Sell you a Bridge chapter 24

I lost track of the others as soon as I entered the cellar. Whether  that was Jim's power or something to do with the house I had absolutely  no idea, but it happened. I was guessing the latter because as I stepped  out into the dark I found myself in a graveyard. The night sky was  shining about me, the grass was neatly trimmed, and rows of tombstones  lined the ground in front of me. I looked down at the Hand, but the  fingers were still burning fine, so I guessed this was a normal part of  the house, or as cl0se as this place got.

I  froze. What kind of people had an entire fucking graveyard in their  cellar? It even had a sky. I turned around, but the cellar doors were  gone. I was just in a graveyard now, and the place was pretty empty. Or  at least, it looked empty. I saw a flash out of the corner of my eye and  spun but couldn't find anything. I was pretty sure there was something  in here with me. Luckily I still had the Hand, so I shouldn't be visible  to whatever it was, but I wasn't sure if it would work in this weird  pocket dimension.

I  closed my eyes and knelt down reaching for my power and then melding  with the shadows. The Hand came with me. As soon as I was gone a figure  appeared where I had been. It was green and lanky, with a sharp tusk  like underbite and vicious claws. It glared at the space I had occupied,  clearly having been able to see me but having lost track of me. I had  scoped around looking for the cellar door and spotted a mausoleum with  two torches burning beside the door. That was definitely the exit to  this place.

I  waited for the monster to leave and then started to move. It was  freakishly slow going, just an inch at a time, but luckily even shadow  movement didn't take too many points. The nine points I had were more  than enough for now. The movement power would drain two points an hour. I  spent about twenty minutes crossing the graveyard. Finally I revealed  myself in front of the mausoleum. There was a blur and the green thing  appeared again. It glared at me for a minute, before looking around  suspiciously.

I  looked down at the Hand and saw the candle flames were at least an inch  higher than before. The thing couldn't actually see me. It sensed my  presence somehow but the Hand was doing it's job. I stood stock still  for about ten more minutes, waiting, until the thing thing melted back  into the darkness about as skillfully as I would. Then I turned to the  mausoleum door and held up the hand. The fingers curled and the hand  knocked politely, the door springing open easily to admit me into the  house.

I  checked my bracelet and saw it was still unlit, but still, I'd burned  half an hour making my way through the cellar. When the door closed  however, I saw that I had made it into the house. The hallways I was in  looked...normal. Well, it looked insanely well appointed and fancy as  hell, but not like a castle or a graveyard or anything. The walls were  rich mahogany panels, and lovely paintings hung on the dark wood. There  was a long rug trailing down the hallway, it looked a bit like Persian  carpets I'd seen in movies and stuff. There were small tables every so  often along the hallway, with delicate vases or tasteful statues on  them.

This  had not been what I was expecting, but hell, I didn't mind my job being a  bit easier. I trekked down the hall to the first door. The skeleton key  was with Jim so I could only use the Hand to open every door. I tried  the knob and it was locked. A quick knock of the Hand and it clicked  open easily. After I opened the door however I looked at the hand  closely. The candles had burned down another half inch or so since we  got here. Using it so much was consuming it faster. I cursed and slipped  into the room.

I  could see everything in the house. The Hand of Glory cast light from  it's fingers that could be seen only by the thief themself, not exactly a  main attraction but it was a useful feature in a piece of thief's  equipment. I looked around the room. The first room I had found was what  appeared to be a map room. There were maps everywhere, some on walls,  some on tables. Some in frames or in glass cases. The weird part was the  maps were for a variety of places, some of which didn't appear to be on  earth.

I  thought for a second then slipped my phone out of my pocket and started  snapping pictures of the maps. It was a bit of a detour but it wasn't  like a few minutes would matter. The maps were pretty amazing. Even the  ones that were obviously for earth were strange. A map of a city in  Turkey that looked weird and out of place, a map to an entrance to a  place called Gem World. After taking pictures of all the maps I quietly  slipped out and closed the door behind me. It made me smile a bit that  these super genius magi hadn't thought to protect their maps from a cell  phone camera.

The  next room was a library, and despite how badly I wanted to steal some  magic books they would definitely have some kind of defenses on them.  The Hand could bypass them sure, but it would consume the magic faster.  Jim had drilled into me all day that the thing that got all first time  thieves caught was greed. They saw something they hadn't prepared to  steal properly and wanted it and it screwed them. He cautioned that you  should only take extras if you already had your target in hand and had  rich experience to rely on to bypass the other defenses.

