Prodigal Daughter Pt 8 (Patreon)

Part Eight: First Foray

[A/N: this chapter beta-read by Lady Columbine of Mystal.]

Outside an Empire Eighty-Eight Stash House

Frankie "Hard" Knox had just one job, and he was good at it.

He’d played college ball once upon a time (before he was kicked out of college) and he was still a big husky guy. With his shaved head and tattoos (neither of which he’d had in college) he could scare the absolute fuck out of anyone who came too close to the stash house when he was on watch. For those who were too stoned to scare, he had a stun-gun. Unlike a lot of his buddies, he didn’t get bored easily, so he could relax all day without falling asleep on watch.

His buddy Brett'd been in the habit of having a toke or two when it was quiet, and sneaking off for a little shut-eye. He'd warned Brett that one day someone was gonna catch him at it, and then there'd be hell to pay. That 'someone' turned out to be Hookwolf. Brett was still around, but he had a few new scars and he didn't do guard duty anymore.

So Frankie took his job real serious. He never stayed in the same position for more than fifteen minutes, and he took a little stroll every hour or two. Never out of sight of the steps he was guarding, but far enough to get the blood flowing again.

Mitch, his usual partner on this shift, was less full-on about the whole thing. But then, Frankie didn't like him. To be fair, Mitch was a bit of an asshole. He was also fifty pounds heavier than Frankie and a fuck-ton dumber, and Frankie was almost sure he’d once seen Mitch coming out of one of the brothels the ABB used to operate. In any case, Mitch hadn't been there to see Hookwolf drag Brett into the alleyway behind the stash house and beat him bloody. Frankie could still remember the look in his buddy's eyes when he realised just how fucked he was.

Which was why, when the teenage girl came wandering along the street, Frankie was the first one on his feet. She was maybe a tall fourteen or a skinny sixteen, but either way she was walking up to the wrong innocent-looking house that just coincidentally had two guys with shaved heads and Empire ink lounging out front. The thought struck him that she might be actively looking for the Empire, maybe to join. It wasn't a great move on her part, but understandable. With all the shit going down in the Bay these days, a body needed all the backup they could scrounge.

Still, this was the wrong way to go about it. Recruiting happened in schools (mainly Winslow because duh), video arcades and other places kids got together to do whatever kids did these days. He wasn't totally sure about the video arcades thing, but they'd been around in his annoying-little-shit days.

Walking up to a couple of Empire guys who were obviously on lookout duty wasn't the smartest thing to do but she probably didn't know any better, and he didn't really want to scare her off joining the Empire altogether. So he got up and moved a couple of steps toward her, the better to dispense a quiet word of warning and send her on her way.

She was definitely a skinny little thing, he noted absently as she got closer. Her shapeless grey hoodie was about three sizes too big; the hood had been pulled all the way up and over her head so her face was in shadow, while her hands were shoved deep in the pockets. A backpack hung off of one shoulder. Long dark curly hair hanging down out of the hood made for the only real detail he could see. The jeans she was wearing would've been tight on anyone else but hung baggily on her. Scuffed sneakers bore stains that he couldn't even begin to identify. It all added up to a picture of someone who was low on options. Perfect Empire material, in other words. So long as she was white, of course.

“Hey, kid.” He didn't put on his usual scare-them-shitless act because she was just a kid. And while he didn't have any brats of his own—none that his girlfriends had ever admitted to, anyway—he did his best to put on a fatherly tone anyway. “This isn't a good place to be. Whyn’t you head on home? I bet your dad’s wondering where you are.”

“Fuck her old man.” Mitch lumbered up behind him. “Bitch thinks she’s good enough to be out here, she can party with us.” His hand gestured toward his pocket. “Got something here that'll make her feel real good, but she’s gotta pay for it. So whaddaya say, girl? A little blow for a little blow?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Mitch,” groaned Frankie. “Don’t be such a goddamn pervert. She's about ten, for Chrissake.” Any doubts about how much of a sick fuck Mitch was, were now long gone. Just for a moment, he was tempted to pull the stun-gun out of his pocket and give the asshole a dose.

