Sell you a Bridge chapter 40

Home of Jason Blood July 13th 2010 6:00 PM EDT

I  glanced up at the townhouse with a bit of trepidation. Over the last  few days we'd made zero headway into figuring out what the hell the  Court was trying to do, and we'd finally arranged a meeting with Jason  Blood. I closed my eyes, seeing a burning number fifty behind the lids  and feeling pretty confident that it would be enough points if I needed  to use any of my abilities. Artemis was standing next to me, with Reggie  on the other side and Jim was behind us with Nightshade. Acheron and  Warlock's Daughter had stayed behind this time, the former because of  the debt he owed the man and the latter because he apparently made her  nervous.

To say I was less than  comforted by the fact that this guy made one of the scariest beings I'd  ever met nervous enough to be afraid to be in his presence was an  understatement. I turned my head to speak to Jim "This place is pretty  nice, bet it was pricey. If anything it might be bigger than my condo  and I paid that's worth a few million retail. What does this guy do when  he isn't scaring undead mob princesses?" I was sure there was hundreds  of millionaires in Gotham I'd never heard of, but it didn't hurt to see  if this guy had a rep outside occult circles.

Jim  actually shrugged "Honestly I forget. He changes careers once in a  while, I have no clue what he's doing with himself at the moment. But  he's older than I am and always had a head for investing in profitable  ventures. I believe he partially bankrolled the Mayflower expedition as a  matter of fact. As for the townhouse, he bought it when prices were  much lower than they are now, back during Gotham's early days." That was  interesting, it made me wonder if he'd come across the court before, he  might be even more motivated to help us than I thought.

I  stepped up to the sturdy dark wood door and used the brass lion head  knocker to rap three times. When I finished knocking the door swung  silently open, revealing absolutely no one on the other side. Jim  scoffed "Melodramatic old coot. He's always been like this. It's no  wonder Nimue left him, I can't imagine staying with someone who feels  the need to constantly appear mysterious and inscrutable." His voice was  snide, and I heard an edge of pettiness to it I hadn't expected from my  mentor. There was clearly some history here.

An  urbane voice echoed out of the darkness as a man stepped into view  appearing so seamlessly even I didn't detect him. "What's your excuse  then Craddock? She dumped you too." The well dressed older man that  appeared was fairly imposing. He was big and well muscled, and carried  himself like a warrior. The red hair with distinguished grey at the  temples came across like a facade of civility he put on to cover his  warrior nature. "And if you came here to cause trouble I'll be happy to  throw you out, you said this was about Nimue's safety so I humored your  meeting request but I'm not in the habit of allowing myself to be  verbally abused."

Nightshade  cut my mentor off before he could respond, which I was glad for, as I  was fairly certain this would not go anywhere productive if we let them  keep sniping at each other. "Jason, it's good to see you, we're sorry to  disturb you but there's been a bit of an...incident." She went on to  explain what was going on, filling him in on the prophecy, the  Shadowpact's presence, the involvement of the Court and  the details of  the attack on Madame Xanadu's shop. By the time she finished speaking  his expression was grim.

Blood  turned to walk deeper into the townhouse, gesturing for us to follow.  "I was going to ask what a hero such as yourself was doing in that  highwayman's company Eve, but the situation you've described is indeed  dire." He led us into a large study. The floor was hard wood with a  large ornate persian carpet across most of the center of the room. There  was a fire roaring in the fireplace and the walls were lined with  bookshelves, some filled with books, others with strange curios that  looked like they belonged in Madame Xanadu's shop. Blood stopped in  front of a case and took down a book with a red leather cover, flipping  it open and paging through.

Blood  glared down at the pages angrily "This is all your fault Craddock. I  knew your thievery and nonsense would get her in trouble one day, I told  her so when she decided to take up with you but she never did listen.  Now she may be dying and the weapon used to harm her was one you handed  to her enemies yourself." His voice was clipped and cold, but I could  hear the undercurrent of pain in his words. He clearly cared about  Madame Xanadu a lot, and his anger at her situation was reasonable, but  it wasn't fair to blame Jim. I made to speak up but my mentor silenced  me with a sharp hand gesture.

His  usual accent was even crisper than usual as he responded to the wizard  (or whatever Blood was). "Blame me if you must Jason, but help her.  Despite what you may think I would never willingly allow her to come to  harm. If there is something I can do to aid her recovery I will do so." I  could tell from the way he was speaking that he was swallowing his  pride and doing his best to quench his anger because it wasn't  productive. Not to mention I believe he did feel guilty for contributing  to her injury, even if he wasn't to blame.

