When I found him he was a bum working a dead-end job that he hated more than his overpriced apartment. Booze allowed him to open up and one night in a bar I found he had the gift for violence.
I’m not talking the kind of violence where you bruise someone’s cheek and then complain about your broken hand for a month. I’m talking the kind where you rip the arm off the scumbag and beat him to death with it while complaining about how it’s his fault his blood is on your new Egyptian cotton shirt. Then, when he stops moving, you pee on him to make sure he’s not playing dead. The whole time he was destroying that guy, he never said a word. The look on his face was as if he was watching Barney with a five-year old-- sheer boredom. To me, it felt like I was some gold digger window-shopping at Tiffany’s, I just had to have him. But the trick was how to force a man you just watched pee on his opponent become your everlasting slave and sidekick—- so we gambled. Gambling with drunks was like stealing candy from a one armed baby. Not only was it a baby, it’s also-- well you get the point.
He got used to the idea after the first few months and I was happy because lugging around all those heavy guns was starting to take a toll on my back. To put the icing on the cake Atticus never asks about my past and I didn’t care about his. It worked out perfect-- Oblivion girl plus one. Great, now I could use the carpool.
Late last year we added Kial to our ever-growing posse. The kid had guts and I hated him, so naturally we became good friends. His parents died when he was seven and left him the building where he lives. He uses the downstairs as his office and the upstairs, if you could get through it, is a maze of supercomputers linked up to one another. The crawl space between the machines was small enough just to let Kial or a midget through. Kial’s business was keeping up to date with local bounties. He would find and book us the job and Atticus and I would go do them. Freelance bounty hunters for hire-- and we didn’t even ask for health insurance.
Together the three of us kicked ass and I’m thankful to have both of them-- you’ll just never hear me tell THEM that. Like they deserved the satisfaction.
***
It wasn’t until we received our next mission from Kial that things started to become a little hazardous; or as I called it, ‘fun’.
I was lying on the couch staring up at the ceiling fan, which spun at high speed in Kial’s humid room. Kial had his head down on his desk and Atticus laid on the floor, all of us not moving an inch.
“It’s so hot.” I muttered.
Just saying it made it feel a hundred times worse.
“I feel like I’m on the surface of the sun.” Atticus added even though he still had on his thick trench coat-- an idiot through and through.
“It’s as if the heat evaporated all of the energy out of my body.” Kial mumbled into his desk.
“Doesn’t help that your place is like a tin can, cooking us to death.” I said.
“If you don’t like it, get out.”
“But it’s EVEN hotter outside.”
We all three sighed in unison. I could feel the heat waves pass over me, laughing at us like this was their sick idea of a joke.
Kial’s computer beeped and without moving his head, he clicked a key on his keyboard. His head stayed on the desk as it rolled to the side and allowed him to read the message.
“Looks like we have a new job.” Kial said.
“Isn’t today our day off?” I ask.
Atticus nodded in agreement.
“Ok, I’ll let Lumina know you don’t want the job.” Kial said.
“Lumina?” Atticus asked. “Near the ocean?”
“OCEAN!” I exclaim as I quickly sat up.
“Yeah, near the gulf of Velius.” Kial said.
What perfect timing! I could feel the cold sea breeze float across my skin. For some reason, every time I thought of the beach, I thought of ice cream and snow cones, hotdogs and hamburgers-- I didn’t care what the job was, we were doing it!
I rolled off the couch and onto Atticus. He let out a small whimper as if a cow just crushed him with its fat body—- that’s so like him, calling me fat.
“We’ll take it!” I shout.
“Hold on, we don’t even know what the job is yet.” Atticus pointed out.
I shot him a look like you better not fuck this up for me. He got the message-- he always did. Kial began viciously typing away on his keyboard. His fingers like blurs as they typed a million words a minute. Ok, maybe not a million-- two million.
