Warnings: graphic depictions of violence, referenced rape/non-con, and major character death.
The man sat on the packing crate in the corner.
He fanned his face with five playing cards, cracking a wide yawn. He didn't bother to examine the others' faces or put more than a token effort into bluffing anymore; the game had gone on so long that even the dealer had lost track of how many hands they had played, and Matthew wasn't the only one yawning. The stakes hadn't been worth actual money since the game's beginning, anyway, and the clock's hands had meandered through hour after hour, the steady drum of raindrops on the roof drowning out signs of the outside world. With the dusty lamp casting flickering light over the cheap card table, the four looked like blue-collar scoundrels seeking a moment's entertainment while the dog tracks were closed.
He would be hard-put to find a more accurate image, actually, Matthew thought as he looked at the other players. The perpetual Elibe damp forced the dealer, Teodor, to keep his hat mashed over his hair and his flimsy overcoat pulled tight around him. His bloodshot eyes always seemed a second away from sliding shut, giving him a lazy, stoned look, like a homeless druggie. Across the table, Lloyd leaned back, his legs crossed and a handgun worn openly at his hip. A wisp of a goatee clung to his chin and he held a cigarette in his hand. Their third player, a woman with short hair and unfashionable leather boots, carried a gun, same as Lloyd did. Ursula had a lean, wiry look to her, like a wildcat, and she wore a men's jacket and trousers. Matthew had to admit that he didn't look much better; between the four of them, not one would look out of place in a police lineup, never mind at the dog tracks. Even so, they looked a damn sight better off than many as of late, what with the city in the worst depression it had ever known.
After all, crime paid.
"Three of a kind," Lloyd said, tossing his cards onto the table.
"Do you think we ought to check if the cards are marked? He's been winning an awful lot lately," Matthew asked.
"I'm tickled that you say that, considering the deck belongs to me," Ursula said, quirking an eyebrow. "Or are you insinuating that he's cheating with someone else's cards?"
"Dunno. It's possible," he teased, folding anyway. "I'd almost rather he was. It's so bloody boring."
"Hey, be glad for what you've got. Least we can drink and gamble. I bet the council would take that away if they didn't have bigger things to worry about," Lloyd replied.
"Of course: us," Teodor remarked as he dealt another hand. They halfheartedly laughed, the sound dying out too soon.
"You good fellows, maybe. I'm not exactly a big fish, no matter the size of the pond," Matthew said.
With crime at an all-time high, Elibe was a very big pond indeed for a second-rate thief looking for recognition, especially among living legends like the people he sat with. The names White Wolf and Blue Crow cropped up in news reports with punch-card regularity, always accompanying some daring tale of vigilante rebellion. Lloyd cut a stark, powerful profile against the flare of gunfire as he brought down another of the Taliver gang, the demons that the police didn't have the resources to go after. Ursula's silhouette flickered and shimmered before the flames of a corrupt politician's office falling to a well-pitched petrol bomb. Even Teodor, the Shadow Hawk, chased down records of shady deals that the council would rather the everyman didn't know about, exposing their lies to the very people they oppressed.
They were part of the Black Fang, a collection of every malcontent and thug that they could round up off the streets and try to beat some sense of honor into. It was a broken sense of honor, tattered and bloodstained, but it had endured through civil war and half a city's collapse. That honor provided a backbone of sorts for one of the only organizations left in Elibe that hadn't sold out or turned upon itself.
"All things given, I wouldn't complain. Things have been rough lately," Lloyd said darkly.
"Did something happen?" Matthew asked. His cards lay forgotten on the table.
"Not to me, no."
"Who, then?"
"You didn't hear?" Ursula asked.
Matthew leaned forward, failing to maintain the disinterested façade expected of him. It was important enough that Lloyd and Ursula traded glances, as if silently debating what exactly to tell him. As two of the Four Fangs, the highest-ranking gangsters sans Nergal and his personal entourage, they had the authority to even go so far as to defy aspects of the gang's code should they deem it necessary. Of course, the code didn't ban telling an initiate important information, but they had shut Matthew out of lesser meetings before.
