Mary let Bea guide her toward the door, smiling and crying. She had never felt lighter, never felt freer. Some of that had to be the blood loss, of course, but some of it had to be the emotional burden lifted with the annihilation of this evil people. No, not their deaths, their suffering, that’s where the good feelings came from.
That’s where her power came from.
The guards at the door had run, the entire building evacuating as fire alarms were pulled. There should’ve been sprinklers in the previous room, but they had been torn out to allow for the gangsters to hotbox the whole room. Mary barely remembered the walk down the stairs or arriving outside, but some how Bea had carried her all the way out.
Once outside, Mary placed a hand over her abdomen. There was a burgundy spark, and Mary screamed. A magical staple to keep her body together. Smiling at Bea, Mary would straighten and offer her hands.
They were covered in blood.
“Left hand, Redblood’s, right hand, mine. You said you’s needed blood, yeah? Here, you’s welcome.”
Bea numbly searched in her pockets, acting on autopilot. Normally she might have hesitated, or have at least had her thoughts collected, but now she just did what Mary told her. After fishing out two pens from her slacks, she disassembled them, unscrewing the cap, and leaving the spring and other parts on the ground. She used the hollowed out pens to collect the blood, as if they were vials. She mentally made a note that the red pen was Redbloods blood. The black pen was Marys blood.
Beatrice took one last look at Mary, still quite in shock. Mary had stopped bleeding at least, and she seemed to be healing. A lot of metas had version of a healing factor, and Bea wasn't going to examine her closely. Not here. Not now. She needed to leave.
"I...I should get going. Thank you, Miss Mary," Bea said turning blank faced , and leaving as she tried to regulate her breathing and not freak out, despite the smoldering ruins around them. She didn't look back. But in the corner of her eye she saw one of the gangsters fleeing. Beatrice stopped for a moment- she couldn't risk being found out. She couldnt risk someone knowing she was here. That single desire cut through the fog. Without thinking, she projected her to voice into the thoughts of the gangster, adjusting the tone to be threatening, cold and violent. Dangerous.
Remember this the next time you try to cross Slate. Obsidian sure will.
Beatrice quickly fled after that, making her way to the apartment complex, stripping off her bloodied sweater to not draw attention to herself along the way. She stored the pens in the fridge as soon she got home, to preserve the samples. As she did she finally noticed the blood on her own shaking hands.
Beatrice slammed the fridge shut, releasing the sob in her chest.
Obsidian stood in the still-smoking wreckage of the apartment building. Several of the families and residents who had made it out were clustered around, but he had slipped in using his shadows. He paced through the ruins, cloaked in darkness. There were paramedics and ambulances everywhere, as well as police. Several saw him moving through spaces of shadow, but they had quickly averted their eyes. He had paid some of the force off, and the rest were too scared to do anything about him. Too scared to interfere with his look around.
There were charred bodies, most of which were being loaded onto stretchers and brought into the ambulances. None of them were alive. Not all of them looked big enough to have been the gang he was looking to absorb, but he tried to not pay attention to those. They weren’t why he was here. He was here to count bodies.
After his count, he slipped back out, following the shadows and darkness of the night to make it back to where Rowe waited for him. He slipped out of the darkness, letting it curl around him as though it were sad for his departure. He dusted off his coat, some ash flaking away. Finally, he sighed, running a hand through his loose hair. This was just supposed to be a conversation with Redblood, and nothing else.
“Two. Based on my count, two of them made it out, as well as most of his lower ranks. I heard whispers while I was in there, from some of the families and some of the men hanging around. They’re claiming that Slate was the perpetrator of this.” His voice was soft, but there was a harsh edge to it, a sneer on his face. He looked directly at the man next to him, his eyes meeting his.
Jerry watched the cloud of smoke from his post, a black cloud that stood out harshly against the city lights. Sirens filled the night air.
Somebody had fucked up.
Marius had been a Jackal, once upon a time. A bastard that’d give anyone except Leo a run for his money. He and Rowe had only met incidentally, never spoken directly, but Rowe’d had a few conversations with his men. The Jackals weren’t really worse than any other street gang around. They were a little better organized, but really, the did everything short of human trafficking, and that’d just been because Vasquez couldn’t get over his own ego long enough to talk to any of the big-name movers.
Jerry was still a Jackal. On the street, people’d started calling him Obsidian’s “Golden Boy,” or Golden Jackal. He was the last member of Leo’s inner circle, despite Leo’s best efforts. He’d never asked to be a gangster. He’d never volunteered. But he’d been paid to be an accomplice, and the lower level guys liked him. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because he wasn’t a bastard, or made an active effort not to be. Maybe it was because he gave a shit. Maybe it was the “Once a Marine, always a Marine” attitude.
Could be. Could be any number of things. May just be that he had it in good with Obsidian, because he knew how to do his damn job.
He didn’t look surprised as the boss stepped out of the shadows like he’d brought some of the smoke with him. He listened to the details. His expression didn’t change at all from relaxed regard. Not even when the boss, for the first time, gave him a name like he was one of Obsidian’s own.
Jerry Rowe knew he wasn’t being asked to do this because he was special. He was being asked because he had the connections. And, because he was Obsidian’s bodyguard. Whoever did this had just painted a target on the back of everyone in Slate. And he was being paid to keep Obsidian alive.
His voice was soft and serious as ever as he looked back up at the cloud.
