names.

Eyes Like Flint

Sat 01:41AM EST
Earlier that evening, while the twilight still lingered in the western sky, Santiago is already awake. Breakfast is the usual, black coffee and eggs and toast, eaten on the sofa while he watches the 6 o'clock news. His life is as regular as a metronome, quiet and spartan and uneventful with the exception of the bloodbaths that explode now and again.

Like last night.
Like every night he hunts.

Not now, though. After breakfast, he sits at the dining table and cleans his guns. The two pistols. The Remington rifle. The 12-gauge shotgun. Oilcloth and gunoil, patience and meticulous attention to detail. It's an art and a joy, a matter of bonding with his weapons more than a chore.

Éva Jozsefa Illésházy

Sat 01:45AM EST
Timewarp: Friday - 8 p.m.

Summertime, or something like it these days. Warm days, and thunderstorms that roil through midafternoon, early evening, or sit sullenly on the horizon infecting the spring air with humidity. At this hour, it's still light outside, though in the Barrens the light is failing, and fading fast. The canopy casts deep shadows over the sleeping, snaking roads, and the sun has already sunk beneath the western horizon.

Tires crunch muddy gravel on the drive, and a pollen-covered Passat pulls up before a particularly sparse cabin. Headlights flash weakly off the trumpet vine, invading the eves, then die with the low rumble of the engine.

A moment later, after the driver's eyes have adjusted to the gathering dusk, gravel crunches beneath professional heels. Footfalls on the porch steps. A knock on the door.

Eyes Like Flint

Sat 01:53AM EST
It's a few moments before the door opens, wood grating on wood where humidity or heat has caused it to expand. A pair of black eyes looks at Eva levelly, and then the Half-Moon stands aside, pulling the door open wider for her to enter.

"Evening, kinwoman. Problem?"

Éva Jozsefa Illésházy

Sat 02:03AM EST
"No." Her response is quiet, but firm. She returns his level look, dark eyes through black-framed glasses, heavy oblong ovals that swallow the more delicate lines of her features. She returns the level look, though she never meets his eyes. "No problem. I - "

Still dressed for court. Formally: black suit, pinstriped, with a skirt that skims just above her knee, white blouse gleaming at the neckline. The long sleeves and fitted fabric must be uncomfortable in the lingering humidity of the warm spring-to-summer night.

In her right hand, a black leather folder, with a sheaf of papers sticking out from the top: printouts of some sort. Downloads, something of the like. Dangling from her left, a plastic grocery bag. " - I was in the area." She lifts the black leather notepad. Embossed in the lower corner, gold on black: Lux et Veritas. "I brought you this."

Eyes Like Flint

Sat 02:09AM EST
As she steps in, he shuts the door behind her. The inside of the cabin is dark and cool, the television off by now. Stray light washes in from the westward windows beside the door, but shadows are long until he goes to the center of the room and pulls the lamp on.

He looks at the padholder. At her. A frown furrows his brow. He reaches forward, just a hint of hesitance slowing the advance of his hand before his fingers close on the soft, textured leather cover. "All right?" - a questioning acceptance as he flips the notepad open to read the contents.


Éva Jozsefa Illésházy

Sat 02:21AM EST
She has never been one to demur, particularly. It's nothing. Don't worry about it. It was just a few minutes out of my way. I was in the area. (Technically: she was already in the county, though the county is a large one.) She has never been one for such games: the usual games women play.

Don't worry about it.
It's nothing.

But now, at this particular moment, in the dusky shadows chased away and enchanted by the sudden jolt of light from the center of the room, she understands the urge, suddenly and thoroughly. It's nothing. Really, she must bite her tongue not to say it.

"Martindale Hubble biographies on all members and associates of Havershim, Blakeslee, and Wiltz, Endron's counsel." She lifts her chin and glances across his arm, the corners of her lips quirking downward in a small frown of concentration. "Here." Indicating, her index finger between the printouts. " -- home addresses, telephone numbers, social security numbers. Also, the address of their hotel in Mount Holley."

Eyes Like Flint

Sat 02:27AM EST
He says nothing for a moment. He throws a glance toward her over the barrier of his lean, sinewed arm. Electric and black, sharp and jolting. Does she know what he has given him power over?

I know your name now. I can find you wherever you go.
Click-click-BOOM.

