Castling (13 page)

Sean’s rant was
cut short as the sole of Rook’s boot casually depressed the man’s windpipe. He flailed, thrashing underfoot, gargling a final breath of bile and phlegm.

Rook didn’t say anything. He
struggled to vocalise threats convincingly, too often coming across as disingenuous or ironic. Luckily, his frame was much more adept at getting the message across. He twisted the ball of his foot on the older man’s throat, as if stamping out a discarded cigarette. It seemed to do the trick.

Considering he
lay in a pool of his own blood and excrement, in his own home, outsmarted and half crippled by a fighter who had now quite obviously been restraining himself, Sean could safely attest to never having been as scared in his life.

“Why?” the broken
convict asked. Shivering, an expression of resignation fell over his choking features.

“Now he asks me!
It’s actually just as you said; it all comes down to reputation.

Specifically yours.

You did something as simple, as trivial as slipping a scalpel into Cracker’s eye-socket and you became an instant legend. Your rates quadrupled. You jumped to the number one slot on every most wanted list. As I understand it, cadets are still told horror stories about the man who finally took down one of The Siblings.

As you said, you
’re kind of a big deal Sean. You weren’t lying.

So, w
hy batter the notorious Lancet? Why cripple one of the planet’s most feared individuals in his own home? Why step on his neck and chuckle while he writhes and messes himself?!

Take
a sodding guess, Sean!

I don’t need you to run to your friends, tail between your legs and tell
everyone how scary and handsome I am. You know cameras these days; always someone watching.

It’s out. You have been beaten. And I’m letting you walk away... figuratively.

Test me and next time I will turn you into a dead person. And that’s me at my most literal, Sean.

But for
now
at least, and until I arbitrarily decide otherwise... congratulations, you’re off the hook.”

Message delivered, hostilities ceased, Rook removed his foot from the windpipe. Air
filled hungry lungs. As Sean clawed for oxygen, eventually rolling onto his front, Rook strolled deeper into the only room that had escaped complete annihilation.

He swiped a few tissues from a box on the
mantelpiece and sauntered back to his suffering mark. Rook crouched, handing the tissues to his former associate.

“
Clean yourself up, man. You’re a mess.” He chided as Sean dabbed the dark fluid staining his cracked lips and swollen chin. Visibly shaken, supported on a propping elbow, Lancet gestured to the younger man, flapping soiled tissue as he did so,

“No arguments here. But f
or the record, I’d like to remind you that the overwhelming majority of
that,
is actually yours!”

Rook tilted his head and
considered for a moment the deep stab wound in his side, the swelling at his recently relocated elbow joint, the gash across his thigh and the assortment of minor, closed lacerations about his face.

“
You’re absolutely right.” Rook concurred.

And remembering
the warning Molly had issued, he threw a friendly thump into Sean’s prone shoulder, adding,

“I’m just going to jump in the shower.”

Incredulous, Sean’s jaw swung open.

*

Torcher typically left performance reviews until breakfast, when the mind was fresh. Her lieutenants’ reports were typically thorough enough to hold ‘til the morning. Additionally, they both had the sense (and stones) to wake her should the sky start falling.

But for
a firsthand account of how her consultant, her
tactician
kindled the first real embers of her society’s infamy; she was willing to let her bed wait her a few hours more.

The S
martglass of her desk tolled 2:07am precisely as she edged forward in her chair. Fingertips meeting in an arch, she asked,

“So you left him flapping there
, in his own living room, while you helped yourself to the poor bugger’s shower?!”

“
Yes.”

“That is
harsh.”

“
Molly was
very
clear about the terms of my return flight” Rook explained, still wet, plunging his ear with an index finger. The Boss hooked a knowing eyebrow,

“That girl has you wrapped around her finger.”

“There’s a dirty joke in there... Somewhere...”

Torcher raised a hand,
openly revolted at the suggestion,

“Spare me.

So, you reckon he’s scared straight?”

Rook
reclined, folding his arms. He recalled the casual wave he sent Sean’s way on leaving, the look of abject misery on the man’s face. Crippled, scared and carefully insulted, he would prove an easy pick-up for Tartarus’ crews.

“Uh nope
. If you wanted him to stop killing, then we probably should have decided on a more
permanent
solution. But the damage is done. His rep will deflate. Ours should balloon.”

Torcher sat back, massaging her brow. She had long grown used to dealing with Lancet’s sort:
cocky, tough and too clever by half. The only thing they ever responded to was a good murdering. And she’d always been happy to oblige.

But what she
attempted now was covert, manipulative and subtle - decidedly outside her comfort zone. Specifically the part where she needed to let some of them live.

Precisely why I need his expertise
, his... varied skill-set...

“
But you reckon he’ll gab?”

“Unceasingly”
Rook assured her.

“A
bout us?” She stipulated,

“Exclusively.”

She looked gaunt and pale, cheekbones sharpened by weeks of stress and overworking. Had Rook not known better, he’d have doubted the fires within. He’d have seen a tired, severe woman approaching middle age and scrambling to tie together the strands of her machinations.

But Rook knew better.

Everyone knew better.

