Silver Bullet #9- Friendly Chat

On this night, James Girek (Hel) walked more softly than most would expect. The tall and somewhat chubby boy needed to, black bag jobs made stealth a mandatory requirement. The small haversack the man in boy's flesh carried had proven to be usefully stocked for this sort of mission. The door to this closed shop had been secured with very expensive and mantically potent locks. They hadn't been easy to pick, but he had managed. Taking in the foyer before him, the Silver Bullet noticed the slight incline of the floor. Some uncertain instinct prompted him to examine more closely.

As the veils of the world fell from his eyes, Girek spotted them. There were small silken blobs of mana perched at the corners of the room. Damn, though Girek, noting the locations of the blobs of spun mana which were barely visible to non-mantic senses. They were normally employed by the arachnid species of mamono, each blob would have an invisible string leading to another blob. To cross one would be to, presumably, alert a mamono holding a sensor string somewhere. Girek sighed noiselessly, the Silver Bullets shota-fication process may have given him the body of a child, but he was still pretty tall and heavy for a boy his apparent age.

The theads that would trigger the alarm string were even invisible to the mamono that wove them. Breathing deeply, James Girek loosened his body as he calculated. The angles between the eight blobs that served as anchor points for the invisible web were limited, but gave a massively large number of possible of lines. The strings would have to be taut, arachnid species produced them instinctually and therefore the points at which the invisible strings would project from the blobs was limited by their instinctive movement patterns....

James had accrued a sheen of sweat on his brow by the time he'd made it past the webbed foyer. That had been Goddess damned complex. Now standing beside the shop's till he took a moment to compose himself, straightening his cravat. He took out his small revolver, wary that he'd inadvertently triggered the alarm. There had been no mention of any arachnid mamono in the briefing. Technically this building was a small city shop that specialized in jams and belonged to a female human, Ximena Veras.

The front of the small shop had a barely working hitching rail that might be able to tie a couple of horses. There was no way it warranted near enough money for the specialized locks and security systems. The tax paperwork it filed with the Compact's bureaucracy had been scrupulously perfect. To place a final nail in the coffin of the chances of "Ximena's Jams" being a truly legitimate business, all of her competitors in the city had paper trails showing weak connections to Sabbath-friendly organizations. Girek was sufficiently paranoid that he was certain something fishy was going on.

Girek had checked every single one of all of those businesses, of course. His black haversack had been a necessary companion for the last week. All of them had checked out as clean, under his disavow-able brand of investigation. Despite his youthful body, he was beginning to feel his actual age. "Ximena Veras" would be answering some very pointed questions after he finished investigating her shop. As a Silver Bullet, an agent of the Goddesses' Compact without an official cover, he wouldn't be asking her himself -- but he'd make certain that someone would be bringing sharpened interrogatives to bear on "Ximena". First, he had to gather the evidence.

Past the register counter there was a small hallway curtained off from the front of the shop. He spent a few moments perusing it with non-standard senses before determining that it really was a ratty curtain marking off a hallway. It was nearly disappointing after the harrowing magically reinforced alarm systems. Revolver in hand and black bag in the other, he pushed aside the curtain to examine the rest of the hallway. Hyatszee!, thought the boy, recalling the phrase used to declare victory in a childhood game he'd not played since he was naturally a child.

The short hallway terminated in a closed backdoor. There was visible light seeping through its edges. James considered for a moment. It was likely that either the guard for the alarm system, or perhaps even Ximena herself was behind the door. Someone was there, literally burning the midnight oil. Favoring stealth over recklessness unlike some of his fellow agents, Girek sat his trusty black haversack down and readied himself pistol raised. With unnatural speed he opened the door and moved inside the well-lit room, his revolver brought to bear on the occupant of the room.

"Don't move or speak.", said James Girek as he closed the door behind him with his foot. The little Gyoubu Danuki sitting at the desk in the small room didn't. She was frozen in place, her eyes glued to his weapon. Her mouth was stuffed with noodles, her chopsticks held another portion of food halfway to her mouth. In the silence, the sound of the held portion of noodles slapping on the desk as they slid from the chopsticks was incongruously amusing.

"You are Ximena Veras, correct? Nod if so.", said Girek. The red haired Danuki was short and thin, even for a child. The dusky skinned girl bobbed her head at his question, her black eyes trained on Girek's pistol. "You can chew your noodles, Ximena. Make no sounds louder than I am talking, okay?", said James quietly, as he sat on a nearby stool -- holding the gun to bear the entire time. She gave a brief slurp and wince as she pulled the noodles into her mouth, and chewed. "Now Ximena, there is a security system installed, of a very peculiar sort. Do you have the sensor strand?", he continued as she finished the mouthful. She nodded once more.

"Does anyone else have a sensor strand?", asked Girek, remembering the need for thoroughness. At this she froze, though she'd finally swallowed the bolus of noodles he'd interrupted her from eating earlier."Don't talk.", he said interrupting her before she spoke, "Just think for a moment. Do you think that they can get here before I could, mmm I don't know, shoot you in the face repeatedly?" She'd gone chalky pale at his words. "Now you can answer. Quietly.", said Girek in as friendly a tone as if he were talking to an actual child. There was a slight chance of it being so, but he'd not bet money on the wager.

"Probably not.", she whispered, "The money is in th--" Girek interrupted her with a small click of the tongue and a shake of the head.

"Where are the others holding sensor strands? Don't worry I don't plan on hurting anyone.",asked Girek, sighting along his revolver. "Someone else will be along sniffing about your books if isn't me. They won't even bother to ask questions, Ximena. The Sabbath is banned from operating here under the current terms of the Compact. The penalties here are quite...wasteful. Thankfully, cooperation saves us from waste. And all of the pain that follows it.", said James Girek, his voice bright and cheerful. He'd always found that friendliness worked wonders. Later, that night would be used as further proof of the belief. For the little Danuki, who was much older than she looked, had much to say when asked nicely. She actually knew quite a bit about the Sabbath, and James Girek listened. He was always ready to lend an ear. It was the friendly thing to do, after all.