Ring, ring, ring.The phone rang, and rang, and rang. It rang so long that it was probably going to go to voicemail-
”The fuck do you want?” Vin’s grumpy voice came through the phone at the last moment. It was followed by a distinctive
squelch, and a thud. Distant screams cut through their words as they kept talking.
”I’m in the middle of somethin’- I ain’t got time for your bullshit.” More than just grumpy, they sounded pissed. They
were pissed. Dealing with Paloma again was low down on the list of things Vin wanted to do today. Yet, they’d still picked up the phone…
”So spit it out.”CRACK. It sounded like a bone was snapped in half on the other end of the line.
“Oh, I am sorry to bother you. No BS whatsoever, I swear on my life,” said Paloma.
Judging by the snapping and gooey noises, the
somethin’ Vin was in the middle of was prepping a late lunch or an early dinner. Paloma would’ve assumed the screams were their neighbors but she didn’t hear anything. Obviously a movie then, probably a scary one. Was Vin a horror fan? Another question to add to the growing list that she had compiled while the phone rang and rang. Frankly, Paloma was surprised that Vin even answered. Happily surprised. It meant the apparent annoyance from earlier was just a playful act, an in-joke amongst friends.
“I don’t want to waste your time, so I’ll get to the point. It’s just, y’know…”Paloma clicked her tongue as she flopped back down on her bed, almost burying herself under an avalanche of pillows. She had been so certain that Vin wouldn’t answer that she had spent all of her brain power on thinking of how to play things off when it rang through to their voicemail, coming up with a brilliant strategy of just rubbing her phone on her sheets until the message ended and playing it off as a butt-dial. However, now that she was on the line, Paloma didn’t know how to gracefully satiate her curiosity surrounding the true life circumstances of a true criminal.
So why you poor tho? probably wouldn’t land. She swatted a pillow away from her mouth and decided to delay. Surely, the play would come to her like a bolt of lightning.
“Did you like the cupcakes?” asked Paloma.
“Betcha can’t guess the secret ingredient!”There was silence on the other end. It was broken by another snap, followed by a growl.
”You fucking with me? The cupcakes? Why the fuck- Oh, you piece of shit, this one’s fresh.”Paloma gave an mhm. The strawberries on top of the cupcake were fresh. It was an absolutely devilishly delectable play, but it wasn't the secret ingredient.
There was a wet squishing sound, like eyeballs being dug out of a skull - or someone really going ham on a piece of chicken. Vin’s voice was slightly muffled as they held the phone away from their mouth.
”Don’t even think of running- I can do this all day.”The screaming in the background seemed to have subsided, though if Paloma strained she’d be able to hear whimpered sobs. Tears that Paloma assumed was from how much Vin was enjoying the treat, having now finally sampled them surely.
“See, I’m in the middle of shit- and you’re phoning about fucking cupcakes?” Vin came back to the call with renewed aggression.
“Let me guess, the secret ingredient is love or some shit? Lose me with that crap… You actually got somethin’ important to ask? If not, I’m hangin’ up.”“Don’t hang up. I wouldn’t call you if it wasn’t important!” said Paloma in one breath that squeaked out like air from a balloon. She figured Vin wouldn’t be able to detect how dishonest that statement was if she sped past it. Paloma rolled over onto her back and hung her head off of her bed, staring at the shelf of neatly organized tabletop miniatures of rotting zombies and disfigured ghouls.
“Anyway, the secret ingredient isn’t love,” said Paloma. Obviously, her baked goods were made with love, hence the strawberry hearts.
“It’s almond flour, so you might want to grab an EpiPen if you have a nut allergy. But it is lower in carbs, so if your throat starts swelling shut at the very least you’d still look good.”“Hello? Vin?” said Paloma, a hint of nervousness in her voice when there wasn’t an immediate response outside the hushed whimper that could’ve been the sound of someone struggling for air.
“Oh no, I knew I should’ve mentioned it in the note. I can’t believe this is happening again.”The silence continued, punctuated by quiet whimpers and the sound of tearing flesh. Maybe they were ripping at their throat as they died from an allergic reaction only caused when it was pointed out? There was a wet splat… the cupcakes thrown at a wall in dying frustration?
”Is that it?” Vin, very much alive, growled after a long enough silence for it to seem like they'd fallen into anaphylaxis.
”I’m hangin' up.”But there was a pause. Like they were giving Paloma one final chance to say something actually interesting.
“Nonono, nono, no, no-uh!” shouted Paloma as she sat up.
“I actually do have something important to ask. It’s, like, super important. Change our future important. Capital ‘I’ important,” she said, pausing to let anticipation build as a little smirk appeared on her face.
“So…wanna guess?”The hollow, tinny sound of a scream came through the phone, which Paloma could only assume was Vin venting frustration before hanging the phone up. Paloma acted swiftly, stammering out a quick little,
“JOKING! Joking. That was a joke. For real, I just have a few questions and then I’ll leave you be. So anyway, I was thinking about what you’d offered earlier, y’know, with the career change. Let’s hypothetically pretend that I was interested. So, how much would I roughly make? Is there like a flat hourly rate or do you get paid by the gig?”God, she'd really taken that seriously? Vin grimaced as they crushed another zombie face underneath their fingers, stepping closer to the pathetic necromancer cowering against the far wall. They wanted to hang up right there, or tell her it wasn't fucking serious… but they couldn't do that. They couldn't tarnish Gideon's good name like that. Instead, they had a chance to improve it further.
