XXIPoison
Kruger
He had thought himself the deadliest serpent about, but not even snakes are immune to all venom.
I returned to my two bedroom apartment with Drake. He immediately took to the rotten place, running from each room to the next, even jumping on the couch like a little kid. It occurred to me that he had never actually had a home with a roof before. However much I complained, at least I grew up with a rudimentary roof over my head.
"Is this my room in hea?" he shouted from the room opposite to mine at the end of the hall.
"Uh, yeah, Drakey," I shouted back, still uncertain of this whole situation. That one move of mercy that I had shown the boy landed me in the position of babysitter.
I could feel my eyes roll back in my head as I heard the creaking bedsprings beneath an intermittent weight.
"You'd betta not be jumpin' on the fuckin' bed, welpie!" I warned. The sound immediately stalled. I couldn't help but laugh to myself secretly. I dropped my armour but kept my sword in hand and paced down the hall towards the rooms. I was hoping to scare Drake with the katana, striking at him as a joke. When I looked in, Drake was sprawled out on the double bed, facedown in a spread-eagle, sound asleep. I looked on with slight jealousy. I couldn't remember the last time I had been in such a deep slumber. My entire life, I had been wracked with nightmares, never able to sleep deeply unless I was sedated. I rolled the katana in my hands, thoughtful. Everything seemed to be at peace for the moment, and that's why I was uneasy.
I had never been one for peace. I thrived on violence and debauchery, but I couldn't indulge in my usual pastimes. Not with the young Drake literally next door.
What if he needed me? Woke up in the middle of the night screaming as I often did? If I were gone, what would he do?
Part of me knew he would survive on his own, with or without me. For now, though, I wanted him to survive with me.
Exhausted from the day, I paced to the tiny apartment kitchen to down one last beer before hitting the sack. Sword in hand, I popped the lid with an experienced thumb and downed half the bottle in a single gulp. I knew that if I let my mind wander, it would wander to Protea.
And so it did.
I lost count as to ho many beers I had drank, but all I knew was that I didn't have enough to get her out of my head. Finally, when I felt the call of blackness, I collapsed on the couch and fell into a shallow, dreamless sleep.
I felt a harsh prodding on my right shoulder. Drake's voice was muffled in my ears, a consistent drone in my ear. With the katana still in my hand, I shoved him away with the hilt.
"Fuck off, Drakey…" I growled, a hangover beginning to rear its ugly head.
"Kruga…" the boy whined, indifferent to my foul mood. "I'm hungry! And you ain't got no food in hea."
"Thea's some in the pantry. Canned shit."
"No there isn't. There's nothing hea!"
The tone of his voice caught me. Frowning, I raised myself on trembling arms, a sharp ache throbbing in my temples. "What the fuck do you mean, thea's nothing hea?"
"I mean," he droned, "thea's nothing in your fuckin' house! No food, no water, no nothing!"
I got up to investigate what he meant. I scoured the living room and kitchen. All that was around was empty beer bottles and layers upon layers of grime. But the boy was right. Everything else was gone.
"What the fuck…" I muttered, bewildered. "Who would take my shit?"
"Crowe maybe? He's a cheeky fucka, you know that. Or maybe Abbott. Ken-doll fuck probably did it to git back at you for cannin' him. Or maybe—"
"Shut up, Drakey, I'm trying to think," I snapped. I ignored his snarl of protest and scanned the area for signs of intrusion. Luckily, there was enough dust to betray slight footprints. I saw mine, to the fridge and back a dozen times, and I saw another set of tracks. Female, from the size of them, in small hiking boots from the look of the tread. I repeated these fact to Drake, who swooned in awe.
"You're kind of awesome, Kruga, you know that right?"
I would have to save the ego inflation for later. For now, I was set on tracking who ever trudged their way through my shithole of a home while I was passed out. The tracks were fresh, and leading out the balcony window. Upon closer inspection, an insignia was carved into the heel of the boot.
"A spider, eh? Well then, we simply have to find the maker of these intrusive steps."
Head still throbbing, and morning dwindling, Drake and I made our way through several alleys tracking the footprints. Fortunately, it had rained overnight, making the clay in the ground act as a casting material, betraying my personal thief. I pointed out certain aspects of the trail that made it so easy to follow to Drake. I made note of how to tell direction, gait, distance, and health status of someone from the way their prints were laid. The boy gawked as I absentmindedly showed him everything I knew about tracking. For a moment, I felt genuinely proud of myself for passing on my skills to someone else. It felt good to know that I was being taken seriously when I was not threatening a life.
As I was describing the details of an in-step, Drake piped up. "Do you think you'll find that girl? I mean, I'll help, but… I mean you know her better than I do, obviously. You do, don't you?"
Obviously?
It scared me to think that I was that translucent, that anyone could look at me looking at Protea and realize that I knew her well. But then again, Drake wasn't just anyone.
"Yeah, I know her pretty well," I mumbled.
"Do you hope you'll find her?"
"Yeah… I do."
