Dusty’s Deal – A Season of Skulls Story

Tendrils of fog crept in past the curtains on the bar door. There was no keeping the stuff out when the season came. Max found it worse than the oppressive darkness or the skorpions, which at least had the good sense to stay out of her bar. It was a bad time to be doing business, and a lot of wiser heads wouldn’t try with so many bad omens about, but in Max’s experience deals wouldn’t wait. You seized opportunity when it appeared, no matter how grim things around it might be.

She watched the men across from her as they studied their cards. It was never a good idea to take your eyes off Regulators for too long. Especially if you were a Regulator yourself. Cheating fellow Regulators was almost a sign of respect. Almost. This deal was taking too long, Max felt, there were too many risks. Not least of which was that her wife Lena would get tired of waiting for her to come home and send someone to collect her.

“I’ll raise you twenty.” The older man, one of Zhim’s negotiators, smirked at Max. He was down too much coin to make a comeback. Max figured he was trying now to lose with the most panache.

The younger Regulator groaned and laid his cards down on the table, “This again? Fine. I’m out.” He was from Heliost, representing the new boss there, and trying to make a good impression. Not quite succeeding, Max thought, but trying.

“Vin, you haven’t got twenty left to raise.” Max leaned back against the booth and looked pointedly at the paltry couple of coins in front of the older man.

“I’ll write you an I.O.U.” Vin shrugged, unconcerned.

“You won’t,” Max countered him firmly, “Not when Zhim already owes me for a strider full of javelin parts.”

Vin frowned, “Dusty would’ve taken my marker.”

“Which is how Dusty lost this damned bar in the first place. You can’t wager what you can’t lose.” She watched him try to palm a card he’d just pulled from his boot. “And you’ve got nothing. New management, new rules, Vin.”

“But still no sign on the door. That can’t be good for business.” Tenzin, the younger Regulator spoke up, “Are we done here? I want to get back to my strider before the roads are full of skorpions.”

“I like you, Tenzin.” Max nodded at the young man, “You’ve got sense.”

Tenzin started to get to his feet and Vin waved at him to sit. “This hand’s not done.”

“Sure,” Max shrugged, “Let’s see if that ace you had in your boot’s enough to save your pride.”

Laughing at the older man’s chagrin, Tenzin rose and half-bowed to Max. “You’re sharper than Dusty, that’s for sure.”

“That’s why I’m still alive.” She smiled and waved for him to go.

“Give my regards to Lena,” Tenzin said, “I’ll contact you about the goods when I’m back in Heliost.” He left.

Vin eyed her across the table. “Tell me something, Max. The hit on Dusty’s strider – Was that you?”

Max laughed sourly, “With all the coin that slippery bastard owed me? He could never afford to die.”

The old Regulator grunted, getting to his feet, “So it was the curse again? Bad business there. Zhim’s worried. More than a dozen new owners for this place in the last few years.” He flipped over his cards, a hand full of nothing, plus a stolen ace, and caught Max’s eyes. “Fort Tarsis is too important to change hands so often.”

“Tell Her Glitching Highness I agree with her.” Max waved for Vin to go, and watched the older man shuffle out the door to be swallowed by fog.

Max rose from her booth, gathering up cards and the notes that sealed the deals she’d been closing. The last patrons of the bar, a trio of Freelancers reeking of Fortuo Brew and unwashed javelin padding, ambled towards the exit telling each other the same story for the tenth time about Lucky Jak fighting some sort of carnivorous plant as they left. Max pulled the gate down behind them and viewed her empty bar.

The fog brought in business – plenty of people in Tarsis opted to fortify their bravery with the aid of a drink or two – but more customers meant more to clean up. The fog played tricks on her eyes, making the Freelancers’ table look like the scene of a grisly attack. Spilled drinks pooled like blood in the dark, swirling light, dripping slowly from the edge of the table onto the floor. She sighed, calculating how much time she had left before Lena started to worry.