Lloyd slowly said, "The Angel of Death was brought down. We don't know how. Not yet."
"Simple. They pointed and pulled the trigger," Teodor cut in. "No amount of study will overcome mortality."
Ursula had the poise to not react, but Lloyd rolled his eyes. He continued, though:
"He's still alive, but only just. Let's face it—no policeman has even been good enough to score a hit on him. He's too careful. If someone can take down the Angel of Death, what next? Which of us is safe? I'd think twice about bemoaning anonymity, kid."
The idea of someone dangerous enough to gun down Jaffar, he who had killed more people than a hangman's noose, made Matthew nervous and queasy by itself. Thinking ruefully of his handgun, which he'd only ever shot in the firing range, he accepted Lloyd's words. He wouldn't last a minute in a real shootout. Still, three years doing grunt work for the Black Fang made him grit his teeth and wish for something better.
"A bloke like me isn't really fit for firefights anyway. I'd rather work behind the scenes. Do something more like management, you know? Look at Ephidel—"
Lloyd's lip twitched, a disgusted sneer touching his features for an instant. Matthew had heard that the Black Fang had undergone drastic changes since Lloyd's father, the legendary Brendan Reed, had died. His replacement had taken up the leadership long before Matthew had joined, though. All he had ever known was the rule of Nergal and the Quinn family: Ephidel, the charismatic manager of day-to-day Fang affairs; Sonia, in charge of maintaining connections with the city's prominent figureheads; the eerie hitmen, Limstella and Denning.
"I could just do something like that, I mean," he finished lamely.
"When this mess clears up, maybe I'll consider it," Ursula said.
Knowing a rebuff when he heard one, Matthew subsided. He was acutely aware of the geometric Black Fang tattoo on Lloyd's arm and of the matching ones concealed by the other two's clothing. His own skin remained uninked and he lacked the nickname awarded to all important Fang members. Sitting among White Wolf, Blue Crow, and Shadow Hawk, plain Matthew Elliot felt shabby in comparison.
"I've got customers to attend to anyway. Let me know how it all blows over, all right?" he said with forced cheer.
"All right," Lloyd said, words distracted and halfhearted; he had already dismissed Matthew.
He was lucky they had the time to spare to even acknowledge him anyway, he thought sourly as he stepped out of the rec room and into the mist and drizzle characteristic of that time of year. He had to thank his sponsor for that, whispering honeyed words in the right ears and granting Matthew privilege beyond his lowly rank Granted, Ursula and Lloyd didn't need any incentive to mingle with initiates and heroes alike, but his sponsor still made him feel more like one of the gang than he might have otherwise. They all shared the same shitty Black Fang property, anyway, the same rec room that looked like the opium-addicted lovechild of a warehouse and a dumpster, the same torn-up firing range, the same drafty boarding house with plywood boarding up the windows and garbage bags tacked up to keep the damp out.
Their parking lot looked equally dismal, little more than a cracked blacktop with a sorry basketball hoop loitering at one end. The other side opened into an alley as narrow as a man's chance of finding a job. Only two cars occupied a space intended to hold many, but petrol cost more than most were willing to or capable of parting with. One, a sleek blue convertible, belonged to Ursula, a gift from her wealthy parents before she left that life. The second, a rusted tin of a car with a home-done paint job and a cracked windscreen, served as Matthew's only source of legal income.
He fought with the front door, which always jammed, before sliding into the familiar careworn seat. Flicking his music on, he rolled through the alleyway and onto one of the winding back streets that only a long-time Lycian resident could navigate. With a one-finger salute, he cheerfully cut off a bicyclist and accelerated onto the road. The cabbie had nearly a half hour before his regular-a moody, redheaded bloke some few years younger than him-would expect him, but Matthew was more than used to waiting on passengers. In any case, it gave him time to mull over the conversation earlier.
