17, Leaping
Tite
Shadow took an impressive leap backwards while hissing. I just stared at him. For a moment we looked at each other.
“What was that?” I asked.
“You said ‘oh’. I thought it was a bad ‘oh’,” he explained, straightening up from his fighting pose.
“And you thought what? That you could out-leap magic? Don’t get me wrong, it was an impressive leap, but still,” I asked, trying to hold back a giggle.
“Well, it was out of instinct,” he defended himself and walked up to the bench again. “So not a bad ‘oh’?” he asked. I was tempted to say it was just to see his reaction. Most supernatural creatures were taught to fear pure magic.
“No, just a surprised one,” I said, taking pity on him. “This is not meant to cause harm, it’s purpose is to make your brain unfocused.”
“How is that not causing harm? And why would someone want that?”
“Well, I guess you’re right. It can make you bump into things or trip and that way hurt you. But as soon as you step out of its range, you will be fine and there are no side effects. These types of things usually are used when you want to keep something hidden. Say you want to stash your porn collection. You put your porn under your mattress and then put one of these there as well. When one of the brothers comes looking, as soon as they come close, they will lose focus, forget what they are looking for and maybe even why they entered your room in the first place. With one of these you don’t need to be a master spy or have a perfect place to hide your secrets. And before you ask; No I won’t create one to hide your porn stash. Hiding something like this in your room is a bad idea. It won’t just affect you when you are searching for what it’s keeping hidden. It’s always on. Imagine trying to have some fun adult time in your bed and keep forgetting why the two of you are there,” I told him. Shadow snorted.
“Get with the times, Tite. I watch my porn online on my phone or tablet,” he said.
“Oh really? Well look at who is keeping up with the modern age. You have to send me some links so I can see what your taste is like,” I joked and to my surprise, Shadow blushed. “Oh wow. I wish we had time to dig into that. Let’s both remember to circle back to this topic tonight when we are having a beer.” I turned back to the pile of magical objects on the bench.
“What do we do with it now?” Shadow asked, looking relieved I dropped the previous subject.
“Good question. I’m thinking we don’t want the one who put it here to know we have found it. Then we should place it back once we had searched the place to see what they are trying to hide,” I suggested.
“Does it need to be a witch who placed it here?” Shadow asked.
“No. The magic is done when you put it together. Once that is done you can hand it to anyone to place. Why?” I wanted to know.
“I have been here for five years. During my time here, I have never scented another non-human,” he told me. “You are the first one.”
“Okay. The bag can’t be that old. They last for maybe a year if you are lucky. Then you need to add fresh ingredients,” I said. I had no idea where he was going with his line of thought.
“If we think the one who put it there is a human, who has got it from a witch. Do you think they will notice if the bag isn’t the real deal? what if we just put the bag back, minus all the stuff inside. The human will think it’s still there, but we can return anytime to do sweeps of the place without us having to climb a ladder every time,” he told me.
“Shadow, that is brilliant.” I started to break the magic of the objects which had been inside the bag. Even if they wouldn’t cause the same effect outside the bag and with no intent, I didn’t want magical objects just hanging around. “Give me your sock,” I said.
“What?” he asked.
“We can’t just put the bag back empty, it will look wrong. So stuff your sock into it,” I told him. He looked at me, then he muttered some not so nice words as he leaned against the wall, pulling off his boot and sock and putting his boot back on. He held his sock out to me. I laughed.
“Oh no. I’m not touching that thing,” I said and gave him the empty bag. He sighed, stuffed his sock back inside and climbed the ladder and placed the bag back where we found it. I got an image of how the human would bring the bag back to be recharged by the witch and them opening it just to find a dirty sock. It made me giggle as I swept the former contents of the bag into an empty can I found. Shadow had placed the ladder back where he found it and we nodded towards each other and started to search the place.
“Tite,” Shadow called for me after a couple of minutes. Not far from the workbench, there was a flattened cardboard box on the ground. When Shadow moved it, there were traces of digging into the dirt floor. It was easy to spot now, but with the hex bag, it would have been easy to just walk right over. I got a shovel and I had only taken two turns when the blade hit something hard. An old tin box. We took it out and opened it. There were receipts inside it and confirmations of placing money into an account. We looked through them.
“They go back about six years,” I said.
“Same here,” Shadow said as he looked up from his stack. “But what does it mean? It’s not breaking club rules to earn money or buy things. Especially these kinds of things, they are mostly things for your bike, normal things.”
“Maybe it’s how they got the money that is the issue? Maybe they are hiding this because if anyone saw it, they would know the person shouldn’t be having this kind of money. Each payment into the account is at least a thousand dollars. That’s a lot of money,” I said.
“You think the person doing this is selling information about the club?” Shadow asked.
“Maybe, maybe they are doing something else they aren’t supposed to do. I suggest we put it all back and then we keep an eye on this place, making sure to note who goes in and out and regularly check to see if new things get added to the box,” I said.
“Sounds like the best plan,” he agreed. We tried to put everything back exactly how we found it and got out of the building. “What now?” he asked.
“Now I need to talk to my brother and tell him what I have found and ask how I should move on from here. Do you want me to keep you being here a secret?” I asked. He stopped walking and looked at me. I stopped as well.
“You would do that?” he asked.
“Sure. I don’t see why they would need to know.”
“Thank you, but it’s not necessary. I’m not hiding,” he said.
“Okay then. What are your plans for the day?”
“Me and one of the prospects are doing an afternoon run. An important local business man hires us to deliver documents that need to get to their destination without issue. We’ll be back later in the evening,” he told me.
“I’ll buy you the first beer. Don’t think I have forgotten the topic we need to discuss,” I told him as we parted ways.