12 Vhalar 722
Day
Tristane's foot bounced on the floor while his right hand scrubbed at his tense brow. The coffee cup he held was half empty but tightly in his other hand. The room had odd lighting, but the shadows weren't responsible for the deep hollows under his sinking eyes.
"You're...leaving?" The Dorrick patriarch asked in a growl.
"Not quite leaving, per say," the stranger sitting across from him answered with a shrug. He sipped his own coffee and his bright skin shined in the sunlight from the nearby window. "Regrouping. Re-strategizing."
"Retreating..."
"A tactical retreat then."
"You're pulling out."
"Chrien's cunt, Tristane, what would you expect us to do?"
The two men sat in pregnant silence while the Dorrick man pondered the question he knew was rhetorical. He sighed, sipping his coffee and fighting the urge to rise from his chair like the lion he was. The stranger sat comfortably across from him, brow raised but not another muscle in his frame tight.
"The mine is gone," the stranger pointed out with a sigh. "Your business partner is hanged. You're broke. Your siblings are dead. Some of your most trusted soldiers are dead or gone. The streets smell weakness and your position has faltered in this city."
"I'm very aware of my losses," Tristane snarled his response. His fingers dug into the clay in his hand with such fervor it was a wonder the mug didn't shatter. "No need to recount them. And what of yours?"
"Careful now..."
"Are we to lie to one another that they're not a factor, too?"
"You couldn't keep your own house in order. Either you're a mere curse or our deficits are connected. Did it not occur to you that I consider my losses a symptom of your failures? All of our business we've tied to you have been cast into the light or destroyed entirely. Reno, murdered in his own home just when we had the means to secure your position. Our chosen man in Etzos, slain. The arrangement between us had become more and more unprofitable."
"You're casting me aside altogether then?"
"No," the stranger waggled a finger with a smirk. "Not yet. The threat of pulling our support does remain though."
"What would you have me do?"
The stranger chuckled and rose from his seat. He finished the last sip of his coffee and placed the cup in Tristane's opened palm. Then he sauntered toward the door with a whistle and scooped his coat off the hanger near the exit. One arm at a time the shadow shrugged the outer layer on and put his hand on the knob. He parted with a final word of advice before leaving the grieving Dorrick in the dark.
"Clean out your fucking house, Tristane."
---------------------------------------------
Maxine could taste the feeling of fate again. The serendipitous meeting she'd overheard at Reno's had combined with her drug-addled brain, stirring a dangerous consort of muddled memories and present threats into one contemporary curiosity. She reeked of Ambrosia as she stomped through the streets. Her bloodshot eyes were wide open but her mind was far from what was directly in front of her.
She was present and yet she was not. Her entire focus was devoted to the current task and yet drowning in Vhalar 720. Parallels were blurring her timeline. Once upon a time when she was a trusted ally, she'd been tasked with exposing conspiracies and hunting a figure targeting a ruling council. The anxieties of potential losses suffered in a coming war conversed with a dark addiction and calamity had transpired in the place of courage. A second chance had presented itself. At least, that's what she was mistaking all of this for.
The Rusalka had hidden in the shadows for a long time. She had been a patient hunter, an expert manipulator. Finances were ruined. Mines were collapsed, and caravans offering monetary reprieve were bloodily interrupted. An empire had fallen and its ruling heads severed one-by-one. Only the prevailing snake's head remained. Tristane had taken to the wind in his grief and ruin. He would not re-emerge from the safety of his cohort so easily.
"Max?" Sabrina's surprised voice echoed through the whore house. "You're back."
"You still want to help?" Max asked the dancer, eyes wild in a way that the woman looked at her with curiosity. "In a real way?"
"You know I do." Sabrina's eyes turned steely. Although the Rusalka had done the gory job at the Lodge, there was pain and suffering Sabrina suffered at the hands of the Dorricks that she would not soon forgot. Nor would it go unpunished. "What did you have in mind?"
"Not here."
Without another word the dancer led her back into the hallway where the whores had their private rooms. A key turn and Sabrina's large bedroom was unlocked. The pair slipped inside and the door was swiftly closed behind them.
"Speak," Sabrina demanded, eagerly.
"You're still connected well with the soldier boys?"
"Very much so. Uniforms are regulars here."
"I need you to talk to Tristane's old outfit. Get them in here."
"When?"
"Tonight."
"You're sure?"
"Yes. There's more to this, Brina. More than you know."
"I heard about Benjamin and Quinnley...Jimmy, too."
"Who?"
"Max, I thought this was about taking down Tristane. Destroying the Dorricks. What do you need Tristane for?"
"The people who set him up are outsiders. They're not Etzori. They're targeting the council. I need more."
Sabrina sat on the end of her bed and pursed her lips. She folded her arms. Maxine remained standing in the middle of that bedroom and threw up her hands, dilated red eyes staring at the woman. Sabrina twisted a strand of hand near her ear in thought. Her lips fell.
"You know he won't just out his contacts in normal conversation here," the dancer observed.
Maxine stared at her silently in response. That was all the woman needed. Sabrina guffawed and shook her head. She shot up from the bed, laughing but there was no mirth in her voice. The Rusalka darted to her side and caught her hand before the dancer could find the door. Sabrina paused and looked at Maxine's hand in hers before finding the exhausted woman's face.
"How could you ask me to do that?" Sabrina asked quietly. "You know I don't do that anymore."
"I know that!" Max reassured. "I'm...I'm not asking you to do that. I'm not."
"Don't lie to me."
"I'm not! I'm not! I just--"
"Max..."
"It'll never get that far. I just need you to do what you do. Woo him, whatever. Just get him here and alone."
"Not sleep with him, right?"
"No, not sleep with him. I told you, I won't let it get that far. I just need you to get him talking. Then I'll finish this."
"You promise?"
"I promise."
"How will it work?"
"I'll slip out of the lounge and hide in..." Maxine's eyes darted about. Her arm raised lazily to gesture toward the door in the corner of the room. "...the closet. I'll hide there, listen, and when we have what we need I'll come out and it'll all be over."
"You make it sound like it's so easy."
"Isn't it? You've done this a hundred times. Get him to drool like everyone else. A man like him isn't going to waste his time with anyone but the best while he's here, and that's you. Make him forget, and then make him remember."
Sabrina sighed and bit her lip. Arms folded she stared at Maxine, finding her bloodshot, dilated eyes fixated firmly back on her. There was a restlessness in the Rusalka's entire body. She seemed to tremble from her core with an energy that Sabrina couldn't understand, and yet understood far too well. For all the uncertainty she felt, Sabrina knew Max had made good on her word so far. The Dorricks had fallen apart in subtle and yet overtly bloody means. Wasn't this what she wanted, too? To punish Tristane for what his organization had done to her? Didn't she want to be a hand in this justice?
"Fine," the dancer sighed and threw up her hands in resignation. "I'll do it, so long as you keep your promise. What do you give a shit about the Etzori Council anyways?"
"That's my business," Maxine snapped in a way that took them both aback. The Rusalka took a deep breath. "I shirked a responsibility long ago. Fate sent it back to me. There's something I was supposed to do then that I can do now." She moved from the dancer to the door. "That's all I'll say on it. Make the arrangements, Brina. We'll get the bastard."
