The Prince of Astoria-Chapter 88: LXXXVIII - Hot On The Trail (Part 3)

Etienne and Money pushed open the front door to the hotel and stood outside in front of the entrance. Money panted, his hands on his knees while Etienne crossed his arms.

"What was that?" Etienne asked flatly. Not annoyance, closer to confusion.

Money looked up at him, "That...was how people feel about you and your parents to this day. I know that was a lot. And I won’t lie to you, that will probably happen again as we go out in public more, especially near Astoria. But look on the positive side, the people of Astoria still love and revere you and your parents, even all these years later."

Before Etienne could respond, Money’s phone started to ring. He pulled it out and stared at the caller ID before exhaling and putting the phone to his head.

He glanced at Etienne one more time, "I’ll be back. My dad is calling."

He stormed off, talking angrily into the phone.

Etienne walked along the sidewalk, kicking a beer can and thinking to himself, "They still love my parents? All these years later? I thought...the best way to honor them would be to avenge them, avenge their memories. But really, I should be trying to follow in their footsteps, be an example in the community."

Etienne looked up and spotted four luxury cars parked near the front of the hotel.

"Those must be the Good People Movement’s cars," Etienne thought to himself, "Arrogant rich jerks. I don’t want to be anything like them. They’re sullying the name of the Fellows. The name my parents worked so hard to build."

He looked at the four luxury cars, all parked in a neat row, and approached them.

Etienne passed the first car, a brown Jeep with dark tinted windows and shiny silver rims. He tried to look inside the tinted windows for a moment before moving on.

Etienne thought to himself, "A part of me wants to slice these cars in half, send a message to the Good People Movement that we don’t want their greed here."

He passed a sleek white two-door Lexus next, the front bumper nearly scraping the ground.

Etienne tapped his chin, "I’ve already caused enough problems for Money with that little stunt I pulled on Lionel. I really wanted to solve all of these problems with one little threat, but instead it seems like I pushed Lionel closer to that Good People Movement."

He stared at the car for a second before passing by it. The third car was a luxury electric vehicle with a strange, oblong shape, from a brand Etienne had never heard of.

"Yeah, it’s better if I don’t," Etienne thought to himself, "Who knows what Lionel is still telling the rest of those people. If I do it, they’ll assign all the blame on Money, they might even retaliate."

He barely glanced it before walking in front of the final car. His eyes widened as he stared at it in awe. A fiery red Ferrari Testarossa sat in the last spot, clean and in pristine condition.

"Testarossa...this was me and Dad’s favorite car," Etienne thought to himself.

He circled the car and attempted to peer into it. He went around back and tried to look at the tag, only to find it completely missing.

"This has to be Julian Mason’s car," Etienne thought.

"This isn’t the car you want to steal from my friend, trust me," A familiar voice said aloud.

Etienne jumped up and looked for the source of the voice. He walked over to the passenger window, and it was rolled all the way down. Inside, Ms. Friendly sat in the passenger seat and Isaac sat in the driver seat. Ms. Friendly propped her chin up on her hand and stared out of the window. Isaac leaned toward the window from the driver seat and smiled.

Etienne stared at the two of them with his mouth agape, "Shit, this is bad. I don’t have a mask on, are they going to recognize me?"

He shook the thought out of his head quickly, "No, I’ve always had a mask when they’ve seen me, they won’t recognize me."

Isaac spoke up, "You know what? It’s wrong of me to assume you were trying to steal. You were probably just admiring the car, right? It’s nice, isn’t it?"

Ms. Friendly just stared at his hands for a while. She turned to Isaac and asked, "Doesn’t this guy sort of look familiar?"

Etienne froze like a deer in headlights, "Shit, of course she’s seeing right through me. It’s only a matter of time before..."

The backseat window rolled down and Dirty Bomb peeked his head out of the back, examining Etienne closely.

Dirty Bomb pursed his lips together and shook his head, "I don’t recognize him. But he looks like he’s seen a ghost. You need some help?"

Ms. Friendly looked up at him with a bored expression, "Maybe he recognizes who we are."

Isaac laughed heartily, "Now that’s a good one! But I doubt that if he knew who we are, he’d still be standing here gawking."

Dirty Bomb’s voice became angrier, and he gritted his teeth, "You got a staring problem or something, pal? Say something!"

Etienne reached in his jacket, putting his hand over his concealed katana.

Isaac’s smile faded, and both he and Ms. Friendly watched his hand intently.

"Woah!" Dirty Bomb shouted, He’s reaching! He really doesn’t know who we are."

"I know who you are idiot," Etienne thought to himself, "The Black Company. Live and in the flesh right in front of me. Just sitting in a car. I could swing this blade and eliminate threw off the biggest criminal threats in one sword stroke. But if I miss..."

Etienne let go of his sword and pulled out a business card. He handed it to Ms. Friendly.

"Sorry everybody," Etienne spoke with mock enthusiasm, "I thought these cars belonged to the Fellows. I’m just a smalI business owner and I wanted to promote my business to them, I didn’t mean to bother you. I’ll be going now."

Etienne scurried off, this time going back towards Money.

Ms. Friendly crumped up the business card and threw it out of the window. She turned to Isaac.

"The kid’s a good liar. Really good. Was he a hero or some kind of upstart criminal trying to get the jump on us."

Dirty Bomb narrowed his eyes in confusion, "Hero? Criminal? But he said—"

Isaac turned around in his seat and faced Dirty Bomb, "If you want to bridge the gap and step into that next level, you have to be able to sense the insensible. You need to go beyond words, beyond body language and feel the intention behind each action."

"Like a sixth sense?" Dirty Bomb questioned, "Is that how you could tell he’s not just some salesman?"

Ms. Friendly spoke up, "That’s right. We sensed that killing intent from him. Once you can pick up on it, it’s unmistakeable. And based on his reactions, I think he sensed it from us too."

Ms. Friendly turned around in her seat, "Your combat training is starting to have diminishing returns. I believe you’re about as strong as you can get without some drastic evolution Elijah. Next, I’ll teach you how to sense."

Dirty Bomb groaned, "We won’t be doing much of anything if we have to wait on Julian Mason all day long. How much longer is this going to take?"

Isaac turned back around in his seat and faced front, "Patience, Eli. He’s running for mayor, he can’t rush off of the stage to come meet us. He’ll be here soon. We’re starting on the Kill List today, we need to have one last team meeting before we disperse and start on our assignments. You remember yours, right?"

Dirty Bomb leaned back in his seat, "Hero duty."

Isaac smiled, "That’s right, hero duty. I was looking for a while to see if I can find an assignment that matched your skill set after the last Kill List meeting. But as I thought, explosions aren’t really conducive to good assassin work. Ordinarily, you’d be assigned to a different team within the Black Company, probably Team Property or Team Indie, but I asked the boss personally to keep you on the team."

"So I can deal with heroes for you?" Dirty Bomb muttered.

Isaac shook his head, "No, because you have potential. Isn’t that why you’re here? Because you think you have potential, because you think you deserve more than an average life?"

Ms. Friendly propped her chin on her hand and shook her head, "I swear I’ve seen that guy before. He looked so familiar..."

Isaac leaned forward, squinting and attempting to look through the windows of the hotel conference room, "I see a lot of commotion in there. He should be coming out soon."

Isaac grinned, "After this meeting, it’ll probably be a while before you see your teammates at all. Make sure to say your goodbyes to them for now. We won’t see each other again until we complete this month’s kill list and eliminate the target."

Ms. Friendly snickered, "Teammates, huh? What a friendly word to describe our work relationship."