Step Right Up

What did you do?

Luc didn’t need to have come clean to Ingrid about his sideline to have her voice cutting cold as antarctic ice through his head. The woman had been his conscience once upon a time, working his way into her good graces after she’d practically scraped him off of the hull of his ruined boat. Her hold over that part of him - the part that had pillaged from one end of the world to the other - had been broken the moment she had turned away from him though. Being back, on the absolute lowest rung of the ladder, changed nothing about that.

His loyalty to Hector was no more binding - after all the man had once slaughtered his family - but it did offer opportunities that Ingrid’s strictly ordered ranks didn’t. Her people had likely been red handed a time or two, anything blatantly illicit would be slapped down immediately though. Not that Luc thought he had much more room to fall from where he was perched. As it was he was given every grotty job they were hired for. The worst shifts, the most difficult clients, like Ingrid and her toady Rowan were just waiting for him to fail. Well, when he did, there would be a safety net there to catch him.

The one thing he hadn’t entirely anticipated was the presence of a third partner. Manolo de la Peña had swaggered in, all threats and warnings - ones that he and Hector had retuned in the same vein. Once upon a time anybody who crossed Hector would’ve ended up in a watery grave, keelhauling was no longer in fashion, and would’ve proved difficult in Mystic Falls, but there were ways. Obviously those threats hadn’t worried Manny too much - if the man’s chilling and frankly, rather deranged smile, was anything to go by - still, the line had been drawn. All in all the town seemed a hair too civilised for someone like de la Peña, like a man eating tiger was suddenly strutting through the town square …

… or the carnival. It seemed Manny wasn’t tired of games after all.

Padding in silent on those tiger feet, Manny had approached without him seeing or hearing the man. Not until suddenly he was there next to the would-be sharp shooter he’d been trying to train. Luc didn’t startle on the surface, that would’ve been like waving a red flag to a bull, although he felt that small shift inside. ”Well, not entirely,” Luc argued, although his own skill far surpassed the man who’d almost filled his shorts at Manny’s appearance. ”I’m sure with time and a little practice he’d get better at it.” The man in question didn’t look as though he wanted to now. He hadn’t stopped Manny from taking the rifle, just as he’d not stopped him from taking the cap he held. Here we go.

Manny aimed and shot, the cap ringing against the target but not knocking it down. Another ‘sticky’ one the vendor would’ve shrugged and grinned about. He didn’t bother taking a second shot, just pulled his shirt up to reveal the handgun in his belt instead. Mon dieu. Luc glanced around them, his heart giving one hard lurch in his chest. The sheriff’s people had been patrolling earlier. ”I’m sure he’s capable of winning his own with a little practice.” The words out of his mouth were tight as Luc stepped between the stranger and Manny, like he could hide the view of the gun. There was no putting the horse back in the stable after it had bolted though.

A hiss rolled out of Luc as Manny gripped his shoulder and started to lead him away. Luc shrugged his shoulders, like a ruffled bird resettling itself as Manny let go, too far from the stall to grab the narwhal that was now sat on the front of the stall. ”Does it matter to you if I do?” he asked coolly. He didn’t, not as far as he knew. Although, years of travelling with Hector, sowing his wild oats the length and breadth of the sailable seas could’ve left him with a hundred. ”And that requires my presence now, how?” Frowning at the shorter man, Luc huffed out a breath. ”You think there’s a market for that sort of thing here in town?” A begrudging question. Once upon a time he’d have had buyers for them across the country. Going straight for Ingrid had put a damper on that, enough that he was frowning at the thought of how to shift them now.

Tagged: MANOLO DE LA PEÑA * Word Count: 770

Centuries ago nobody would’ve batted an eyelid at a man openly carrying a weapon. In some parts of the world they still didn’t, but Mystic Falls was – by all public accounts – a sleepy little town. Places like this weren’t bristling with sidearms and bullets. Of course, they shouldn’t have been thick with dead bodies and missing people either, but you couldn’t have everything. You had to cover the monstrous with the polite, or risk something worse than brown polyester uniforms and a night in a cell (honestly just a blink of an eye in a life that had stretched for centuries already). Little bits leaked out – like the gun on Manny’s hip – splashing themselves across the front of the newspaper for just a day or two, until something else more newsworthy came along, but for the most part there was peace.

Good lord, and in a way it had bored him to tears since he’d arrived in town. Hector had been his saving grace there, garnishing his work with Ingrid – to get back into good books she’d slammed shut on him years ago – with something a little more akin to their old ways. A relief, handed out in small measures, with shots of rum and talk of the good old days. Luc’s eyes flicked over Manny as he wondered if the man would allow himself to be dragged out of here before he went off like a trained fighting dog getting his leash removed. The hand still holding it was his and Luc knew there was a chance Manny would bite it off in the end – literally.

He kept his hands to himself – as they advised on the rides, please keep your arms and legs in the cart at all times – as he tried to butter up the man on the other side of Manny a little. The polite smile remained thin, although he watched sharply as Manny did his best to show the man up. ”It’s all fun and games, right?” Luc said lightly. His voice dropped as the two of them moved away from the stall, leaving his damn hard won prize behind. The guy who needed a change of shorts would get something out of his failed attempt at playing Wild Bill Hickok after a while … and he’d have Manny.

Tempted to tip his head back and murmur a plea for patience to the sky. Not a wise move around the shapeshifter though. He smiled sharply instead, ignoring the bite of Manny’s fingers into his shoulder. ”Land of the free, home of the brave, the place where you don’t get to carry concealed without a permit … and I take it you haven’t got one of those.” Not a real one anyway. He wouldn’t put it past Manny to have a little side line in forged papers.

