------------------------------

 

Scarlett’s plan, and her pitch to me, had been simple. “I want a soulstone.” She had said, “and it’s impossible to steal one from the sort of people who own them.”

I agreed with her that it was quite a dilemma and reminded her that I wouldn’t be able to steal one either.

 

Scarlett has the sort of smile that makes you want to run screaming and she favored me with it for a long moment before speaking, “That’s why I’m sponsoring your emigration.”

 

“To…?” I asked, already knowing the answer. She just smiled again.

 

-----------------------------------------

 

I stepped off the train into the sickly twilight of Malifaux station with over 8000 Guild Script in my pocket, sleeves loaded with trick cards and flowers, my hold-out and a small but very poisonous stiletto.

 

The platform appealed to me as much as any Earthside, a great press of moderately well off people rushing to and fro, a heady blend of desperation and optimism in the air… Train stations are a perfect place for things to be misplaced, appointments broken off, and for people to vanish into thin air. I started whistling as I walked.

 

Less than three minutes later there was a man trying to kill me.

 

The Guild official at the gate had processed me in record time, (“I’m hear on business, entertainer, staying three weeks, yes I already have my return ticket. You have a nice day too.”) and I found myself walking the cobblestones of Malifaux’s Station Street.

 

I fancy that I can get a feel for any city I’m in just by slowing down a step and letting it seep into me, well let me tell you Malifaux seeps deep. Every stone radiates age and power, even in the decidedly working class neighborhood about the station. And there was something else too, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

 

Which is probably why the grubby bastard had a hand in my coat before I even knew he was there, and why he’d stumbled back screaming before I had time to move.

 

“Sorry friend,” I said as he tried to wipe the pepper oil off of his hand, “thief bait, see.” Like any pickpocket with eyes he’d gone for the one pocket with a bulge in it, unfortunately the bulge was a splintering block off wood soaked through with oil from the seeds of a ghost pepper - in my opinion the nastiest of the new world imports.

 

As I stood there grinning like an idiot and watching his display he came up at me with a blackjack in his left hand. I stepped inside of his swing and with a twist of my wrist I dropped the stiletto into my off hand. My blade was half an inch from his gut when he got his right hand in my face.

 

If ghost pepper oil burns your hand it’s murder around your eyes, nose and mouth. I dropped to my knees and my blade clattered across the stones. The blackjack strikes were almost welcome, they numbed the real pain.

 

Then there was shouting and a gunshot and my assailant vanished. By the time my eyes stopped watering there was a man standing over me in the blue and gold of a Guild guard. He had a worried look in his eyes. I realized that, at some point, I had collapsed.

 

“Are you alright son?” He asked. I reckoned he was about ten years younger than me but didn’t stand to correct him.

 

“I think so,” I lied, “I’m afraid my hat took the worst of it.” Indeed it was mangled beyond belief or repair but I would have to do without it.

 

I accepted his hand up and retrieved my suitcase, hoping that the failing light would conceal my fallen dagger. “Do you know where an honest man might be able to find a nights rest?” I asked.

 

“The graveyard maybe, but not for long.” His partner replied coming back down the street, “Your friend got away I’m afraid.”

 

“That’s alright, thank you both so…” I played fussy, straightening my coat, my cuffs, brushing the mud and muck of Malifaux off my back. It was only an act in that I also palmed a few bills from their hidden pockets. “And my many compliments to your sewers, I’ve never been rolled on such a pleasant street as this.” I offered each of them a two handed handshake and creased their palms with Script.

 

“Say,” the guard who helped me up said, glancing at his partner, “there’s a public house not far from here where the rooms are dry and the food’s not rotten. I’d say you could spend as good a night there as anywhere.”

 

“In fact,” his partner said, “that’s the way we’re headed as well, if you wanted us to take you by it wouldn’t be more than a step out of our way and it would keep you in one piece.”

 

I thanked them and made a, “lead on” motion with my hand. As they turned I bent over and scooped up my dagger, it had not been an auspicious beginning but I was happy to see that money here held the same magic it did anywhere else.

