"We need to find the black card." The fat man took a bite out of the thick chicken leg he held in his hand. Grease dripped down his chin and on his shirt, but he chewed on and kept speaking.
"This is fucking unacceptable. No time in history has the black card been absent and away from our eyes for so long."
The woman sitting in front of him snorted with disgust as she sipped wine that was older than her. And that was saying something.
"We'll find the card, Porco. Our people are already looking for it and they'll even die for the card if it pushes it in circulation again."
"Cocotte, you underestimate the power of the black card. It cannot be taken by force. The card won't allow it. The passing has to be a given event. And we don't know how powerful the card has become after being in possession of a single person for so long."
Porco bit into the chicken bone and crunched it in his massive jaw. He chewed it slowly, waiting for Cocotte to reply. Almost daring her to say something that would offend him and give him the excuse to bite her head off. He had been looking for an excuse for past 300 years, maybe tonight would be the night.
Cocotte moved her neck clockwise and drained her glass of wine. It went down her throat like snake venom, burning and scaling all the way down to the pit of her stomach where the tiny mechanical worms in her gut started to work on the wine.
"Now listen, you motherfu..."
The sound of the door opening stopped the words on her lips. Porco was almost out of his chair with his jaw opening to attack her.
The door opened and the Jester walked in.
"Ah, I see you kids started without me! How very unhospitable of you!" He was dressed in all black. The cloth rippling over his body like liquid darkness. It hurt your eyes to look at him for more than a few seconds. The rippling of the cloth made him look like he was really not there, like he was part of some ancient dreamscape relayed to this reality through damaged satellites with rusty antennas.
He smiled at the two and took a chair. He spun the chair on its legs and straddled it.
"So, the black card is missing, huh. Who'd have thought that something would fuck up the grand scheme we'd going on for such a long long time."
He produced a flask from the sleeve of his coat and took a deep pull on it. The liquid inside shimmered on his lips before vanishing with a faint smoke. Whatever it was, was potent and it made Cocotte's eyes water just sniffing the strange concoction from where she was sitting.
"Jester, it is no joking matter. The longer the card is missing, the more power it gains and once it's out of our collective abilities, who knows what will happen. We need to recover it."
"Oh, don't you worry, porky. I've got the best and most reliable man all ready to look for our card."
"And who is this man, if I may ask?" Cocotte leaned forward with curiosity dancing on her face.
"That man," Jester said, "is me!"
He let the flask drop from his hand and before it hit the ground, Jester was gone.
"Cocky motherfucker," Cocotte grimaced.
"Hrrrgh," Porco said and picked up another chicken leg.
---
I thought I'd introduce these three while we're at it.
Regular updates to this story this week.