Lilith went over Florian's words, whispering them to herself as she made her way across town. "Mother's grave is next to mine, that one has slightly larger wings engraved into it."
Readjusting the large bag hanging from her shoulder, the girl lit a cigarette as she drew closer to the cemetery. "Bigger wings, bigger wings, I got this, I definitely won't destroy his mum's grave, I got this, won't make him hate me forever, nope, gonna nail it."
Lilith had done may things, but desecrating graves was not one of them. She was understandably nervous. After crossing most of the city on foot, following a small map Florian had given her, she finally made it to the cemetery. The girl shivered slightly, how was it possible for something to make her feel
more cold?
Vasa's knee was killing him by now, the old war wound biting bitterly at him as he braced himself on the cane. Usually he didn't even need the thing, it just made a good enough status symbol and calling card. That'd teach him to walk himself down so many floors of that blasted tower. They should have stopped turned up the heat in this dome by now, he was feeling the cold more and more these days. Vasa went and sat down at the bench off to the side of the family plot, the wall it was leaning against shielding him from the worst of the wind.
He shouldn't have come here. He should have struck while the iron was hot and hunted down those who thought they were good enough to go up against him at this stage of the game. As well as bringing his own blood into the matter. But instead he was here, letting such a petty jab get to him. And why not? Who was really left to fight? The Boykov's were dead, the southern gangs were moving in, for whatever reason they wanted, but he'd gotten what he wanted. Just not the way he wanted.
["Isn't that always the way?"] He sighed to Anna. Her headstone didn't reply.
Lilith traipsed through the cemetery, her hands stuffed in her pockets as she mumbled to herself. "Northern part, under a tree, he says. Next to some hedges he says. Can't miss it he says." The woman was dragging her feet at this point. After a few more minutes of mumbling, the girl perked up slightly as she glanced a pair of headstones from the corner of her eyes. "Wings..." She muttered, glancing up. "Tree." A small smile curled her lips. Removing her hands from her pockets, she aimed her fingers like pistols at the nearby foliage. "And hedges." She made a couple of shooting sounds before quickly making her way over to the two graves.
Lilith didn't know why she was so worried, the headstones were easy to tell apart, even if she couldn't read the inscriptions carved into them. She stood there for a moment, in silent contemplation as a slightly surreal feeling washed over her.
Lilith wasn't sure what to expect, she had somehow thought that Florian's grave wouldn't look real somehow, that it was obviously a fake. It was a silly thought, but standing over the grave of her lover was unsettling. Taking a few steps forward, the girl dropped her back to the ground before crouching onto one knee, brushing a hand over the smooth stone of Florian's headstone.
Glancing to the right, she looked at the grave of Florian's mother. "I'm sorry for this, for what it's worth." She smiled sadly as she pushed herself to her feet and bent over her bag, unzipping it. "I'll try not to make too much of a mess." She whispered to herself, pulling a long wooden handled sledgehammer from the zip bag.
Florian wanted her to send a message, and a message she was gonna send.
Hesitating for a moment as she felt the hammers weight in her hands, she looked down at the grave, deep in her heart hoping that this wasn't some cruel foreshadowing of things to come.
Vasa looked on in silent disbelief as he watched a young woman shuffle through the gates to their section of the cemetery, mumbling something strange to herself in the common language. What was she doing here? This was far too out of the way for her to have anyone to visit over here. Reputation alone should have kept her away, honestly, there was respect among the young any more.
Still she was acting oddly enough to make him take pause and simply watch, at least to see what exactly she was doing. That was when she made 'The Guns' at the graves at his loved ones and then pulled out a sledge hammer of all things. All while talking to herself! Was this one of the people who'd been giving his troops such trouble? And if not... well she may have just been insane.
"I hope that you're actually just lost!" He called over to her. "This will be even more awkward if not."
Lilith almost dropped the hammer as the old man startled her. "Oh Jesus." She laughed nervously, grasping at her chest. "No, I'm not lost, I'm just...er..." She glanced down at the hammer in her hands, then at Florian's grave. "Just...doing... some maintenance." She tried to look convincing as she forced a smile. "Ground gets uneven after some time, you have to...er... tap it back down again..."
'If he believes this, you will be the greatest bandit of all time.'
