This much you know: every magical tradition has a different school of thought on how to defend against bullets.

Elementalists will conjure sheets of flame and lightning, or shimmering bubbles that drain the kinetic energy from bullet and bombs.

Psions cloud the minds of their enemies, twisting their senses to make them shoot at illusions or even their own allies.

Seers warp space and time to shunt gunfire into another dimension, or predict the future so perfectly that they can step between each shot.

Enchanters, particularly those from your tradition of magic, are protected by the devil’s own luck.

You’re wearing your favorite dress shirt, a short-sleeved silk number with gray stripes swirling over a blue background. You like this style of shirt, half because of the vivid colors and half because this brand’s supposed to be popular among the world’s most powerful crime lords.

That makes it a special shirt. A lucky shirt. The Yantra symbols and lines of Python Code you’ve inked into the lining make it even luckier.

Sixty brass-cased bullets, thirty from each sub-machine gun, punch sixty holes in the film screen. By the time you hear their eardrum-busting whip cracks, they’ve already flown past your head: all sixty shots, missed.

That’s the nature of your lucky shirt, an item MMO players would empty their wallets to get for their avatars: any ranged attack thrown at you has a 95% chance of missing.

You hear the clang and whine of bullets embedding themselves in metal-backed seats. Clumps of cushion stuffing drift over your heat like confetti.

“Shut it off!” you holler to Mac, grabbing your sword from its seat. “Stop the film!”

Mac ducks beneath the keyboard of the theater organ, foot petals blaring a cacophonous noise beneath their feet and knees. “The projector!” Mac shouts. “Stop the projector!”

Theo, the dinosaur puppet on Mac’s left hand, gestures frantically towards the back, his dark, beady plastic eyes somehow conveying a strong sense of urgency.

On the big screen, the snake-man mobster shouts silently at his underlings, gesturing wildly with his empty coat sleeves. The mothmen’s fuzzy antennae wilt like the ears of a sad dog. Their depression doesn’t stop them from reloading, however.

You race across the ruined rows, sword leaping from sheath to hand. “Striboga,” you whisper, “Kokua, Kumara, Gremlina!”

The mothmen open fire again, this time with short controlled bursts. Bad news for you: each bullet they fire has just a 5% chance of hitting, but the more bullets they shoot, they higher the chance that a single bullet will hit. And it only takes one...

You toss your jian over your shoulder. You sprint up the velvet-lined stairs, magic sword floating behind your back. You hear the ring of metal against metal as your blade twists in the air, deflecting bullets.

You reach the projector. You fall to your hands and knees and yank its plug free from the floor slot.

The projector splutters to a halt. The light winks out. The film on the screen fades.

You slump on the ground for a moment, catching your breath in the darkness.

Something cold and metal brushes against your back. You yelp and spin around…

It’s just your jian, hovering by your shoulder like a faithful falcon.

You pluck the sword out of the air with trembling fingers, teasing the spells out of the sword and back into your thoughts. It takes you two tries to slide the sword back into its sheath.

You adjust your hat, take a deep breath, and center yourself. You feel wrung out like a rag. You feel likes your nerves have been brushed with acid.

You feel alive.

“You—” You hear Mac sputter, crawling their way out from under the stage organ. They point a shaking finger at you: “You owe me a new theater, you son of a bitch.”

“Hell with that,” you reply, getting to your feet, and buckling your sword and sheath back onto your belt. “If this were the outside world, I’d be suing you for safety code violations!”

Mac glares daggers at you; so does his dinosaur hand puppet. “Nothing bad ever happened with my films until you came along!” they spit.

“You should be thanking me!” you spit back. “Now you can add an safety announcement to your films!” Your voice takes on a sarcastic drawl. “Remember to check your aisles for the nearest exits in case of bullets flying through the screen!”

Macintosh doesn’t stop glaring. Theo folds his stubby arms across his velvet chest

You return their glares, refusing to blink even as your eyes get drier and drier...

Mac looks away first. “Dammit, Diesel,” they mutter. “No one wants to watch films in a shot-up theater. I’ll be out of business. Out on the street.” They stare down at their dinosaur puppet, who’s still wiggling his arms in your direction. “I don’t want to be a burden on Theo,” they tell you, lips quivering.

Theo cranes his crested head up to look at Mac, his dark plastic eyes glimmering with surprise and remorse. He reaches out and pats Mac on the shoulder.

