Necromancer; A Dead Man's Gamble

The Dead Never Truly Die

The night, in all its cold dreary glory, is at least better suited for hiding the absolute shit hole this city has always been. No matter how the richer parts above tried to distract from it with neon signs, fancy restaurants and recently paved roads. The streets below will remain a dirty disgusting heap of rubbish, rotten and decomposing at the heart of the city.

Rain pelts the ground, natures attempt to wash away the grime. The water fills the pot holes in an almost perfect illusion of an actual road. Where it is kind to the roads, it's a scorned ex to the unfortunate few that still remained on the street. Soaked to the bone and looking more like drowned rats, people rushing towards work; any job that paid the bills worth the possible death sentence the chilled air could bring. The wind wails like banshees through the decrepit buildings; I should know since I've met just about all of them in my line of work. Umbrellas are rendered a futile effort to stay dry under, and the infamous duet of thunder and lightning sends the rats scurrying for cover. Street lights were few and far between, broken, dim, or long since knocked over by a speeding car moments away from becoming scrap metal.

"Leave us alone!"

Ah, that's right. I almost lost track of why I'm out here in the first place. The prey I've been hired to hunt for this evening has brought us along on a long chase through the winding roads. The pair, a man and a woman, scurrying for cover as the predator draws ever closer. Turning down an alley, the chase is finished, the prey has cornered itself with a dead end. They hammer their hands against the brick wall, as if it would crumble under their fists.

"No! Please!" the male cries out, turning to us as we close off their only exit, "We don't have it, we don't have it!" he pleads as the woman, his wife I was told, cowers behind him.

"Sorry, it's nothing personal but the boss says you either have what they want or you're no use to us," Barus moves forward, a feral grin stretches across his face as pebbles scatter under hooves.

Headlights suddenly illuminate the alley, outlining the quadruped forms of my fellow hunters in it's blinding light whilst I remain mostly hidden in the shadows. The car pulls up and the 'boss' emerges from within. I've heard the title boss from the mouths of hired thugs, too many times to put any respect behind it. But it gives the one's with the money some kind of thrill to think they've earned, read; bought, a title worth anything. Case in point; the man who's hired me the most recently. He's quite shorter than his Centaur lackeys, but he manages an intimidating figure well enough before he starts posturing. I move forward to hold the umbrella above his head, his request to make himself look more important; I'm getting paid extra for the theatrics so I can't complain... much.

"So..." he drawls slowly. He's hidden mostly by the umbrella but his pot belly, I hear he's quite proud of, sticks out far enough to be seen, "...Where is it?" he slowly pulls a gun from his coat, he seems to do everything slowly, making sure their eyes are tracking his every move as he checks that it's loaded.

"We don't know!" the lady sobs out clutching at her husbands suit. Her bun has become frazzled in the chase, blondish hair falling around her face and across her shoulders.

"You. Don't. Know?" my boss steps closer, holding the gun to the mans forehead.

"Look, we panicked okay?! If you knew what was in that box, you would have too," the man tries to explain but the boss doesn't want to hear any of it.

"I knew exactly what was in that box when I told you to steal it, it's precisely why I wanted it stolen," he nudges the gun against the forehead again to emphasise, "Now, I'll only ask one more time, where. Is. It?"

"You knew but- it got lost in the scuffle it could be anywhere by now!" the man rushes when the boss turns the gun towards his wife.

"I want that relic! Is that to difficult to understand?! Is it?!" the boss waves the gun around for a bit. The Centaurs flinching whenever its aimed at them, he stops his hand at an angle that leaves the gun pointed at my face. I glare at him out of the corner of my eye, and simply move the barrel away from my head to face it back towards the husband.

The boss scoffs and moves closer towards the couple, yanking the woman away from the man. The husband exclaims in argument but is quickly silenced when I pull out a gun of my own. The boss puts the gun to the side of her head, ignoring the stream of tears.

"Shh, quiet now, quiet, shh, shh. It's okay, there you go. I'm not the bad guy here, okay? I just want that card, that's all I want. And I know you saw something," he grabs her face roughly when she starts to shake her head, "No, no don't try and deny it. I'm not unreasonable, I'm actually quite merciful. So, tell me what you saw, give me what I want and you'll earn my mercy," he strokes her hair as he says this, his voice a soft honey coated pile of shit.

"It was in the Casino, where we were supposed to meet up to trade it off to you. Someone bumped me into the table and the box broke, and... Death fell into the chaos that ensued," the woman starts shaking again at the last sentence, tears returning in full.

"Ah. So you know of the relic. That's unfortunate, no wonder panic was your first response. No, no, shh, it's okay, no more crying. I just want to know where it went after that," the boss shuffles, pulling out his phone, "See, this is the last image the camera captured before the lights went out, and that's you right? You're looking at something, but it's not the fight currently happening in front of you, what is it?"

"A boy, he served us drinks, the card left with him," the woman stutters, eyes fixated on the phone. She doesn't notice the gun being lifted against her head again... and never will.

"No!!" the man rushes forward as his wife falls to the ground, blood soaking into the stone. He pulls her body to him, hugging her in one final embrace she will never feel, "You said you would be merciful if she told you what she saw!" he cries at the sight of the hole that left her face intact but her eyes lifeless, head falling to her chest in a pitiful attempt to hear a heartbeat.

"I was, I let her die first, she never knew it was coming and she isn't feeling what you're feeling right now, that's more mercy than you got," the bullet tears its way through the mans head and lodges itself into his wifes' sternum, mere moments after the last words uttered to him clicked in his synapses, "Get rid of them, I hear the rivers' nice this time of year. Just make sure the dead don't talk, or write for that matter."

"But what about Mr. Gift? If he finds out we wasted produce..." the closest Centaur speaks up, but skitters back when his bosses eyes fall on him.

"We'll tell him they were a bad batch. Cancerous, diseased, the usual. They knew too much about our little operation and if he finds out what we were hiding behind his back... we'll be on the menu."