The leader of the small team of Huntsmen nudged her compact radio so that its spot inside her gas mask didn’t jab into her cheekbone. “Yeah, I mean, it’s just kind of that it looks like these, uh… What has command been calling them?”
One of the other Huntsmen used the stock of his shotgun to pry a board off of the entrance of one of the deserted shopping mall’s storefronts. “I think it was something like ‘Paranatural entity class 4’ or something,” came his crackling voice on the radio. “I’m pretty sure Primoi are class 1, then some animal-people or whatever in the Middle East were the second sort of thing that the Servants dealt with, I heard something about that. Then it was whatever was up with Indonesia, and now these flying fish-ships and everyone on them are the fourth.”
“Isn’t ‘paranatural’ the name of a comic book or something?” asked the third of the four Huntsmen, spraying a stylized ‘SVNT TURF’ onto the metal shutter covering one of the storefronts in a manner that would make it easy to mistake for pre-apocalypse graffiti at a glance. “And not an actual word? And maybe don’t use your shotgun as a crowbar, it’ll break. Probably. They probably should’ve schooled us on stuff other than, like, putting our gear on and showing us where the safety catch is.”
“I signed up to this because everyone said I would get to use this thing,” said the second, peering inside the boarded-up store. “Kind of figured there’d be more Primoi to point it at by now, but I’ll take whatever use I can get. And on the name thing, I know what the boss said, Red. Take it up with Torch. Or whoever comes up with these names. Ain’t me.”
“Whatever Mertens called them,” said the leader, her signing on behalf of her partner coming to a halt, “the peck– p–four– re– pec– Porkies, sure, they–”
“Grace, that’s stupid,” said the third. “Don’t try and make it a thing.”
“It’s bad form to shut down your new boss, Red. And you don’t need to make the marker all fancy, they gave you a can of reflective paint for a reason.”
Red snorted behind her mask, shook her can and hastily added a skull with crossed-out eyes in the curve of the U. “Gotta preserve the arts. And besides, you were close enough to the Burning One to qualify as ‘engaging’ it but far enough away that it didn’t notice you, and that’s why you got a new apprentice. I’m sure humanity’s mission won’t be compromised if I’m defiant enough to point out that that’s a pretty weak justification to call yourself boss.”
Pendleton sighed. “Anyway, I think I saw from some of the recon photos that some of the ones on the ground were growing these, like, plant-baby things. Like, uh, mandrakes. From wherever that’s a thing, I remember the name. Maybe that’s how they clone more of themselves, or th–”
“Oh dear!” echoed a voice from somewhere else in the mall, muffled to the Huntsmen by their masks. “I appear to be trapped in this particular location, with no way of escaping people who follow the sound of my voice, regardless of their factional affiliations! And to think, it’s my birthday and everything! I’m just a little birthday girl!”
Pendleton looked at the fourth member of the team. ‘Someone down that way’s trying to get our attention,’ she signed.
Messier shrugged and nodded. ‘No reason not to look.’
Pendleton turned to the rough direction the voice had come from. “Keep your eyes out for anything. They might have mimics or something.”
“They don’t!” came the voice. “Not the ones in this city specifically, I mean!”
The four Huntsmen froze. Red was the first to move, dropping her shotgun to the side and signing to the others. ‘Radio silence?’
Pendleton confirmed, and the group quietly advanced on the source of the voice, shotguns at the ready.
The four rounded a corner and saw some kind of silver-haired cat-person in a bulky parka laying on the floor in front of a caved-in section of the roof, a moldy backpack by her side. She propped herself up on her elbows and grinned at the four Huntsmen. “I lied. Not about the birthday thing, though. I don’t recall the exact date, but I figure I can’t be more than a week off. If you don’t count that time when I was tiny and stupid. Hi, how are you?”
The Huntsman at the back of the group made as if to pull his radio out of his mask, but the cat-person held up a hand. “I wouldn’t, I can hear you just fine.” She flicked the ears atop her head. “Crazy, I know.” She pulled herself up and sat cross-legged on the floor. “C’mon, make yourselves cozy.”
Messier raised his shotgun and signed at Pendleton with one hand. ‘Say the thing. Get it over with.’
“What’s that guy doing with his hand?” asked the cat-person.