 

---------------------------------------------------

 

“Getting the soulstone will be the easy part.” Scarlett had assured me, “Our little scam is taking advantage of the Guilds monopoly. They strangle the flow of soulstones Earthside and that does two things…”

 

“Drives up the price here, and creates a surplus Breachside.” I finished her thought, warming to the idea in spite of myself.

 

Once upon a time Scarlett was a prima donna, first soprano at the Opera Regalleta, and she still carries herself like the storied beauty in some Italian masterpiece. The attitude sits oddly on her fifty-six year old shoulders, her looks have long been buried under poor diet and hard living and her voice is a ruined croak, courtesy of a back alley blade that only narrowly missed its mark.

 

“Exactly,” she said, “My sources on the other side tell me that the Guild stash is what they use to guarantee Script, but on the black market they’re swapped around more common than gold, a hard currency, traded by the bag full.”

 

“So I find the right kind of poker game, cheat my way into possession of a soulstone, and run like hell.” I remember smiling, it seemed so straight forward that I forgot to wonder why no one else had done it.

 

Scarlett leaned forward and her armchair creaked under her weight. She drew out a leather map tube from under her chair and extended it towards me, “Not quite.” She said.

 

--------------------------------------------------

 

The rooms at the Ram’s Horn were, in fact, dry. There was precious little else to be said for them though. Seven paces by four, there was hardly room for the bed though they’d also wedged in a shaving stand with a battered copper bowl and a mirror that hung like an old campaigner on the wall, haunted by the things it had seen. I tried to sleep but the straw stuffed mattress seemed to exacerbate the ache that had settled into my back and shoulders.

 

I got up and shrugged on my tail coat and went to investigate the Ram’s Horn common room.

 

One glance was all it took for me to figure out that this wasn’t the place for me to find my soulstone. The room was as green as I was, mercenaries talking tough before the ink on their contracts has even dried and big young men with farm fresh innocence stamped across their faces.

 

I set up in a corner and did magic tricks for the drinkers, producing coins and flowers and scarves. I’m not a great stage magician, my fingers aren’t fast enough for real slight of hand and the Breach hadn’t seen fit to bless my prestidigitation with the spark of real magic. Still, I can talk a mile a minute and The Great Orlando’s accent was suitably mysterious that I was able to win a healthy round of applause when I finally caused water to flow up through a pyramid of the bar’s own glasses.

 

“You must be parched.” A young man in the house uniform, red with black piping, passed me a pint of thick black beer.

 

“Thank you, yes.” I admitted, “And thank you for the glasses.”

 

“I’m just glad none of them broke.” He said, “How did you do it, by the way?”

 

“Oh, magic.” I said and winked.

 

He humored me with a chuckle, “That one’s on the house.”

 

“Many thanks. Until I find better work than this I’ll take all the free drinks I’m offered.” I indicated the glass half stuffed with low denomination Script set next to my box of tricks.

 

“There are theaters around town that might take you on, or at least public houses with more lucrative crowds. How long were you planning on staying?” He’s stacking my borrowed glasses as we talk, only mildly surprised to find them completely dry.

 

“Three weeks, this is just an exploratory trip you see, I’m endeavoring to discover whether my troupe and I might find a place here.”

 

“And you have no contacts in town?” He seemed surprised.

 

“None.” I shrugged, “But I’d love to make some.”

 

The waiter said something about a friend of a friend of his who worked at a bar downtown near the theater district and new all sorts of the “right people”. I told him it would be lovely if he could give me the address and pass the word that Hans Seffle would be along tomorrow or the next day. When he seemed confused I apologized, “Orlando is not, in fact my real name.”

 

He laughed and we parted ways.

 

That night a calling card was shoved underneath my door and in the morning I put on the clothes and face of Hans Seffle, desperate booking agent. I pinned a note to the door of my room requesting not to be disturbed, pitched my suitcase out the narrow window onto the roof of the building next door (in case I needed it) and walked out through the common room. In a rumpled grey suit and bowler hat, a mustache and a mustard yellow cravat no one recognized me.

