Changing Sides and Heaving Sighs

13

     "El, check his pulse!" Joan shouted.

     Elliot, eyeing Anton warily, slowly inched towards Dragonwitch. Anton licked the blood off his hands, then nonchalantly picked up his jacket. As he slid it on Elliot knelt to check the fallen champion's pulse. The crowd's shouting had dulled to murmurs.

     "Well, is he alive?"

     Elliot stood and nodded, "He's alive."

     Joan's sigh blew into the microphone. "Ok. It looks like we have a victorious guest for the first time since the start of Dragonwitch's career. Sorry about your bets, folks."

     A few indignant shouts and several nervous whines sounded in the crowd.

     "It's sure as hell gonna be a long time before we host another fight with Dragonwitch in it, but come back soon anyway! You down there, scary guy, what's your name?"

     Anton didn't reply.

     "Hey, did you- can he hear me? Hey, whose guy is this? There's no way one of you big groups haven't snatched him up yet."

     Anton turned to Elliot, saying something. Elliot nodded frantically and motioned towards the door. The referee sighed in relief as Anton left the ring without even a glance in Joan's direction. Whilst this had been happening, Virgil had moved up to the bets booth. Deceit, Circe, and Remus were already there. Circe held a wad of cash in her hands, Deceit had snatched the dart gun, and Remus just stood there bouncing on his heels.

     "How much you got there, Circe?" Virgil asked.

     "Three hundred, some rich middle aged dude had passed out on the bleachers." She took out seventy-five (her 25% cut) and handed the rest to Virgil. "I'm lucky I found him."

     "I'll say," Virgil turned to Talyn. "My bet's under 'Paranoia'. His is 'Deceit', his is 'The Duke', hers is 'Circe'."

     "Don't you usually have a different guy here with ya?" Kai asked. "I've seen you three in here a few times before."

     "He's busy, she's filling in."

     "Here you go," Talyn counted out several stacks of cash, handing them to each Dark Side.

     "Thanks. Alright you three, grab your cut and fork over the rest."

     They did so, and Virgil counted out Anton's 25% cut (this one based on all the cash instead of his individual earnings) before stuffing the rest into his hoodie with the necklace. Overall, the money from the necklace and the fight could put his mother where she needed to be, and maybe there'd be enough left over for a week of food. He just had to sell the necklace (Made into different jewelry pieces, obviously) first. Virgil turned around just in time to see Anton coming towards him.

     "Nice work out there," Virgil handed the serial killer his 25%. "I'll call you next time I need you."

     Anton nodded, eyes landing on Circe. Circe met his stare without any fear, which only Remus would be crazy enough to do. She looked bored, he looked entirely blank, nobody in the Dark Sides moved a muscle for a moment. Then, quite suddenly, Circe burst into a fit of giggles that nearly toppled her over. The interaction seemed so out-of-character that it startled Virgil. Anton looked at Virgil, still utterly blank.

     "You're really going to regret knowing her," he said, then left.

     What? "Duke, Deceit, wait in the car. Circe, you and I are having a talk."

     Circe, still cackling a little, followed Virgil out of the building and back behind a dumpster. Maybe she had spent too much time with Remus; she seemed more energetic than her usual pathetically depressed self. Maybe watching Anton rip out someones tongue had shocked her into a minor breakdown, but that wouldn't explain Anton's warnings about her.

     "Alright, what the hell was that?"

     Circe's laughter stopped abruptly. "What was what?"

     "You know what."

     "If I knew what," Circe stuffed her hands in the pockets of her hoodie, "then I wouldn't have asked what, would I?"

     A grin had spread on her face, a little too wide to fit her face but not by much. Virgil spotted a slightly disturbing detail: instead of canines, she had incredibly sharp-looking emeralds shaped like cat's teeth. They went with her eyes, both in their color and in their vaguely manic gleam. Suddenly, Circe's last name popped into his head; Cheshire, like the cat or the place in Europe. Looking at her expression, the cat was what came to mind.

     "I've already been finding your luck incredibly suspicious, you know. You're starting to get dangerous. You block a bullet with a knife, win every gamble- rigged or not- that you're involved in, you caught a mole in your first week, you've somehow rigged every one of Remy's races, you warned me about Deceit earlier even though you couldn't have known I didn't want to be found, you casually came across someone stealing three ridiculously expensive pieces of jewelry, you scared Anton-"

     "Scared? He literally just said he smelled blood on me and it isn't mine. That's not fear."

     "That, other than in the ring or closing in on a target, is the most expression I've seen on him. Anyway, you even randomly found a passed out rich man carrying around three hundred bucks in the shadiest part of town. Since hiring you, the Dark Sides have gotten exponentially more successful. Hell, my test scores are always above 95% now."

     "If you're telling me to quit being lucky-"

     "I'm telling you that I don't know how you're doing it, but it's getting you a dangerous amount of power in this gang. You've moved way too far up in the ranks for me to look past anything suspicious."

     "So, start the interrogation." Circe made a flourishing gesture combined with a shrug, hands till in her pockets. "What's suspicious about a five-foot-zero sixteen-year-old?"

     "The stuff Anton said about the blood and regretting knowing you. What was he talking about?" Virgil crossed his arms.

     "Maybe he's just losing it. He is a murderer, after all. We just watched him rip a guy's tongue out, I wouldn't consider him entirely logical."

     "He smelled platinum on my clothes. If he can do that I'm sure he's pretty perceptive."

     "Oh no, he has a sense of smell. Clearly he knows everything."

     "Spill it."     

     Circe groaned over-dramatically, dropping the grin and pouting. "You're no fun. He's talking about the fact that I'm a serial killer, Virgil."