Limited Mean Ambition

[Jackal]

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.”​

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[Ira]

It wasn't much, the two men didn't really know anything in the grand event that had gone down at their old hideout. They were glorified door guards, big dumb hunks of muscle that didn't get easily pushed around. They weren't paid to listen and, considering they had run when the building caught fire, they had never cared enough about Redblood Marius to risk their lives for him.

But Rowe's offer was too tantalizing. He had held out a chance to get back into Obsidian's good graces. They needed that, a Rowe would be given a name, "I wasn't too sure, I thought I heard the name 'Mary' through the door, but I wasn't sure. Then-" The other interrupted, "Then we heard about her, the Anti-Meta Mary girl. She's got fliers up all over the city, and she's sayin' Obsidians kills anyone who doesn't join Obsidian and the Jackals."

A story, then an address, 3829 Stiles Street.

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Mary leaned against the backdoor of her apartment building. She didn't smoke indoors. Markus hated it when she did that. Even though he wasn't around anymore, the habit remained. Avery and Tom were still guarding the door, and Anne had snatched up a couple of new kids off the street and was giving them the rundown. These two would bring her 'Militia' up to eight from her original six.

Anne's fake southern girl bit wasn't great, and her charisma stat was abysmal, but she was hot. Even Mary had to admit that, and the new kids were young and stupid. 'Young and stupid' often came alongside 'dumb and horny' so a cute foreign girl was a better honeypot than Mary, even if she was blatantly a bad Russian 'agent.'

Mary, all 5'5 skinny ass of her, wasn't what most guys were into. Stringy hair and permanent layer of sweat beneath her loose fitted jeans and graphic tee. Looking down as she took another drag of the cig, Mary smiled at the little skull on her shirt with the caption 'Reduce! Reuse! Recycle! Necromancy.'

"Could prob' use 'em as restaurant guards. They's young, prob' impatient, food'll keep 'em focused. Plus young cute waitresses. That'll work." Mary spoke aloud to herself, attempting to keep her mind focused on her work. She had a lot of contracts she accepted before she had the manpower for them, she'd be scrambling for this shit for a while.

 

[Jackal]

Mary.

The place wasn’t hard to find, once Jerry knew he was looking for it. The street address, obviously. It was advertised. What he hadn’t noticed before were the fliers. Dozens of them, all advertising against metahumans. They were against everything Obsidian and Slate stood for, even if Obsidian had called his closest human employee “Quartz” not two nights before. Even if he wasn’t in the same category as other humans to the boss, Jeremiah Rowe was expendable.

If he minded being expendable, he wouldn’t be a professional bodyguard.

Maybe it was above and beyond to stroll down the street today, in his combat boots, blue jeans, than USMC shirt, and undecorated, decades-old red Letterman jacket. His hair was loose, not slicked up but allowed to seem tousled without the gel that normally kept it in place. Obviously, he wasn’t open-carrying the Sig, but his HK was strapped to his chest under the heavy coat just in case. You didn’t go to this part of Pittsburgh without packing a little heat.

Hands in his pockets, he strolled down the street to the address on the fliers on the wall. Be a part of the solution! they said, like it was metas that were the problem. Rowe didn’t laugh at the sentiment. There were unique problems with metas, sure. But humans weren’t exempt from being bastards. It was ironic that the literal maneater was the best boss he’d had in the better part of a decade. Ironic, but not surprising.

The front doors came into sight. He barely seemed to glance at the two guards as he came to a stop, just took a quick glance. Even in civvies, he was a professional. And even when he wasn’t trying to get information, he was straightforward.

“I’m here to see Mary.”​

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[Ira]

Tom and Avery, Mary's 'door guards' were the only men in the entire outfit with any real experience. There were a thousand reasons people join the Anti-Meta militia, but for these two, they boiled down to a single baseline. They were fighters, and they were tired of killing in the sandbox. If they were going to die trying to protect their country, they wanted to do it in their own country.

So they worked for Mary, trying to make their home city a better place. As Rowe approached, the pair straightened up. They saw the way he walked, the manner in which he carried himself, and they recognized it. This was someone with experience. Without a closer look at his tattoos under his red Letterman jacket, the pair wouldn't be able to know what kind of experience, but it was certainly a kind they were familiar with.

