We were outside of the office soon after the confrontation, collecting our thoughts at a nearby park. I resisted utilising the nuclear option until there was no other choice. Cedric was put on notice about what was going on, and the consequences of trying to wriggle his way out of it.

“I think we crossed a line there.”

I stopped in place and rounded on Adrian, “What are you talking about?”

“You threatened to bloody kill him! He’s not going to sit there and take that lying down. He’s too stupid, even with you spelling it all out for him!”

“We do not have time for this. If we had become involved in this earlier, then a more elegant solution would have been preferable. You know that I’m remiss to allow anyone to know more than they need to.”

“Yeah, and I’m starting to feel like you’re hiding a lot from the rest of us too.”

“I am hiding something – but it won’t be of any use to you, or to me, now. It’s irrelevant.”

Adrian didn’t buy it. He stubbornly crossed his arms and refused to budge on the subject. He was so certain that there was more to this that he wouldn’t continue to support my actions unless I gave him a convincing enough secret. The problem was that it didn’t affect me whether he chose to come along or not – if anything it would make my job easier.

“If you have a problem with that, then you can go home. I haven’t asked you to spill every personal detail from your life for the past ten years, and you already know the most damning secret of them all.”

“It’s not about blackmail. That’s your way of thinking talking. It’s about trust.”

“I never said you should trust me.”

No. Those were the two words that I hated saying the most. I hated hearing them too. There was no such convenient thing in this world as an honestly trustworthy person. Trust was for idiots. It was a convenient placebo for when there was nothing to uphold a transactional relationship.

Adrian’s expression was a mixture of anger and befuddlement.

“I don’t get you, not one bit. You do all of this crazy bullshit – but then you act like you don’t really care about the outcome. What are you even doing this for? You point in a direction and mow down everyone you meet, you’re like a natural disaster! What the hell are you doing this for?”

He was the one who asked me to help, but now the grim realities of what that meant were playing on his mind. The stress was pushing him to question my role in the proceedings, as he was honestly right to do. Despite the rationality of his questions – my immediate, emotional reaction was to become extremely irritated with him.

“You were the one who asked for me to do this, and now there is an even more pressing reason for me to-”

“That’s not your responsibility though, is it?” Adrian interrupted, “All the police, and those spies like your Mother, they get paid to put themselves in danger. I can understand that much.”

What was he hoping to hear out of my mouth exactly? There was no answer that I could offer that would make a lick of sense to him. All my talk about the narrative I was living, the things that Durandia told me, and how it could have potentially disastrous consequences if left unattended to.

“I’m doing you a favour.”

“But you’re not doing it for me, are you? You couldn’t stand the sight of me until a few months ago. You don’t go from hating my guts to risking your life for me that fast, and you always talk on and on about how people are motivated by specific goals, and that you can use that against them. Can’t you reflect on your own reasons for being here?”

“Redemption, to save lives, to do the right thing – maybe it’s all of those. But the one goal that drives me is much simpler. I want to live. I want to keep walking down this treacherous road for as long as I can. It might give way beneath my feet at any moment, but that’s no reason to give up. If I do, there won’t be a Walser left to live in.”

Adrian’s eyes narrowed, “Redemption for what?”

I held my arms out and laughed, “What else? I’ve already taken enough lives to condemn my soul. Preventing these madmen from unleashing their personal army will balance the scales in my direction.”

Adrian was torn between accepting that as a selfish answer or calling bullshit on it. He didn’t have the full picture and he knew that. There was no cypher for him to use so that he could parse my confused motivations. I was telling the truth. This wasn’t about justice, or honour, or even saving my friends. I was a dead girl walking and I wanted to see how far I could get before the cruel irony finally settled in and called time on my second lease on life.

I expected nothing if only so I could avoid a bitter disappointment in the end.

“If you have a problem with how we’re doing this, then feel free to call off our deal.”

“It’s too late to be doing that now,” Adrian observed, “You’ve put all the cards on the table. Either he’s going to stop trying to off me, or he’ll ignore you and keep going.”

“There is always a third way. You should not discount the stupidity of a man being told to sit by and do nothing. He will tumble headfirst into the worst of both worlds with enough misplaced confidence.”

Max tried to steer the discussion towards our next goal; “Verner Welt is a big deal in parliament. Even I’ve heard of him. Are you sure it’s wise to get involved?”