You sigh and tug down the brim of your porkpie hat, covering your eyes. “I’ve got a missing kid to find,” you tell Mac. “Once that’s done, I’ll figure something out. I promise.”

“Sure you will,” Mac mutters under their breath.

“Mac,” you say, voice sharpening. “I’m not going to flake out on you. I will help you fix your theater.” You allow yourself a small grin. “Besides,” you say, pointing to the dino-puppet on Mac’s left hand. “If I don’t help out, Theo will probably cut my toes off while I sleep.”

Theo nods his velvet head. A chill runs down your spine. But Mac is smiling, so it’s worth it, you think.

#

You exit the Delphic Nickelodeon with a spring in your step, only to hear the loud, shrill wails of a crying Goblin.

“Ruined!” the Goblin vendor shrieks, pounding his tiny fists against his chest, standing over the sticky wreckage of his fruit stall. “My beautiful harvest, ruined!”

“Whoa there,” you say, walking up to the inconsolable fruit marketer. “What the heck happened?”

“That wretched knifemonger!” The Goblin hollers, shaking his warty fists toward the uncaring skies. “Cursed be his name! May every one of his bandages rot and fall off!”

Bandages, you wonder?

“Bandages?” you say out loud.

“Aye! Bandages!” the Goblin tells you, gesturing with his overly long fingernails. “Wrapped from head to toe he was!”

He has to be talking about the mummy man, you think. But why would he declare war on this goblin’s fruit?

The Goblin buries his pointy face in his hands and sobs. “The coldhearted brute!” He moans. “I offered him my wares, same as always. He took one sniff of my fruit and flew into a rage! He accused me of trying to poison him! The nerve!”

“Well,” you point out, crouching down to the Goblin’s level, “you do sell poisoned fruit.”

“Of course I do!” the Goblin shouts at you. “Everyone knows that, chap! But Mr. Bandage-man, he pulls out these razor-sharp claws, and slices everything to bits! Everything!”

You look around, viewing the carnage of the fruit stall with new insight. The stall’s walls, boxes and cloth awnings have been carved to pieces, cut apart with the precision of scissors on construction paper. Beautiful poisonous peaches, apples, strawberries and dates lie splattered on the ground, sliced in half with a single cut.

You rest a hand on the Goblin’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, man,” you tell him honestly. “You’ve had it rough, haven’t you?”

The Goblin hesitates.

Then he throws himself at your leg, hugging your knee and bawling his eyes out.

You swallow your instinctive distaste and pat the Goblin on the back. The Goblin may be an unrepentant. He may sell poisonous fruit that sends consumers into eternal sleep. He may be soaking your favorite slacks with his tears...

...but he’s having a bad day, and you know full well how that feels.

An idea occurs. It’s a teensy bit exploitive, but you can’t see how it could backfire.

“A mummy man,” you mutter, pitching your voice to sound like a whisper while being anything but. “I should realized it sooner...”

The Goblin’s head snaps up. “Realized what?” he asks with a painful eagerness. “What ya thinking, humie?”

You flick your thumb against your nose, a conspiratorial gesture. “Word on the street is that Morgaeous Drake-Worm’s been looking for new muscle.”

Technically not a lie, especially if you’ve read Morgaeous’s comment about taking Philip “to the block” correctly.

“And then a bruiser dressed like Tutankhamen shows up and starts throwing his weight around. How could that be a coincidence?” you ask the Goblin.

Technically, rhetorical questions aren’t lies. Still, you worry you’ve laid it on too thick.

“That slime-dripping pox of a scale-scraper!” The Goblin hollers, eyes swiveling around in their jaundiced sockets. “That crack-swarthy fartmonger! I should have known Morgaeous hired him from the start!”

“Yeah,” you loudly agree. “What a jerk.” You pause, just long enough to make it look like you’ve suddenly realized something: “Someone ought to teach him a lesson!”

“Yeah!” The Goblin shouts.

“Teach him manners!” You add.

“Yeah!” the Goblin says.

“Stick up for the little guy!”

“Yeah!”

“Track down one of his street lieutenants and punch some information out of them!” you suggest.

“Yeah—what?” The Goblin gives you a canny look. “That’s awful specific, what you say.”

Oh dear. Have you overdone it? Has this wee enterprising Goblin seen through your film-flam?

