The Art of Cursing

Salomon watched Little Lorna and her companions leave with deep concern. Armed with a pistol and seven hundred dollars in cash, Little Lorna even turned back and made a face at him before disappearing into the distance. Most of Athena’s attention was focused on Salomon, so she inevitably neglected disciplining the other children. Salomon figured Athena wanted him to set an example for Little Lorna through both words and actions, so she would not go astray.

What Athena had not expected was that although the Arcanist knew spoiling a child was not the right approach, whenever Little Lorna acted cute, Salomon was completely helpless against her. He felt that his expression must have looked like that of an old father sighing at his teenage daughter, who left early and came home late. But no matter how worried he was, some matters had to be dealt with now. Salomon glanced at the watch Bayonetta had given him, roughly calculated the time difference, then turned and walked toward a sedan parked by the roadside.

"Hand it over, sir." He knocked on the car window and spoke to the suited man inside. "This is my bottom line. Nick Fury should have told you about this. I really don’t understand why you idiots still came charging in. Your immediate superior must be incredibly stupid." The agent had initially wanted to argue, but the moment Salomon mentioned the Director, panic overtook him.

"I don’t know anything!" He felt that he had stumbled into serious trouble. The man before him seemed very familiar with his superior. "I was only ordered to conduct surveillance," the agent said.

"Who do you report to?" Salomon waved a finger before the agent’s eyes, and a mist seemed to cloud his gaze. The agent hesitated before spilling the information.

"Agent Victoria Hand," he said. "Though I’m only a Level Four agent, I report directly to Agent Victoria Hand. You have to promise you won’t tell anyone about this…"

"Fine. I’ll speak to your superior about it. You’ll be alright. Now drive home and forget what happened here." The Arcanist pressed his wand against the agent’s temple and extracted a segment of memory. Before altering it, he had to verify the intelligence. Mind Encoding was the most effective zero-circle spell for detecting lies, and Salomon never tired of using it when dealing with Nick Fury.

It was useless against Agent Romanoff, however. Even though the Arcanist could use the spell to learn the thoughts and information contained within her memories, all of it could be false—despite contradicting reality, it was true in Agent Romanoff’s perception. Her fractured mind was not a problem that could be solved so easily.

Only after watching the agent drive away did Salomon return to the orphanage with the camera and carefully examine the photographs inside. This agent was not Hydra and posed no threat to the orphanage, so Salomon could not exactly take action against him. He could only tamper with the agent’s memories. Still, he needed to know exactly what information Nick Fury possessed, so he could decide how to settle the score with that brazen man—Nick Fury’s work was temporarily irreplaceable, but some extremely troublesome curses would not interfere with it.

As for how to curse someone, Dormammu had provided plenty of teaching material. There were countless supplicants in the Dark Dimension whose minds had been eroded by power, and Dormammu did not mind Salomon using them for practice. After all, Salomon was not using the Dark Dimension’s power, so it suffered no loss whatsoever and even had something to gain—the darker, deeper power Salomon brought had even allowed it to glimpse the shadow of the One-Eyed Alien. That was one reason Dormammu had temporarily chosen to coexist peacefully with Salomon. The One-Eyed Alien was a terrifying creature from another universe. Before it understood Salomon’s connection to that universe, Dormammu had no desire to bring trouble upon itself.

The door to the Director’s office in the Triskelion was kicked open. Ignoring Agent Maria Hill’s attempts to stop him, Salomon stormed inside furiously. He could have opened a portal directly into the office, but he had chosen to kick down the door instead. The deep footprint on that blast door was the best possible warning. He placed the camera before Nick Fury, who had just looked up from his documents. "Explain," the Arcanist said. "I want an answer."

"Routine surveillance," Nick Fury said evenly. "A procedure S.H.I.E.L.D. carries out for every dangerous target. You know how dangerous you are, don’t you?" He gestured for Agent Hill to close the door so no one else would overhear. "And Agent Victoria Hand, whom you once tried to recruit, was the one carrying out this mission. You demonstrated magic in front of her, so this does not count as me violating our agreement. You can trust her. She has a strong sense of confidentiality. Other than her, none of the agents involved know magic exists, so you don’t need to worry about your secret leaking. If there’s anything else, say it quickly. I’m busy. As you can see, even when something happened with Stark, I could not offer much help. S.H.I.E.L.D. has a great deal to do."