The details of the footprint had begun to go fuzzy. I found myself teetering slightly. All of a sudden, my armour seemed twice as heavy as it had before. The burlap cloak wrapped around me like a suffocating net. I began to wobble on my own feet. My hand struck the wall for support, and I felt a dry heave wrack my body. Drake's voice issued a mocking tone, exclaiming that I couldn't hold my liquor. I knew something wasn't right, so I ignored the boy's regular taunts and tried to focus my breathing, which was now becoming fast and shallow. Black spots began to form in my vision, and I soon collapsed. My head was spinning. Drake's voice pitched high with worry as he realized I wasn't faking. As I crumpled to the ground, apparently paralyzed by whatever was in my system, he guided me into a fetal position. I had no time to marvel at the boy's instincts. For now, I was a victim of whatever was happening to me.
"Help! Someone help!" Drake yelled anxiously. "Just stay here, I'll be right back," he reassured me through my haze. He sprinted off into the streets and left me crumpled in the alley.
I felt myself on the brink of passing out. It would not be long before I blacked out completely. What had happened to me? This was no normal hangover, if it was a hangover at all. I had been drugged.
By what, I had no idea.
By who, I would certainly find out.
Drake
People would not move out of the way fast enough. Drake sprinted through throngs of people, pushing and shoving as he did. Several times, he stumbled into the dust, inviting sneers from the other street kids. He ignored them with a wistful spite and continued on his mission.
He had to find help for the assassin who had taken him in. He felt that he owed as much to Kruger for getting him out of his shithole of a city, regardless of the fact that he had landed him into a strange new one.
He didn't exactly know what he was looking for. A hospital? Crowe's house? All the streets were beginning to look the same. This city was far different from his own, and every sign was either in his second language or an alien one. The young boy felt lost and lonely once again. This feeling was nothing new, however, and he knew how to survive it.
Drake took extra care to memorize the path he had taken from Kruger. Simply leaving the mercenary to whatever fate had occurred to him, but he knew that he simply couldn't leave him, not now. If the situation went smoothly, Drake would still end up on the streets. If the situation went sour, then Drake would have an unbelievably skilled tail poised to strike when he was vulnerable.
Either way, he was indebted to Kruger and would stay by his side. Regardless of the consequences.
"Someone! Help!" Drake shouted into the crowds, his voice becoming hoarse from screaming. No one stopped to inquire why the filthy boy was yelling. The most attention Drake received was pitying sneers from disdainful passerby. He sought out expensive looking people, people who probably had access to care or at the very least a cell phone.
Eventually, he spied a youngish girl chattering away on her phone. With honed precision and skill, Drake slunk up behind her, snatched her phone and disappeared into an alley pulsing with the dull beat of a night club. Breathlessly, he hid behind a cluster of people smoking a joint while the woman he had just watched from came bustling around the corner. She was shouting up a storm, and gained the attention of the others in the alley. She raised enough of a ruckus that several people with guns on their hips bundled out from further within the alley.
One of those people, Drake inexplicably recognized.
"Boss' girl…"
Drake couldn't believe his eyes as he slowly rose from his hiding spot to get a better look at the girl he had helped aboard the Raven. The cell-phone girl immediately spied Drake, and snatched her phone back, scolding him in what he guessed was Spanish. With a slap to the back of the head, she left and the alley smokers returned to their recreation. The group that had come out of the pit further down began to leave. Drake took the moment to chase down the girl. Just before he could reach her, a burly security guard stopped him dead.
"Let go of me, teef!" Drake spat as he struggled. He was out of options. He and to get her attention. What was her name? he thought urgently, trying hard to recall what Kruger had called her. Finally, he remembered and yelled out at the top of his lungs, "Protea!"
He was not sure if the name was right, but when the girl stopped dead, Drake knew he had succeeded in gaining her attention. She whipped her head around in Drake's direction. She narrowed her eyes, searching out the one who had called her name. Her eyes came to settle on the struggling, spitting boy, and she raced over to him.
"Buster, it's okay," she reassured the guard holding Drake at bay. "I know him. Let him go." The guard complied and Protea ushered Drake into a private corner. "Drakey?" She sounded breathless, as she had been the one sprinting around for ten straight minutes. "What are you… Where's Kruger?"
Drake would take note of the distress in her voice later. "I think he's been poisoned. You need to come, now!" He grasped her hand and tugged in Kruger's direction. She followed without a fight.
Together, they sprinted back towards the fallen mercenary. By the time they got back, Kruger was had stilled. A trail of foam trickled from the corner of his mouth and onto the ground. He had thrown up a little blood and a bluish liquid, and looked about ten minutes dead.
When she saw him, Protea let out a loud whimper and rushed over. Drake now took notice of how urgently she examined him, how distressed she looked to see him like this. Even Drake could see that these two had a connection deeper than mutual respect.
"He's still breathing!" Protea exclaimed after a short while. "We have to get him to a hospital. Now! There's one around the corner from here, about two blocks away."
Drake rolled his eyes in a gesture of disbelief. Of course there was a hospital around the corner, the only place he hadn't checked. Regardless, he saved the self-loathing for later. He helped Protea half-drag, half-carry the fallen Kruger to the emergency room. By the time they arrived and Kruger was taken into care, the two of them were panting hard from the effort. They collapsed on a waiting room bench and waited to hear news of the fallen mercenary.