Dirty Work: Volume 2

Story Five - Nostalgia - 5

The snivelling rat seemed to have come alone. Maybe he thought he could take me single-handed if needed, or maybe he wanted as much glory for anything I did for himself. I didn't care either way.

I walked towards him and found my right arm pulling back to let loose an almighty slugger to his chin.

I stopped when he pulled out half of his police-issue 60 Alpha from its holster. He even had one-up on me with the weapons. 60s had only been developed in the last few months. Slight upgrades in fluid usage meant you could get an extra two or three shots per canister. It's not much, but comparing gun size and strength is, as much as I hate to admit it, as phallic as it sounds.

'I ain't intending to shoot you, Xayne,' he said, 'but I will if I have to.'

I managed to stop myself a few paces away. I breathed hard and thought of the boss, how he'd never be able to rely on the police to help him out when needed again. I lowered my arm. 'There aren't enough words in every language in the Empire to express how much I want to see you wearing your insides as a scarf,' I growled. 'What do you want?'

'I want to know what you know. Why were you in the temple?'

'I've seen the light.'

'Fuck off. This is about the drug. I had the same idea as you, you see.'

'Still leeching off me. That how you got to your position? Just took everyone else's credit?'

'I've taken down my fair share of criminals, I'll have you know.'

'And haven't bothered to turn your own malevolent self in. Celestria weeps for shame.'

His fingers tensed around his gun, and it was perhaps only that there were security cameras on the front of the temple that stopped him shooting me on the spot. Thank the bat that social vampires need to keep a public self image. He pushed it back into its holster and pulled his jacket back across. 'I'll ask you again. Why were you in that temple?'

I really considered flipping him the bird and walking off. But at this point he might actually have reason to detain me, or at least he could argue I didn't cooperate with the law. Obstruction of justice or something along those lines. The red mist was still in front of my eyes, but I managed to loosen my shoulders and relax. The mist dropped. 'Wolsal had a package,' I began. 'Something which disappeared with him. Trail suggests that he may have been taken by a breakaway group of the Order of the Bat Worship.'

'What for?'

'Blood shedding? Some macabre ritual of some kind? Ice cream party? How should I know?'

'And did the Father give you any information as to where he might be?'

'He did.'

'Where?'

'Fucking your girlfriend.'

That got the gun drawn on me, but there had been so much satisfaction in that petty last jab that I would willingly take a hole in the head for it.

'I won't tell you,' I said. 'But I will show you.'

'Tell me or I'll shoot you right here.'

'Go ahead,' I dared. 'You took my school years, might as well take the rest of them.'

We stared each other down as screams and cries drifted down the streets. A Magna-Train went past far in the distance. Rats peered out from the bottom of drainpipes, wondering if there'd be fresh meat any time soon.

I felt my heart work overtime. My throat throbbed faster than Chorus's club music. I was done backing down from the man who took up residence in my dreams with rusty saws and iron maidens, and if I was to die in defiance of him, then that would suit me just fine.