|
.~{:--------------:}~.
The Westies own part of Hell's Kitchen without a strictly Italian face. Patrick Monahan is a mid-level enforcer at best, king of a small beat and atop a pile of other kids raised rough and tumble in these streets. Sean, Eamonn, Iain, Cormac: their names tell their origins even if freckles and a brogue didn't suffice.
Eamonn almost rhymes with gun, and he's the unfortunate lout sprawled out on the dumpster after quick blows. Iain doesn't rhyme with lain, and he lies slumped against the cobbles, facedown. Patrick at the mouth of the alley is reconsidering running to get more trouble, and Cormac and Sean use years of pugilists' training in the school of hard knocks to fight a homeless dervish.
Though dervish isn't right, either. The young man, and he is very much not out of his final adolescent growth spurts, has an uncommon efficiency to his fighting style. He moves like his backbone is an elastic cord rather than bone, but nothing that screams mutant or Inhuman talent. Short blocks, turns of momentum, they all help. Mostly he's regretting not having that apple. Not easy when he's fighting for his life against the thugs, obviously hurt. Obviously underdressed. Obviously not looking for trouble. You don't seek trouble barefoot.
The thugs don't see the other Devil coming.
He was on the rooftops, as usual. Crouched in silence, the only sounds to betray him sounds only he could hear. The creak of leather in his boots, the flexing stretch of tendon against bone as he shifted his posture. His own breathing, steady and evening, a meditative pace to maximize oxygen and keep the body aware and flooded, make sure he doesn't go all pins and needles. Tricks of the trade, honed too young from a man too reckless - or too obsessed - to care at the cost.
He doesn't know the sides, but he doesn't need to. One against four, he fights those odds all the time. And he can already tell this guy's no victim. But that doesn't mean he doesn't deserve an advocate. Sometimes that advocate's a guy who files forms and serves subpoenas.
Sometimes it's a devil who'll kick in the teeth of the beast at the door.
He lands amongst them, boots colliding with spine and driving one down bneath him, his baton in hand, body prepared as he lashes out, striking at vulnerable flesh.
The Monahan unit has a reputation. Would be paramilitary, styled after the hard boys on the border doing the Lord's work, they go to church on Sundays and spit out blood on Mondays through Saturdays. No rest for the wicked. They pack guns and they use spiked knuckle sets, brass usually, often inscribed with foolish things like "Faith" and "Our Lady of Sorrows." Those things now are shaken free, and the glitter of metal isn't much in the dark.
Enough for the dark-haired young man in bloody sweats to see. He can't favour his injured leg, and there will be cuts and bruises on his forearm for intercepting a punch. No sound escapes when the metal teeth bite into his forearm and tear, but he weeps blood red as the suit of the man leaping into action. Then there are two, one given momentum to plow through an Irish boy who should've minded his Ps-and-Qs like mum said. Maybe been an auto mechanic. Now he's down three teeth from a fist jarring them lose, and another minute finds Cormac, a real prat beaten down with a moan.
Big damn hero, he tries to kick the devil's feet out from under him after landing with a crunch but the fading coordination speaks so much.
The young man they set upon hurts. Have no doubt. He nonetheless keeps using the wall to his advantage so no one can sneak up, driving his wounded knee up to get space. Oh, that stings. Yes, but it's the only choice. His eyes are wide, pale in the dark. Registering the outfit, the batons, the whole. «What?»
It's meant to have that effect of course, a mixture of awe and fear and straight confusion. Bad enough to be attacked by a man from the dark, but you can't even be certain he is a man. Not in the conventional sense.
He skips up to dodge that sweep at his legs, lashing out in mid-air to drive a heel into the side of a knee, making cartilage tear and drawing a scream that he silences with leather-clad knuckles, driving his opponent fully to the ground.
He throws his baton, aimed low to catch the guy on the barefoot youth in the base of the spine, hard enough to send a shock of pain that'll probably numb his legs. He knows all the weakest parts of a man, does this devil. He learned them the hard way.
The weakest parts of a man usually rest between his ears, behind the ossified cage that prohibits thought. Three down, two left, and one of those is very much going for a gun. Trigger finger reactions are swift, even if the mark is off, and the brown-haired Russian ducks out of the way. Chips fly off the wall, another mark in another city full of holes. American exceptionalism does not apply to target practice at short range.
He comes up from that dive, smeared in grime and patently not caring. Not much presents itself as a useful weapon but there must be something to use to force them back. Shooting in an alley is easy. Shooting while someone lobs rotting trash at you, not exactly the easiest, and a scoop of that makes for an unpleasant face full. The wet stuff, in particular, has a nasty way of exploding. The Irishman curses and bitterly spits, trying to wipe away the goo while his partner, and cousin, stalks back to get away. No, this is not a fight he likes the odds of. Not one bit.
Another flurry of hard, quick blows risk being shot point blank, but Orel moves in a defined way that ignores the burning sensation up his side, the onset of dull, aching pain like a leaden vise. Bleed later. Fight now.