Sell you a Bridge chapter 16 (Patreon)

After we told him we would help, Reggie seemed to almost deflate. He  slumped forward onto the table in exhaustion. "Thank you! Seriously,  thank you both. I was so terrified I ran out of my house after the  meeting as soon as they left. I figured even if they came back they  wouldn't stay if I was gone, but now I have a week to get things done  and I should go home I guess but I'm so scared to be around my mom and  sister. I don't know what to do."

I  frowned and reached across the table to squeeze his shoulder. "Text  your mom to tell her you woke up early to go work on a project, you can  crash at my place tonight. We can go with you back to your house  tomorrow night and look around. You still want to do the Charcoal Pit  tomorrow? We can call Bette and cancel if you want?" Reggie seemed so  much calmer now that we were giving him actual options. I couldn't  imagine what he was going through, some mysterious group showing up and  giving you a job or they would kill your family because of something  your dad did before he died?

Reggie  shook his head. "No, if I start acting weird it might give something  away." He shot me a wink, though his heart wasn't in it "Besides, I've  been waiting for a chance with Bette for ages, it'll take more than the  fear of death to scare me off." Being on somewhat more familiar  territory seemed to have given him a bit more confidence, and I couldn't  help but laugh. He smiled at my amusement "Seriously though man, thank  you so much. I can never repay you for this. You've barely known me a  day and you're willing to help me out of such a crazy jam I'll owe you  forever."

I  just waved it off "No big, man. You might be a new friend, but you're  still a friend. Can't have it getting out I'm letting some jumped up  rich person street gang screw with my people. My rep would be in  tatters." I winked to show him I was joking. Mostly. "Anyway it's late,  we should head back to my place. I'll leave my mom a note that I have a  buddy crashing at the house because he needed a ride to school." I  glanced around, still feeling like we were being watched "Though, maybe  you should walk between us on the way back. Just in case."

The  remark seemed to set him on edge again, but honestly I didn't blame him  there. He left a few bucks on the table for the coffee he had been  mainlining before we got there and we all stood up to leave. Despite  having lived in Gotham all my life there was something deeply disturbing  about walking down a dark street at night with the constant feeling you  were being stalked by something. I tried to use my ninja training in  moving unseen to figure out where I would be following us from and  managed to catch the odd glance of a dark shadow.

Whoever  was on our ass was good, like, as good as i was with help from my  power. I just got the outline of a person and the occasional flash of  lenses from some kind of goggles. Probably night vision if I had to  guess. I'd called a cab from the diner but arranged a pick up a mile or  so away at a gas station a bit closer to my condo. I figured if we had  to wait anyway a walk might calm Reggie's nerves and save me a few bucks  in cab fare. We walked in silence, and the cab was waiting by the time  we got there.

The  time seemed to blur by and soon we were back at my condo and I was  setting  Reggie up with some blankets on my floor. I gave him one of my  pillows so he could get some rest before school and went to go find a  replacement in the boxes downstairs. It took a minute to find them in  the stacks but I located the box with the linen closet stuff in it and  pulled out a shuriken to open it with. I lowered the shuriken to the  box, but before it reached the tape I hurled it sideways at what looked  like an empty patch of darkness. There was a flash of metal on metal and  the shuriken went spinning away.

I  turned to face the intruder "I don't know who you are, or what shadowy  organization you came from, and I give zero fucks. Following Reggie out  in the street isn't cool, but I can't really do much about it. This  however is my house, and if you don't get the fuck out I'm going to  punch so many new holes in your melodramatic ass you'll be able to pass  for a pasta strainer." I'd noticed him when I came downstairs. Ninja  senses are pretty great for spotting intruders, since we know all the  best ways to be an intruder.

The  guy was big. He wore all dark clothes and a mask and a big pair of  reflective goggles like I'd spotted on the street. He had swords, and he  looked like he knew how to use them, my tanto was sharp as fuck but I  had zero idea how to actually use the thing so I obviously wouldn't  actually fight him with swords. The figure cocked it's head, tilting it  oddly to one side. Finally he spoke, a raspy voice, clearly rough from  disuse "You have been inducted into a task. Your knowledge of us has  been deemed...acceptable. For now. Aid your friend in the completion of  his objective and all debts are cleared."