”Depends… There's different jobs y'know. Some people are like… hired men? Hitmen or whatever. Paid by the gig, not really part of the Hollow. If you're part of it properly, it's hourly. Gideon ain't cheapin' out- he treats his people well. The amount’a cash depends on rank and shit. A newbie ain't earnin' as much as someone like me. But if you’re loyal? Gideon pays South Siders better than anyone. Otherwise, you ain't gonna get this kinda pay without sellin' your body.” Vin explained, surprisingly reasonable about it.
”I ain't got numbers, but I know the costs of our places. It'd cover that and more, s’long as you ain't a gambler or shoppin’ addict.”Paloma felt a bit targeted as she side-eyed the multiple bags on her shelf chock-full of dice.
“No addictions here,” she said, lying mostly to herself.
She wasn’t really considering working for Gideon anyway. Paloma was just curious how much someone working for a crime lord (alleged, alleged) could make because she also knew the cost of their places and it wasn’t much, hence why she lived there. But why would Vin live there? There were nicer places in South Side. Did Vin have a gambling problem? Were they a shopaholic? Or perhaps they were addicted to something a bit more physical. After all, Vin apparently had knowledge regarding how much a sex worker made. Paloma covered her mouth as her jaw dropped. How scandalous! She laid back down on her bed, propping her head up with a hand as her feet kicked in the air. Sadly, there was no way she’d be able to dig at that comment without Vin hanging up, surely.
“But after rent and bills and groceries I’m pretty close to flat broke. Currently, my retirement plan is to hope the next dragon attack isn’t thwarted,” said Paloma with a half-hearted laugh.
“It’s even more strange that we’re neighbors, though, considering how much you must be raking in. If I could afford to move out I would do so in a heartbeat. Hey, I know it’s considered uncouth to talk money, but that’s only because our corporate overlords are afraid of what would happen if we all started wage sharing. I’m sure Gideon would agree with me. So…” Paloma coiled her hair around a finger as she moved in for the good stuff.
“How much more are we talking? Hundreds? Thousands?” She gave a faux gasp.
“Millions?””Oh yeah, I'm a millionaire livin' the lowlife cause I enjoy it,” Vin snorted, sarcasm dripping from their words. If Gideon paid in the millions, they'd live in an actual house… They'd have full savings accounts for Luciana
and Loni. But it wasn't that much.
”A couple thousand or so, dependin' on the bills. Y’know how it is- forget to turn off the lights and they wanna arm and leg.”Vin wasn't the brightest, but they could sense the next question. It was already implied in what Paloma said… why did they still live where they did? Well, all these numbers were based on
one person. Back when it had just been them… when they hadn't moved because they wanted Loni to have a place to come home to. Even after they'd paid back the large amounts of medical debt their mothers illness had left… But now? They'd rather save the money for Luciana. Especially when Loni didn't even seem to know what a savings account was.
”Before you start pryin’- I gotta family of three to look after. I ain't sittin' around with thousands spare. Y’know how expensive a kid is?” To punctuate their question, there was a much louder scream in the background. The necromancer was running out of bodies to throw at them…
”It ain't cheap.”Paloma grimaced and pulled the phone away from her ear, certain that the ear piercing scream must’ve been Vin’s kid.
“Oh I bet. That’s why I don’t have one,” said Paloma.
Despite her earlier mindset of
fuck those kids, Paloma actually liked children. There was even something appealing about having a Palo-mini, but the idea of actually having a child was a far-fetched fantasy. It felt irresponsible to bring someone into the world when she was barely about to scrape by herself. Perhaps if she could meet the right guy or suddenly inherit a shit ton of money from a deceased relative she had never met then maybe Paloma would consider having a child before ultimately deciding that, nope, the whole world was still too messed up and she was just too caring of a person to put her own blood through that kind of crap. She wasn’t judging Vin for having a kid, but she would just never be so cruel.
Maybe Paloma was judging Vin just a little. But who cares? It didn’t matter as long as Vin didn’t find out. Judging others was always fun.
“Sounds like a handful, too. What’s their name? How old are they?” asked Paloma. She was genuinely interested for two reasons. The first was that parents loved talking about their kids, but how they talked about their kids revealed a lot about the parent. The second was that she saw a way she could leech off some of that sweet, sweet Gideon money without having to blend up bodies and dissolve their bones in acid.
”Luciana. She’s two.” Vin’s response was very blunt. They loved their niece… But all the more reason to withhold information about her. Who knew what people could do with it? Maybe Paloma would try to blackmail them using Luciana. Vin wouldn’t even be able to kill her for that, because of her stupid fucking ghost. No way would they allow that.
Especially when Paloma was making assumptions about Luciana being a handful. She absolutely wasn’t. She was a ray of sunshine in Vin’s life. The thought of her adorable face lit up with joy made it easy for them to tear apart the remaining zombies. Their foot slammed into the Necromancer’s shoulder, breaking the bone with a loud snap and scream. It pinned her to the wall so she couldn’t run while Vin finished the call.
