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After the Fire

Started by kleineklementine, June 23, 2014, 08:26:05 AM

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kleineklementine

OOC: Very belated tags to @Cambie  ! This follows the events here!




"Make sure that it's you who's assigned the investigation."

The flat, no-nonsense direction came from a small, grizzled, gray-haired man with a bent back and a vacant, brown glass eye that didn't match his good blue eye. The man had once - the flesh and blood man, that was - been a blacksmith and hard labor had twisted his body while a stray hot shard of iron had taken his eye. Now, however, the man was a container for something else. Someone else. The blacksmith was long gone. To the recipient of his cold-spoken command, the washed up detective van Toews, it might seem that every time his directions came from someone different. A different face and never a name.

The matter at hand now was the former Blood Wolf leader, Zaki Akko or something disgustingly foreign-sounding like that. The glass-eyed man wasn't concerned about those sorts of details. What he knew was that the former leader of the Blood Wolves, who had been securely in Their pocket, had been killed and replaced by that pesky woman. Their chance to strike at the foundation of the Soot Wolves had been... side-tracked by that hiccup, but the problem had been nipped in the bud, as it were. The new Red Jackal was dead. Now it was just a matter of cleaning up loose ends. Then They would lie low and wait for Their next opportunity.

They'd killed her in a run-down, abandoned old smithy, then burned the place to the ground. The arson could easily be blamed on idle and no-good youths; after all, the smithy was in a rundown and neglected part of Arca. No one should care. But They didn't believe in taking unnecessary risks. Not when They had such a handy tool in the city's system. How much of Their activities - or identity - the detective guessed at, They didn't know. And They didn't care much, either. Because They had what he needed. And how he needed it.

The glass-eyed man passed van Toews a hard, stale roll of bread. It would be wretched to eat, but it wasn't meant to be a meal. In the hollowed out crust hid the sack of Ash and the gold that kept the detective firmly on their payroll.

"And if there's any... mess," the man gave a distasteful wave of his hand, as if just the thought of the body of the pest disgusted him, "clean it up."

Cambie

They always sounded the same. Cold, hardened, lifeless.

The gnarled and wrinkled form of the former blacksmith didn't shock him anymore, nor did his voice, nor did his words. Basian van Toews leaned his back against the dirt-covered wall of the little-used hovel, his own glass eye reflecting a dull shimmer from the lone candle upon the table, the good eye glanced off at nothing in particular. His ears -- or at least the one that still functioned properly -- took in every instruction.

"I'll take care of it," the detective muttered with a slight cough as he peered down at his feet. He didn't understand the motives of these criminals, and only rarely did he question them. All he knew was that they provided what he needed.

By the time the loaf of bread was handed to him, he knew what he had to do. Its ponderous weight belied the hidden coins within its hardened crust.

And the sack of Ash.

Without even acknowledging the fact that his employer's messenger disappeared out the creaky door and off into the crowd, Bastian closed the door after that thing and ripped open the piece of bread. There, as promised, was his usual payment. The coins scattered across the table untouched as he fumbled with the pouch of crumbling near-black leaves. He crushed a generous pinch in his hand and snorted half of it into his nostril before mashing the rest into a small piece of bread and swallowing it. A fire shot through his head and down his throat, bringing tears to his twitching eyes. But a moment later the dull ache that had plagued him all morning began to subside.

With a low gasp and a quiver he collapsed down into a chair and let the drug dull his sense.

------------------

"Lucky for the rain, otherwise the fire would still be burning."

All that remained of the abandoned smithy were the blackened beams that outlined what used to be a standing structure. As thunder cracked overhead and torrents of rain poured down upon the slums of Arca, Bastian stood in front of the crime scene, watching gentle tendrils of smoke fight through the water and drift up high into the air. Beside him, one of Arca's city guards detailed him on their handling of the situation. Several other guards sifted through the rubble, while others menacingly threatened the local street urchins who had braved the rains out of their own stupid curiosity.

