Wolfe slipped back into his seat at the table, noting the absence of the two guards, Harry and Pete. Heinrick was also missing, and Damian now had his cards out. Most of his cards glowed a fiery red, and every minute, he swiped them to the side, switching them for others and staring at them. A handful of cards were on the table, and even as Wolfe watched, he removed one from his deck and replaced it in a single swap.

“He got new cards?” Wolfe asked.

Big Man Grimm nodded, a tight smile on his face. “Yes. A couple have Beelzebub mentions on them—he got a gifted deck. Like his old man before him, same Infernal lord, even. Our family really is favored of the Lord of Gluttony.”

Wolfe hesitated, but then said, “I got a deck as well.”

Thaddeus Junior exploded. “What?! How is that possible! I’m the oldest son! Damian got a deck, Heinrich got a deck, and your dog got a deck, Dad. How come I didn’t? What a crock of shit.”

Wolfe gave Thad Junior the eye. Daddy already bought you one, you spoiled little shit.

Damian was now staring at Wolfe with curiosity.

Miriam had her arms crossed over her chest. She reached one arm out and took a wineglass, raising it and an eyebrow at Wolfe. “Congratulations. Welcome to the true aristocracy.”

“Shut up,” Big Man Grimm said to his kids before turning back to Wolfe. “Cards that have named Infernal on them?”

“No,” Wolfe lied easily. Too many fucks at this table. I’ll tell him later.

Big Man Grimm raised his own eyebrow in a near mimicry of his daughter.

“What did Heinrich get?” Wolfe asked.

“He claimed he only got generic Infernal and Psychic cards,” Damian said, running a finger across the table. “Then he ran off with some whore, like he always does to celebrate.”

Big Man Grimm chopped his hand through the air. “Enough of this. I’m glad so many of us got decks, but we can compare cards later. We have a problem. One of our runners, at this very party, got gifted a Divine deck. When they checked her—”

Wolfe’s eyes widened at the word ‘Divine’ and the female pronoun both.

“—they found her phone had the number of the Noimore Police Department on it. Pete and Harry took her to the warehouse, to find out what she knows.”

Wolfe didn’t outwardly move a muscle, but inside, he sighed. The warehouse was where the Grimm family disposed of enemies and traitors. Few made it out of there. Its back door opened onto a river—a deeper one you could sink people into. Wolfe just wasn’t feeling it today.

“I want you to head over there, keep the new deckbearer from getting any ideas. You should be able to back Pete and Harry up with ease.”

Wolfe wanted to figure out what being a deckbearer meant for him. Especially one picked by the Infernal gods to receive a god-gifted deck, one of the three evil card types, probably the most evil. He hadn’t even looked at his status sheet—although he could do that in no time at all.

Still, one didn’t say no to Big Man Grimm. Especially Wolfe, who owed him so much. He would figure out the details of becoming a deckbearer later.

“I’ll be at the warehouse in fifteen.”

***

Three minutes later, Wolfe stepped into his beat-up black Chrysler 300 SRT. He liked his car—it appeared to be a boring sedan, but it had a ton of power under the hood. He even left a few dents and scratches in it to encourage the view he was poor and harmless. Even if most of the players in the Noimore underworld knew him, the street rank thugs didn’t know him on sight, so it was still frequently advantageous to not appear important. And an expensive car in the bad parts of Noimore got the cops on you faster than shit got flies.

Wolfe had also paid good money on some modifications—armor plating in the door, bulletproof windows, and a couple of small, hidden compartments in case he ever needed to smuggle something.

Wolfe put his gift from Big Man Grimm in one of the smuggling compartments, then drove out of the underground parking garage and onto the usually dark and rain-filled streets of Noimore. It was raining, a cold drizzle, but it wasn’t that dark. The glittering lights of the club district plus the flashes of fireworks lit the place up decently.

But the lights faded as Wolfe left the glitzy nightlife district and headed to the warehouse. It was in the bad part of town. Far fewer cars and people were out at night here, and the ones who were mostly wanted—or purveyed—illicit drugs or sex. Wolfe chuckled to himself, noting that they were mostly doing it from under awnings at the moment, trying to stay dry.

Wolfe reached into his pocket and pulled out another cigarette, lighting it from his car lighter and then puffing. He didn’t expect trouble on Drop Night, but his eyes scanned for danger through the rain and his wiper blades all the same.

He noted the car idling down a side street with its headlights on as he turned onto Main, but his danger sense didn’t flare until it sped toward him. What the hell?