“No. I suggest that the two of you head home and lay low instead.”

He scowled, “My brother is implicated in this. I’m not going to go home now. I want these people locked up so that he doesn’t get caught in the mess when it all collapses.”

I was surprised to see them both digging their heels in and refusing to follow my suggestion. If that last firefight at the graveyard wasn’t enough to scare them away, then nothing would be. The problem was that they didn’t serve any purpose by coming along for the ride. They were decent at using magic – but practising in an open field was a lot different than being under pressure during a fight.

I rubbed the corner of my eyes and sat down on a bench to collect my thoughts.

“Welt is extremely important to the Restoration Party. He may not be the man in charge, but he is the one who holds a lot of connections with the nobility. It’s accurate to say that there would be no party if not for him.”

In summation – killing him would be incredibly difficult to pull off. He was going to be surrounded by police officers at every public engagement he made, and information about his movements was going to be locked down tight. There was no ongoing election campaign so he wasn’t pounding the pavement making speeches either.

If he was connected with the juiced-up killers running around then it was possible that they could become a major problem too. These guys were supposed to be the Monarchists’ private army. He would have access to them. You didn’t become influential on that level without being a shrewd operator.

Beyond the obvious like his part affiliation and public reputation, I knew next to nothing about him. This would be a two-step process. I had to get what information out of him that I could to confirm his involvement, and then I needed to get close. A single nihility hit to the heart would kill him on the spot - and it was rare for the police to bring a mage with them for any of their operations. They’d be none the wiser.

“I don’t suppose that you two have any bright ideas about what to do with him?”

“My uncle could set up a meeting with him.”

“No. Cedric is not going to act against his own interests when it comes to Welt. Welt will not be the only person responsible for the chaos. If he is outed as the one who helped us – then he will be next on the chopping block.”

Adrian was probably thinking ‘Isn’t that what we want?’ He recalled seconds later that this discussion started with him chastising me for roughing him up a little and threatening to give him a new hole to breathe through.

“We’re back to square one, then?”

Max disagreed, “No. If Cedric decides to stop trying to murder you, then we’ve made some type of progress, but we only have this week left before we have to go back to school. We can’t afford to waste any of these days.”

We sat there and stewed on the issue for the next ten minutes without coming up with a single bright idea. It was increasingly looking like another visit to Gertrude’s apartment of wonders was due. I brought along more cash and some more blackmail letters in case we needed them.

But sometimes assistance came from unexpected sources.

“Oi, you lot!”

Our attention was drawn towards the entrance to the urban park. Kelly was standing by the gate.

“Friend of yours?” Adrian quipped.

She approached our group with an uneasy look. She was entirely unfamiliar with Maxwell and Adrian, who both towered over her.

“I did not expect to meet you again,” I said, “Is this merely a stroke of chance, or have you been looking for me?”

Kelly, with her freckled cheeks and messy hair, was the encapsulation of a troublesome young girl. She sent a dirty look the boys’ way and leaned in to whisper to me instead of letting it spill out to them.

“Are these two alright?”

“Yes. We are getting into a spot of bother ourselves at the moment.”

She pulled back and raised her voice.

“It’s a bit of both. I owe you a thanks for keeping that nutter away from me, and I was wondering if you knew anything about the blokes who attacked everyone at the funeral. My Dad nearly got shot, and a lot of our family friends did get shot.”

“I don’t have much information about them. They’re tough, and they’re targeting members of your district’s gang as a test run before they try and launch a larger-scale assault against their handlers’ enemies.”

“A test?” Kelly muttered, “So they think we’re a bunch of bloody small fries?”

“If they are trying to do what I believe they are, then taking on a street gang is indeed a smaller-scale challenge. They mean to launch a multi-faceted assault on Walser as a whole.”

“They’re going to be sorry. The boss is getting everyone together, and I’ve seen one of his fixers visiting the Walk. He’s not going to spare a single mark when it comes to getting payback on ‘em now.”

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

“His fixer?”

“Yeah. They call him Marco.”

“Oh dear.”

“What?”

“Me and Marco have some history. He tried to murder my Uncle earlier this year.”