I  looked around the room, taking in some of the curiosities on display  trying to find a distraction. Shrunken heads, weapons, jars with odd  things in them, and a green stone that seemed to pulse with absurd  amounts of power under my aura sight. However, my eyes were drawn to the  chair by the fire, where I noticed two things I felt the need to  address both out of curiosity and to shut down the upcoming fight. "Ok,  not to interrupt the important people talking about the important things  but I have two small questions. First off, is the cushion on that chair  somehow a person? And second, what the actual fuck is that." I pointed over to the chair, or rather, behind it, where...something hid.

It  was pink and furry with long hair and a strangely long thin hairless  neck holding up a big head with large curious eyes. Blood glanced over  at it he seemed to deflate a bit even smiling slightly, calming down  once his stalemate with Jim was broken off. "First off, yes, well  spotted, but don't ask how he came to be a cushion, he's sensitive about  it, secondly that is a goblin I met in my travels. He is called the  Thing-That-Cannot-Die or just Thing for short. He's very friendly but  also very shy. Apologies if he startled you." The strange creature  stared shyly out from behind the chair and I could see in my aura sight  that he was a sweet little guy.

I'd  have loved to speak to him a bit but Jim cut me off with a throat  clearing, reminding me that we had other more important things to do, so  I settled for a smile and a friendly wave, which Thing returned, before  turning to my mentor and his rival who was still flipping through the  book. As he paged through he spoke without looking up "I should have  known Morgana was in the City. The magic in Gotham has been in a  disturbed state recently, but I thought it was because of...never mind. I  thought it was from something else." He grunted with frustration and  snapped the book shut switching it for another one.

Now  that I was back on task I took the opportunity to ask the question that  had occurred to me earlier "Mr. Blood, my mentor mentioned you'd been  in Gotham since the early days of it's founding. I'm sure you've come  across the Court before. Do you have any insights on how to deal with  them? I'm sure they must have given you trouble at some point since you  live in the city. They seem pretty overbearing with everyone that lives  in Gotham. Like just being here makes you their property or something."  Whoever this guy was he was clearly on a similar level to Jim if we  could get him on our side against the Court it would be a huge win.

He  let out a sharp back of distracted laughter as he flipped through the  book "Those jumped up free mason knockoffs wouldn't dare. They tried to  push me around a bit when I first arrived and it did not go well for  them. They avoid me now. Ah, there it is!" He slammed the book down on a  cabinet and knelt down to begin rifling through it "If Nimue was  wounded by Carnwennan we'll need something with real power to heal her.  Luckily I happen to have a recipe for panacea around here. I have most  of the ingredients here I believe."

It  was a bit intimidating that he seemed willing to just dismiss the Court  like that. Even Jim was wary of them, which meant Blood must be  incredibly scary. He started taking out bottles from the cabinet with  various fluids and substances in them before stopping with a frown.  "Though not, it seems, all of them. I need venom from a great beast.  Ladon was the one they used in the original recipe and his venom would  be preferable but I don't have any here." He finally turned to look at  Jim "I also don't have a way to acquire it in a short time, but I know  for a fact a certain ex-paramour of yours has access to a supply."

Jim  flinched hard enough that it was visibly noticeable despite him not  having a physical body under that suit for us to see doing the flinching  "Ah. Yes. Well, I did say I would do anything I could. I suppose I  could seek her assistance. She doesn't much care for Nimue, but she  cares for Morgana even less, and would most likely jump at the chance to  disturb any of her schemes. We...haven't spoken in quite some time of  course, but if I reach out she may be willing to talk to me. It's been a  few decades so perhaps she's calmed down."

I  raised an eyebrow in a silent question "Ok, this thing you guys do  where you make oblique references to people using pronouns because  you've been around for years and know all the players may seem like a  time saver but to those of us out of the loop it just comes across as  annoying and needlessly dramatic. Who are you guys talking about? And  why would she have the venom of the dragon that guarded the golden  apples of immortality. Last I checked that thing had been dead for quite  a while, what kind of person just has a vial of it's venom on hand."

Jim  gave an embarrassed cough. "Ah, yes, my apologies Morgan. It can be  difficult to remember that not everyone has our depth of knowledge and  experience. The lady to whom we refer was a paramour of mine in the  early nineteen seventies. Quite some time after I parted ways with  Nimue, but she was always a bit jealous. It didn't help that they were  both magic users of some considerable skill. As to why she would possess  Ladon's venom, that has to do with her identity as a member of the  greek pantheon. You may have heard of her actually. Her name is Circe."