"You are an idiot you know that?" Angel gave Justine a good talking too after leaving the group.
"So I'm told."
"You asshat, do you have any idea what breaking that contract will be the end of us. God, how did I get paired up with an idiot like you?"
The two were currently back in their hotel room, Angel leaned against the wall wondering to the gods above what she could've possibly done to warrant such incompetence in her life.
"Hey, look I admit that was on me, my bad ok." Justine took a few steps back, "I'll keep my mouth shut about the incident, even after the contract is complete, is that ok?"
Angel sighed, "Fuck this up and it will be more than your sorcery that'll go missing." She left the room in a fit of rage.
Justine just stood their, even he wasn't dumb enough to push his luck anymore. "Women are scary."
***
Now, like with every city or town, there are places that you wouldn't wanna go regardless of what time of the day or night it was. And this stood true for Kisumu as well. While the glamorous part of it was on full display, there were other parts that one had to squint closely to see.
These parts were like old abandoned alleys close to factories that stopped working back in the day, others could be as simple as gang turfs or blocks where certain individuals called their 'hunting' grounds and nothing else. And these were the worse ones, because you could never tell whose turf you were on, especially since a group could radically wake up and decide that they owned the entire block down the street.
But those ones weren't interesting, the ones that were tended to be old factories that acted as temporary warehouses or even permanent sometimes depending on where it is you were.
"I can't believe she did that to you dawg." Outside one of these said warehouses were a group of four, and yes there were more of them inside.
"Man its ain't, although I thought we were vibing for real. Even took her up state to buy her jewelry and all that other girly shit." Complained one of the men.
"Look, its like I always say, these white bitches don't want a dark man like you for your personality, what do you think this is love island?" The other advised, "The only thing they want is your money or your dick nothing more buddy."
"Shit man, I knew it, fucking a white man behind your back. God I'd hate for that to be me." Another joked.
"But don't worry I killed that bitch and her dumb as white boy, now the fuck in hell forever."
The boys laughed as they drank.
"Anyway, wanna go che…" before the man siting next to the warehouse could speak a metal rod went flying at him engraving itself into the warehouse's wall. Blood splattered everywhere across the table and even on the man's face, which stared in horror after seeing that rod go through his friends head.
"The fuck is going on?"
The men turned.
"Um.. hey, Iman please take care of the ones inside, I'll deal with this guys." Teddy insisted.
"Go wild big guy." She gave him a pat on the back.
"Thanks, but unlikely."
Jericho made her way into the warehouse.
"Stop that crazy bitch now!" The men tried getting their fire arms out when suddenly the ground beneath them began shaking.
"Woah, wha…"
The ground morphed beneath their feet into a round sphere.
"Hey!"
EARTH ALCHEMY: KINGS PRISION!
From the walls of the spheres morphed spikes which made swish cheese out of the boys trapped within it.
"Forgive them father." Teddy prayed as he waited for Jericho.
"Come on in." She shouted.
Teddy entered the factory, it was a blood bath in there. The men's bodies lay randomly on the floor and on tables scattered around.
"Eww what the fuck is that smell?" Jericho closed her nose.
"Well, this was a sardine packing factory, I don't think they cleaned up before leaving."
Teddy followed Jericho through the entire factory making it to a door with a sign labeled, 'Managers office.'
"Let's talk to the manager of this place." She opened the door, Teddy walked through making a giant hole as he marched towards the managers desk.
Not to say that the manager wasn't in the mood of seeing them, but rather that his hands were a bit tied at the moment. By that I mean he had rods spiked through both his hands, holding him firm on the table gritting his teeth through the pain.
"The fuck is you cuz?" Asked the man straining "You out here trying to catch a case?"
"The only one here catching a case would be you." Jericho marched towards the man's desk. "We're here about a murder, the minister's murder. Know anything about it?"
"The fuck is you on about bitch? Why would I care about a stupid ass minister!"
Jericho grabbed his hair, "Well then, why does the newspaper say otherwise.
Teddy reached into his jacket and pulled out 'the moon' newspaper placing gently in the man's point of view.
"Your seriously getting all your news source from the local paper?" He scoffed, "Lame ass, those things lie all the time."
