Chapter Text
Jesper was no stranger to having his back slammed into an alleyway wall, but this felt a tad too excessive.
“Listen here you little twat,” the man holding him hissed, jabbing the barrel of his gun under his chin. Ouch. The man continued regardless of Jesper’s wheezing breathes, “where’s my fucking money Fahey?”
Jesper scrabbled at the cold metal pinning him against the wall but the man just jabbed harder it into the soft skin his throat and black spots appeared in the corners of his vision.
Well wasn’t this an underwhelming way to go out.
“He can’t answer you if he can’t breathe,” another voice said from the darkness of the alleyway. The voice was low, drawling and confident. It spoke with the fine lilt of a man unused to the roughness of the barrel, a man who worked with finesse and ledgers, but the harsh timbre of a man used to inflicting harm on others deemed inferior to him. It was the voice of a rich man who got his position by dirty tricks and cheating ways instead of hard work.
It was the voice of a dangerous man. The voice of a merchant.
The man holding him swore under his breathe, and to Jesper’s surprise, let him go with a hushed “I still want my money you rat,” before slipping away into the shadows. Jesper blinked, rubbing his sore throat and coughing slightly, “thank you… I think,” he croaked, peering into the darkness.
The stranger laughed, and the sound of it sent chills running down his spine. He didn’t like the coldness of it. “Don’t thank me just yet, gunslinger,” a tall man, in typical Merchant black stepped from the shadows, -which was awfully dramatic of him really,- flanked by what was clearly two hulking bodyguards.
Jesper repressed an eye roll, for a merchant with a penchant for cruelty, he was clearly a novice to the grounds of the barrel.
The Merchant brandished a piece of paper at him and instinctively Jesper took it, not bothering to see what was on it. “I have a job for you,” the man said shortly, gesturing for him to open the page. Jesper didn’t move, instead he raised an eyebrow, “what kind of job?” he questioned. He didn’t really like the impression this man was giving him, and the two scowling lumps of muscle behind him weren’t exactly making him overjoyed about the prospect of working with them.
“I need you to kill a man for me.”
Jesper shook his head, attempting to hand the paper back, “I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong man,” he said with a put upon smile, eyes darting for possible exit points, “I’m not a mercenary.”
The man eyed his pearl handled revolvers with interest, “really? You certainly dress like one.” Jesper protectively laid a hand on his guns, which probably didn’t help his case at all, “it’s the barrel love,” he said easily, eyeing up the lack of weapons on the bodyguards, “self defence is a right of passage.”
The Merchant barely managed to suppress his scowl, “it pays well,” he spat, lip curling as if the thought of paying a barrel rat was despicable to him.
Jesper cursed his greedy soul, all too aware of how his hands suddenly itched for a roll of kruge to flick through, craving the intoxicating, ticking spin of that damned wheel. He shouldn’t, he shouldn’t, no man’s life is worth any amount of money.
And yet-
“How much?” he said through gritted teeth. Oh he’s an evil bastard, willing to kill a man he’s never met just for a few more bets to lay on a rigged table. He could at least have the decency to pretend he’d use it for food or to pay off his ever increasing amount of debt.
“10,000 kruge,” comes the reply, short and angry, as if he would rather not pay him at all. He probably didn’t. Rich bastard.
And Jesper’s mind cleared.
10,000 kruge… that was enough to cover most of his debts, enough to guarantee a meal for months. Enough to win him at least a few weeks of fun at the tables. There would even be some left to send to his father, so long as he didn’t gamble that away as well. He probably would, he was an assehole like that.
10,000 kruge, just to kill a man. One, single man.
Jesper had killed plenty of men before, been hired to kill some even, but those were different. Those were gang members engaged in a shootout, those were people who attempted to mug him or worse. People he killed to save his skin, keep his head, ensure some food in his stomach.
He had a feeling that the man this Merchant wanted him to kill would not be already on his heels, in the middle of a shoot out.
He never minded killing all that much, that was the rules of the Barrel, kill or be killed, in fact he often felt a certain adrenaline rush, a kind of thrill that came from being in a shootout. But that was the key, he only liked shooting people when they were shooting back. Preferably when they shot first, but so long as they had a gun in hand he wasn’t too fussy.
He was just a guy down on his luck, who’d made too many shitty decisions and dug himself a hole too big for him to climb out of. He was a man who spent his college tuition on worthless gambles and too much booze and had to make up for it by less then satisfactory means. He was a bad gambler with guns on his hips and blood on his hands.
