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I was almost tempted, just to get rid of him. He’d been hovering ever since we came in. Of course, that was mostly Augustine’s fault.
The wardrobe-in-one seemed to know we were shopping and had morphed into a chic skirted suit. It had apparently convinced the salesman that I might be worth a decent commision. “Thanks,” I told him, “but I’m looking for something a little more . . . proactive.”
“Ah, well, in that case”—he hurried over to a metal cabinet standing by the back wall—“I have just the thing.”
Marco bent to whisper in my ear. “Don’t let him take you. This place has a rep for sharp dealing.”
“Not much chance of that.”
The cabinet door swung open to reveal shelves stacked with the same kind of jumbled, dusty mess that characterized the rest of the shop. None of the items appeared to be guns, grenades or other recognizable weaponry—or anything else of interest. But from the way the salesman was smiling, you’d have thought we were looking at Ali Baba’s cave.
“Now, this is a real find!” He took out a tattered piece of black cloth about the size of a handkerchief and threw it into the air. Instead of falling, it drifted upward and began expanding. Within seconds, a bedsheet-sized undulating wall of darkness fluttered overhead—before suddenly dropping down on us, blocking out all light.
I heard Marco swear, a pissed-off sound that echoed faintly against the nothingness all around us. But his voice’s timbre had changed; every sound seemed to undulate, fading in and out from screamingly loud to whisper quiet, sometimes within the same word. I could no longer tell if he was standing right beside me or had moved halfway across the room.
The salesman’s cheerful tones drowned him out anyway and still sounded perfectly normal. “The Shroud of Darkness,” he said dramatically. “Excellent offensive or defensive aid. Drop this onto an enemy and watch them stumble about whilst you attack with impunity or slip away unnoticed!”
The darkness wrapped around me like a wet blanket, moist and wool warm, almost smothering. The air I managed to draw in was musty and soup-thick on my tongue and strangely tacky, as if it was sticking to the sides of my throat going down. I don’t suffer from claustrophobia, but in the Shroud’s humid embrace, I felt it anyway.
Useful the thing might be, but it was dark, too, in more than just color. I scrubbed at my arms, trying to get the oddly solid blackness off and fighting panic when nothing I did helped. I bit my lip, but it wouldn’t be long before I could no longer choke back a scream.
“Black magic,” Francoise muttered, her voice echoing strangely.
“Get us out of here,” Marco hissed. “Now!” His last word sounded loud enough with the Shroud’s odd magnification to shatter eardrums. But a second later the dark lifted as abruptly as a sheet being pulled off my head. I stood gasping and blinking in the suddenly glaringly bright showroom, waiting for my eyes to adjust, while the salesman had the Shroud ripped from his hand by an angry vampire.
“Was that supposed to be funny?!” It looked like Marco wasn’t a fan of sensory deprivation. Vampire eyes usually work even better in the dark than in daytime, so why was I getting the impression that he hadn’t been able to see inside that thing any better than I had?
“I do apologize,” the salesman said hurriedly. “But the Shroud is very old, very rare. Most people have never even heard of it. Spells are often used to fool the senses these days, but they are far simpler to throw off. With such an unusual item, it is easier to demonstrate what it does than to attempt to explain—”
“Explaining will do fine,” I interrupted, and Francoise nodded emphatically.
“As you like.” The salesman looked disappointed that his demonstration hadn’t been well received.
“What kind of illegal crap are you selling?” Marco demanded.
“Everything we carry is completely legitimate,” the salesman assured me, ignoring Marco. “No need to concern yourself about any trouble with the authorities.”
“I generally don’t,” I muttered. The authority policing magical weapons was the Silver Circle, and I couldn’t really get in more trouble with them if I tried.
The salesman gave me a sly look that contrasted oddly with his Santa Claus face. “However, we do have some antique pieces that don’t, er, come under the more modern bans.”
“Such as?” Maybe there was some esoteric antique that even the Circle wouldn’t have heard about—something rare enough or weird enough to gain me an advantage.
“There’s this lovely item. It comes from the estate of, how shall I put it, an adventurer?” The small off-white statue he handed me turned out to be of a Buddha-type figure with a jaunty grin. Miniature cracks zigzagged over the figure’s fat little belly and were slightly darker than the rest of it, like old ivory. “Daikoku, one of the seven Japanese gods of fortune!”
“And?”
“It’s a netsuke,” Marco said, peering at the little thing. “I used to know a guy who collected them.”
“A what?”
He shrugged. “Kimonos didn’t have pockets. Traditional Japanese guys wore a sash around their waist with a purse tied on it. Only they didn’t call it a purse, because they were guys, you know? Anyway, the netsuke held the two pieces—the bag and the belt—together.”
“This isn’t a netsuke,” the salesman sniffed. “Admittedly, there were a number carved depicting Daikoku, but that’s all they were—mere depictions.”
“And this would be different how?” I asked.
“Because this is Daikoku.”
