brigits_flame - Ranch
The Costs of Starting a Conspiracy
Texas. Peeking between white clouds, the summer sun beams down at full intensity, driving everyone with enough sensibility indoors or to the nearest body of water. On the baking stretch of black road, a Rolls Royce with an ouroboros hood ornament speeds through the empty plains. The owner of the car is not driving it, though not for lack of license or aversion to the act. Edward Fuciante is simply a man wealthy enough to have someone else do it for him. Not that he’s paying his current driver, exactly, but if he so wanted…
“Texas. Hmph.” From the back seat, Edward exhales a cloud of cigar smoke. He scratches at his blonde beard. “I fuckin’ hate coming to Texas. I hate it worse when I have to come in the summer. It’s as hot as Hell should be, except if it was, I wouldn’t live there.”
He reflects on this briefly over a pull of his Cuban cigar. Even before he claimed the seat of power in Dis, the climate and general environment in the city was nothing like his Catholic upbringing had taught. It was warmer than he preferred, sure--and he had put a definite change to that as soon as he had figured out he could change the city’s climate to mimic Chicago in winter--but it was nothing at all like this heat. Dis before Edward’s rise to power was a regular Paradise compared to Texas on the brink of summer.
“Driver! How much longer before we get to the property?”
“Very shortly, sir.”
Edward narrows his eyes in irritation. “How much longer is that, exactly? Give me an estimate.”
“Five minutes at the most, Mr. Fuciante.”
“Good enough…”
The man Edward is on his way to see is a difficult man to reach, but the services he is capable of rendering are nearly worth enduring the heat. The man is one of the “perks” that came standard with Edward’s job; a living Emissary tasked with maintaining a presence of his power on this side of the Mortal Coil, a man capable of doing anything and nearly everything to accomplish the former mobster’s various goals. Reliable, highly-skilled, powerful--but not too powerful. There is a failsafe in place in the event of betrayal, but the Emissary is a smart man. He knows things go more smoothly when he plays along and does what he’s told.
Now if only he was an easier man to reach, but everything has a cost. Edward exhales a stream of smoke. Everything has a cost.
“Sir.” The driver pulls the ruler of Dis from his thoughts. “We’re arriving at the property.”
“Good. Is the gate open?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Drive on through, then, ‘til you get to the farmhouse.”
“Will do, sir.”
The road leading into the property is unpaved, making the final stretch of Edward’s journey uncomfortable. He curses under his breath.
“Everything has a cost,” he reminds himself, pale blue eyes narrowing. “But this is ridiculous.”
“We’re here, sir.”
The ruler of Dis looks outward. Before them sits a modest, two-story farmhouse reminiscent of The Waltons. Parked nearby is an old pickup truck the color of Hawaiian dirt. The bleats of strolling goats permeate the windows. No one appears to be home.
“Wait here.” Edward opens the car door. “Keep the engine running.”
“Yes, sir.”
Almost immediately from the moment he steps outside, the heat closes around him, making him almost regret the choice of such a dark suit. The goats wandering nearby seem to take no notice of the man in the pinstriped suit scowling with displeasure at the weather, but a dog lying on the porch begins barking as Edward nears the steps. Edward’s scowl deepens.
“Shut up, you fuckin’ mutt. Where’s your master?”
But the dog merely continues barking irritating the old mobster to a violent point. Briefly, Edward contemplates crushing the dog’s head in with the pewter skull of his cane, but soon enough the door swings open and a tall, thin man hushes the dog into silence. Edward narrows his eyes, scoffing.
“You need to get that mutt a fuckin’ muzzle, Ezekiel, before I have to put him out of his misery.”
“Aw, he ain’t no dog to hurt somebody.” The baritone voice escaping from the man’s thin frame seems impossible, surreal. “He just likes to bark at everything. He ain’t got no bite except for what he eats.”
Edward scoffs again. “Sure he does.”
“But I see you found your way alright, Mr. Fuciante.”
