"Been a while, hasn't it?"
"What do you mean?"
Sonya peeled her eyes from the windshield, the road ahead dirt and pavement married and marred into a beautiful effigy to a growing, or decaying society. Jax's eyes had a brightness to them, a future he could almost grasp. Gotcha! He'd say, but only if he could reach that appetizing future.
"Finally a lead worth investigating. Hunting down an actual serial killer, not wasting away on these X-Files hunts the Special Forces has been given by the government." He chewed his words like he deserved a cigar, but Sonya wasn't so sure celebration was in order for this moment before the storm.
"Sounds like a wild goose chase to me." She wrote it off and kept watch.
The street was dust and pavement, cracks and crevices unnoticed by caring hands for what seemed to be many generations. If the earth were dry and its tongue could crack, this would be the surface of such an ill palette, sickened and wasted on the scum and villainy within the beauty of Africa.
"At least we know someone's killing underage girls." She paused, thoughts certainly traced her mind to a moment in time she'd rather forget, but the words fell from her lips as if a ghost had peeled back the flesh to scrape itself free from her haunted memories when she spoke, "at least they were still innocent when–"
"Hey." He stopped her, the tension that cracked her lips could have melted the car, let alone the very thought he wished not to think as he had his own daughter at home. Jacqui, innocent, and everything to him.
Jarred from her momentary lapse of reason, Sonya stared beyond Jax toward a hooded figure that crossed the cracked earth into a stale and poorly kept bar that look badly stitched into the wall of the connected buildings that comprised the street. Broken shops, boarded windows, filth of the Earth. Just like the cracks and crevices of New York.
Now she was home.
Careful not to let any mouse stir or waken, they exited the vehicle parked carefully down from the bar and just out of sight of the nearest boarded window, the two of Special Force's best descended into the scum of the streets, along the wall and in casual attire, but still better than those that they expected inside. They wouldn't fit in no matter what, and for Jax, that might even be said of the door itself.
Inside a strobe of black and white cast into their eyes and the deep inhalation of smoke and rot filled assaulted their senses. Both grimaced and scrunched their faces in disgust, but even more so found themselves flabbergasted as the words of the bartender caught them equally off guard.
"Oh, hey, look!" He raised alarm to the sparse crowd in the small, withered bar, "the Special Forces have decided to join us! Welcome!"
At this notice, four individuals in the shaded, or perhaps poorly lit bar stood and quickly, yet almost casually retreated to the back where a broken wooden door creaked as they passed through and nearly broke when shut. Others in the bar leaned back, or kept their head down, back into the shadows, down to hide their faces.
"How do you know what we are?" Pretense gone, Jax wouldn't pretend.
"You know, I keep my head to the ground and listen." The bartender replied with a shrug and began to clean with a dirty rag.
"To what?" Sonya let her eyes, now adjusted to the darkness of the dimly lit and poorly crafted bar. Those that still remained didn't appear much of a threat, nor something the Special Forces might consider a hostile. For the moment.
"You know, the things that live underground." He looked back, serious, honest, it was almost charming if it weren't for his sickly thin appearance and the drift in his eyes from hers to her breasts.
Caucasian, American even, the bartender continued to clean as he stood in place. Jax now eyed the glasses and collection behind him, jars and bottles of fluids he'd certainly like to question, but the questions he had weren't about this man, not this time.
"Since you know what's up, you know who I'm looking for." Jax didn't play, he sat at the bar on the barely sturdy stool and eyed the bartender like a fist would fly should a word fall flat.
"Honestly, I don't know what you mean." The man would avoid Jax's eyes and maintain them near Sonya's breasts or the dirt of his counter. "Name's Willy."
"Hence the sign out front?" Jax mused.
"There's a sign?" Willy perked, a genuine look of confusion and interest.
"There's no sign, crackhead. But I'll crack your head if you play games with me." Jax added, "girls are disappearing. Locals claim it's some demon that can fly, but we both know what's up, and you're going to tell me."
The rag raced toward the bartender's shoulder, dirt and filth and all as he stepped back, took a nervous sniff his fingers and held to the edge of the counter to look as innocent as he could.
"Really, you know, I don't know what you want from me. I've heard about it, sure, but really, you're the big news around here."
"The big news will you being flown back to America to face whatever criminal past you ran from." Sonya chimed in, but she wouldn't sit. Not on scum, not for scum. "Also, stare at my tits again, and I'll crack your skull."
Eyes up and finally he leaned in, as if to hide his intent from the other guests. These words were for Sonya and Jax and them alone.
"Look, listen, I know what you're here for." He waited until their eyes were on him, "the serial killer killing those kids. Horrible news, totally." He added, "I think I might know where to find the killer, but I can't guarantee your safety."
"Where is he?" Jax couldn't guarantee his safety either and reached for the bartender's collar to lean him closer.
"Well, uh, you see, it's gonna' cost you, you know?" Willy laughed, nervous, but not foolish enough to pull back. "I think a couple hundred American Dollars sounds about right."
"Bribing an officer?" Sonya wished it were her hands on his neck, but she also wished this man's cologne wasn't on him either. The odor enough to push her a step back.
"See, Earthrealm laws don't exactly workout here, do they? Not in, you know, these kind of situations."
"Where is he?" Jax tightened his grip, tugged closer with that metallic grasp that could never be pulled apart by a mere scrawny, filthy man.
"Underground, they say." He admitted, the honesty now flooded into his eyes, "working for the Big Guy, or so they say."
"They?"
"Yeah, they."
"Where?"
"Just behind those doors." Willy turned with Jax toward the blackened wooden door, cracked and barely hinged.
"You're lying."
"Like I said, money talks."
As his breath assaulted his metal with the germs of insolence, he tore the bartender from behind the counter and slammed him onto the floor with a great cloud of dust and human feces that fell from his mouth and pants.
"Okay, you, uh, you know you drive a hard bargain and I respect that!" Willy submitted, "she really is underground. They got her, or she has them, I don't know which, but they really are behind that door. You go through there, you'll find who you're looking for."
"Bitches first." Jax pulled him up and pushed him across the bar.
Willy scampered to the door and shuffled to pull himself together. A few breaths to compose himself and he pulled the knob, twisted it and jiggled several times to even open the door. With a look behind him, Sonya stood back at the bar as Jax was already up on him ready to slam open the door and push Willy in.
"Guard the door." He knew Sonya would ensure no one got in, and no one got out.
As the door shut behind them, the guests in the bar turned toward her and away as though nothing had happened but a mere disturbance.