Wolfe turned the car hard to the right, away from the oncoming vehicle. It slammed into the driver’s side nonetheless, but the angle meant that rather than pancaking Wolfe’s car, the collision spun it in a nearly ninety-degree turn and slid it across the rain-slicked street. Even before the collision, and despite having never been a deckbearer before, Wolfe had already placed his hand on his chest, and before his car had fully come to a stop, he had his cards up.

Wolfe had always been an intuitive killer, with whatever tool came to hand.

He saw two ‘escaped damned’ cards and a ‘loyal guard dog’ card. Fuck. Of course I didn’t get my mantle card. Well, we’re doing this without the added personal protection, I guess. Never stopped me before.

A notification popped into his vision, claiming that a deckbearer had drawn their deck. Joy. Another deckbearer.

He grabbed his companion card and willed it into existence just outside his door even as gunfire erupted from the opposite vehicle and a series of spiderwebs formed in his windows where the bullets had been caught by the bulletproof glass.

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Wolfe ducked below the window level and released his seatbelt. Then he opened the passenger-side door and slapped his glove box open at the same time. He grabbed his gun from the glovebox and kick-rolled out of his car onto the rain-slick cement of the sidewalk he was on, grimacing as his shoulder hit. Less than five seconds after the collision, Wolfe came to his feet, gun pointed at his opponents’ car over his hood.

His companion card, Cereboo—now a two-hundred-pound, red-skinned boxer puppy with three heads—woofed excitedly and leapt onto the first thug out of the car, grabbing both arms in his left and right mouths and chewing on the guy’s shoulder with his center head.

Wolfe wasted the second thug out the back with three shots to the chest. Both of the ones to come out of the car side facing Wolfe were now down.

I’ve still got it! These fuckers ambushed me and I just got first blood!

Someone shot Cereboo in his left head from inside the car, doing very slight damage, and the guy out the back left shot at Wolfe over his car but barely grazed his arm.

Wolf’s first-ever combat log appeared.

Deckbearer Ethan Wolfe engages in combat with Cobra Deckbearer and 3 Cobra Thugs.

Ethan makes a ranged Physical Attack at 16 against Cobra Thug’s Physical Defense of 4. Damage dealt is 64. (16 * (16/4)). Damage exceeds Cobra Thug’s health. Cobra slain before counter.

Cobra Thug is eliminated. Cobra Thug was a Level 1 human and Deckbearer Ethan Wolfe gains 100 experience. Level Gained!

Deckbearer Ethan Wolfe’s creature ‘Cereboo’ makes a physical attack at 5 three separate times against Cobra Thug’s Physical Defense of 5, 4, and 6. Damage dealt is 15, (5 (5 *5/5) + 6 (5 x 5/4) + 4 (5 * 5/6). Thug is at 5 of 20 health.

Cobra Deckbearer makes a physical attack at 9 against Ethan Wolfe’s creature ‘Cereboo’s’ defense of 7. Damage is reduced by half due to Cereboo’s type resistance (Infernal resists Mortal). Damage dealt is 5. (9 * (9/7))/2

Cobra thug makes a ranged physical attack at 4 (7-3 for cover) against Deckbearer Ethan Wolfe’s defense of 10. Damage dealt is 1. (4 * (4/10))

He dismissed the notification quickly—it wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know from what was happening around him, except that he had experience now.

As he ducked back behind the car, he grabbed his next card: the ‘loyal guard dog.’ He was tempted to pull the ‘escaped damned,’ as it had very high physical defense, but it had almost nothing else, and he needed damage. He felt Power leaving him as he brought forth his card.

Loyal Guard Dog (Common Creature, Tier-1)

1 Beast Power

A powerful Mastiff guard dog. A basic lower level beast monster.

Beast[Dog]

N/A

Attack

5

Magical Attack

N/A

Defense

3

Magical Defense

2

Health

10

Special: May remain on the battlefield for twice as long as the caster’s base length of play

The dog joined the fight, rushing around the side of the car, but at the same time, a yellow-red spirit, on fire and screaming, came around the opponent’s car. Wolfe cussed. He brought his own ‘escaped damned’ to the fight.

Both his dogs disengaged from their targets and attacked the escaped damned. It was a rule of deckbearer battles—so long as either side had a creature on the field, the other side’s creatures had to engage it. They could only attack the deckbearer—or his associate mooks—once the field was clear.

But Wolfe could attack whomever he wanted, and he popped back up and finished the wounded thug off, noting that the experience was reduced to fifty this time. He dove back behind the car as a fusillade of bullets whistled through the air where he had been. His driver-side window finally broke.

