It's About Sending a Message

Midoriko eyed her singed purse from the top of the stairs, trying to figure out how she could get down there safely. She recalled the way Ryouma had summoned the rock into his hand from across the garden. I suppose I could just ask him to get it for me…

While Midoriko deliberated, she heard the voices of two men approaching from outside. With the front door ajar, the closer they got, the clearer their speech became. They were speaking Russian.

She tensed up, unsure of what to do. Midoriko needed to get that purse back, but the men were close enough now that she could see their shadows stretching through the open door. They had intentionally waited until it was daytime in England to make the trip for practical reasons, but now it meant she couldn’t even hide under the cover of darkness.

Midoriko crouched around the corner, hoping they wouldn’t see her through the railing. The front door was pushed open, and the two Russians entered. All of it made worse by the fact that she recognized one of them—the man with the gold teeth.

He said something in Russian to the other man, who crushed some already broken glass under his foot. They were having a heated discussion about something. The man with the gold teeth gestured to the stairs as he raised his voice at the other man. Midoriko’s breath hitched in her throat.

Suddenly, she felt a cold hand cover her mouth from behind. Ryouma held an index finger to his lips as he pulled Midoriko closer.

He looked down at the two men, now arguing, through the railing with disgust.

“Tch…” He softly clicked his tongue. Midoriko watched as he closed his eyes, deep in concentration.

CRASH!

Something fell over somewhere out of view on the ground floor. The Russians followed the sound. With the coast clear, Ryouma pulled Midoriko back in the direction of the study.

“But…!” she whispered urgently, pointing down to where her purse was.

Ryouma put his cursed hand over her mouth once more to silence her. He motioned for her to be quiet, then beckoned for her to follow him.

As they crept down the hallway back to the study, Midoriko slipped on some loose debris. She gasped as she lost her footing—a combination of the sudden surprise and the fear that she was about to make a lot of noise.

Ryouma quickly shot his arm out and caught Midoriko by the waist before she could fall. Her heart was beating out of her chest. He held her like that for a moment, listening for any signs that they were heard by the Russians, before righting her on her feet.

When they made it back to the study, Ryouma closed the door slowly and quietly behind them.

“Xiǎomíng, the house only just burnt down, but we already have scavengers,” he said in a low voice.

“How many?” Xiǎomíng asked in a whisper.

“I only saw two, but there could be more,” Ryouma replied quietly. He crossed over to his desk and gathered up the things he’d set aside. “It’s not worth fighting them. Let’s finish up quickly.”

His diversion wasn’t going to last long. It sounded like the men were already loudly arguing at the base of the stairs again.

Midoriko began assisting Xiǎomíng with packing up whatever could fit in the bags they brought with them. She could tell more clearly, now that the house wasn’t on fire, which items left had the special auras only she could perceive. Midoriko prioritized grabbing those things.

With everything worth taking either packed up or held in their arms, the three of them prepared to return to Japan. As Midoriko stepped quietly across the room, she kicked something with her feet. A small block of wood skidded across the floor.

It was completely ruined and almost unrecognizable, but there was no mistaking the halo formed by gold leafing. The icon of Saint Cyprian…

Midoriko recalled what Ryouma had said about it. “I got that one in Russia.”

It was obvious now that he had pissed off those Russian gangsters by stealing the icon. Though he probably stole other things from them, too. The icon wasn’t special other than likely being antique.

Ryouma picked up the icon and waved it around with a mischievous grin on his face.

“They’re not getting this baaack,” he whispered before tucking it under his arm.

How petty…

From outside of the study, they could hear the two Russians climbing the stairs. Their already loud voices grew closer. It was time to leave.

Ryouma knocked on the door, opened it, and the trio hurried through with their loot. Once they were all through the door, Ryouma closed it behind them.

They had ended up back where they had left–right outside the WC.

As they started unloading the things they’d carried over from England, Midoriko noticed a doll in Ryouma’s arms. It was one of many that she recalled having Xiǎomíng's talismans stuck to it. Perfectly normal, but just old and weird-looking with hairline cracks in the doll’s porcelain face.

“Why do you have that?” Xiǎomíng asked, his voice tinged with clear disgust.