"Nobody knows what happened yet," the other guard explained to the detective. "Could've been the lightning from the storm. Could've been one of these street rats. Probably the second one. Anyway, we're damn lucky the fire didn't spread. You know how these slums are, they're so packed together and full of old shit that we're lucky the entire district didn't go up in flames."

"Bodies?"

"Four or five so far, too burnt to be identified," the guard replied as he gestured to the others still combing through the debris. A loud crash echoed in the rain-soaked evening as a burnt pillar finally collapsed under its own weight, only barely missing one of the searchers who had the foresight to dive out of the way. The sound of it barely emanated through the downpour. Bastian gave a huff and a slight nod, before turning his back to the scene. It seemed his job was done.

"And one survivor."

The detective froze in place, his heartbeat thumping rapidly in his chest at the sudden revelation. Slowly he turned back to the guard, who continued, "A woman. She's barely breathing but she's alive. We carted her off to a safehouse down the way. Figured she might be of use if she wakes up, though I doubt she'll last the night."

His handlers would be very disappointed if he did not finish the job. And he knew better than to cross them.

With a slight scowl, he brushed the water from his face and shrugged droplets from the shoulders of his thick cloak, before saying, "Take me to her."

kleineklementine

"Of course, sir, right this way."

The guard motioned for van Toews to follow him and led the detective away from the burnt-out smithworks down the dark, desolate alleys of the slum. Suspicious eyes peered out of the hovel-like dwellings. No one in this area was glad to see guards, much less a detective. Eventually they reached an abandoned shop whose signage suggested it was once a bakery. The guard pushed open the door for the detective, entering behind him.

Inside, laid out on the floor of the former bakery, was a woman who had clearly seen better nights. Her rich brown skin was covered in tattoos, bruises and a sticky mixture of ash. Her coily dark mane was likewise matted with blood and seared at the ends. She'd been redressed in a plain linen smock; no doubt her clothing had not made it through the fire.

A healer who worked for the city guard was crouched down next to her, dabbing ointment on a newly-stitched, but rather gruesome looking wound in her leg. The woman wasn't exactly conscious, but she turned her head or twitched every so often, and was muttering indistinctly in a language that didn't sound like Common.

"We found her in the furnace," the guard explained, his voice sounding a bit too business-as-usual. After all, a detective was here, and it certainly looked like some sort of underground cover-up.  The guard was still new to the job and his nights were usually not as interesting as this! "No idea who she is, or where she comes from. Not Serenian by the look and sound of it. Whoever she is, she took quite the beating. How she survived... that's a mystery."

The guard paused, then motioned to the healer, who passed something to his palm. "Her clothing was burn in the fire. But we found this next to her body." Then the guard handed the detective a burnt, metal emblem: the head of a red jackal.

Cambie

Van Toews' heart leaped into his throat at the sight of the charred metal emblem. Perhaps these other, less informed guardsmen didn't understand the significance of it, but he certainly did. And not only because his shadowy employers had instructed him to clean up any mess they might've left behind.

The Red Jackal. One of the leaders of the Soot Wolves.

That was her.

Right at his fingertips.

"Just an accident. I'll take it from here," he said numbly but firmly as he cast a quick glance over to the guardsman and the healer. The two of them exchanged glances and then turned back to the detective, ready to protest, but before they could say a word van Toews cut them off with a hand.

"I need to conduct my business in private. If I need you I'll come get you. Now go."

The two of them exchanged glances one more time before finally shuffling out the door and into the rain-soaked night, the healer tossing aside the bloody rag that he'd had draped over his shoulder. As the creaky door clicked shut behind them, the detective reached under his coat and withdrew a serrated knife. He approached the girl lying on the table, barely clinging to life, incoherent words drifting out of her cracked lips. A quick slash of the throat would finish his job.

As he held the blade to her throat though, he suddenly realized the stupidity of his actions. Of course they would notice the gash in her neck if he did it that way. Idiotic! With a scowl he replaced his knife and instead took out his small sack of Ash. A slit throat was noticeable, but if she burned out like those other junkies in the slums...