“Apparently the bounty hunter trio known as Ceto agreed to collect a bounty on a man named Father Atedor who’s lived in Lumina for the past few years. Atedor was using the church to smuggle illegal contraband and weapons out to foreign countries. Ceto didn’t take long before capturing Atedor and will be leaving the Holy City with him the day after tomorrow. Our job will be to intercept Atedor and hand him over to a private investigator.”
“Holy city?” I asked.
“More like THE holy city,” Kial said.
I had to confess-- holy cities are a pain in the butt. They don’t allow open weapons running around their city so you have to smuggle them inside your baggage or pay off the police. Lumina police are too passively moral to check a pile of bras and panties for AK’s and M16’s, especially when I turned my PMS level up to eleven.
“Well, hurry up and buy us some boat tickets, time is wasting!” I said to Kial.
Atticus barely had time to pack before we both were standing on a boat looking out over Lumina, which reminded him of Sicily and me of ice cream-- strawberry ice cream. I wanted it now!
The boat docked and I skipped out. Atticus knew exactly where to find me but soon realized I’d stuck him with our luggage. What? Did he expect ME to carry my luggage? How was I supposed to hold both of my ice cream cones? The job was so simple it’d only take a few hours anyways and that’s if I did it by myself. Since we got there a day early we had all day to relax-- even legends like me needed a vacation once in awhile.
The city was gorgeous. Buildings stacked so close together you could pour your neighbor a cup of coffee from balcony to balcony. Markets with fresh food and homemade jewelry strung about. Fishing boats out in the coves brought fresh seafood to the docks and local restaurants. Yes, Lumina was perfect—- minus the whole hardcore religion thing.
As we crested the top of a hill to the front of our hotel we were hit with a cool breeze. The smell of sea salt and the sound of sea gulls put my body in a calm meditative mood-- the ice cream I just finished had helped too.
I took the room key from Atticus and swung open our hotel room door. I was greeted by a beach house themed living room. Seashell and sand dollar ornaments, driftwood furniture and lush, wide balcony welcomed us inside. Atticus put our bags in the bedrooms while I stepped out on the balcony. The warmth of the sunset mixed with the cool breeze felt perfect. Atticus and I watched the sun disappear behind the water and the stars begin to shine. He then turned to me and asked with a smile, “So, ready for some dinner?”
Later that night it took me awhile to fall asleep and when I did I had another weird dream. My body splashed into the ocean water. I felt that sensation you get from submerging your warm body into icy cold sea water. A shiver shot up my spine as I sunk down my moonlit grave to the bottom of the ocean floor. The air escaped my lungs and I watched as it scurried up to the surface. My feet planted into the soft cool sand and I balanced upright. I looked around with the help of the moonlight that barely illuminated my surroundings. Something glittered in the sand. I bent down and scooped up a handful of sand. Before the dust cleared a bright orange light descended from the surface down towards me. It felt hot as though the sun itself had fallen into the ocean and landed on top of me. I looked down to the item I had scooped up and saw a silver bracelet with something red in the middle. The light got brighter and I shielded my eyes as the light encompassed me.
I woke up to find the sunlight had shot through a gap in my curtains
and landed on my face. I shifted my body out of the light and muttered in a sleepy tone, “Go away sun.”
Soon my body registered that it wasn’t just morning, but morning at a beach city. I shot out of bed and got ready. Even though he hated the sand, Atticus agreed at dinner that we could spend half the day at the beach. Even if he’d declined he knows I would’ve made him go anyways.
After our light continental breakfast we left the hotel and passed by an outside jewelry store on our way to the beach. That’s when my girl instincts kicked in and I got and an overwhelming urge to browse. I don’t usually buy anything but if I found something I liked, I’d take it. And then I spotted it-- a silver bracelet with a strawberry red ruby in the middle, just like the one from my dream. I tell Atticus it practically called my name and asked if we could buy it.
He replied, “And by ‘we’ you mean ‘me’.”
“Well, duh! You’re the one with all the cash.”
That’s because I didn’t bring any in case something like this were to happen. After a bit of convincing, he reluctantly accepted.
I had him put it on my wrist, which he did with a smile.
“Doesn’t look too bad on you,” he said.
