Demon Card Enforcer 3, Chapter 35

[Made a few changes to the last chapters, but nothing too major. I'm kinda so-so on this one atm, but putting it up for now, I think the coolest parts are fine, and hopefully the description of the actions they'll be taking that I'm then gonna skip still works without being too boring.] 

Chapter Thirty-Five: Wages of Sin

           “No, no,” Fern whispered, rocking a bit in the chair of the van as she drove down the moonlit road, keeping herself almost exactly three miles over the speed limit.

            The police car driving toward them on the road—sirens on—slowed a bit as it passed them. Wolfe squinted as the passenger-side officer shined a flashlight across, the light briefly playing across Wolfe, Shel, and Fern.

            “Just stay calm,” Wolfe said.

            Shel smiled and waved at the officers as the vehicle passed them.

            The van was quiet for a moment as the police car kept going. Wolfe looked behind him, but the police car didn’t break or turn, and after a moment everyone let out a collective sigh of breath.

            “We’re good?” Shel asked.

            “Pretty sure,” Wolfe said.

Then he glanced at the borderline arsenal lying all over the floor. “No police officer is gonna believe that we’re the attackers with two cute twenty-something women in our car, so that flashlight probably did us a huge favor. If we’d have been pulled over…”

“Yeah,” Shel said as Fern’s breathing briefly went ragged.

“So, what’s the plan now?” Shel asked.

“Well… we have an absolute ton of cards… and I want to see the newest ‘Gate to the Infernal’ set card.”

Shel passed her cards forward, then leaned up to stare at Wolfe. He was holding sixty card in his hand, which was absurd. The majority were Infernal or Infernal and something else, although a few were different. Wolfe quickly skimmed through, looking for the set card first. After a bit, he found it.

The front of the card showed a powerful infernal creature, arms akimbo, with wisps of light—a soul perhaps—flowing into it from behind while it stood on a night-time road in the rain.

Damned Soul’s Road

Rare equivalent, Tier-4 equivalent Infernal Persistent [Gate]

1 Infernal Power

While in play, the first 4 unique infernal creatures or minions in play require 1 less power of the deckbearer’s choice. All Infernal, Undead, or Elder cards with the word Portal or Gate in their title or keywords cost 1 less power (minimum 1), even if brought to the field by another card rather than being played.

So long as this card is in the deck, all Infernal, Undead, and Elder creature and minion cards that are unique will have personalities as if they were companions.

Special: Gate to the Infernal: If all 6 are possessed in the same deck, the bearer will gain 7 Legendary Infernal or Beast card pulls. Additionally, the deckbearer may either gain the Mythic ‘Gate to the Infernal’ Building Card or evolve Cereboo. Each card was given to a member of the Noimoire underworld.

“When our lieutenants take the field in all but will, the time of ascension is nigh.”—Gabriel, to Nurenda Whiteflame, 3103 BDN

            Shel read over Wolfe’s shoulder.

            She whistled. “Wow… that’s almost as complicated and bizarre as your Infernal Rift. It’s like a baby enhancer card that’s also a persistent that effects even side-decks or, theoretically, sacrifices that join you if they were unique.”

“It’s a doozy alright,” Wolfe muttered as he stared at it, his mind racing.

“Do you have any unique creatures, by the way?” Shel asked. “You don’t, right? Just companions?”

            Wolfe nodded. “Yeah, although the Get of Xolotl will become one… and we know we just got Klireen.”

            Shel snorted. “Seriously? You want to have Klireen in your deck? A succubus daughter of an Infernal lord you opposed, the Infernal lord of lust I might add, and you want to give her a personality?”

            Wolfe wasn’t normally prone to embarrassment, but he felt his cheeks heating. “Klireen is a crazy powerful card, and even more so at four power.”

“Uh huh,” Shel said, her voice playfully doubtful.

Wolfe could see she was grinning. A touch hysterically, perhaps, now that they had gotten away, at least for the moment. But grinning.

Wolfe continued his musing as Fern drove down the streetlight-lit road. “Although I suppose playing this card first does almost nothing for me unless I get more unique creatures as well. Maybe I can put her in the side-deck and use her from there as a four-power equivalent.”

“Did you get any other unique creatures?” Fern asked. “That might make it a bigger deal for your deck.”

Wolfe rifled back through the cards again, glancing at types. After a moment, he shook his head no. “Nothing else here is unique. Maybe I should ask Mrs. Timo for Tuvagi back.”

“That’s a companion, not a unqiue creature,” Shel said.

“Right, sorry.” Wolfe shuffled through the cards more slowly. “I do have some really interesting cards in this set, though. There’s a Death and Life combo enhancer card, no power cost, called Deck Slayer that gives two percent life increase for every deckbearer you’ve killed and a flat plus one each to Defense and Magical Defense.”