But this was the Red Jackal. His shadowy employers had conveniently left out that tidbit when they'd given him his orders. Already he could imagine all the information he might extract from this one if she somehow, miraculously, pulled through. He could drain her of whatever information she had and then kill her, and nobody would be the wiser. He could even use that information to his advantage, perhaps trade it to her enemies for more of what he needed.

With a sigh and a frown, van Toews slumped down into a chair beside the girl and glanced away, listening to her shallow breathing, rolling the burnt emblem between his fingers. Somewhere in it all, he managed to crush another pinch of the narcotic between his fingers and snort it up his nostrils, feeling the burn and then slow rush from its effects.

kleineklementine

The return to consciousness was slow.

Confused.

And painful.

Zahi was a child, hiding in the ruined temple, starving. Running through the rain. Killing the rat. Sick with malnutrition. Then a pang of consciousness struck her and she remembered being in the warehouse. The ring of men closing in on her. Killing one, two. The blood coming from her leg. Then it faded and she was a teenager in Zantaric, lounging in her benefactor's quarters. Delivering poison to a rival crime boss. The fire. She'd been in a fire. Then she was young again, in the brother. Her mother murdered. But this time she saw it. Witnessed the whole bloody affair.

But she hadn't.

She wasn't there now.

And through a fog of pain, her head foggy and thick, the Red Jackal blinked her mismatched eyes. An overwhelming wave of weak sickness and hurt nearly knocked her back out. But Zahi stayed conscious. She was alive. Somehow. Zahi moved her muscles and immediately wished she hadn't. Exhaling, she decided to stay still for the moment. 'Decided' being rather a loose term. Instead she turned her head to the side, investigating her surroundings with her eyes.

It wasn't somewhere that she knew. Sparse and dirty and dark, it looked half-abandoned. It was light outside, but the windows were blocked by off-kilter shutters and only a few rays of dusty light penetrated the room. What light there was fell on an odd hodge-podge of items. A few weapons, the odd tool or old, broken piece of furniture. Scrap metal and a few discarded papers. But all strewn about in a chaos that suggested the part-time nest of a manic, an addict, or perhaps a drunk.

And there were two questions.

Who tried to kill her? And who brought here here?

Cambie

It was the soft shuffling of movement that woke van Toews.

Immediately after opening his eyes he felt the wave of exhaustion and emptiness wash over him, the same withdrawal that hit every single time that the Ash faded away. It almost took him a few moments to realize: the Red Jackal had moved.

Lucky for him that he had the presence of mind to wrap those leather straps around her wrists, binding her to the dirty old table in the safehouse, before taking a hit of his narcotic. And lucky for him that this one had just been pulled out of a blazing inferno. He was still the one in charge. To an extent.

By the time the Soot Wolf finally opened her eyes, the detective was awake and alert. She didn't have to say two words for him to know the thought that crossed her mind. It was the same one that crossed everyone's mind, the first time they awoke in this dark place.

"Don't worry about where you are, Wolf Pup," he said as he leaned forward in his chair, eyes staring hard down at her blinking face. There was an odd excitement bubbling in the pit of his stomach to be so close to one of the elusive Soot Wolves -- and especially one this high ranked. His shadowy nefarious employers notwithstanding, any detective might have felt the same way.

The dagger in his hand never felt heavier.

kleineklementine

Zahi tensed.

The grating words reached her ears before she saw the man that spoke them. And they dragged Zahi out of her groggy confused haze to a painful and lucid awareness of the now. And her mismatched eyes found the mismatched eyes of the man leaning forward and watching her with an ugly eagerness. It was then that Zahi was suddenly aware of the leather thongs binding her wrists to the old table. She was on a table. Her head still throbbing, Zahi wondered if she might be able to break out of the bondage. The same fluke of genealogy that had let her survive the fire also embued the Red Wolf with a strength greater than her appearance. But not now. Consciousness itself was something of a feat right now.

