Jackal
New member
The first part of Rowe’s task had been easy. These guys were Leo’s guys – his guys. They were Jackals. There were only so many places in Pittsburgh for Jackals, even fewer for those who hadn’t integrated cleanly into Slate. Rowe kept tabs on them. He couldn’t really say why. He’d worked with most of them for the years he’d stood behind Leo’s shoulder and appeared calmly intimidating. He’d had it out with one or two over stupid things, but never instigated. After everything, Rowe had come to accept that there was no going back from being a Jackal, any more than there was from being in the Corps.
He’d been welcomed as one of their own. Despite his connections to Obsidian, everyone knew that Jerry was a consummate professional. He wasn’t an assassin, and he wasn’t a thug. He was a bodyguard. They’d been actually surprised when he brought up the situation with Redblood, but they’d told him everything. One of them looked nervous. The other knew Rowe well enough to know he wouldn’t be asking to deal out consequences – he was asking for his own reasons. He was fair like that, in a way Leo never had been.
Rowe was ignoring whispers that, should anything happen to Obsidian, they’d want him to take the shadowman’s place.
Nothing was going to happen to Obsidian while Jerry Rowe was alive. It was his job to make sure of that, and he was a professional. Despite what the boss had clearly wanted to say after the incident at the bar, there was no arguing with the broken arm following that bank robbery. And he’d made it clear to Marius’ men that he was here to talk, to sort things out, and make matters abundantly clear: Obsidian did not have two black-haired girls burn down an apartment building.
“Do you think that, had he had a problem with you, he wouldn’t have come and resolved it himself?” Rowe’s eyes were sharply shaped, but the expression was always soft enough to be unreadable. “Or sent me? I knew Redblood’s business on the West Side. It used to be Leo’s. I know bastards like them, and believe me, Obsidian is no bastard.”
The men went quiet. They didn’t believe him. Jerry looked between them, and took a sip of the water he’d accepted in the place of a beer.
“Obsidian is a monster. There’s a difference. A bastard protects himself, and doesn’t care. A monster protects himself – and everything that’s his. The Jackals are Obsidian’s. Anyone who still uses our name acknowledges that, and Redblood was right on the edge of outright appealing to Slate. He wanted to be one of them, the power that comes with that group. Obsidian wouldn’t have made a move on him without making it resoundingly clear that it was his own two hands taking Martinez’s life.”
They’d shifted nervously at that. They suspected, Rowe knew, that Obsidian put some of the blame on them for the story being spread. People were afraid of monsters, after all.
“I don’t think either of you caused the commotion going around. You only said what you’ve heard and saw, even if you did fall for a stupid lie. But word doesn’t travel this fast without a source. Give me a name, and I’ll follow up on it. And if you two need somewhere to go – I can convince Obsidian to open the door for you to be Jackals again.”