He almost responded. Then he didn't. He just couldn't. What could Vasa say to that? These was a pause between the two of them, not an awkward one, awkward would be too mellow a term. For a moment it seemed as if the wind outside the dome walls howled even louder just to try and fill the silence as Vasa stared Lilith down. He didn't look angry but he was far from amused.
"That is... maybe the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard." Vasa gripped his cane in both hands and pushed himself to his feet, seemingly with great effort as he reached under under his jacket and clutched at his side. And subtly pressing the switch on his silent alarm, sending an alert to the radios of his escort who'd been waiting a respectable distance beyond the cemetery walls.
Lilith furrowed her brow, averting her eyes. "Yeah, that was kinda way out there wasn't it?" She mumbled to herself.
"Okay, I'm goin' to level with ya." Lilith let the head of the hammer fall to the ground in front of her, placing her hands on the bottom of the handle, almost mimicking the old man's own pose. "Headstones are for the deceased, and, well, that one there." She nodded over at Florian's headstone. "The owner of that one is still very much alive, and he doesn't really like the idea of having a death that he didn't die on display, you get me?"
'what?!' Vasa's mind practically screamed. "And just what do you know about the owner?" He hissed, stepping closer to Lilith. She must have known who he was, this must have been some kind of trick. Some kind of petty psychological ploy being made to hurt him. Well fine, he could play along, let her have her fun. It would be all the more satisfying when they brought her down.
"Oh, erm..." Lilith was a little taken aback by the old man's quick advance. "Well, he's been away for a few years, just got back into town, doesn't like the idea of being next to his mother quite yet."
Tapping the handle of the hammer, Lilith smirked. "This is where I come in." Who was this geezer? A caretaker?
Once again, Vasa was just left to comprehend what was being said to him. This had to be a lie. There was no way the truth could be as ridiculous as it was sounding to him right now.
"And he can't do that himself? He sends you while he hides away like some thief in the night." He said it so softly, studying Lilith and her cocksure confidence along with what she was saying. "You think he would act like a stranger in his own home?"
"Places change, people change, they're not static things." Lilith shrugged her shoulders. "If it were up to him, he would have done his business here and left, and nobody would have been any the wiser." The girl hoisted up the hammer, taking a few steps towards the headstone. "But that all went to shit, and I've been sent to make the 'grand gesture' as he calls." The girl shook her head incredulously. "Dammit Florian." She chuckled to herself before glancing back at the old man.
"This won't take long, I won't wreck anything else, I promise."
Florian... she actually named him. That was the first time anyone outside of his inner circle had actually said his name, an not even to vasa himself but-
"Who are you?" He practically growled, stepping in even closer to Lilith and resisting the urge to reach out and turn her around by force, sledgehammer be damned.
"Me? Oh I'm nobody, just a tourist." The girl grunted as she raised the hammer above her head. "Seeing the sights." She brought the hammer down on top of the headstone, immediately taking a large piece out of it. "Meeting the people." Lilith chuckled as she brought the hammer to bare once again. "Getting shot at by said people." Down the hammer came again, not doing as much damage as the first blow, but enough to crack the top half of the what remained.
Vasa's heart felt like it broke in time with the cracks as they formed on the headstone. Lilith's wide swings sending him stumbling back and for the first time since he could remember he felt helpless. Too old and weakened to fight against her and having no one who could do it in his place. Well, he had one way.
His hand darted to the head of his cane and drew the long barrel of his pistol from its resting place. Lilith's back was still to him, he could have killed right now, so easily and bloodied his hands himself for the first time in years. But no, he had to take a breath, she'd suffer for this, an example would be made.
Lilith raised the hammer over her head just to be shaken out of her rhythm as a deafening gunshot rang through the quiet and bullet slammed into the hammer head, forcing the tool from her hands.
Lilith froze in place, her hands still trembling from the hammer vibrations as it was sent falling out her grasp, thudding loudly on the dirt next to her. "You could have just asked me to stop." Lilith chuckled, lowering her hands to rest behind her head as she slowly turned around. "Nobody ever asks nowadays." Clearly she was dealing with someone other than the undertaker.
The gunshot would have brought his guards running by now, though if he knew his captain they'd know to keep their distance until they had a clear line of advance as some of them found a way to flank their position.
Vasa, for his part, was still breathing deep, doing his best to calm himself and running a free hand through his hair, keeping the gun trained on Lilith. This girl was determined to play the family head game then fine, he could out calm her with ease.
