Chapter Five

The next on Tommy's list to get prepped was Eduardo Sanchez, or as he was more commonly known, Reckless Eddie. And as chaotic as he was, Reckless Eddie was never that hard to track down. If he wasn't somewhere else, he was usually in Rio De Janeiro.

Reckless Eddie had a legend a couple miles long and was the sort of character known for his wild unpredictability and devil-may-care attitude that he brought with him into any job that he took on. He was also a hell of a warrior and a mercenary. In fact, if Tommy had put together a list of the ten people he'd least like to fight on the planet, Reckless Eddie would've come in around the middle of it, only because the top three (Merlin, Morgana and Silversmith, in that order) never changed.

He was, in fact, the most werewolf werewolf Tommy had ever met.

But what impressed Tommy most about Reckless Eddie was how committed to the bit he was. The first time he'd worked with Eddie, Tommy himself had bought into the story that the guy was mercurial and difficult to work with, oftentimes finding Eddie asleep or off drinking right before shit was about to go down. Whenever they were working or in combat, Tommy could tell that Eddie was clear of mind and focused on the task at hand, but the image that the man was careless was one that seemed hard to disprove.

It wasn't until the second time around that Tommy started to spot it for what it was - an act. Eddie wasn't reckless in any traditional sense of the word, but he wanted everyone to believe that he was. The werewolf, it seemed, was quite an adept actor, and he was building a reputation of being someone impossible to contain or control, unpredictable and capricious. It meant he was somebody everybody knew and yet, nobody wanted to work with unless the job was as Wild West as anyone ever heard of.

That was the second thing that Tommy had realized about 'Reckless Eddie.' He was in it for the action, and that was why he put on the daring, devil-may-care front. He didn't want people approaching him with gigs where his reputation was expected to do the heavy lifting. He wasn't a tool to be shown off and never used. He was an action junkie, and for him, the rush was the payment. He wanted shit to break off, to be caught up in the thick of things, to be juggling danger and fearing for his life.

They'd worked together on three different jobs, and Tommy had to admit, he got along with Eddie well enough, because Eddie's commitment to how he was perceived meant he'd often say the first thing that popped into his head - no filter, no soft landing, no tact or social manipulation. You always knew where you stood with Eddie, because if you said or did something he considered foolish, he'd say so, loudly and in front of everyone. Tommy had watched Eddie rip a dragon a new asshole because the dragon had pretended to be an expert on something he wasn't, and the werewolf had caught him in the lie. Tommy had never seen someone just utterly knock a dragon down several pegs in public and it had been something of a joy to watch.

All of this meant Eddie was someone Tommy thought would make a good addition to his cabal. Which was how Tommy had found himself wandering the streets of Rio late at night, poking his head in all the bars that seemed like they'd be up to no good.

And it was how Tommy found himself staring at a couple of vampire muggers holding burning blades in their hands. The two of them looked like they were barely fifteen, wiry and pale, their hair slicked back, their clothing ripped in several places, as if they thought it made them look tough. One of them was trying to grow a mustache, but it mostly just looked like someone had spirit gummed a handful of stray hairs to the top of the kid's lip.

"You're a long way from home, little wizard," one of them hissed in his direction, English clearly his second language, the Portuguese accent thick in his voice, as he waved the knife in Tommy's direction. "Hand over your wallet and we might let you live."

Tommy couldn't help but chuckle. The local riff raff of Rio must not have kept tabs on the big players, or Tommy's reputation just hadn't gotten around enough, because the two street thugs didn't even make him nervous or uncomfortable. The burning blades they were holding were low-level enchantments, and neither of the two ruffians was holding their dagger with any real confidence. Sure, they had a bit of bluster about them, but that was about all they had. Even the bravado felt uncomfortable, like they were just boys desperate to be perceived as scary. "You two are kidding, right?"

"Two?" the front boy said. "Better count again, little wizard."

That was the point where half a dozen other boys with burning knives stepped out of the shadows around him, each of them looking angry and hungry. Tommy scowled a little bit at the leader, shaking his head slightly. "Eight on one? You kids must really be desperate for a hot meal."

