Guess what? Rated R! Hah!
"I'm not too sure he likes me." Pierce said vaguely as he arrived into Charlie Marker's carving room after what had no doubt been a long, painful session of 'turn-Travis-into-a-human-pincushion'. He stepped over to one of the heavy duty stainless steel sinks at the side of the room, washing blood from his hands.
Charlie looked up from his carving, which was happened to be turning into a handsome statute of a swordfish.
"I can't imagine why." Charlie said, and nicked away a little more of the carving. There was something about the way he handled the little carving knife that gave one the idea he could do more than make wooden fish with it.
"You should be careful with that carving. It's starting to look as though it could kill someone." Pierce commented, gesturing to the wooden fish his employer was holding. Charlie gave a sort of scoffing laugh, looking at the sharpened point.
"Only with your imagination, boy."
Pierce gave a ghastly grin. There were few people Pierce would smile at without killing afterwards, and Charlie was one of them – if only because he wasn't too certain he would win in a fight. Charlie was a legend in the underworld, and Pierce was a scrawny sadistic tattoo artist. The odds weren't really in his favour.
Charlie, however, put up with Pierce because he was useful. Sure, he was a bit creepy, and looked like a neo-Nazi with a piercing addiction, but he was the best at what he did. There weren't many skilled torturers – or Professional Inquisitors, as Charlie liked to call them - out there anymore, and just by looking at this guy's face it was obvious he knew what he was doing.
"Before you go back to having your fun," Charlie said as Pierce stepped carefully over a few piles of wood shavings, "I'll need you to scout a couple of locations. It turns out that a few of these brotherhood fellows didn't cover their trails as well as others – they may have taken in Dennis."
One of Charlie's gnarled, calloused hands held out a piece of paper with a list of names and addresses scrawled on it in red ink. Pierce looked it over, and then his eyes moved upwards, meeting with his employer's.
"And if they don't know where he is?" he asked quietly, like a child asking permission for something they're quite certain they won't get.
"Kill them, maim them, whatever. I want to get my point across that no one fucks with me. That safe had something too valuable to be left in the open for too long." Charlie growled, vehemently cutting off another square of wood. "If you find Dennis, you'll be sure to find the cash. There was three hundred thousand quid in there, and that will be your pay for this little adventure. The most important thing for you to get back - and this is not optional Pierce - is a little blue envelope marked with the number '26'. Do not forget it. Kill Dennis once you've got the envelope, and only once you've got the envelope."
"He doesn't look anything like me." Ed said skeptically.
Tom and Bacon both looked sideways at Denny, causing the shorter man to take a few steps back. He didn't like getting that sort of look - it usually led to Ideas. In Denny's experience, Ideas were a very bad thing.
"He does." Bacon said finally, "Just needs to be a bit taller."
"And girlier." Tom added loudly, and Ed punched him.
"I'm not jail bait, Tom." Ed said, waving his fist threateningly at his lanky friend.
"Look, you could cut glass with your cheekbones," Tom pointed out, still feeling spiteful for all of the jokes at his expense from earlier, "If you were arrested, some big tattooed chap named Bubba would claim you within the hour."
"You'd know." Bacon commented offhandedly, still staring down a suddenly apprehensive Denny.
"Did I miss the announcement that this was 'Beat On Tom Day'?"
"Yeah, didn't you see the pamphlets?" Ed asked, looking over at Tom, "Oh, right, you couldn't have – your stomach won't let you lean far enough to pick one up."
What happened next occurred far too fast to be explained by a bystander, so a play-by-play narration was suitable. Tom performed the equivalent of a rugby tackle on Ed at knee-height, but Ed moved aside in time for Bacon to be bowled over instead. Out of reaction, Bacon brought his knee up, landing it into Tom's ribcage. Tom fell back, landing into Ed as he attempted to break the two up, sending him onto the ground too, and as he fell, he reached out for the closest thing - which happened to be Denny - and yanked him along for the fall.
It was around this point that the back door opened and Soap walked in.
"I've called the towing company, they'll be here –"
He fell silent, staring at the tangle of limbs. It stared back.
"Jesus. Denny hasn't even known you three an hour and you're already trying to break him in."
Geoffrey Gotten ran a small, comfortable convenience store on one of the busier blocks in London. He was a man in his late thirties; he was happily married, and had two daughters, twelve and nine.
Geoffrey also had a tattoo. Normally this wouldn't matter, but in this case, it was all that mattered. His daughters didn't know about it, and his wife knew only out of necessity. The colourful image was on his back, just an inch below the spot where the neck curved into the shoulder – he'd rather forgotten about it after so many years, but every once in a while it came back to haunt him.
Tonight would be one of those nights.
