A strange encouter, a lot of snow, and the first horn of the hunt
The cold could have been tolerable. It was biting and sharp and deadly for so many. But Gala was young.
His steady rounds in the prison courtyard kept him warm enough. He could keep this up for hours. Had in fact kept it up for hours.
The cold could have been tolerable. The snow was not.
It looked pretty. Big flakes, falling like small clouds, covering the grey of the mud.
He had watched it, mesmerised. Until the clamminess got through his threadbare clothing. His coat hat been ripped while they caught him two days ago and nobody had thought about giving him something to replace it. He had wrapped himself in the ratty blanked of his cell and had growled at the guard who tried to take it when they brought him out here.
Growling normally did the trick. That was the advantage of being perceived as an beast.
Gala pulled the damp fabric tighter around his big frame.
He was a giant of his time. With his six and a half foot he towered over most of the people in the streets and the width of his shoulders matched his height.
His face did what his size couldn't. A big, flat nose, obviously broken – several times. A large mouth, that revealed unnaturally sharp canine teeth with every rattling smile. The eyes would have given him away, what had made him wear darkened lenses whenever he could. They had let him keep them this time. It puzzled him, but it was the last of his problems.
What really stuck out were the scares. They started over his left ear and fanned out, creeping in fine lines down to this neck and caressed his forehead, fading into his eyebrow.
He never talked about them. But he shaved his head, making them stand out even more.
It paid to look dangerous.
His best fights where the ones with opponents bolting the moment they saw him.
An icy drop trickled down his neck an into the already soggy collar.
He shuddered. Perhaps they hoped he simply would freeze to death.
Would figure.
He was the only one outside at the moment.
Not that his cell had been much warmer, but it had been dry.
"Clog!", a voice bellowed through the yard. It was Simson. He was the officer on duty. He stood behind the thick iron bars that separated the yard from the quarters of the watch, three more men behind him. Simson was a devious little dickens. To come to the gate, he had to step out from under the roof, right into the plunging snow.
Gala took his sweet time slandering in his direction.
"Today, Clog.", barked Simson.
He shackled Gala before they opened the gate.
He wasn´t brought inside, they dragged him to the archway. The big one, made of green varnished wooden beams. Double Galas height and the last thing between him and freedom.
A man waited there for them. He came up to Galas shoulder, what made him a tall man in normal circumstances, and was wrapped in a dark woollen coat, a shawl and a bowler, that looked strange on him. Like a costume.
"Sir.", sneered Simson. The Man looked up, revealing a hooked nose and sharp eyes.
"Take these chains off." He demanded immediately.
"I will not. Not inside here.", snapped Simson.
"I will not take him like this.", insisted the man.
"Shouldn't take him at all. Look at him.", Simson gestured to Galas face. Gala withstand the urge to smile and perhaps grunt a little.
"An Animal is what he is. Shouldn´t let him out of here!"
"That's not for you to decide.", clarified the tall stranger. Gala followed the conversation with mild interest. This was not the first time somebody "rented" him. He had been exhibited at a lecture, where some old twat had explained why he was doomed to be a criminal the moment he was born, and had been presented at a dinner party, in a cage, next to the buffet. Shocked ladies and puffed up douchbags in suits had been staring at him all evening, giggling and screaming and one or two had even thrown stuff at him. Had been the first time he ever tried lobster.
"Are you alone?", asked Simson sharp.
"Yes." That made Gala look up.
"You can´t take him alone." No, no he surely couldn´t. But Gala would have to wait a couple of streets before he could use that. If Simson really handed him over.
"This is none of your concern."
Simson huffed. He clearly had been instructed, and he clearly didn´t like it one bit.
He sized Gala with a drawn look and Gala smiled, bearing his teeth just a little.
Simson´s look darkened:" What do you want him for anyway?"
The Man dug in his pocked and produced a pipe, that he stuffed and lit before he answered:" Give me the paperwork and stop this before I have you removed from the force.", he said it so simple so matter of factly.
Simson pulled a folded piece of paper from an envelope. But instead of giving it to the man, slapped it against the chest of the officer standing next to him:" I´ll have nothing to do with this. Good luck Edwards."
Edwards clutched the paper in horror while his superior crossed the yard. His eyes darted to the man, then to Gala, back to Simson´s back.
"What a peculiar man.", observed the stranger. He clamped the pipe between his teeth and relived Edwards of the paper. The stranger read it with interest, asked one of the officers for a pen, signed it and gave it back.
He rubbed his hands together, whether in anticipation or to warm them wasn't evident:" Now, back to the shackles."
They made him leave the blanket, so he shivered behind the stranger, who led him in a rather dark part of the city.
The idiot really had them take of the irons. Galas writs burned where they had cut into his flesh. The irons were never big enough for him, and more than once had that led to his hands being useless slaps of meat for hours. He massaged them discreetly waiting for the moment he would be able to clench them into a fist.