Her stomach clenched. It had been a long time since she was in quite so vulnerable of a position, and she didn't pretend now that she wasn't vulnerable. Zahi was always in dangerous positions, but she was usually in a position to fight. Not so now.

Zahi's gaze strayed from the detective for half a moment to the dagger he held, then returned to his face. She was silent for several moments as she took in the man across from her. The glassy eye. The disfigured face. If Zahi - with her dark skin and hazel-and-brown eyes - was fairly recognizable by anyone looking for her, the detective was more so. He may as well be wearing his own badge. It was, after all, Zahi's business to know these things.

Finally, she spoke, her voice dry and a little cracked, but outwardly unfazed. "Aren't you the crooked cop our pups sell junk to?"

Cambie

The tone of her voice, though weak, elicited a scowl from the detective that creased his already-scarred face. He stood and loomed over her, tapping the side of the dagger against her bruised neck. It took all of his willpower to not twitch or shake, as the Ash slowly faded from his system.

"So you know who I am, girl," van Toews muttered under his breath as he gazed her up and down. The bare linen smock they'd thrown over her body did her figure no favors, nor did it adequately hide the full extent of her injuries. Whoever had left her inside that burning building had meant for it to be final.

"Of course you do, it's your business to know. But you need to understand as well, Red Jackal, that it's my business to know who you are. And now that we're finally here together, you're going to tell me all about your compatriots. All of them."

The detective's remaining eye blazed intently down at her as he once again tapped against her rich brown skin with the flat of his knife. Drain her of information. And then cut her throat.

kleineklementine

Zahi watched him watching her. Watched the subtle signs of the Ash leave his system. But she didn't flinch away from the knife point as it played across her throat. As much as the total feeling of vulnerability unsettled her, Zahi recognized that if the junkie detective was going to kill her - right now, anyway - she never would have woken up in the first place.

Instead, she answered his comments, her throat dry and her voice still weak. "I think it's fair to assume that I'm no longer the Red Jackal," she told him flatly. If it bothered her to be called 'girl' by this man, she didn't show it. It could very well be to her advantage for him to think of her so disparagingly.

Up to that point, Zahi hadn't taken her eyes from the detective. Then she let her gaze wander around the room, pointedly, before adding, "This isn't really where I'd expect to be questioned by a defender of the city and servant of the Queen."

Cambie

That little tidbit of information took him by surprise, and he realized too late that one of his bare scraggly eyebrows had raised slightly. Van Toews turned away in irritation, inwardly cursing himself for having revealed even a single card in his hand.

He had not known that she was formerly the Red Jackal. Up until this point, he'd just assumed that she had slipped in her work and had been set upon by her foes. Had she just insinuated the opposite? That her own people had tossed her to the gutter?

With a slight scowl, he turned back to face her. What little light that streamed into the dusty room played strange shadows across his face, accentuating the deep scars and burns that already cratered his eye and temple. Again, he tapped the flat of his knife, but this time against the tabletop on which she lay.

"I serve the Queen, girl," he countered through his teeth. "And I do her work in whatever manner produces results."

His face softened somewhat -- or at least as much as it could soften. His tone took on a more empathetic tone as he leaned close to her. "If you're the Red Jackal no longer... then now is your chance to pay your penance, to do as your Queen bids. Tell me where the Soot Wolves are."

His employers would build a bed of Ash for him for that sort of information.

kleineklementine

The surprise on his face, though brief, didn't escape Zahi's notice and she felt, finally, some small advantage. When he bid her to pay her penance to 'her' queen, though, in an obvious ploy to play the 'good cop,' a small smile cracked Zahi's dry lips.

"I'm a bastard child of Zantaric," she answered, "and your Queen is not mine. I don't bear her ill will, but I don't owe her my penance."

I doubt she's really your queen, either, Zahi thought to herself as she watched the detective. Queens didn't tend to pay in Ash, and Zahi had met very few junkies who cared much for anything else. He would serve his queen no better than she did, Zahi was sure. Bribes and back alley deals and turning a blind eye for coin to buy what he needed, or his junk directly: that, she was sure, was his trade.