”Why you askin’? You ain’t one of those weirdo creeps, are ya? Why else would you wanna know so much about a lil girl?”“Oh, gosh, you got me,” teased Paloma. Well, at the very least Vin was overprotective of their kid, even if they did ignore the brat while she screamed her head off. Funny, with how thin their walls were Paloma figured she might’ve heard it coming through the hall.
“I’m actually a black market organ harvester looking for my next mark. You wouldn’t believe the demand for toddler lungs these days!”“C’mon Vin, seriously?” said Paloma, dropping the bit.
“I only even asked because I used to babysit. Figured with us being neighbors it could be convenient for you if you ever wanted to have a night out with Luciana’s pops. Plus, I’ve got a fair rate.”The background whimpers, and intermittent ‘pleases’, were overpowered by a loud, almost maniacal, laugh. Vin threw their head back as they laughed, only terrifying the poor necromancer they had pinned to the wall more. Just the assumption of
them being the parent was too much. Like they gave off fucking motherly vibes…
”That’s funny- She ain’t mine, she’s my sister’s. Her ‘pops’ is swimmin’ with the fishes…” They dropped that piece of information ominously, not particularly bothered how Paloma took it. After all, the police were unlikely to believe someone without a fat stack of cash to sweeten the report.
As for the babysitting… It wasn’t an issue most of the time. Loni took Luciana to work, which was basically full of free babysitters. But there
were times when Vin was saddled with the over energetic toddler because Loni wanted to go off with her latest boyfriend. While they loved their niece, it was
very limiting with work. They couldn’t exactly take her along to gang meetings.
”I s’pose some occcasional babysittin’ would be useful. It ain’t needed much- all’a the people at the club my sister works at love watchin’ Luciana- but sometimes I got her ‘n get called for a job. You watchin’ her seem a lil safer than takin’ her to a crime scene.” The crime scene they were in the middle of was at a bit of a standstill. The whimpers were more muffled, as Vin shifted their knee to press it into the necromancer’s face to get them to shut up for just a moment.
”How are ya with that kinda shit?” “Oh, yeah, all that crap sounds a-okay to me. Let me know if you ever need a hand. I used to babysit a ton and there was only one or two times that it ever turned into a crime scene,” said Paloma with a little chuckle before adding,
“Just kidding.”Vin just helping out with their sister’s kid after her dad had died was frankly more surprising than Vin having their own kid. Paloma had a sneaking suspicion that she was correct after all about Vin’s tough exterior just being a front. Although, “swimming with the fishes” was a curiously specific way to refer to somebody passing. For all she knew, it could’ve been a weird Vin-ism that actually meant that Daddy Luciana was a deadbeat who lived down in Florida and worked at SeaWorld. Paloma teeth pinned her tongue to prevent herself from immediately blurting out if Luciana’s dad had drowned.
“But seriously, if you ever had something come up I’d be more than happy to help out with little Luciana. I typically work the graveyard shift, but other than that I’m pretty much always free,” said Paloma cheerfully, her tone taking a sharp turn towards horrified as she continued,
“Oh god, when I say it like that it sounds kind of sad. What I’m trying to say is that I’m usually home. No, wait, that sounds like I don’t have any friends.”“I have friends,” said Paloma so firmly and definitely that there had to be an asterisk after the statement leading to a footnote.
“It’s just that ever since that stupid dragon–”–her friends were either dead or acted differently around her thanks to be influenced by the Samaritan–
“–I’ve been so broke thanks to medical bills that I can’t really afford to go out.”“Bleh, enough about that,” said Paloma.
“It’s really sweet that you’re helping your sister out, Vin. And here I was worried that I was living down the hall from some heartless killer! Hah!””You are.” Vin's voice was completely flat. Almost dead. There was a loud crack as they snapped the Necromancer's shoulder bone, followed by a muffled scream.
Quite frankly, they didn't care if Paloma had friends or not. They weren't exactly the friendliest person in the world… and they could see why no one would want to hang around Paloma. She was incredibly annoying.
And they didn't really see how being a killer and helping their sister were mutually exclusive. Sure, it wouldn't make them heartless. But they sure were when it came to pretty much everyone else. They loved Loni more than anyone else… and Luciana as an extension of that. There'd be no motivation to kill so brutally without them to provide for.
”If you ain't my sister, I don't give a fuck ‘bout you,” Vin continued, though they didn't know why they bothered. Clearly Paloma was too stupid to see what was right in front of her face. But… Vin's lips pulled up into a wicked smile, making the woman they had to the wall tremble in fear.
”But a babysitter'd be real handy. I'll let my sister know… Y’know what, you could gimme a hand right now. Y'said you work in the hospital cleanin', right? You must be really good at cleanin' up all sortsa body fluids.”“Um, what?” Paloma blushed, caught completely off-guard by what she assumed was some kind of serious innuendo before shaking the intrusive thought out of her head. She laughed in embarrassment. Clearly it wasn’t that. Luciana probably just had an accident.
