The Alpha Mercenary

The Final Contract

Adair:

Today Abe and I were meeting with Jonas for a job in the human world. It was past time fo their arrival. Abe was restless, his patience could use some work. My eyes scanned rapidly and the environment was entirely motionless. I was certain this was the spot Abe and I were supposed to meet our new client. Standing In front of me was the grapevine hanging above the large rock marked with a red spray painted triangle. There are not many places with those specifications. I had to assume our client was a bit skittish due to our reputation and had contemplated backing out. I was surprised they had the guts to hire us in the first place.

“I think he has changed his mind.” Abe hissed as he dug his boot in the ground. “I think we need to start having consequences for that too, don’t ya think? Maybe take a rat on their johnson and cover it with a tin pail then light a fire next to it so the rat will claw its way through their johnson. That will make them think twice.”

“What the heck man? No, we are not going to start doing that. Maybe the man had to take a dump or had a flat tire. Let’s give him a few more minutes.”

I will always be grateful for Abe. There is no way I could have ever survived as a child without him. He hunted for us, sheltered us, protected us and even found medicine we could take when we were sick. As I grew older I was able to return the favor. Now I am at least 50 pounds heavier and 4 inches taller than him. I am 6’6 and 250 pounds. He couldn’t be more like a brother to me if he was blood. We even look slightly similar. But lately he has been scaring me with his intense torture ideas. It is as if our line of work is now boring to him and he needs to entertain himself with twisted violence. He has become desensitized after all of our jobs of stealing, kidnapping, and being mercenaries.

Abe twitched tilting his head to the side listening , I heard something too. There were now leaves crunching and twigs snapping as we heard him approaching. I took a deep breath in smelling the air.“It’s not just one” I snapped. “He has breached our contract already and we haven’t even met. We said only he should meet us.” This was not looking good for these guys. Did he not know what we did to people who did not keep their word? I remember once we hung amputated trolls feet in the middle of the forest for everyone to see. And that wasn’t the only time we had severed a body part because of someone dishonoring a contract. Humans must not know that, yet.

Two men appeared from behind the locust tree, one was our client Jonas and beside him was a small man, definitely nothing to worry about. Or it wouldn’t have been anything to worry about until I detected the smell of oil and some cleaning fluid. The kind of oil and cleaning fluid used on a gun, I am sure they thought this would rid it of any gunpowder detection but everything has a smell.

I growled loudly. “You brought a gun!” Abe was shaking trying to keep from shifting right then and there. The smaller man went to run when Jonas grabbed his arm. He didn’t appear shaken which meant he had balls but I could hear his hear beat giving away his true feelings. He was scared mindless. I was impressed at his calm tone and smooth rate of speech considering his heart and respiration rate were through the roof.

“Wait, before you attack us you have to understand the reputation you men hold and the avenue we had to go through to find you meant we would have been imbeciles to not bring some form of protection. Being completely defenseless seemed like a worse idea than being caught prepared to defend ourselves. Trust me we mean you no harm. We just want to leave this meeting intact. If you were us would you not do the same?” Lucky for him that made sense to me. I still didn’t trust them.

“Put it on the ground now before I rip your guts out through your throat,” Abe spoke. I shot him a calm down cowboy glance. He pulled the gun out of his pocket and immediately emptied the chamber on the ground. As the hand gun hit the ground I pulled out the contract from my jacket pocket. I handed it to them to look over. Jonas was the only one that read it and he seemed to go over it carefully.

“ Is this what you had in mind?” I inquired. Jonas nodded yes as he was reading. This was a new kind of job for us. I was still uneasy about it. Something else was bothering me too though and I had to ask…

“I was curious how you got our contact information? We have never completed a human job before.” Jonas inhaled and shuttered when I said human as if it reminded him of what I was and he couldn't stand the thought.

“Ian is actually the one who found you. He has always been a believer in the supernatural and has been diligently searching for a way to supernaturally take care of our problem. It would be less traceable that way. While we were searching we found a witch who denied our request but she sent us to a hybrid werewolf she had met years ago. The hybrid said you all were the men for the job.She said you never left tracks, were ruthless, quick and needed jobs.”

“Well, I guess that we are available to the whole world now Abe!” I chuckled. Truthfully inside I wasn’t sure how I felt about this. Sure it meant more business but what kind of business. I had always just delivered the bad guys to the council or to various packs. This was murder and for what? To be lazy the rest of my life. What would we do if we didn’t have our work?

“What did they do? Why do you want them dead?” Abe cut in. “Do they deserve a slow painful dea-” I knew where Abe was going with this, one of his new creative ways to slowly and tortuously kill someone. He needed help, therapy or something.

“What did they do?” I refocused the question eyeing Abe with intensity. If they realize how violent he can be they could back out of the deal.

Jonas stood up a little taller and actually seemed upset at this question. He tried to reassure us that they were bad people who were ruining a company and many peoples lives but he couldn’t specifically tell us why. I didn’t know how to react to this so I started to grab the contract back. I did not have time for this! We had many other jobs lined up. Just not one that paid this well.

“Okay, Okay, I understand you need a legitimate reason. That is fair enough.” Jonas spoke up, smoothing the wrinkled contract I had just jabbed from his hand.

“Honestly, the man has dementia and is over millions of peoples jobs. No one will make him step down because they know he will just fire them. His daughter is even worse. She hates the company and will sell it to China at the first chance. I feed my family on this job and so do millions of other good people. This is the only way. If you take them out then I will be CEO and I can protect everyone’s job hence their lives. You would be doing a great service to the human world, trust me. You are worth the price we are paying for your service because of your reputation. Trust me if this is done right and quickly we can offer even more money.”

I felt he was mostly telling the truth but I noticed the smaller man, Ian’s heart rate had increased. Maybe he was just eager to leave? How could I let them go so easily after being late, bringing an extra person, not to mention a gun? We were going to allow this and work for them because this job would be our last job. It would pay for the rest of our lives that makes this terrible deed worth it especially if it saves so many families jobs.

“We will accept the job” I told Ian and Jonas. We shook hands, signed the contract and parted ways. Now the fun part.