#rektson

Hoyt had spent two hours cooped up in what used to be a merchant’s flyut, sandwiched between a norn that wouldn’t stop biting her nails and a charr that had no concept of bathing. Those two continuous hours had been some of the longest he could recall in his many years of life.

But they paid off.

A throat cleared from behind the counter in front of him, and Hoyt had nearly somersaulted forward when his name was called, prefixed though it was with “mister.” It put a burr in his beard to be called by anything remotely official, but, he wasn’t about to reprimand the chocolate-skinned asura that stared up at him from her seat and ushered him into the door that he had seen so many people go in through but so few people leave. If he did, he might have to go to the back of the line-- worse, he might get booted out.

With heavy step he pushed his way through the old green door, squinting as his eyes adjusted to the bright glow of the great asuran holoprojector that dominated the center of the room beyond. It was detailed in gold and exquisitely carved from black stone that seemed to drink up as much of the glittering green light as it could. But it didn’t drink up enough; Hoyt could still make out the finely dressed, flat features of the room’s only other occupant, a Krytan man with thinning hair and an expensive monocle.

“Please state your name for the record,” the man sniffed, lifting up a violently pink feather and dipping it in red ink.

“Hoyt Retson,” said Hoyt.

“What is your purpose for contacting us?” asked the monocled fellow as he scribbled in Hoyt’s name.

“Posting a bounty,” Hoyt said, sticking a thumb in his belt as his other hand dug into a pocket.

The man scribbled nothing, probably because that was what almost everyone did when they came into the room. “Do you represent a law agency under the authority of a sovereign state?”

Hoyt shook his head. “Nope.”

An ‘X’ was scribbled. “Is your target a ranking member of any military, criminal, scholarly or educational organization?”

“They’re a cutthroat and a murderer that sometimes kills for pay.” Hoyt jutted his bearded chin out as his hand found what it was looking for.

“Yet,” asked the man, raising a finger, “not affiliated with any mercenary company or warband?”

“Not anymore,” said Hoyt.

"Are you looking to hire a specific individual?” asked the Krytan, scribbling away. Hoyt grimaced and shook his head; he couldn’t trust that just one son of a bitch with fancy magic and a knife could do the job, no. He was paying good money, mildly honest money, and he wanted results.

“The bounty’s open to any bastard that can take it,” said Hoyt, pulling a fistful of gems and Elonan jewelry from his pocket, enough to make the man with the quill adjust his monocle and lean forward in obvious interest. “I don’t care who, or how, just that he’s dead.”

“I see... at this point, I would normally ask for the bounty payment plus the handling fee, but I see you can provide both and then some.” The fellow re-inked his quill and continued to write as he spoke. “All guilds, companies and freelancers will be notified, as will any other individuals and organizations we see fit. We will contact you, of course, once the contract is settled... all I need is a name, and, if applicable, a relation to the target on the part of the poster. You know-- to stir up interest.”

“A relation,” sneered Hoyt, thumbing his nose as he walked forward and set the riches down onto the projector, where little metal arms sprung forth and began to snatch it all away, “Oh, he’s a relation alright. The mark’s name is James Retson, my good-for-nothin’ nephew, and I want his fuckin’ head on a spit.”

((Enough is enough and the long-awaited day is at hand. Contact me on discord @313_Revenant#0984 to get in on a bloody, brutal and hopefully satisfying Discord (I can’t do in-game, my shit’s broken) scene in which James Retson is cornered and killed. If nothing happens by next Friday, you will see what becomes of him. I’m dead ass serious this time. If tagged let your boy know if you’re down or not and hit up relevant people that aren’t cunts, you know who.

“My name is Cyrus Bollai.

“I was born in Sterling Heights, Michigan.

“I’m dead, but I ain’t fuckin’ gone.”

Marching down the hall darkened hall he repeated this over and over as he tossed his baseball bat from hand to hand. Shining, wrapped in barbed wire, waiting to be pumped full of energy-- emotion-- and woken up with crackling electricity.

Like many things in the Shadowlands-- the other side-- his baseball bat used to be someone. He can still hear it faintly moan, maybe weep, but his preternaturally keen ears are tuned in on different noises.

Rushing.

Scraping.

Knocking.

