He pulled out the six rings, and his eyes narrowed further, glancing at me when tiny spark arcs sizzled over them from my fingers as I picked the rings up, one by one.

One inlaid with tiny sapphires and diamonds was QL 26, enough for my purposes. I pushed over the wedding rings of the two dead vampires, a matched set he could display together and possibly charge more for. He hesitated only a second before accepting the trade, then pulled out a scale from under the counter to weigh the gold.

“How do you know the karats?” he asked me narrowly, picking up the first necklace.

“Dad’s a jeweler. Does work on a private basis.” Which was totally true, from a spiritual point of view. I pulled out some pennies from my pocket I’d lifted off a change bowl, and startled him by dropping them onto his scale, one by one, watching the numbers. “Huh,” I said, not looking at him. “Your scale’s a little light, mister.”

“Oh, the calibration slides by itself, miss,” he said with casual shamelessness, reaching in underneath the level to tweak it. The numbers adjusted up just that fraction that they should have unerringly. “There we go, should be right on.”

I just nodded as I retrieved my pennies, and he weighed the gold as I watched, writing down the weights, dividing by the karats, and ending up with a nice $1147 value for me. He’d double or triple his money on them, so he couldn’t complain.

His eyes fixed greedily on the Rolex. I was right, he wasn’t going to find anything like it which wasn’t stolen, as Rolex only sold through exclusive dealers. No doubt he knew several people who would snap it up quickly.

I flicked his hand away as he started to reach for it, and he froze. “You already know what it is, and I can see you know it's genuine.” I carefully yet deftly flipped it over, displaying the full length of it. “No wear marks, no scoring, no memorial. I even wound it so it’s keeping the proper time.” 9:37 AM, as a matter of fact. “If you want it for yourself, I can even adjust the wristband for you, if you throw in one of those girl’s watches over there.”

He looked over at the watches, back at my undaunted stare, and took a long breath. “You Powered, or just Core?” he finally asked carefully, which told me that he’d realized it might be pretty dangerous to screw me.

“None of your business either way, right?” I replied. “And no, I didn’t steal them. I literally picked them up off the ground in the park down the road, and am happily taking advantage of a windfall to make some money for myself. Congratulate a fellow lucky entrepreneur.”

His smile was a little forced, but he took it, reaching out for the lady’s watches. “Which one?”

“Black chain wristband.” He fetched out the linked little thing, more show than anything else, but without Detect Time, I needed something like it.

He went into the back to get his money, and I waited patiently until he returned to count out the hundreds for me.

When he was done and shoved over the stack, I eyeballed his wrist, picked up the Rolex, and adjusted the watch without using any tools, just stick and repulse to the gripping mechanism. I unclasped the watch he had on his wrist, a fake Rolex in silver, with one hand, dropped it disdainfully on the counter, and put the real one on him with my other.

It fit perfectly. He tried not to be impressed as he shook it, grinning despite himself. He could still sell it at any time, of course, but picking up a real Rolex for half the price was a pretty good bargain for him in this area, which didn’t get all the high-end traffic that the more loaded parts of the city did... and he probably didn’t want to display that kind of stuff so easily, either.

He was watching my hands with an appraising eye, noticing how smoothly I moved, and then how deftly I donned my new watch. I perfectly assembled all the bills he’d counted out with the fingers of one hand, gathered them up, and stashed them back in my backpack unerringly before zipping it closed without trying more than once.

Casual, deft, clean, precise, economical. If you were alert, it screamed danger.

“Good hands,” he pointed out, as I was about to turn away. “Deal cards?” he asked knowingly.

This monstrous Dex score I had, and the ability to selectively Attract/Repulse, made the Sleight of Hand skill incredibly precise and useful. Aelryinth had taken Sleight of Hand Ranks as a way to keep his fingers nimble, as well as understand the power of line of sight and misdirection, ‘street magic’, as it were.

Sleight of Hand took on a whole new meaning with a Ring of Telekinesis, after all.

“Got a deck?” I asked, pausing and turning back with a half-smile.

He fished a tarot deck out immediately. The cards were a little larger in size than standard, but that meant nothing to me.

I deftly fanned them out in a line on the counter after he cleared it, and fanned them up and down left and right, making sure all the signs and suits were there. I slid them back together, shuffling them so quickly he couldn’t follow with his eyes as I cut out sections, fed them back in slowly, and otherwise randomly moved everything around.

I fanned them face-down for him. “Pick a card,” I offered carelessly.

Eyes gleaming, he reached out and plucked up a card, looked at it carefully, then reinserted it in a different place than whence it had come.

I shuffled again, razzle-dazzle style, not even putting them down to do so, fingers working like spider’s legs with the way I moved the deck around. I let him cut it twice, reshuffling it each time, and then finally set it down, drew off the top card, and turned it to show it to him. “Card?” I asked dryly.

The 10 of Cups looked back at him, and he smirked, impressed. “Pretty good.”

I picked up the next three cards, and turned them over.

His eyes glittered at the three other 10’s there. “I gather they don’t allow you in Nevada.”