The stranger walked fast, only halve a step in front of him, not looking back once. It unsettled Gala to say the least. All these small alleys grinning at him. Calling him. He would only need a couple of seconds. Could it be that easy? Could this stranger be this dumb? Or did he wait for Gala to try something. A gun, disguised under the woolly coat, a fugitive on the run, a service for the community.
Gala had seen it before. He could have hurt this stranger in a lot of ways without knowing him. Perhaps his brother was in a rivalling gang. Or in the wrong place. And now he decided to scrape all his money together, bribe someone in the right place and wait to kill Gala in spontaneously planned self-defence.
The streets became lanes, the city houses became warehouses. Big windowless boxes of endless brick. Deserted at this time of day.
Perhaps, thought Gala, was his dead planned all along. This had the stench of a trap.
The stranger stopped to pack his pipe, turning against the wind stillness of a brick wall to light it.
He stood with his back to Gala, giving him, what looked like a golden opportunity.
Gala, shivering in the cold and the wet and the gloom, stood there patiently. He had made up his mind. He would take his chances. If this guy really wanted to kill him, then there would be a nice secluded place waiting for them.
Gala could run, without any chance to come far.
He waited till the stranger started going again, then he lengthened his steps. Within seconds he came close enough. Turning his body to lay more strength in the hit Gala timed the punch to meet the man's head from the side. With a little luck his hit would knock the man into the wall. Not that it would be needed.
The head in question was gone and Galas fist smashed into the brick. He was luck enough to not hit it straight on, but to scrape the rough surface, abrading the skin on his knuckles. He turned quickly, trying to find his opponent, who had simply vanished. A swish behind him made Gala gyrate. He felt like one of the dancing bears he had seen. Paws raised, stupidly circling nothing.
He came out of nowhere. Landing on Galas back. Gala roared, slamming against the wall, trying to get him of.
The Stranger pushed on a point in Galas neck, and he just went down. It hurt. Worse then getting his shines broken and he knew that first hand. Gala gave a strange yipping sound that would have been a better fit for a spaniel but the strangers hand remained unmoving.
"I thought you would wait forever.", mused the stranger.
His arms jerked, his nerves screaming at him, his hands warped into claws. Gala gurgled, tried for a growl but didn´t quit get there.
"This is beneath you. Please refrain from playing the yahoo with me.", the fingers loosened a bit. It did nearly nothing to stop the cramping in his legs. Gala felt his teeth grind muscles stretched taunt over his jaw.
"I have a proposition for you." proceeded the stranger. He sounded relaxed, like torturing a man on a cold winter evening in the back alleys was a frequent occurring in his live. " If you work with me, your jail sentence will be blanked, you will be a free man. The only thing I want you to do is to take down somebody."
It took Gala a tremendous amount of strength to speak, panting he spat: "I´m not killing for you."
The finger left immediately und Gala plunged to his hands and knees, wheezing and shuddering, from the cold and the pain he stayed in this position.
The stranger waited.
Gala wasn´t opposed to the concept of killing. He had killed, first to get in Murphy's gang, then to get out of it. He simple wouldn´t hunt for someone else. He had done it for Murphy, but he won´t do it again. He´d rather sell his body then his soul.
"If that is what you want, bring me back.", Gala raised his face and was surprised to find the stranger smiling. The man crouched down until he was at Galas eyelevel. Gala wished he had been quick-witted enough to headbutt him. Instead he gasped in the icy air and tried to look perilous.
"No killing. I only want him taken down."
Gala shook his head, it did nothing for the ringing in his ears:" I won´t."
"Don´t you want to know who?"
"Doesn't matter."
"Lord Linwood Oswin Barwick."
Galas lungs ignite, while his body got eerily still. He searched the face of the stranger thoroughly, waiting for a crack in the façade. For the twitch that would tell him why he was after the major of London.
But nothing shifted. The stranger stayed calm, content in the search for a hatchet.
"How?", asked Gala.
The man beamed. He helped the giant to his feet and steadied him against the wall:" I take it you are with me then. How about we take you somewhere warmer."
Gala blinked.
"You are drenched. The good doctor will have a field day with me.", the stranger had started down the street, only stopping when he realized he had left Gala by the wall:" Come on young friend."
Gala had been told a lot of names in his time, but never, not once, had he been a young friend. Sure, he had started early. But nine had been average for the boys in his quarter. It had made him the criminal and the murder and the fiend he was with his ripe age of nineteen.
"Gala?", the man had come back, and he had laid a hand on Galas underarm. Squeezing it lightly, feeling the shivers that racked the huge man's frame.
"Who the hell are you?", asked Gala, somehow out of breath just from standing there.
"I´m terribly sorry.", said the man, and looked the part:" My manners. Holmes the name."
I hope you guys are allright :)