“I did.” His cigar finished, the older man uses his powers to make the stub disappear in a brief flare of flame and smoke. “You’re a hard man to access, Ezekiel! I keep saying we need to find a better meeting place than this; I can’t keep coming out here when I need you to do something. At least, not in this weather. Jesus…”
The Emissary looks around, satisfied with his immediate environment. Ezekiel Prescott is a man who seems unusual in any place but his three-acre ranch or the nearby small town. He is a man of the land, rugged and strong from years of hard work he thoroughly enjoys. Anywhere else, the man is a walking anachronism. His mannerisms and quiet, reserved way of being somehow seem to age him beyond his nearly-thirty appearance.
“You can’t just expect an old man to change his habits, Mr. Fuciante. And I’ve got my priorities.”
“Priorities,” Edward echoes incredulously.
“Well, I’ve got my goats to think of. And I’m trainin’ some new horses for a show over in Kansas in a couple months…” Ezekiel walks down the porch steps, rolling up the sleeves of his buttoned down shirt. “C’mon--”
“Huh?”
“I gotta check on the horses. Due for freedin’ ‘em. We can talk while I work.”
The stables in which Ezekiel keeps the horses is kept neatly enough, though the smell of manure is enough to make Edward think twice about lighting a new cigar. If the smell bothers Ezekiel as he gathers the feed for the horses, he does a damn good job of pretending the opposite.
“So what is it you need doing, Mr. Fuciante? How can I help you?”
“I need you to pick up a man for me,” Edward begins to explain. “Actually, two men, but only one of them is of major concern to me right now.”
“So it’s a bounty huntin’ job you need doing, is it?” Ezekiel grins a little. Bounty jobs are his favorite. “Why don’t I just bring both of them in? Save you both the hassle…”
“Nah, just the one. The other one isn’t important yet, and he’s skittish enough that if you bring me the first guy, he’ll more than definitely turn himself in.”
“Alright, then. Whatever you like. ‘Scuse me for a second.”
“Sure.”
The horses make soft sounds when Ezekiel goes near them, but he keeps them calm with his calm voice and relaxed movements. A few of the animals stare at Edward with a strange intentness, as thought they sense what the dog might have sensed and what the goats plainly ignored; evil, perhaps, or whatever quality it is that sets him apart from the Living.
“Horses are kinda skittish today,” Ezekiel muses, brushing the mane of a brown one. “Don’t think they like you being around, Mr. Fuciante.”
“Neither does your mutt, but here I am.” The former mobster scratches absentmindedly at his beard. The smell and the heat are making him uncomfortable, are reminding him of the humiliations suffered the last time he was in a stable. “Listen, I haven’t got much time left before I have somewhere to be--”
“Right. You’re a busy man.”
“Exactly.”
“You got a…a picture or a name for the guy you want me to get for you?”
With a smirk, the ruler of Dis reaches into his suit jacket, producing two photographs for Ezekiel to take. Instantly, the Emissary’s green eyes light up with interest. Both are in color, taken seemingly without the knowledge of the subject. In one, a dark-haired young man bearing a passing resemblance to actor Francesco Casisa sits in a restaurant with a group of other men, nervousness subtly conquering his handsome features. The second photo is also of a man--this one older and with longer, dark blond hair--but he looks more at ease. He walks along a pier with a dark-haired young woman, his hands buried in the pockets of his black pants.
On the back of the first photo, in neat type, is a name: Claudio Marcello.
On the second, another name is typed: Marcello Conradas.
Ezekiel studies the pictures carefully, memorizing the men’s faces and cementing their names to his memory.
“Which one is it you want first?” he asks. He holds up the picture of the ash-blond man. “This one? The other one’s a Saint’s kin, isn’t he? Looks familiar…”
“That’s right.” Edward scowls. “Bring me Marcello Conradas first. Don’t worry about the girl in the picture; ain’t anybody important right now.”
“Right.” Ezekiel sticks the photos in his shirt pocket. “Anything else I should know?”
The ruler of Dis ponders this as they walk out of the stables. “Guy you’re after’s not gonna be an easy one to catch. Bit of a cocky little bastard. Handy with a crowbar, with explosives… Then again, I should expect as much from a terrorist.”