"We just like taking things," one of the boys on his right said, as they started to close in, although Tommy could smell the nervousness and flop sweat reeking off each of them.

"Got a lot left to learn, kids," Tommy said as he reached to his left hand, grabbed the ring on his middle finger between his thumb and middle finger and rotated the band 90 degrees to his right. Immediately, two dozen illusions of him all sprung forth from the central point, running in every direction as Tommy himself turned invisible and darted off between the boys to his left, moving through them with great ease as the boys moved to stab and shove at every illusion they saw, sometimes even slashing accidentally at each other.

The ScatterMe spell was one that Tommy always had prepared on his person at any time, and for good reason - it was incredibly distracting, and it was nearly impossible for a mage to be quick on their toes enough to be able to manage a mass area dispel to let them see what was really happening. Other wizards could probably do the effect better or more convincingly, but Tommy had learned that the shock and awe approach of simply overwhelming his opponents with raw volume worked well enough for his purposes, which was to function as a distraction.

The ensuing carnage was fun to watch from a distance, but Tommy didn't want to stick around for too long, as the invisibility part of the spell was only designed to last a minute or two, enough time for him to make an escape and not so long that he could sit and spectate. If there had been less attackers, he might have considered dealing with them, but with eight different foes, the odds were too high that someone would accidentally get a lucky strike in.

Once he was far enough away, he was about to resume his search to find Reckless Eddie, only to nearly jump five feet straight up when he felt a powerful hand on his shoulder keeping him in place. "You handled that very well, Capitan," Eddie said to him, as Tommy let out a forceful breath.

"Fuck's sake, Eddie," Tommy grumbled, as he glanced back to see the werewolf standing behind him. "You nearly scared the crap outta me. You were watching that mess?"

The werewolf nodded, sliding his hand through his long, straight black hair. Reckless Eddie stood a little over six feet tall, with unblemished skin the color of hickory wood. He was dressed for the evening in a blue and black button-up silk shirt that had half its buttons undone and a pair of distressed blue jeans that looked like they had practically been painted onto his flesh. Draped around his neck was a long Brazil football scarf, yellow and green colors like a Sprite bottle. The lumberjack look was only for the North American werewolves; the South American werewolves tended to style themselves more like bullfighters.

Eddie was rakishly good-looking, with a small nose and high, elegant cheekbones, although Tommy thought the thin black pencil mustache made him look less dangerous than he truly was. "If it had gotten out of hand, I would have come and helped, but I felt as though you did not need me, and I wanted to see if you had earned your new promotion or just skated by on someone else's misfortune."

"I certainly didn't ask for it," the wizard said. "They just sort of tossed it on me, and I thought it would be poor form to say no."

That made the werewolf laugh a bit. "Tommy Clarke, Captain because he was too polite to decline. It seems a fitting enough thing to write on a tombstone."

"That tombstone best not be put up any time soon," Tommy said with a smirk, rolling his eyes a little. "Especially if you're throwing Dentes Minúsculos on me when I'm trying to find you."

"You recognized them?"

"This ain't my first visit to Rio, Eddie," Tommy said. "Pretty much everyone coming here from our walk of life gets warned about the Tiny Teeth, and how they'll try and mug a wizard, only to drink from them before they even get their wallet out. Part of the reason why the Blue Wizards operate out of Colombia instead of here. Not enough safety protocols for humans."

"It lets us not have a bunch of foreign troublemakers poking around in our backyard," Eddie said. "And the claws and the fangs do a good enough job keeping tabs on the other, making sure nobody's getting out of hand. It's not perfect harmony, but it works well enough for us. And I didn't sick them on you, my friend. The Tiny Teeth must've smelled your arrival and hoped you were a tourist they could have a bit of fun with. They clearly haven't heard about your recent ascendancy to Captain, but why would they have? Kids are foolish until they learn otherwise. So, why are you here in my backyard?"

"I'm looking for you, compadre. Got somewhere around here we can talk?"

"Oh, hells," Eddie murmured. "Yeah, okay, let's go get a drink. I know a quiet little rooftop bar where we won't be bothered."

