章 15: Lockpicking.
Loki stood once again at Whitechapel High Street toiling away his time while fiddling with the lock-picking tools in his new jacket's pocket, wearing white gloves comically large for his hands and a white mask that covered his face.
"Ho. You dressed up?" The sudden voice did startle Loki, but he wasn't as scared as the first three times this had happened.
Turning around slowly Loki looked through his plastic mask and glared at the man whose name he still didn't know.
"What do I call you?" Loki asked in a biting tone.
"Hmm~? Oh, you don't know?"
Loki glared at the man even more fiercely but his mask kept his expression hidden and only prolonged the silence between them.
"Boss. Call me boss."
"Sure….boss. I'd appreciate it if you didn't startle me each time you spoke to me."
"Ha! Where's the fun in that?"
But Loki not sharing his humor just *sighed*.
"Walk with me." The man said and Loki began to walk with the man, trying to keep his speed up to match the man's long strides.
"We're going to steal in Chelsa today, at this address." The man said pulling out a piece of paper from his pocket and handing it to Loki.
Loki read through the address and didn't recognise it but still stuffed the paper back into his pocket, or at least tried to until he was reprimanded.
"What are you doing boy? You don't need to keep evidence, toss it away."
"Oh…? Ok." Loki did as he was told shredded the paper into pieces and tossed them away, allowing them to be carried by the wind.
"Do you have lockpicks?" Boss asked and Loki responded begrudgingly.
"I have a few flimsy strips of metal. And I don't know how to pick locks."
"That will do for now. You'll learn today and make your own eventually."
"How do you think I'll succeed in opening the door today?"
*Slap*
With a slap to the back of his head that threatened to displace his mask, Loki frowned heavily at the brutality but did not retaliate.
'My time will come, just keep your head down and wait Loki. Play the long game.'
"You don't need to pick the door lock to enter. Get creative. Try and enter the house using other different ways."
"Then why did you ask me if I had a lockpick on me?"
"Because if you can pick locks you can open the safes around the house and pick up valuable things."
Loki and his boss walked the rest of the way talking, with Boss asking questions and Loki responding until they finally reached their destination.
"Got any more questions?"
"What happened to your previous partner?" Loki asked.
"Haha, sure, I'll tell you…" the man said with a smile, he slowly traced out his gun and then turned towards Loki who was already as pale as the mask he was wearing.
"Why don't I tell you about that after you're back?" The man said and Loki felt cheated but didn't retaliate, he had already spotted the faint outline of a gun poking through the overcoat, and he did not want to provoke an armed man.
"Alright, now off you go. Or do you need me to baby you?" The man asked and pushed Loki towards the door of the house.
Loki sent one last glance the man's way and made his way across the street towards his target, a large white house that looked royal on its own.
Arriving at the door, Loki thought back to the question he had asked the man earlier, "How do you know the houses you target are empty?"
"The black market sells a list, for a profitable cut of the loot of course."
Remembering the answer, Loki couldn't help but wonder, 'How many people are involved in this operation?'
'Are they all interconnected? Or do they not care for each other?'
Loki pulled out his flimsy lockpicking tools and began to get to work trying to open the locks on the door.
'Maybe I'll get lucky?'
But it quickly became apparent that Loki wasn't going to get anywhere near picking the lock when not a single pin in the lock was set by him after five whole minutes.
After sending a glance the man's way, who just shrugged, Loki *sighed* and moved around the house to look for other ways to enter it.
Trying the back door first, Loki found it locked and hence gave up entering from it, instead he began searching for any open windows or loose vents he could get in from.
And he finally did, after around five minutes of searching and trying to budge a few windows, Loki climbed onto the balcony of the first floor and was able to slide open the glass door covering it.
'Ha! Got it!'
Entering the house, Loki began to scour around based on what he had been taught on his short trip to the house and searched for the most important room in the house, the master bedroom.
The master bedroom was the room where people usually kept all their valuables.
Arriving at a particularly lavish room with a bed, Loki concluded he found the master bedroom.