“Wow, you could live forever,” Shel said with half a laugh, her eyes wide. “That’s straight up Thousand Card Killer stuff.”

“The serial murderer?” Fern asked.

Shel nodded.

“I have killed quite a few,” Wolfe said, counting absently. “I wonder if it counts the two I got before becoming a deckbearer myself?”

“Doesn’t say it doesn’t,” Shel said.

Wolfe nodded again. He would age quite slowly with just that one card—perhaps, if everything went as he hoped, he could live with Shel for the majority of her extended lifespan, given that she had the Cowlitz mountain ‘set’ of cards.

“It’s a good future,” Shel said as if she could read his mind, then put her hand on his arm. “But keep your mind on the hear and now—we have to live through the next couple days first.”

            Wolfe chuckled darkly. “There is that.”

            He searched the rest of the cards quickly. “There’s a lot of stuff here, and a ton of it is good. But most doesn’t fit my deck. Control and damage over time cards are the majority of the stuff I’ve got here—none of it fits.”

            “So you said,” Shel muttered, and Wolfe blinked.

            Then it hit him—he’d repeated himself. He ignored her teasing.

            “I was hoping to get more than just two cards I can use out of the sixty that I had.”

            “We can always trade them to Gavin’s in return for other, better cards,” Shel said.”

            “It almost always takes more than four days, and I wanted them before we went after the Renfeldt. I think that at this point Nathan and whatever other toadies Adam has are gonna figure out what I’m up to—and I am… concerned about meeting up with Nathan again. I’d rather be as strong as possible.”

            “Speaking of, how many levels did you get?” Shel asked.

            “Two, the vast majority of it from Gurjit himself. You?”

            “About two-and-a-half,” Shel replied.

            Wolfe returned to the previous conversation. “Levels aside… I need a way to turn cards into other cards, fast.”

            There was a moment of silence as Fern turned off the highway onto their street, broken only by the noises of the car and the faint tap-tap of Shel clicking her fingernail against her teeth as she thought.

            “Well… we could use the underground card markets. Those guys have way less variety than the main market, but they seem to be able to get the cards fast, or at least they were able to last time.”

            Wolfe laughed. “I kidnapped Gopal right from the parking lot that the Rat Arena uses—I doubt they’re gonna let me just walk on in with no consequence.”

            “Well… what if we gave Gopal back?”

            In the excitement, Wolfe had somehow forgotten all about Gopal. “Ah, shit. Did he even live?” Wolfe asked Fern. “And did they already get him and take him out?”

“He did live… but he didn’t escape. No one else either lived or escaped. My traps got them all.”

“…We’re returning to a house that’s a complete bloodbath, aren’t we?” Shel asked, her voice tired.

Wolfe glanced back and saw that her eyes were glistening, but she shook her head when Wolfe opened his mouth.

Either ignorant of the exchange or unwilling to acknowledge it, Fern responded to Shel’s question. “Well, I got the remaining two vans worth of them on the highway with the drones while you guys were out, but still… yeah. Twenty people are dead in that place. More cards, though—Harjeet didn’t make it either.”

Wolfe whistled, running his hands through his hair. “Wow.”

            “How do we get this… handled?” Shel asked. “Clean and body free?”

            “We can call Miriam and have some of her people handle it…” Wolfe said. “The Dungeon of Loowitlatkla’s Fall is still there, even if we beat it… if they take the bodies there, they can dispose of them. Bodies dissolve in dungeons, right?”

            “Yeah, but we’re gonna have an absolute ton of work to do, regardless,” Fern said. “And more people from Miriam seeing it means more problems. I killed ten people on a highway, twenty more disappeared at your place, and you murdered ten and set everything on fire. Even by deckbearer standards this is gonna be a huge deal. We might need to vacate the state soon. Maybe the country.”

            Wolfe nodded. Yeah, forty bodies in the thorough, borderline military way we handled it, even if they only figure out half of them is gonna cause some issues. Forget buying cards from the underground market—I’ll need to sell cards to them as well, just to keep off the radar.

            Speaking of the radar… “So we release Gopal?” Wolfe asked. “That’s the plan? Don’t you think he’ll squeal?”

            Fern shook her head as she turned into the parking lot of the Hellmouth Institute. “He won’t. He’s here on a temporary visa, and thinks very differently about this stuff—he’ll assume the police will take your side, or are bribed. I know him from my time with Adam. He’ll flee quietly, trust me.”

            It’s a risk, but I have to take one somewhere… “Alright, I’ll head upstairs and get him, set him free. Shel, call Miriam and get her working. Fern, track everything you can and make sure we’re not about to be raided.”

            Fern nodded but said, “I don’t have that much access to active police communications, but I’ll try.”

            She came to a halt past the four black SUV’s, right at the front door to the Institute.

            Wolfe opened the door. “It’s gonna be an all-nighter after a raid, peeps. Get started as fast as you can—I, for one, am already tired.”