“I don’t think I would ever phrase it that way, but sure, I’m a pro. Always happy to help,” said Paloma with a bit too much eagerness.
“I’ll just need a few minutes to get ready and then I’ll be right on over. Do you have any–know what, forget it. I’ll just bring my bucket.””I ain't at home… so bring'a bucket and whatever other shit you need. No rush, I gotta sort some shit out first.” It was a nice way to put that they had to question and kill this necromancer first - presumably Paloma wouldn't want to witness that bit.
”I’ll text where I am.”Then they hung up without any niceties. A moment later a text came through with the rough directions to a warehouse down by the river. Instinctually, having grown up in the bad part of town for all of her life, Paloma knew right away that it was an absolutely stupid idea to meet up with someone she barely knew in a seemingly remote location all by her lonesome. Fortunately, she told herself as she dolled herself up in the mirror, she wasn’t completely alone these days. The Samaritan was always with her, even if it was kind of rubbish company and absolutely horrible at holding a conversation. If she wanted to be guilt tripped all the time she would’ve just called her mom.
Fueled by the desire to lasso Vin into her social circle (although perhaps Vin would see it more as attempting to tie a noose around their neck) as well as genuine curiosity, Paloma threw away every bit of street smarts she’d acquired over the years and went to the warehouse. It wasn’t close to her apartment by any means, but it was close enough that by the time she was beginning to reconsider her choices she was already outside of the abandoned warehouse. Her arms itched beneath her nitrile gloves as she saw the partially dissolved frame of the ruins that surrounded the ramshackle warehouse. A flimsy sheet of wood was posted up to replace a missing bay door, slide to the side just enough to act as a kind of entrance.
Paloma stepped forth, carrying the promised bucket of cleaning supplies behind her, as she poked her head into the warehouse and started to call out,
“Vin? Are you–oh god…”The cleaning bucket dropped to the ground with a clatter as Paloma covered her mouth as she gagged at the smell of rot, whipping her head away so quickly that the scene of carnage was little more than a blur. She stumbled outside as she gasped and purified her lungs with crisp winter air. Paloma reached back for her bucket and pulled it outside, her vision tunneling on what appeared to be a gangrenous leg, severed right below the knee, slowly roasting in the sunlight seeping through the warehouse’s makeshift entrance. A thin stream of the Samaritan’s golden light that wisped past the disembodied limb began to fade away. Somebody had heard her. Vin?
Paloma produced a pair of safety goggles and an individually wrapped black medical mask that was accented with cutesy floral patterns to combat the stench, covered herself up, and stepped back into the warehouse. She cradled the bucket to her chest like it was her emotional support animal as she followed the glittering gold. The inside of the warehouse was lit by dim, cheap string lights that hung from storage shelves. Paloma stepped gingerly over the rogue leg, her eyes spying the owner on the ground several feet away with almost all of their insides having become outsides and its head crushed into a fine paste against the cement. Paloma had seen dead bodies before, and this one wasn’t fresh. It had to have already gone through several days if not weeks of decomposition. At least that explained the smell.
The trail of light dragged Paloma deeper into the destroyed warehouse. It felt like Paloma was wandering through a haunted Halloween attraction, only that the production team had gone so over on the gore budget that they couldn’t afford to hire any actors to jump out and scare her. It was difficult to keep track of how many bodies were piled up inside of the warehouse because so few of them were wholly intact, their limbs lost in piles of overturned shelves and their torsos caved into a mysterious mush, with extra bits of cracked bones sprinkled over the floor like sawdust. Paloma passed by another row of shelves and jumped at the sight of a person still standing amidst the carnage before realizing that it was just another dead body, the front of its skull driven so hard into the steel shelving that it was somehow still kept upright amongst its limp feet.
Her path took her through the aisle beyond that body, its arms hanging through the shelving. Paloma passed by slowly, her eyes turning to look at the face of the dead person. She shrieked and banged against the shelf behind her as the corpse opened its milky eyes and a rattling moan escaped from its throat. Paloma clutched her bucket even tighter to her chest as she watched the thing try to reach for her, emaciated arms banging against the shelving as it found itself out of reach–or rather, it acted as if it were out of reach, its claws pulling just before they grabbed at Paloma. Paloma watched in horror as the creature pushed its head further into the shelf to try to get a swipe at her, its mouth gnashing, its eye bulging, until it pushed too far. There was one final bang on the shelf as the body fell limp, having carved through the rest of its brain trying to get an impossible bite.
Paloma’s heart was racing, but at least she was now confident that these things must’ve been zombies and that Vin wasn’t having her cleanup some bygone mob hit. If the earlier racket wasn’t enough to tip off Vin that Paloma was approaching, her arrival was accompanied by the faintest scratch of the Samaritan’s aura as well as her footfalls on the metal steps up to what must’ve been the warehouse manager’s office. This room was also lit by cheap string lights and Paloma smiled under her mask as she saw Vin at the end of the Samaritan’s golden trail. The smile faded from Paloma’s face as Vin leaned back, revealing that the golden trail actually split with the other end wrapping itself around a battered and bloodied woman who was bound to a chair. The bucket dropped to the floor, its contents spilling onto the blood pooled around the chair.
