A Scripta

"You snore, Master Grim."

Grim turned to Lue and smiled. "I'm suprised I didn't put my arm around you and give you a sloppy wet kiss."

Lue looked away, and Grim laughed. They had woken up an hour before landing, and Grim was drinking some coffee to assist him in waking up. The stewardess came by and asked him for his empty mug, as they were going to be landing in about fifteen minutes. They buckled in, and touched down gently.

Since they didn't have to claim any baggage, they just went through customs. Grim had purchased the tickets as a round trip, that they were going back on Friday night, in order to avoid raising any red flags. They were asked the typical questions, in English, and passed through without incident.

Grim drew a rune in front of Lue and "pushed" it at him. "Translation rune," he said, and did the same for himself. "Should last a couple of hours." Grim took out the map that Pyre had used. She wrote the name of the city on it, because the map didn't show specific cities other than Rio and Brasilia.

A taxi driver came over to them and spoke in flawless American English, "You need a ride somewhere?"

Grim turned to him. "How much to take us to Cambuci?"

The man looked thoughtful. "It's a two hour drive...it will be expensive."

"I half expect that."

He nodded to his cab. Grim and Lue followed him, and they climbed into a nice air-conditioned taxi. The two men settled in for a long ride.

Brazil didn't look that different from America, as they passed many cities with large skylines. "What brings you down here?" the cabbie asked.

Lue looked at Grim. Grim said, "We're looking for something that was stolen."

The cabbie chuckled. "Thieves went all the way to America and came back to Cambuci?"

"Something like that. What brings you here?"

The cabbie then went into a long detailed rant about his ex-wife and two children still in America, how his family disowned him and he decided to get as far away from them as he could. That took up most of an hour.

As they approached the city, the cabbie asked, "What address?"

"The city hall," Grim said.

"I don't know where that is."

"Probably the biggest building?"

"Yeah, maybe." The cab pulled into the city - which wasn't really a city, more of a town. The cab stopped at the largest building, which was actually a bank, but Grim said that was fine. Grim pulled some real out of his wallet and tried not to gasp at the exorbitant price the cabbie quoted. One Brazilian real was worth fifty cents, but that didn't make him feel any better as he forked over seven 100 real notes. The cabbie smiled at the tip, and took off.

Lue said to Grim, "Was that actual money?"

"Nope."

Lue chuckled, "What did you use?"

"Monopoly money. He's got until night time to use them before they change back. By then, we should be done."

Lue nodded, and the two of them looked out at the sleepy town. It was after 9, so people who should be at work were. They walked a little ways to a small restaurant and had something to eat. Grim set up the translation rune again, so they could overhear the conversations.

It seemed that there was a rash of business break-ins recently. This business was no exception, the waitress told them, as they had been robbed right under their noses some time after the church rush and before lunch hour on Sunday morning. Someone had cleaned out the register. Now the manager went to the register every hour and cleaned it out, keeping the money on his person. He knows it wasn't the waitresses, as they had been with him for years.

Grim and Lue looked at each other. It was, after all, a helm of invisibility, perfect for a thief.

They stepped outside into the warm air. Grim stood still, thinking.

"What is wrong, Master Grim?"

"I'm trying to think of the best way to find him. Should I do what I did with the arrows? Even if I come back to my body, he or she might move and I won't see them."

"Then we must bring him to us."

"How are we going to do that?"

"More Monopoly money, and make it noticable."

"Spend money like a drunken sailor?" He looked around. "There aren't many stores around here. And I'm not a philanthropist."

"Always a good time to start."

"Someone will curse me to high heaven when the money turns back."

So Grim sighed and walked back into the restaurant, and paid for everyone's breakfast. He went down the street a little more and stopped in a store.

It took about three hours, and much, much money passed out to children with their mother's, before they found themselves alone in the square. It was a typical town square, with a statue of a man on a horse, sword raised. The plaque discussed some distant foreign war and this man who fought in it.

Grim put the backpack next to him, still within sight. He was talking to Lue, who sat on the other side of the bench, the backpack between them. As he talked, he watched the backpack, and saw that the zipper was moving of its own volition. Grim moved his eyes to the backpack, and then Lue struck out, quick as a snake, and grabbed a hold of something.

A disembodied female voice yelled in Portuguese, "Let me go!" Lue held on tight, and Grim felt up the woman reaching her head. He yanked off the helm. It appeared in his hand, a black Greek helmet with a blood-red metal crest. The woman who appeared was no more than a young girl, about sixteen. Lue still held onto her.

"Let her go," Grim said, and Lue did. She stumbled back and ran away.

Grim stuffed the helm into the backpack, zipping it up. "We have what we need, let's go."

Lue nodded, and Grim got up, hefting the backpack over his shoulder. Grim took Lue's hand. Lue stared at him. "How are we going to teleport together otherwise?" he said with a grin.

Grim conjured the circle and enclosed them, and then imagined the anchor in the magic room and sang the spell to bring them there. Lue held on tight and closed his eyes, expecting the same sort of disorientation that Shadow gave him. He felt solid ground slip from him, and he panicked, but then felt his feet on solid ground again. He smelled the familiar scent of the magic room. He opened his eyes and looked over at Grim.

Grim turned to him with a look of shock. Lue said, "Master Grim?"

"You didn't see him?"

"See who?"

He gulped. "Hades."

"No, I didn't."

"How long did the teleport take?"

"Not very long," Lue looked at Grim, concerned.

"I saw him," he said quietly, almost like a whimper, and walked out of the room. Lue could see the backpack was empty.