Fifty Two Cards

Standing in front of a window, there was a man dressed in a black suit. He was in a room on the top floor of a hotel located in Lungarno della Zecca Vechia Street, in front of the Arno River.

The light of the moon illuminated his figure through said window, making him the only visible thing in a room with the lights turned off.

"Do you know what the possibility is to choose an ace out of a deck of fifty-two cards?"

The man asked, knowing his question would not be answered correctly.

"I don't like games."

The voice came from a chair in the darkest corner of the room, its occupant covered by a shadow.

"It's seven point six thousand nine hundred twenty-three percent. In other words, one in thirteen."

"What is your point with this?"

The voice answered, followed by the noise of a book violently closing.

"Well, you see, we are cards in a deck, especially a deck of twenty-eight cards. We are playing a game where we all pick a card, and the house then says who the two winner cards are, similar to the lottery."

"What is the possibility?"

"Seven point thousand four hundred twenty-eight. The possibility of us winning is smaller than the possibility of you picking an ace."

Both men had just met last month as the fifth summoning, they had been working on their preparations for the conflict, not as a team but each of them doing their own thing. Until now.

The first one, Henry Lucas Jones, the anchor; the second one, Andria Ansaldi, the summoned.

Even if they had a very weak relationship, they had been able to grasp the fundamentals of each other's characters, and that's how Andria knew Henry was up to something.

"Tell me, how do you solve that problem with cards?"

"You have seven point six thousand nine hundred twenty-three percent of possibilities IF you aren't cheating."

"How would you cheat without anyone knowing? If a card was different, everyone would notice."

Henry started laughing, truly satisfied with himself. Andria was interested in knowing the answer; he knew it was going to be something he wouldn't have thought of by himself.

"If the one dealing the cards helps you, you will choose the ace a hundred out of a hundred times."

Andria nodded, understanding what Henry was saying.

"The game you proposed is a game where people grab cards, and those who grab an ace win."

"Correct."

"But to assure victory, you need help from a third party, in this case, the dealer."

"That's also correct."

Andria knew that Henry was just waiting for him to guess what he had done.

"Did you ally with the man in charge of the summons?"

"Wrong, but not pretty far off."

"Reveal it then."

"I made a contract with a third party that is willing to help us."

"In exchange for...?"

"Fifty-two murders."

"Who is this person, and what would he do for us?"

"As a matter of fact, he is no person; he, well, it, it's beyond that, and what would he do for me if I finish my part of the contract? He would help me cheat at the cards; you get me?"

"Fifty two persons or fifty two manasies?"

"Fifty two randoms."

"Do that, then, and I will search for the enemies. Let's see each other here in a week."

"See ya."

Henry left the room quickly after. He was a bit disillusioned with the manasi who happened to be his ally; not because he was useless or they didn't get along; they simply were very different. Nevertheless, he did appreciate that Andria couldn't care to mess with his methods.

He had arranged a room for Andria to stay while he fulfilled the terms of his contract due to his being unable to get his ally to adapt to modern technology. As long as he didn't die or draw attention to any of them, Henry was happy with whatever he was doing.

Taking a look at his clock, he realized it was four in the morning. The perfect time for finding drunk people.

He detailed the crime he was about to commit on his head as he walked; the most important part was who to choose; he had no need to worry about the evidence; the method he already had thoughtfully picked couldn't leave any trace.

In fifteen minutes, he was on a street by the name of Via Giuseppe Verdi. Two clubs were near each other, and he quickly found a man alone, drunk enough to be a little dizzy.

"That one will be the first."

He approached the man, who had an angry look on his face.

"Bad night, huh?" 

Henry said to call his attention. The man was about to insult him, but after seeing his black gloves, expensive clock, clean suit, and well-kept hair, he changed his demeanor immediately.

"Ah, I lost four thousand euros playing poker."

"Would you like another game?"

"I don't feel like I want to keep playing tonight."

"What about this? If you win, I will give you twenty euros."

"If I don't?"

"Your soul."

It only took a few seconds for the men to start laughing, and Henry followed too.

"Soul Betting."

A table appeared in the middle of the street, a deck in the middle, and lots of chips.

"Take a sit."

The man looked confused, closing his eyes and shaking his head. Henry needed to intervene.

"Drinking is a hell of a thing, ain't I right?"

"I... think so..."

The man sat down; the deck started to deal itself, but he just thought he was drunk. Henry gave a devilish smile.

There were the usual chips on the table, except for one the likes of the man had never seen before; it was pink and orange and had a photo of his face on the top.

"What!?"

"What's wrong?"

"What's with this chip!? It has my face on it!"

"I can't see a damn thing on that; are you gonna play it or what?

"Well, I guess so."

They played for seven minutes, and Henry easily won.

"Shit! Shit! Shit!"

The man exclaimed, hitting the table, angry that he once again had lost on the same day.

"Hey, don't hit my table, man!"

"SHIT!"

"You know what we bet; I'm going to take it now."

"How could I give my soul to you? That doesn't even exi—"

The man simply disappeared, like he was never there to begin with. Not even his clothes remained. 

Henry grabbed the chip with the man's face.

"That's why you don't going around betting your soul; you never know when you are playing with a demon!"

Henry crushed the chip, ending the man's life. Then he stood up from the chair, and it faded with the table too.

"Just fifty-one more."

