2017-05-06: Mercy Kill

• Cutscene: Mercy Kill
• Cast: Cassidy Cain
• Where: Adlehyde
• Date: 06 May 2017
• Summary: A very late night has Cassidy Cain stalking a stalker. It ends poorly.

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Nights like these, the desert chill was more a blessing than a curse; the breeze wafting in through her open window was a much needed respite from her hotel room's accumulated humidity, brushing over her hair and rustling the collar of her shirt, haphazardly buttoned over scraps of black lace that somehow survived the last few hours. Tucked into the bench attached to her window sill, lidded emerald irises watched the distant lights of Castle Adlehyde beckon at her from a distance like fallen stars, brighter, somehow, than the rest of the shadowy tableau presented to her by the rest of the city. In the depths of her very colorful imagination, she attempted to picture it gone, snuffed from the world in some inexplicable apocalypse, leaving nothing but a large crater and ruin in its wake...to no avail, really, still surfing the high associated with indulging in circumstances that had absolutely nothing to do with pressing concerns and everything to do with not giving a moment's damn about them.

It was difficult, in the end, to think of the absolute worst when one felt so god damn good, if only temporarily. But such satisfactions were always deceptive; she knew herself well enough to know that would never last and she recognized a growing addiction when she saw one, as always so acutely attuned to her own vices. To be a thief meant to be armed with two things at all times, after all: an accurate sense of what one wanted, and the drive to do whatever was necessary to get it.

It had to be done, however, for everything else to work. Her nose wrinkled faintly at the thought of even staying anywhere near a place that was bound to become some kind of ground zero for something utterly ridiculous for the purposes of dealing with it from beginning to end. But that was the job, and God help her if she wasn't sticking to it if not just for a crack at the final score.

"Well, this is gonna suck," Cassidy murmured, smoke wafting from the end of a cigarette.

Something winked at her in the darkness, as if sharing a secret, as if in reaction to a private, but cruel joke, and the kind that raised her hackles and prickled the back of her neck. Ten years navigating the dangerous wastes of Filgaia had given her a healthy set of survival instincts, most of which she elected to ignore seven times out of ten, if not just to make her life a little more interesting. But considering she presently wasn't alone, she listened to them this time. Eyes rolling skyward, inwardly girding herself for a bid for saintly patience (bound to fail, really), she picked herself off the bench and moved to the far end of the room, where the other set of windows were, which opened to a narrow alley between her hotel and the variety store next door. Her shadow passed over the bed and the lean figure sleeping there, hair the color of dark blood splashed underneath diagonal slashes of moonlight cutting through her otherwise dark-as-pitch room. A hand reached out to grab an engraved revolver off the floor, lying amidst the other scattered parts of her kit, faint illumination caressing over its beautiful depictions; fantastic creatures wrought on steel in a field of falling leaves, acorns, and other symbols of the Fall.

She knew without checking that there were three bullets left - two lodged in the chests of corpses in a deep canyon somewhere between Adlehyde and Lacour, and one wedged tight in one of her bedposts, the result of a careless accident. They would have to be enough for insurance. Any more delay and the owner of that distant glimpse of a spyglass could move.

Opening those set of windows silently, she hooked a bare, slender leg over the sill, spun her body around on it and dropped to the ground.

~ * ~

The moment her eyes fell on the scout, she knew who it was.

Save for the familiar sash of blue and black tied around his left arm, marking him as a member of the Mercy Killers, he was dressed entirely in black, his slight form and pale hair sticking out from the scarf hastily wrapped around his head gave him away. The last time she had seen him, he was thirteen years old, sullen and young, but talented despite his age. His quiet movements and small stature enabled him to sneak into places no full-grown adult ever could; it would never make him an enforcer, but it did make him a good tracker, and an even better spy, if the situation called for it. The young were often good for that, as she learned back in the life she tried her best to bury in the last decade. Innocence had a unique way of securing someone's trust.

He landed in a crouch a few feet away from where she was waiting, eyes tracking the way gangly, still-growing limbs put away the spyglass.

"You know, there's a reason why the best sharpshooter I know dinnae use a scope," she said with the faintest upward turn on the corners of her mouth, watching the way her words caused the covered youth's spine to stiffen. Tension braided visibly over his shoulders at the sound of the hammer of her revolver cocking back. "What are you doing here, Errol?"

Errol lifted his hands slowly, before fingers stretched to unloop the length of black cloth away from his face. He turned around slowly, defiant gray eyes meeting hers from the distance, set on a youthful face. He couldn't be more than fifteen, almost sixteen years old, by Cassidy's estimation, though orphans were the same everywhere. Fresh-looking everywhere but around the eyes.

"I didn't come here for Jet, or Carillo," the youth replied quietly through the determined set of his jaw. "I mean...Sonny sent me to see if I can find you, but I volunteered, made up some story about how I wanna see you pay for what you've done. But I came here to talk to you."