“I’m here to see Mary.”​

The pair looked at each other, then back to Rowe, and then they stepped aside. Tom opened the door and spoke, "She'll meet you, wait in the lobby." Neither one of them radioed or called Mary, she would come inside soon enough. Neither one of them followed Rowe or called for backup either. To the untrained eye, it would seem they didn't really care about protecting Mary, but a more intelligent observer might come to a darker conclusion.

The lobby wasn't great. A wide open room with a stairwell in one corner and a broken steel cage elevator in the middle. A few folding chairs were set, folded, against the wall nearby alongside two lazy-boy chairs. The floors were stained tile, the kind of stains that had seeped in so deep that no amount of bleach would ever remove them. However, there was no lack of trying, as the whole room smelled faintly of bleach.

Whether Rowe sat or not, he would not wait for long. Mary stepped in through the back door and put out a cigarette in a little ashtray on top of an old trash can. Looking up, she spotted Rowe and grinned. Her voice was jovial as she introduced herself, "Well well well, who's you's? Comin' to join me lil' family? I'm Mary, nice to meet ya bud!"

 

[Jackal]

Jerry could tell the guys at the door had experience, just at a glance. He gave them a nod as they let him past; while he thought it might be poor guarding technique (he did, after all, have his HK on his person), he wasn’t here to inspect them. These weren’t Jackals he could quietly admonish about bad habits, these were potential enemies. Even if he wasn’t here to fight, he wasn’t sure what this Mary person would be like.

Once inside, the darker reason sprung to the surface of his mind. Either her guards were bad at their job – possible – or this Mary had a trick up her sleeve. The idea that she might be powered only lingered for a few seconds. She was the leader of an anti-meta militia. Either she had some fighting skill, or something else. He didn’t like the vagueness of ‘something else,’ but it was good enough to keep his mind busy until she appeared in the doorway.

He didn’t judge her tiny form, the thin hair and long face or the smell of cigarettes. He assessed them, of course, in a glance, and in that glance wrote off the chance of her being a formidable fighter. She could know ten martial arts and still be out of her weight class with Rowe alone.

Then again, Obsidian looked like he could be broken like a toothpick. Which, he could. That was why he was paying Rowe. Whatever Mary was paying her door guards….

Right. Non-professional visit.

“Jerry Rowe.” He offered his hand for a firm, professional shake if she decided to take it. “I saw the posters around town. Just coming to see what all the fuss is about.”

He didn’t smile back at her, but his face was casual and relaxed, not angry. And he genuinely wasn’t angry. People had a reason to be scared of metas; the militia was none of his business, really. Not until it threatened Slate’s interests and, by extension, the man who was paying him. Then it was his business – to make it stop, typically with a bullet or two.​

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[Ira]

Mary shook his hand and two things would be apparent immediately to Rowe.

One. Mary was not very physically strong. Her small frame was not a coverup or guise for some powerful beast beneath, she was physically pretty damn weak. She attempted to shake his hand with strength and professionalism, but it'd be overtly obvious she lacked both those qualities.

Two. Mary's hand surged with burgundy lightning. It was not painful, but it smelled absolutely vile. The stench of corpse rot and dead insects would not easily leave the hand that Mary shook.

Releasing Rowe's hand from the handshake, Mary grinned and responded, "Well now, you's come, and you's seen! This is pretty much it bud, so you's can go now." And, at that, Mary stepped to the side and graciously waved her hand toward the door. She wasn't sure exactly who or what this man, Jerry Rowe, was. But she could guess a lot from his dress and the way he talked.

Either he was a cop, or a rival, and Mary simply wasn't in the mood to deal with either one of those.

 

[Jackal]

Jerry wasn’t going to comment on the physical weakness in Mary’s grip. His eyes were steady, but not studious. They did flicker down to the surge of red – of course they did. The smell came a few seconds later, met with a slight flare of the nostrils. Death wasn’t something he wanted to smell ever again – but he took it. He stepped back, letting the hand hang at his side as he slipped his other into the pocket of his Letterman.

“You’re a meta.” He almost sounded surprised, though his face didn’t change much. There were a lot of unspoken questions in the statement. None of them were the question he’d come here to answer, though. That was a question he hadn’t spoken yet.

After a few seconds, he sighed. There wasn’t much lying he could do here, if he actually wanted answers. It wasn’t even that hard of a decision.

