Let's Make a Deal

Midoriko followed her captor through the house. The gamble she had taken when she asked to see the kīla had paid off, though she was still surprised he had acquiesced so easily.

Sure, follow me, he had said before leading the way.

When they reached the end of the hallway, he stopped and turned to Midoriko.

“What does this look like to you right now?” he asked, nodding his head toward a closed door.

“Um…a regular door…?”

“Hmph. Thought so,” he mumbled before opening the door and ushering her in.

It would seem that his magic was completely ineffective on her. He’d never encountered something like this before. What else could she do?

The man snapped his fingers, and the room lit up. Midoriko gasped at the sheer volume of things this man had stashed away in this room.

Library-style shelves from floor to ceiling filled with all manner of objects–ranging from artifacts to weapons, and even small trinkets. Things that weren’t stuffed onto a shelf were precariously resting on top of stacks of books littering the floor or crowded on table tops.

As Midoriko scanned the room, that distinct glow caught her eye. On top of the messy surface of his desk was the kīla being used like a paperweight.

“So? Do you like it?” he asked, closing the door behind himself. “My collection.”

“It’s a mess,” Midoriko said, picking up a particularly fragile-looking statuette off the floor. As she turned over the crudely shaped clay human figure in her hands, there was something extremely familiar about it.

Her kidnapper just shrugged and sat down at his desk, kicking his feet up. Midoriko’s eyebrow twitched as his foot rested right next to the kīla. He was treating all these valuable items like mass-produced crap. Then it dawned on her.

“You stole all of this,” she said, now recognizing what she held. In her hand was a Congolese fetish that had been stolen from a museum in the United States several months prior.

“I prefer to think of it as…liberating these things.” He let out a small chuckle as he put his hands behind his head.

Looking more closely at his “collection,” she started to recognize more things that were stolen from museums around the world. Most of it didn’t have any sort of extreme monetary value, only historical or cultural value.

All of the thefts had one thing in common–like a phantom in the night, the culprit didn’t leave a single trace.

“So why do you do it?” Midoriko asked, setting the clay fetish down on his desk. “I always wondered what the famous phantom thief’s motive was.”

The phantom thief sat up and picked up the clay fetish. He fidgeted with it in his hands as he spoke. “Hmm…Why indeed…Curiosity, maybe?”

“If you’re curious about these things, just look at them in the museums like everyone else,” Midoriko snapped.

“Well…I’m looking for something,” he mumbled, setting the fetish down next to the kīla.

“And have you found it now that you robbed my exhibit?”

“Who knows? Maybe? Probably not,” he said, drumming his fingers on the desk. The unsure way he answered questions gave Midoriko a headache.

“I collect magical artifacts. Things that have high spiritual power, curses, blessings, stuff like that,” he explained.

Now that he mentioned it, Midoriko’s sixth sense had been going crazy since she entered the room.

She had zeroed in on the kīla but failed to notice the other objects around the room, mixed in with the normal ones, that had their own unique auras. Maybe it was because the fetish she had first picked up was a completely ordinary object.

“Besides, I don’t just take things from museums,” the thief said, bending down behind his desk. He produced a katana with a beautiful golden dragon etched into the sheath, showing it off to Midoriko. “I stole this one from a yakuza.”

As soon as the katana came into view, the stench hit her like a wave. Something acrid and foul like death. She pushed her glasses up her bridge, trying to play off the fact that she was covering her nose with her hand.

But he noticed. It was a complete accident that he’d run into this woman, but she was proving to be incredibly interesting. Suwa Midoriko, age twenty-six, a Suita City resident and a student at The Graduate University for Advanced Studies–information gleaned from just looking through her wallet. She was unaffected by his magic, but it seemed that she could sense something about this demon blade that he couldn't.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing,” Midoriko replied, rubbing her nose. “Anyway, you’re pretty brave to steal from a ya–”

“It doesn’t seem like nothing,” he cut in, poking her with the sheath of the sword. Midoriko violently recoiled as if being touched by something disgusting.

“Get that thing away from me!” she hollered.

“Why? Are you afraid I’ll use it?” The man stood up from his chair and walked around the desk. He placed the katana into Midoriko’s hands. “Here, you can hold it instead.”

A long exhale escaped her lips as her fingers curled around the sheath. The woman who seemed to be on the verge of retching a moment ago was now perfectly relaxed again. Curious.

“Why do you have this?” she asked, looking at the details on the sword before handing it back. “It’s definitely antique. Definitely killed people.”

“Things like this shouldn’t fall into the wrong hands. Wouldn’t you agree?” Putting the katana down on the desk, his eye wandered over to the kīla. “Why were you at the museum that night anyway?”

“For that,” she replied, pointing to the kīla. “I was going to pull it from the exhibit.”

“Why?” he asked, picking up the kīla as he sat on the desk. The fact that she couldn’t take her eyes off it did not go unnoticed.

“It’s cursed, you know.”

“Oh? I thought you said the box was the problem.” He fidgeted with it, touching the blade. It was duller than it looked.