 

------------------------------------------------

 

“We’re not going to be the only game in town.” Scarlett told me when I took the case from her, “In fact the whole plan depends on us not.”

 

“Oh?” I uncapped the tube and inside was a bundle of documents.

 

“Compromised identification papers, had to scrape the blood off of them myself, didn’t trust any of the regular forgers to do it right. Name’s been changed, see?”

 

I did, “If I try to leave on these they’ll kill me.”

 

“Of course they will, that’s why this is a two man con.”

 

-------------------------------------------------

 

I won’t bore you with the details of the next two weeks. Hans bummed around the theater district getting the lay of the land, figuring out which theaters played home to real magicians, insinuating himself with bar backs and waiters and generally making sure that Guild guards found him in all of the wrong places.

 

Orlando sunk deeper and deeper into debt and drunken despair, giving up his room in the Ram’s Horn and moving into the slums where he planted hooks in certain circles, around poker tables and over sherry after bar close.

 

I had to be faster with my knife than ever before on the streets of Malifaux City under the sickly green light of the twin moons, and my quick changes got faster and cleaner. I wore reversible coats and a pocket disguise kit. I kept costumes stashed in half a dozen apartments and common houses across the city, I knew when to make an entrance and when to pass through the shadows. I learned the faces of every Guild guard in town, their blind spots and tailing techniques, and I learned about the Union.

 

Not the details of course, but enough to fake them. I could mimic the hand signals and signs closely enough to be mistaken, by someone not in the know, of being one of those Union members who never touched a hammer or pickaxe. I picked up a Guild tail after a week of such mummery and I spun him a mute tale that he would have to pass on to his higher ups.

 

And of course I spent as much time as I could spare working on the bag. It had to be the perfect weight, worn out enough but not too much, able to conceal something the size of my palm.

 

-----------------------------------------------------

 

With only three days to go before I needed to be on a train back Earthside I was in a bar in the slums, dressed as Orlando when one of my hooks finally played.

 

There were four of us at a big round table hidden in the corner of the bar playing a miserable game of poker. I’d sat down earlier that morning when one of the players passed out in his chair. According to the bartender the four of them had been at it for eight hours and had refused to leave when the bar closed the night before.

 

I’d helped myself to about ten percent of the unconscious man’s stack, passed more of it around the table. “Finder’s fee.” I told the dour faced steamfitters and then I stuffed the poor man’s pockets with the rest of his money and hauled him to the street. I paid two of the people lounging out on the street to take him home, and slipped them something extra if they would do me a favor.

 

By the time I sat down there was a hand dealt out and they were waiting for me to ante in. I did and within three hands I could see why none of them were happy. It was a table full of cautious amateurs, losing money to each other too slowly for the game to hold their interest, but winning just enough to keep them from standing up.

 

The three men were semi-regulars, gambling on the promise of next week’s paycheck. Between them I don’t think they had a full complement of original limbs, the most careful among them had a “steamfitters sling” on his left arm holding three mechanical fingers in place while his friends sported soulstone powered prosthetic limbs. They say the only people with more augments than a rail worker are steamfitters.

 

I slow played at first, didn’t want to scare them off, I spent an hour losing the stack that I’d taken off the unconscious man and bought back in out of my wallet, making sure to flash substantially more Script to the table. I saw greed light up their eyes and suddenly everyone was paying more attention to the game.

 

“Good night?” One of them asked me. I think his name was Lorenzo.

 

“You could say that. It’s been a long time since I felt this flush.” I made sure to smile at my losses and laugh when I won.

 

And gradually I did start winning. By noon I had everything but the shirts off their backs. They were desperate, angry, and I could read the exhaustion in their faces and backs.

 

On the next hand I shoved all in. The man to my left pushed away from the table in disgust, Lorenzo just stared and the man to my right buried his head in his hands.

 

“One soulstone,” I said, “should do it.”