You shrug. “Just a thought. If Morgaeous sent a goon to mess with your business, you should go and mess up one of his businesses the same way. Eye for an eye, yeah? Nice and proportionate.”

“Proportionate,” the Goblin whispers under his breath, sounding a little skeptical.

“But does Morgaeous actually have any lieutenants in the area?” you wonder out loud. “Someone local we could give a good scare?”

“Well,” the Goblin muses, “there’s Jellyfish Stan...”

The Goblin’s mouth snaps shut. He quivers like a struck tuning fork. “Vengeance sounds all nice and lovely,” he squeaks, “but, you know, violence is not the answer. I’m a lover, not a fighter.” He chews on his thumb, searching for an extra excuse not to get involved. “I’ve got two left feet!” He blurts out.

You look down: so he does, you note with surprise.

“That’s a shame,” you say, voice thick with regret. “If only there was someone who could pay Morgaeous back. Someone large, quick on the draw, willing to get their knuckles skinned….”

“Hmmm...” the Goblin mutters, stroking his pointy chin as he thinks.

“Hmmm...” you say, stroking your chin and pretending to think.

“Oh!” the Goblin exclaims, smacking a warty fist into a warty palm. “You could do it! With your sword, yeah?”

“Me?” you say, the picture of perfect bewilderment. You reach past your shoulder and pat the hilt of your jian: “Oh! Good point!”

“Jellyfish Stan usually hangs around the River-Docks this time of day, hawking her products to the sea-folk,” the Goblin explains eagerly. His eyes narrow to slits and flick from side to side. “But you didn’t hear that from me, yeah?”

“Hear what?” you reply.

“Ha! Good one, humie!” The Goblin chuckles, playfully punching your knee. His cheerful face turns pensive: “But I don’t suppose you’d be willing to do this out of the kindness of your humie heart? Nah, I don’t suppose it at all...”

The Goblin’s cynicism breaks your heart a little (though to be fair, you are tricking him).

Goblin and other faerie-folk are big on bargains and paying debts. Some occult scholars think they’re hardwired that way. You? You think it’s the sheer weight of cultural traditions that have endured since the dawn of time.

So you cut the Goblin a bit of slack. Just a bit, so he doesn’t suspect anything.

“A job like this won’t be too strenuous…” you muse out loud. “How’s this? I pay the Drake-Worm back for his cruelty, and you give me a discount on merchandise for the next year!”

The Goblin’s ears twitch. “The next month,” he insists.

“The next six months,” you counter-offer.

“The next three months,” the Goblin replies.

“Done!” you say, holding out your hand.

“Done!” the Goblin crows in triumph, rubbing his tiny hands together, then slapping one into your palm.

You feel the tingle of magic—old magic—as the oath is sealed, and a small Geasforms between you and the Goblin. A promised discount of poisoned fruit you’ll never buy in exchange for doing a task you were going to do anyway.

On the surface, this looks like a swindle. But you don’t see it that way. To your thinking, you both come away from this happy!

I can’t muster any objections to your notion. Truly, I relish the way you think, Diesel. How deliciously wicked. How delectably demonic.

You bid farewell to the goblin and take off for the river, moving quickly, but not so quickly that the local residents think you’re up to something.

Well, you are up to something, but that’s beside the point.

You hear the soft buzzing of wings near the back of your head.

A chill runs down your spine

You turn and see a black bug fly past your ear. It lands on the branch of a tree, wings peeling back to reveal a thorax that glows with a hot neon light.

“How long have you been watching?” You ask the firefly.

The firefly takes off, flies down the street, circles over the goblin and his broken fruit stall, and then lands back on the branch. The meaning isn’t too hard to figure out.

“A heavily bandaged person with knives tore up the goblin’s stall,” you tell the firefly. “It looks like he’s new in town.” You lower your voice: “Is he new in town?”

The firefly pulses twice.

You toy with the collar of your shirt, a nervous tic. “I’m busy with a case right now,” you say. “Once I wrap that up, I should be free to help you look into this guy…”

The firefly pulses once.

“No?” You say. “Do you mean, no, you don’t want me looking into this?”

One pulse.

“Then, are you saying, no, you want me to drop my current case to investigate the mummy man?”

Two pulses.

You feel sweat trickle down the back of your neck.

“…with all due respect, ma’am,” you say slowly, “my current case is just as important.”

The firefly takes to the air, wings buzzing as it slowly drifts towards you.