“Fuck you and the whore you rode in on,” Mitch retorted crudely. “If you’re too chickenshit to get some when it's on offer, not my fault.”

“But it's not—” There was an abrupt movement out of the corner of Frankie's eye. He was suddenly very aware that he'd taken his attention off the girl when Mitch started his shit. Turning back toward the girl, he caught a blurred impression of a pure-white face with a too-wide smile, then a Mack truck collided with his jaw. He didn't go out like a light—he’d earned his nickname the hard way—but his knees went all rubbery and he collapsed to the grimy sidewalk. His eyes were still open though everything was all fuzzy, like he was looking at it through water or something. It had been years since his bell had been so thoroughly rung, and he hadn't gotten any better at handling it.

He was still groggily wondering how a twig like her could hit like that when she answered the question. Using a short iron bar, she swung in at Mitch’s knee. There was a sickening crack, and Mitch began to go down as the leg folded under him. The big guy was just opening his mouth to scream, his hand reaching toward the girl, when the iron bar blurred again. This time it was Mitch’s wrist that broke like a twig. Mitch finally got his breath, and was half a second into a high-pitched wail of pain when the iron bar came back and smashed his jaw. Four seconds after the girl started moving, the oversized asshole was on the ground, out cold.

As the girl turned back to Frankie, she slid the iron bar up into her sleeve. "I'm guessing you're the smart one," she said in a high-pitched child's voice, ending with a deranged-sounding giggle. "I want to talk to you."

He was vaguely aware that normally he wouldn't be saying shit to anyone who'd just come up and smacked him down like that. But he had to admit, she'd pulled off a masterful ambush on him and Mitch, playing on their expectations to a fare-thee-well. Also, she'd called him smart. It was nice to have his talents recognised like that. Finally, she'd only hit him hard enough to ring his bell, but she'd put Mitch down like Hookwolf would’ve, only with more broken bones and less blood. He hadn't liked Mitch already, and the guy’s performance from before had just been totally wrong on so many levels. The more he thought about it, the more he liked her style.

Even with all that, he still wouldn't have said a word to her, except for the implicit threat of the iron bar, and the certain knowledge that she was willing to break bones to get what she wanted. Telling him he was the smart one was just another way of asking him if he was going to be smart about this.

If he got crippled for holding out, he asked himself, would Othala help him get back on his feet?

Probably not, he decided.

Fuck it. It's not worth it.

"What do you want to talk about?" he asked.

If anything, her creepily wide smile got wider. "Your future." She leaned closer, and he saw with a shiver of visceral terror that her eyes were just blue irises surrounding a glowing red pupil, dancing in red-rimmed blackness. This wasn’t a mask, and it wasn’t trick contact lenses.

That was when he heard the click. Glancing down, he realised that she’d pulled out a big-ass clasp-knife and unfolded the blade while he wasn’t looking. It looked really, really sharp. The tip was less than an inch from the fly of his jeans. “Please don’t kill me,” he whimpered. There was no shame in begging, he decided, if it kept you alive.

“Well, that depends,” she breathed. “I’ve got a choice for you. One, you can get out of town, right now, or I will kill you the next time I see you. Two, you can try to stop me from going in there.” She didn’t explain the penalty for doing that, but another deranged-sounding giggle made his everything clench up. “Three … you can work for me.”

He was certain he’d heard her wrongly. “What? Work … for you?”

She nodded earnestly. “If I’m going to do things right, I need minions. You’re my first.”

It sounded ridiculous. This was definitely the most bizarre recruitment he’d ever heard of. And yet …

And yet, she’d taken Mitch down without hesitation but she was offering him a job. He couldn’t believe that he was actually considering this … and yet he was. “Uh … what’s the pay like?” he asked, playing for time so he could get his head together.

“Half,” she said simply.

“Half …?” He wasn’t sure what she meant.

“Your second job will be to tell me all about your ex-boss and this stash house,” she explained, as if it made perfect sense. “Your pay’s half the money that’s in there, or however much you can carry.”