“A terrorist?” The Emissary raises an eyebrow.
“He’s got connections to a radical group in Dis that go all the way to the group’s head.” Edward lights a cigar. “He’s a dangerous man, Ezekiel. An escapee of the Institution. You should’ve seen what he did to the last Director we had. Wasn’t at all pretty.”
“I see…” Already, a plan is beginning to develop in Ezekiel’s head. “Well, Mr. Fuciante, you just give me a startin’ point and a day or so to getting everything settled around here and I’ll be sure to have the man hogtied before he even knows what hit him.”
“Prefect! You’d probably better start in the Northeast--New Jersey. My eyes up there say he’s hiding out up there, but he’s got connections here, too. Further south of here, I think. Ah…San Antonio.”
Ezekiel nods, filing this away for later. “Where should I bring him?”
“Let me ask you something.” Edward takes a drag of the cigar, exhales smoke. “You got like a…basement or something?”
“Yes, sir. I got a good strong cellar.”
“Bring him here, then. Keep him in the basement; send word when you’ve got him. This’ll be as good a place as anyplace else. Nobody’ll think to come looking here.”
The Texan nods confidently. “I don’t doubt that, sir. But, ah, if I might ask--”
“And you may,” Edward answers.
“If he’s so dangerous, why not just--” Ezekiel gestures. “--get rid of him altogether?”
The ruler of Dis laughs. “Ezekiel, my boy, it’s simple. Killing a man, even a man already dead once, is too easy--for the one doing the dying, anyway. He’s useful to me if I can still talk to him and try to make him see the light.”
“I see.”
“Besides! If I kill him, I’ll make a martyr out of him and a more dangerous enemy out of that halfwit Claudio, and I can’t have that! No… I want to impart the lesson without the backlash, Ezekiel, and this is the way to do it--with minor bloodshed.”
“And what sort of lesson are you teachin’ the boy, Mr. Fuciante?”
“That everything has a cost, Ezekiel. Everything. Some more than others.” Edward chuckles, raising the cigar to his lips. “But you know something? Some are probably worth paying.”
Texas. Peeking between white clouds, the summer sun beams down at full intensity, driving everyone with enough sensibility indoors or to the nearest body of water. On the baking stretch of black road, a Rolls Royce with an ouroboros hood ornament speeds through the empty plains. The owner of the car is not driving it, though not for lack of license or aversion to the act. Edward Fuciante is simply a man wealthy enough to have someone else do it for him. Not that he’s paying his current driver, exactly, but if he so wanted…
“Texas. Hmph.” From the back seat, Edward exhales a cloud of cigar smoke. He scratches at his blonde beard. “I fuckin’ hate coming to Texas. I hate it worse when I have to come in the summer. It’s as hot as Hell should be, except if it was, I wouldn’t live there.”
He reflects on this briefly over a pull of his Cuban cigar. Even before he claimed the seat of power in Dis, the climate and general environment in the city was nothing like his Catholic upbringing had taught. It was warmer than he preferred, sure--and he had put a definite change to that as soon as he had figured out he could change the city’s climate to mimic Chicago in winter--but it was nothing at all like this heat. Dis before Edward’s rise to power was a regular Paradise compared to Texas on the brink of summer.
“Driver! How much longer before we get to the property?”
“Very shortly, sir.”
Edward narrows his eyes in irritation. “How much longer is that, exactly? Give me an estimate.”
“Five minutes at the most, Mr. Fuciante.”
“Good enough…”
The man Edward is on his way to see is a difficult man to reach, but the services he is capable of rendering are nearly worth enduring the heat. The man is one of the “perks” that came standard with Edward’s job; a living Emissary tasked with maintaining a presence of his power on this side of the Mortal Coil, a man capable of doing anything and nearly everything to accomplish the former mobster’s various goals. Reliable, highly-skilled, powerful--but not too powerful. There is a failsafe in place in the event of betrayal, but the Emissary is a smart man. He knows things go more smoothly when he plays along and does what he’s told.
Now if only he was an easier man to reach, but everything has a cost. Edward exhales a stream of smoke. Everything has a cost.