Massimo awoke at six. He quickly went for a bath and dressed himself afterwards. 

Walking to the store to buy enough snacks for the three to eat during the trip, Massimo took out his phone and called Adriana.

"Pronto"

"Hey Adriana, can you lend me your car?"

"What? No!"

"Please! I need to go to Campagna!"

"No chance! What are you even going to do there!?"

"I'm going to a concert with Cosima; it's her favorite group!"

"With Cosima?"

"Yes!"

"Ah, why didn't you say that from the beginning! You can take it; just return it to me unscathed!"

Twenty minutes later, he was returning to the residence. In less than half an hour since he got out of bed, he was able to find both a car and food, but instead of feeling proud of himself like usually, the fact that the mention of Cosima was enough to get Adriana to lend her car was beyond him.

What in the world does that woman even think of us?

Reflexing on that, he entered the house. Eloisa was sitting on the sofa next to the television.

"Hey Massimo, in this 'interenets' of yours, can you search people?"

She asked straight up the moment she saw Massimo.

"Depends, if it's someone from your time and he wasn't famous, he probably won't have any on the 'internet'."

He answered, putting the snacks on the table.

"What if he was a noble?"

The expression on Eloisa's face spoke more than her words; she wasn't going to accept an "it's impossible" for an answer.

"Then it's very likely he has at least a little article. What's his name?"

Massimo sat down on the opposite sofa, took his phone, and opened a navigator.

"He is, I mean, was Riccardo Rinaldima."

Massimo searched and instantly found hundreds of pages; sadly, those were all about people with the Rinaldi surname. He was about to give up when he found one.

"A reconstruction of the Rinaldima Family Tree, by Samantha London."

Eloisa inadvertently smiled. Massimo kept reading the page.

"Ah, here it is, Riccardo Rinaldima; it says: Born on 5/8/1786 in Battipaglia. Deceased in 9/12/1857 on Campagna. No known descendants. Very little is known about Riccardo Rinaldima's life except for the fact that he was engaged to a member of the Cobossi... Oh."

"Please continue."

Cobossi had reclined his head against the superior border of the sofa, looking at the ceiling. Massimo knew that this was so he couldn't look at her face.

"...Family but after the wedding was cancelled, he remained traveling back and forth from Campagna and Florence. His remains rest on the Cobossi Castle. After his death, the main line of the Rinaldima went extinct, making a distant cousin, Petri, Govanima, the heir."

"I understand. It's normal, isn't it? Humans weren't meant to be eternal."

Massimo felt he had to do something.

"Eloisa, I—"

"HEY! Massimo! Can you tell me what this black glass is? I haven't seen neither you nor Cosima using it."

Eloisa was referring to the television. Massimo understood that she simply didn't want to talk about the dead, so he decided to do as she wanted.

"It's called television; it's for transmitting images and sounds from all over the world. A person in Venezuela can speak in front of a camera, and another one in Australia can hear and see him."

"Oh, it looks interesting; I want to use it."

"Let me get the remote."

Massimo went to grab the remote; it was under Eloisa's sofa. Then he turned it on.

"You want to see a movie?"

"A what?"

"Ahh, forget about it; let's see a documentary."

Massimo changed channels for a while. He found a documentary about crows and let Eloisa watch it.

"Ohhh!!! Massimo, look, they are talking!"

Eloisa had stopped thinking about her tragedy and focused on the video of crows while she heard the locutor.

"...show that crows are at least as intelligent as some primates..."

Cosima approached Massimo from behind. Putting her hands on both his shoulders.

"Did you saw the news?"

"IIIIIEEE!!!"

Massimo literally jumped and screeched in a girly voice.

"BWAHAHAHAHAHA"

"What was that?"

Asked Cosima between Eloisa's laughter.

"I got scared; what were you saying before?"

Massimo tried to play it off, but Cosima was unable to delete that memory from her brain.

"Put on the news channel."

Massimo changed the documentary, to Eloisa's dismay. The news was talking about something that occurred at dawn. One journalist was sitting at a table reading from a teleprompter, making it very obvious.

"... interview with officials of the police revealed that at least thirteen people died and eight remain missing after a presumed terror attack happened on Novoli at the Via Umberto Maddalena. Photos of the scene show shocking images of the place."

A dozen photos from different angles revealed debris from the street and nearby buildings next to some destroyed cars. But the destruction wasn't general; instead, it was more like brushing paint over the place.

"This doesn't seem like a bomb to me."

Cosima challenged the journalist from the other side of the screen.

"This is the result of a manasi duel."

Eloisa aclared after some seconds.

"We should leave quickly for my castle and then go to Cosima's mansion to retrieve artifacts and knowledge. That probably was the first battle in this conflict; as you can see, the damned enemy isn't someone who cares about the peasant's life."

"Wait for me for five or six minutes; I'm going to take Adriana's car."

Announced Massimo before going out, leaving Cosima and Eloisa alone.

"I have wanted to talk to you about this Cosima."

Cosima was taken aback by Eloisa's sudden change of demeanor.

"W-what is it?"

"I have been wearing these old clothes since I was summoned five days ago. They are uncomfortable and small for me. Where can you find me something more fitting?"

"Let's make a stop at Campagna. There should be clothes to your liking in there."

"Also, when we come back here, I shall start teaching you more spells."

"Fire magic?"

"Call it appropriately: pyromancy."