He parked along the side of the road, trying to remember standard procedure for when a Fang member was wounded. More likely than not, Ephidel would call for a lockdown. The guard on their turf would double, activity would grind to a standstill, tattoos would be hidden, and weapons would be carried at all times. They had followed that procedure when the Caelin faction had undergone a brutal internal conflict and Ursula's right-hand man, Beyard, died in the dispute. That lockdown had lasted over two weeks. One such as this, without a foreseeable end, could last many more, which would effectively smother his dreams of full membership. If things got truly bad, well…
They might have to bring in the cleaner. No name drew more fearful looks from the Fang than his, considering the leaders tasked him with killing those who betrayed the gang. No one knew quite how he operated, but rumors abounded over the impossible skill and ruthlessness of such a man; at least, rumors abounded within the gang. The rest of the world, the drunks loitering in the shadows of the bars and the suits returning from their cramped cubicles, had never heard of him. No police station had a wanted poster with his face on it, no government workers whispered his name, and no wall bore his symbol. Even most of the Fang only knew him as the cleaner, the Hurricane.
Matthew grinned, wondering what help exactly the gang intended to get from one whiplash-thin man who preferred a soft bed and a cold glass of wine to any gunslinging. Legault DeVere had become the cleaner for two very good reasons, neither of which had to do with legendary marksmanship or calculated ruthlessness. Firstly, he had the nimbleness of a cat burglar, which had enabled him to scale the side of a five-story flat to calmly murder a turncoat in the past. Secondly, he had simply outlasted everyone else. He helped found the Black Fang, and through the cunning of a fox and the toughness of one who grew up on the streets, Legault had avoided both serious injury and incarceration. A jagged double scar wrote his only mistake plainly across his face, slashing across his eye like twinned lightning.
The smell of smoke and cheap cologne tumbled into the taxi as Matthew's best customer slid into the back. He shelved his thoughts and turned in his seat, shooting a teasing grin over his shoulder.
"You're late, Cornwell," Matthew said.
"Shove off. It's only by five minutes," Raven returned.
"What's up? You're not your usual cheerful self."
Raven's scowl darkened. On the best of days, he looked like a dog with its head stuck in a chain link fence, all hunched shoulders and a personality as abrasive as crushed glass. Thankfully, no matter how bad the day was, he never got much worse; he stayed brusque and fairly impersonal, and best of all, he paid up promptly.
"You say that like there's just one thing to speak ill of," he growled.
"What, did you get sacked? I can't keep driving you if you did, you know—"
"I'm still employed."
"The government, then?"
Raven snorted.
"If I ruined my day over everything the government did wrong, I'd never enjoy anything. I can make a special exception for the chief consul, but it's none of your damn business anyway."
"All right, I give up. What's eating you?"
"The telly's broken and tonight's the Etruria-Ryerde game. I've got four copper riding on the outcome and I damn well don't want to miss it," he said.
"Which side are you betting on?" Matthew asked. He didn't religiously follow football the same way some of the city did, but he watched the games when they were on. Before someone busted the rec room telly, the sound of the games always rose over the Fang chatter—Linus loved them. Matthew had fallen behind in the past few weeks, though.
"Ryerde."
"Isn't Etruria favored?"
"Their best striker tore an ACL and the backup has no endurance. If you're interested, I know a nice place to make a bet. Reliable and legal," Raven said.
"'Fraid not. Thanks, though. You want me to drop you off at the usual place?"
"Yeah. Not interested in football?"
"Little bit. I've only got a radio at home, though, and it loses something of the excitement," he said with a shrug.
The redhead nodded in understanding. It cost quite a bit to buy a television, and with the council's latest tax on owning one, Matthew couldn't believe that Raven could afford it. Then again, he reminded himself, he didn't know what exactly his passenger did to make money. For all he knew, Raven worked somewhere a notch above the menial jobs that most everyone in the rundown Araphen borough fell back on.
Glancing up at the rearview mirror and the reflection in it, Matthew doubted it, though. The beginning of a beard shadowed Raven's jaw, and dirt scuffed his clothes. None of the few people who stood on the filthy, refuse-ridden streets batted an eye as he threw a few coins at Matthew and stepped out of the cab.
He quickly counted over them, making sure the fare was in order. A copper and four zinc disappeared into his moneybag and a smile touched his lips. It wouldn't cover even a half tank of petrol, what with the prices in recent months, but he needed Raven's patronage. In preparation for the lockdown, he would need to work up a bit of extra coin to compensate for the lack of his usual funds. Even if he skimped on luxuries, he might still struggle to make rent.
