Later that night
There was a Mark on his left collarbone that allowed for assimilation of detail without conscious thought. Recall. It was a burden when he actually committed himself to sifting through memories. A warehouse full of nothing but file cabinets. As he strode at a clipped pace in the direction that would take him to the fighting pits, he slid two fingers into the collar of his shirt and followed the sharp line of his clavicle where it stood out beneath skin. The pressure irritated a knot of crescent shaped bruises hiding on the muscle between neck and shoulder. The memory of teeth marched through what he really wanted.
Arriving at the pits took longer than he'd planned it to, but in the end that might have done him good. He'd left his own unease behind on the journey, gave himself time to settle into a calmer state of mind after he'd spoken with Cait. When he paused at the door, he was merely another man, with a larger than average chip on his shoulder and the desire to dent the bones of other fighters.
He lifted a fist and thudded it against the door.
The heavy metal door swung open on well-oiled hinges, exposing the long, dark throat of the corridor that would eventually spill into the guts of the warehouse, squirming with so many types of worms. It was that dank hallway that muffled the various sounds coming from within, but one thing was clear: the pits were in full-swing tonight.
It was only a brief instant that the surface innards of the warehouse were available for scrutiny as there was a mountain moving into the way, blocking the entrance and swallowing up every available space. Butch, the giant of a bald man, stood in the doorway, looking down at the other man with absolutely no expression on his face. That didn?t mean that he wasn?t intimidating - a man with fists that size warranted at least a second look in even the most typical of circumstances - but that was why he had the job he did. A bouncer was only as good as he looked - keeping trouble from starting was smarter than having to stop it after it had already begun, even if that was more fun.
He remembered the man and the way he had to squick by the last time he was here. He knew, also, that he was far from the tallest man to ever grace existence, but with much of his time spent around shorter individuals, mainly women, having a barrel bodied man greet him at the door warranted the skitter of trepidation that awakened his nerves.
"May I come in?" dry tone for the blank stare.
Blank, slate-gray eyes moved left, then right. There was clearly no one standing with Cris, nor behind or anywhere by him. But still, the man looked, possibly expectant. When his gaze anchored itself back onto the singular person standing before him, his eyes narrowed, briefly. Despite what most would think, a great many gears whirred inside of that thick head. Pieces clicked, ideas formed. With one massive step, the living mountain was out of the way, even though it would have still been a tight squeeze not to touch him once someone braved going through that door.
There was only one other that he would come here with, and he restrained the urge to hurry the inspection along by telling Butch she wasn't with him. He met the narrowing gaze with a slight lift of his chin and when the other man stepped back, Cris marched forward. Left hand on the hilts of his blades kept them tight against his leg when he angled himself through the space Butch thought sufficient enough for passage. "Is Rudy working tonight?" Alex's message was old. Perhaps the barkeep would be here now.
It wasn't often Butch got asked questions other than the simple request to enter the pits. It should have warranted some sort of a reaction - the lift of a brow, the inquisitive twitch of an eye, a smirk - but none of it happened. Instead the bouncer simply stared at Cris and nodded, once. Simple answers from a simple man, even one who could have broken a man's back like a twig.
A nod. Anticipation replaced anxiety. He returned the gesture, and continued down the corridor. "Thank you." He was nothing if not polite.
The colossal roar of the pits and the stench of salty blood and sweat was like an invisible wall when he exited the corridor into the warehouse proper. Shouting, jeering, cheering and groaning were the music. Meaty thuds, body thunks and rattling chain link were the bass beat. He turned away from the rings, his attention on the bar. He hadn't planned to stay long, and getting stopped by a wad of testosterone infused "gentlemen" was not part of that. He did not have time for many fights, and he sought to avoid the attention that his solitary presence would garner on the way.
The crowd was massive, impressive for a weekday when Summer was fast approaching. The docks were swarming with fresh meat, sailors from far-off lands and merchants seeking less than savory places to hide their stock. This warehouse, however, was notoriously not open for use - aside from the trade in which it was currently entertaining, filling the hearts of men with tribal rage.
The bar was active, bustling with hollering men who weren't wholly content with just the lively addiction running through their veins. Alcohol was flowing and smoke billowed above their heads like the carcass of an ethereal beast. Multiple tenders swam behind the counter, but one was characteristically darker than the others. Rudy. Were it not for the demand of the crowd and he had noticed Cris's approach, he likely would have been wise enough to run.
A crowded bar meant that he had to rethink his strategy at least once. Finesse instead of the bullheaded charge that seemed to fuel the rest of these men. But at the same time, a crowd meant that he would more than likely not be noticed until it was too late.
He was a figure in black, but that wasn't all that uncommon. Even the coal grey of his shirt beneath the coat muted him. Marks climbed his throat with bruises left behind by a needy mouth, and his frown was set. He headed behind the bar with purpose, and turned down the narrow hallway that he and Alex had made use of the last time they were unfortunate enough to be here.
