Teaser Tuesday does all the body-dragging.

“Why the fuck do I have to do all the body-dragging?”

“Because,” Raeyn said, “to put it into your words, we’ve fucked up. No, let me rephrase, you fucked up. And now man up and do your job.”

I wanted to strangle him. Him and his fucking princely airs who’d gotten the Redcoat to sneak up on him in the first place. And how did he thank me for saving his sorry royal ass by cutting the guy’s throat before he got the chance to call his buddies?

“Seriously surprises me that you haven’t stuck a Dumb Muscle label to my forehead yet.”

“You want one? Why didn’t you tell me so before?”

 I growled something into Raeyn’s general direction as I dragged the dead weight of Redcoat with me through the rain. He was a heavy bastard, even with his heavy coat and uniform stripped off. Raeyn had put it on, not without his usual bitching and moaning about having to resort to cheap masquerade tricks because of me. I stopped listening after a while. ‘Sides, he had that long red leather coat to keep him dry in this gods-forsaken weather.

There were two benefits to the downpour that’d caught up on us. One, the rain washed away our tracks and on the riverside as we dumped the body and two, it chased away any random bystanders. Which were pretty unlikely anyway, given that we were in the middle of Low Side and no one would look at us twice for quietly getting rid of a dead Redcoat.

Only that most of Low Side had completely fucking lost it lately. The place’d been swarming with Redcoats for months now and things had gone down hard. People wouldn’t go out more than they absolutely had to with the curfew the Watch’d put into place and they kept arresting people left and right for whatever damn reason they could get. The Marché Noir had temporarily shut down. Business’d gone from shit to non-existent. 

“A shame how low the Palace’s standards must have fallen if they let individuals like this one join the Watch,” Raeyn said and wrinkled his nose at the high collar of his coat. “This thing smells and look at the man. I bet he hasn’t even heard of what a close shave is.”

“Yeah, whatever. You’re just throwing a hissy fit, because you lost your hat because it wouldn’t go with your costume.”

“Am not.” Raeyn gave me a sour look and flicked a strand of wet, silvery hair out of his face. “Also, I have the best intentions of getting my hat back. Do you know how much one of those costs? With the kind of social riff-raff that skulks around here, we better hurry.”

I didn’t really give a shit about his royal head wear, but with the rest of what he said I was more than okay with.

“Here looks good enough to me,” I said and let go of the dead guy’s shoulders. The body flopped into the water with a soft, slurpy splash. It didn’t drift off right away and I gave it a shove with my right foot, just for good measure.

“You don’t even bother to weigh it down?” Raeyn asked. “Isn’t that, what would you call it, proper body-dumping etiquette?”

“Dieux, you’re kidding, right?”, I laughed, couldn’t help it really, soaking-wet and aching from dragging some dead-ass carcass all across town. Proper body-dumping etiquette. Bullshit. “Don’t they teach you anything at the Palace? You’d think this is your first time doing this kind of thing.”

            The corner of Raeyn’s mouth twitched impatiently. “It may surprise you that not everyone relies on murder as their primary source of income.”

“Yeah, I forgot. You were born with a golden spoon. Up your ass.” 

Raeyn snorted and turned around, busy at covering up our tracks in the soft sand of the riverside as we left. “Still, aren’t you worried that the Watch will find him?”

I shrugged and crouched down by the water to clean my bloody knife in the stream. “They’ll find him all right. They always do. Doesn’t really matter in the end. The river just gives us more time to get our asses back to where we belong – a good deal away from the body. That and the water will make sure they have a harder time finding out what the hell happened to the poor bastard. Ever seen a body that’s been in the water for a while?”

            Raeyn made a face. “No. And I admit I do not particularly care to.”

            “Good for you.” I stood up and wiped my knife on my pants. That’s why I didn’t do sharp and pointy things. Too bloody messy. I’d clean a gun over a gory knife any day. It was still wet when I shoved it back into its sheath under my jacket. Ares’d give me hell about how it’d get dull and rusty that way. Sure, he didn’t need the knife anymore now. Not with the kind of shit he could do with the Voyance. He’d probably be able to just vaporize the Redcoat in the river. Bye-bye evidence and all that. I chased the thought away. I hadn’t heard from Ares in over a year, didn’t even know where in the Seven Hells he was and it probably was for the best that way.

            Yeah, right.

“Let’s get out of here,” I said when we’d covered up our tracks as best we could. The body had drifted off downriver and would be well out of range when the Redcoats found him. The rain would take care of the rest. “Don’t know about you, but I need a drink.” Or three.