That,  I had not been expecting. I assumed he was an assassin, but clearly  these guys weren't stupid. Reggie was a teenager, and under pressure  they suspected he might spill their secrets. I frowned at the knock off  ninja. "Ok, so we help him steal this thing from and keep our moths shut  about whoever you guys are, which since we don't know seems pretty  simple, and you let him go. What if I decide to just kill you for  breaking into my place? I don't much like the thought of assassins  infiltrating my condo where my family lives."

The  assassin stilled, head slowly and eerily righting itself "We are many.  Kill one and more will come. We will drown you in blood. However we will  not return. You are not worthy of our time or concern. You are beneath  us. We come only to serve a warning, keep your silence, aid your friend,  or die with him and his family upon the event of his failure." That  just pissed me off, but the guy didn't sound like he knew what bluffing  even was. I fully believed whoever sent him had more freaks like him and  would absolutely send them to kill us all.

I  snarled in frustration. "Who the fuck are you people? Why are you  coming after Reggie like this? He doesn't want to be part of your creepy  little games and his dad is dead. Debt's don't pass on like that, just  leave his family alone." I wanted to hurt this guy. I was angry. I spent  years feeling useless and pathetic because of my lack of superpowers  and now that I had them I couldn't do shit anyway. This asshole was  making me feel weak and pathetic and I was enraged past the point of  reason by it.

The  assassin laughed, a creepy high pitched sound that didn't fit with his  scratch voice at all and sent shivers down my spine. "Beware the Court  of Owls, that watches all the time, ruling Gotham from a shadowed perch  behind granite and lime. They watch you at your hearth, they watch you  in your bed, speak not a whispered word of them or they'll send a Talon  for your head." The words were spoken with a sing song fluidity that  implied they were some kind of ritual phrase, and clearly meant to  intimidate me.

It didn't work.  "That was awful. The meter is atrocious. I wrote better poetry when I  was in kindergarten. But I take your point. You guys are some big scary  secret society and you'll kill the shit out of me if I talk about you.  Message delivered, threat received. Now get the fuck out of my house so I  can go to sleep and start preparing to help Reggie accomplish goals you  could obviously accomplish yourself for some weird fucking reason." The  figure, which from the terrible rhyme I would assume was a "Talon"  tilted it's head again in that strange manner I now recognized as a bit  birdlike.

Despite  that it didn't react to my hostility with anger or violence and merely  nodded and then melted into the shadows. To anyone else it would have  just disappeared but I knew the route it would take to leave. It was the  same one I would use. I stood there for a minute or two, waiting to  make sure the fucker had actually left before bolting upstairs to my  computer. First thing I did was got through my emails. I needed to find  something...there. I had an idea. My powers came in the form of items, I  had ninja training and weapons and strength, Artemis had her martial  arts and skills, but Reggie was pretty much screwed as it was.

I'd  tracked down one of the cheaper and least impressive emails that  offered superpowers. Thirty points was cheap for something like that,  but I assumed that was because "Dr. Destro's Diabolical Dehumanization  Draft" was a vial of formula that supposedly gave you a random  superpower. It was the only thing I could afford at the moment sadly.  Luckily dehumanization was just a catchy word for giving someone meta  powers, but still random powers was a bit of a gamble. I'd give it to  Reggie and explain to him that I got it from my dad and tell him the  risks.

Revealing  the existence of my old man would be much smarter than telling him  about my powers. I might have been a bit hasty telling Artemis, but I'd  known her for years even if we weren't that close. Reggie I'd just met  and if I was going to be mixed up with weirdos like this Court of Owls I  should be more careful. Still telling him about my dad was plenty, and  would help out here, no way the Falcone's had been around so long  without knowing that there was a creepy secret society running around  Gotham.

I  would leave a message for my old man and arrange a meeting, hopefully he  could tell me more about these guys or at the very least offer  protection. The Falcone family was old as dirt and we had a ton of  resources in Gotham. No matter who this Court of Owls was, I doubted  they could just ignore us. Besides given my new skill set my dad would  see me as a future asset. I could just pretend I'd been training in  secret all these years. Not like he would know different since he was  never around anyway. This entire thing would be way easier with the  family at my back.

I  could also ask him about this Shadowcrest place. If it was in Gotham  and was this big fancy place he had to have heard of it. Maybe he knew  how to get us in. If the family couldn't scare off these Owl guys we  would have to pull the job anyway but having the information my dad  could provide would make things much easier. I checked the clock,  wincing as I noticed it was four in the morning. Three hours until I  needed to get up for school. With a plan in mind I laid down to try to  get some sleep. I could deal with all this tomorrow.