Pendleton rolled her eyes. “Identify any weapons you have on your person and allow yourself to be restrained and escorted to the nearest base of Servant operations. Noncompliance will be met with force.”
The second attempted to whisper into his radio. “You think this is a Porkie, or one of those animal-people I was just talking about?”
“Animal-people,” said the cat-person. “But the more common word is ‘demon’, because the guy who made us was a loser.” She waved. “Yang No-Last-Name, fairly indifferent to make your acquaintance. And you fine folks are?”
Messier got Pendleton’s attention again. ‘It’s not complying, isn’t it? Repeat the force part.’
Pendleton sighed and signed in turn, speaking in turn to keep the other Huntsmen caught up. “Simon, c’mon, it’s not a Primus. We don’t need to take this as an instant emergency, we have guns.”
“Yeah, Simon,” said Yang, “don’t be a killjoy. Relay that to the guy, why don’t you?”
‘She says you’re boring,’ signed Pendleton.
Yang chuckled and cleared her throat. “So. Seeing as I’m not one of the monsters that have you guys picking through old shopping malls, my capture is, strictly speaking, not your job. However, I do know a few things about them that you people don’t. So I have a proposition.” She reached for her backpack.
Pendleton raised her shotgun. “Don’t even think about it.”
Yang continued to reach for the backpack, but now much more slowly, and she kept her slitted eyes on Pendleton’s firearm the entire time. “I am going to… remove something from my bag… and it’s not a gun…”
Through the visor of her mask, Pendleton scowled.
Yang rooted around in the bag for a moment before finding what she was looking for, then slowly removed her hand from the bag. “My proposition is as follows:” She produced a pack of playing cards. “A game of wits!”
“You can’t be serious,” said Red.
“Dead serious,” said Yang. “And no, that wasn’t a pun. Not gonna kill you.” She emptied the pack out and began sorting through the cards. “You Huntsmen also have something that I want, so I’d like to propose a little wager.”
“The Servants are a cashless society,” said the second Huntsman. “By the way, what’s up with your name? ‘Yang’, I mean. Are you Korean or something? You don’t sound like it.”
“I sound like whatever would be most comfortable for you to listen to,” replied Yang, sorting the cards into face-down piles. “It’s not like cats have any particular language preference to act as a starting point. As for the name, I dunno. It just popped into my head when a magic scroll gave me thumbs and self-esteem issues, and I’ve been rolling with it. I think the scroll was from China or something. I have no idea what’s going on.” She looked up at the second Huntsman. “Hey, if you’re so open to sharing, what’s your name?”
“Randall,” said the Huntsman.
“Grease!” protested Pendleton.
“What?” asked Randall. “There aren’t any civilians or supervisors here! Cool it with the codes! You already called my boss by his name, why start following the rules when it works against me?”
“Quite a bit of tension there, got it.” Yang gestured for Randall to sit down in front of her. “You know how to play Bridge, Randall?”
“I think I saw my grandma play it once,” said Randall.
“Well, that’s fine, because I don’t know either.” Yang held up the deck’s queen of hearts. “This is three-card monte. Much more accessible use of playing cards, in my experience. More psychological than technical.”
“Okay, but…” Randall cleared his throat, an unpleasant sound when transferred between radios. “I think we skipped over the fact that we don’t have any money. And you don’t either. So, like… We have more important things to do than play a card game.”
“I wasn’t after money to begin with, don’t worry.” Yang looked between the four Huntsmen and smirked. “If your fearless junior champion Randall can best me in three-card monte, you can detain me and ask as many questions as you want about why the monsters are in the city, and what they’re doing, and I’ll answer to the best of my ability.”
“And if I lose?” asked Randall.
Yang shrugged. “Just info, likewise. I’d rather we didn’t cap things off too early. But don’t worry, I won’t say a word to the monsters. They don’t like me either. It’s just me.”
“And what’s stopping us from just capturing and interrogating you like normal?” asked Pendleton.
“Oh, you know how it is,” said Yang, tapping the side of her head. “It takes a little bit of a mental workout to get the ol’ memory banks flowing. And you can certainly try, of course, but I packed one of those emergency flare things into my bag. I probably have time to throw it at one of you if you try anything. Y’know, take you down with me, and all that. I won’t, but, y’know, I can.”
“Don’t worry about it, Grace,” said Randall, rubbing his gloved hands together. “I’ve got this.”