Opening the cupboard that was left unlocked, Loki spotted the safe that was inside it.
'Can I open it?'
Loki took a deep breath and calmed himself down before taking out his flimsy tools once again, as he got to work on opening the lock.
Depending on his deft and nimble hands that had been training for pickpocketing, Loki used his sensitivity to his advantage as he felt around for the state of the lock.
But with no luck for a few more minutes, Loki thought of a clever workaround.
'Why don't I just use magic!?'
Feeling around with his sensitive hands, Loki began to focus his mind on levitating the pins and setting them in place as he worked rapidly towards opening the lock.
'One pin set.'
'Two pins set.'
'Three pins set.'
'Four pins set'
'And open!'
Setting the final pin, Loki opened the lock on the safe and finally had access to all the jewellery inside it.
'Haha!!! I did it!'
Although it didn't stop him from feeling terrible about it, Loki picked up all the gold and stowed it away in a black bag which he then tied to seal and stuffed inside his coat pocket.
Arriving at the front door, Loki opened the door with a smile, although it was hidden behind a mask.
"What took you so long?" the man asked, standing at the door, having waited nearly twenty minutes for Loki to open the door.
"Haha! You won't believe it!" Loki said pulling out the black bag with all the stolen goods from his pocket.
The man's gasp was audible as he stared at the bag and quickly snatched it away.
"Good job! I was right! You will make for a good underling."
Loki scowled at the man's action but still followed him out of the house and towards the black market where they would sell their loot and Loki would earn his first paycheck from his first-ever home invasion.
When they arrived at the exchange shack, the man curiously ordered Loki to go and exchange the gold for money at the strange shack alone, without his help.
Loki felt a little shy at having to do a job that was unknown to him but he walked to the dingy shack nonetheless, it wasn't like he had any other options.
The person manning it looked cruel and had a hunched back as curved as a vulture's beak, his nose continued the curve and drooped like a witch's nose, making him seem like the crescent moon in the sky.
"What you here for?" The man rudely asked Loki rattling the wooden counter in an attempt to scare him away.
But he quietened down when Loki showed him the bag of stolen goods.
"What told you of this place boy?" The man asked with an annoyed smile on his face.
"I don't know his name. He asked me to call him boss." Loki wanted to point to the man standing in the street, but he had vanished from view.
"I see. Here's your share." The man said as he handed Loki a fat stack of rolled-up bills after taking the bag of gold and weighing it.
Loki was easily amazed and immediately counted the bills.
'Ten Thou- Thousand Pounds!!!!???'
'Aren't I like a millionaire now!?'
"Get out of here brat, and don't come back again for the entire month. No matter what anyone says or does."
Although Loki didn't understand what the man meant he politely bowed to the man and walked away into the street to find his 'boss'.
Anticipating his return, after Loki turned around a corner, the man appeared and patted his shoulders.
And with a low whisper, tempting Loki like the devil, he spoke, "Where's the return?"
Loki handed the ten thousand pounds over to man with part guilt, part excitement and part reluctance but he knew he couldn't fight back, at least not just yet.
But to his surprise, the man separated a thousand pounds and handed it back over to Loki.
"Happy yet?" The man asked as he gave Loki a rolled-up stack of a thousand pounds.
"Why?" Loki asked the man, clearly there was no reason he needed Loki's help.
"Because there's a limit to what one person can exchange in a month. With you, I can earn twice the money for half the effort." The man whispered and Loki felt a shiver go down his spine.
Not because he felt it was unjustified because he could only keep a tenth of what he earned, but because he was afraid of the gun the man let slip out of his jacket for a few seconds to scare him.
"Meet me at Whitechapel High Street in a month again."
"I understand." Loki nodded.
Loki and the man departed and Loki left for his house with a guilty expression behind the mask. He did take care not to let anyone follow him home this time though.
'Keep it together Loki, soon you'll be able to find a way to get out of this mess.'
'You just need to train a little more and finally, one day overpower him when he uses his gun!'
'By the way, I wonder if I can use magic to create new spells instead of just levitation. Perhaps a spell to open locks easier?'
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