"Cancel the operation. I don’t want anyone disturbing the lives of those children at the orphanage."

"I’ll be honest with you, Salomon. I’m protecting those children." Nick Fury put down his documents, deciding to reveal part of the truth to Salomon. In fact, someone like Salomon, who had no ties to any worldly power, was the person Nick Fury trusted most.

He knew Salomon could never be bought off. He had almost no connection with secular society, and even attending school had been at his adoptive mother’s insistence. A person like that was the least likely to be connected to that hidden faction. Nick Fury intended to try persuading him to offer some assistance.

"There’s more than one faction within S.H.I.E.L.D. I’m worried those people hiding in the shadows will use those children to threaten you. I know you care about them, and all I can do is provide a certain degree of protection," he said. "It isn’t just you. I’m also worried they might want to use the Ability Enhancers on the list, so I’ve strengthened the protective measures around them. The official reason is routine surveillance, and the agents I sent are all people I trust most. Though this will make them very uncomfortable and feel that their privacy has been violated, the situation is highly unusual. I have no other choice." Fury paused before continuing. "I think you can understand me, Salomon. I’ve said more than once that we are the same kind of people."

"I’ll handle the orphanage myself." Salomon frowned but did not completely reject Nick Fury’s words. Truthfully, he had no intention of involving himself in the conflict between Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D. Whether Hydra ruled the world or not had nothing to do with Kamar-Taj.

To Salomon, the democracy represented by S.H.I.E.L.D. and the centralized rule represented by Hydra were equally meaningless—those who held power ought to abandon their selfish desires. That was what the Sorcerer Supreme had taught him since childhood. But humanity’s inherent flaws could not be cast aside, regardless of the system. "Handle your own affairs yourself." Salomon patted Fury on the shoulder and placed a curse on him. "I can handle mine. Next time, I won’t be so polite to the agents S.H.I.E.L.D. sends."

"After everything I said, you don’t have any thoughts at all?" Nick Fury’s eyes widened. He had not expected his heartfelt words to leave Salomon unmoved, nor to inspire even a shred of admiration for his hard work and make him want to help.

This cold little bastard!

"Nope. You’re paid to do your job properly. Stop always thinking about asking for outside help, asshole!" The Arcanist even rolled his r at the end, looking utterly unserious.

"I need help right now!"

"When necessary, I’ll save your life, so long as you stop making mistakes. For example, you did well in ensuring there are no Skrulls on Earth right now. Those damned parasitic alien species should not be on this planet. If she wants to play The Virgin Mary, she can do it somewhere in space! That idiotic woman!"

The Arcanist did not forget to take another jab at Captain Marvel. Skrulls were notorious throughout the cosmos, and their war with the Kree was nothing more than dogs biting each other. From Salomon’s perspective, only that foolish woman whose brain had been washed by social justice warrior ideology during the Cold War would be kindhearted enough to help the Skrulls. It was the funniest joke in the universe over the last century. No one would ever trust the Skrulls.

"How did you know that?" Doubt rose in Nick Fury’s heart. He was somewhat worried that Salomon possessed intelligence known only to him. That was fatal. Their profession survived by feeding on intelligence; without an information advantage, an agent was no longer an agent.

"Magic." Salomon’s usual excuse. In truth, he had asked Agamotto. The information provided by Agamotto the All-Knowing was never wrong. "Alright," he said. "Enjoy your curse. How long it lasts depends on my mood. It might even be forever."

The Arcanist blinked cheerfully and pointed at the bunny-girl ears that had somehow appeared on the desk. He had made considerable progress in the art-like magic of cursing. Nick Fury would not get away so easily this time. He had to wear those rabbit ears, or else anything requiring physical or mental effort would go terribly wrong.

Salomon’s curse could turn an originally simple task into something extraordinarily difficult. He might even trip at any moment while walking—what was commonly known as a saving throw.

(All saving throws -5)

"I have to wear this thing?"

"Mm-hmm. That’s the price."

Updates are back to normal, so please send some recommendation votes!