Dirty Work: Volume 1

Lura - 6

Nobody had made a move on the club whilst Lura was out there, but as soon as she got off stage we decided to move her out quickly. There was maintaining appearances and getting the boss safe, which was one thing, but it would have been just plain moronic not to get Lura somewhere protected as well. As far as we knew, nobody outside the club knew where Markro's place was, and so it was hastily decided to move out and get Lura set up there. Ashrore and a few others would oversee the last few moments of the night and then close down quickly and get the place shut up. Until we knew what was going on, we wouldn't re-open Dirty Work after it closed that night.

We didn't even get her a chance to get properly dressed again. We threw her a coat and made our way out to the back. There was a single double-Zoomus there, and a board propped up against the wall.

'I'll head back to Lura's and grab some stuff,' I said to Markro. Lura clambered onto the Zoomus and got settled onboard.

'Let me know if anything crops up, Xayne,' Markro said. I nodded. It wasn't the safest thing to do, splitting up when we knew there were people targeting us, but it was the only thing I could think of doing. And besides, Lura would need more clothes than the ones she was barely wearing at that point in time.

'Will do,' I replied. Markro got onto the Zoomus and fired it up. He pulled put and in a trail of blue light moved out of the back lot. I picked up the board, activated it and threw it to the ground. It hovered a good five inches off the ground. Not my particular favourite one of those things, an Acress, Model 5, but it would do me some speedy movement.

I headed back to Lura's building with a knot of apprehension in my chest. The man I had taken out had seemed familiar to me somehow, though I couldn't remember where from. More than likely he was one of those thousands of millions of faces that pass you by every day, and eventually you happen to run into them in a strange occupation. Or it was the fact that I had seen so many faces, eventually one of them was going to look similar. Eventually no face looks strange to you, even ones you have never seen.

I propped the board up outside the building, down the side behind a cluster of boxes that looked as if they had never been opened before, save for one which held some rather curious items which seemed ridiculously in-keeping with the surroundings. There are some peculiar people around with some rather strange tastes.

Wandering inside, I made my way back to the apartment. Someone had been inside since, having ransacked the place completely. In the main room drawers and clothes were scattered everywhere, memorabilia smashed and trampled into the floor like a child in a stampede.

The blinds were pushed aside, and as a searchlight swept past the window I caught a glimpse of something shimmering underneath one of the ruffled and stabbed pillows on the edge of the bed. Pushing the pillow carcass aside I found a dagger, bloodied. The handle had a small, crimson gem in the hilt, with a rose scratched onto the surface.

I recognised the face now. I had seen him in the station coming out of Chorus' bar when I was taking the package to the Ochre Vaults. He had been wearing a Red Rose jacket.

I took the dagger and ran from the room.