The Contract

10: Grave Mistakes

Ten: Grave Mistakes

The funeral for the two Murderous gang members that Hiccup had killed was two days later in the main cemetery for Berserk. As expected, Madguts had been determined to flaunt his supposed new status as the man in charge of Berserk by holding a magnificent ceremony for his men. He had brought in more men from his main base and the funeral directors had been instructed to provide large ebony caskets with gold accoutrements, honouring his fallen men. Privately, he was planning his revenge on Dagur, who he blamed for the deaths but publicly, he was determined to rub the Berserker's nose in it at the oratory.

Hiccup had returned to the Berserker Compound and explained his plans to Heather and through her, Dagur, though he railed at the fact they hadn't trusted him enough to allow him to speak to Dagur in person. In fact, he was being treated as a prisoner almost and he wondered vaguely if his cover had been blown...but this was his only chance to get close to Dagur and if there was even the slightest chance, he had to take it...especially since he had made his promise while holding his father's cold hand.

He was shocked when Heather demanded he have dinner with her and he had shyly agreed, playing the persona he had adopted with skill. During the meal, he had been attentive, witty and had flattered her, stroking her ego but maintaining just enough distance so that she was frustrated by his response to her obvious overtones. He had to make sure she remained on his side because she was his key to the whole puzzle-so when she came on to him and kissed her, he had fought a brief battle-and then returned the kiss in spades, one hand in her raven hair, the other gently cupping her breast as their tongues battled. Leaving her breathless and wanting more had achieved the desired result and Dagur's men backed off...a little.

But early on the morning of the burial, 'Olaf's Express Funerals' had received an early morning visit from six figures who had broken in and kidnapped all the staff, taking their black garments-not all of which had fitted especially well-and making some small but very critical adjustments to one of the caskets. Fortunately, both were already loaded onto the hearses so the pall-bearers would only have one short trip to make with each man. And then Hiccup had looked at his team.

It was obvious the twins would be a pair but it was just as obvious that Fishlegs and Snotlout couldn't be the second pair of pall bearers-for their significant differences in height made that impossible. The answer was Toothless, who had reluctantly come out into the field to partner the husky agent as a pall bearer while Snotlout had been assigned the job of walking bare-headed ahead of the coffin, bearing his top hat as a mark of respect. He had grumbled at the role until he realised he was exempted any heavy lifting-at which point he gratefully accepted the job and went and sat in the hearse and took a nap. Shaking his head, Hiccup looked over at Fishlegs.

"You know he'll mess this up, right?" he commented and the husky agent shrugged.

"Won't be the first time," he admitted. Despite his reservations and dislike of field work, the agent was getting much more opportunity to take part in the mission and though it was not his preferred area, he had to admit, it did make him feel a much more important part of the team than just sitting behind his computer...though there were times when he would rather be safely riding his laptop. At a funeral where everyone would be heavily armed was probably one of those moments. "Are you sure you'll be okay?" The auburn-haired hitman gave a wry smile that came nowhere near his eyes.

"Been in tight places before," he admitted. "Tends to come with the territory when you're setting up surveillance for a hit. I'll be fine." Toothless and the twins cast him a worried look: he had largely shut down since his father's death, keeping to himself and restricting conversation to terse exchanges, though he was professional where the mission was concerned. None of them thought he was fine and what he was proposing had been opposed by all of them-but Hiccup had ignored their concerns.