"Forgive me. My temper got the better of me, I try to set a good example most of the time. But I am a sentimental man, especially where my family is concerned." He stared her down with an amicable look of polite calm that didn't reach his eyes.
The girl's eye widened as the realisation washed over her. "I
knew I recognised you." The girl smiled as she looked at the man. "Mr Beijic." The girl nodded her head gently. "You look a lot more wizened than in the photo I saw." She tilted her head curiously. "A few more grey hairs, but that same old expression." She grinned as the man looked at her disapprovingly. "Florian makes that face too."
Was she seriously just looking at him with some shit eating smirk right now? Was this girl even functioning on the same wave length?!
"What do you know about my son?" Vasa continued to speak in a tone that was far too even for the situation. It probably helped that internally he was thinking about just how dead Lilith was right now.
"Oh, you know." The girl glanced to the side coyly. "Things." Her cheeks reddened slightly. "And stuff."
So this was the infamous Vasa. She wasn't really sure what to expect, he was a long way from his prime, that was certain. "He's my friend, well, more than a friend, but that's not important." The girl locked eyes with old man. She could see more of him in Florian the longer she looked at him. "What is important, is that he's most certainly not dead." She nodded her head sagely. "And he's not very pleased with how his home has turned out."
She was telling the truth, she was actually telling the truth. She knew him by face, an old face going by what she said, and claimed to actually know his son personally. Or she was an excellent liar. Who even was this girl?
"What are you talking about?" Someone called out behind Vasa and he held up a hand to halt his advancing guards who took positions at the entrance to their little plot, rifles at the ready. Vasa recovered himself quickly enough.
"My son has been dead over two years now. I watched him
burn. I scattered his ashes myself. If he was alive... if he was back, he would have come to me. Now you stand here and you think to say he is not only alive, but fighting against me, his own family!" He wasn't yelling yet but there was something close to emotion creeping into his voice. What emotion it was Vasa couldn't say yet. "To fight me is one thing but to spit on my child's memory like this. You should explain yourself very quickly."
Lilith pursed her lips as she lowered her hands to fall loosely by her sides. "You think someone would lie about Florian? Do you know how crazy that sounds?" The girl chuckled, holding out a hand innocently enough as she reached for her cigarettes. "I'm gonna level with ya old man, this place is a dump." She plucked a cigarette from the pack with her lips. "But what do I know? I'm some nobody from the south, right?" She shrugged her shoulders casually as she held her lighter to the cigarette, closing it again with a flick of the wrist.
"But somebody who was here before would know, right? How long ago did you say your son died? Two years ago?" The girl smirked as she took a long drag. "Maybe your right, maybe he isn't
your Florian." Holding her chin ponderously, Lilith's eyes narrowed. "A test then." She puffed smoke from her nostrils. "Has Little Wolf always had that mole behind his left ear, or did that just kind of show up at some point?"
Vasa froze and Lilith quickly learned that he and Florian had the same barely contained seething rage expression. That they had the same blue eyes made the experience all the more surreal.
"How?" He almost whispered. "You tell me how he is alive- you tell me where he is now."
"Sorry, I just..." Lilith chuckled nervously. "I've never seen any of my friends' parents before, so this is a first for me." She leaned forward slightly as she took in Vasa'd expression. "Jesus Christ, it's just..." The girl grinned. "Hah! You do the thing too! The thing with the eyes!" Lilith clapped her hands together, almost giddy with excitement. "You can't hide your anger from me, Mr. Beijic, good to see Florian will never learn to do that if you haven't."
And now she was laughing... she was just treating this like some casual little meeting in the park. As if there wasn't a warzone all around her, as if there weren't men with guns pointed right at her, blocking her only escape. As if... as if-
'She may be insane. Or at least a sociopath.' Vasa thought to himself. Well that was fine, he'd dealt with more than his fair share of nut jobs in his line of work.