In life, this building is a failing automotive plant. In death, it is a bleak, dilapidated labyrinth of soulforged bricks and rippling pools of pure black. Nihils, he’d heard his new friends, his Circle, call them, portals into some wretched place.

I should be with them, he thought, I shouldn’t be in this fuckin’ fuck-pit.

But you aren’t with them, whispered the voice in the back of his head, you’re here, doing your job.

Shut up, shut up, I heard you the first ten fuckin’ times, you cunt, shut UP.

I just want to make sure you know what you’re getting into.

I don’t fuckin’ give a fuck what you want. Now ain’t the goddamn time.

It’s not? murmured the voice as Cyrus rounded a corner, his eyes falling upon a figure at the far end of the crumbling, mold-stained hall. Tall, lean, wearing a stained and ragged jacket and a pair of beat to shit jeans. The man was whistling pleasantly to himself, locking a door that was clearly soulforged, solid to him and, thus, immune to the fancy trick of just ghosting right on through.

Cyrus looked at the man’s feet. There was a nihil. A mix of exasperation and pre-assbeating vigor surged through his... well. He didn’t have veins. Surged through his ectoplasm, a much headier rush than he’d ever known while alive.

“Hey,” he called out, “you oughtta unlock that, I gotta get through.”

The man turned completely to stare at Cyrus, stuffing the relic key in his jacket. A lantern jaw, slicked-back feathery hair, and a pair of piercing, dead green eyes, in the center of which there glinted an evil black light.

More importantly than that, though, was the fact that most of the right side of the nihil-man’s face, save for his eye, was... gone. Like someone had knocked out part of an eggshell, but instead of yolk and eggwhite there was pure blackness and a faint, constant trail of oily black mist that meandered its way down to the nihil at his feet.

He was a spectre. One of those wretched souls that had given in to despair and hate and--

Oh, no, you’re only half-right, chided the voice as the spectre pulled out a  .45, acid-stained and corroded but still cocked and lethal. He is a spectre... but he was always a spectre.

Blunderbuss. Flechette ammo. An explosive charge-- kaboomium, thermite, some reverse-engineered asura tech. Twenty feet of wire.

These were the tools with which Retson turned his spartan, painstakingly clean accommodations into another death-trap. Not to say that he was not already forewarned against forced entry, magical trespass, surprise assault. But if his hunches were true, if the little trembles in the voice and aversions of the gaze in that girl he shot were correct, it would not go without reprisal. He would not go unchallenged.

The thought filled Retson with amusement. Satisfaction. In all his thirty-odd years of mingling with people, wearing the face of the snarling thug, he felt that “satisfaction” and “amusement” were, maybe, the best words for that grim, subtle rush he got when light died in eyes, panic bloomed across faces, hurt and shock flooded the movements and noises of those nearby.

How could he raise his gun against a woman heavy with child?

How could he snap the neck of a boy a day past ten?

How could he throw aside a “friendship” for gold?

It amused him to see just how he could tie together the tripwire and the blunderbuss for maximum effect. Could he cut off a few inches? Maybe tilt the gun a few angles askew? Yes. Tying it this way will ensure no piece of shrapnel is wasted. That any man, woman or thing busting through his door would fall or be hobbled.

“What is your experience in urban warfare?”

“Extensive. I participated in room-clearing operations during Scarlet’s War.”

“And this is not the first time you have joined a conflict on such premises?”

“It’s the third.”

“And we can happen to trust you why?”

“I’m a professional. You’re paying me. It would be bad for my reputation.”

“Ah yes. Your extensive reputation.”

Retson leaned forward, the inhuman eyes set in his skull narrowing slightly. “I provide my own gear. I provide my own amenities. All I ask for is an objective and a paycheck.”

The man across from him tapped his chin and seemed to exude pure indecision, sincere or otherwise. His smug, pondering look faltered when Retson did not break eye contact in the ensuing silence, and with a grunt he reached into his coat.

“We’ll pay you on commission, job by job, and do keep in mind-- your success facilitates -our- success, and our success means more employment for the likes of you.”

Retson caught the slid envelope of gold and silver with his fingertips. “And the restoration of the Ministry’s sovereignty, the overthrow of Jennah’s tyrannical reign.”

Boot met door and the dark farmhouse was suddenly illuminated by the raging fires outside. A pair of screams sounded off from inside; the wife recoiling with her child, the husband charging forward with his grandfather’s sword.

