Gareth had learned there was no better form of persuasion than pain. Whoever it was that had splattered half his pack all over the woods and burned their hiding place to the ground was going to pay. He'd found two pairs of footprints in the woods, along with a set of tire tracks.

He must have pissed someone off by killing the bitch, probably whoever had been helping her. No matter. It was only a matter of time before he had both their heads. First, he'd start with her ex-employees, and if they failed to give him the information he wanted, he'd starting working his way through the list of family and friends who'd attended her memorial.

Time was of no consequence. Death was inevitable. He would have his retribution, even if it killed him.

Just as Gareth had predicted, all it had taken was the proper amount of persuasion applied in the proper amount of force to the proper person, and he'd had his information.

In his experience, he'd learned that the bigger they are, the harder they usually fall, and that had once again proved itself to be true. In the end, it had only taken the removal of a few fingers, an ear, and a pointed threat about the removal of his manhood, and the man was blubbering like a baby. Unfortunately for him, the information did nothing to extend his life span, but he did die with his manhood intact.

VanHasselt was the name the bouncer had blubbered as he'd begged Gareth for mercy, and the man had been just nosy enough to know where the guy lived and that he'd been hired by his employer to help track the pack, but that he and the bitch had become lovers.

How sweet, Gareth sneered. He'd also learned of a daughter -- a young woman named Kayla, who was not an abomination, but Bastet, like her mother, and who was conveniently staying at VanHasselt's apartment. It was almost too easy.

He wondered how long it would be before the daughter was sleeping with her dead mother's lover, if she wasn't already. No matter. He was tempted to kill the girl outright, but she was of no use to him dead, and if this VanHasselt character valued her life at all, she might just come in handy.

Not that her life mattered to him. Before everything was said and done, he'd make sure she'd join her mother in hell, along with her mother's lover and anyone else who got in his way. And then, one by one, he'd finish off the bitch's brood of half-breed brats, and that would be the end of that.

"What would you do if someone had blown your house to bits and killed your lackeys, Varian?"
"It's why I work alone, Lydia." He said as he cleaned one of the pistols and put it on the table as he reached for another.
"You aren't working alone now, I am here." She said with just a hint of bitterness, "I should not have gotten you involved."
Varian only shook his head, and placed the other pistol down after stripping it to it's basic pieces. "You say that every time we talk. I am involved, and we can't change the past. You asked what I would do, you've told me this Gareth isn't an idiot, so if he's thinking like I would, he would start with people at the memorial, or people close to you at the club. I would have gone through files during the break in for that."

Lydia paled thinking of things that could be happening to friends or even her employees. She thought quickly about who may know where she was and only one name came to mind. Jackson.
Jackson was her bouncer, usually one that she thought she could trust while she had meetings in her office, but only at her meeting with Varian did she find out that he was just there for his own enjoyment of listening to her meetings through the door. The meetings were usually after closing so there were no basslines, no hard beats, just two voices seperated by a door. He learned all sorts of things, even things he shouldn't or didn't want to know.
"C'mon, you drive." She told him as she threw his jacket to him, and headed for the garage.

It was a short drive after she told him the address. Varian knew the port like the back of his hand, and other than a few changed landmarks, it was coming back to him like a winding, twisting old friend. He parked in front of the building, looking at the retro designed and refitted walls. It was made to look like buildings in big cities like New York, or San Fran, and he knew that it took money to live here.
"You must pay well." He said as they got out of the car, and walked toward the back of the building.
"I take care of my guys." She said with a sweet smile, and shook her head as she looked at the building. "But I don't think I pay for this..."

They walked up the stairs, leaving the elevator alone, to the top floor. Carefully they checked the hall before moving toward the apartment where Jackson lived. Varian leaned back at the door, readying to kick it from it's hinges, when Lydia motioned for him to stop, and pulled a pick from her pocket and went to work on the lock.
"Quiet had it's advantages, V..." She said as she motioned for him to open the door.
He muttered something under his breath and opened the door slowly, only to find they were too late. There were belongings scattered all over the floor. Blood sprays from punches to the jaw and face, and then a pooling of blood from a sliced leg artery.
"The bastard works like I do, he let the man watch himself bleed out." Varian said as he pointed to the body of the bouncer bound to a wooden chair, slumped in death.
Lydia shook her head, and wondered to herself how many more would die from her fight, and walked from the apartment quickly, heading back to the car.
"Nice talking to ya." He said to the corpse before he too was going for the car.
The drive back was quiet except for Varian telling her they had to be sharp now. There was a chance that the man had given a name, or a description, and that meant that time would be short. The lines were becoming clearer, it wasn't Lydia the man searched for, it was the help that she'd recieved. He wanted to end this, and end it now. Varian was ready for anything, he thought.
"Wait here, Lydia. I'm going in for a few things, and I'll be right back out." She was about to protest but instead watched him as he moved across the street toward the building, then she found herself raising a hand to instinctively shield her face from flying debris as the apartment building they'd been living in erupted with an earth shaking explosion, sending Varian back into the side of the car, and fire high into the skies.


cont...

(Re-posted for The Assassin.)

Earlier that day.

"Grab that bitch and lets get moving. Smiley is almost done with the charges." The man said as he stood over the unconcious form of Lydia's daughter.
"She cut me, man!" The other protested as he held a six inch long gash on the side of his face.
"Tell me something I don't know, Idiot." He spat as he reached down and easily hefted the young woman over his shoulder. "Gareth wants her alive for some dumbass reason."
The two walked back through the apartment, looking at different things, and talking about the shame of leveling a place so nice.
"Hey Smiley, you about done?"
Smiley never acknowledged them as he placed the last bit of plastique and slid the detonator into place. "This is the last one, and this is going to be one hell of a show. base charges at the bottom of the support beams set to go off two seconds after the charges on the second floor. If anyone is in here, the place goes up, and comes down." Smiley was proud of his work, and he was good at what he did. The downside with this job was the fact that Gareth warned them all not to stay long, saying the man that lived there was dangerous and if they were seen, they'd be dead.

They were all on their way out the door when a painting caught the bleeding man's eye. He knew art, and this was no exception. "This, is mine. I'm not letting it go up in a fireball." He said as he reached up and carefully removed it from the wall as to not get blood on the canvas or frame.
"Nice move, moron. If the guy lives through this shit, he knows who to kill first." Kayla stirred a bit as the man spoke and he spun around hard enough to knock her out on the steel door frame as they walked on toward the waiting cargo van. The three men wondered if they'd succeed where many others had failed.

(Re-posted for The Assassin.)