“Alright, listen.” He didn’t move to go. He went to run his hand through his hair – and stopped himself, aware of the smell. He put it back down. “I heard through the grapevine that Slate killed Redblood. And then I heard that the rumor seems to be coming from here. I’m… I was a member of the Jackals, until Slate got Leo. It ain’t hard to believe they went for some of the others, but Marius surprised me. Fresh meta. Wanted me as his bodyguard. Wasn’t nice when I said no. He ain’t much of a loss, but – you seem to know what’s going on in Obsidian’s brain, if rumors’re right.”

He turned his eyes back to where she stood waiting for him to leave, and they were genuinely curious, even in his unmoving face.

“You think he’s going to go for any of the others? Not me, I’m out. But I still got buddies in there. D’ya think I need to be concerned for them?”​

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[Ira]

Mary didn't even seem to react at Rowe's initial statement. She wouldn't call herself a 'meta' but it was what many others would. No point in arguing with every random nobody about it, and her men didn't seem to mind too terribly when she spouted their ideals and their hatred in equal measure.

Standing perfectly still, Mary listened to Rowe speak without interrupting. She combed through his words in an attempt to sift through the lies and half-truths he was certainly spewing. A member of the Jackals? Doubtful. He probably knew Redblood though, calling him 'Marius' wasn't something those with a cursory knowledge of the dead asshole would do. Mary didn't know a Leo though, that was interesting. This guy probably thought Mary knew more than she did.

But she wasn't going to lead him on. As he flicked his curious look upon Mary, the skinny woman's grin twisted into something cruel.

"Nooo~ I don't think ol' Obsidian's interested in none of that. Ya know, since he didn' kill Redblood. Obsidian ain't really the type to kill his own kind. Me's tho? I ain't got none of those cuck res-er-vations."

At that, Mary laughed and added, "You should'a seen him burnin' though! Gawd, burnin' alive was more'n that bastard deserved. But it was the best I could do! Hahaha!" Wiping a fake tear from her eye, she dropped the grin and continued, "So let's cut the cha-rad. You's can't be no cop, the cops should know better than to step to me now. Who you really workin" for?"

At her last question, Mary slammed her hand on the table twice. As if on cue, the front door could be heard 'clicking' as it locked from the outside. Her doormen were nothing if not the most reliable mother fuckers in her outfit.

 

[Jackal]

“You killed Redblood?”

The surprise was real. It wasn’t necessarily about the actual admission – he’d seen her little display, and it didn’t take magic powers to burn down a building. But the fact she said that out loud, so blatantly and eagerly, even laughing about it – that gave Rowe a little pause. It was cocky, especially given what came next.

His face went hard again, his brows furrowing as he looked over the scrawny girl.He heard the door lock, but stayed focused on her. He seemed to be looking for something. It wasn’t anything dramatic – no signs of a good leader bullshit here. He was looking for signs of a different kind of leader. Since she was in charge of this militia thing, she was learning how to control other people. He’d seen what that kind of knowledge did in the wrong hands. It made people afraid, and it scared the person with the power almost as much.

He didn’t go for his gun, or any kind of stupid, rookie mistake like that. He was locked in with a dangerous meta. Wasn’t his first rodeo there either. He wasn’t being paid to die here, though. He needed to be careful. There wasn’t time to make action-movie plans. He had his information, now he needed to leave. Lying to her more than he had wasn’t going to get them anywhere, so it was time for a good dose of the honest truth.

“Right now, I work for me. I’ve had enough shithead gangs for a lifetime, especially with metas moving in.” His visible hand, the one that stank, curled in on itself. The anger was real. He remembered Leo, the last face in a long line of bastards. A line ironically broken by Obsidian, who was something else entirely. “The last person to try and tell me to get into that shit was Redblood, and look where he ended up. The Jackals were it for me. I’m done with it.”

He closed his eyes, and breathed through being pissed off the way they’d walked him through it after the Marines. His hand uncurled, and he lifted his head with a little well-earned pride.

“I will say, if I’d taken the job, Marius wouldn’t be dead. He was pretty brazen, just not stupid. I needed to find out what happened for sure before moving forward. And it’s making me thankful I didn’t take that job.”​

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[Ira]

Mary's face remained deadpan as Rowe spoke, listening silently to his words. Her body was still, almost deathly so, even her breaths became small and shallow as her chest stopped moving with their motion. But her eyes, despite their emotionless glaze, revealed a wealth of information scrolling inside her mind.