I should have assumed that he was going to be pulled into this. Robert Van Gervan had already paid him a big bag once before to help out. He was going to hire him and his boys and try to get back at the people who attacked the funeral. The problem was that Marco didn’t have any intel about the supposed monarchists in question.

Marco was talented – but he wasn’t a miracle worker. He was not going to get anywhere marauding through the streets with his team and hoping to run into them. They would need a solid lead to follow. I hadn’t yet been able to assess his intel-gathering ability, finding out where my Uncle was during a political campaign was easy.

In an ideal world, he’d take care of the problem without us having to lift a finger! Unfortunately, the law of dramatic irony probably meant that I was a lynchpin in sorting this whole mess out. Durandia didn’t drag me here so I could kick my feet up and slack off.

“So that isn’t helpful?” Kelly pondered.

“He isn’t trying to kill my Uncle now. In fact, we all have the same objective at the moment. If not now, when else would be the best time to make amends and forgive past sins?”

Kelly, a petty and aggressive teenager raised in the midst of a violent street gang, found that display of clemency confounding. Her only methods of conflict resolution relied on hitting someone with a rock or threatening them with her connections to the top of the Church Street crew.

“I wouldn’t be giving him a pass if he did that to me,” she stated simply.

I laughed softly, “I am focused on the outcomes. If I were to weigh my contempt for him and those lunatics with the pale skin against one another, they would win by a clear margin. There is always time for reigniting old feuds later. Marco is more useful to us alive. When did you see him?”

Kelly shrugged, “A few minutes ago. Mum asked me to do my chores and I spotted him walking past.”

“Then we’d better go and talk with him before he leaves again.”

----------------------------------------

The downpour raining over Church Walk felt heavier than ever.

Robert Van Gervan was laid out in bed, looking through the window and across the road. The heavy rain muted the sounds of the city, hammering against the glass like gunfire. Standing in the doorway was one Marco Fisichella. He silently entered, closed the door, and sat down on one of the two chairs that were positioned next to the bed.

This was an unusual meeting. The circumstances couldn’t have been worse. Robert was recovering from a gunshot injury to one of his legs. It wasn’t fatal, but he couldn’t walk while his bones were set back into place. A large number of his men were not so fortunate. What was a funeral for several turned into two dozen more.

Still reeling from a cocktail of painkilling drugs, Robert demanded that Marco be brought to him immediately. Marco refrained from making light of the previous day’s events and waited until he was ready to speak.

“It’s not on,” Robert grumbled, “Can’t even mourn the lads who died without them coming back and adding more of ‘em to the list.”

Marco’s face was unreadable.

“They targeted you because they knew about the funeral because you were all wearing your gang colours. You and the rest need to lay low. Those killers are out of control. What happened when you fought back?”

“Everyone was shooting ‘em, but they wouldn’t go down. Then they started throwing those damn spells at us. They killed some of my best friends out there and then they made a run for it. Didn’t have the bollocks to stay behind and finish the job.”

“Finish the job? Don’t be stupid. What good is there in offering your life to them?”

Robert finally twisted his head his way. He was covered in sweat and grime, with stray strands of matted hair clinging to his forehead. Marco felt he more closely resembled a plague victim than someone who was shot in the leg.

“It’s not about ‘good,’ or being practical, it’s about pride.”

“You and your pride,” Marco spat, “Is it really more valuable than your lives?”

Robert grabbed the white cloth from his pocket and clenched it into his fist.

“This? It’s not merely a decoration. This is our way of life. We can die in an instant and be forgotten just as quickly, but the Church Street gang has endured for three generations. It’ll continue to outlive us if we hold the line.”

The battle lines were freshly drawn – the reason for Robert summoning Marco was becoming more distant as they launched into yet another argument.

“That is what annoys me most about you, Robert – you lay here and pretend to be one of the little people, someone who can’t make a difference, but you’re not. You’ve been living in the lap of luxury for years, you command a gang of hundreds of people who hang on your every word. Keeping this farce going is not any kind of ‘legacy-making.’ It’s pathetic.”

Robert scowled furiously. His body was weak, and he so strongly wished to have the energy to shout back at him.

“What gives you the right to say that? Living in a nice house, away from all the ‘little people’ you claim to care about so much.”