The silver bracelet sparkled in the sun as our feet hit the lava temperature sand at the beach. Atticus put up an umbrella and laid down a blanket.
“What do you want to do first?” he asked as he finished laying out the blanket.
Before he could turn around I ran up behind him and knocked him over. He threw his arms about searching for something solid to grab as I dragged him through the sand into the ocean by his ankle. Not only did he hate the sand, that was now riding up his shorts, he was also deathly afraid of what lurked in ocean water. His mouth filled with salt water the further out I dragged him. He began to try to swim away as I held tight to his foot. I laughed so hard tears fell down my cheeks and I could barely continue. The people around us watched in fright as a young skinny girl attempted to playfully drown her older muscular male friend.
Finally I let go of him and he sped off back to the blanket as if a shark were right behind him. He started waving his arms around and yelling from the shore at me as I stayed in the water laughing. To my surprise a wave crashed over me and having of laughed all the air out of my mouth under water, I splashed up to the surface gasping for breath. Even though he was as mad as a wet cat, Atticus couldn’t help but laugh. He blamed the wave on karma and we continued to have a good laugh. I couldn’t remember the last time we had both laughed so hard together.
Chapter Four: King Without A Crown
Ever look at someone and just want to punch them in the face? Mix that face with an obese body and you had Father Atedor. A sad, poor excuse for a human being too afraid of death to care how he stayed alive. He was the kind of guy who’d sell his whole family if it mean saving his own skin for an extra day. I wanted to kill him myself. That was before logic kicked into high gear and I realized no breathing body meant no ice cream money. I’d do it for the ice cream.
The Ceto gang never knew what hit them. With lungs and eyes full of tear gas, we left them on their knees coughing out prayers.
Thing is, Atedor’s no easy escape. I quickly found out that his padded body didn’t improve his ability to hop over walls and dodge behind corners. Even when trying to hide in doorways, his stomach would stick out and give us away. Also, that mouth of his wouldn’t shut up if you paid it to. Thank you, thank you, thank you he blabbered as we ran off with him like we were being chased by the devil himself. As we almost made our escape, that when I saw him, the man I hated most in the world-- Jophie.
If people compared me to spit, Jophie would be holy water. Everybody loved Jophie for one reason; he was the sweetest, kind, most loving human being and it made me want to throw up. It was all just some big elaborate act for him. Behind closed doors, he was a complete dick.
I’ve known Jophie for three years too many. You could always tell it was him cause of his bleached white teeth, tan brown skin and his annoying little jingle bell bracelet that rung every time he took a step. He was like Robin Hood, always saving the ones in need and giving money to the poor. If I had an arch nemesis, without a doubt it’d be this guy. Did I mention he was also a gypsy? Priceless right. He and his traveling loonies seemed to follow us around like a bad cold you couldn’t get rid of. Every time I’m about to rake in a butt load of dough, this goody two shoes has to come in and steal it away from me. He has this ability for showing up at exactly the wrong time-- anytime.
He stepped in front of me and unleashed his blinding white smile-- one day I’ll make a necklace out of those teeth. He put his hand up like a hall monitor and spoke loud enough so that everyone minding their own business could hear ours.
“Not so fast, Essa!”
Don't worry; I’ve already killed the person who told him my real name.
“What do you want Jophie,” I said angrily. “If you can’t tell we’re kind of in the middle of something.”
“I’m afraid I can’t let you pass without handing over Father Atedor.” he replied.
“Like hell I’m going to just give him to you. We stole him far and square!”
“Well then my dear, I guess we’ll have to do the same.”
Jophie may act all nice and refined but he doesn’t hold back, not even for a sexy woman with a gas mask like myself. He came at me like lightning. I was taken a bit off guard. He had practiced since the last time we’d fought. All I could do was block his blows. It’s like he took cocaine before attacking me. I could barely keep up. While I was dancing around with Bruce Lee’s half-wit cousin, Atticus stared down against Jophie’s brother Micah.