Ryouma looked at the doll and smiled. “It didn’t get too messed up, so I thought Good Girl might like it.”

Xiǎomíng looked at Midoriko, clearly confused. She remembered her earlier conversation with Ryouma and facepalmed.

***

At the house in England, the Russians—both bratva sorcerers—managed to break into the study through brute force. They had counted the windows outside the house and determined that the number of windows on the exterior second floor did not match up with the layout they could see at a glance inside the house.

Westbrook had hidden the room by disguising the door as a regular wall. It was easy to find the door by just rapping their knuckles against the wall until it sounded different. There was no need to use any magic to get through when just a few hard kicks would do the trick.

Their target was clever but not overly cautious—he hadn’t even boobytrapped anything. It was this exact attitude that made the whole situation all the more infuriating to their boss, Boris Grigoryev.

“I want that lying piece of shit dead! Castrate him first or something! I want him to suffer!” The old man was beside himself over Brodny—no, Westbrook—getting one over on him. He’d wormed his way into Boris’ inner circle by gaining his trust as a reliable and loyal sorcerer, only to completely destroy it.

Most gangs had to convince sorcerers to work with them, given their supreme power, but Zapad Brodny had willingly pledged his loyalty to Boris Grigoryev. It was stupid of them not to be suspicious of his intentions from the start.

They had tracked Brodny’s movements in Russia until his trail went cold. Then he was spotted in England speaking to a different Bratva group based out of London. Orders immediately came down to tail him, leading them to a residence in a rather sophisticated part of the city. When Brodny didn’t emerge, they started doing some more digging.

The property was owned by a shell company that also owned several more properties across England, as well as one in Edinburgh and one in Dublin. Staking out each of them for any sign of Brodny was light work, as most of them were empty.

But it was the one in the Cotswolds where they finally had their breakthrough. People were staying there—none of them Brodny—but maybe one of them could lead them to him.

At first, Ivan was worried that they’d been spotted during their stakeouts by the woman. They’d taken great pains to cloak themselves with invisibility rather than just suppressing their presence, so no one should have been able to see them at all.

It was only when Ivan met the woman in the garden on that rainy day that he understood what she was. Not only that, but she had unknowingly given away the real identity of Zapad Brodny—a name meaning West-by-the-Stream. Westbrook.

The puzzle pieces had all come together to form a picture. This Westbrook character, under the guise of Zapad Brodny, infiltrated their group to steal from them and sell them out to other gangs. He probably thought they’d be too busy fighting those other gangs to go after him, but that was where he went wrong. Very clever, but not clever enough.

The two men tore apart the study looking for the icon of their Patron Saint, in addition to anything else that could lead them to Westbrook. He’d gotten away, but they hadn’t given up on finding him. There were eyes on all his other properties, including the ones in Russia under the name Zapad Brodny.

At this point, it wasn’t about what had been stolen, but the principle of it. The betrayal was felt too much. It was about sending a message to anyone else, sorcerer or otherwise, that the Grigoryev Bratva would not be fucked with.

“There’s nothing here. Let’s go back,” said Ivan, lighting up one of Westbrook’s opium-laced cigarettes.

Finding nothing worthwhile other than some pre-rolled cigarettes and a half-empty bottle of Scotch Whiskey, the men took these consolation prizes and called it a day.

Ivan’s lackey had taken to indiscriminately smashing stuff up as they made their way to the front door. At the bottom of the stairs, he stomped hard on a piece of wood, sending the debris on top of it flying.

Before Ivan could lay into the guy for almost hitting him with that shit, he saw the purse. That belonged to Westbrook’s woman…

Ivan threw down the lit cigarette and crushed it under his foot. He picked up the purse.

“What’s that?” asked his lackey as Ivan dug through it. There was definitely something in here that could lead them to not only Westbrook, but the woman as well. She was a rare and valuable neutralizer after all.

The phone was broken and worthless, but inside the wallet was the woman’s identification. It was all in Japanese, but translation software on a smartphone was sophisticated enough to be able to translate text from a picture. This would do.

“Have you ever been to Japan, brother?” Ivan asked. His wide grin exposed those gold teeth.