Page 110 of Prodigal Son

Ryan shrugged. “Everyone knows I’m mercenary. Apparently, they think I’m extravagantly so.”

~*~

Mercy had asked for two things: the aforementioned sledgehammer, and a radio. Miles had provided the radio: a small, battery-powered modern thing with an iPod dock. Mercy had set it in the middle of the garage floor, turned on “Enter Sandman,” cranked the volume and gone down the hatch, hammer propped on one massive shoulder.

Fox had still been able to hear the screaming.

He lit a cigarette, slouched back against the wall, and waited.

He heard the door from the back of the pub open and shut, light footfalls come across the cement floor. He didn’t look; he could already tell it was his father.

Devin came to lean against the wall beside him, half an arm length away. He lit his own cigarette, exhaling harshly after the first drag.

A scream floated up from the grate in the floor, just loud enough to cut through the music, but then the wailing electric guitars drowned it out again.

Devin tipped his head in close enough to be heard. “Will that big bloke really get anything useful out of this?”

Fox nodded absently. “Mercy always gets the goods. It’s the thing he’s best at.”

Devin hummed a considering noise. “Looks like the grim reaper himself.”

Fox dropped his smoke and crushed it out under the toe of his boot. “Dad?”

“Hmm?”

This question had been brewing for the last few days, Fox just hadn’t known how he wanted to phrase it until now. He was almost in that detached headspace he’d need for the mission tonight – the same one he’d been in when he took Clive down earlier – but he kept flickering back into true awareness. A place where he could feel anxious, and restless, and doubtful. He hated that place – it was so human. So pedestrian and ordinary, and ordinary had always fit him like a badly-stitched homemade sweater.

He turned to look at his father, the lines in his face made harsher in the shadowed interior of the garage. Sunlight came in through the high windows, weak and gray with rain, but it didn’t quite touch them here. Devin’s eyes seemed to glow in the dimness, that damnable blue that haunted them all.

“Dad, is there anything you’re not telling me? Something you’re holding back?”

The furrow between his brows deepened. “What do you mean?”

“This whole thing. Project Emerald, and Morris, and Pseudonym, and Cass, and…” He heaved a breath, lungs tight from the stress of it all. “Is there anything I should know that I don’t? That you’ve held back?”

“If I say no, will you believe me?”

Fox frowned at him.

“Even if I was honest, you’d doubt me.”

“No, I…” Another breath. Frustrated. “I want to believe you. I don’t care if you’re a lying sack of shit about child support, or cheating on women, or – But I’d like to think you’d be honest about this, at least.”

“Look at me,” Devin said, the most serious Fox had ever seen him. “This is me being honest.”

There was movement over by the grate. Mercy’s head popped up out of the hole, followed by the rest of him; his shoulders were so wide it was a tight fit, but he managed to get up the ladder and to his feet with only a little wincing and a stiff step on his bad leg.

He leaned over and shut off the music, then sent them a manic grin, eyes shining. Smattering of blood on his face. “Got us some intel, boys.”

Fox pushed away from the wall. “Then let’s get to it.”

~*~

It was a big room, but it still managed to be a tight fit with everyone in it. Everyone but Albie. Fox had a feeling his brother was chafing to get in here and be a part of things – do something. Being bedridden was a hatred the whole family shared.

Axelle wasn’t here either, he noticed, one last glance around at the faces lining both sides of the table. She was keeping Albie company. That was good. Surprising, but undoubtedly good. Albie badly needed an old lady, and it made a certain sort of sense that a Yank racecar driver would fit the bill.

Phillip cleared his throat at the head of the table, where he stood in front a projection Miles had rigged up to land on the bare patch of wallpaper above the mantlepiece. A slideshow rolled: photos of the interior and exterior of the Pseudonym building, pulled offline from private sources by Miles. He was a genius, that kid.

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