Frankie didn’t know how much money was in the stash house, but he knew it was more than he’d see in a year. And she was offering him half …

Fuck it. Right now, he was more terrified of her than he was of Kaiser. Hell, even Hookwolf wasn’t this pants-shittingly scary. (Of course, it helped that Hookwolf didn’t giggle while waving a blade near his junk).

And yes, the money was a really big plus.

Taking a deep breath, he began to talk.

<><>

Taylor

I dropped my blue field halfway through Frankie’s spiel, and he never paused. It took him several minutes to finish giving me the information that I wanted, while I listened and made mental notes of what sounded important. When he finished, he looked at me. “Uh, you said that was my ‘second’ job,” he said uncertainly. “What was the first?”

“Loyalty test,” I said. Flipping the knife up, I caught it by the blade and slapped the handle into his hand. Then I pointed at the bulky guy who’d made the crude comments, who was still lights-out on the pavement. “Finish him off.”

This was a detail I had to make sure of. Personally, offing someone just to prove myself (even if I meant to betray them later) wouldn’t have bothered me. But most people suffered from that ‘morality’ thing, especially when it came to people they’d associated with.

In this case, it seemed that either Frankie didn’t have much in the way of morality, or his work partner wasn’t someone that he liked very much. Stooping over the big guy, he pulled the asshole’s head back and slashed the knife across his neck. There was no faking the pool of blood that started forming under the guy almost immediately. After wiping the bloody blade on his victim’s shirt, he straightened up and held out the clasp-knife to me. The loyalty test had been on two levels, of course. If he’d tried to stab me either before or after cutting the other guy’s throat, I would’ve had to give him a failing grade.

“Thank you,” I said, accepting the weapon with another high-pitched giggle. There was no point in not being polite when someone had just killed for me. It was also important to keep up the act. “You didn’t waste time,” I said, trying to make it sound like I was actually enthusiastic about the murder he’d just carried out.

He shrugged. “No sense in fucking around. Asshole was a sick puppy. Nobody liked him.”

I had my answer. Still, most people would have trouble snuffing out the life of a total stranger, much less someone they knew. It seemed Frankie was made of sterner stuff. Of course, this meant that he wouldn’t have any qualms about trying to end me if he ever decided that working for me wasn’t worth the hassle. I decided to keep an eye on Frankie-boy, just in case.

The next item on the agenda was to actually go in there and get the money. The guys inside weren’t exactly on the ball if they hadn’t heard the (now) dead guy scream a minute ago. Frankie had given me a pretty good word picture of the interior of the stash house, and I had a rough idea of how many people I’d have to deal with. They’d be adult, armed with guns, and they’d be on guard once I kicked things off. Which meant I’d need an edge. Fortunately, I had one ready to hand.

“Frankie,” I said treating him to a special smile just to make the sweat break out on his forehead, “do you know where the circuit breakers are in the house?”

<><>

Frankie Knox

“Hall closet,” he said automatically. “Halfway down the hall, on the left.” His heart was hammering in his chest as she turned away. He was a grown man and there he was, almost literally shitting his pants when a teenage girl spoke to him. A horrifically terrifying teenage girl; but a teenage girl none the less.

When she’d told him to shank Mitch, the first thought that’d gone through his mind was no. Not because killing was particularly repugnant to him—he’d done it before—but because this would be a step he couldn’t come back from. This would bind him to her more strongly than any mere oath. Once upon a time, he’d kicked the living shit out of some homeless black guy to earn his Empire colours, and this was more binding than that would ever be.

On the other hand, Mitch was a piece of shit and this girl definitely played for keeps. She wasn’t some half-assed player pretending to be something she wasn’t. If I don’t, I’ll probably end up right beside Mitch. And if I do …

All of this had gone through his mind in a split second, and he’d made his decision. Pulling Mitch’s head back, he slashed the blade across, making sure to get both carotid arteries. And with that, the die had been cast. For good or ill, he was now working for her. Let’s hope she’s as good as she thinks she is.

“Good boy,” she said in the little-girl voice that sent shivers down his spine. He was profoundly grateful that she didn’t giggle as well this time. It put him in mind of every horror movie he’d ever seen. “Wait out here. I won’t be long.”