But for now, even if he was a junkie, he still held the upper hand over her. Zahi's smile left when he asked the location of the Den. But nor did she frown. If push came to shove, Zahi would not give her life to protect that information. But she didn't think she would have to just yet. Information was what he wanted and Zahi knew she'd have to show some of her cards if she wanted to get out of this predicament. Her muscles were already starting to cramp and ache from being bound to the table, adding to the pain left from the beating she'd taken.

"I'm not sure, honestly, if I can still call myself the Red Jackal or not. Or a Soot Wolf," she told him honestly. "First I need to figure out who set me up, and why. I have some guesses, but you'll have to let me out of these bonds if you want to hear them. I'm in no state to cause you any trouble, anyway." That was true enough. He wouldn't have to look at her twice to know that. Zahi frowned and her tone and look turned hard; she said something then she didn't realize she meant until the words were leaving her lips. "If it was Rufus, then I'll help you - and your queen - smoke him out."

And if it had been Rufus, she would.

Cambie

Van Toews dragged the chair nearer to where she was strapped to the table, and plopped heavily into its seat. His eyes, both real and glass, gleamed dangerously in the small trickle of light that squeezed through the cracked door and just brushed a ray across his scarred face. It was difficult to tell if it was sneering, or if it just looked that way from the burned and discolored flesh stretching from cheek to mouth.

"Bloodied or not, girl, you'd have to think me mad to undo your bonds,"
he replied quietly, dagger floating lightly between his fingers as he tossed it from hand to hand. "Whatever your wolf pack considers you now, you're still the Red Jackal to me. Perhaps if you give me something useful then we can work ourselves out a deal. Anything now. Tidbits on your pack, or on those who rival you."

Something about her words intrigued him, even though they were coated in the sort of honey that would just as easily poison a man as feed him. Did she know about his employers, facts about their clandestine operations about which even he had not the slightest clue? So long he'd been accepting their Ash in exchange for his services -- and in exchange for his deliberate ignorance, that he had never thought to uncover their secrets. Not until now.

He leaned forward.

"Tell me about this Rufus."

kleineklementine

Zahi’s eyes stayed impassively on van Toews, unmoved by his insistence of getting general information from her. This was, after all, frequently Zahi’s job, too. Sitting where the junkie detective was now. She didn’t think she’d ever gotten useful information from someone asking such broad questions, and without first giving them something in return. He must have, she decided, rose to the rank of detective before he became a junkie.

Still, a junkie was less predictable to deal with, and Zahi wasn’t sure where exactly the safe ground to walk on was. Her head, too, was still swimming.

“I think we were infiltrated,” she told him plainly, ignoring his entreats for information about the rest of the guild, or about Rufus. Zahi wondered vaguely how strong her loyalty to the current Red Wolf was. She would stay loyal to the Soot Wolves up to the point her own life was on the line - really on the line, like it might end up now - but she wasn’t sure about Rufus. Even if he hadn’t directly set her up, which she wasn’t sure that he hadn’t, his actions since she’d rised to the position of Red Jackal had… Well, certainly not been what Zahi would have hoped. And she couldn’t pretend she’d ever been his biggest fan before he’d risen to the alpha position.

But that didn’t matter now. That was all information the detective, if it was really fair to call him that, wanted. And she wasn’t giving it to him until she was on more solid ground.

“Have you been doing this long?” Zahi asked then, knowing she was risking retaliation - and that she would probably get it. “I’ve never found that I got very reliable information from people by threatening their lives. Back someone up against the wall, and they’ll tell you anything. You want anything worthwhile, you have to throw them a bone.”

In this case, she was ‘them’ and the bone was getting off this damn table. The feeling of vulnerability, of exposure, was getting under Zahi’s skin. Her 'job' had frequently put her life at risk in the last ten years that she'd been a Blood Wolf, but this felt different. On some level, this was different. And her eyes darkened, though her voice stayed level.

“Unless you had something other than information in mind.”