He peeled out of Araphen as quickly as he could. As a born-and-bred Lycian man, he faced no danger from the hate crimes that everyone knew Araphen for, but the hard-eyed men on the streets still made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Nominally, neither the Fang nor any of the lesser gangs laid claim to the miserable neighborhood, but that didn't mean that an overly bold Taliver member wouldn't hurl a brick through his window in a petty display of anger.
Matthew eased off the speed as he passed into Khathelet. Like Araphen, it didn't belong to the Black Fang and hadn't since the Caelin insurrection a year prior, but unlike Araphen, hardly anyone unsavory roamed the streets. Not a bad place to live, he reasoned, if one couldn't afford better, but Matthew had business to do and Khathelet was far too sleepy for a cabbie looking to find work. No, before dark, he headed to rough-and-tumble Badon. Boasting Lycia's premier port, a slew of bars, dog tracks, animal fighting rings, and most of the city's masked wrestling arenas, Badon's population fluctuated wildly on game days. Someone always needed a ride, either to the center of the excitement or to beat a hasty retreat from bar fights or from the few cops that dared patrol the streets. After dark, no one but the tough or foolhardy walked through Badon.
He really only worked to distract himself until the streetlights feebly flickered on, though; burning with curiosity about the Angel of Death's injuries, Matthew needed to make a trip to The Full Moon. The Fang maintained a pub in Laus , where the consul turned a blind eye to Fang work, and it haunted the space between an old tattoo parlor and a psychic's office that had gone out of business months prior. Few businesses thrived in Laus anymore, not since the consul upped the taxes again. Sometimes Matthew found it hard to keep up with the patchwork mess of bylaws and regional codes that made up the various boroughs; each councilor created their own rules on top of the district-wide Lycian laws, making it functionally impossible to sort through all of them.
He parked under a graffiti image of a white wolf before sauntering through the front door. Had any cop attempted the same, Matthew knew that sharp-eyed Denning lurked in the second story window, his sniper rifle within arm's length. Denning waited day and night up there, only coming down for jobs or sleep, as far as Matthew knew.
Few people occupied the common room. Besides the bartender—a rodentlike man with watery eyes and a bad overbite—only four others sat in the usually bustling tavern. A pair of fresh recruits, both teenagers, crowded around the staticky telly, watching greyscale football players scurry back and forth. A third, a young, genial man with electric blue hair gelled up in spikes, raised a hand in a wave. Matthew waved back at him before heading along.
The fourth patron lounged in a stiff wooden chair with his feet up in a posture of calculated uncaring. An unlit cigarette interrupted his easy smirk, and a trilby with a purple band above the brim shadowed his pale eyes.
Matthew took the other seat at the table.
"Hey, Matthew. It's been too long," he said, long legs crossed ankle over knee.
"You too, Legault."
"Hey, Jan! Can I get a pair of Elfires on draft?"
As Jan nodded and hurried to fill the order, Legault turned back to Matthew, continuing, "How has my favorite thief been?"
"Thanks," he said as the barkeep placed the drinks before them. He replied, "Mostly? The same as always. Government trying their best to tax poor unlicensed cabbies."
"I figure they've been unsuccessful?"
"Right. As White Wolf said earlier, they've got better things to worry about than a scrawny bloke like me," Matthew agreed. "How about you?"
"I've been doing a bit job in Ilia. Ephidel thinks their police force merits investigating, and you know how it is. It's rather tiresome; a good honest criminal can't seem to catch a day's holiday. No rest for the wicked, I suppose. Instead, I'm poking my nose in Ilian business as if we don't have bigger problems," he said, thin shoulders stabbing upwards in a shrug.
"I thought they weren't tied to the government."
"Yeah, nominally. They're a mercenary force, and if anyone in this city can claim to be truly neutral, it's the Ilians. Of course, you must consider the fact that in this day and age, there's only one buyer in the market for trained police for hire."
"The government," Matthew said, rolling his eyes. "What's next? Are they going to come poking around our turf?"