He doesn't say anything; he doesn't have to. Not for a long moment while he, head down, brow furrowed, leafs through the pages of the printout. Biographies. Phone numbers. Social security numbers. Addresses. And most precious of all, names.

The padholder slaps lightly closed. "Thank you," he says carefully, enunciating. Then, "What do you expect me to do with this?"

Éva Jozsefa Illésházy

Sat 02:35AM EST
"I don't know." Her eyes linger on the pad, then rise above the heavy frame of her glasses. The faint curve of a smile: precise and distant, distant and precise. How carefully, how surely, how quietly she enunciates every word. "I don't want to know."

His hand. His shoulder. The edge of his profile, swarthy and distinct. Beyond: the table and his weapons, dismantled, cleaning rags. In the air: oil and gunpowder, gunpowder and oil.

Her attention snaps back to him. She lifts her chin to look through rather than over her glasses, and her eyes rest just below his own. "That's all I have for you," she says, turning to go. The plastic bag still dangling from her fingers brushes lightly against her thigh, crackles in the oppressive rural silence. "You can keep the pad."

Eyes Like Flint

Sat 02:47AM EST
He studies her edging smile without returning it. Solemn and quiet, he looks back down at the padholder as her attention wanders, drifts, returns to him. She gets ready to leave. He looks up. "Could anyone trace this back to you?" He lifts the padholder a notch.

Éva Jozsefa Illésházy

Sat 02:57AM EST
"No." She glances back, across her shoulder, and her edged smile curves, bemused. "I'm not that foolish, Eyes-Like-Flint. Anyone who has been to New Haven could buy one, just like it. I cut the headers off the print-outs as well. It's safe. All of it."

Eyes Like Flint

Sat 03:02AM EST
"Good." He seems genuinely pleased, or perhaps relieved. A beat passes. His black eyes roam her face. He should offer her a drink; she seems ready to go. In the end he steps around her and opens the door for her. "Thank you," again, "kinwoman. I'll find some way to use these."

Tracking. Hunting. Questioning. Judging.
Pause. "Come by again, someday."

Éva Jozsefa Illésházy

Sat 03:24AM EST
"I thought you would." The confidence in the statement does not impinge on the smug. He opens the door, and she pauses in the threshold, glancing over the strong curve of her shoulder. Beneath the crisp lines of the jacket, the outline of shoulder pads: a professional woman's armor in the business world. No smile, then, just a brief glance. "I'll do that, someday."

It's an empty gesture. It's a polite echo in response. There's no conviction in her voice.

Heels click on the warped floorboards of the sagging old porch as she steps through the door. Impulsively, she pivots, sweeps her arm up, and offers him the bag dangling from her index and middle fingers.

"Take this, too." The brief curve of a smile: half-empty, half-full. She drops the bag onto his fingers, or perhaps onto the floor. Some grazing glance, before her eyes sheer away, dark and calm and unreadable. "Goodnight."

Then she turns and walks: across the porch, down the steps, over the drive to the Passat that will take her out of the Barrens, and back into the carefully protected semblance of real, normal life.

Eyes Like Flint

Sat 03:34AM EST
Santiago only nods to her polite response. The invitation might have been empty as well. Then again, he does not seem that sort of man.

When the bag is offered to him, he looks at it. This time he takes it with less of a pause. Peering in, the straight firm line of his mouth relents a fraction: he smiles, quizzically, amusedly. "Strawberries? Thanks." He'll eat them dipped in sugar. "Goodnight, Ms. Illeshazy."

The steps creak but little beneath her weight, which is slighter than his. Standing in the doorway - standing straight, not leaning on the frame for support - he holds the bag of strawberries in one loose hand, the padholder in the other. A firmer grip, there. The setting sun is in his eyes and he can't see her at all after she disappears into the sleek VW. As the Passat backs out of the gravel excuse for a driveway he raises a hand in goodbye. The sunset paints his skin golden-brown and rings his close-cropped, coarse hair in specks of gold. It glints off his eyes, but does not change their hardness.

After the Volkswagen is gone, he closes the door with its usual groan of wood on wood. Then he heads into the kitchen to wash the strawberries, tossing the padholder on the table on his way there.

Guns, a list of names, and a litany of questions in his mind. It was all somehow appropriate.