Sell you a Bridge chapter 22

Madame Xanadu was not what I expected. You hear, the word Madame and  you imagine some elderly lady with iron gray hair in a tight bun. Maybe  with like a floor length dress and a school marm kind of vibe. Madame  Xanadu looked...cute. Not like girl next door cute but she was young and  pretty, with long dark hair with a circlet in it. She came across like  the princess from a renaissance faire, like an out of this world beauty  with a noble bearing that seemed out of place. She smiled at us as we  walked up blue eyes sparkling with mirth as she looked at Jim.

She  looked amused as she stared down my mentor, meeting his eyes as she  said "I don't recall telling you I had lifted your ban James." He looked  a bit abashed and stared down at the floor, refusing to meet her eyes  until she rolled them "But I suppose it has been about a decade. Besides  I doubt you managed to forget my punishment for trying to shop lift so  quickly." She turned to glance at us "Now, perhaps you'd like to  introduce me to your young charges? They seem...interesting. The boy in  particular has an air of power around him." She nodded her head at me  eyes flashing with some emotion I couldn't really understand.

Jim  doffed his top hat and swept into a low and formal bow "Your generosity  knows no bounds, milady." He gestured to the pile of things on the  counter "As you can see, I've merely come to stock up on the tools of my  trade. A hand of glory, ghost powder, a skeleton key, a rabbit's foot.  And of course a monkey's paw, just for emergencies." He'd told us all  about the tools and what they did before of course. A hand of glory  opened doors and locks and let thieves go undetected, a skeleton key  worked on more mundane locks, the ghost powder let a normal person walk  through walls, the rabbit's foot supplemented everything with a bit of  luck, and a monkey's paw gave you one wish with varying consequences.

Jim  had been sure to stress that we absolutely should not use the monkey's  paw unless there was literally no other choice. The rabbit's foot was  the real deal, made in a graveyard at midnight on Friday the thirteenth  while the moon was full, so it should offset the curse on a minor wish,  but if it had to do that both of them would be destroyed, and real  properly made rabbit's feet were pretty rare. Madame Xanadu raised an  eyebrow at the layout. "This is a bit extreme even for you. Your target  must be quite impressive." Jim opened his mouth but she cut him off "I'm  not prying, just making an observation."

She  stared hard at him "Be careful running around out there however. My  sister is in town. I don't know where she's staying exactly but I can  sense her. If you run afoul of her she'll kill all four of you without a  second of hesitation." She gave him a serious look, and to my surprise  the usually flippant Gentleman Ghost looked...terrified. It made me  wonder who the hell Madame Xanadu was that her sister scared a man who  purposefully started trouble with justice League from time to time to  keep them away from his real business. Her face turned to a smile  instantly "Now, why don't you introduce me to your young friends."

The  wince Jim made seemed to have less to do with having to introduce us  and more to do with his bad manners not doing so already. Guess you can  take the gentleman out of the Victorian but you can't take the Victorian  out of the gentleman. He smiled formally and gestured to us "Of course  milady, apologies for the rudeness. These are my proteges, messrs Morgan  O'Malley and Reginald Willowbrook and missus Artemis Crock." We  definitely hadn't give him all of our full names, but it wasn't  surprising he did his homework. "I am instructing them on the  intricacies of the fine art undetected entry."

She  smiled at the comment and focused her eyes on all of us again, once  more she seemed to focus most on me. I wondered if I reminded her of her  sister like I did Teague. "It's lovely to meet you children of course,  I'm glad you've decided to grace my  humble shop with your presence. It  breaks my heart to see such pure and innocent children embroiled in  matters at such a level with my degenerate sister running around town.  You might come to harm." She looked pensively at me for a moment, as if  trying to make a decision about something important.

She  reached under the counter and pulled out a small gold four leaf clover.  She leaned over and pinned it to my shirt, giving me a smile. "That  should save you once, provided she isn't being too serious. Can't have  such an interesting boy dying too soon. I'm curious to see what you'll  do. You're welcome here in the future whenever you wish. In fact, you  can even enter the back room if you wish." Jim seemed more shocked by  that than by her news about her sister, though less afraid. I got the  feeling Madame Xanadu didn't invite people into the back room very  often. I gave him a questioning look and his eyes widened as he nodded  frantically.