Then, with a gentle smile, Mary finally responded once Rowe had finished speaking. At first, a single word, "Liar." accompanied by a moment of stillness. As the tension threatened to cut into the pair, Mary squeezed her fingers into a fist. Then Mary began to laugh. A sudden, uproariously fake thing, followed by her telling him,

"Oh I'm jus' pickin' at you's!" She relaxed her body and stepped back from the table, holding up her hands disarmingly, "So you's jus' a curious freelancer? Completely understandable! Com-plete-ly! How's about I make you's an offer then? Wanna work for me?"

A hand extended to shake. Mary's thin body turned sideways as she thrust it forward and pulled her other behind her back. Almost like a child attempting to hide something from an adult while appearing genuine. An act, surely, with nothing malicious behind it. Or perhaps Mary had a gun? Where would it have come from? Where had she hidden it? It certainly didn't make sense that she'd somehow acquired one without Rowe's knowledge or sight.

But still, the way she stood- she was hiding something.

 

[Jackal]

He was in a tight spot. He couldn’t really tell what the meta girl was thinking, and he looked down in her direction from the head tilt he’d kept when she started talking. The silence, the accusation, the laughter. There was either something deeply wrong with her, or she was trying to throw him off on purpose, and it was working. He wasn’t a people-person. Interpreting crazy mob bosses only mattered when that mob boss was your boss and you were trying not to get your head blasted off before your contract ran out.

The gun did cross his mind. Even metas could carry – did, carry. All of Slate carried. They were fucking arms dealers, of course they carried. Whatever she was, she could be reaching for one. He needed a safe answer. He needed to get back to Obsidian with answers, and he didn’t have everything.

He found himself having to think like she was already his boss. If this was one of his old fucked-in-the-head employers… like Leo, like Redblood would’ve been...

A smile, a little knowing, a little relaxed. Against his instincts, Rowe relaxed his posture, back to the cool slouch. He didn’t take the hand out of his own pocket. It wasn’t like he could reach his own weapon from there. Then he waved the hand that wasn’t in his pocket, the one that felt greasy at best. “No offense, Ms. Mary. You already got me once with that one. I’ll hear out what you’re offering, but don’t expect me to say yes right off. There’s always other jobs. Why you?”​

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[Ira]

Mary continued grinning as Rowe spoke. Her body, still and tight, was tensed like the coiling of a spring under pressure. Then, with a quick yank of her hand, she pulled away and spun around on the spot. She would end her body facing toward Rowe with one hand still position behind her back.

If Rowe was paying attention, he would have seen it. How could he have missed it? Something was wrong with the hand Mary held behind her back. It wasn't something major, surely, but it wasn't something that could be hidden. At least not as easily as Mary was attempting. Behind her back, Mary's hand was bleeding.

"Why me- I wonder~?" Mary responded in a slightly harmonic tone, the words sung as though they rhymed. Giggling, she leaned her hips against the crappy table behind her and spoke up again. "I don't think tha's the right question ol' boy! The question you's suppos'd to ask was-" At this, Mary attempted to copy Rowe's voice and mannerisms, badly, "No offense my queen, but why me? I'm nobody special."

Laughing at her own mockery, Mary responded to the imaginary version of Rowe, "Why you's? How silly! Why tha's quite simple my good man!" Then, drilling Rowe with a stare and an expression as cold as ice, "It's because of what you's said. That if you's was there, if you's had taken the job, Marius. Wouldn't. Be. Dead." Each of her final words were spoken with a grimace and a tensing of her body. A punctuation of their intensity.

Finally, Mary slowly with drew her other hand. A tiny razor blade fell from her palm and clattered to the floor in a little splatter of blood. It wasn't her hand bleeding, it was her fingertips. She had dug the razorblade into her own fingertips, slicing each one to the bone. One of the most sensitive parts of the body, sliced in the most painful way Mary could handle. Her cold glare didn't change as she added, "What'd you's mean by that? Mhm?"

 

[Jackal]

Ah. She’d wanted him to grovel a little bit. That wasn’t unexpected, actually, he’d had enough shitty job interviews. Never one where the other person hurt themselves in front of him – or let him see, anyway. His eyes flicked to the razor on the floor, then up to her fingers, then back to her face. Was the kid crazy? There sure was crazy in her eyes.

No, no. Just crazy wouldn’t’ve killed Marius. She was playing at something, and as much as Rowe didn’t like being in the dark, he just had to wait and see where she was going.