“Sir.” The driver pulls the ruler of Dis from his thoughts. “We’re arriving at the property.”
“Good. Is the gate open?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Drive on through, then, ‘til you get to the farmhouse.”
“Will do, sir.”
The road leading into the property is unpaved, making the final stretch of Edward’s journey uncomfortable. He curses under his breath.
“Everything has a cost,” he reminds himself, pale blue eyes narrowing. “But this is ridiculous.”
“We’re here, sir.”
The ruler of Dis looks outward. Before them sits a modest, two-story farmhouse reminiscent of The Waltons. Parked nearby is an old pickup truck the color of Hawaiian dirt. The bleats of strolling goats permeate the windows. No one appears to be home.
“Wait here.” Edward opens the car door. “Keep the engine running.”
“Yes, sir.”
Almost immediately from the moment he steps outside, the heat closes around him, making him almost regret the choice of such a dark suit. The goats wandering nearby seem to take no notice of the man in the pinstriped suit scowling with displeasure at the weather, but a dog lying on the porch begins barking as Edward nears the steps. Edward’s scowl deepens.
“Shut up, you fuckin’ mutt. Where’s your master?”
But the dog merely continues barking irritating the old mobster to a violent point. Briefly, Edward contemplates crushing the dog’s head in with the pewter skull of his cane, but soon enough the door swings open and a tall, thin man hushes the dog into silence. Edward narrows his eyes, scoffing.
“You need to get that mutt a fuckin’ muzzle, Ezekiel, before I have to put him out of his misery.”
“Aw, he ain’t no dog to hurt somebody.” The baritone voice escaping from the man’s thin frame seems impossible, surreal. “He just likes to bark at everything. He ain’t got no bite except for what he eats.”
Edward scoffs again. “Sure he does.”
“But I see you found your way alright, Mr. Fuciante.”
“I did.” His cigar finished, the older man uses his powers to make the stub disappear in a brief flare of flame and smoke. “You’re a hard man to access, Ezekiel! I keep saying we need to find a better meeting place than this; I can’t keep coming out here when I need you to do something. At least, not in this weather. Jesus…”
The Emissary looks around, satisfied with his immediate environment. Ezekiel Prescott is a man who seems unusual in any place but his three-acre ranch or the nearby small town. He is a man of the land, rugged and strong from years of hard work he thoroughly enjoys. Anywhere else, the man is a walking anachronism. His mannerisms and quiet, reserved way of being somehow seem to age him beyond his nearly-thirty appearance.
“You can’t just expect an old man to change his habits, Mr. Fuciante. And I’ve got my priorities.”
“Priorities,” Edward echoes incredulously.
“Well, I’ve got my goats to think of. And I’m trainin’ some new horses for a show over in Kansas in a couple months…” Ezekiel walks down the porch steps, rolling up the sleeves of his buttoned down shirt. “C’mon--”
“Huh?”
“I gotta check on the horses. Due for freedin’ ‘em. We can talk while I work.”
The stables in which Ezekiel keeps the horses is kept neatly enough, though the smell of manure is enough to make Edward think twice about lighting a new cigar. If the smell bothers Ezekiel as he gathers the feed for the horses, he does a damn good job of pretending the opposite.
“So what is it you need doing, Mr. Fuciante? How can I help you?”
“I need you to pick up a man for me,” Edward begins to explain. “Actually, two men, but only one of them is of major concern to me right now.”
“So it’s a bounty huntin’ job you need doing, is it?” Ezekiel grins a little. Bounty jobs are his favorite. “Why don’t I just bring both of them in? Save you both the hassle…”
“Nah, just the one. The other one isn’t important yet, and he’s skittish enough that if you bring me the first guy, he’ll more than definitely turn himself in.”
“Alright, then. Whatever you like. ‘Scuse me for a second.”
“Sure.”
The horses make soft sounds when Ezekiel goes near them, but he keeps them calm with his calm voice and relaxed movements. A few of the animals stare at Edward with a strange intentness, as thought they sense what the dog might have sensed and what the goats plainly ignored; evil, perhaps, or whatever quality it is that sets him apart from the Living.