Retson leaned to the side, curling his lip beneath his mask as he viciously punched the man’s outstretched arm aside, sending the sword point into the door. A gagging noise followed as he grabbed the farmer by the throat and, with strength given to him by his gauntlets and his elixir, hoisted him into the air, carrying him halfway across the den before slamming him into the table.

“You’ve been blindly supporting Jennah’s reign,” he said, casting his eyes to the woman and her daughter, both wide-eyed. “Your neighbors see wisdom, why don’t you?”

“We don’t have anything to do with it, we don’t support anyone, please, just let us be!”

“I’m told you’re withholding supplies and manpower. You’re clearly supporting someone.” Retson glanced to the feebly stirring patriarch. “Give what you’ve got to the cause and I’ll be on my way.”

“You’ve already torched the village! We have nothing to give!”

“I’m much more reasonable than the White Mantle proper, believe me. Hand it over.”

The mother’s reply was cut short by a roar of fire from the closet: a streak of magma and flames struck Retson squarely upon his chest, knocking him back into the wall and setting the rug aflame. From the closet stepped a girl of no older than fifteen, with a makeshift scepter clutched in her hand and motes of fire swirling ‘round her hands.

“Clarine, no, no no no, stop, what’re you doing?” cried the mother, in hysterics. Her daughter charged another bolt, fury in her eyes, as Retson shifted to the side from where he sat slumped against the wall.

“Stopping this. It’s not right. They’re monsters, they’re--”

Shots rang out as Retson pulled and emptied his gun in the span of two seconds, blasting bloody holes into the girl’s chest and sending her staggering into the closet, painting the wood red. The mercenary pushed himself upright with an angered grunt, and took in the horrified scream of the mother, the heartbroken cry of the now kneeling father.

A wet crack cut through the noise as he slammed his boot into the man’s head, and another followed as he crushed throat and spine with one spiteful stomp. The mother had drawn a butter-knife, then, far beyond the point of screaming or speech, and half-hid her youngest daughter behind her. Retson drew his other gun, and put a singular, wall-splattering bullet between her eyes. As the child recoiled, he squeezed the trigger again, and the girl fell, redness spreading across her chest.

They came to a stop in the middle of a copse. Wyrm-scent was thick in the air. Rotting meat. Sewage. Chemicals.

Djau padded forward on black-furred paws, tentatively, hackles raised and fangs bared. He, and the other eight werewolves behind him, had come for one reason only: wiping out their corrupted, bastardized cousins. Their sacred place, the Caern, could not and would not fall. The Black Spirals would have to slaughter them all to get to it.

Braying howls and the bone-chilling trill of a whippoorwill's cry shot through the air. Djau’s eyes flicked form one shifting shadow to another, and even as he heard-- smelled- the silver-pelted wolf pad up behind him he began slinking back. They wanted a challenge. They wanted their Alpha. They’d get their Alpha.

The Silver Fang took Djau’s place and with a tremble she shifted, growing and expanding until before them stood a ten-foot tall wolfman, thickly muscled and armed with rending claws and shredding teeth. From nowhere she produced her klaive, a short, shimmering dagger of silver, etched in runes.

From the shadows opposite her strode a man. Tall, fit, his eyes glowing a sickly green in the darkness and just barely illuminating a lantern-jawed face covered in hideous scars. He grinned, madly, spreading his bare arms in a challenge.

The Fang rushed forward, howling in rage, but her cry was cut short by a thunderous snap and she fell to hands and knees, for from nowhere, the man had produced a shotgun with a stock of bone, caked in dried viscera, etched with obscene mockeries of the werewolves’ own glyphs. He racked the weapon and took aim at the mortally wounded werewolf before him, with home-made shells of toxic waste and silver, and it was then that the copse exploded with howling and roaring and the sounds of battle as both packs, Garou and Black Spiral, rushed at each other. But the man with the shotgun, he did not yet shift; he just took aim at Djau as the man shifted into the shape of the dire wolf and leapt over his alpha.

“My name is Retson Eighty-Eight, Ragabash of the Wyrm,” barked the man as he blasted Djau aside, tearing apart his right bicep and sending him hard into the dirt. In the span of heartbeats Djau watched as this Retson shifted, his gun vanished, replaced with jagged black claws and oversized, poisoned fangs.