For the next ten minutes, Eddie quietly led Tommy down a wild path, through several back alleyways and narrow passages that he had to admit he would've been totally lost in. The streets of Rio were crowded and bustling, especially for the late evening, but Tommy put it down as a sign that the city never really slept, something he'd seen in plenty of other cities worldwide. It made him feel a little bit better. After a while, though, there were fewer and fewer people around them, before they were nearly alone, walking up a long, dark staircase that Tommy could barely see. But a quick snap of his fingers and there was a quiet glow of light at his waist, enough to illuminate a bit around him, which made Eddie look back. "Sorry, Captain Clarke," the werewolf mumbled. "I sometimes forget not everyone has my senses."

"Sure you did, Eddie. Don't worry, I got it handled." Tommy was used to people testing him constantly, gauging their abilities versus his own, and now Eddie knew Tommy didn't have a spell prepped to automatically compensate for low-light, which meant it would be something Tommy would rectify when he got home.

Once they reached the top of the stairs, however, there was a man waiting for them, dressed entirely in blacks and blues, a sense of formal attire, standing beneath a solitary light that cast enough illumination that Tommy killed his own spell. "Good evening, Lord Sanchez. Your usual table near the edge for the night?"

"If it's available, Oscar."

"For you, sir? It is always available."

As they moved out from the stairwell and onto the rooftop, the area turned into a very nice bar, but all the patrons were members of the Veil - mostly Vampires and Werewolves, but Tommy spotted a couple of Fae and maybe an Elf or two. No Dragons or Shades, that he could see, anyway. Everyone was being quite polite and civil with each other, much to Tommy's surprise, up until he saw a sign on the wall. "Sanctuary ensured by Lady Wraithbone, est. 1974."

Then everything made perfect sense.

Sanctuaries were somewhat uncommon, but every continent had somewhere between five and twenty of them, places where people of all stripes of the Veil could come and hammer out differences, or even just relax and let their hair down. Each of the Sanctuaries were ensured by someone, usually a member of the Deck, the group comprised of the most powerful mages in the world, but some were simply protected by dangerous fighters or groups of individuals. Lady Wraithbone, for example, was certainly no caster, but as one of the oldest and most connected Shades around, no one wanted to get on her bad side. Her name's presence on the wall meant not only was she backing the sanctity of this sanctuary, but so was every other Shade in South America. Tommy realized that was why he wasn't seeing any Shades hanging out - they only liked to be present here if there was something for them to do. When it came to relaxing, they had other locations.

"You've got some kind of task that needs doing, Capitan?" Eddie asked him as they moved to take a small two-seater booth right over by the edge of the roof, overlooking the city's gorgeous nighttime skyline sprawled out below them. "You putting together another wild bunch to go and steal... sorry... recover another powerful magical artifact? I had a fun time with that last little strike team you assembled. You know good people and just how to weave them together."

Tommy slid into the seat opposite the werewolf as a slinky faerie in a crop top shirt and a pair of the shortest jean shorts Tommy had ever seen came strolling up to them, a notepad in her hand. The top was tight enough that he could make out her nipples had been double pierced, two crossbars in each one, the outlines of the ends of the barbells popping through the tight fabric. She had her lilac-colored hair done up in a bun of dreadlocks, her wings brightly colored and fluttering behind her. "Heya Eddie," she said to them. "You and your friend want drinks?"

"Some of that rum that the cara branco was passing around last night, yeah? You want anything, Capitan?"

"I'll share in some of that rum, but just a bit, and toss it into a Coke," Tommy said. "I'm still recovering from my ascension party a few months ago."

"That good huh?" Eddie laughed. "Shame I wasn't invited. Just put it on my tab, Rosa."

"You got it," the faerie said, walking away to go and get their drinks.

"Anyway, you were saying?"

"I wasn't saying anything, Eddie. Not yet. You were the one assuming I was putting together a strike force again."

"Tommy. Sorry, Captain Clarke," Eddie said with a mock bow, a twirl of his hand and a wide grin. "It's just every time our paths have crossed, either you're putting together a crew for violence, or you're a part of someone else's crew that was put together for the same intent."