“Amal, take inventory,” Max said, grabbing a rag and a mop from beneath the bar. “If we’ve got to restock something, I want to start looking for it now. It’s not like we’re getting anything quickly in this weather.”

“Just leave it to me, Max!” Amal’s official job title was, “head bartender,” and while Max did employ three bartenders, he was easily the least in-charge of all of them. Privately, Max had given him the promotion so Amal would stop pestering the other bartenders with questions during work hours. Amal cheerfully took several old, dusty bottles down from the shelf to examine the contents, then paused, squinting suspiciously at the far corner. “Hey, I think those Freelancers left something behind. Can you grab it? Maybe we can still catch them.”

Max pushed aside the partly drawn curtains draping the corner booth. Amidst the bottles and pools of swill on the tabletop sat an old, threadbare newsboy hat. Even calling the thing a “hat” bordered on optimistic. Whatever color it had originally been had long since faded to a sickly taupe. The brim was spattered with irregular dark stains. As she examined it, Max got the slightest whiff of stale silver. A chill ran down her spine, and on impulse, she felt inside the band and found a hidden pocket with four playing cards and an IOU too smudged to read.

“Max? Should I try to catch those Freelancers?” Amal asked, half-hidden behind bottles.

“Don’t bother. It’s not theirs.” Max walked over to the bar and dropped the hat in the trash. She returned to the corner and started mopping up the pool of swill from the trashed table top with a rag.

“Shouldn’t we put it in the lost and found?” Amal sounded shocked, “The owner might come back looking for it.”

“It’s Dusty’s,” Max shrugged, “No way he’s coming back to claim it.”

“The curse.” Amal whispered. From behind her came the sounds of several bottles clattering into one another, followed by Amal letting out a string of horrified, “Whoops! Oh! Crap!” as he tried and failed to catch any of them before they fell to the floor. Max winced, but a glance back at Amal told her that at least none of the bottles had broken.

“Amal.” Max said dryly, “Try not to wreck my bar.”

The flustered bartender tripped coming out from behind the counter. “How? How could it be Dusty’s hat? He died months ago. Where did it even come from?” He gathered the dropped bottles and held them all in his arms like a moonshine bouquet.

“How should I know? Glitched crap happens all the time around this place.” Max cleaned the worst of the mess from the table and started mopping the floor around it. The air stank of unwashed lancers who’d spent a little too much time out in the darkness. She tried not to breathe. Without the dark pools of drink, the place looked less like a crime scene, but the tendrils of mist rising off the floor still made the dark corners of the bar look like something out of a half-remembered dream.

For a moment, Amal was quiet except for the clinking of glass as he moved bottles back and forth from the shelves. “Still,” he said, “It was Dusty’s. Maybe we could’ve… I dunno, not thrown it away?”

“It’s just a hat. We’re not building a memorial for a hat.” Max put away the rag and mop. “Finish cleaning up out here, will you? I’ll take care of the books.”

“Right. Of course.”  

Max entered the back room and closed the door behind her. It was hard to tell where the floor was through the fog swirling around her feet. This really was the worst season in memory. She winced, thinking of Lena at home alone. Her wife could make hardened Regulator bosses crumble with a look, but lived in terror of the dark. Their apartment always had a light on. At least one. Sometimes several, but with this fog... She was just settling down to count the money when Amal shrieked, “Max!”

She ran out to the bar. “You all right? What’s the matter?”

Amal pointed a shaking finger. “It’s back! It came back!”

Max followed Amal’s terrified gaze to the table near the gate. The old, threadbare hat was hanging on the back of a chair. “Very funny, Amal.”

She walked over and picked the hat up with a sigh. It was undoubtedly the same hat. The same smell of Dusty’s favorite drink. The same playing cards in the band, the same bloodstains. Max put it in the trash bin a little more firmly this time, as if maybe it just hadn’t gotten the point before.

“Take the trash out, would you?” she asked, returning to the back room.

It was darker in the back than Max remembered. The fog reached with its misty tendrils up the walls and curled around the sconces on the wall, dimming the lights. It swirled around her desk, and the cashbox, and the deck of playing cards she’d left there. Max waved it away, annoyed. “I’m not playing with you,” she muttered.