 

“Not a chance.” Lorenzo said. They both folded and I raked the pot towards me, not bothering to count it. As I collected the cards I made sure to flash Lorenzo my hand, a black joker and a spread of middle cards. He concealed his frustration admirably, and I pretended that nothing had happened as I passed the deck.

 

I played the next couple hands hard and lost them, letting myself seem flustered. When I pushed all in the next time they both bet and I turned over four aces.

 

“Looks like that’s all she wrote boys.” I said, laughing as I sorted the money.

 

Lorenzo stared at me, across a pile of money big enough to keep him drunk for a month. “One soulstone.” He said, voice hollow.

 

I stopped and met his gaze, “One soulstone.” I said, “Your deal.”

 

He pried the soulstone from his leg, and placed it on the table.

 

Of course I pulled my worst hand of the game, but I let confidence show on my face and when he flipped two pair I crowed with glee.

 

“Read ‘em and weep.” I said, standing up to throw my hand under his nose.

 

In the split second it took him to realize I had nothing I snatched the stone off the table and grabbed a stack of bills with my off hand. Then I ran.

 

Lorenzo tried to stand but his right leg wouldn’t work and so he spat curses at my back and called for the bar patrons to stop me. It was a slow day, but there were still four or five mean looking men and women between me and the front door. It was a Union bar and the Union stands together. I could have never made it through them.

 

Fortunately I didn’t try. I was up the stairs and through the apartments before they grasped what I was doing, then it was out the slop window and down a conveniently placed ladder that I kicked down behind me so they couldn’t follow.

 

I ducked into a side alley and by the time I came out I was wearing a new face and ready to make the final preparations for my return journey.

 

------------------------------------------------------

 

I left an anonymous tip at the rail station that a man traveling under the name Orlando had just stolen a soulstone off a member of the Miners and Steamfitters Union and would probably be trying to skip town soon. Then I lay low for two days.

 

-------------------------------------------------------

 

I spent my last night in Malifaux in the common room at the Tripled Pendant. It was packed with Guild guards and officials half out of uniform. They used drink and boasting as armor against the daily tension and horror of the place, and improbable tales of Nephilim hunts warred for my attention with the Irish band in the corner. Tin whistles, drums and fife filled the bar and called the men and women of the Guild out onto the floor to dance and swing and forget that tomorrow was waiting to kill them.

 

I waited near the fireplace dressed as Orlando, bidding my time and when the common room emptied I went to my room. Sleep would have eluded me even if I’d tried, my veins were already alight with adrenaline for the day to come.

 

------------------------------------------------------------

 

The morning came as fine as it ever did in Malifaux, I suppose if you were used to it you could find the emerald tinted bands of fire beautiful, but to me it still bore an unkind, sickly glow.

 

The rail station wasn’t as busy as I would have liked. I walked in as Hans, and found myself stuck in line behind a young porter was being hassled about the suitcase he was carrying.

 

“Look, just search it,” he kept saying, “Search me for all I care. He just said he had business across town and might be running late, paid me to bring it to the station and get it checked onto the train.” Eventually the suitcase was searched and when the attendant turned up nothing illegal he apologized and lowered the brass grill over his station.

 

When he returned it was with a severe, steel haired woman. The woman worked over the case with a series of long needles, turning up several hidden compartments but the compartments only held trick handcuffs, collapsible boxes and other magician’s tools. She tied a purple ribbon to the handle of the case with a shake of her head, “Call me back when the man himself tries to board. If he’s not bleeding in an alley somewhere.”

 

The porter scurried out of line, grateful to be gone, and the case was set aside. I stepped to the window with a small smile, behind me a long and frustrated line was growing steadily longer.

 

“What’ll it be today?” The little man behind the counter asked.

 

“Traveling Earthside, bereavement.”

 

“I’m sorry to hear it sir, papers?”

 

I slide the packet across the counter and he flipped through it, just looking at the stamps in the lower left hand corner of each page. “I hope you have a fine trip sir.” He said, “We’ll need to have a glance at your bags of course, and your pockets if you don’t mind. Standard procedure for crossing the Breach you understand.”

