02-11-2018, 08:38 PM
He sat quietly, pondering what to do about Dimitri's boss. Technically, the job was wrapped up with the hit on the arrogant shitstain's pushers. Pervaya's investor had wanted revenge, of course, but there were limits to what the CDPS would turn a blind eye to, even with the important sort of people like Pervaya's investors waving them away.
So, a few dead pushers, the ones that had sold the bad product to the investor's son. The boss cleans up his act, and everyone's happy.
At the end of the day, White was a professional. And, as boring as it might have been, he'd leave it at that. No point going off the reservation just to deal with some ass-hat drug gang.
So he sipped his beer, tossed a few salty beer nuts down range, his gaze seemingly locked on one of the foggy television screens on the wall.
And, for the most part, seemed to be entirely unaware of the woman, and the boy-toy she was teasing, as the two fussed and danced around each other. Or well, Mik chomped at the bit and she led the carrot ever out of reach.
Another sip of his beer, a slight turn of the head as the Asian woman's lapdog slid from their table and stepped outside. That one was dangerous. No physically, no. But if wasn't far off the mark, she had connections. Probably some not so dissimilar to his employers. Big time movers and shakers.
Well, there was a chance if she had the right connections, something would come up on the ass-hat's little phone call. Something other then John White of Pervaya Iiniya Securities, at least.
The shit-stains at the pool table were probably what she was after. Well, if she was as well connected as he assumed, she'd probably be smart enough to leave him alone. Moscow was a big city, lots of big fish and predators in the pond. Figured he'd chose the one random crap watering hole that had so much going down in one night.
Hell, it would almost be amusing if the stains at the pool-table owned the idiots he'd taken out. Big pond, but small circles sometimes. Eh, probably not.
Another sip of his beer, a glance to scar-face at an isolated table. Flash burns, maybe. White phosphorous could do that to a face, he supposed. So could have a nasty normal fire. Or, fuck, magic, these days. Or some fucking lava-monster.
The two continued to ramble at his table; drinks were being ordered, posturing made. More goading comments meant to try and get a reaction out of him.
So he sipped his beer, fished a few more nuts from the bowl, and turned slightly to settle the gaze of a single eye on Oriena and Mikhail. That one eye was disinterested, bored. Oriena was easy to look at, sure, but the amount of drama she was likely to bring to any encounter wasn't worth the effort.
She had been with Jaxen. And the fool boy had been damned interested in showing off around her, so he could probably bet she was like him. One of those damn Atharim reborn-gods bullshit.
And if she was dragging some lump of meat like Mikhail around, well...fuck, may as well just assume everyone was one these days. Expect the worse, and you couldn't exactly be disappointed.
"Kid. Less words. Makes you look like you lack confidence. Talk too much, sounds like you're buying time to think. And she doesn't want us to fight. She ain't some pretty bauble to fight over."
A ghost of a smile; the situation was almost entertaining. If the whole situation in the bar wasn't so damn tiring.
Scar-face scooped up the Mexican kid from the bar; the idiot had actually tried ordering some of the piss-water White drank a time or two back in the day. In his enlisted days, of course, when the pay was so god-awful shit that malt-liquor and piss-water was about all the barracks could pool together for. And, apparently, scar-face was not terribly fond of Oriena and her little Mik.
"Can't say I agreed with most of their cult-crazy bullshit. But they paid well. Think it got their panties in a bunch I wasn't as interested huntin' people as they were."
He wasn't exactly upset about what happened at the Baccarat. The system he'd overseen the installation of was damnably comprehensive. But it was only as good as the people running it.
And, again, it had proven to him that the Atharim were out of their element in the modern age. Their days were over; there were plenty of other folks that could hunt the things that went bump in the night. They didn't have a head for hunting humans. Fighting humans. And besides, their last check had cleared well before the fire.
His gaze shifted back to the old television, and he sipped his beer. It was god-awful, but there could be an appeal to bad beer sometimes. He paused a moment to study the label,
then flashed a predatory smirk at an inside joke.