Micah, like Atticus, isn’t much of talker. His body is thin and when he grew up with Jophie, kids would tease him for it. Physical dominance had never been a problem with Micah, but like his brother, derangement ran in the family. Micah was ridiculously smart to the point that he could out think and react to his opponent twice as fast as the opponent could move and react to him. I’ve seen this man dodge bullets and counter act what should have been deadly blows. Micah’s skin was like porcelain with one scar on his cheek. The only reason that scar existed was because of Atticus. Because of that scratch, Micah had a constant reminder of the only man skilled enough to be considered a worthy opponent. Worst part was Atticus wouldn’t tell me how he gave Micah the scar-- like telling me was going to bring about some bad karma on him.
Back with Jophie, I was about to go all apocalyptic on his ass but I held back. I didn’t want to show off in front of Father Atedor-- okay, so really I was losing and not by a little.
Jophie hadn’t seen me with my new toys yet and I SO wanted to introduce the two of them. Only one problem, I used the last smoke canister I had on the Ceto’s and all my spare canisters were back at the hotel. That’s what I get for thinking this was going to be quick and easy.
It didn’t matter anyways because Father Atedor spotted the Ceto gang catching up to us and not waiting for the touching reunion, Atedor decides to take off like a chicken with its head cut off and sprinted down the street in his flip-flops towards the harbor. It was like watching Friar Tuck in a foot race. All three groups had the same reaction—- catch the greased pig. We stopped what we’re doing and ran after him. It was like a bad game of hide and go seek as we split off into our groups to hunt down the nervous breakdown of a priest-- and with seven people chasing after him, boy could he run now. It was bad enough that he dodged and weaved in between alleyways and side streets enough to leave our heads spinning but the fact that the streets were filled with shoppers made it close to impossible.
The other groups were good, but I wanted us to be better. Atticus made his way to the rooftops and followed up high as I blasted down the street below. Every few minutes Jophie and Micah would cross paths in front of me covering the nooks and crannies of the side streets. The Ceto gang trailed behind but they
couldn’t keep up for long. We had worn them out hours ago when they combed the streets searching for us. It was just down to Jophie and I and let me tell you, I wasn’t about to lose to a man who stank of jasmine and overconfidence.
Father Atedor led us down to the docks. He snuck upon a boat and hid the best he could in the crowd using the extra time to catch his breath and think about the punishment awaiting him if he was caught by either of us. Atticus spotted Atedor as he moved towards the back of boat. He jumped off the roof and told me the news as Jophie and Micah passed. They overheard and we found ourselves in a foot race towards the boat.
The boat bellowed out a whistle and began taking motion. Atedor’s nerves took over and he started jumping up and down yelling for the boat to move faster. Jophie and I were neck and neck and it was going to be a photo finish. Atticus and I broke into the lead ahead of Jophie and Micah and were about to pass the last group of people in the street until Jophie gained speed and pushed us into the unsuspecting citizens. We fell full speed into them, managing to knock them over like dominoes in a cloud of dust.
Buried under a group of angry shoppers, all I could do was watch as Jophie and his brother hopped onto the boat and snagged Atedor. Gypsy’s stole my meal ticket-- this was far from over.
Atticus and I made our way back to the hotel, gathered up all our crap quickly and left. We had to beat Jophie and Micah to the drop zone. Atedor didn’t know it, but Jophie wasn’t planning on giving him up to the private investigator, Jophie had other plans. He was giving him up to Atedor’s cousin, Albeon.
We didn’t know it at the time, but Albeon was more snake than saint. He kept up the appearance of having quite a bit of money but the sad fact was he was worse off than me. Once he heard that his cousin had a bounty on his head, Albeon’s debt filled pockets started to not seem such a problem. Albeon decided to take action and send out a counter offer for his cousin’s safe return. The instructions said to meet Albeon at noon in the middle of the town near the fountain by whoever decided to collect the smaller reward he was offering. Anyone with half a brain would turn Atedor over for the higher bounty on his head but being the Robin Hood that Jophie is, there was no way that family wasn’t going to take priority over wealth-- what an idiot.