"Doubtful. Most have been contracted as private guards. The others have their own district to worry about and are more than content to ignore us if we ignore them," Legault replied with a dismissive wave.
"So you've learned nothing important?"
"As I said, it's a bit job. They're not a threat, but you can never be too careful. Recklessness breeds trouble, and all that. If Ephidel thinks they might interfere with Bernese or Lycian politics, then it was at least worthwhile to check them out."
"Speaking of trouble, I heard the Angel of Death was shot," he said quietly, eyes darting over to the men by the television to see if they listened in. Neither looked up or gasped in shock, but he leaned closer to Legault anyway.
"Well, yeah. Who told you that?"
"White Wolf."
"Did he tell you anything else?" Legault asked.
"Just that we don't know who shot him. Why?"
Legault stroked his pointed chin thoughtfully. He looked a dashing rake in his herringbone drape suit and leather gloves, his silver hair kept so long that it turned heads. Of course, he had carefully constructed the whole image, down to the cigarette and the hat, to lend himself an air of mystery that perfectly fit with his exaggerated deliberation. He always joked that half of being infamous was looking the part, and that if you could manage that and a suitably ridiculous moniker, no one would question you.
"There is something far more important going on than just Jaffar's wounds," Legault whispered.
He paused for dramatic effect, staring down Matthew for the requisite five seconds, building tension as surely as any actor. Matthew resisted rolling his eyes. He could let Legault have his fun if it meant learning exactly what had happened.
"Have you heard of Police Commissioner Harken Griflet? Yes, yes, I'm sure you have. You haven't spent the past year living under a rock. Well, the simple fact of the matter is that he's gone."
"Gone? What do you mean, gone?"
"Vanished. Poof. Kaput. He and two other officers were patrolling our territory down by the dog tracks and, so word has it, they stumbled upon Jaffar. Naturally, his face is on every wanted poster from here to the Western Isles, and the idiots attempted to arrest him. Jaffar put a bullet through one of their heads before they could blink, but as he and the other squared off, he was shot twice and the commissioner pulled a vanishing act. Jaffar had to make good his escape, but…"
"So the cop shot him and ran away. Where's the problem?" Matthew interrupted. "Why're we worrying about Angel of Death or this Griflet guy?"
"Because Harken never showed back up. It's been over ten hours and no one's seen hide nor hair of him. Intriguing though the idea of undercover subterfuge is, no officer alive would gun down the oh-so-infamous Angel of Death and then decide to go off on a lark without mentioning it to the station. We don't even know if he was the one who shot Jaffar," Legault replied, tossing his hands up with practiced melodrama.
"So some guy nearly killed our best gunman, then made off with the chief of police? Is that what you're saying?" Matthew demanded.
"What makes you think it's a kidnapping?"
"Unless his body turns up in the river, I'll bet he's still alive. I mean, from what you're telling me, he disappears in a firefight and no one's seen him. Hell, even a guy like me can't go a day without someone knowing where I am. Unless he's laying low for some reason, people would've noticed, right?"
Legault's smile broadened.
"Yep. I came to the same conclusion. The police commissioner is a powerful bargaining chip to have. He's a wealth of information and a hostage worthy of a king's ransom. Naturally, the Fang is interested in acquiring that bargaining chip, if you get my drift. The idea that someone else snapped him up from under our noses is worrying. It would be in our best interest to stamp out this rogue group and make sure that bargaining chip finds its way onto our table."
"So you'll be out hunting him down?" Matthew asked. It figured Legault would be called in to handle something like that. Nothing in the city went on without Legault knowing. More likely than not, Legault would announce in a matter of minutes that he'd known all along where Harken had gotten off to and he simply wished to make conversation.
"Mm, ordinarily, yes. But I believe there's someone a hair better suited to traipsing around the city and locating an estranged chief of police."
So one of the Four Fangs would get the job, then. That made sense; whoever kidnapped Harken had also incapacitated the Angel of Death, and they would need serious firepower to crush that kind of opposition. Lloyd could handle it without any trouble, and with a bit of preparation, he would find Harken in a matter of hours.
"White Wolf, then?"
