8: A brief History of Noimoire, by Chris Zinn: The ‘lone sheriff and his deck’ style of book and movie became a huge hit with early entertainment junkies, and has long been a staple of the western. Many a critic decried the descent into formula of the genre, with one critic describing them as ‘a mad lib where you only fill in the deck.’ Regardless of the veracity of these claims, a resurgence in movie-making in the eighties led to new takes on the formulae, including the gritty new anti-hero movies.
Nowhere were these movies more accepted than in Noimoire, where the average acceptance of vigilantism is twice the national average.
Wolfe stared at the lieutenant like he had grown another head. “What trickery is this?”
Rhett’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t trick people, except within very specific confines the law lays out.”
“Is this one of them?” Wolfe asked. “I mean, I’m not sure hearing ‘I only trick people the way the man says I can’ is the most reassuring thing you could be saying to me.”
Rhett rolled his eyes, but a tiny smile quirked at the side of his mouth as well. “Fair. I promise, this isn’t a trick—and besides, Cadet Lyons is here to make sure everything is above board. The law states that when you kill a deckbearer in single combat, in a legal manner, you get to keep the cards.”
"You’re shitting me,” Wolfe said, thinking about the deckbearers he had killed. Although he was pretty sure those fights hadn’t been legal.
“I’m not… shitting you,” Rhett said. “The various religious groups combined still command almost seventy percent of the voter block, and they’ve kept that law on the books despite many attempts by various law and order groups, such as our own police department, to remove it. Since multiple cards and the Great Game rules mention deckbearers killing each other for cards, we haven’t been able to remove the last anachronistic rules, although we’ve pared them down pretty far—no voluntary duels are allowed, for example.”
Wolfe only half-paid attention—he didn’t really have a lot of room in his life for the politics of things. What he really heard was that he could legally keep the cards.
“Wait a minute,” Wolfe said, finally reaching out and taking the cards from Rhett but staring straight into the lieutenant’s eyes. “If I can keep them, how come you get to look through them first?”
“Can you guys talk and walk?” Shel asked. “You’re shot, my boyfriend—how about getting some medical help while you work this out?”
Rhett nodded and started walking, and Wolfe, noticing how much his shoulder hurt, followed.
“I looked at the cards to confirm your story,” Rhett said. “Sometimes, people shoot themselves to create a fake self-defense claim, but clearly, you were shot with Brimstone.”
Wolfe glanced down at the card. The picture on the card was similar to the gun he had just seen—a modern pistol with red haze around it and a pentagram on the grip. He checked the stats.
Brimstone
Unique Tier-5 equivalent Infernal persistent(equipment)
2 Infernal Power
+3 attack to the deckbearer or card equipped with this item.
Special: This card may be equipped with the equipment card ‘Hellfire.’ They empower each other, adding both totals to their wielder’s attack stat.
Special: This equipment ignores ALL type resistances or immunities and causes wounds that are immediately considered injuries for healing purposes.
Special: This card is part of the ‘Banisher’ card set. If both cards are gained, they will create a single rare pack of Infernal cards and give the deckbearer who possesses both 1 additional pip of Infernal power. Both cards were initially sent to members of the Noimoire underworld who are considered assassins.
“The Infernal use weapons of all sorts during both their internal wars, and their wars against other factions. This weapon started its life as a gift from Aesthma to his favorite assassin in hell, and has worked its way into the Mortal realm since then.”
“Wow,” Shel said, staring at the card along with Wolfe.
Another set card… although a lot weaker than the original one. But not weak—a permanent point of Infernal power is worth about six levels to me at the moment. Although putting in two cards that are only moderately better than normal guns is an interesting choice.
“So, I do have a question,” Rhett said as they walked. “How did a lumberjack end up with an Infernal deck, anyway? It’s extremely unusual to see in people who aren’t criminals, or other… villains, shall we say.”
Shel chuckled. “William is more of a bad boy than a villain.”
Rhett gave a polite and perfunctory chuckle but still stared at Wolfe.
Wolfe understood—the Infernal faction was one of the ‘evil’ factions—perhaps the most evil faction. Along with the Elder faction, and to a lesser degree the Undead faction, they were widely distrusted, and usually for good reason. Few people got god-gifted decks from those factions that didn’t have some remarkably evil skeletons in their closet somewhere.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
But some did, and there were enough people who had done good with decks from those factions that prejudice against them was outlawed—officially. But it was still a smart move to hope your daughter didn’t date an Infernal deckbearer. Even Wolfe had to admit that.
Heh, good thing that Shel’s father is almost entirely out of her life.
They continued around, reaching the front of the hospital, but no one said anything. When the silence stretched awkwardly, Shel coughed again. “William got a deck from Cerberus—he’s not that bad, I checked.”
Wolfe gave Shel the stink eye, and she coughed and flushed visibly, even in the bad light.
Rhett ignored the byplay. “Cerberus? He’s not one of the Infernal Lords I’m familiar with.”
“He keeps the demons inside the Infernal realms,” Shel supplied.
“Hmm…” was the only response from Rhett.
They walked into the hospital, and Rhett raised a hand and called out, “We have a shooting victim who can’t be healed by non-injury healing cards. I need someone to see to him!”
Every single person in the waiting room turned to face Wolfe, and the nurse glanced up at him. “You’re just going to be a problem all night, aren’t you?”
She picked up a phone and talked into it briefly.
Shel giggled nervously as Wolfe clenched his teeth.
“Play nice—you’ll be out of here in no time.”