She was talking about Florian. She could have found out the name from someone but the mole, no, she knew him. She'd won this round, but now he knew the lay of the land, the look in her eye, the way she'd blushed, the way she spoke about him now. It was time to put himself aside and play his role as he was meant to. So he took quiet deep breath
"So you fucked him." Vasa said bluntly. "You're trying to tell me in a very round about way that you fucked the boy." He didn't look away from Lilith as he put his gun away, he didn't blink either. "And you are very proud to have hit some low level operations as you play at sherif and fuck my son - or get fucked by him." he corrected himself. "And you are very calm in the face of all this danger, just like everyone who is very serious and very dangerous." He was not very impressed by this display at all. And Lilith shouldn't have been either as he looked over her, pacing to her side as he scanned her like some little girl. Like the little girl she was when compared to him. "So what's the next part of the plan? Now he's had his fill of you and you are his vandal now, what will you do?"
"Ooooh." Lilith winced, still smirking as she grasped at her chest. "Cranky old bastard ain't ya?" As Vasa approached her, the girl's mind did backflips as she tried to see how she could escape from this situation.
It wasn't looking good.
"I think I know were the similarities end." Lilith pouted sulkily as she looked at the man from the corner of her eye.
'I can do this all day, my friend, you're just giving me time to think of how the fuck I'm getting out of here.'
"Honestly?" Lilith shrugged. "I hadn't thought that far ahead."
Vasa chuckled low to himself. "You hear this? You hear this, boys?" He called back to his guards at the gate, laughing away. "Oh I'd have had fun with you back in my day." He shook his head as his chuckling slowed down and lost momentum. "Of course- of course I doubt I am your type these days." He stopped his pacing and came to a stop at Lilith's side, just out of her reach.
"You are his type though, I see that. Actually, you remind me of one of his ex-girlfriends, Irena." She didn't find that funny but Vasa was still playing her game, talking like they were kidding among pals. "They broke up a while ago. It's okay though, I set her up actually. I set her up with a nice boy, his name is Sergei. Do you know him?" She knew him. "I don't think the relationship will last though... I don't think she is satisfying him very well."
Lilith's expression hardened as she locked eyes with Vasa. "Reason number one." The girl took a long drag. "Reason number one as to why you're own son would turn against you." Lilith tilted her head. "How many do you think you'll give him?"
Vasa stepped forward, nice and slow like he was approaching some easily spooked animal as he slowly raised his hand and gently placed it on Lilith's shoulder. "Let's go see him, together, and find out." If Irena counted for one, then odds were he'd give him at least two. but nothing that couldn't be forgiven.
"How about you take that away before I do it for you." Lilith almost whispered as her eyes bored into Vasa's.
Looks like the playful chapter of todays chapter had drawn to a close, and still the girl was no closer to figuring out her escape.
"That's not nice!" Vasa said, doing his best hurt puppy face. "We were joking and laughing about all the killing and fucking my child. Where has all this come from?"
His escort were moving in now, surrounding them. They didn't need to check her for weapons as Vasa seemed to be doing that himself. Just gently patting her down and laying his hand on the handle of Lilith's revolver.
Brushing the old man's hand away, Lilith quickly stepped backwards, bringing her revolver to aim at the man in a flash. All hint of humour was gone from her face now. There was no way she was going with him, if Irena wasn't in a particularly great situation right now, there was no way a stranger like her would be shown the same leniency.
"As much as I'd love to, Vasa." The girl almost spat his name. "I still have to help your boy save this dome." She narrowed her eyes at the man glared at her.
Such a surreal experience, having someone look so much like someone you love, threaten your life.
The guards all raised their weapons and waited for the order. Vasa didn't flinch or back up. He just kept stepping closer.
"Are you thinking I'll back down now?" He asked her, far too calmly. "You have to be sure though. Because what if I'm not afraid to die?" They shared a look, the two of them, as he watched the gears turning in her head. Until they understood each other. "What if they're not afraid to shoot through me? Even then... even if you end it all here- and you could - but there'll be nothing stopping them. One way or another."
He reached up and gently lowered her revolver, until Lilith loosened her grip and relinquished it. "Come on now. I know I nice place, we can talk properly there." He said it so gently. In an actual fatherly tone.
Lilith clenched her jaw. She didn't like it, but the old man was right. This wasn't good, this wasn't good at all. Spitting her cigarette onto what was left of Florian's grave, the girl let the man take her weapon, her shoulders slacking in defeat as her face softened.
There was suddenly a pit in her stomach as she realised what could be awaiting her. Maybe he wouldn't have a reason to hurt her?
'You're a moron, Lil.' A girl could hope, couldn't she? Glancing up at Vasa's men as they closed in, the girl suddenly felt very claustrophobic.
'I'm sorry Florian.'