“I should’ve brought more towels,” said Paloma with a forced laugh that turned into a whimper. She didn’t look at Vin, her watering eyes focused solely on the body in the chair.
“Is she dead?””Not yet.” Vin turned slowly to face Paloma, not bothering to hide the half dead woman. They were… Mostly human. Sharpened teeth pulled up into a wicked smile. Their eyes, dark and catlike, shone with satisfaction. Blood stained their hands, claw-like nails slowly pulling back in to normal.
Her inability to look at them didn’t surprise Vin. The fear was what they
wanted, even though it didn’t bring them joy like the preceding fight. They wanted Paloma to see how dangerous they were.
An extra hand cleaning up was helpful, sure, but really they’d invited her in the hopes it would scare her away. One less annoyance to worry about…
”She’s a Necromancer,” Vin explained, leaning over so their arm hooked around the back of the chair. Their victim was still conscious enough to try to lean away from them with a choked whimper. One eye was bloody and swollen, but the other, barely open one managed to look at Paloma pleadingly.
”D’you know the first rule of Necromancy? I doubt it- she clearly doesn’t.”Patting the woman’s shoulder as if it was some kind of comfort, Vin pushed away and towards one of the bodies nearby. It was relatively fresh. Maybe a day or so old. They nudged it with their boot, watching as the half destroyed corpse still tried to move.
”Don’t kill to make zombies.”Of course it was bullshit that it was some kind of global Black Lux rule. As much as it was one of many their Mother had instilled in them and Loni, it was barely a part of the reason they’d beaten this woman half to death. After all, they weren’t exactly some virtuous person. They were a murderer too.
They just didn’t like the competition, or the risk of Loni coming across someone doing the exact thing that’d killed their Mom.
”There’s plenty’a good bodies ‘round the city…” Vin rolled their eyes, moving back towards the chair. She’d been stronger than they expected… but not strong enough. They were next to Paloma now, smiling again.
”Maybe I should’ve warned ya it was a corpse cleanup… If you ain’t up to it, just leave the cleanin’ shit.”Paloma’s gaze lingered on the Necromancer for a moment longer, flicking away only temporarily to glance at the fresh corpse Vin had gestured towards. She felt the Samaritan stir inside of her, as if it were listening intently to her inner thoughts. So, this woman was a murderer? It was likely that her victims were South Siders, too, which meant the police wouldn’t try very hard if at all to look into their disappearances. So this scene that Paloma had walked in on wasn’t Vin going off on some psychotic thrill kill but performing an act of vigilante justice. Paloma knew well enough that some people were just born rotten. Sometimes awfulness had to be met with awfulness to see things made right.
Paloma moved as if she was about to head for the door, but stopped just short of it as she leaned up against the office wall. She folded her arms over her chest as she gave Vin a look. Gone from her eyes was the usual light of wonder and inquisitiveness, replaced instead by a tired expression that someone like Vin would be all too familiar with. It was the look seen on the faces of most people living in the South Side, the look of someone who has been disappointed by life too many times, the look of someone who wakes up tired, the look of someone who wants to see a motherfucker get put in their place but doubts it’d ever happen.
However there was something else in Paloma’s tearful eyes that Vin might not recognize, but if they did it would possibly be terrifying or, at the very least, irritating: a faint hint of admiration.
“I’m up for it,” said Paloma, her voice breaking and casting a shadow of uncertainty over how up for it she truly was. As if to squash any doubting questions, Paloma pushed off of the wall and stood just beside Vin. She was trembling as she stared down at the Necromancer, trying to see not the person but just the murderer instead. She felt sick. She didn’t even realize at first that her shaking hand had moved on until it tapped Vin on the back, nudging them on.
It wasn't the reaction Vin expected, or wanted. Didn't people normally run at this point? Sure, people like them- South Siders- were used to violence and death. You learned to just walk over the bodies… and to avoid the people doing the killing. Had Paloma's sense of self preservation gone when she got her fucking ghost? Or was she just one of those unhinged people who actually thought some kinda murder was morally good.
Sure, there were people it was less bad to kill. Serial killers, rapists, kidnappers… But it was also so easy to point and lie. Like Vin was doing right here.
The Necromancer had killed people… but who was to say they weren't picky about their kills too?
Not that Vin cared. They just hadn't expected Paloma to be able to justify any kind of killing. They should've said they were just doing it for fun…
They stepped forward to get away from Paloma's tapping hand, nails growing in length again. Not the full transformation- pointless now there was nothing to actually fight. Their hand lashed out, neatly slicing the Necromancer's throat. It was neatly done so there was a minimal blood splatter towards them… not that it mattered much when Vin was already covered in it. There'd been a moment when they'd considered dragging it out. Slicing her wrists and letting her bleed out in the hope that would push Paloma away… but waiting for something like that was far too boring. They liked to fight, but they weren't a sadist.
”We gotta dump her further down the river.” Vin pulled away from the now limp body, shaking fresh blood off their claws. Their head tilted towards the other corpses.