“He’s bound to put a spin on it.”
Torcher argued, always second guessing, always double checking. Rook tried to reassure her,

“Of course he will
. I would.

But
after losing eight of their own, no-one in that prison is going to be in a hurry to repair him. And it’ll be hard to take seriously the bluster of any half-job that mangled. Plus there’s the evidence. Videos are bound to leak sooner or later.”

“Sooner.
Ron set them live before he turned in for the night...I watched the footage by the way. We all did. You spooked most of my kids.”

“Really?”
Rook asked, sceptical.

“Badly.
And mine are not easily frightened pups. The way you toyed with him - It was not pretty.”

He crossed his ankles, throwing his arms behind his head with a coy wink,

“And here I thought you approached me for my looks!”

Her expression darkened,
any cinder of fatigue or vulnerability immediately doused.

“
Rook, I already have pretty people. I have an analytical genius asleep in his bed. I have a prodigy of violence so disillusioned by the best this world can muster, he’s considering taking up knitting.

I need
you
as my consultant because, famously, you have the unparalleled ability to annoy people. I need that candour. I need your objections, experience, advice, strategies and tactics. But mostly I need your belligerent persistence.

When I start seeing only trees, I need you to point out the woods.”

“Otherwise we’ll have a forest fire?” He shot her a wry grin,

“
Aye, and not just metaphorically. We need to be straight with one another. Starting now: So... how are you?”

Genuine confusion seeping in, Rook
nodded, pointing out,

“Better than Lancet.
Why?”

“
Why?! Because you fight like a bloody sadist, is why!

In my experience this level
of spite is usually reserved for miserable auld sods trying to drown themselves in booze or the psychologically...
unwell
.

W
arm, sunny gits who flirt with my XO, whip my entire intelligence team into a love-struck tizzy and have Lebanese giants weeping on their shoulder don’t tend to be that sadistic.”

“Maybe you’ve been hanging out with the wrong sadists?” Rook argued defensively,

“Probably.

Listen,
I can appreciate putting on a brave face for the team. Hell, I expect it of you. But this work, it takes a toll, even on the best of us.

I know you
don’t need the lecture. You’ve been at this game longer than most. But even I get bone weary sometimes. And
you’ve
just had a very long day.”

“
Which, I might add, was meant to be spent relaxing in an armchair.”

“All the more reason to spit it out” Torcher’s smile was thin, threadbare, but mysteriously reassuring.

Rook knew the Boss wouldn’t lament him
any
sentiment. Be he jubilant, livid, amused, or even shaken to his core by the day’s events, she could handle it, manage it. That’s why she had both grumpy sods like Hatchet and Gil on her team as well as bubbly personalities like TG and Wendy.

P
oetically, Torcher demanded a certain fiery passion in her underlings. And Rook genuinely considered revealing to her how he had none.

At all.

But he wasn’t in the
habit of retreading past missteps. So he lied.

“
Honestly, beyond a bit of a headache, I’m fine. Well actually, since we’re being honest, I was a little disappointed in Lancet.”

“Really?!
Because he seemed to surprise you a few times, son!”

“No no.
Before. I asked him the usual. And he came out with this predictably insightful and utterly meaningless spiel.”

“What was it about?”

Rook considered for a moment, drawing his palm across his mouth,

“Reputation
, I think? To tell you the truth, I stopped listening. I dunno, I was expecting mind-games or something.”

“Are you
truly complaining the task I set for you wasn’t dangerous enough?” Torcher asked disbelievingly, hands slapping the glass table in mock outrage.

“Yes, ma
’am! I’m a junkie. And occasionally that can be said of my relationship with adrenaline. This wasn’t exactly the baptism of fire I was expecting.”

They held each other’s gaze a moment before Torcher broke off, her cheek dimpled with a smirk,

“Ha! Rook honestly, should I ever wish to see what you’re really capable of, I need merely give my brother the nod. And then time how long you last.

This assignment was to ease you in.
A professional courtesy.”

Rook deemed now as good a time as any to feign shock,

“I got stabbed
four
times! In what universe is that courteous?!”

“
Maybe you’re a masochist too! Listen to me, Sean may have been tough, but he was an arsehole. You say you’re fine and I believe you. But dismantling mass murderers is the easy part, isn’t it? When the time comes to start throwing the boot in on the good ones, the nice ones, those poor well meaning dopes who lose control for just a moment, well... we’ll all be sorely tested then.

Even a cold bugger like you,
Rook.”

Across the table, they stared into one another
for another long moment. Differences laid bare, their eyes narrowed and squinted as they took turns questioning one another’s motives, the depths of their resolve.

Massaging the phantom pain in his already healed side, Rook finally asked,

“So, the big reveal’s done. What now?”

Torcher’s expression transitioned from gravity to levity, her eyes widening with conversational ease,

“Well, Team Leap’s been making
demonstrations (
not like tonight’s, but considerable) for about six weeks now.  But we’re still very much shadows and whispers-“

“Cloak and dagger?”

“See, this is why I need you around! Ron’s been checking the ether, but the sad truth is unless we want to be labelled common thugs, we have to keep our heads down and wait for something
bad
to happen...”

“Somethi
ng with a lot of collateral damage.”