Cambie

Van Toews rubbed at his nose in irritation. His brows narrowed, and that one remaining eye of his focused even more intently on her, gleaming dangerously in these dimly lit surroundings. The Ashen high had completely dissipated by now, leaving him as he expected -- feeling empty and drained. The drug might claim his life someday, if not soon. But he couldn't get away from it.

"You think you were infiltrated," the detective repeated, all but ignoring her entreatment for freedom. He recognized her ploy for what it was, though somewhere in his subconsciousness he had to admit that he would've done the same in her situation. Or would he? Perhaps she was loyal to her Pack through whatever hardship she went through. Could he say the same for himself?

He had been a man of the Crown once, loyal to the people and to the city. He wondered if that man still lived, or if he had died the first night he'd wandered into the slums of Arca, cloaked and hooded to conceal his disfigured pained face, searching for some sort of release. The first time he ingested the Ash, felt the searing in his chest followed by the most wonderful euphoria blanket him like fresh snow in winter... was that the moment that he turned his back to his duty, and threw himself with this criminal lot, her lot?

Despite the task at hand, he had to smirk and chuckle softly at that thought. He was still a detective, a servant of the Crown. He still did his job. Rooting out the Soot Wolves? That WAS the right thing to do.

And if not, this Soot Wolf was on the same side as him anyway. They were both criminals, working for a common purpose. Well, not quite.

"And just who would infiltrate the Soot Wolves? Your competition barely holds its own. No, I think they discarded you because you outlasted your usefulness. Well now's the time to get back at them, and save yourself. The Crown will have your head on a stick, but give me a location or a name and maybe I can arrange something less extreme. A little civic duty goes a long way."

He didn't have time to follow up with his persuasion though, as the locked door suddenly jiggled slightly.

kleineklementine

Civic duty her ass. If the detective was really working for the Crown, Zahi knew, she wouldn't be tied up in some abandoned flop house and the detective wouldn't be jitterily coming down from his junk. No. She wouldn't fall for any of that.

Zahi's muscles were beginning to seize up, stiff and cramped and painful. It accompanied a growing feeling of unease, with a vague pang of animalistic panic at being bound, trapped; but that, at least for now, was kept under control.

"It was pretty sloppy work if we did it," she eventually remarked, her voice dry, tired, and a cracked. "I'm not sure yet, who infiltrated the guild. I have some leads." She moved her neck so that she faced up to the ceiling rather than towards the detective, making a small sound of discomfort in the act. Her eyes closed. "But by all means, if you prove that he was the one who set me up, I'll tell you whatever you want to know about the Red Wolf. If my choice is just dying now for holding my tongue, or dying later for being a snitch... Well, I'd rather hold my tongue for now. If it were a matter of getting revenge, though, it might be worth it. Otherwise, doesn't seem like there's much in it for me."

Zahi shifted again, as much as she could, wincing a little as another wave of sick pain swept through her. Then she was still and let out a long exhale. It seemed that letting unconsciousness take her again might be her best move at this point. She'd given the detective her offer. He wanted something from her, or he would have killed her by now. Let him think it over. This negotiating-strapped-down-to-a-table business was getting awfully tiring.

But then something else happened: the lock jiggled. Her eyes opened again and turned curiously to Van Toews. "Expecting company?"

Cambie

The detective had to wipe that scowl off his face when the lock suddenly jiggled. He could see slight shadows of movement outside, blocking out the small streams of light that filtered through the door's many cracks. Did these guards not understand orders?

"I'll come get you when I'm done here," Van Toews growled as he stalked his way toward the door, eye watching the doorknob quiver uselessly from the other side. If the Ash was supposed to leave him irritated as well as drained... well, it was doing a fine job of it.