“Ah, I get it.” He took his hand out of his pocket and held them both up for her to see, a placating gesture. “I wasn’t threatening you, Miss. That’s just how it goes. I’m a bodyguard. I’ve worked a handful of contracts for the shitstains around here, assholes like Marius and Leo. Guys like them pay guys like me to make sure they don’t end up dead. Sometimes even to die instead. I’ve lost a lot of coworkers that way. But, given I’ve made it to end of contract for all of them except Leo, I’d say I’m pretty good at the job. That’s all.”

He relaxed his hands. He didn’t want her to think he thought she was some kind of crazy animal that needed to be placated, either. There was something about the coldness of her eyes that was stirring something in him. Not that he’d ever buy into anti-meta stuff, and he was very comfortable where he was with Slate.

“And like I said, you sell yourself to maybe die for enough scumbags, you eventually get sick of it. Gangs and mobs ain’t for me, chief. I’m done being expendable.”

He relaxed completely, hands falling to his sides. He didn’t make a move for his weapon, or to run. She didn’t exactly scare him, crazy or not. It wasn’t like there was anything he could do if she did decide to attack. No way he’d reach his gun before she hit him with whatever her power was.​

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[Ira]

Pain.

Pain was an interesting thing for a lot of people.

For most, it was something to be avoided. Don't touch a hot burner, don't punch a wall, don't get into a fight you can't win. Pain was a powerful tool designed to keep the body safe. For some, it was a distraction. Pain was something to be ignored, pushed through. Ignore the muscle pain until failure, ignore the bites and scratches of animals as you cared for them or captured them, or even brushing aside the distractions of a failing body as it was pushed into spaces it wasn't small enough for anymore.

But for a select few, it was something else entirely. A ecstatic feeling. A clarifying force. Pain was something that gave peace to the mind and ease of movement to the body. Those people were all kinds of masochists, adrenaline junkies, or just plain coping in bad ways.

Mary was none of those types. She did not crave pain, she sought to avoid it as much as possible when she could. It wasn't a distraction to her, so it wasn't something she even had to consciously try to ignore. But it also was not an enjoyable experience. There was no shudder of ecstacy when she cut her fingertips open, no peace of mind or clarity of purpose as her fingertips flopped around and her bones demanded coverage.

No, there was another reaction entirely when Mary felt pain. Whether it was other's pain, or her own, it didn't matter. The feeling was the same. Mary felt power. Like a surge of energy, like she could do anything, like the world itself would bend beneath her knee if she only broke herself first upon it. A terrible and wonderful balance.

So, it was alongside this surge of power that Mary listened to Rowe explain himself. He spoke of his previous employers, of the shit he used to do and the shit he used to work with, and, most importantly, of his desire to no longer be expendable. For someone listening only to the surface, it sounded almost as if Rowe was setting Mary up to introduce herself as the magical savior to his shitty existence. The one boss that wouldn't see him as expendable.

But Mary knew better. "I see." Mary quietly responded, placing her slit fingertips into the palm of her hand. With a sharp grimace and a little yelp, Mary seared the cuts back closed. The skin knit itself together, the flesh and blood vessels shoved into each other, and her nerves burned into reconnections. All in all, terribly painful, but effective. "I see." She repeated.

Wringing her hand out, she responded coldly, "Terribly unfortunate then, that you's ain't for hire no more." and at that, sighed.

 

[Jackal]

Mary cauterized her own fingers.

Rowe had seen it done enough to recognize that that was loosely what had happened, anyway. She didn’t so much as wince. Firepower, then? Or something like it. High-energy, like Obsidian delivering a shock. He’d found something worse than a bastard for a boss – and he was getting better treatment. To the point where Obsidian was always surprised when he threw himself in harm’s way, like that wasn’t what Rowe was being paid to do.

Being reminded of his boss was enough to remind him that he was here for work, not leisure. He still needed info on the Redblood case. Something in his gut, or maybe something he wasn’t quite remembering from the pair he’d talked to earlier in the week, said she was holding out on him.

“Is it? From what I’ve seen, you don’t exactly need my expertise. A bodyguard might be a waste of resources on your part, even if your door guards could use some work.” He rubbed the back of his neck and looked back at the locked door, remembering the kids out there. Hardly professionals at all, for guys in a ‘militia’.