Marco was quick to respond, “I never claimed to care. I’ve worked for a lot of wealthy people over the years. That ‘nice house’ is the outcome of decades of bloodying my hands. The problem is that your biases blind you to the reality. Legacy is nothing. We die and our bodies are tossed into the nearest open hole to become worm food.”

“There’s something after,” Robert said.

“After all of this? It must be a comforting tale to tell yourself for when the day finally comes.”

“I don’t want to regret not doing what I can if I’m right. Men are remembered for what they do, they’re remembered for being something more than themselves.”

“But you are no martyr, no martyr at all. And besides – the people do not want to recall men like you or me. For all of the great and terrible acts we commit, we are still footnotes in a larger story.”

“I know you. I didn’t bring you here to admire my sick bed.”

Marco leaned closer, “What do you want?”

“I want those bastards gone. I want the ones who funded and organized them gone too. A clean house. Every single man and woman connected to ‘em, I want them dead, and I’m willing to pay whatever it takes to make it happen.”

“How much?”

“Every damn mark I have, and even the marks I don’t yet. I’ll give you a cut of what we make for however long it takes if it isn’t enough.”

“The full course. Me and all of my usual friends.”

“I want nothing less. I know that you don’t mess around when it comes to jobs like these. I have high expectations.”

Marco had a difficult task on his hands. He was deeply connected to the hired killer sector of the underworld and was familiar with every big name and face who did what he did. None of the killers he’d seen until that point were recognizable to him. The fact that they all used the same methodology and displayed the same level of physical durability meant they were working in concert.

There was little time to spend looking into who they were. If he wanted to get paid he’d need to show results quickly, before the rest of the gang were picked off in mass attacks like the funeral. Robert had foolishly declined to extend his services to that event originally. He could have provided a lot more firepower than what they brought.

“I don’t want your pity or your admonishments. Do this for me and I’ll speak the only language you understand. A wad of cash in one hand and a gun in the other.”

“Fine. I’ll do it.” Marco stood from his seat, “Is there anything else?”

“No. Give me some bloody peace and quiet.”

Robert shooed him away with one of his hands. Marco left without saying goodbye. He was escorted back out of the building and onto the main road. He shook his head and redonned his cap, intent on walking directly back to his home so he could wrangle together some of his co-workers for a big intelligence job.

However, he was soon distracted by the appearance of an unwelcome girl sitting atop a half-built all by the roadside. Maria Walston-Carter, this time accompanied by two teenage boys and a girl who was wearing the gang’s colour in her front pocket.

“A happy coincidence! Today has been fortuitous indeed,” Maria joked.

Marco wanted so badly to walk past her and pretend they’d never met – but she reeled him in by dangling a loaded question in front of his face.

“Did Robert Van Gervan hire you to find those mad magicians?”

Marco had to guess that the gang member hiding behind her was the one who spilt the beans. Maria was infuriating. She was always in the know and never refrained from getting in his way. It was understandable during the Rentree ordeal, but why was she here now?

“You shouldn’t be so eager to spill your gang’s secrets to a stranger,” Marco said to the young girl.

Kelly was dismissive, “Whatever. She saved me from one of those bloody lunatics, so I did her a favour.”

“Indeed. Kelly revealed that the boss was speaking with prospective assistants to help with the assassin problem. It was then that I recalled that you do not know who is ultimately responsible for this series of violent attacks.”

“I’m not an idiot. It’s Cedric Roderro, he’s been trying to push the gang out of Church Walk for months.”

I wagged my finger at him, “I would not be so hasty, as my friend here can attest, Cedric is in a furious stupor about the whole thing. It’s true that his development project is the catalyst that led to them attacking the Church Street gang – but they are not doing this out of the kindness of their hearts.”

Marco was starting to get frustrated by all of this vague talk. Did it hurt to come out with the truth right from the start? He fiddled with a lock of his hair, “And what would you know about the people responsible for this?”

“Gerard Verner Welt. That was the one name that our friend stated conclusively.”

“Ah, of course – Mister Welt. A mad dog amongst mad dogs.”

“The funny part of this story is that they’re ‘assisting’ him as a reward for his participation in Lady Rentree’s little scheme. He offered them some tantalizing information. Cordia let it get to her head, and we both know what happened after that.”

Marco never heard his name spoken whilst he was working under them. It must have been important though. They were going above and beyond to try and see his development plan across the finish line, unless they had ulterior motives as Maria said...