"That's because you've got nearly everyone fooled, Eddie," Tommy said as Rosa came back and pushed a large Collins glass half full of clear rum in front of Eddie, and another glass, completely full of cola and rum, in front of Tommy. "Everyone thinks you're this dangerous, careless, unpredictable gangster, but I've done my homework, and I know better."

"This is about my skills as a balladeer then, is it?" Eddie said with a grin and a wink. "You have some lady you need my help in wooing? In all things love, as in all things war, Reckless Eddie pours nothing less than his all into them."

"I need a guarantee of silence from you on this one, Eddie, before I go into too much detail. If you're in, I'll tell you everything, but if you're out, well, then you forget we ever had this conversation, for not only my safety but yours as well."

That took the werewolf a bit by surprise as Eddie picked up his rum, looking at Tommy with curiosity in his eyes. "No one's ever come to me for matters of discretion, Capitan Clarke. Are you sure you're thinking of the right Reckless Eddie?"

"You mean the one that's funding an orphanage nobody knows about?" Tommy said quietly with a smirk as he watched Eddie's expression change in a split second. "Or the one who still takes every Sunday he can to go and cook dinner for his beloved avó?"

"Hey! Hey, don't go talking about things like that around here," Eddie said, bringing his voice down to a hushed tone. "I've got a reputation to uphold. I've spent a good long time building this legend and you wanna go blowing it by telling people I'm a nice fucking guy? Fine! Fine, I'll keep your little secret. Anything we talk about over the next two hours, I promise to forget if it's not something I'm getting caught up in by the end of it. So? Spill. What's going on?"

"How familiar are you with the rituals of the ranks and houses?"

"Not a ton," Eddie said, his tone suddenly much more approachable and attentive. One thing Eddie had done everything in his power to steer clear of was the leadership and management caste of the Blue House of Werewolves, who were, in Tommy's estimation, mostly a bunch of stuck-up pricks. "Enough to know I never want to be a goddamn Capitan, that's for certain. Why, is there something specific you want to do now that you've made Capitan? Hell, if you're putting together a strike force to go attack another House, you know I'm in and down for the action."

"Why do you always default to violent action, Eddie?"

Eddie's smile seemed almost genuinely apologetic as he shrugged. "Sorry, it's part of the persona, and it's gotten to be second nature."

"So, there's a ritual known as Captains' Days. When a new captain is inducted into a House, all the captains of that House are given one day's time to go 'hunting.' Anyone they can capture, contain and keep quiet for the entire day following a Captains' Day becomes Plunder. Plunder are, in essence, double agents, working as a protected informant for that Captain, until they're either captured, revealed or killed, doing everything they can to keep their Captain abreast of what's going on. Sort of like magical criminal informants, or cool undercover folks during the Cold War. Plunder have to always be working in their Captain's best interests, or they forfeit their protection. It's a complicated but important role."

"If you say so. To me, it sounds like it sucks to be Plunder."

"Oftentimes it can be. But what if someone were to, say, co-opt that process, and built a sort of, well, a sort of espionage United Nations, across all the House and Lands?"

Eddie's eyes narrowed in as he stared at Tommy a bit more studiously. "And do... what with it, exactly?"

"Keep everyone in check," Tommy said. "All the Houses. All the Lands. Be a complete balancing act. Keep people from getting out of control or disrupting the system too much more than they already do. It wouldn't be in favor of any particular Land or House, and decisions would be made by the FAT."

"The... the whatnow?"

"The FAT. The Faction Adjacent Team."

"I'm not sold on the acronym, but the concept seems sound enough," Eddie said, holding the glass of rum in his hand, swirling it around. "How would you know you could trust each other, though? The Plunder all have to be acting in the Capitan's best interest, but there's no guarantee that the needs and desires of the Plunder would get taken into consideration."

"Ah, see, there we've got a rather novel solution. Every person on the team would be completely incapable of lying to each other. Captain, Plunder, the lot. We'd all voluntarily submit to an enchantment that prevents any of us from lying, just to the other members of the Team. That way, we all know we're being completely honest with one another."