”Same for them. The police round here may be useless, but hand 'em a body and they'll throw you in jail faster than you can complain. Same with an obvious murder scene… but they ain't gonna try if it's all cleaned up and someone calls em.”Not that Vin expected that. But cleaning up after a kill was best practice.
Paloma didn’t answer immediately. She stared at the limp body in a daze. The Samaritan’s light around it was now gone, but as Vin had moved forward to deal the final blow it had become blinding as if the Samaritan was begging for Paloma to intervene. She’d just closed her eyes instead, and now that she could see the body’s killing blow she was certain how she was supposed to feel about the final result. Vindicated? Guilty? Somehow simultaneously disappointed that she had been finished with a merciful coup de grace while relieved that Vin hadn’t dragged out their act of justice? A little feverish, mostly. She sniffed loudly, pushing up her safety goggles to wipe away the tears from her eyes.
“Sorry,” said Paloma with a hushed voice, her hand shaking as she readjusted her goggles. She wasn’t apologizing to Vin.
“I’m sorry. She got what she deserved.”The Samaritan slowed its stirring of her stomach. Paloma didn’t know if it was even listening. Maybe she just needed to hear herself say that so she would feel better. Perhaps Vin would assume Paloma was talking to them, but Paloma felt like they had already known that before they’d set foot inside of the warehouse. There was another long pause as Paloma stared at the ground, calculating whether or not if now was the time to probe Vin’s mind for some insight into how they were feeling, certain that their composure in this kind of situation to be just an act that they had mastered. She decided to focus on the task at hand.
“We should wait to dump the bodies until it’s dark. In the meantime we can just gather them together,” said Paloma, weirded out that she would ever say something like that when she wasn’t playing a game. Paloma reached and grabbed one of her blood-soaked bottles.
“Blood is easy enough to get out with some bleach and water. I got some already mixed here and plenty of bleach on back up, but we’d need to get some more water.”“And more rags,” said Paloma as she pulled a bag of cleaning towels out of the bucket, sprayed one with the bloody bottle in her hand, and began wiping the blood off of the supplies the best she could.
“Lots and lots of rags.” Her demeanor started to loosen as she polished the bottle clean.
“Oh! And we need some music. You wanna DJ?” ”On what?” Vin was already getting to work on piling up the bodies by untying the dead Necromancer, hefting her over their shoulder. With their free hand, they gestured to their surroundings. The dingy warehouse, covered in bodies in various states of decay. Not a single speaker in sight. Vin hadn’t exactly brought one… They weren’t exactly gonna lug the CD player from home here.
”You got a phone good enough to play music outta its speakers?”Paloma slipped off her gloves before she pulled out an old, battered iPod. She unwound the wired earbuds, popped one in her ear, and held the other out to Vin as an offering. The cord was so short that they would practically become conjoined twins.
“Wanna share?”They rolled their eyes, dumping the Necromancer’s body against the back wall.
”I’ll do the body gatherin’, you do the cleanin’. Water wise… how clean’s it gotta be? I can fill some shit with water from the river and drag it up here, but it ain’t exactly nice.”Vin was already on their way towards another body- a rather large man at least a month dead. The rotten smell of decay wasn’t exactly pleasant, but they’d smelt similarly awful smells all the time growing up. They pulled the pulverised zombie with one hand like it was nothing.
“As for rags… Well, there’s probably some shit outside. Or… How bout we mug some people for their clothes?”Their lips pulled back into a sharp toothed grin. It was probably a joke.
“Oh, good call,” said Paloma as she returned the grin.
“Then we can just threaten them and make them do all the cleaning for us while we sit back and supervise. Just kidding. We’d have to get rid of all the witnesses after and be right back where we started.” She put her gloves back on with a loud snap and began arranging her cleaning equipment on a mostly unsoiled desk.
“Anyway, the river water is probably safe to use. I’m sure this place had to have a janitor’s closet at some point,” said Paloma, glancing out the foreman’s window over the warehouse floor.
“If we’re really lucky it might even have a trench drain.”Vin had no idea what a trench drain was, but it probably wasn’t very important. Paloma would find it if it was needed.
”Pretty sure she kept bodies in the closet… But I’ll check for any buckets or rags and shit. After I pile up the zombies. You just get to cleanin’, and I’ll make sure you got everythin’ you need.”Maybe working with this annoying woman wouldn’t be so bad after all.
In the South Side down by the River
”Alright. We’re gonna need to throw ‘em in over a bit of time. If we do ‘em all at once it’ll be fucking obvious.”Many painful hours later, and two trips by Vin, the two were at a section of a river about twenty minutes away from the Warehouse. It was still in the city, but a derelict and near completely abandoned section of the Southside. It was just beyond where the two of them lived- the true outskirts of the city. It had never been a good area, but now it was just hunks of metal and close to collapsing buildings. Even the homeless people of the city didn’t venture out here- the rat infested streets of even the Junglelands were preferable.
Vin had taken a… creative approach to the sheer quantity of bodies they had to transport.
Skeletons were snapped into bits and zombies were cut into rough chunks that could be thrown into trash bags. In the end, there were about five bags of body parts and one whole Necromancer - who they’d decided to leave intact and transported in her own bag.