Gerard Verner Welt had a controversial reputation. The monarchists loved him for his forceful oration and strong advocacy for the restoration of the crown, but the moderate members of the faction believed he was an alienating force. He was a name on the lips of every noble influence peddler across the nation.

What stories weren’t told were more interesting. He had a short temper, was an unmatched snob who made Maria seem humble by comparison and was alleged to have entered a violent confrontation with a fellow MP after he implied that his partner was being unfaithful.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“That’s simple. We both want the same result.”

“I’m not your personal attendant. You aren’t the one paying me.”

“That is true, but you cannot unhear what I said to you.”

Marco turned his eyes to the two boys who were hanging on the edge of their conversation. They tried to look casual and failed miserably.

“Who are those two?”

“Maxwell Abdah and Adrian Roderro.”

Marco took a second glance. That was who Adrian reminded him of. He looked a lot like his Father and Uncle.

“This some kind of power play?” he asked of Adrian.

Adrian didn’t mince words; “That idiot has been trying to kill me ever since my Dad got locked up. If that’s the way he wants to do it – then he can’t complain when I hit him back.”

Marco chuckled, “You kids must have gotten a very harsh education on how dirty noble hands can get.”

Maria nodded, “Oh yes. It’s been a very illuminating experience for all of us. I asked Sir Roderro very nicely about who was lending him support, and Verner Welt was the only name he said he knew.”

Marco shuddered to think what ‘very nicely’ meant in the eyes of the pint-sized psychopath standing in front of him. Why was it that two different raven-haired red-eyed women were running around, both of whom were equally dangerous despite their clear difference in age?

Marco had to make a difficult calculation. Maria was angling for him to track down Gerard Verner Welt, and that lead may well have been legitimate. There was little established trust between him and her and that was unlikely to change based on any deals they made. What was she getting out of it? Leaving him to do the dirty work would be a load off her shoulders.

Kelly nudged Adrian in the ribs, “Why are they staring at each other?”

He sighed, “She does this all the time.”

Indeed – such a titanic meeting of the minds would not be resolved promptly or neatly. Marco and Maria were alike in many ways, both being self-described professionals when it came to the art of killing for money. They both believed firmly that everyone acted in their own interests during hard times, and that they were motivated by factors that one could intuit using information and deduction.

The benefit for Marco was clear. He could leap headfirst into the task of finding the men responsible for dispatching the killers without so much groundwork. Maria could launch another spanner into the works and keep them from advancing their plans.

Marco decided to play it down the middle.

“Okay. I’ll see how much truth there is to this Verner Welt claim, and if you’re right I’ll admit as such.”

“It is not a matter of personal pride,” Maria tutted, “I would implore you to utilise your due diligence anyway. For all I know Cedric could be simply lying to try and protect himself, though he appears to be caught between both sides of the issue. Welt will not hesitate to be rid of him if he becomes an inconvenience. He has no stake in the development plan.”

“None at all?”

“I’ve seen the list of investors and Maxwell’s brother is one of them. It’s all accurate information.”

That would support her assertion that Welt didn’t care about the redevelopment project, but his snobbish side was different. His investment in the project would not necessarily be monetary, but emotional. Welt was a declinist. He earnestly believed that Walser was going down the wrong path, which was easy to claim when you ignored the bad parts of how things used to be.

Having a poor district like Church Walk in one of Walser’s largest cities would be a thorn in his side. Cleaning it up would show how dictatorial power could ‘benefit’ people, and by people, he meant affluent noble investors. The rot would be pushed aside to somewhere more easily ignored and the remnants would be gussied up to give off the impression that the problem was solved.

It was written all over the others’ faces – they were starting to worry that she was giving away too much information for nothing in return. Marco had to laugh at the absurdity of it - a thirteen-year-old noble with the face of a sickeningly sweet cherub trying to manipulate him.

“Okay. I see how it is, and you aren’t going to be sitting here waiting for their next move either?”

“No. Good luck.”

Maria abruptly turned and walked away with her three companions in pursuit. Marco was left standing with his proverbial pants bundled around his ankles. No time for argument or interrogation. She gave him her thoughts and got out of there once she was satisfied.

Gerard Verner Welt...

Would Robert be angry if he went back and asked for more than all of the money he had?