She heard heavy footsteps and the clanging of the gate as Amal took the trash out to the fort’s incinerator. At least that was done with. Max sat down at her desk and opened the cashbox. The sooner she finished this, the sooner she’d be home with Lena. Half an hour later, a series of thuds and whimpers from the bar told her Amal had returned. Max looked up from the books and rubbed her eyes. It was getting hard to tell where the floor and walls were anymore. The back room had been almost entirely swallowed by fog, leaving just the faint lights of the sconces. She rose unsteadily to her feet and started to feel her way towards across the room when a bloodcurdling scream came from the bar.

Max ran to the door and stumbled out to find Amal sobbing wordlessly by the front gate. She strode over and grabbed him by the shoulders.

“Amal! Get ahold of yourself.” Max gave the terrified bartender a shake and he met her gaze, eyes wide with terror.

“It’s back again! I threw it in the incinerator, Max, what if it wants revenge?” Amal’s voice cracked on the last word.

Max looked around, puzzled, saw the bar, and felt her heart sink. “It’s a hat. Even you could take it in a fight.” She grabbed Dusty’s hat, crumpling it in her hand, and shoved it in the trash can. “Go home, Amal. I can deal with this, all right?”

“But Max!” Amal started to object but was interrupted by a loud knocking sound. Max and Amal stared at one another for a moment in confusion. The knock had come from the door to the back room.

Max took a deep breath. Glitched shit happened all the time, she reminded herself. It didn’t mean anything. “Go home. I’ll lock up.” She took a step towards the back room door.

“No!” Amal shrieked, desperately throwing himself in her path and waving his arms. “It’s the curse, Max! Don’t answer it!”

“Amal,” Max tried to make her voice soothing, but it came out weary instead. She had never been good at soothing. “It’s not the curse. Curses don’t knock. Go on home. It’s been a long day.” She stepped around Amal and opened the door.

No one was there. For a moment, Max wondered what she’d expected. She felt a chill run down her spine, looked down and saw the hat on the floor. Behind her, Amal began wailing like a child with a skinned knee.

Max shut the door.

“All right. You’re going home, right now.” She took Amal firmly by the shoulders and turned him toward the gate.

“But you’ll die!” Amal sobbed, “If I leave the bar the curse will get you, and I don’t want another boss!” He stubbornly clung to Max, preventing her from walking him out.

“That’s sweet, but it’s also the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Max said as firmly as she could. She managed to drag Amal a few steps toward the exit.

Another loud knock came from the back room door.

What was left of her nerve snapped. “We’re closed!” She shouted in the general direction of the back room, and without missing a beat, she herded Amal out the gate, pulling it down behind him.

“Max?” Amal sniffled sadly, standing in the entrance.

“I’m locking up. Watch yourself on the damned steps.” She waited for Amal to disappear from the little semi-circle of light the spilled out of the bar into the fog.

Once Amal was gone, Max walked slowly to the back room and stood before the door. Heart pounding in her chest, she stared at the handle, trying to calm herself enough to open the door, and growing increasingly angry with each passing moment that she found an ugly old hat so terrifying. This was Amal’s fault. Stirring things up that shouldn’t be stirred. She reached out and opened the door.

The hat lay silent and still on the floor.

She stared at it for a long moment. Max took a deep breath, let it out slowly, then picked up Dusty’s hat. She brushed it off, which did nothing whatsoever to improve its appearance, turning it over once in her hands.

“All right,” she said, glancing around at the empty room, “Fine. We’ll cut a deal.” She walked across the room and hung the hat up on a hook.

It stayed there. It was, after all, a hat.

Max realized after a moment that she was holding her breath and slowly released it.

“We good?” She asked the empty air. When nothing happened, she nodded, satisfied, and switched off the lights to go home. Lena was going to kill her.

Special thanks to Neil Grahn, Ryan Cormier, Cathleen Rootsaert, Jay Watamaniuk, and Karin Weekes