“I’m underage, and I don’t play cards, I just deal them.” I dealt the next four, and he hesitantly reached out to turn them over. Four 9’s...

I dealt four more, and four more. His face got a little comical at the sight of the 8’s and 7’s.

The next five were a flush in Wands, and the five after that was a straight flush in Swords.

“That’s very impressive.”

“Eh. Parlor tricks.” With a wave of my hands, I gathered them all up again, assembled them tap-tap, shuffled twice, and fanned them back for him.

They were all in proper order. His face changed again. He couldn’t see the Prestidigitation at work, and the shuffling of the cards sufficed for the finger-weaving.

I returned the deck to him, and he took them rather numbly. “Do you have a phone number you could be reached at?” he asked me suddenly, as if thinking of something.

“I’m not giving out my home phone to a random pawn shop owner,” I replied with an arch of my eyebrow. He looked me over at that, smirked, and grabbed one of his business cards, holding it out to me.

“Gimme a call tomorrow. I may be able to get a job for you.” I just looked at him. “Nothing porno. Dealing cards.”

I took the proffered card delicately. “If this has something to do with porn, I’m going to come back here, and I’m going to cook your brains inside your skull.”

His partial smile fell away at my steady gaze, and he swallowed despite himself. “Promise! I know some folks who’d be interested in having a dealer with a Core. They have expensive tastes and stuff.”

“And give a nice referral fee?”

He grinned again shamelessly. I definitely understood him. “That too.”

“I’ll think about it,” I stuffed it in the pocket of my shorts, wondering what this was all about.

He didn’t say anything more as I glided out of the store, back outside, and looked around, deciding where to go next.

Yeah, some decent and proper clothes were on the menu. Then, it was going to be another menu, because I was starving again.

On the flip side, I’d already gained a few pounds, and my muscle mass was starting to recover. A week of good eating, and I should be at optimal weight, I figured.

========

The Red Eyes turned up and around, but without the immediate sense of danger to them. I was in the middle of shoving my third Cheesemeister down my throat, and looked around in time to see a tall and well-built black man seat himself down across from me at the table in the Burger Barn, a definite fast-food place of sorts with actually decent burgers.

He wasn’t the odd one out doing that. Caucasians in general, and pale-skinned ones in particular, were definitely in the minority here. There were tons of Native Americans, Orientals, Africans, and Hispanics, but I was definitely catching eyeballs for my looks, especially in the middle of the day.

He tipped down his glasses, his golden eyes very hard to miss, looking at me intently.

I took another big bite as he stared, chewing thoughtfully and looking back at him. Clearly, this was not a coincidence. “If you’re a truant officer, piss off. If you’re looking for hookers or porn models, piss off before I break something.”

“We’ve met before,” he replied, pushing his shades back up after a glance around.

“Izzat so?” I said around my next mouthful. He looked at the other three triple-deckers wrapped up and waiting for my attention, and shook his head.

“Yeah, I was in the room across from you in the hospital. Walked by when you took out the nurse.”

I rolled my eyes up in thought, chewing slowly and swallowing before answering. “Oh, you, the invisible guy. Thought I ditched you and your subdermal intravenous tracking tech.”

His turn to raise an eyebrow. “My what now?” He held up his hands, a fry between fingers in each. “I didn’t authorize no tracker implants, although it wouldn’t surprise me if there were. There were at least three organizations leaning on the hospital staff, and those Askari I took out were only one of them.”

He watched me take another inordinately big bite, and realized he’d better start eating his fries faster to keep up with me. I chewed while I thought on his words.

“So let’s assume you didn’t. How’d you find me?” I asked directly.

“Place has good burgers. I came here for lunch!” he grinned, teeth very white, and scarfed down some fries. “Fries aren’t as good as Scottie’s, but it’s hard to beat their burgers in this town.” He made a point of unfolding his double-decker, shaking his head at my triple. “If I weren’t a Core, there’s no way I could afford to eat these.”

He was, at least, being nice about it. Points. “Well, you can see I’m fine, getting fed, fully clothed, putting on weight, and obviously not staggering around crying for my mother. What do you want?”

“Do you know who I am?” He lowered his head so I could see his golden eyes again.

I swallowed loudly. “I am going to guess you are one of the two heroes who were at the hospital last night from the newspaper article I read about you this morning. Since you don’t look like an Angel and you keep flashing your eyes at me, I’m going to assume you are Hawkeye.”

He was good at this, and flinched in exaggerated dismay. “So cold! They are so going to laugh at me when I pass that on.” Okay, he was definitely humoring me now. “Yeah, that’s me. I see all the pretty girls before anyone else.” He winked at me, watched me frown as I unwrapped another burger, and decided not to flirt more. “I do have a couple questions for you, you know.”

“Yeah?” My unfriendly tone wasn’t helping matters.

“Yes,” he said, taking his own bite and using the time to think it over. “And no, I don’t have to drag you in for them. I’m off the clock unless something pops up with a mean on.” I noted that the light jacket he had on could cover a well-made shoulder holster pretty easily.