“The Drake-Worm’s snatching people off the street!” You blurt out. “Some kind of Meat Auction…!”

The firefly stops and hovers in midair.

“I don’t know if you’re mad at me or not, ma’am,” you say, folding your fidgety hands behind your back. “Never was good at reading the emotions of fireflies…but the Morgaeous case is too big to put on hold. I’ll keep my eyes out for the mummy man, of course…!”

The firefly’s thorax pulses twice.

“Oh!” You say. “Okay, then…”

The firefly turns and buzzes away, zigzagging down the street until it vanishes from sight.

You wait until you’re sure the firefly’s gone. Then you slump against the tree and hyperventilate, pressing a hand against your chest to still your pounding heart.

#

The River, you must confess, is a fetid mess.

For centuries it was used as a sewage drain, the urine and feces of millions of squirming humans clouding its once pristine waters. When the pollution started seeping into the lake, the city realized something had to change, but instead of cleansing their river, they built dams to reverse the flow and send their waste south instead.

Even to this day, after dozens of half-hearted civic measures, the River remains a brackish soup filled with bacteria and trash.

Except when it flows through Cryptatown.

Two fine-mesh filters layered with hundreds of purification spells keep Cryptatown’s stretch of river clean as the clouds and as green as a St. Patrick’s Day celebration...just the way the sea-creatures like it.

You stroll down the concrete steps to the river docks, walking past swaying willow trees and rows of sealskins strapped to steel bike racks with chain locks. You take a deep breath and close your eyes, inhaling the moist, crisp taste of fresh air and water, feeling the soft breeze blow against your bare skin, listening to the gentle lapping of water, the honking of selkies....

…and the brassy, tone-deaf voice of Jellyfish Stan hawking her wares.

“Spinal fluid!” Stan hollers, brushing a greasy strand of hair away from her chalk-white face, opening the side of her coat to reveal pockets filled with clear, frost-rimmed vials. “Get your spinal fluid, fresh from the bone!”

The river surface fizzes with bubbles. You see something skim the surface, slick and scaly like a fish, but with too many arms and legs.

Stan steps to the edge of the pier and opens her coat wider to reveal rows of blood-bags covered with clinical stickers. “We’ve got human blood too!” she calls out. “Fresh from the veins! O-Negative, HIV and malaria-free! Perfect for nourishment and sacrificial rites, guaranteed!”

A scale-covered head rises from the water, a head with flaring gills and wide, black orb eyes. Whatever this creature is, it seems to be interested in Jellyfish Stan’s sales pitch.

Or should you say....hooked?

...I refuse to apologize.

You there!” Stan proclaims, locking eyes with her prospective customer. “Looking for spinal fluid or blood? Or maybe you’re in the market for forsaken souls?” Stan pulls a vial from her pocket and holds it up: a silver strand of light swirls inside the glass, beating against its prison with screaming hands.

Ooh! That looks tasty, Diesel: I don’t suppose you could buy one of those and pour it into your porkpie hat for me?

...I can sense your anger, Diesel. It makes no difference: I refuse to apologize for my tastes.

“Don’t be shy!” Stan tells her customer, wiggling the soul-filled vial back and forth. “We offer free samples...!”

The fish-monster sees you approaching Stan and vanishes back into the drink with a plop.

Jellyfish Stan twists around to look at you. That is to say, her head literally twists around in place, until she’s looking backwards over her shoulder blades.

“Word on the street is that you schmooze with Morgaeous Drake-Worm,” you say. “Could I ask you a few questions about him, Stan?”

“It’s you! The swordy guy!” Jellyfish Stan shrieks, eyes bulging with terror.

“The swordy guy...?” you repeat slowly.

“You’ll never take me undead!” Jellyfish Stan tells you.

“Now hold on!” you say, taking a step forward.

Jellyfish Stan’s head pops off her neck, flying off her body like a cork from a champagne bottle. Her esophagus slithers out behind her head, as do her lungs, stomach, and writhing intestines.

She soars high into the air, then twists and dives into the river. Water sprays all over the place, droplets raining down on your hat and shoulders

Stan’s hollowed-out torso teeters and falls over, arms and legs splayed out at awkward-looking angles. The stench of ammonia pours from the fleshy hole in her neck.

“Huh,” you say. “That one’s new.”

Next Chapter: Episode Six: The Suspicious Snitch (Revised)