”I can dump her first… Then just throw body bits in. Maybe a competition? Who can throw furthest.” Vin laughed, squatting down right beside the river. Thanks to the destruction of the area, there was absolutely no safety next to it. All that was left was dirt just enough above the water level to not be covered in it.
”It’ll be me. I throw furthest.” ”Oh god, that's so wrong,” said Paloma with a look of horror on her face. These were the bodies of murdered victims. Surely, she was thinking that they should be treated with respect. The look dropped as Paloma grabbed a skeletal hand.
”It's all about finesse, not strength.”Paloma whipped the hand like a frisbee. It almost immediately spiked into the ground, not even making it into the river.
”T-that one doesn't count!” Paloma grabbed the hand. Fully warmed up, she readied herself for the real attempt as she took a deep breath. With too loud of a
”Yah!” for what should've been a covert operation, Paloma spun like a shot putter and released the hand. She scanned the river for a splash and when she didn't see one she was certain that she had launched the hand beyond the horizon, unaware that the hand had slipped during her spin and had landed amongst the rocks and litter behind her.
”Beat that,” said Paloma as she pumped her fist.
If Vin liked Paloma more, or was a nicer person, they would have let her have it. But neither were true, so… They started laughing. A harsh, mocking laugh as they walked right up behind Paloma.
”Oh, wow. You’re the best at-” They crouched, picking up the skeletal hand she’d dropped before shoving it into her vision.
”-dropping things.” They stepped out from behind Paloma, arm flinging out to hurl the hand. It arced perfectly in the air before plopping into the water at around the halfway mark. They made it look so easy.
They could get it further. They could probably get it to the other side if they wanted to… but where was the fun in completely destroying her? What if she lost interest because she couldn’t dream of catching up? Then it would be pretty boring.
With a smirk, Vin turned to Paloma, arms crossing in front of their chest.
”Your turn. Try to get it in the water this time.”“Clearly I was doing a bit,” lied Paloma.
Her face sank as she watched Vin’s perfect arc. Vin must’ve been using magic. Plus, they probably had practiced the sport of limb disposal before. Either way, this contest was unfair and rigged. Paloma pushed away the nagging thought that was trying to pinpoint the last time she had attempted to throw something competitively, fearing the mortifying revelation that it had likely been gym class and the even more horrifying realization of how long ago gym class had been.
She grabbed a skull this time and gripped it like it was a bowling ball with her fingers looped through its eye sockets. Paloma shimmied up to the edge of the river. She let the skull drop low down to her knees and then gave it her strongest granny shot. The skull soared up, up, up and then over her head, landing just beside the pile she had pulled it from. Paloma scrubbed the look of shock off of her face as fast as she possibly could as she shot Vin a sweet little smile.
“Just kidding. This is the real attempt.”Paloma picked the skull back up. She stared directly into the empty eye sockets, overfilling them with threats promising to find a way to resurrect the owner of the skull just so that she could kill them dead again if they didn’t cooperate. Then she windmilled her arm as fast as she could, releasing the skull like it was a softball, the cranium almost immediately veering to the ground and splintering into smaller fragments as it hit the corner of a cinder block. Most of the bones sprinkled unimpressively amongst the shallows, but dumb luck had one fragment hit the water just right. The flat bit of jawline skipped across the river like a stone before plopping in roughly around the same area that Vin had sunk their first attempt.
“Holy sh–uhh, that’s how you do it! Your turn!” said Paloma in a sing-song voice.
“It’s all about finesse, really. Lemme know if you need any pointers.”She fell behind Vin to let them take their shot, a wicked little smile creeping its way onto her face as Paloma prepared to let loose a loud, distracting cough at just the right moment to really fuck with Vin’s attempt. She didn’t recall there being any rules about winning the competition clean.
Vin was impressed by Paloma’s ability to consistently throw bones into the ground or behind her. She had an amazing inability to throw forward- one of the simplest things to do. Yet, somehow she threw the skull into the ground hard enough to have one fragment skim across the water like the broken pieces of brick they used to throw onto the river with Loni.
But it was a fluke. Finesse, sure… Finesse could definitely help with throwing, but Paloma clearly didn’t have that. If anything the opposite. She was clumsy as fuck! Impressively so.
”Oh, sure, what kinda pointers you got? Is it throw it at the ground and hope it shatters?” Vin cackled.
”You’re gonna waste all your energy spinning your arm like that! C’mon, watch.”Vin shrugged off their jacket before crouching down, picking up one of the grimmer body parts- a severed foot. It stank, with the skin peeling off to reveal rotting flesh underneath. They shifted their feet to a shoulder width apart, arm coming back behind their head. In a perfect, slow arch they made a motion to throw the foot overhead. Their lithe arm muscles tensed with the movement.
A loud cough threw off their motion, causing them to let go of the foot earlier than they wanted to, when their hand was right above their head.
The gangrene ridden foot soared through the sky like a majestic bird. It continued its glorious migration all the way to the other side of the river, plopping onto the other side. It slowly started to roll towards the edge of the river.
”Shit!” Vin’s hand came back down to slap over their face. They’d been purposefully controlling their strength and aim… But automatically went all out when thrown off by Paloma’s cough. While they weren’t actively using magic, their body was so saturated in Green Lux now that it was never going to be a fair competition. They could throw it to the other side after all.
