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The shadows cast long as an impostor stood waiting by a dilapidated hovel on Childcake Street. She smoothed down her dusty skirt with shaky hands, reluctant to face the music she had conducted. Through her whisper-network, she had already heard tell that the old slav crook she'd set-up had been turned loose this afternoon. They'd be coming for answers.
"Scene of the crime, da?"
The young woman locked up her stance to resist flinching, and slowly turned around. Speak of the devil.
God, but they were spooky. The Sleuthhound loomed out of the Spite gloom like a specter, softly glowing end of a tobacco roll lighting up their visage in ember. She knew their reputation - that's why she'd targeted them, after all - and knew they'd stumble back into her path eventually if she ran. All she had left was to appeal to their sentimentalities, which they'd proven to have several of.
"I vas hoping you'd come." Stiff upper lip, she held her chin evenly. "Are you goink to give me up?"
They stared long at her, and then, with a jerky twitch like a doll moved by unskilled hands, they shook their head. "No. No, but I could."
Their lip curled in a sneer and they cast their gaze down, like the sneer was more at themself than her. Plucking their smoke from their lips, they tossed it to the uneven cobbles, smudging it out under their boot. "Won't you invite me in to your terrible, little lair? Had long day of being pressed by constables. We ought to have this out off the street. And - drop the accent."
"Right. Ahem - right." Between the ahem, she discarded the thick Siberian brogue she'd practiced for a week to maintain, and dropped back into her natural Cockney. Not quite as upper-crust as she'd pretended.
With a concerning creak, she jammed the door open and let them pass. The place was practically condemned, it was clearly more a hide-away than a proper residence. There was a strong smell of blood and meat seeping in from the butcher's sharing the northern wall. Something grey and stringy was peeling off the walls, it may have been wallpaper once. The young woman pulled over a rickety table and two mismatched chairs and gestured for them to take one.
"So, you want answers, do you? Tryin' to make a few secrets off me to break even, then?"
"Answers. Got those from the bobbies. Thanks for that." They huffed and settled into the rickety chair, one creak away from collapsing. "Let us go it over. Enterprising young woman, hears a secret, decides to leverage heist. Pull in some muscle - not even seeing him, are you? God's wounds, he's too good at burglary - and have me do the lifting. Not the worst plan made under the world. Worst accent, though."
"You've got it all correct, detective. And I managed it, using you 'till the end, so I think it was rather clever of me." She shrugged, arranging a stained, cheap tea set on the table between them. The glaze pattern maybe used to be pink roses, it was hard to tell.
"Yes. All with foolish me none the wiser." They kicked their boots up on the table, and she frowned a bit, just on reflex. They weren't damaging it any further, really, already scratched to hell and mud-smeared on the legs from being pulled out of a gutter. "Except for the fact that your intel was incomplete."
"It - it was?"
"Incomplete, yes. I did have a daughter, true, but you cannot have been her. Because she never lived."
A cold prickle grasped the back of her head, but she tried to banish it - the job was already done, what more was caught to frighten her? "Oh, issat right? My condolences. Then..?"
The Sleuthhound folded their hands on their chest, reclining as they started to reminisce. "She was real, but perhaps, only to me. I was 15 - that's about your age, isn't it? Yes. Children can be foolish, clumsy. Was difficult pregnancy, nearly killed me. One could not live without other. I chose to survive. Still glad I did so, but I hold her like little star in my heart… so, from the moment you reached to me, I knew. But still, I hoped…"
The false daughter's heartstrings were hardly pulled by this sob story, (were they? perhaps a tad?) but something inside spiked anxiously at their tone. "Hoped in what? That I was, somehow, magically her? What a tragic delusion."
"That you were going somewhere with it," they sighed instead, head hanging back in exasperation. "That you were good criminal material. Instead, I had to witness that fucking terrible performance. So dissapointing, everyone down here disappointing. I was trying… encourage you to stir up some daring. And then, you abandon me to the law? Like I cannot just get out with a change of hands? Disgraceful. No daughter of mine."
"Well, 'at's just right. No daughter of yours." Clink clink, she gingerly picked up her chipped teacup from the saucer, sipping lightly at the hot water she'd brewed. Mostly to distract her still-shaking hands. "Hmm. I thought I did alright for myself, but over's over. Where are we now, then? The jade's already squirreled into the Flit, likely. Will you turn me in, after all?"
"No. I will not go back on my word, unlike you, I have thieves' honor. But, as you wanted if I was your parent so badly, I feel… obligation to discipline."
"Hm?" She glanced up from her murky water-tea and blanched, backing up her chair and starting to slink out of it defensively. "What - what d'you mean by that?"
"What could I? You've been jawing with a saboteur, that you just betrayed, in a closed space, for some minutes now. The trap's been set." They cleared their throat and started shrugging off their overcoat, standing and folding it over the back of their chair. "So, the only way I can meaningfully give you, ah, "time-out", is to send you on a boat ride for some few days. I am thinking long chat with a skull will teach you well, da? Don't worry. You'll be back."
Half of their monologue was swallowed by the sound of her chair clattering on the floor as she darted away, away from them, into the gloom of the hide-house. The teacup tipped over, spilling murky liquid everywhere.
There was little space to evade with, unless she wanted to break her ankle falling through a decayed staircase. She tried to juke around them towards the door, but the dagger-eyed Thrussian caught her arm, yanking. Hollering, she stamped at their feet, but their boots were steel-toed. Twisting her arm behind her back, their other hand went under her jaw and pushed her head back to a painful extent.
Not hard to snatch at all, really. Having that identifiable muscle thinness from Neathy kid malnutrition, she was more likely a thin 19 rather than the 15 she'd claimed to be. She really did have their eyes, though, staring back over her shoulder right into theirs bright cyan and wide fearful.
They grasped her jaw firmly, turning her eyes front, away from theirs, discomforted. Their thumb dug into the joint, the bone. "Shh, shh. Now, what's your real name, lisitsa?"
Her face being so pinched made her reply difficult, mumbled. "It-it's Cathy. Short for Cathrine. Don't do this -"
"Cathy. I see, okay. You want be part of my family? Congratulations. This is what happens when you betray family."
A gentle slip of the knife, and she was away. Zvezda had learned the careful angles, she'd only be gone for a day or two. It was the only real way down here to guarantee her being certainly out of the way for some time. Aside from the wash of blood soaking their jumper, a pretty clean break. They'd be sure to attend her as soon as she got back.
Ruthless has not changed from 9 as it's higher than 4.