Hands in his pockets, Luc started away from the stall and any temptation for Manny to pull his gun and shoot the targets with something a little more powerful. For all the care he had about people in town, there was little doubt he’d hesitate if he fancied shooting at every stall in the place. ”No hostility here,” he crooned lightly, just a sensible distrust of the man. A low sound rumbled in Luc’s throat as Manny’s justification of dragging weapons into town. ”Have you seen what happens when you stir up hysteria in a confined space and then drop weapons into the midst?” One dark brow arched at the man. It wasn’t just ‘sleeping with a loaded gun under their pillow’, it would be a blood bath.

Luc hated getting closer to the man, but since this town was filled with things the guns wouldn’t bother, it felt wiser not to advertise what they were discussing. His shoulders hunched close, his body stilling for just a heartbeat in lieu of shuddering when Manny got close. It was like being around a live wire, wondering what would happen when you brushed up against it. ”Luckily for them, hmm? We wouldn’t want them to chance it and discover what happens when something bigger and badder than them gets pissed about the hole in their favourite shirt.” Sarcasm coated his words, possibly another mistake. ”Is Hector prepared to sell the … merchandise … through the club?” Or had Manny dug deeply enough to learn of Ingrid. A private security firm that large would be a real coup for a weapon’s dealer, not that Ingrid would dirty her hands with illegal weapons.

Tagged: MANOLO DE LA PEÑA * Word Count: 750

Forgive him. He’s not well.

Manny would have cut his throat for saying such a thing out loud. Luc had seen the madness in the man’s eyes the first time they had met, automatically mapping out his interaction with him based on the fact that Manny could turn like a rabid dog, snapping those razor sharp teeth at your face for no more reason than a look or a perceived slight that had never existed in the first place. It wasn’t merely danger, although the man radiated plenty of that. It was insanity, psychopathy. That was the modern word for it, but plenty had existed with that sort of damage ingrained in their brain in centuries past. His maman fretting as he had raced down to the docks. She had known the sort of men who called such places home – and they weren’t just the sort who would have tried to burn them for their beliefs, or what they were. Of course Hector had decided to climb right into bed with one.

Luc wanted to laugh aloud, but that would be just as bad. Hector had spent centuries scoffing at danger. The captain took stories like that and shredded them in his mind, strolling straight into those cess pits sure he would be the one strolling out again. With Manny, Luc wasn’t so sure. At some point the man would turn on them and it wouldn’t just be a gun swung around some public place then, it would be like the Brotherhood of the Five all over again. Maybe Hector would be one of the few walking out again then, but Luc wasn’t so sure he would be. Would Ingrid weep for him then?

She’d likely have given Manny one of those cold smiles now, studying the gun he carried like it was nothing more than a toy. She had plenty of those, bigger and more dangerous than the hand gun. Ingrid wouldn’t have been stupid enough to bring Manny on board, but she would have happily schooled him on how to do business right under the noses of all those who made and kept the laws. Tilting his head as Manny crabbed about just those, Luc made a dubious sound in his throat. ”Knowing the people here? That’s probably point five on the town charter.” Undoubtedly Manny would’ve spat (or done something worse on it) before he tore it to pieces. Civility wasn’t for a man like that. Mass chaos and violence was.

Would he have the power to take Manny down if he needed it? The bullets in his gun wouldn’t do much to him, not unless Manny managed to obliterate his heart or soft spot with them, but they would cause massive amounts of casualties here on the midway if the lunatic started to fire. His mouth twisted in a wry smile. ”You’re just the salesman,” he muttered. His own decades spent selling weapons left him splitting hairs on the subject. It didn’t matter that the vast majority he’d dealt with had been just like him, he’d still been the means to commit violence. Maybe that was why he’d eventually lost his taste for it. It left a bitterness on his tongue that it was going to take more than a big ball of that neon pink cotton candy.

There was a tension in Luc that he couldn’t shrug off as they strolled through the carnival. He could have lost Manny in the crowd, darted away like a coward, but that would only scent the water around him for the dead eyed shark. Staring ahead instead of glancing at the man, he tried to keep a hold on his tongue. Tried being the operative word. Manny’s flat, semi-terrifying response to his sarcasm had Luc darting the man a look. He dragged a hand from his pocket, dragging it over his mouth like he was smoothing down his beard. ”At this rate they’re going to need to expand the cemetery to take up half the town.” That wasn’t an invitation, but Manny would undoubtedly take it as one.

For a minute, as he’d believed Hector had okayed dealing weapons on club property, Luc wondered if the vampire had finally lost his mind. Maybe there was some sort of age related dementia with the species, as there was with humans. It would’ve been the only way he’d believed Hector had crawled that far into bed with Manny. Dark brows flew high as Luc barked out surprised laughter. A kid careened into his side as he did, leaving him hopping out of range as surprise bit hard. ”I don’t think so,” he crooned, still amused. ”The CEO likes things to be all above board. She has her own deals in place, although … I might be willing to pay to see you actually try and convince her. How do you do with frostbite?” There was an edge of interest to the question. Ingrid’s real power was in the heat she could spit from inside of her, the same he could, although she was equally adapt at leaving a man feeling as though he’d dipped some delicate part of himself into liquid nitrogen – and she was quite willing to wield the hammer that would shatter that part too.

Tagged: MANOLO DE LA PEÑA * Word Count: 877