But they hadn’t meant to. Their eyes narrowed as they watched the zombie foot thankfully roll over the edge of the bank and drop into the water.
”Whoops. You scared me so much I accidentally used magic, which ain’t fair in limbs throwing competitions. I guess we’re still even,” they intoned like someone was holding a gun to their head. Why did they even care so much about making it a competition? It just prolonged their time together… But the alternative right now was packing up their sisters shit and going over
there. Being around Loni’s boss was somehow worse than being around Paloma.
”Your turn again… Actually, let’s throw at the same time. We’re gonna be here hours at this rate.”“Nuh-uh-uh. Magic is a clear disqualification,” said Paloma with a wag of her finger and a shitty little grin.
“How can anyone prove that you weren’t juicing on your first attempt?” She glanced at her phone. It was getting late and technically she still had to make it to work that evening.
“Ohh, but I'd rather be a good sport about it all. We’ll just call it a tie.”Together the two dragged the trash bags closer to the shore and began chucking the body parts into the river like they were breadcrumbs to feed the ducks. Paloma kept circling back to a thought in her head that all of this was absolutely fucked up and insane and also kind of exciting. Worried that she might peel back too much if she kept delving deeper into her mind, Paloma began to empty her head by running her mouth.
“Who’da thought that when we met this morning we’d be covering up a murder together,” said Paloma with a nervous giggle.
“Don’t worry, it was justified. I’m not judging or anything, I mean, I’m an accomplice now, but it’s just not where I’d have seen things going, like, ever. This isn’t even the worst thing I’ve cleaned up. I mean I’ll spare you the details but some of the bed pans I’ve had to…yuck! Actually, but they aren’t the worst thing I’ve ever cleaned up. You know what is? You’d never guess,” said Paloma, taking her first breath in forever.
“It’s peanut butter. It just smears and coats everything. It’s so frustrating. Hey, are you okay?”“I mean, like, are you okay?” asked Paloma, her voice growing serious.
“Clearly that competition was just a coping thing, right? It’s okay if you’re not okay, okay?””Huh? Why wouldn't I be okay?” Vin shot Paloma a look of pure confusion. They dumped a whole torso in the river with ease… They were getting close to the end of the body parts now. Thank god.
But what did she mean by the competition being a coping thing? And that it was alright for them not to be okay? What the fuck was there to be not okay with? To cope with? Sure, the thought of shit being covered in enough peanut butter that it'd be that much of a pain to clean was pretty gross… And maybe the Necromancer killing had been taking out their frustration at letting Caleb die today. Probably also because of unresolved mommy issues if they were perfectly honest… But, they weren't not okay right now. They were pretty fucking happy after getting all of their feelings out with violence. Murder was just a part of their life- a pretty fun part. That was obvious since they were a gang member, so what the fuck was Paloma acting so concerned about?
Unless…
”Oh… Y'think I ain't okay cause you won't leave me alone? Don't worry. Your company ain't as bad as I thought it'd be. You really think the competition was cause it's the only way I could tolerate you? Nah. If I wasn't alright with ya you'd know.” Vin raised a hand- a zombie hand, that was- and waved it in front of them.
”And I ain't just saying I'm okay-” with tolerating her company-
”cause it's the manly thing to do. I was raised in a household of all women! I got that feelin’ shit down real well.”“Oh, okay,” said Paloma, feeling conflicted between the wave of relief that Vin tolerated (which must’ve been a Vin-ism for “really fricking enjoyed”) her company and the nagging rub that Vin had totally just deflected. She made a face.
“I more like meant…nah, nevermind. Thanks, I enjoy your company too. Today’s been–” Fun was the wrong word, or at least she knew it should be. Interesting felt wrong to say.
“–exciting. My life’s so boring usually.”Paloma glanced at the wrapped up body of the Necromancer,
“Do we need to do anything before we ditch that? Weigh it down with rocks so it stays on the bottom? Does it matter if it gets IDed? I heard from a podcast that people can be identified by not only their fingerprints but also their dental records.””Nah, I gotta trick for that.” Vin grinned. They moved to unwrap the Necromancer, before tipping her body into the river. They kept hold of one arm so it wouldn’t float away immediately. Then the body started to… Sink. It was a simple spell for someone with Green and Black lux. Increasing the weight of dead matter… When it was the perfect weight, so it would float down far enough before settling, they let it go.
”Before you ask, it only works on dead bodies.” They stood up, brushing their hands on their tank top.
”They ain’t gonna find it like that… And even if they do, y’think they’ll put much effort into investigatin’ another dead Southie? Nah.”With that all sorted they turned to properly face Paloma, hands stuffed in their pockets.
”And if you keep botherin’ me, there’ll be plenty more excitement in your life.”“You promise?” said Paloma with a tilt of her head, rocking her bucket back and forth playfully like it wasn’t now a serious piece of evidence.
Or was that a threat?
Neziul
Antlers
CassidyTheButch
ML
Simply Not Real
NoriWasHere
Blizz
Passable Writer
Evil Ghost Note
