When in Rome
Chapter 2: Vultures
They moved as one, an assembly line of fleshy machines. Practiced hands, steady breathing, attentive eyes. They didn't bother to speak, but they barely did that anymore. Theirs was a visual world. Anything and everything of value could be communicated through facial tics, body language, gestures, simple context.
So they went about their cleaning, their constructing, their preparing. Today was going to be a killing day. They had had a lot of those lately, and it was good. It meant people were starting to take notice and asking for a purer breed of hunter-killer.
Breed. Haha. What a joke.
But that was good, too. It made them special. Not strong. They weren't strong at all, but there was something to be said for working smarter and not harder. The maxim had served them well. One only needed look at the trail of dead that had brought them to Salt Lake City.
“The boss is going to shove a lightning bolt up your ass if he so much as smells any of that on you,” said Denver, shoulders squared, hands on hips, doing his best to look authoritative and just looking sort of pouty.
“Pffft,” Luhvul sputtered by way of response, slamming his shot glass down on the bar in what was probably a not-too-subtle way of getting the bartender's attention for a follow up. “He's too busy holed up in the suite to come down and schmooze with us pee-ons.”
“Really want to take a chance on that?”
“God,” Luhvul said. “If you're going to piss and moan at me for drinking, might as well piss on Santiago, too.”
That was a mental image Shirou didn't need.
“You know as well as I do that he's Madrid until we can get the package back to England,” Denver said before wheeling on Madrid with his best I-will-turn-this-car-around voice. (Shirou momentarily wondered if there was anyone code named England on the team and how confusing that would make things.) “What did you do?”
“A gentleman never kisses and tells,” said Madrid, swirling his sugar and alcohol.
“That tells us everything we need to know,” Shirou said.
“Man, where'd we find this guy? I fuckin' like him! But now that the cat's out of the bag, why not check out Sa—Madrid's neck?”
Shirou blinked. He had taken the mark on Madrid's neck as an innocuous razor burn, but a closer look told him everything he needed to know all over again.
“Y'know, Santi, you should really get that checked out. It looks infected. Sure she wasn't carrying something?” Luhvul said with a pointed nod toward the hickey just visible above his friend's collar.
“Woop-de-fucking-do,” Denver muttered as he rubbed at the building headache in vain. “Santi got laid last night. Who is even slightly surprised? Don't do it on Association time.”
Luhvul fixed his self-appointed supervisor with an arched eyebrow and a wry grin.
“First off, we're not even on Association time. Second off, you've been calling me Bill all day and Santi...well, Santi. You kind of suck at this, cap'n.”
“Mmm, point,” Madrid said between sips.
“You're never going to make management at this rate, Neil!”
“I don't have time for this,” said Neil-Denver, all but throwing up his hands in defeat. “I'm going to go check on Quebec and the bounded field.”
“You'll find her wherever Lyon is!” Madrid shouted helpfully as Denver stomped off to make himself feel important somewhere else.
“We've actually got a betting pool on how long it is before the Frenchies fuck. I'm thinking—oh, shot! Thanks, bar man. Hey, Kyoto—”
“It's Tokyo, actually.”
“Yeah, whatever, you want a shot? First one's on me,” he began, paused and turned in his bar stool. “Hey, you guys got some sake for our Japanese friend?”
“I don't think that's a good idea right now. Maybe another time.”
Madrid and Luhvul exchanged a look. It was the motormouth from Kentucky who spoke first.
“You believe what Neil said about us being on Association time, don't you?”
Shirou felt, and not for the first time, a creeping cold in his gut. The notion of the Enforcers had struck him in a way that left him feeling vaguely guilty every time he heard about them. Almost a guilt by association, as if being a part of their parent organization made him somehow culpable for their violent behavior. But wasn't that why he had joined, in part? To see for himself, to satisfy some morbid curiosity?
“What do you mean?” Shirou said after his moment of reverie.
This time, it was Madrid who spoke. He had put the martini, half-finished and entirely forgotten, aside on the bartop.
“Tell me, friend. Do you know why you are here?”
Feet of clay. Sal had never much cared for the phrase. What was so wrong with clay?
It had made his family wealthy and powerful. It had made him something that went bump in the night.
Sal the Slayer, they called him. He really thought the underbelly of the magi community could have come up with something a bit snappier. Something like the Silver Lizard or Storm Treads or Steel Savant or Zombie Bomb. Nah, he was just the guy who killed people. But maybe it wasn't so bad. You didn't have to spend all this time trying to parse out just what it was he did for a living.
Sal killed people. He killed people dead. He killed people good.
Okay, sometimes he just kidnapped them or blackmailed them or stole stuff from them. But he liked killing because it was something wholly his. No one else could look at his freshest kill and say it was theirs. Well, they could try, but fuck those people. Fuck them with a big, metal spike.
“Hey, I should write that one down,” Sal said to no one in particular as he unclasped the suitcase and dipped his hand into the gooey contents. He lifted a clay-smeared hand to his face and paused just shy of his forehead.
Sal took one last look at the man in the blood-stained black suit sprawled on the bathroom floor and began to paint his face.
“To begin at the beginning,” said Madrid with a flourish.
“Where the fuck else would you start?”
“Behave.”
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Originally Posted by black1blade