"You... don't foresee that being a problem for people like us?"

"How else is anyone going to know you can trust them, Eddie, if they're constantly looking over their shoulder?" Tommy said with a sigh before taking a sip from his rum'n'Coke, realizing that the Coke was mostly just coloring, and it was far more rum than he'd expected. "It's mostly there to ensure the safety of the Plunder. I want my Plunder to trust me and not suspect me of taking advantage of them. Typically, a Captain who's got Plunder can do just about anything shy of abuse them as part of the Compacts. Thankfully, the people I've gathered as Plunder so far seem to be excellent matches for the idea of building a sort of watchdog group."

"You've got multiple people?"

"Sort of," Tommy admitted. "I don't want to get into specifics."

"But you think this whole thing would be a positive for everyone involved?"

"More than positive. There's... well, there might be some other benefits involved."

"Like what?"

"...part of what's often part-and-parcel with the Plunder process is a sexual relationship," Tommy admitted. "It wasn't something I was thinking of when I was originally putting together the plan, but once I had my first Plunder-slash-partner, she suggested it for all of us."

"No offense, Tommy, but I'm not into dudes."

"Me neither, but if you're into women, and the women in our team are into you, well, it would be like having some of the best sex on the planet on speed dial with the added allure of it being the kind of thing you need to keep hidden," Tommy chuckled. "And because we can't lie to each other, there's never any worry about people being unsatisfied or pressing when someone's not in the mood. Consider it a polypod for the New Era."

"I have to admit... Interhouse play? Sounds quite hot," Eddie admitted. "I slept with a few fae in my time, and an elf once, but you're talking the whole spectrum, meaning I might get the chance to fuck a Shade. Or a Dragon. Both of which, no lies, are bucket list items. Who's on board so far? No specifics, just general ideas."

"Elf and a Dragon, both female, both of whom approved you, both of whom would enjoy sleeping with you on a regular basis, at least right now."

"A Dragon wants to fuck me?" Eddie asked, his eyes growing wide, his smile growing boyishly eager. "Goddamn, I am moving up in the world."

"Only if you're joining our little guild, that is," Tommy clarified. "If not, then you'll have to forget about all of this."

"You're not out to harm any of the Lands or Houses, are you?"

"Absolutely not," Tommy said. "You can even ask me about it under oath if you want, once you're signed up as Plunder, although we still don't know how near or far off that'll be. Could be a matter of months; could be a matter of years. That's sort of why we're doing the preplanning; because if I have a handful of people who all agree to just become Plunder, I don't have to chase anybody, and I can register everyone at the same time. You all can gather in our team hideout, spend the day off the grid discussing plans and who else we want to bring in, and then the next day, I bring in all the new Plunder to the Antiquarian, and the team becomes official. I'm operating under the thought that maybe I can get all the remaining Houses and Lands covered before my next Captains' Day, but if not, we'll split, and there'll be a third wave to pick up after you lot are sworn in."

"And you're not going to tell me who they are until I agree?"

"I am not," Tommy said with a smirk. "Confidentiality, security and all that. But what I can tell you is that the one official Plunder I do have right now is so ridiculously out of my league, you'd be out of your mind not to want to be involved with her. I had a list of about five people I was considering and then before I could make up my mind, hell, before my ascendancy party was even done, someone took a swing at me, and we reached an accord of our own, settling with her and I as the founders of the Lucky Sevens. And she and I started working on our list of who else to consider. Your name was on the top of the Werewolves, so you're the first person in the Blue Houses I'm visiting, to see if you're interested."

"I have to admit," Eddie said. "You're making a compelling case. I'm a little worried about us having to keep it all quiet, though. I'm not exactly a low-profile kind of guy. My actions tend to draw a lot of attention wherever I go, whatever I do."

"That's okay. That's fine. You've been keeping the legend of 'Reckless Eddie' alive for nearly a decade now, and there's, what, only a dozen or so of us who know you've got a whip-smart brain inside that noggin of yours?"