The same brand he'd used to gut Dmitri with,
actually. They made bad beer, but didn't cut corners on the quality of glass. "Now. Do you want something, Oriena?"
So, a few dead pushers, the ones that had sold the bad product to the investor's son. The boss cleans up his act, and everyone's happy.
At the end of the day, White was a professional. And, as boring as it might have been, he'd leave it at that. No point going off the reservation just to deal with some ass-hat drug gang.
So he sipped his beer, tossed a few salty beer nuts down range, his gaze seemingly locked on one of the foggy television screens on the wall.
And, for the most part, seemed to be entirely unaware of the woman, and the boy-toy she was teasing, as the two fussed and danced around each other. Or well, Mik chomped at the bit and she led the carrot ever out of reach.
Another sip of his beer, a slight turn of the head as the Asian woman's lapdog slid from their table and stepped outside. That one was dangerous. No physically, no. But if wasn't far off the mark, she had connections. Probably some not so dissimilar to his employers. Big time movers and shakers.
Well, there was a chance if she had the right connections, something would come up on the ass-hat's little phone call. Something other then John White of Pervaya Iiniya Securities, at least.
The shit-stains at the pool table were probably what she was after. Well, if she was as well connected as he assumed, she'd probably be smart enough to leave him alone. Moscow was a big city, lots of big fish and predators in the pond. Figured he'd chose the one random crap watering hole that had so much going down in one night.
Hell, it would almost be amusing if the stains at the pool-table owned the idiots he'd taken out. Big pond, but small circles sometimes. Eh, probably not.
Another sip of his beer, a glance to scar-face at an isolated table. Flash burns, maybe. White phosphorous could do that to a face, he supposed. So could have a nasty normal fire. Or, fuck, magic, these days. Or some fucking lava-monster.
The two continued to ramble at his table; drinks were being ordered, posturing made. More goading comments meant to try and get a reaction out of him.
So he sipped his beer, fished a few more nuts from the bowl, and turned slightly to settle the gaze of a single eye on Oriena and Mikhail. That one eye was disinterested, bored. Oriena was easy to look at, sure, but the amount of drama she was likely to bring to any encounter wasn't worth the effort.
She had been with Jaxen. And the fool boy had been damned interested in showing off around her, so he could probably bet she was like him. One of those damn Atharim reborn-gods bullshit.
And if she was dragging some lump of meat like Mikhail around, well...fuck, may as well just assume everyone was one these days. Expect the worse, and you couldn't exactly be disappointed.
"Kid. Less words. Makes you look like you lack confidence. Talk too much, sounds like you're buying time to think. And she doesn't want us to fight. She ain't some pretty bauble to fight over."
A ghost of a smile; the situation was almost entertaining. If the whole situation in the bar wasn't so damn tiring.
Scar-face scooped up the Mexican kid from the bar; the idiot had actually tried ordering some of the piss-water White drank a time or two back in the day. In his enlisted days, of course, when the pay was so god-awful shit that malt-liquor and piss-water was about all the barracks could pool together for. And, apparently, scar-face was not terribly fond of Oriena and her little Mik.
"Can't say I agreed with most of their cult-crazy bullshit. But they paid well. Think it got their panties in a bunch I wasn't as interested huntin' people as they were."
He wasn't exactly upset about what happened at the Baccarat. The system he'd overseen the installation of was damnably comprehensive. But it was only as good as the people running it.
And, again, it had proven to him that the Atharim were out of their element in the modern age. Their days were over; there were plenty of other folks that could hunt the things that went bump in the night. They didn't have a head for hunting humans. Fighting humans. And besides, their last check had cleared well before the fire.
His gaze shifted back to the old television, and he sipped his beer. It was god-awful, but there could be an appeal to bad beer sometimes. He paused a moment to study the label,
then flashed a predatory smirk at an inside joke.
The same brand he'd used to gut Dmitri with,
actually. They made bad beer, but didn't cut corners on the quality of glass. "Now. Do you want something, Oriena?"