Upping the Stakes

Treu had finally scratched the cue ball in a side pocket, which ended his turn with only the 8-ball remaining on the pool table. I would say that the rest of the Armbrust Forest Werewolves were already celebrating his dominate victory with rounds of ale if it wasn’t for the feeling that they were determined to empty the tavern’s kegs either way.

“Do you hear this, hounds? Frost asked him to tell us about how he got himself mixed up with the Reische vampire family, and he launches into his whole life story!” Treu yelled at the wolf pack surrounding the pool table, and the pack answered back in equal volume with howls and drunken laughter.

“All of this is related to the Reische, trust me,” I said, chalking my pool stick.

“Really?” asked Treu. “It sounds to me like you are stalling in a couple ways. You are trying to get out of losing your twenty shillings by keeping this game going endlessly by your rambling, and I am starting to get the sense,” Treu lowered his voice into a growl, “you are making up the story as you go along. You never met the Reische Family, did you?”

I took a step back if for nothing else to avoid his savage smelling breath. Not surprisingly, werewolves don’t brush their teeth.

“I can prove it,” I said.

“You best do it quick,” chimed in Frost. His warning had no inflection, and it didn’t sound like a threat.

“Okay. Fair enough. But my proof came to me at a great cost, so let’s up the wager on the game,” I said.

Treu gave a laugh. “I don’t know if you have been awake through the game, and we certainly didn’t through your story, but, Blue Boy, you aren’t exactly in the position to up the stakes.

“Well, I am no position at all, am I? You won’t believe me without physical proof, yet I must produce it if I wish to see the end of this game. If I produce it now, the nature of the proof will lead you to kill me for it, which is the same fate for me if I don’t produce it at all. By transforming the proof into a wager, I, at least, have a very small chance of getting out of this alive.”

Treu seemed to be thinking it over. By the way he would try to catch Frost in the corner of his eye without actually turning his head towards him, it was clear that he was unsure. He wanted council from his aging pack leader, but pride with a full bar of his brothers watching stopped him from doing it. “Fine. What’s your new wager in addition to the twenty shillings you have already staked?”

I opened the draw strings of a leather pouch I had tied to my belt, and pulled out a shard of a crystal globe. “This,” I said loudly and held it above my head so the whole wolf pack could take a gander. The shard of the globe was nearly half of the entire piece. This fraction resembled a half moon. “You know what this is.”

Treu was openly shocked. “It, it, do you see it, Frost? It is the Reische Family heirloom.”

“That’s right,” I said. “And, if completed with the other piece, a person can view the location of any vampire in the world.”

This revelation, a revelation that they surely already knew, caused Treu to remain silent for some time. Around us, I could hear murmurs from the rest of the werewolves. Finally, Treu broke his silence with more laughter.

“You are forgetting one thing, Blue Boy. Just because you have presented it as a wager, doesn’t mean we can’t take it from you now, anyway,” reasoned Treu.

“True, Treu,” I said while lowering the broken globe back into the pouch. “That is why I hid the other half of the crystal before walking into the tavern. You can kill me and take this half, but it will mean nothing without its mate. You will never find its hiding spot, I promise you.”

Treu began to say something. I had a pretty good idea what it was, so I interrupted. “You may be thinking that I am lying about possessing the other half. I don’t care. Believe what you want, but here is the deal. You kill me now, and you get one half of the vampire crystal without ever the chance of recovering the second piece, which would render it powerless for the rest of eternity, and you would be forfeiting an unique opportunity to finally having some power over your enemies. Or, you can match my wager with something of my choice, win the game of pool, and I will produce the second half.”

“What stops you from refusing to give us the second half after I win?” asked Treu.

“The innate desire to not have dismemberment as the cause of my death,” I said.