Yang grinned. “I like your spirit, bud.” She snatched the aces of clubs and spades and, while scratching the side of her head in concentration, laid the queen and aces face-down on the floor between herself and Randall, making it clear that the first card set down was the one at the bottom of her hand, the queen. “I know you’re not super experienced with this, so I’ll give you a safety net: I’ll shuffle the cards around on the floor, and you gotta keep your eyes on the queen. We’ll do it twice, and if you can track the queen to the end either time, you win. Deal?”
“Three times,” said Randall. “Don’t mess with me. Other than that, deal.”
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“This is asinine…” mumbled Pendleton.
“Okay, fine, wow…” Yang scratched the back of her neck, visibly nervous. “…Three games, sure. But only because I’m a little desperate.”
“I can tell,” said Randall, grinning smugly. He looked down at the cards and nodded. “Get started.”
Yang began shuffling the cards around, sliding across the floor faster and faster until it was a genuine feat for the Huntsmen to keep track of the card that they knew to be the queen. After about twenty seconds, she stopped, thought for a moment, and switched the positions of two of the cards, leaving a row of three for Randall to choose between. “There we go,” she said. “Ought to be a tricky one.”
“Whatever.” Randall indicated over the one card that had not been switched around at the end, and Yang flipped it over, revealing the ace of clubs.
Yang hissed a breath in through her teeth. “Tough luck.”
“I… Hang on, no!” Randall waved at the other cards. “Show me the others.”
“Of course.” Yang took the remaining two cards between her thumbs and forefingers, revealing one card to be the queen. “That’s one game out of three. Care to try again, or would you rather let one of your friends take over?”
“No, no, I can do this.” Randall glared at Yang as she shuffled the three cards, displayed the queen, and set them down again. “But you need to do it slower. If you’re gonna do it for so long, you need to slow down. I don’t want you pulling any stunts.”
Yang blinked, gulped, and smacked her lips. Her voice was slightly hoarse when she spoke. “…’Kay.”
“Get going. And slow, this time.”
Yang began to shuffle the three cards around with care and deliberation, making sure to never obscure any of the three cards from view for even a second. “You know, uh, it’s pretty obvious, but I’m not the most experienced at this type of con.”
“Could’ve fooled me,” mumbled Red.
“Yeah, uh…” Yang cleared her throat without slowing down in the shuffling. “…Most cons have an obvious scammer up front, but there’s pretty much always some shill in the crowd who does most of the heavy lifting without anyone realizing. There’s no end to the possibilities when your mark doesn’t even know who’s the one conning them, let alone how many people around them are in on it. You ever hear about the one with the bogus collector’s coin?”
“Okay,” said Randall, “that’s enough.”
“Uh, g–guess so.” Yang went about slowly swapping two cards, like the previous game. “I, uh, my old partners haven’t really been in any shape to help me out for a while, so it’s kind of just me out here. Anyway, enough about me, make your pick.”
Randall once again reached for the unswapped card, but when Yang made to flip it over for him, he swatted her hand away. “Nuh-uh. You’re gonna palm it or something. I flip.”
“But then you might do something,” protested Yang, “or mayb–”
“You already did something,” interrupted Randall. “I won’t–”
“Okay, uh, tell you what.” Yang looked around herself for a moment, then pulled another card out from the box containing the rest of the deck, held it between the very tips of her fingers, and positioned it under the selected card as if to flip it over. “Can’t mess with it when I can’t even touch it. Happy?”
Randall grunted and nodded.
Yang used the card between her fingers to turn over the selected card, revealing it to be the ace of clubs. “C’mon, buddy, it’s never the one that isn’t swapped.”
“That’s not… Yes it is!” Randall clutched the side of his hood. “I was following it the whole time!”
Yang picked up the fourth card again and used it to turn over the other two cards, showing off the queen again before discarding the fourth card and turning the remaining three over again. “Maybe your eyes just aren’t the best at following things. Maybe you weren’t the best pick for Huntsman then, huh?”
“Shut. Up,” growled Randall. “Just go ahead an–”
While Yang was pushing the queen into a neater position, the free hand she was propping herself up with slipped on a wet patch of floor and she was sent crashing chin-first into the floor, the displaced air sending the cards fluttering away.
