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"You got the tape?"
He nods. Pulls it out of his bomber jacket to show it to me.
I suck at my teeth reflexively. Force of habit.
"You got the cash?" He asks, muffled by the linen wraps around his face.
I pull out a fifty-dollar bill and we swap. I'm practically salivating already as I tuck it away into a brown paper bag. We part ways without another word.
Fen's waiting for me at the mouth of the alley, keeping a careful lookout.
"Got it?" she asks. I nod.
We hustle down the street, shooting paranoid glances at the passerby. As far as we know, they're all human. As far as we know. I grip my umbrella tighter, straining the stitching of my gloves.
Three nerve-wracking city blocks later, we duck into our apartment building. I fold my umbrella in a single, practiced motion as soon as we're in its confines. Seriously bad juju to have it open indoors, and I say that as an experienced connoisseur of truly bad luck. It's another thirty fast-paced steps to the elevator (twenty for Fen). I mash the elevator button. I can hear Fen's heart beating a frenetic prestissimo, can hear the blood pumping through her veins.
The elevator opens and we rush through. Fen keys in the secret code and steps back. I step forward. I know for a fact that the "close door" button is useless, but I mash it anyways. The door closes, and we're up, up, up, and away. Thaumatic rockets engage and even though we're literally superhuman in the squat rack, both of us fall into an awkward crouch.
Seconds later the retrothrusters kick in. We keep our heads from knocking against the ceiling with practiced ease, both pros at the one-hand ceiling pushup everyone who lives in the upper levels of our apartment eventually learn.
We fall back towards the floor. The door opens with a ding.
The next part of our journey is the shortest and most terrifying.
The three grannies are arguing again in the middle of the hallway. Granny C holds a torn shawl in one of her hands emblazoned with the Meshugga logo as she curses out Granny A. We force smiles and push past them.
Two of the tower's temporary guests are in the recreation area standing near the ping-pong table. They seem to be arguing about whether it's legal to use an extendable paddle. One of the players, an older gentleman with bushy sideburns, calls out to us, trying to get us to intervene in his dispute. Luckily, we're already out of his sight by the time he finishes his request.
We avoid several other encounters with practiced but wary ease, both of us terrified that someone's going to see us with our contraband.
But to our great relief, we make it back to our apartment without attracting notice.
Fen bolts and padlocks the door behind us as I bring the tape to our beat-up old VCR.
With more than a little reverence, I put it in and turn on the TV.
... and then take it back out as I realize it's at the end of the recording. Some people are fucking animals. "Be Kind, Rewind." It's not a difficult concept.
Fen's back from the kitchen with popcorn by the time I finish resetting the tape. She's slathered it in our special sauce, and my mouth is watering, but I make sure the tape is in and playing before I begin to partake. It wouldn't do to get sauce on this bonafide historical artifact, after all.
"Ready to lose our bet?" I ask, smug.
Fen snorts and pulls out a wad of cash. "I've got the cash right here. And when I add your cash to it, I'll have more than enough for that vacation to Yellowstone."
Our urge to shit-talk satisfied, we both turn to the TV with anticipation.
It had been an absolute nightmare to find this tape. A relict of that brief interveilar age, that all-too-short period in the nineties where the undiluted hope engendered by the fall of the Soviet Union and the seeming dawn of a new age of peace had inspired us to step out from the shadows and into the light. (Well, metaphorically, anyway. I was constitutionally incapable of standing in direct sunlight.)
A relict of an age that had lasted right up until the 2004 discovery that a pack of idiot Ifrits had helped Osama Bin Laden perform 9/11, anyways. After that, the Council had forced us to go right back into the shadows, including the reinstatement of the Veil and its memory-muddling effects.
It had been a tragedy, one I'd campaigned futilely against. With memories of that time wiped from the collective human consciousness, only the artifacts of that time survived. Artifacts the Council had ruthlessly expunged. All of the people recorded on this tape had either forgotten they'd been in it, or been killed for their unwavering activism.
I bit down against an upswell of black rage. Cleared my mind of dark memories and unpleasant recollections.
My attention returned to the video, just as the intro finished.
Adam Savage introduced his guest, a mustachioed man clad only in nylon boxers. His hair was bright red, and he was absolutely covered in the stuff, from his wizard-like beard to his hobbit-like feet. I clicked my tongue. I'd told him not to do this; said he'd look ridiculous. And guess what? I'd been absolutely right.
I turned to look at Fen just in time to see her wipe away a tear. I wrapped an arm around her broad frame and pulled her towards me.
By the time the video ended, we had a resolution to our bet. I was feeling an acute pain in my pocketbook, but can't really say I was all that put out to find out that a werewolf could, in fact, jump over sixteen school busses.