“You don’t want me coming in with you?” The protest was torn from his lips. He didn’t necessarily want to go in, but the very last thing he desired was to have her think he didn’t want to work for her any more. Her pension plan, he suspected, left a lot to be desired.

“Don’t be silly.” Her voice was light and playful, but the burning eyes were at odds with the creepy-as-fuck smile. “You might get hurt, and I only just got you.”

Turning away from him, she tucked her hair up into her hood, then climbed the steps to the front door. Dropping her backpack on the top step, she took hold of the door handle. It was unlocked, as he knew it would be. Pulling it open, she stepped inside then shut it behind her. He heard the click as the lock engaged. There was no immediate shout of alarm, which meant nothing really. As a teenage girl, she was able to look harmless right up until the time she started breaking bones.

Alone in front of the house, Frankie considered his options. He could raise the alarm, right now. Mitch’s death could be blamed on the girl. But if they failed to take her down, he suspected he’d be looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life. She didn’t look the type to take betrayal well.

Alternatively, he could make a run for it. He had a bit of cash, and he figured he could make it as far as New York and take up with one of the gangs there. The Empire were bro’s but when it came to giggling maniacs with knives, a line had to be drawn.

Or … he could stay there and wait for her. She had promised him half the money from the stash house, after all. And who knew? Once he had cash in hand, a few more options might be opened up.

Despite the fact that he’d been expecting it, he was still a little startled when the lights went out on both floors of the house. Shouts arose here and there, but they sounded more like ‘what the hell?’ type shouts rather than ‘intruder!’ type shouts.

And then he heard the laughter. It wasn’t the giggling. That made him want to scrub his ears out with bleach and steel wool. This laughter was deep and booming, and he was fucked if he knew who was doing it. A moment later, when he heard the first scream, he got a hint.

Random thuds and crashes became audible within the house. Interspersed with these were screams and shouts of panic. “What the fuck is that?” or a close variation was something he heard more than once. Once, someone or something fell down the stairs—the thump-thump-thud-thud-thud was unmistakeable—but most of it was a single impact or sound of breakage. And then, of course, she changed up her game and threw someone out the window. It was boarded up, as were half the other ones on the upper floor, but this didn’t seem to bother her in the slightest. Glass shattered and a groaning man hit the asphalt amid clattering boards.

A moment later, the guy—it was Paulie, one of Hookwolf’s asshole friends—started getting up. Paulie was big, bigger than Frankie. He was also tough as nails, and he was one of the men responsible for discipline in the ranks. As such, he’d beaten up Frankie on more than one occasion. Frankie didn’t realise he’d moved until he was standing in front of Paulie. His leg drew back almost of its own accord, and launched his booted foot into the side of Paulie’s head. Paulie went down again, but Frankie wasn’t finished. Payback, he decided as he drew his boot back again, was sweet.

<><>

“You done?”

Frankie looked around at the girl, then back down at Paulie’s still form. He’d lost track of the number of times he had kicked the asshole in the face; teeth were scattered across the asphalt and Paulie’s face was no longer recognisable. He wasn’t even sure if the asshole was still breathing. Nor did he care.

Turning, he headed toward the girl. He’d have to wash the blood off of his boot sometime, but not right now. “Yeah, I’m done. Him and me had history.” He took stock of her, still smiling as creepily as before, and his respect for her rose dramatically. Her hoodie had a few new rips and tears, but apart from that she seemed to have taken down half a dozen of the Empire’s finest with hardly a scratch to show for it.

She ignored Paulie and turned back toward the front door of the house. “Come on. Time to get paid.” Scooping up her backpack, she led the way back into the house.

<><>

Taylor

He followed me in, of course. I didn’t know who the guy he’d been kicking was, and I didn’t care. I led the way downstairs to the basement. In deference to the fact that Frankie couldn’t see in the dark, I’d turned the breakers back on, so it was lit with a single yellowing bulb. Sprawled on the floor in front of a metal cabinet was a guy I’d had to hit half a dozen time before he went down. In the cabinet, behind a lock that I’d already busted open to see what was inside, was what he’d been protecting; stacks of money, and bags of white powder. I knew very little about the shadowy world of drugs, but I was reasonably certain that wasn’t talcum powder.