Before Wolfe was carted away by the various nurses coming through the door, Rhett leaned over. “Did Emmett tell you anything about the human trafficking case?”
“He told me the police were in on it,” Wolfe said to Rhett’s wide, ice-blue eyes.
***
Wolfe stared at the front of “E mett Investigations” in the bright light of the morning a mere eight hours after he had been shot, on far less sleep than he would have liked. The missing M was the least of the place’s problems. The building was incredibly ramshackle, with blinds that looked as if they had been invented about the same time as bell bottoms, and not washed since then, either, blocking sight through the one window. The door was just as dirty, and the slat for mail was missing entirely, now just a random hole for bugs and weather to get in—although judging by the overhang, even the spiders wanted to stay on the outside.
Wolfe had some sympathy for not wanting to work on house stuff—his own back yard coming to mind—but he thought that Emmett needed a bit more pride. His work place was a dump.
“Fuck it, what do I care if his place looks like a nest for three-power dust bunnies? I just need to figure out his stupid case, and then I can make my own office and not worry about someone else’s dump.” Wolfe pulled the key and went to the door, unlocking it and letting himself in through a door whose hinges cried out for mercy.
The inside wasn’t any different than the outside advertised. There was a waiting room with a cheap, plastic table and some equally cheap chairs that looked like refugees from the 1970s, as well as a magazine that appeared to be falling apart.
Wolfe ignored that and pushed into the back room—a small office, with a desk, two chairs, and about a hundred boxes in random piles. All of them were cardboard file boxes with the slip-on tops, and most had clear damage, from water, tearing, or probably bugs.
“Fuck me,” Wolfe muttered. This was going to add hours to the case just to find everything, he figured. But as Wolfe’s eyes ran around the room, he saw three boxes next to the desk. He could see that all were old, but they were also taped back together and carefully labeled. They’d clearly had care lavished on them that everything else in the room was lacking.
Wolfe went and sat down in Emmett’s chair, on the other side of the desk, and looked at the boxes.
One was labeled “Missing,” and was the largest. The second, slightly smaller, was labeled “Corruption,” and the last was labeled “Transfer sites.”
Wolfe was pretty sure what he needed was in the last file, but he pulled the second one up first. He opened it and saw a large listing of names—last first. Each also had a designation, such as ‘sergeant’ or ‘detective,’ and Wolfe was pretty sure they were all the names of police officers.
Hoping that Shel’s instructor was one of the corrupt ones, Wolfe quickly glanced through the files, but he had no luck—Rhett wasn’t listed on any of them.
Emmett said that he wasn’t sure of all the cops. Maybe goody-two-shoes is still dirty.
Wolfe wished he had spent a bit more time learning about the ins-and-outs of bribing cops when he’d been a member of the Grimm crime family—mostly how to spot the ones susceptible to bribing. Wolfe knew damn well that a lot of them had been in Big Man Grimm’s pockets, but it had been far less than all—not even close to a majority. But it had been enough, and Wolfe assumed that was what was happening here as well. But he just had to take Emmett’s word for it, and he doubted he would be able to find any more corrupt ones by himself.
After his failure to find a reason to hate Rhett—besides the fact the man was suspicious of Wolfe, and might have eyes for Shel—Wolfe picked up the box marked ‘Transfer sites.’
Before he could open it, however, the door to Emmett’s business slammed open. Wolfe jumped, reaching for his Edge again before remembering he had left it home.
A man stormed into the office without even knocking. He was about five-foot-nine, scrawny, but he wore a suit that looked like it cost more than most people’s monthly paychecks and radiated ‘You might be able to beat me up, but my dad will sue’ energy.
“You, Dunn! Where is my witness statement?” he yelled, leveling an accusing finger at Wolfe. “I’ve been calling and calling all morning! Why haven’t you gotten it yet?”
From his own father, Wolfe could deduce that this guy was probably an attorney, which didn’t endear him to Wolfe at all. He mentally settled on calling the guy ‘Suit,’ as it seemed his defining personality trait.
“Hey, jackass, I’m not Emmett,” Wolfe said irritably. “You’ve got the wrong guy.”
“I don’t care!” Suit said, furious. “Whichever part of his office you are, I need you to get that statement, pronto. We’re going to the final pre-trial this Friday, and I need it!”
Suit shouted so much, Wolfe would bet his middle name was exclamation mark. Wolfe was about to blow him off but stopped himself. I’m training to be a P.I. I could get the witness statement, and besides, this guy seems like he’ll become a real problem for someone if I don’t.
"Take a chill pill,” Wolfe said. “I’ll get the witness statement. Which case is it? Emmett didn’t tell me.”
“The Timo case!” Suit said, not chilling at all as he bent over the desk and put his hands on it, his face inches from Wolfe’s. “And don’t forget it. I need it by the end of the day!”
“Friday is three days away,” Wolfe said, frowning, restraining himself from popping the walking violation of personal space.
“I need to prepare my case and my client,” Suit sneered as he pulled back. “Don’t fuck this up.”
“Yeah, I gotcha,” Wolfe said.
“You better,” Suit reiterated before turning and storming from the room.
Wolfe rolled his eyes. He checked the boxes around the desk, on the assumption the current work could be closer, and found it after just a couple of minutes looking—a box marked “People v. Timo.”
He picked it up and glanced at the top file, which contained faxed instructions from “Faraday, Hostler, and Chan” to interview a client about the case, and an address.
Wolfe looked at it, blinking.
No fucking way.
It was the address of the old lady who lived next to him.