And he waited.
Waited until Rudy reached the other end of the bar and had to make a one-eighty. Closer. Each drunken customer a little closer to oblivion. When the man was in reach, Cris jutted one hand out to catch his elbow, the other at the ready to close over Rudy's mouth when he attempted to put him against the wall partway down the hallway.
Things weren't always as organized as they seemed, if they seemed to be organized at all. It was chaos, and not even the clean kind, that fueled this place and kept its thorny heart beating, and while the cages themselves were the main arteries, the liquor that poured from the bar was its blood.
Rudy was caught up in the mindset one needed to work in a place like this: centered, easy-going, acutely aware of what was happening on the other side of the bar and where each patron was. It was the false pretense of safety, that his little world on that side of insanity was clear of monsters, that had Cris?s miniature abduction of the man entirely successful. Surprise played a major role in the fact that he didn?t struggle, blinking stupidly instead of fighting against his oppressor, and even letting out a hefty grunt against the hand that had folded over his mouth.
Dark eyes took a moment to adjust to the faint lighting, to realize just what was going on. Cris?s face, while not entirely distinct amongst the massive throng, demanded recognition as sharply as a slap across the face, drawing the man?s lids wide.
That was easier than he expected it to be but rarely did his expectations play out the way he thought they would. However, the selfish drowning in alcohol at the bar and bestial contests in the rest of the warehouse made it easy for two men to speak in a narrow hallway, in low lighting, in quiet tones.
"I am going to ask you some questions, Rudy, and you will answer them not only to the best of your ability but to the utmost, with the truth. Do you understand? Nod, if you do. Do not scream."
Shit. That was the only thought of dozens that was making any sense as they ran through his head. But what had he really expected? He should have known better and gotten another job. Now he was going to get his face pummeled, or so he believed, and all in thanks to the sin of greed.
His tongue was moving inside of his mouth, pushing his lips against the other man's palm, but he didn't attempt to speak. Nodding, singularly, it appeared that our good friend Rudy was having a brief moment of clarity: he knew he was fucked.
Gaze pinged between the other man's wide eyes, the whites of them standing out harshly against the black of his skin. There was nothing in them but the resignation of a man that realized he had no way out of a situation. It shouldn't have, but it made Cris feel better.
He took away his hand, but he kept his other fist closed around a knot in Rudy's clothing, pressed against his chest just beneath his throat. "You. The last time that Alex and I were in this place, you were the one responsible for the narcotics in her drink, weren't you? You told those other two men where to find us. Yes?"
Yep, he was screwed. Why he had thought that he would have been safe here, in the very place where Alex was notorious for being a hellcat in the rings - not to mention that her friend here had garnered his own form of attention - was beyond him. He had been promised sanctuary, but what did that mean? Cris was here holding him against a wall and demanding answers. Where was that protection now?
Pressing his lips into a thin line, it took only a matter of seconds for him to mentally kick his own ass while cursing out the other men. Then he nodded.
There wasn't a moment when the air around him changed. He did not tense with the tidal wave of rage that he surely did feel. He did not grimace, or snarl, he didn't narrow his eyes. The only thing he did do was bring up his right knee between the man's legs like Rudy's body was a soccer ball he meant to send flying. His free hand closed once more over the other man's mouth to stifle any cries.
How that could of been worse, he really had no idea. With his masculine parts practically jamming up inside of his pelvis, it was a wonder that his scream of pain didn't manage to blow apart Cris's hand with its intensity. Tears burst into the man's eyes and he nearly crumpled to the floor, were it not for the kindness of Cris still holding him up by his collar.
He remained a pillar against the other man's wriggling agony. Holding him up, keeping him steady, even as his lips moved in their frown and there was a curious light burning in his gaze that was not unlike pleasure for the scream he'd cupped in his hand. "You saw, then, what it is that was done to both of those men?"
Another nod, this one muted by the hand clamped over the lower half of his face and the fact that his body was no longer under his control. It writhed and curled into itself to the best of its vastly immobile ability. Even the thought of using his own hands, his own limbs, was a thought no longer coherent to him.
"Keep that picture in your mind then. I didn't come here to ask you about that. That, I already knew." He waited, giving the man a moment not out of mercy but of necessity. For he needed to be able to understand Rudy when he spoke. But he didn't regret yet what he'd done. "But there are some things that I don't. A few nights ago, Alex was here. She fought as she does, and then she left. You see everything that happens in your bar. What did you see that night?" Slip of his hand to free Rudy's mouth, but he took hold of the man's jaw to keep his head upright.
Again, kindness. It was a sick, twisted form of kindness, but it was kindness all the same. Otherwise Rudy's head would have been wobbling around like a flaccid balloon. "It was those guys," very descriptive. "I don't know who they are," he hurried added, trying to flinch. The last thing he wanted right now was another knee to the junk because Cris thought he was holding back. "They were watching her fight and then they went out the back. They talked to some guy first, one that Alex had beaten. He had gotten himself banned from the rings for using magic to try and win against her." He gave a low groan, his torso attempting to buckle. "He followed her out the front."