But he was not a mercenary, he was no assassin. He didn’t kill people just because someone paid him, he liked there to be a reason someone should deserve to die.
But 10,000 kruge was a lot of money.
Jesper slowly opened up the slip of paper.
There was a painting, small and rather rough, of a boy with fiery red curls and downcast blue eyes. Jesper blinked at the painting in shock, “you said you needed me to kill a man, this is a kid.”
The Merchant scoffed, “he turned 19 last week, that’s a man in my eyes. Even if he’s the abilities of a child.” The scorn in the man’s voice didn’t go amiss and Jesper frowned. He’d hoped that the target might be a bad man, a murderer perhaps, or even someone who’d scammed the rich fucker of his funds. Or at the very least attempted to. But there was something in his voice, a dark glint in his eyes, pure hatred in the lines of his face, that gave Jesper the opinion this kill was personal.
Jesper swallowed and dropped the painting onto the dirty ground, “I’m not your guy,” he said thickly, turning around to leave, “you’ll have to find someone else to kill the kid.”
“Fahey… it’s a familiar name to me, Kaelish perhaps?”
Jesper froze.
“There’s a Kaelish farmer I trade with,” the man continued, smugness leeching into his voice in a way that made Jesper’s skin crawl, “a jurda farmer, up in Novyi Zem, Cofton area I think. Sound familiar?”
Jesper gripped the handles of his guns, having to force himself to just breathe. He knew a threat when he heard one, “what of it?” he kept his voice steady, shoulders relaxed.
Don’t kill him until you know what he’s got on him.
“Well I’d just hate to see anything bad happen to him. He’s a nice fellow, a widow, I believe his son goes to University in Ketterdam.”
Jesper ground his teeth together in an effort to control himself. They knew his father. He’d done his best to keep his father out of the picture, telling people he was from Belendt and that his family was dead. He’d refrained from sending letters our of the worry they could be tracked, even though Jesper missed talking to his father.
He had two options, he could shoot the Merchant and his two goons easily, but Jesper didn’t know if there might be people in Novyi Zem, right now, watching his father. He didn’t know if the Merchant had issued a command for Colm to be killed should he die at Jesper’s hands. His other option was to take the job, kill the boy and send a letter to his father telling him to run. Perhaps he should even go to Novyi Zem himself, 10,000 kruge richer and protect him with all the skills he’d learned in this saints-forsaken dump.
Two lives were on the line, and it was up to Jesper to decide who lived and who died.
He spun around on his heel, snatched up the piece of paper and crumpled it in his fist. “Fine,” he snapped, “fine, I’ll kill the poor kid for you, but you touch a hair on my father’s head and I swear-“
“-you’ll what?” the Merchant interrupted lazily, “you’ll kill me?” he shook his head mockingly, already gesturing for his lackies to follow him out of the dark alleyway, “you have three weeks to dump his body in the canal, you’ll get your money once I receive proof of death.”
And with that, the men left Jesper, seething in the dark, clutching a painting in a shaking fist. He looked down at the boy, with his pale, freckled skin and reluctant smile. He was rather cute, if he looked past the heavy sadness set in the lines of his face, such misery Jesper was surprised the painter hadn’t noticed it. Maybe he had but he just didn’t care. The thought made Jesper feel uneasy. “I’m sorry kid,” he whispered, tucking the painting into an inside pocket, “but I’ve got priorities.”
Jesper, with his careless, selfish ways, was the one who had gotten his poor father into this mess, and he would do whatever he had to to get him out. Surely, the boy must have done something awful to warrant a 10,000 kruge hit. There was no way he was innocent if someone wanted him dead that badly.
Rolling his shoulders, Jesper tilted his hat ever so slightly to the side, and slipped back into the hustle and bustle of the barrel streets. He avoided the gambling dens, his gaze searching the face of every person he passed, looking for a mop of red hair and sad blue eyes.
Saints he was the worst person in the world, but what could he do? He’d killed people before, it would be fine. It was fine.
It was just, normally those people were shooting back, and normally they weren’t boys his age who carried a bone deep sadness in his eyes.
Normally, these people deserved to die, Jesper despised the idea of shooting a kid he’d never met, who wouldn’t even know he was in danger, who didn’t have a chance to run or defend himself.
But he couldn’t risk his father getting hurt.
Jesper would kill the kid, get his money and boot his ass back to Novyi Zem, never leaving his father’s side again.
He just had to kill one boy. One small, sad boy.