Wolfe also got a notification that his Cereboo had finished the escaped damned off, briefly surprising him. Right, he gets bonus attack against other Infernal cards. Convenient.

Wolfe reloaded his gun and then swiped his cards away now that the minute was up, bringing the next three up for use. He got a ‘torturer imp’ that cost one Infernal mana, a ‘rescue dog’ that cost one Beast mana, and a card called ‘return to the pit’ that only required one available Infernal power to use. The last was a persistent activated card.

Hoping that the enemy deckbearer would pull a second Infernal creature, Wolfe played the ‘return to the pit’ card, spending his last Power. And fired over the hood of the car to distract his enemy.

A brief yellow and red flash of flame appeared—another escaped damned, the guy didn’t seem that creative—and then the return to the pit card activated, wiping the creature card out and trapping the one Infernal power his opponent had used for a minute. The card briefly manifested as a pentagram, then dissipated, the energy flying back into Wolfe’s chest and disappearing. Returning to my deck.

Cereboo and the guard dog finished off the next thug over thirty seconds, giving Wolf another fifty experience and a second level. Wolfe quickly reloaded his gun and lurched to his feet. He fired rapidly at the enemy deckbearer, who ducked and brought forth a torturer imp.

Those have got to be the Infernal common baby drops for this drop season, Wolfe thought to himself as he raced around his own car. He swiped his cards again, and his mantle—soul hunter—another rescue pup, and a second return to the pit appeared.

His loyal guard dog was still in play. Wolfe’s one Beast power hadn’t returned, so the rescue puppy pup was off the table. He pulled the ‘return to the pit’ to prevent another creature from appearing. If his creatures could attack the enemy, he would win.

As he came around the enemy car, however, his preparation proved unnecessary. The deckbearer was firing at Cereboo and not expecting Wolfe, who hit him with a couple of shots to the chest. The enemy deckbearer went down, a red mist briefly left where his torso had been before he’d been blown backward.

Wolf got sixty-seven experience—he was pretty sure it had been sixty-six point six, which felt appropriate and caused him a brief, black chuckle—from the kill, and the deckbearer’s cards appeared on the ground next to him. Wolfe scooped them up before the seeping blood got on them—although he didn’t actually know if they could be stained or not. As he picked them up, the rain beaded on them but never soaked in.

Wolfe scanned the scene—four corpses with snake tattoos on their arms, pools of blood everywhere, slowly diluting in the rain, guns, and a car with a dented front. Plus his own busted vehicle. He sighed. All right, more like twenty minutes till I reach the warehouse.

Also, how the fuck do the Cobras keep getting the drop on us?

He frowned at his suit, damaged and stained and now getting wet.

Cereboo ran up to Wolfe and planted his feet on his chest, all three heads licking him. Each had the oversized idiot grin of the boxer, as well as the slightly enlarged jowls even the puppies got. Wolfe was again powerfully reminded of his old dog, Pierce. Despite the setting, he was warmed by his new companion’s presence. “Who’s a good boy, helping me put down the Cobras? Is it you?”

Cereboo woofed with all three heads.

But Wolfe had work to do, so he pushed Cereboo aside, then pointed to the ground next to him. “Sit.”

Cereboo sat, all three heads panting happily.

He pulled his phone out and called Rich.

“Wolfe?” the voice answered.

“We have a situation, and I’m needed elsewhere. Get a cleaner crew to Main and Thirty-First, near the local Cardless Café. Four bodies, all Cobras, and a slightly dented car. Disappear the bodies and repurpose the car and guns.”

“I’m, um, about to… you know.”

“Take her or leave her—get road head for all I care—but get out here and get it done.”

A brief pause, then Rich’s annoyed voice came through the phone. “All right, I’ll be there.”

Wolfe ended the call, then looked at Cereboo. “I’m sorry, buddy, but I need to put you back in the deck, okay?”

Cereboo whined and Wolfe grimaced. “If any deckbearer sees you, they’ll be able to read your card. Then they’ll try and take you from me, boy, because you’re part of some super card set. I’d rather not deal with that shit, okay? I already lost one dog this month.”

Cereboo flopped to the ground but quit whining, and Wolfe took the action as acceptance. He unsummoned Cereboo, who dissipated into energy and rushed back into Wolfe’s chest.

He went to his car, swept the glass from the driver’s seat, and continued to the warehouse.

He wasn’t about to lose his card or fail Big Man Grimm.