Bittersweet

Chapter Six: The Meditation Room

"Holy sh–"

"I know what happened to Mr. Junji," says Immel.

She's wearing the same stained tee-shirt as yesterday. She looks, smells, sounds like she hasn't washed, eaten, spoken in all of that time.

My numb fingers crawl along salt, searching for the panic button underneath my desk. "Security?" I call, but no one answers. "Immel, why are you in my office?" I almost reach it.

"I wouldn't do that," she says, her thin arms holding up something gun-shaped. Is it a tazer? "I want to talk."

I raise my hands. "What is that?"

"This?" She shakes the gun. It looks like a prop from a video game – too bulbous at the end and glowing pink. "This is a project of Mr. Wylie's. Didn't he ever show it to you? It's a sugar gun. It's what changed Alice's hands into tattlers during the contest, don't you remember?"

"Please." I lift my hands above my head. "Immel, I don't want any trouble. I don't know what Wylie did to you, and I'm very, very sorry. But he's not me. Please just–"

"I don't want to talk about Wylie. Let's talk about Mr. Junji."

My heart hammers. I could faint again. "Okay. What about him?"

"I know Wylie killed him for figuring out your little secret."

I deflate against my plush leather chair. "You want to blackmail me. So you can live off of my dime and never have to work. Is that it? You could've just asked and I–"

"Not only that." The pink glow etches her face as she grins. "I want the chalice."

"Chalice?"

"Don't play dumb."

"Chalice, what chalice? What the hell are you talking about?"

Snapping bubblerammagumma at the side of her mouth, she pulls her phone out of her jeans pocket, thumbing the screen until she finds a picture, poking her hand through the holographic monitor.

I squint, leaning in far more than I need to, wondering if I can grab her wrist fast enough, if Grimmel is hiding somewhere in the shadows. I could probably take her, but not before she could snap off a possibly deadly beam at my head.

On Immel's phone, a silver vessel, etched with long-forgotten gods, sits on a splash of dark pixels describing its effects.

"It looks like a god item from MultiMetal X5," I say.

"It is a god item in MMX5. Look at you!" she laughs. "It's a fantasy version of a real artifact."

"And you think I have it?"

"A replica of this chalice was supposed to go to you when Wylie died."

"I never got it. He probably had it destroyed, like his paperwork." I fold my legs, forcing my muscles to relax, so that I can at least appear calm. "I can't get it to you, because I don't know where it is. But perhaps we can talk about getting you something else. How about $10,000 a month?"

"I want the chalice from the ritual."

"Ritual? That's insane. Wylie didn't do magic." I let out a little laugh.

"Oh, please," Immel's flat face distorts in the pink light. "The man was obsessed with the occult. Why do you think he summoned the seven of us?"

"Summoned? Seven? Immel, what I'm hearing is someone who's had way too much time on her hands and far too much talent, overthinking very simple things. You need like ... a career. A few hobbies, maybe. Have you considered weaving? Embroidery?"