Ignoring the drugs, and the way Frankie was staring at the big guy—honestly, you’d think he’d never seen a man who’d been beaten unconscious with the butt of his own sawn-off shotgun before—I started loading wads of cash into my backpack. There was a lot of money; I ran out of backpack before I got even a third of the way through it. Halfway through stacking the cash, I’d taken the can of lighter fluid from the backpack to make way for the money. Once I tightened down the straps, I picked up the can and checked on Frankie.

Not having had the forethought to bring his own backpack, he was looking around the cellar to find something to carry money in. Pushing aside a stack of guns, he unzipped a duffel bag and tipped out a dozen or more boxes of ammunition. Holding up the duffel, he asked, “I can fill this with cash, right?”

“Yes,” I said. “Leave the drugs, though.” The last thing I wanted was for my first right-hand man getting high at the wrong moment.

“Sure, uh, boss.” He headed over to the cabinet and started scooping cash into it. I could see there’d still be some left, but he was very enthusiastic about making his share as large as possible. As he did this, I wandered over to the guns.

Nothing really jumped out at me, except for one chrome-plated monstrosity of a revolver. I held it up. “Frankie. What ammunition does this take?”

He glanced around. “The Anaconda? Forty-four magnum. I saw a couple of boxes in there.”

“Oh, good.” I rummaged around until I found the boxes he’d spoken of. I had to compress the money a little and loosen the straps, but I got the pistol and ammunition into the backpack as well. By the time I finished doing that, Frankie was stuffing the last wad of cash into the straining duffel.

“If you break the zipper, I’m not going to wait for you to find another one,” I warned him. “Put the rest of the money and the drugs in the middle of the floor. And this, too.” Picking up some boxes of ammunition, I carried them over as well.

It took a few minutes to finish piling everything together. Frankie took a pistol of his own and shoved it in his waistband, then selected a couple of boxes of ammunition for himself. Despite the dent we’d made in the cash side of things, it made for a pretty impressive pile. I grabbed the unconscious guard and dragged him out of the way behind the stairs, so he wouldn’t accidentally die from what I was about to do next. Killing someone by accident is pure carelessness, nothing more. You can’t even really claim it as a kill.

Frankie obviously hadn’t thought things through, but when I started pouring lighter fluid over everything, he got the picture real quick. “Wait, what the fuck?” he asked. “You’re burning it?”

I didn’t bother answering him, especially as the box of matches I’d taken from my pocket answered the question well enough. I gestured him up the stairs, and he obeyed with some alacrity.

“But why?” he asked. “Why burn the drugs and the money? Why not, you know, take it all?”

“It’s not about the drugs,” I said. “It’s not about the money.” It was true. I didn’t care overly much about either one, except as a means to get what I wanted. I struck a match, and it caught; the sulphur smell tickled my nostrils.

“So why?” he asked. He was at the top of the stairs by now.

“It’s about sending a message,” I said, and flicked the match into the pool of lighter fluid. I made my way up the stairs as the fire flared up behind me. With the concrete floor, and the basement rafters so high above the fire, I figured it probably wouldn’t set the house alight.

The message, of course, was "I can do this all day." The loss of that money and those drugs wouldn't affect the Empire significantly on a day to day basis, but the psychological impact would be much greater.

The first round cooked off as I closed the cellar door, then several more went off in quick succession. This was going to be very loud for a while, which would hopefully draw the attention of the forces of law and order in this direction. During which time, I intended to be elsewhere.

I’d been thinking about the various villain gangs around Brockton Bay. One and all, they were flawed. The Empire ran on an idiotic delusion, while the ABB was based around a no less idiotic idea of some kind of universal ‘Asian-ness’. Even the Merchants were addicted to the very drugs they dealt.

Strolling out into the night air with Frankie close behind me, I gave voice to my conclusions.

“This city,” I decided, “needs a better class of criminal.” I paused, then corrected myself. The amount of shit flowing through the streets was a problem that needed addressing. "No, scratch that. What it needs is an enema."

 Part 9