let me hear your voice tonight (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alexseanchai) wrote2012-05-31 01:14 pm
alexseanchai) wrote2012-05-31 01:14 pm
Entry tags:
Recruitment
Title: Recruitment
Rating: PG
Summary: A hunt Jo goes on in the Titanic 'verse.
Pairings: None.
Warnings: Character death.
Word Count: 500
Her name's Haniyya. She's the sole support of her little sister Rajiya.
Was the sole support. Until she saw Rajiya get torn apart.
Haniyya straightens her shoulders. "This—thing—will leave no more grieving family," she says. "What must I do?"
Jo sizes her up. "I could use a second pair of eyes on the obituaries," she says. "I don't know its pattern yet."
This is one of the towns that have yet to digitize their newspaper archive. It's some hours of studying recent obituaries before they hit on that of Vittoria Martin. Vittoria's only been dead a couple weeks; that's long enough that her body's been buried. But the obituary has the key words 'animal attack', the same words that attracted Jo's attention to this town when they appeared in Rajiya's obit.
Jo goes to interview the Martin family. Vittoria was out with friends the night she died, and Jo finds them next. Only Jack gives a straight story other than 'we were drunk': 'it was invisible'. Same thing Haniyya said.
That does narrow it down.
Jo's first thought is rakshasa. She just so happens to have a brass knife on hand, and she starts carrying it everywhere. She and Haniyya keep scouring obituaries, and converse meanwhile. Haniyya and Rajiya had only been in the part of town where Rajiya died to check out a building for rent; Haniyya wanted to start her own business, one where she'd be the boss and therefore wouldn't get nonsense from the boss about her headscarf. She might get nonsense from the patrons of the bar two doors down—
It's the same bar Vittoria and her friends were at the night Vittoria died.
Jo packs up her brass knife, a silver knife and an iron one just in case, bags of flour, and Haniyya, who refuses to be left behind. "If you hear a sound, throw flour at it," Jo instructs.
Jo's as careful as she can be when investigating the area. She's got a civilian tagalong, after all. She still gets jumped by something she never sees coming. Surprise.
Haniyya dumps a bag of flour in Jo's general direction, then swipes Jo's brass knife and stabs the figure thus revealed. She doesn't get anything vital, but the pain distracts the thing long enough for Jo to get free, grab the knife, and go for the heart.
The thing becomes the flour-covered corpse of a man.
Haniyya quietly freaks out.
"Hey," Jo says. "You did good for your first time out. Real good."
Later, when Jo's packing up to leave town, Haniyya calls. "You're not FBI, are you," she says. "You track—things like that."
"Good guess," Jo says.
Haniyya says, "I want to help you."
"It's a shitty life," Jo warns. "No paycheck, usually no gratitude, and not much life expectancy."
"Do you think I care?" asks Haniyya. "There's nothing else left for me."
Haniyya's the first to join Jo's crew. She's far from the last.
Rating: PG
Summary: A hunt Jo goes on in the Titanic 'verse.
Pairings: None.
Warnings: Character death.
Word Count: 500
Her name's Haniyya. She's the sole support of her little sister Rajiya.
Was the sole support. Until she saw Rajiya get torn apart.
Haniyya straightens her shoulders. "This—thing—will leave no more grieving family," she says. "What must I do?"
Jo sizes her up. "I could use a second pair of eyes on the obituaries," she says. "I don't know its pattern yet."
This is one of the towns that have yet to digitize their newspaper archive. It's some hours of studying recent obituaries before they hit on that of Vittoria Martin. Vittoria's only been dead a couple weeks; that's long enough that her body's been buried. But the obituary has the key words 'animal attack', the same words that attracted Jo's attention to this town when they appeared in Rajiya's obit.
Jo goes to interview the Martin family. Vittoria was out with friends the night she died, and Jo finds them next. Only Jack gives a straight story other than 'we were drunk': 'it was invisible'. Same thing Haniyya said.
That does narrow it down.
Jo's first thought is rakshasa. She just so happens to have a brass knife on hand, and she starts carrying it everywhere. She and Haniyya keep scouring obituaries, and converse meanwhile. Haniyya and Rajiya had only been in the part of town where Rajiya died to check out a building for rent; Haniyya wanted to start her own business, one where she'd be the boss and therefore wouldn't get nonsense from the boss about her headscarf. She might get nonsense from the patrons of the bar two doors down—
It's the same bar Vittoria and her friends were at the night Vittoria died.
Jo packs up her brass knife, a silver knife and an iron one just in case, bags of flour, and Haniyya, who refuses to be left behind. "If you hear a sound, throw flour at it," Jo instructs.
Jo's as careful as she can be when investigating the area. She's got a civilian tagalong, after all. She still gets jumped by something she never sees coming. Surprise.
Haniyya dumps a bag of flour in Jo's general direction, then swipes Jo's brass knife and stabs the figure thus revealed. She doesn't get anything vital, but the pain distracts the thing long enough for Jo to get free, grab the knife, and go for the heart.
The thing becomes the flour-covered corpse of a man.
Haniyya quietly freaks out.
"Hey," Jo says. "You did good for your first time out. Real good."
Later, when Jo's packing up to leave town, Haniyya calls. "You're not FBI, are you," she says. "You track—things like that."
"Good guess," Jo says.
Haniyya says, "I want to help you."
"It's a shitty life," Jo warns. "No paycheck, usually no gratitude, and not much life expectancy."
"Do you think I care?" asks Haniyya. "There's nothing else left for me."
Haniyya's the first to join Jo's crew. She's far from the last.