Dirty Work: Volume 2

Story Two - The New Groove - 2

As soon as Markro and Siala had begun to move from their initial post to intercept the target, I noticed Villa freeze. I tried to see what it was that he had noticed, as it couldn't have been our guys already. Looking down from my perch I spotted a large kar parked not too far ahead and in Villa's eyesight, where three hooded men were clambering out. The hoods were black, faces shrouded from me, and I squinted in vain to try and see a Red Rose on their clothes. We didn't suspect them to be involved, but we hadn't ruled out our old adversaries as a possible cause for what was going on. What I had noticed was that the figure I assumed to be Villa obviously recognised them.

'Three figures just got out of a kar,' I said into the Halo-Chip. I stood up out of my crouch to keep my balance as I felt my pulse begin to race, and I feared that in the excitement I believed was coming in my veins, that I might lose my balance and fall to a wet and untimely end. 'Villa knows them. Get moving.'

'On it,' Markro said, the two (three if you count Reyna) of them picking up the pace. A police kar swept through the skies in the distance, its searchlight quickly landing right in my eyesight and temporarily blinded me. I gripped on tight to the top of the crucifix, and by the time I had recovered my ability to see, the three men had surrounded Villa. The young man was taking it very personally, gesticulating wildly with his hands but not raising his voice too high. Two of the hoods were moving behind him to take his arms and, I assumed, bundle him into the back of the black kar.

'Looks like an abduction,' I told Markro, stepping back onto the safety of the roof of the church. 'Where's your Zoomus?'

'Just in the alleyway.'

'Fuck,' I said. If something went down between Villa and the three black hoods, there wouldn't be time to go and get the Zoomus. Along with that, from my vantage point I didn't have enough time to go and recover it, and go to pick the two of them up should a pursuit be needed. This was a circumstance we hadn't foreseen.

'I'm coming down,' I said, 'run, guys.' I ran swiftly but deliberately over the slippery surface of the church roof. Were the black hoods the same friends of Salis that had tried to take Villa out in Chorus' place? I didn't think so, because their earlier attempt had been a completely different methodology, a disguised shooting in a crowded place with four nervous, terrified teenagers rather than a planned, careful, calm abduction. It looked occult, the way they had surrounded him like some kind of sacrifice. As I jumped down to the ledge on my way down the side of the building I half imagined some branch of The Order of The Bat having want of his blood for some ritual or other. It wasn't of course, and I knew it at the time, but that was the kind of image that the scene had brought to me.

And how quickly they had moved in for a strike. If they weren't with Euphero, and were in fact a different set of people after him for whatever reason, then they must have known about the botched attempt only hours before. Had they been watching? And if so, why hadn't they taken him on the way home again, instead of waiting for the morning to take him? And they had three guys there, so why not just enter the building and break into his apartment, like Red Rose had done to Lura all those moons ago?

Jumping from platform to ledge, my hands wet and cold with the rain, I finally reached the ground. As my feet hit the floor I heard gunfire coming from not too far away. My heart stopped for a brief moment. Numerous shots, and as I looked in the direction of the fight I tried to make out the flashes of light on the buildings, perhaps a glimpse of the rain catching the gunfire, but there was nothing. Light, like anything else, is something that can be drowned.

I began to run, hand to my ear and bellowing into my Halo-Chip. I got no response as more shots rang out in the early morning. I managed to get out of the side of the church and into the street before it stopped, but I didn't slow, running for all I was worth with Salis' 52 Alpha in the holster at my waist banging against my side with each stride through the rain. Lights danced and dazzled me as the water turned the streets around me into a kaleidoscope of colour. The sky was darker than it normally was, and day probably wouldn't show itself for a good long while yet. A part of me noticed a billboard showing the weather predictions for the day. Dry without a cloud in the sky.

'Xayne!' It was Markro talking into my ear. I put my hand up to it, slowing to a jog.

'What's happening?'

'They got him. Siala nabbed a nearby Zoomus and went off after them. We'll get ours and go after them.'

That wasn't good. We might get to our Zoomus in a few minutes but by that time the kar and Siala would be out in the middle of town hurtling along, probably firing left, right and centre. But what could I do? I couldn't track them now, as it was only Markro and I that had the chips put in, and I had a feeling that Siala had left her Halo-Core behind in her apartment after Markro had gone to pick her and Reyna up a few hours ago. The longer it took for us to get after them, the more we would be flying blind.

As I switched directions and took a shortcut underneath a small shopping complex, complete with far too many stacks of crates containing anything and everything (along with a few body parts most likely) to make it easy to navigate in a hurry, I tried to guess where they would be heading. If the black hoods had a place nearby to take Villa to, which was more than likely, then Siala in pursuit would throw them off. They'd try to get away in a crowd most likely, and shake her off like that rather than by location. Which meant, most likely, the 17-36 Highway?

I found Markro waiting at the mouth of the alley with the Zoomus up and running. I took the 52 Alpha out of its holster as I threw myself onboard.

'Punch it,' I said, almost out of breath.

'Don't need to tell me twice,' Markro replied as he gunned the engine.