The door jiggled again, and this time Van Toews banged a fist against his side of the door. "I SAID-"

A loud splintering crash interrupted his train of thought and sent him tumbling to the ground as the door burst inward and ripped from its hinges. His dagger clattered out of his grip and out of reach. Looming in the doorway was the silhouette of someone - was it just one, or more than one? It was hard to tell, as the sudden stream of light filtering in the doorway and illuminating the darkened room temporarily blinded him.

kleineklementine

You shattup, y’feckin’ twat!” the bellowing shout was accompanied by a hard blow at Bastian’s head. There were, in fact, three men in the doorway. But not for long. The large, thuggish men broke through the doorway and stormed into the dingy little room. Each was hulky, armed, and angry-looking and they set in on Van Toews, punching and kicking. One had a straight wooden club.

“Ye feckin’ liar!” the first man was cursing as the other two struck out unrelentingly at Van Toews. “Ye thought you could get yer junk fer free, heh? Tol’ Branwich not t’worry, heh? Yeh’d keep an eye out fer’im in exchange fer the Ash, heh? Yeh feckin’ lyin’ motherfucker!

While the men set in on the detective, Zahi lost no time. With some effort, she grabbed the Red Jackal badge left discarded on the table next to her. It was made of smooth metal. Except for an edge on the inside of the jackal’s ear which was serrated, sharp, designed for exactly this situation. Working quickly, she maneuvered the small serrated blade over the rope binding her wrist. In a minute, it was through, and she hastily undid the rest of the bindings. The four men, in the mean time, were thoroughly occupied. As of yet, none of them recognized her presence.

But Zahi recognized them. At least the one who’d done the talking so far. He was the muscle for one of the mid-level drug lords in Arca and she’d had handful of dealings with him, and his boss, in the past.

“Yeh tell Branwich yeh’d keep the bloody guards off his back, heh? But where were yeh when they raided shop this mornin’, heh?! Now Branwich’s hauled off t’jail an’ you gotta pay for it!” He aimed a sharp kick at Bastian. “Thought yeh could get yer junk fer free, heh!? Fecker!”

Moving slowly, Zahi slid off the table, much to the protest of her body. Her wounded leg hadn’t enough time yet to absorb the healing potions applied to it before Van Toews carted her away, and it nearly gave way underneath her. She stooped quietly to pick up the knife that had been sent sliding across the floor, then pulling herself upright, took a step forward to make herself visible to the melee going on in the room, careful to keep her weight on her good leg.

“Hey! Pull off your fucking goons, Dripnose!” Zahi barked in a loud, authoritative voice that belied the woozy pain coursing through her boy. “He’s on our payroll now, so keep your grubby hands off him!”

The men paused, startled to see the sudden arrival of another in the room. The two silent men might not recognize who it was, but Dripnose cleary did. Zahi was gambling here, that the rumor mill wasn’t turning fast enough for a lackey like him to already get word of her disappearance or death or whatever they’d be saying about it. But she was also gambling on the junkie detective.

“...Akello?”

“You tell Branwich to find himself a fucking new crooked cop. This one’s mine. If he has a problem with that, he can take it up with me personally when he drags himself out of whatever cell they’ve thrown him in.”

Dripnose motioned for his men to back off a little. He didn’t like Zahi, but he wasn’t stupid. Their operation wasn’t a quarter the size of the Soot Wolves, and if what she said was true… “Heh! Good luck wit’ this’un! Yeh’d be doin’ yerself a favor lettin’ us do’im in.” While he still sounded angry, he was obviously cowed by the Red Jackal. “An’ he still owes-”

Zahi cut him off. “You can take up his debt with the Wolves directly. But keep your twats off him unless you want a pack of Blood Wolves on your trail. That goes double for Branwich.” Dripnose grumbled, sneering, but unable to keep eye contact with the Red Jackal. Zahi needed this to end quickly. She wouldn’t be able to hold up masking her pain for long. “Now get the fuck out of here. And if you’re sick of working for a fuckup like Branwich, have a word with Agenskap when you collect the good detective’s debt.”

Cambie

Years of abusing Ash had left the detective dulled in many of his senses, but even that did not lessen the pain of each blow, as Dripnose and his cronies laid into him with a gleeful vengeance. He tried to fight back but to no avail, the kicks and punches bludgeoning him on the ground. With each elicited gasp, he had to hand it to them. Branwich was a nobody, a small-time dealer of Ash who thought he could play among the underground's elite. Van Toews had not expected them to find him this fast.