“Oh, oh, man…” Yang picked herself up and reached across the floor, shamefully trying to reach for the cards that had flown off. “Guess that whole ‘only got hands a year ago’ thing is coming back to bite me now, huh? I’m so heavy these days…”
While Yang’s attention was elsewhere, Randall noticed that the demon’s hand had bumped the queen card against the side of her backpack, creasing it so that one corner was ever-so-slightly lifted off the ground. Highly unlikely to be noticed from Yang’s perspective of the cards, but just big enough for Randall to spot it from where he was sitting. Finally, a win for him.
Yang returned with the other two cards in hand and saw Randall putting the queen back where it had been before. “Oh, uh, thanks, sorry about that. Really need to watch where I put my hands, huh?”
“It’s fine,” said Randall, watching Yang put the cards back into order while silently thanking his mask for concealing his wide grin. “You can start shuffling.”
“Randall,” said Red, “She’s scamming you. Just give it up and let’s take her in for questioning.”
“No,” snapped Randall. “No. I–I can do this. This time. I’ve got it figured out. I’ve got a plan.”
Yang nodded and started shuffling the three cards around. “Y’know, that’s an interesting thing I’ve noticed about you humans in my limited time on this earth.”
“I’m sure,” muttered Randall, watching the queen intently.
“See, the number one thing that motivates humans– everyone, really– is fear. Fear of the unknown, yada yada. You’ve heard that before plenty. But one thing that you people never seem to take an interest in is the number two motivator: Shame.”
“Didn’t strike me as the philosophical type,” said Red.
“I’m not,” replied Yang. “I just say what I see. It’s the, uh, right, the sunk-cost fallacy. Far and away the best way to con someone out of whatever it is you want. The more you get your mark to invest into your grift, the less likely they are to admit that they’ve been tricked, even when it’s the most obvious thing in the world that there’s no way to win. They might even go so far as to defend the grifter’s integrity when pushed. I’ve seen it. I guess it’s because you all think that as long as you don’t admit that you’ve been tricked, you can still live in some alternate pocket reality where you aren’t as gullible as you are in this reality, because in your version of the truth, you get to be right.”
“Okay, okay,” said Randall, “that’s enough. Stop talking about how smart and cool you are and let me put you in your place.”
“You’re the boss, boss.” Yang swapped two cards and sat back. “Take your pick.”
Randall spotted the barely-noticeable bend in the unswapped card, didn’t even bother with getting Yang to turn it over for him, reached down and flipped over…
The ace of clubs.
“You really like that card, huh?” observed Yang.
“Tha… No!” Randall turned the other two cards over until he found the queen. “That’s not possible!”
“I literally said to your face to not pick the unswapped card,” said Yang, “but whatever.”
Randall bolted to his feet and pointed at Yang. “You cheated! You tricked me!”
“Prove it,” said Yang.
“You were talking the whole time about how easy it is to con people,” said Red.
Yang shrugged. “Can’t a gal do a little table talk?”
Randall snatched up the queen of hearts and pointed to it, giving off a similar impression to a serial killer in a movie. “This had a bend in it, after you dropped it. I could see it. You–you must’ve switched cards or something, yeah! In your slee–”
“It’s generally considered bad form to not disclose information like that,” said Yang, smoothing out the bend in the ace of clubs with a single finger. “Might be cause to accuse you of cheating.”
“You…!” Randall huffed and threw the queen to the ground. “This isn’t fair!”
Yang shrugged, picked up her pack of cards and stuffed it in her backpack. “Neither is life. Pony up, everyone. I have questions about what you people are doing in the city.”
“Not happening.” Pendleton dropped her hands and grabbed her shotgun, brandishing it at Yang. “This was stupid to begin with, and we’re taking you in.”
“Well now, that’s just generally bad sportsmanship.” Yang picked her backpack up and slung it over her shoulders. “But fine, I get it. You have guns, so I’m willing to compromise, even though I did win that game.”
“The game that you rigged?” asked Red.
“Calumny.” Yang stepped out of the line of sight of Pendleton’s shotgun, then sighed when the Huntsman continued to track her. “Fine, I get it. Look: The monsters in the city aren’t here for some mystic invasion. They’re settlers trying their hand at getting out of their home territory, and the ones in the flying fish-boats have just been contracted to take them up here, and now they’re being paid extra to get the maniacs with shotguns off their case. It’s a couple hundred immigrants and their coyote chauffeurs, that’s all they are.”