We  paid for the tools and Jim packed them up before Madame Xanadu took us  to the back of the shop. The door we stopped at was extremely odd. It  was made of brass with latches and levers all over it. The kind you see  on some doors where pushing it to the side slides a bolt into the wall,  except there were dozens of them. Madame Xanadu stepped up to the door  and began a complicated series of pulls and twists on the latches. I  could swear she opened and closed a few two or three times, like she was  inputting some kind of code. Finally she finished and reached down to  turn the knob on the door. When it opened, the other side of the door  was...not what I was expecting.

The  door opened into a massive courtyard. The sun was setting wherever the  hell this place was and the fading light poured down over cobbled stone.  The courtyard was in an old castle from what I could tell, with a large  beautiful fountain in the center. The pillars around us were lined with  vines and as we stepped out of the door it felt like it got colder.  When I turned to see where we had come from I saw the same door, now  closed, just sitting in the middle of empty space. This courtyard was  absolutely massive, and the castle looming up around it was even larger,  made of impressive black stone.

Around  the fountain however, was what we were her for I assumed, pedestals.  Thirteen of them, each with an object on it. Madame Xanadu gestured for  me to take a look, and I stepped forward to examine them. Each pedestal  had a plaque below it with a name. The first one I saw was a ball of  golden yarn. The plaque below it read "Thread of Ariadne". The other  items were every bit as amazing. I turned to Madame Xanadu "These are  all pretty amazing, how much do they cost?" I had ten million in the  bank now, but I got the distinct impression I might be able to get one  of these things top, and the cheapest one at that.

Madame  Xanadu just gave me a mysterious smile. "Oh no dear boy, this isn't a  place where you buy things for money. I bring people here who I feel  are...special. You may take a single object, in exchange for a single  favor to me, to be named at a later date. Or you can turn it down. You  can always come back whenever you wish, but only until you decide which  object you wish to take. Be warned however, the things here tend to  change. Not all at once, but over time one will be taken and replaced.  These artifacts are some of the most powerful in my collection, they can  make you a force to be reckoned with."

That  was...tempting. But honestly I'd already felt like I was just going  with the flow too much. Promising a random favor to a mysterious  probably immortal woman seemed...hasty. Even I wasn't that impulsive. I  offered my own version of Jim's bow "I appreciate that milady. But for  now I must decline. I'm just starting out in all this, I think I'd  rather know the value of my favors before I trade them away. At the  moment even I don't know what one is worth." I thought that sounded  sufficiently mysterious and impressive. I expected her to be annoyed but  she smiled at me with approval. I guess this had been some sort of  test?

She  even laughed, her chuckle a low silvery sound "Well said dear boy. The  offer remains, should you need it at a later date. However, I believe  such wisdom should be rewarded." She gestured to the door again "As you  may know my shop exists in many places at once. Some valued customers  can use it to traverse the globe as they wish. I will allow you three  trips, to any of my other locations and back. No rush to use them of  course." She shot me a wink "I'm not going anywhere. Consider them a  reward for showing the wisdom to know when to wait." It struck me that  she must really see something special in me, because she was obviously  trying to form at least a friendly relationship.

I  smiled gratefully "I am grateful for your trust Madame. I will strive  to be worthy of it." I took another long look at a pair of seven league  boots on one of the pedestals before turning decisively away and heading  back for the door. The longer I stayed here the more tempted I would be  to take her offer. It seemed like a better idea to avoid getting mixed  up in anything else given everything already going on. I glanced her out  of the corner of my eye to see her looking at me with amusement "Just  out of curiosity does this trip count as one of my three?" I was getting  some very faerie tale vibes off Madame Xanadu and in those stories  there was usually a catch.

She  laughed again, clearly enjoying dealing with someone new. "No, you  didn't choose your destination and I made the offer after we arrived in  any case. Consider this trip on the house. Now, why don't we head back,  I'm sure you all have a very busy night ahead of you." She walked  casually up to the door and began working a new sequence on the latches  and bolts. It took about two minutes before she opened it and we all  stepped back into the shop in the well lit Gotham afternoon. She pulled  the door shut and turned to us. "It was wonderful to meet you Morgan,  Artemis, Reginald. I do hope to see you again soon."

We  headed out of the shop to go start our preparations for tonight. I  heard a chime and slipped my phone out to see a text from Annabel, she  was asking me about a coffee date on Sunday. I replied that I would be  happy to, hopefully I wouldn't be dead or in prison on Sunday.  Regardless the thought of coffee with a pretty girl made me smile, and  it was hard to be as worried as I had been before. Jim knew his stuff,  we all had skillsets to fall back on and we were as prepared as we could  get. With everything in place all we could do was go through with the  heist, and let the chips fall where they may.