BAM!
Jericho slammed him onto the table. "Calling me a lame ass isn't going to save you from the ass whooping I'm about to give you if you don't talk." She said, her face serious as ever.
"Fuck! Ouch! Man, I don't know a damn thing about this entire killing, murder or whatever. You seriously killed half my crew for this?"
"And I'll do it over and over again if ya don't tell me what I need to hear!" Jericho tugged his hair a bit more.
"Hello, mister." Teddy called, "We're sorry if we're taking too much of your time, but we're with the Vatican knights. I understand any concern you might have, however, if the police were to take this seriously and actively come at you it would result in more casualties, meanwhile if you were to co-operate we would leave you be. I'm sure you have another warehouse with more men, as this is probably just a stash house and not the actual place where you guys carry out your things."
"Um…" The man was very confused, 'This guy… is really nice, unlike this rude woman.'
"Ok, might know something about it, but it sure as hell wasn't me."
"That's fine, just tell us what you know." Jericho let go of his hair.
He sighed, "Look, I ain't fucking around but there one time when…" He trailed off as he felt something weird within his stomach, it felt like he was going to puke but also like something was crawling out of him.
"Hey are you…"
"Iman move!"
Teddy grabbed Jericho buy the wrist tugging her outside the door. What followed next was a horrifying site. Out of the man's mouth were vines of green that tore off his skin spreading around his body eventually suffocating him.
"Shit!" Jericho ran back to the room. "Do you think was a result of a contract?"
"More than likely, you think its someone with pine root sorcery?"
"No, these are just vines, not specifically from pine roots. Fuck! I thought we had a lead." Jericho made her was to another room with a sign labeled 'Toilet.' "Time for plan 'B'
She went in and brought out someone dragging him across the floor. "We ask this guy."
It was a boy probably in his late teens, "Hey, leave me alone please."
"You work for a shady business pal, I don't know how you expect me not to detain you." Jericho let go of him, "So, you gonna talk?"
"Hey, how was I suppose to know that the business was still shady, my brother gave me this job."
Teddy and Jericho stood their looking at each other, "So what we thinking?"
"I ain't thinking about anything. But unlike his boss their might not be as high a risk of him dying on us before telling us something." She said.
"But low risk usually just means low intel, so its not as though he has valuable information. Or do you?" Teddy turned to the boy.
"Information about what?" Said the boy hesitantly.
"Any shady customers come your way?"
"There are always some shady looking guys, but I was just loading creates and lifting stuff, I don't know what they were doing here."
"Loading crates, with those weak ass arms? Please tell me your joking?" Jericho chuckled under her breath.
"Hey I said I load crates I never said I was good at it. Then my boss put me on toilet duty after about a month." He whimpered, curling into a ball.
"Jeez, suck it up."
"We're gonna need your help with this one. Of the guys you saw, any look out of the ordinary?" Teddy stepped in, adding a lighter mood to the atmosphere.
"Well, maybe, there was this one white guy… Not your white it was a different white, pale I think."
"You think or you know?"
Teddy gave her the side eye causing her to look the other way.
"He was wearing all white and had a large circular hat, I don't know what their called. Oh, what made me remember him was the fact that he had squint eyes. Like this." He forced his eyes into slates with his fingers mimicking whoever it was he saw.
"Are you fucking around?" Jericho grabbed his collar, "If yes then quit it before I kill you."
"I--I---I'm not, honest."
Teddy grabbed her shoulder, making her put him down. "He's probably from the island." He informed her.
"But if he's here then there is only one place he could've gone through. God, we probably should've looked there first."
Teddy nodded as they both noted their stupidity. "Well, this was a huge waste of time."
"Not necessarily, we were getting rusty, a few months without any proper work can do that to you." Teddy smiled, "Wanna go check it out?"
"Sure. But your coming with us little buddy." Jericho grabbed him by the collar.
"Huh? Why do I have to?"
"Because I said so, now hurry up." She pushed him forward. He stumble a bit before he continued moving.
"You could be nicer to him." Teddy advised
"Never happening." Jericho shot back
TO BE CONTINUED