Maybe he should go. The door hadn’t unlocked, and he didn’t exactly have permission yet, but Mary was at least a name he could pass on to the boss. As well as a lot of the info he’d picked up on this group. Obsidian would just love that, and then maybe he’d send someone more qualified in for more information. Lapis, or that new chick Onyx. People who were actually fit for reconnaissance. Getting the Mary info was enough of a first step, and then he could go back to what he was actually good at: assuring the remaining Jackals that Slate was the best thing that’d happened to them. At least before they decided that outfits like this were more to their tastes.​

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[Ira]

Mary laughed and shook her head, Rowe's response confirming her suspicions even further. Looking up at Rowe as her cold expression faded, she seemed to smile at him genuinely for the first time. It wasn't some explosion of fake joy or a rambling mad laugh. Rather, Mary was smiling with the gentle, knowing look of someone who's pieces had finally landed.

Rowe had appeared out of the blue asking directly for Mary, saying he had come to check them out. Rowe had told Mary he was a member of the Jackals, but also 'I'm a bodyguard.' Possibly implying current employment, but with new employers. He claimed self employment, but who did a bodyguard guard in his own employment? Himself? Then why did he care if metas were offing metas? His friends in the line of fire, of course, but was that true? He said gangs and mobs weren't 'it' for him anymore, no more being expendable.

Then there was the name, the name of a man brought up and dropped just as fast. Rowe spoke of Leo and Marius multiple times, examples of assholes and contracts fulfilled. But what of the other? Of course, perhaps he was simply looking for the right employer, and the right employer could be Mary. But if it was Mary, wouldn't he show more interest? So quick he had been to dismiss her offer, so quick to not push her to sell herself to him.

Was it Mary's threat? Was it cowardice? Perhaps nothing? No- he said he wasn't working for scum anymore. Unless he was directly insulting Mary, and she would not insult his intelligence as to assume that, none of those were the answer. No, the answer had to be simple. It had to be straightforward. Rowe was already employed. Mary herself hadn't initially cast the bait of saying Obsidian and Slate killed Redblood, but when she heard the rumors, she capitalized with the fliers.

And now, it was clear she had caught her fish. Setting aside her smile and the patient stare she fixed Rowe with while her mind churned, she spoke in a calm voice, "Of course it's unfortunate. I love acquiring new dogs, 'specially those belongin' to worthless stones." Shrugging, she added, "But what ain't meant to be ain't meant to be. You's can leave, if you's like." And waved him off, turning around to step away from him as she did so.

Mary had new bait to toss.

 

[Jackal]

This was why Rowe wasn’t really cut out for reconnaissance. You couldn’t fuck up taking a bullet. You could fuck up shooting people, but it was a lot harder, and you usually got a second shot. But you could fuck up lying to somebody real quick, and lying to people wasn’t something he really had to do.

In some ways, it was a relief to have the charade over. He relaxed his shoulders and put his hand back in his pocket. He didn’t exactly trust having permission to leave, just like that, but it wasn’t like there was anything he could do about it. Staying would just make things worse. He nodded toward her, his face becoming drawn and serious. More natural.

“Thanks for your time, Miss.”

He turned toward the door, careful to keep her in his periphery for as long as he could. It wouldn’t do anybody any good for him to get blasted in the back walking out of here. He wouldn’t be able to reach his HK fast without cover if she did that. But part of him suspected that she actually wanted Obsidian to know about her. She’d let the messenger run home.

This wasn’t over. Far from it. But Rowe had done his part, at least.​

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[Ira]

Mary did not reply to Rowe immediately, she looked over toward something past him as he turned toward the door. It was almost as if she was seeing someone standing before the door and in front of Rowe, but, of course, there was no one there. Not that Rowe could see, at least.

Smiling, she spoke quickly so that he would hear her before he left, "Oh! Dog! When you's see your worthless rock, tell him I said 'Hiii~'." The last word was spoken with the inflection of a mocking small child, a complete one hundred eighty degree turn from the seriousness of her previous words.

Smiling, Mary turn away herself and began singing. Her voice was not overly loud, but neither was it quiet. There was, however, something else to the tone. A harmony, a second voice, singing ever so quietly alongside Mary's own. It'd have to be listened to in order to be heard. If Rowe stopped before leaving, perhaps he would hear it, perhaps he would not.

It was a woman's voice, abnormally deep, harmonizing a bass tone, and together they sang, "You's can run on~ for a long time, run on~ for a long time, run on~ for a long time. Sooner or later, god'll cut you down, sooner or later, -I'll- cut you down."