No, surely he didn't know. Why keep a spy around on purpose?
Leigh and I met up a few times. Nicole left for university a few hours plane ride away, but we kept in touch, especially because my "ailment", as we soon began referring to my healing, fascinated her. Occasionally, she rambled on excitedly about the medical potential my blood possibly held, and I didn't have the heart to tell her that my bad luck curse probably would turn my blood into a potion of instant death. Instant hepatitis. And what if the curse could be transmitted? No thanks. The less we looked into that avenue the better.
By the sixteenth, the Guildhall transformed from a dank mix between a church and haunted castle into a wannabe ritzy hotel. The Gala paled in comparison to the ostentatious display being orchestrated solely for the private donors who could spend more on a bottle of wine than I stood to earn in a decade.
If I had an ability more useful than healing, I'd rob them.
Theoretically, though, I could still sell Tempest's identity to a tabloid should I become especially strapped for cash. I always had that to fall back on.
On the eighteenth, guests began arriving around seven, and with each new face my nausea grew tenfold, making me second-guess the wisdom of my plan. Ultimately, though, I knew that if I didn't act I might never get another chance, so when most of the Guild ventured downstairs to greet guests, I waited until I counted every Guild Elder ambling down the third floor staircase by my room and went in the opposite direction.
I shot Leigh a quick, innocuous text as I jogged up the stone steps, her cue to begin watching the exits for early Elder departures from dinner.
It was a testament to our friendship that she didn't question me further when I asked her for that favor a week prior, and my rare good fortune that her family was invited to the dinner at all. As much as I would have loved to get a full coconspirator on my side, telling her too much would endanger the whole plot. Ren, another dinner attendee, would hear her thoughts and expose us both.
After I attained the information I needed and quit interning at the Guild entirely, I swore to myself I'd tell her everything. Right now, it simply wasn't safe to do so.
I had strong suspicions, a gut feeling, that tonight I would hit the jackpot, I only hoped that gut feeling wasn't nausea from nerves.
The lock barring entry to the Elder Quarter resembled the other locks around the guild. Brass, and set into the door beneath an arched handle.
The keyhole itself was large by modern key standards, meant for a bigger, rounded skeleton key, the type rarely seen outside of buildings built before the turn of the last few centuries.
Slipping my paper clip and flathead screwdriver borrowed from home out of my back pocket, I got to work breaking inside. Although my expertise as a lock pick left much to be desired after only a week of study, I'd gotten to the point where I could unlock the door to my room in under a minute, and the door to the Archive in under two. Finding the opportunity to try my skill on the other locks around the Guild came infrequently, due to the high Super traffic, but for the few I got my grubby paws on, I managed to break through within five minutes, growing faster each time.
This lock was not unlike those. The familiar rhythm slowed the angry flow of my blood through my veins. This I could do. It was just like any of the dozen other locks I successfully picked.
And I was correct. Without too much hassle, a light click alerted me to the changed to tumblers beneath the surface of the metal and when I tried the doorknob, the thick wood door creaked open at my touch.
Breathing a sigh of relief, I let myself inside and closed the door behind me, taking in the highly private Elder Quarters that held their rooms, their offices, and, I hoped, their secrets. The unnerving quiet settled over me, almost oppressive in its force.
My phone buzzed against my upper thigh, causing me to nearly jump out of my skin, until I read the encouraging text from Leigh in response to telling her to start her lookout.
Leigh: Go get 'em, tiger.
I grinned, reading the message in her most sarcastic voice, the way she no doubt intended. Feeling ironically emboldened by her words, meant in jest or no, I leapt into action, flipping the lock into place from the inside to buy myself a few extra moments, should it come down to it.
Hopefully, it wouldn't get to that point.
I checked the Constable's offices first, the space largely unchanged from the first and only time I saw it weeks back. Frustratingly, he didn't appear to personally hoard the Guild's secrets in any of the obvious places. Not in his desk, not on his walls of bookshelves, and I didn't have the time to upend the drawers for false bottoms or move the bookcases in a hunt for potentially nonexistent secret rooms.
I navigated three more offices to no avail before I dropped the idea that it would be in any of the more private spaces. The information hinted at in the Conference Room apparently had to be somewhere easily accessible to all Elders, so I returned to the common area near the entryway. I tugged indiscriminately on drawer handles, until I came across one handle that refused to budge.
Why have a locked filing cabinet safely tucked away inside an entire locked floor of a building?
Naturally, I intended to find out, and whipped out my tools once more. This lock was nothing like the others I practiced on. Smaller. Modern. My wiggle room far reduced. The longer it took to tinker on the unfamiliar medium, the sloppier I became in my ministrations, anxiety pushing me to try to force the lock to submit to my will, when the work at hand had nothing at all to do with force.
Only after ten minutes of struggle, my heart climbing into my throat, the tumblers gave, and I found exactly what I was looking for.
My eyes refused to believe it at first. Finally, answers months in the making. Fingers trembling, I skimmed them down the line of villain and hero aliases, skipping over dozens at a time in my search. Bloodless, Bomb, Cobra, Constable, Fate, the Gray Death, Nightshade.
Ah. There he was. I plucked his file free and continued scanning for my grandfather, past Pandora, and Red Night, until I found the section titled Shadow.
Both files taken in hand, I bumped the open drawer with my hip to let it roll shut. These files, unlike the corresponding ones down in the Conference Rooms, had weight to them, at least a dozen pages each. Instead of wasting my precious time reading, not knowing when someone might walk in on me, I brought out my phone to snap pictures that I could peruse later at my leisure.
Only a couple pages into the first file, I felt it.
Another buzz. Another text. I checked the message and felt my excitement wither into a husk.
Leigh: You've got company.
My eyes barely skimmed over the last letter before I caught the voices on the other side of the door. I had just enough time to hurl myself and my ill-gotten gains out of direct line of sight from the entryway when they pulled their key from the lock and let themselves, chattering, inside.
YOU ARE READING
Super•Villainous
Fantasy"I've been looking for you." There was an unexpected rasp to his voice, a hint of desperation. He stretched out one hand, as if to brush it across my cheek, or perhaps wrap it around my throat. Oddly enough, I didn't know which option frightened me...