“Yeah, yeah, boo hoo.” Pendleton peered at Yang from behind her shotgun. “We didn’t sign up to hear the sob stories of the things trying to take what’s ours.”
“Didn’t expect anything else,” said Yang. “The monsters who are doing the paying for the guys with Potir– the fish-ships, they’re holing up in the park to the west of here. I saw a couple of them touching down when I first broke off from them. Kill them all, convince them to leave, whatever, and the ones who’ve been buzzing around your camps across the Willamette won’t have any reason to keep risking their necks. Can I go now?”
Pendleton glanced back at Messier behind her, who shrugged and nodded. She sighed, lowered her shotgun, and looked back at Yang. “You aren’t worth the trouble.”
“Cool. Civility triumphs again.” Yang turned and made for a side door near the rubble pile, presumably one that led to a loading area. “See you around, maybe.”
“Hang on a second,” said Red. “Just one more thing.”
Yang smirked and looked over her shoulder. “I might stick around, if you feel like introducing yourself.”
“Not a chance.” Red glanced at her three companions. “You’re too tricky to just go through all this for no reason. You expected this outcome, didn’t you?”
Yang shrugged coyly. “Who’s to say? I’m just a humble player of cards.”
“Okay, whatever, now stop that. What was your real reason for coming up to us like this.”
Yang’s smug countenance faltered. “I… Yeah, no, you’d call me nuts. I don’t exactly have a lot of proof that I’m right about a lot of what’s going on these days. But you know what? Lemme give you one last piece of con artist’s wisdom. It’s the least I could do, since you happened to be so sporting out of all your friends.”
“Charmed,” said Red.
Yang reached over her shoulder, unzipped her backpack, and started rooting around inside. “The fanciest cons from the most flamboyant artists use, y’know, psychological manipulation and misdirection to beat their marks while still technically playing fair. But that’s generally just a needlessly risky strategy for showoffs and blowhards. Ninety-nine percent of the time, there’s just no way for the mark to win. The whole situation’s been constructed to make it impossible.”
“Yeah, yeah,” said Pendleton. “We know how you did all this.”
“My point exactly,” said Yang. “Most of the effort that goes into these grifts is to just make the mark not realize that it’s a scam. Because if they do realize, they can just walk out of it, and then the artist’s whole scheme is ruined. So, some of the more experienced con artists employ a second layer of… retention.”
“I seriously doubt that you risked your life just to give us hustling tips,” said Red.
“You’d be surprised.” Yang pulled her pack of cards out of her backpack. “Anyway, the most elaborate cons construct a scenario where no matter what the mark does, whether they try to back out or play along for as long as they can, the artist comes closer to success. Maybe it’s by only picking marks with predictably manipulable behavior, maybe the mark needs something from the scammer, maybe they’re just being plain old blackmailed, the result is still the same: You get screwed the moment you enter the game. I think some people call it a lobster pot or something. Sometimes the mark didn’t even get the chance to avoid the game at all, they were just forced into it by the cruelties of circumstance. Confidence scams aren’t the trade of kind people, hard though it may be to believe.”
“I, uh, I guess I’ll be on the lookout,” said Pendleton.
“Please do,” replied Yang. “Kind of the whole point of these schemes is to remove any chance of success, but no plan survives contact with the enemy. The sooner you can realize you’re being conned, and how, the better a chance you have of becoming an errant spanner in the works. If you can figure out what to spot and, more importantly, overcome the shame of admitting you were duped, you can bring down one hell of a house of cards. It’s a lot easier said than done, but you were forced into this game, and now it’s up to you to get yourselves out of it.” She turned back to the door leading away.
“So if you needed some elaborate setup to make sure you’d win this,” called Red, “how’d you know we’d be the right targets? You’ve never seen us before.”
Yang tossed the pack of cards over her head, back towards the four humans. “You’re Huntsmen. You’ve self-selected.” She pulled the door open, passed through, and shut it behind herself.
The pack of cards landed on the floor in front of the Huntsmen, its old cardboard buckling under the impact and spilling its contents all over the cracked tiles. Every single one of the fifty-two cards, save the queen of hearts and ace of spades, was an ace of clubs.