The store was quiet, and his wife was at home for the day as the two sometimes alternated shifts. The door jingled as a customer entered the store – he was well dressed in an ankle-length black jacket, but there was something strange about how low over his forehead he had pulled his black knit cap.
"Geoff Gotten?" The customer asked, looking down at a sheet of paper in his hands. Geoff gave a sort of vague smile and nodded.
"That's me, mate. How can I help ye?"
With lightning quick speed, one of the customer's hands shot out, grasping his throat and slamming the clerk's head down against the counter hard enough to crack the sheet of plastic over the lottery tickets.
"I think so." Pierce said, tilting his head so the light hit his features. Geoff looked up at his attacker out of the corner of his eye and gave a low groan.
"Pierce." Geoff croaked. "Jesus. You're supposed t'be dead."
"Supposed to be." Pierce agreed, and moved aside part of his shirt over his chest. A long, white scar was over his heart. "Alex's blade didn't go deep enough, it turns out."
"The fuck d'ye want?" Geoff asked, muffled by the sheet of plastic. Pierce responded by grabbing Geoff's hair, yanking him up, and slamming him back down onto the counter. This time blood spattered onto the plastic as Geoff's nose broke.
"I was hired to question you." Pierce said, running his fingers idly through Geoff's hair, "But I don't expect you'd know the location of your former comrade-in-arms, Dennis Farthing, would you?"
The Blade member responded by coughing, so Pierce lifted him up to look at him.
"You know, you were never exactly a homely man, Geoffrey." Pierce said thoughtfully. He grasped Geoff's chin, pulling the man up so he could look at him – there was blood running down his lips. "Yes, very nice."
"And married." Geoff added hastily. "And me wife won't be none too happy 'bout this mess."
The former Blade member swung one fist around and landed a right hook into Pierce's rib cage, and when he stumbled back, aimed a left at his jaw. Both of the hits struck solidly and gave Geoff enough time to reach under the counter for what appeared to be a fire axe.
"Now, I know this axe looks bulky," Geoff said matter-of-factly, hefting it up. It did look bulky. It also looked very sharp. "And it might nae be my original one, but I imagine that one strike on your neck will put even you down for the count. So I suggest ye get your scrawny ass out o' here or I'll be makin' ye."
Pierce, who had managed to collect himself from the thrown punches, looked at Geoff with a raised eyebrow. Well, a raised brow, anyways, on account of the fact his eyebrows appeared to have been shaved off and replaced with metal studs. Instead of running, like any sane man would do, Pierce took a step towards the man.
"I didnae see what ye did to Wesley, but I saw what it did t'Alex." Geoff continued, and there was a sort of darkness in his voice that suggested he had no intentions of backing down either.
"Yes? Well, you should see what I've done to Travis over the last few hours." Pierce said nastily. There was a horrible grin on his face.
Geoff's otherwise good-natured eyes narrowed and the axe blade shone under the florescent lights.
"Why?" Geoff asked. "Ye self-employed? Lookin' t'go out fer revenge on the people who defended themselves 'gainst ye? Tarantino style?"
"I was employed. You see, Dennis has gotten himself into a spot of trouble with a man known as 'The Coffin', I'm sure you've heard of him?" Pierce said sweetly, watching gleefully as Geoff's entire expression dropped to one of utter shock. "Yes. Can't seem to find the little bugger now."
"So ye are usin' us as connections to him? Ye know we'd never give him to ye."
"Oh, I know." Pierce agreed, "But I'm certainly not opposed to the chance of getting to see all of you again. Tarantino style, as you put it."
There was a flash of movement, and a body hit the ground.
For the second time that day, a hand emerged from the manhole. It was different this time, though, in the fact that it appeared to be holding a large handgun. The next driver who was unfortunate enough to be rolling over the open sewer received a gunshot to their front right wheel. The car swerved a little as the flat tire rolled pointlessly beneath it, wobbled around the street, and came to a sudden stop on the back end of Tom's unfortunate station wagon.
The remaining traffic came to a stand still as people gawped at the sight of the two crushed cars, though no one made a move to get out and help – they just stared.
Hensley and Cleave emerged from the sewers and into the light of day; both of them were covered in dirt and various other unmentionables, and were somewhat worse for the wear. Both of them squinted into the daylight, and made half attempts at cleaning off their sunglasses in order to maintain just a little pride. With as much confidence as they could muster after emerging from the sewage system, the two walked across the street just barely avoiding getting run over by a horse and buggy.
Author's Note: Once again I appear to have taken a rather lengthy amount of time to produce a single, short chapter. I've been a bit busy as of late, but shall try to get my chapters out a little sooner, since it looks like this may end up being a fairly long fanfiction. Iniko, yes, Pierce is probably the most sadistic character I've ever made, he disturbs even me. Banshee, thanks for the compliments and for spurring me into action. Sweet A.K and Junkie, thanks for the comments.