He'd heard it. "Those guys. You mean to say the pack of clones that attempted to carry out an assault on us the first time around." They must have waited for he and Alex to split up. The details Rudy offered matched up remarkably with the voicemail he'd received. Somehow, once more, he'd expected to be lied to. It was unfortunate, then, that he'd no reason to continue harming the man. "The front, you said. Yes?" Butch. Rudy was an easy target. A man twice his size was not.
There was only so much silence that money could buy from a man like Rudy, especially when he wasn't so sure that it was enough to buy him another set of reproductive organs should Cris decide to destroy them further. Besides, he wasn't one of them. He was just paid to help. "Something about wanting to make Alex go away." He had chosen to believe this meant to just scare her, even though he truly did know better. If he knew Alex - and, despite his betrayal against her, he knew her well - she wouldn't curl her tail between her legs and run. She'd fight, for or against whatever she had to to survive. And if Cris was on her side? Rudy didn't want to think of what Alex might look like cold and dead. "Yeah, yeah. Out the front." A boisterous cheer from the innards of the warehouse. Rudy's dark eyes turned to the side, exposing too much white.
There it was, the tension that he'd kept from his features for the duration of this discussion. The back corners of his jaw rippled under a scratch of dark stubble steadily becoming whiskers, two day's worth approaching three. The outline of his mouth turned white, his fingers in the man's face hardened and he turned Rudy's head to re-align his attention. "You were her friend. She told me that you knew each other very well. She trusted you."
His eyes snapped back to the man who was in control of the situation, and the majority of his bodily movement, and his own mouth began to set into a thin, hard line. "It isn't what puts a roof over your head." He was going to regret this. He knew it. "You really think that trust has a place here?" A glance, brief, to the side, more a motion than an actual look. Sure, he felt bad about turning Alex over to the wolves but... one had to decide how they were going to live in a city like Rhydin, and Rudy had made his choice long ago. Trust was something he could not afford, to give or receive. That, in his mind, was anybody else's folly. Including Alex.
Ice began to suffuse him. That was the second time Rudy had looked aside. Whatever fight had just concluded meant either the combatants from the rings would be surging toward the bar, or he was waiting for someone.
"No. Skill does that. I suppose this was yours."
He took a firm hold of the man's cheekbones, pulled, and shoved the back of Rudy's black head into the wall. Then, without preamble, he turned down the other end of the hallway. It was a predictable movement, surely. If Rudy had planned for there to be an attack, surely this back door would not be unguarded. Cynicism, skepticism---he'd thought that both of these traits were making it impossible for him to make friends. Now, they seemed to be the only things keeping him alive.
"If you were such a good friend," dark eyes back forward, "then how come she's missing?" Cris had been focused on him. Rudy had been hoping someone would notice. Someone had, maybe, and it had given him a glimmer of hope. It fled when the cement wall met the back of his head with a loud crack and, since Cris left him fending for himself, he crumpled to the floor like that much dead weight.
The turmoil surrounding the pits, bleeding toward the bar, left much to go unnoticed within the sea of testosterone and sweat and blood. But two figures down an otherwise empty hallway, one in obvious peril while the other administered it, was something out of the ordinary. It wasn't intriguing or even unique, but certain eyes might have followed the darker-clothed form as he passed down the lonely stretch of hallway, leaving his companion crippled on the floor behind him.
Magic was extraordinary, but sometimes a simple phone call was even better.
He was not going to let Rudy's parting words drill their way into his mind. It was not his fault that this happened, it was Rudy's. Alex's for trusting him, but mainly Rudy's for being an insufferably accurate description of a useless mundane. He could not accompany his friends at all times. He had to trust them, to believe that they were capable of taking care of themselves because the Angel knew that despite how far he'd come in the year since his life had imploded so terribly, he was still a far cry from where he needed to be.
Palm against the door handle and he slipped out the back exit, turning his head to and fro, his ears open in the dark.
Going off of what he saw of Butch this evening, adding it to what he learned from Rudy---the only thing the larger man could tell him was in what direction they were headed. Possibly who this other fighter was that was banned. But that would be a side job for later. He did not have the time to take out his own frustrations on targets that wouldn't help him.
He reached into the inside of his coat and his fingertips brushed against the knot of hair he had stolen from Alex's apartment. He'd moved his stele into roughly the same place to make it easier to find in a tight spot and with his fist closed around the thin strands of Alex's hair, he etched a rune across the bones on the back of his left hand. Flesh split in the wake of the white-blue tip of the stele, leaving black lines behind until the Mark was finished and it sunk into his skin like a stone.
And he waited, his focus tightening on a location that was not his.
(Thank you, Alex Parks!)