Eddie offered a shy but somehow proud smile. "If that. The dumber and prettier they think I am, the easier it is to dismiss me as irrelevant. I've been very deliberate and methodical in how chaotic I've been. You never mentioned how you saw through the smokescreen. How'd that happen, anyway?"

"You really want me to--"

"Yes. As terms of me signing up for your little crusade. You have to tell me what I did wrong."

Tommy smirked a little bit, leaning back in his chair. "You sure?"

"It's been driving me crazy since you said something when we said sat down," Eddie said, swirling the very last of his rum in his hand. "You knew. And, for the life of me, I've been replaying every encounter we've ever had, and I can't spot a single moment where I was anything other than 'Reckless Eddie' to a tee."

Tommy tapped his nose and pointed at the werewolf with a wry smile. "And that's why I knew it was an act, Eddie." The werewolf tilted his head in confusion, so Tommy continued. "That's just it. The front was too good. Nobody's perfect. Except you were. You were always so spot on in character, and statistically speaking, you should've done something smart, even by accident, over all the times we've worked together. And the fact that you hadn't? Well, artificial perfection stands out. You don't tend to hang around the same people often enough, but sooner or later, someone would've caught you. You're just lucky it was me, and I did it early, so you know not to keep the image too perfect anymore. Even a blind squirrel finds a nut every now and then. Remember that."

Eddie laughed and nodded. "Too perfect. I'll remember that. Okay, Tommy, I'm in. When do I get to meet the others?"

"Not until the next Captains' Day happens, when I'll gather you all together, and you'll be prepped to be entered as Plunder," the wizard said, taking a small card out of his pocket. "Until then, we communicate via nameless, untraceable emails. That's the address. If you've got suggestions on who you think we should be considering, in terms of Fae, Shade and Vampire, out of the Yellow, Indigo and Violet Lands, you can send them to me, and I'll vet them with all the others. Once you do that, I'll shoot back a list of names we're currently considering, so if there's anybody on the list you need to have us cross off, we can do that."

"And they should not only be people we want to work with, but also want to fuck? Or think that a woman would want to fuck? That may be tricky."

Tommy shrugged a little bit with a slight smile. "Since you're signing on, the other two existing members are okay if two of the remaining three are women, just to give us better odds, so I'm certain you've probably seen your fair share of faeries you'd want to fuck from either Africa or Australia. I suspect bringing in a dude vampire will probably have a lot of advantages as well, so we'll have to keep that in mind." He sighed a little bit. "It's Antarctica that's really going to be the pain in the ass."

"How open-minded are you?" Eddie said, a slow grin crossing his lips.

"More than most. Why?"

"You know Mercury's calling Antarctica home these days, and they're technically a Shade."

Tommy's face scrunched up, considering the matter for a long moment before he spoke again. "Would you fuck Mercury, given the chance?"

"Depends on how they appeared at the time," Eddie said, the roguish grin widening a little. "C'mon. Nobody would see it coming, and you'd have one of the most powerful people on the planet in our gang. It's got to be worth at least considering."

Tommy nodded. "I'll consider it and talk it over with the others. Drop me an email in the next day or two with your thoughts. The sooner the better, just because we never know when a Captain's going to drop dead, and we'll suddenly be under the deadline of the next Captains' Day."

"How long do you usually get between a Captain dying and a new Captain ascending?"

"For me? Captain McHale died on a Tuesday, I was appointed on a Thursday and that night they held my ascendancy party, with my Captains' Day starting at midnight, so the turn around time is faster than you think it is. Most people didn't even know Captain McHale died until my appointment was being announced on Thursday as part of the ritual," Tommy said.

Eddie gestured with one hand. "Then just make sure as soon as one of your Captains dies, you're alerting everyone immediately, and we can all start making our preparations. Do you think people will suspect we're being captured for Plunder?"

"The whole world gets pretty chaotic during a Captains' Day, and all of the people who've signed on? They're not exactly what I would call 'schedule-keepers.' So be ready. As much as I want to have everyone prepared to do at once, the world doesn't much care what I think."

"You keep this up, chefe, the whole world's gonna care what you think."

"We'll see soon enough, I guess."

They wouldn't have long to wait.