Finally,  the third time was the charm. The next room was full of glass cases. A  dingy looking cauldron, a suspiciously worn looking ancient lamp, the  cases had all sorts of strange things in them. It only took me a minute  or two to find the case with the knife in it. Carnwennan was, as Jim had  mentioned, a big fucking knife. "The size of your forearm" had been, if  anything, an understatement. Little white hilt my ass. I held up the  hand and the fingers flared. Jim had warned me it might take a while to  bypass defenses like these, so I left it hanging in the air to walk  around and look in the cases.

I  didn't touch any of them of course. I wasn't an idiot. While I waited  for the seal on the case to crack I took a very careful and casual tour  of the place. I read the little plaques under the cases that I hadn't  noticed until just now. The first case over from the knife was something  called a Babylon Candle. It was...a candle. No more information than  that. I rolled my eyes and moved onto the next one. A small shabby  looking doll with the caption of Conjure Brother. None of these plaques  had anything but names on them.

I  turned to try to find another one and I found...a girl. This girl  wasn't in a case mind you, she was standing just inside the door staring  at me. She had perfect pale skin, hair so black it looked like midnight  silk, and eyes like blue supernovas. She was wearing a thin purple tank  top that showed off her very flat midriff and a pair of tiny pink  pajama shorts that clung to very generous hips and thighs. I took my  time looking her over, knowing the Hand would protect me from being  spotted as I checked her out. Her rose petal lips quirked up in a smile  "Take a picture. It'll last longer."

I  nodded to her and reached into my pocket for my phone, and then froze.  My eyes widened behind my mask and I turned my head slowly to stare at  the Hand floating on the other side of the room in front of Carnwennan's  case. I turned back to the girl, who waved cheerfully back at me.  Luckily I had a mask on, I subtly slipped my hand into my pocket again  to grip the dream dust. "Well." I said in a conversational tone "This is  certainly awkward." I cursed myself internally for an idiot. What kind  of thief gets distracted by a pair of very, very long legs, and...what  had I been thinking about.

The  beautiful girl giggled. "A bit. Though you're hardly the first boy to  ever stare at me. Plus you haven't attacked me yet. Still, I'm surprised  you got in here, thieves usually don't make it past the defenses. I'm  Zatanna, by the way. I realize you can't give me your name, but it  seemed polite to share before I immobilized you and sent you to prison."  She gave me a once over "Shame you're a criminal, your body is  fantastic." I cocked my head at that and she shrugged. "What, you're the  only one who gets to appreciate sexy?" She shot me a wink before saying  conversationally "Dnib."

I  wasn't sure what the fuck that meant, at least until a fucking rope  materialized out of thin air and came spinning towards me. I dodged,  naturally, but I was sort of backed against a wall so I went the only  direction I could. Up. I did a handspring against the wall, triggering  my wall walking ability and the world seemed to shift. Suddenly I was  standing on flat ground, the wall beneath me, and Zatanna was at an odd  angle seeming to be hanging off the wall in front of me. Upside though, I  could see down her shirt.

Her  eyes widened "Wow. That's really cool. You didn't even say a spell, is  that like a meta power or something? I bet walking on walls is super  useful for a thief." She seemed excited by the move more than worried,  her blazing blue eyes burning with intensity. I got the feeling this  girl didn't get many visitors. She seemed almost as lonely as I was  before Artemis. She smiled sweetly at me and then said "Llaf." I slipped  and fell. Of course, the wall was my new floor so I just fell on my  back on the wall and than climbed back to my feet.

I  pulled out the vial of dream dust and threw it shuriken style. The  thing spun and smashed open on a case near the beautiful girl, exploding  the dust in a cloud around her. I cut my power and threw myself off the  wall as she suddenly dropped, feeling the need to catch her for some  reason. I stared at her for a minute. She was gorgeous, but more than  that she was lonely. She reminded me of me. I reached into her shorts  pocket and pulled out a phone that had been pretty easy to spot under  the tight fabric.

In what might  have been the stupidest possible choice I'd ever made I input my number  under the name Random and sent myself a text. I figured she wouldn't  even notice for a few days and hopefully by then she would be willing to  talk. I heard a thump and turned to find the hand, fingers now down to  the first knuckle, sitting on the ground in front of the open knife  case. I ran over and picked the thing up, leaving Zatanna lying on the  soft carpet uninjured but fast asleep. I grabbed the knife, slipping it  into a tube Jim had given me to carry it and slinging it across my back.  Then I tapped my bracelet to light up the sigil and headed out. This  was almost over.