“The kīla is…also cursed…” she said, averting her gaze.

“What’s the curse?”

“That…I don’t know,” Midoriko replied. She knew something he didn’t, though, and he wanted her to share.

“Then how do you know it’s cursed?” he asked, a sly grin creeping across his face. “You sense something about this, don’t you?”

“...”

“And the katana, too. That’s a Muramasa blade, you know,” he said, nodding to the katana. Her eyes, which had been avoiding him, locked onto the katana. “You were right that it’s killed people. In fact, it compels the weilder to do so.”

Her fists clenched at her sides. She was ready to crack. All he had to do was push a little more.

“But I wonder how you knew that…” he said, tilting his head to the side and tapping his chin with his index finger.

“I…I mean, you stole it from a yakuza, right? So they definitely must have used it–”

“That’s not how you know,” he interrupted. She flinched. He smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “You said you’d cooperate with me, so just tell me!”

“Why should I?” she mumbled.

“Royce Westbrook.” She was certainly a tough nut to crack, but he could afford a trade.

Her head, which had been looking around the room like it was on a swivel, snapped to attention. “Excuse me?”

“That’s what I go by when I’m in England. You can call me Mr. Westbrook,” he said, extending the kīla out to her. “You have my real face and now one of my aliases. So…What’s your secret?”

Midoriko reached out for the kīla, hesitating for a moment before taking it from Westbrook.

“I can sense curses…and cleanse them too…” she explained slowly. Midoriko took a deep breath before holding up the kīla and continuing. “Except this thing. No matter how many times I touch it, the curse never goes away.”

Though Westbrook’s demeanor had been one of languid amusement, he’d instantly grown serious at her words.

“And the katana?” asked Westbrook.

“It had a strong curse attached to it. It felt like I could smell the stench of every life it took, but as soon as you put it in my hands, that went away.”

“So it’s a smell?” he asked, leaning forward. His interest was clearly written on his face.

He was the first person besides her mother that she’d told about this ability in a very long time. Someone who wasn’t going to view her in a negative light for it. Someone who wanted to hear about it and know more.

It almost felt like a weight had been lifted off Midoriko’s shoulders. The silent burden of the secret she’d been keeping for years had now reached someone else’s ears.

“Not always,” Midoriko explained. She pointed at the kīla. “Sometimes it’s an aura like this. This kīla seems to distort light around it, giving it a kind of halo effect.”

“Fascinating…” he said breathlessly. Westbrook grabbed the Congolese fetish off the desk and held it up to Midoriko. “So, then what about this?”

“Uh, I don’t sense anything from it…” she replied. Westbrook looked at it with fascination and then haphazardly tossed it onto a stack of papers on the desk, making Midoriko flinch. Thankfully, it hadn’t broken.

Westbrook hopped off the desk and began excitedly picking up objects from around the room, showing them off to Midoriko.

“And this?” he asked, holding up a small Qing vase.

“That’s just a normal vase.”

Westbrook unceremoniously threw it to the ground, shattering it.

“Ah! Hey–!” Midoriko gently placed the kīla on the desk out of harm’s way and began chasing after Westbrook as he darted around the room.

“How about this?” Westbrook thrust a crystal skull into Midoriko’s hands. Upon touching it, the smoky aura enveloping it completely dissipated.

“N-not anymore!” she stammered, placing it back on the shelf as he moved onto something else.

“So it was cursed?” he asked, reaching for something on a high shelf.

“Yes! But didn’t you know that already?!”

“To be perfectly honest, I didn’t!” Westbrook cheerfully announced, pulling a Fabergé egg off the shelf. “I don’t share your ability. I’ve just been going off of what other people have claimed.”

Midoriko snatched the perfectly ordinary Fabergé egg from his hands before he could trash it like the vase.

“Let’s make a deal,” Westbrook said, excitedly grabbing her shoulders. “I want you to cleanse everything in this collection that’s cursed. You can feel free to study them or catalogue them or whatever it is you like to do with these things.”

“What’s in it for me?” Midoriko asked, sensing something troublesome.

“If you finish, then I’ll consider letting you go.” He patted her shoulders before walking back to the desk and sitting down.

Midoriko sighed. “What about my job? My school?”

You know, the museum you kidnapped me from!

“Don’t worry about that. I’ll take care of it,” he replied, pulling a small box out of a drawer. Westbrook began rolling a cigarette for himself.

That’s exactly what I’m worried about, Midoriko thought as she pinched the bridge of her nose. She opened the Fabergé egg out of curiosity. Inside it was a tiny porcelain bouquet of white flowers.

“You can start tomorrow,” Westbrook said, lighting his cigarette. He waved her off. “Are you hungry? I’ll bring food to your room in a bit.”

Midoriko sighed and clasped the egg shut. She placed it back on the shelf before turning to Westbrook.

He leaned back in his chair, feet on the desk, smoking his cigarette. Westbrook looked up at the ceiling, smiling and humming to himself.

She wanted nothing more than to smack that stupid grin off his face.