Victor Callahan was hitting the sauce even though he knew he shouldn’t have. He was on the job after all, and was probably supposed to behave in a fashion befitting an employee of the Corone Armed Forces. But then again, he wasn’t technically a part of the CAF, now was he? Leeahn Festian, Major of the Radasanth City Watch, hired him as an outside contractor of sorts, to do some wet work that was too hot to be touched by the official hand of the Empire. Sure, the official papers said that he was bestowed with the power to act on their behalf, but there was a lot of fine print that Victor didn’t bother to read. He was pretty sure what it meant anyways. You get the job done, you get paid. You fuck up, we’re cutting all ties. Standard stuff really. When you have the bull by the horns, you either hold on or get thrown in the dirt.How the hell did it come to this?
She’s a strong one, not of the kind that would wail and weep and break down out here, where the entire world can see. She sits in her black garment like an offset of a bride waiting for her man, patient instead of jittery, woeful instead of merry. A handful of people crowd around her, behind her, a dark assembly of haggard faces and shuffling feet. A handful where there should’ve been hundreds. But a man is a fickle, two-faced beast that ultimately cares about one thing - its own survival. And in the jungle of the Corone capitol, only two types prevail: the clever and the wicked.
Victor Callahan is the latter, or at least that’s the general impression he has gotten recently. How could he not after all that had transpired? He sure as hell isn’t smart; never was, never will be. Smart people didn’t box for a living and take shady jobs that earned them trouble instead of coin, hate instead of respect. He stands now at a distance from the congregation, a blurry outline of the man in black, wondering why he’s even there as the rain pounds on the world around him.
The rain. It’s been pouring for seven days straight, as if heavens decided to open the floodgates and wash the scum from the face of the earth. But the scum are stubborn. All it does is add an even more somber tone to an already dreadful tale.
The assignment was Walter Jimes... or rather Jotham DeVir, the name he was going under nowadays. Jotham DeVir was apparently the main culprit behind the last week’s assault the Rangers executed in the very heart of Radasanth, the leak inside the Empire that gave off information that led to the attack. As the main secretary of one of the viceroys, he had both the access and the opportunity to divulge the information, and as a member of the clandestine group known as the Coalition, he had the motive. What the Coalition was, why they had no love for the Empire and why would Walter be working for them, Victor didn’t know and frankly didn’t care. He had been looking for this man for years and now was the time of the reckoning.
There was a bottle of scotch on the bar, less than a quarter or its contents already coursing through Vic’s veins, making him tipsy. He never could hold his drinks. He remembered this one time, years back, when a sassy girl from Akashima drank him and half the room under the table. He wound up in the bed with her that night, though as far as he could tell nothing really happened and she kicked him out of the room first thing in the morning. Good times. They drew a smile on his face as he poured himself another.
The tavern around him had very little worth noting, just another shithole in a long line of them specked all over the Radasanth map. The barkeep was fat and bald; the wenches were middle-aged and able to carry more mugs in one hand than Victor could in two; the smell was a familiar one, carrying traces of smoke and puke and stale water used to wash the hardwood floor; the roof was leaking, the rainwater tap-tap-tapping into several bowls strategically placed in the main room. But the reason Victor picked the Hole in the Floor wasn’t the dingy atmosphere and sure as hell weren’t the chicks. No, the Hole was one of the places that mercenaries liked to frequent, actual mercs and not the back-stabbing knaves and rookies that were yet to whet their blade. It was a hard place for hard people serving hard drinks, and if there was ever a place where Victor could hire some backup, this was one of them. He had spread the word to some other reliable shitholes, but this was where he’s been meeting those interested.
Not that Victor actually wanted help. His first impulse after being told that Jotham was actually Walter had been to just storm his place, guns blazing, tearing it down one bullet at a time until he found that piece of shit and ended him. But the Empire was paying for what he now saw as his personal vendetta, so if they didn’t mind parting with some coin, he didn’t mind hiring some cannon fodder. He interviewed several already, but most weren’t interested once they heard the details. Some bowed out, saying they were professionals and did not take sides, which meant they didn’t have the balls to stand up to either faction. Others complained it was not enough money for such a job; they were after all going after a public figure and should anything go awry, they would be hung out to dry. Or just hung. There was even one guy who seemed ready to brandish his sword, mouthing off how Victor should be ashamed for working for the tyrannical Empire. Vic displayed Aicha to the man and introduced him with the lovely sound she made when you cocked her hammer, and the righteous bum scurried out of the tavern. It was an eventful evening, but rather pointless and tiresome as he failed to hire anybody.
But the night was young still and Radasanth was chock-full of people who liked to stick other people with their swords and other pointy objects, so Victor waited and drank, and fantasized about the moment he faced Walter Jimes again. This is it, baby, he thought, looking at the pistol that rested on the table, a namesake of the one he loved all those years ago. His fingers passed over her name engraved on the barrel and it was cold and black and hard, everything that Aicha had never been. Time to do you justice.
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