A dark-honey brow lifted over a virid iris. "Ay?"

"Yeah." Errol pressed his mouth in a grim line. "Look, everyone knows what you're trying to do, and the fat bastard's furious about what you did to his casino. But I don't give a shit about all of that, Cassie. What you wanna do...to Jet and to all of them. I wanna help."

"Nae." Cassidy's answer was immediate, her smile fading at the proposal. "Out of the question."

"You have to let me!" Errol bit back the rest of his exclamation, taking a few steps forward towards the conwoman. "I want to...I have to! You don't know how long I've waited...you know, Cassie! You know what he did to me, my folks...and I know what it's like! What they did to your people, what he did to you and how he made us watch-- "

She was on him in an instant, fingers lashing out with the speed of a striking copperhead. They snatched him right up the collar, throwing him against the nearby wall. A rush of air escaped the boy's lips as the taller woman loomed over him, stare as hard and cold as ice, hot black fury subsumed by the glacial outer layer. Her grip tightened around his shirt.

"You listen tae me, lad," she murmured. "This cloak and dagger shite is nae for you. Go back tae Carillo, tell him you found me, if you have tae, anything tae convince him you dinnae waste your trip out here, but we never had this talk. I'll only tell you this once: you dinnae play this double-agent game. Ay, I remember what Jerry did tae you and yours. I dinnae forget the story. But Jerry's nae an idiot and neither is Carillo. Nae even sixteen yet and you think you can pull one over two seasoned, ruthless, bloody operators in this god damn continent? Jerry, who never takes anyone alive and who does worse tae traitors than sworn enemies? And you already know what Carillo does tae people who even look at him wrong."

She released the boy's collar with a jerk. "Go home, Errol. Never come find me again, or I swear tae God, I'll put you in the ground."

Errol pushed away from the wall, rubbing his fingers around his throat. Glaring balefully at Cassidy's back, he watched the woman turn her bare heel and start to walk away.

"Kid's looking for him," he whispered, words seething between his teeth.

Cassidy stopped in her tracks.

"He got away from the drifters that got him in the botched train job," the boy continued. "And now he's looking for that guy you're with. Says it's all his fault. Red hair, right?" Emboldened by the blonde woman's pause, he took several steps forward, words spilling from him in a breathless rush.

Teeth clenched, jaw hardened, the conwoman closed her eyes.

"I'll tell him." Errol blustered on, all youthful, reckless bravado. "If you don't let me help, I'll tell Kid. And you know Kid will tell Jet, and if Jet finds out, he'll take from you again. Just like he took those carnies, just like how he took my folks. What happened three years ago...it'll happen to you all over agai- "

The sudden gunshot shattered the overall peaceful silence. Underneath the light of Filgaia's two moons, splashes of blood on the street looked black as night.

The fair-haired boy stumbled backwards, slight body sagging heavily into the wall as crimson blossomed from his chest. Trembling hands lifted to close over the wound, while pale eyes widened with shock and disbelief slowly turned up to look at the woman. As icewater filled his limbs and caused his knees to lock together, Errol slowly sank to the ground, squeaking over wooden slats and leaving matching, garish streaks across the surface.

It didn't take him long to realize that he was dying.

"...why...?" Moisture sprang at the corners of his eyes, Cassidy's form blurring into a haze of nondescript colors. "I only wanted to do what you're..."

The blonde thief exhaled slowly, steps taking her to the boy's side. The revolver lifted again to point in an angle between his eyes.

"Would nae expect you tae understand, lad," she said quietly. "If there's an afterlife, you can hate me there. But I'm sending you back tae your mum and da. You can leave Jerry tae me...it'll get done, I promise you."

She lowered the muzzle, and discharged another bullet into his heart instead, unwilling to ruin his face. Within that fathomless gold-flecked stare, time slowed like molasses - she caught every spasmodic jerk of Errol's muscles as the shot impacted his body, how moisture left his eyes and fell like morning dew, her reflection fixed within them, and how more of his life webbed underneath him, crimson threads in a growing pool. It twisted at her insides, pulling like a fist savagely pressed into her belly until muscles were shredded and bones were pulverized to dust.

Noah Hawthorne's revolver dangled from suddenly nerveless fingers. Blood rushed through her veins, carrying none of the exhilaration she often associated with countless adventures in which she did what she had to do. As she stared down at the youth's dead body, her mouth tightened in an unhappy line, burning into her memories the cost of several hours of bliss, the expense of succumbing to a rare moment of honesty.

She waited for the inevitable, silent justifications. He would get found out. And if that happened, they would do to him worse. He was just a kid, he could turn his coat the moment things got difficult. She did everything she could to dissuade him. It was a mercy.

A mercy.

But none of them came. In the midst of the long, intervening silence following the last gunshot, she crouched down, fingers drifting over Errol's open, frozen eyelids to close them.

It did the work to finally remove her reflection from those smoke-gray irises, but the memory of the way she looked within them would always stay.