“Horses are kinda skittish today,” Ezekiel muses, brushing the mane of a brown one. “Don’t think they like you being around, Mr. Fuciante.”
“Neither does your mutt, but here I am.” The former mobster scratches absentmindedly at his beard. The smell and the heat are making him uncomfortable, are reminding him of the humiliations suffered the last time he was in a stable. “Listen, I haven’t got much time left before I have somewhere to be--”
“Right. You’re a busy man.”
“Exactly.”
“You got a…a picture or a name for the guy you want me to get for you?”
With a smirk, the ruler of Dis reaches into his suit jacket, producing two photographs for Ezekiel to take. Instantly, the Emissary’s green eyes light up with interest. Both are in color, taken seemingly without the knowledge of the subject. In one, a dark-haired young man bearing a passing resemblance to actor Francesco Casisa sits in a restaurant with a group of other men, nervousness subtly conquering his handsome features. The second photo is also of a man--this one older and with longer, dark blond hair--but he looks more at ease. He walks along a pier with a dark-haired young woman, his hands buried in the pockets of his black pants.
On the back of the first photo, in neat type, is a name: Claudio Marcello.
On the second, another name is typed: Marcello Conradas.
Ezekiel studies the pictures carefully, memorizing the men’s faces and cementing their names to his memory.
“Which one is it you want first?” he asks. He holds up the picture of the ash-blond man. “This one? The other one’s a Saint’s kin, isn’t he? Looks familiar…”
“That’s right.” Edward scowls. “Bring me Marcello Conradas first. Don’t worry about the girl in the picture; ain’t anybody important right now.”
“Right.” Ezekiel sticks the photos in his shirt pocket. “Anything else I should know?”
The ruler of Dis ponders this as they walk out of the stables. “Guy you’re after’s not gonna be an easy one to catch. Bit of a cocky little bastard. Handy with a crowbar, with explosives… Then again, I should expect as much from a terrorist.”
“A terrorist?” The Emissary raises an eyebrow.
“He’s got connections to a radical group in Dis that go all the way to the group’s head.” Edward lights a cigar. “He’s a dangerous man, Ezekiel. An escapee of the Institution. You should’ve seen what he did to the last Director we had. Wasn’t at all pretty.”
“I see…” Already, a plan is beginning to develop in Ezekiel’s head. “Well, Mr. Fuciante, you just give me a startin’ point and a day or so to getting everything settled around here and I’ll be sure to have the man hogtied before he even knows what hit him.”
“Prefect! You’d probably better start in the Northeast--New Jersey. My eyes up there say he’s hiding out up there, but he’s got connections here, too. Further south of here, I think. Ah…San Antonio.”
Ezekiel nods, filing this away for later. “Where should I bring him?”
“Let me ask you something.” Edward takes a drag of the cigar, exhales smoke. “You got like a…basement or something?”
“Yes, sir. I got a good strong cellar.”
“Bring him here, then. Keep him in the basement; send word when you’ve got him. This’ll be as good a place as anyplace else. Nobody’ll think to come looking here.”
The Texan nods confidently. “I don’t doubt that, sir. But, ah, if I might ask--”
“And you may,” Edward answers.
“If he’s so dangerous, why not just--” Ezekiel gestures. “--get rid of him altogether?”
The ruler of Dis laughs. “Ezekiel, my boy, it’s simple. Killing a man, even a man already dead once, is too easy--for the one doing the dying, anyway. He’s useful to me if I can still talk to him and try to make him see the light.”
“I see.”
“Besides! If I kill him, I’ll make a martyr out of him and a more dangerous enemy out of that halfwit Claudio, and I can’t have that! No… I want to impart the lesson without the backlash, Ezekiel, and this is the way to do it--with minor bloodshed.”
“And what sort of lesson are you teachin’ the boy, Mr. Fuciante?”
“That everything has a cost, Ezekiel. Everything. Some more than others.” Edward chuckles, raising the cigar to his lips. “But you know something? Some are probably worth paying.”