Granny Got Guns

[Clears throat. Last time on ‘The Incurrence: Hexed Fate,’ you saw Enishi getting hired, fired, assassinated, evaporated, and teleported... now it's time for him to get reported! Recap done! Ugh, someone bring me some unadulterated water. My throat is almost killing me.]

Continued…

Enishi set the money on the counter. The granny stared at the bills, then pointed at the Japanese yen with a trembling index finger.

"Niente valuta straniera. Solo euro, solo contanti. Siamo un'antichità, non una banca!"

[If you are wondering what in the world she just said? So basically: "No foreign currency. Only euros, only cash. We are an antique shop, not a bank. Get the f*ck out!"]

“Erm, what?” Enishi asked in confusion.

”Not this!” The granny waved her hand, gesturing a firm no toward his yen.

“This!” She pulled a hundred-euro bill from under the counter to show him. “Money give, or leave!”

“Ahem! Well, I don’t have that money. Maybe you can just take my 1,200 yen and exchange it into euros later?” Enishi started sweating bullets. He was starting to realize he was completely screwed.

With a sudden, practiced motion, the granny pulled out a pair of dual-barrel revolvers which she kept licensed and pristine specifically to handle the threat of robberies.

“Mi sono fatta mille controlli, in regola, proprio per tenermi questi gioiellini per un momento come questo!!!”

[“I went through a thousand checks, legally, just to keep these bad boys for a moment like this!!!”]

Enishi looked down at his chest, then swiftly back at the dark metal of the weapons pointed directly at his chest.

"Got in a pinch? Can’t a guy even buy a T-shirt in peace?" he whispered.

His voice cracked as the smell of gunpowder and old bitter pine from the counter filled his nose. He knew he was about to get shot into the afterlife all over again.

The granny’s face turned a dangerous shade of red. She hammered her right fist, still clutching a gun, onto the wooden counter. The impact was loud enough to rattle the glass display cases of L'Antica Vintage.

"Oi, Terenzio!"

[“Hey, Terenzio!”] she screamed toward a small white door at the back.

The sound of a flushing toilet was the only answer.

"Chiama i Carabinieri! Ci hanno appena rubato milleduecento euro!"

[“Call the cops! This person just robbed us of twelve hundred euros!”]

Enishi froze. Outside, the buskers were still playing Bella Ciao in loop. The upbeat rhythm was clashing horribly with the screaming woman in front of Enishi “E seppellire lassù in montagna, O bella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao...”

He looked at his reflection in the counter’s shiny surface.

"T-shirt is plain, those guns are deadly... holy shit, that escalated quickly."

The white door at the back creaked open, and Terenzio practically fell into the room. He was a lanky man with glasses so fogged up from the steam of the bathroom that he could barely see. He was still fumbling with his belt buckle, his hands shaking hard. In his panic, he had forgotten to pull up his zipper and was holding a plunger aloft like a weapon.

"L-l-ladri? D-dove?!" [“Th-thieves? Wh-where?!”] he stammered. His eyes moved wildly from Granny’s dual revolvers to Enishi’s plain white T-shirt, scanning everything in his line of sight.

Enishi didn't move. He just stared at the fogged-up glasses and the damp plunger.

"What the actual..." he thought. "This guy is supposed to be the backup?”

The back door Terenzio had left open slammed against the wall as he stumbled, his knees knocking together in terror. The Granny didn’t even turn around; her eyes were locked onto Enishi like a predator to its prey.

"Smettila di vibrare come un cretino e chiama i Carabinieri! Vuoi farlo?!?”

[“Stop vibrating like a moron and call the damn police! Would ya’?!”]

Outside, the busker took a deep breath, his voice rising as he hit the dramatic high note of the chorus. "O partigiano, portami viaaaa!" The note hung in the air, sharp and desperate, vibrating against the shop’s window.

The Granny’s fingers tightened against the triggers. "Sono stufa di farmi rapinare ogni mese da gente che finge di essere straniera," [“I’m tired of getting robbed every month by people acting like foreigners,”] she hissed, her voice was trembling with a mix of fury and exhaustion.

"Questa volta, se prova a scappare, o vive lui o vivo io!"

[“This time, if he tries to run, either he or me is gonna live!”]

Terenzio was shaking so hard he almost dropped the receiver. He fumbled with the old desk phone, dialed the emergency number 112, and waited for the line to click.

"Pronto? Presto, venite a L'Antica Vintage in Via Nino Bixio 34! Ci s-stanno rapinando in p-pieno g-giorno!"

[“Hello? Quick, come to L'Antica Vintage at Via Nino Bixio 34! We are g-getting robbed in b-broad d-daylight!”]

He slammed the phone down. Right then, a car screeched to a stop outside. Its headlights flashed through the window, reflecting off the Granny’s steel barrels and blinding Enishi for a second.

“Augh! Not my eyes!” he thought, moving his face swiftly to the side and closed his eyes for a moment.

Enishi didn’t understand their words, but seeing them panic while the Granny held him at gunpoint told him everything he needed to know. They had called the cops.

“It’s surely a customer? Cops can’t arrive this quickly, right?” He squinted at the car. There were no sirens. No blue lights. It was just a black car sitting there, the engine was idling with a low, menacing hum.

The Granny’s face went white. She shifted her gaze from Enishi to the car door, her grip on the revolvers strengthened. She realized with a jolt of terror that he might not be working alone. Her mind raced with the thought that these were his accomplices, arriving to finish the job.

“That freaking idiot! Why is he taking this long to arrive?!” Enishi thought. He was feeling immense hunger, but the sensation was mostly suppressed by the sheer terror of his current situation.

“My life is on the line, and I’m so hungry I could almost eat a freaking horse,” he thought while looking at the idling black car.

To be continued in the next chapter…