He'd only tipped off his colleagues as to the drug dealer's whereabouts the previous night. He had half-expected the man's cronies to scatter into the rain, perhaps reemerging later under new management. He hadn't expected this.

Dripnose sneered at Zahi, spitting down onto the groaning detective's prone body. "So you Soots protecting this'un now, eh? We'll be collectin' our debt one way or another."

His threats sounded more unsure than before, though. Perhaps he hadn't expected the Soot Wolves to become involved with this burnt-out cop, and that certainly changed things for him and his boss. Maybe collecting whatever debt the detective owed them wasn't worth the hassle anymore. Either way, he'd have to talk to Branwich about this -- if the man wasn't hanged in the next day or two.

"Better keep an eye on 'im, girlie. Wouldn't want him to end up dead in the middle of the night, heh! We'll be back."

After the three Branwich cronies disappeared out the shattered door, the room was silent for a good long while, save for the ragged breathing of Van Toews, still laying bloodied on the floor. Then, slowly, he let out a wheezing laugh. The irony of it all was too much for him to bear. Not that it would matter: the Red Jackal controlled his fate, and he fully expected her to silence him soon, whether through the heart or across the throat.

kleineklementine

The Red Jackal - or, more likely, former Red Jackal - stayed standing tall, her expression steely, in the face of Dripnose's petulant jabs. She knew they were just to save face in front of his men, and she didn't bother offering a reply to him. Branwich's operation was peanuts compared to the Wolves, and they both knew it. The only part that might be true, though Dripnose wouldn't know it yet, was the statement, 'We'll be back.' Once they went to the Wolves for payment of the detectives's debt and learned of her bluff, she was sure that they would.

Zahi managed to wait a few moments after the crew was gone, to make sure they were really gone, before her bad leg buckled under her, sending her toppling into a crouching position. From here, near the floor and nearer Bastian, she considered taking this window to slit his throat while he was still incapacitated. ...But then what? Zahi wouldn't get far on her own. Those goons would come back, and maybe with Wolves. And not everything she'd said on the table had been a bluff. She did want to know who had done this. And if had been Rufus... Well, Zahi would have no qualms selling the Red Wolf out to the Queen's men.

No. Right now, this junkie might be her best bet. At least now that the situation had rearranged itself a bit.

Also, Zahi wasn't sure she would come out on top of a scuffle. Sure, the detective was bloody and bruised, but so was she.

So instead, Zahi picked herself shakily back up and moved awkwardly to lean against the wall. She still had a white-knuckled grip on the dagger. As weak as she felt, she was still tensed for a fight if it was coming.

"Is that how you serve your queen?" she spat at him. The effort of moving herself and masking her pain was evident in her voice. "Playing your fellow guards and small-time thugs off of each other?" Zahi snorted. What a fucking hero. "Look, I meant what I said. I want to know who did this. And if it was Rufus, I'll tell you - well, maybe a sober colleague - everything I know about him. Then you'll be able to bring a great boon to your bosses. If it wasn't him, then you help expose a different criminal element in Arca. Either way, it's more of a service to your Queen than fucking with drug pushers."

Cambie

It took the detective a few moments before he could sit up, and doing that sent surges of pain coursing through his body. His face was a bloody mess, the drips of red only accentuating the scarring that crisscrossed his temple. He could feel the bruises welling up underneath his heavy coat. Surely something was either cracked or broken.

He wheezed a couple times before finally forcing his twitching eye open, staring disgustedly up at Zahi. That smug look on her face, he couldn't stand it. But something had to be said about the fact that she hadn't slipped the knife into his chest yet.

"Your friend Branwich..." he wheezed out, "he's locked up... because of me... all me..."

With a scowl, Van Toews spat out a thick glob of blood to the floor and glared back up at her. "And then what? Either way, I end up... with a knife in my back... That's how you fucking Soots work... killing each other on a whim. Look what happened to you."