 

“Of course.” I said, “Just the one bag.” And I hoisted the canvas and leather kit bag onto the counter. As he rifled through it I half turned, “It’s no use shoving ma’am, it’ll take as long as it takes.” I said to no one in particular.

 

When the guard handed the bag back to me he was red under the collar. There was a purple tag tied to the handle of my bag, and none of my carefully concealed tools had been found. “There you go sir, please step down to the security counter.”

 

I thanked him, tossed my bag over my shoulder and walked the length of the hall. Two bored looking guards stood at the base of one of the large pillars that hold up the arched roof of the station. The pillars were elaborately carved with Gothic grotesques that the guards used alternately as arms rests and ashtrays. There was a small table next to them and an iron sign over their heads with the rather redundant label, Security.

 

“Empty your pockets.” The first man said, indicating the table. I plucked my weapons from my sleeves and set them out, my watch and chain followed, and then my papers and a healthy roll of Guild Script.

 

I spread my arms in invitation, but as the second guard came around to pat me down I cried, “Wait.” Covering my fingers in a handkerchief I took the thief-bait out of my right pants pocket and placed it on the table.

 

The guard wrinkled his nose, “You mind turning that pocket out for me? I don’t fancy putting a hand in there.”

 

“Not at all.” I said, and did as I was asked.

 

He searched the rest of my pockets and completely missed the soulstone in the leather pouch strapped to my right thigh.

 

“Alright, you’re clear to board.” The guard said. I thanked him.

 

By now the platform was filling with men and women all milling and pressing around the great idling train. The train itself is almost as baroque as the station, with arched windows and flourishes around the doors, scrollwork and stylized flowers. Passing an overburdened porter I offered to carry one of the cases for him and he nodded his thanks as I took the cardboard suitcase with the purple ribbon around the handle.

 

“Friend of mine.” I explained.

 

--------------------------------------------------

 

And a moment later I’m handing over Hans Seffle’s ticket and then I’m settled down in an expensive compartment near the head of the train.

 

By the time we’ve come to a complete stop Earthside I’m in my underwear, bound and gagged, and the window in my compartment is shattered.

 

The Earthside guards are at the door before the train doors are opened, shouting for Hans to come out with his hands up. I smile behind my gag and try to shout around it.

 

The guards kick in the door and waste no time cutting the ropes that hold me. As I sit there chaffing my wrists they ask what happened.

 

“He attacked me,” I croak, “Took my papers, tied me up. Broke the window when the train started to slow, and jumped out. He can’t have gone far.”

 

“Who are you?”

 

“Orlando, magician.” I say, pointing to the cardboard case as identification.

 

“And that other bag was his?”

 

I nod, “He took something out before he ran. A little leather sack.” I mime the size.

 

One of the guards grabs it, and my heart feels like it’s going to explode. If they don’t find the hidden pockets that the counter attendant overlooked, if I was too clever and they don’t connect the dots. If they decide to search Orlando’s case…

 

But they find the poisoned needles and the disguise kit, and then they tear the bag apart. They find the hidden stashes of Script and Earthside currencies, the forged immigration papers seal it.

 

“Looks like our info was good, he one of Ramos’s terrorists alright.” One of the guards says, then he turns to me, “You have a change of clothes?” I nod mutely, “You’re free go, or stay if you like. We’ll get your things back when we catch the bastard.”

 

“Th-thank you.” I say, “I think I just want to go home.”

 

“Alright, leave your address at the security desk. I’ll write you a note to get through customs. We’ll be in touch when Hans Seffle is in irons.”

 

--------------------------------------------------------------

 

“Not bad,” Scarlett concedes, turning the soulstone over in her hands, “We’ll turn a tidy profit, but you couldn’t have maybe gotten a bigger one?”

 

I stare at her. The hotel she chose to meet at is a filthy rat trap but she has decked out her room on red silk and gilt furnishings.

 

“Maybe next time.” She says, and I can’t help it. I start to laugh.

 
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information