"Lloyd? Well, yeah, but he's got quite a lot on his plate. No, I was thinking of a certain uninitiated kid who could use a big break, hm?" he said, flashing a grin like a knife being drawn.
Matthew managed a series of disjointed sounds and little else. He hadn't heard of a job even half as important in all the years he'd been in the Fang. Legault would have to have been completely insane to offer it to him, even in jest, to say the least of the danger. Every governmental body in the city would have a stake in finding the missing Lycian police commissioner. Whoever had mowed down Angel of Death would strike like a thunderbolt should they find out someone interfered. He couldn't even dream of undertaking such a job…yet the payoff should he succeed! They would initiate him, give him his tattoo, his nickname, and monetary compensation enough to make his past six months of work seem trivial. No longer would the others force him to leave a meeting for "initiated only." No longer would he casually pickpocket passersby because no one trusted him with the real missions. They would see him as a hero: Matthew Elliot, the man who defeated that which even the Angel of Death couldn't!
"Well? You up to it?" Legault asked.
"I—are you—I'm no detective," he managed. "This is detective work, right? Snooping around, looking for missing persons…"
"In a fashion, yeah. You could always ask Guy."
Matthew jerked as if he had touched a live wire.
"Leave Guy out of this. He doesn't know a thing about the Fang and I'd rather it stayed that way. Besides, he's a not much of a detective anyway. I'd really be better off if he's just safe and clueless back in the flat."
Guy had been his best mate since their schooldays, and they'd gone in together to rent a flat after they graduated. Neither could afford the luxury of living alone, and in any case, Matthew considered it something of his job to keep Guy out of trouble. He didn't really need it—Guy was a skilled marksman who also had some formal martial arts training that he'd gotten from his old neighbor, a half-crazy cage fighter who went by the pseudonym Wo Dao. Rather, Matthew had a bit of a soft spot for the skinny detective. Guy stumbled through life with a wide-eyed idealism entirely unsuitable for a city like Elibe, combined with a perpetual high-strung jumpiness and the sort of unchecked temerity that left others shocked. Matthew always wondered how Guy had gotten so far in life without ending up in a ditch with a knife between his ribs.
"Relax. I won't press if you're so adamant. However, I daresay the rest of the Fang wouldn't be so forgiving should they find out that you aren't just using your mate to spy on the police, hm? I would keep that in mind when you consider your course of action, or how loosely you speak of him."
"You can tell them that I'm just keeping his nose out of Black Fang business," Matthew countered.
"You know Lloyd wouldn't believe that for a second longer than I do," Legault warned. "But it doesn't really matter. He doesn't have to know about Guy or your mission."
"Eh? What do you mean?"
"Do you really want people like Jerme or Kenneth or Pascal trying to 'help' you? Lloyd is fine, of course, but unless you'd like every two-zinc novice lining up to snipe your job, I'd keep your mouth shut. That's just me, though. You don't have to take the advice of an old leftover," Legault said.
It took Matthew a half second to match the names with their proper pseudonyms; Legault had always been a bit odd like that, but it was unusual to hear names outside of the Quinn family tossed around so casually. Death Kite, Shrike, and Crazed Beast all had their own reputations, though, none of them good.
"Yeah, I see what you mean. All right. I'm your man."
"Excellent, then. You have your job, kid. Let's see...It's Sunday today, isn't it? Meet me here next Saturday, then. About a week to either bang or bust. If you've got nothing by then, it's a lost cause, don't you think?"
He kicked his chair out and drew to his feet. Looking down his pointed nose, he stared at Matthew hard enough to make the cabbie wilt under his piercing gaze. Every doubt he should have thought of before he accepted tumbled over him. He could read the look in Legault's eyes as plain as if he'd written it out: "You can still back out now. I won't judge you."
But he would, Matthew knew. Deep down, he would.
"A week sounds great."
"Farewell, then," he said as he walked towards the door. He paused and called over his shoulder, "Oh, and Matthew?"
"Yeah?"
"Good luck."
With that, he walked out of the bar, his lanky figure all but vanishing in the cloying mist. The door swung shut, and Matthew found himself alone with a lukewarm mug of beer and the weight of his first real job.