Scriostóir - 2

Cerdic looked at the boys as they lined up in front of him, each one wondering who was in for it this time. He moved his eyes slowly down the row, taking in the six faces one by one. At fourteen, Jakie was the youngest of the group and the slickest when it came to lifting something from a mark. Manny was the oldest at eighteen. His specialty was getting in and out of places with no one being any the wiser. The other four ran the gamut when it came to their jobs, but each was a specialist in his own area.

Cerdic had collected them one by one off the streets of the city, offering them a place to live, three squares a day, and the security of knowing that if they did as he ordered they’d be safe from the human predators that targeted the young and homeless.

He didn’t do this out of the kindness of his heart. Over the last thirteen centuries he had honed his skills and learned through trial and error how best to do what he had to, to please his masters and remain on this side of the veil.

Finally, he pointed to Jakie. “In my office, now. The rest of you, eat and then get on to your homework. I expect to hear from Mr. Shadrick that you’ve completed his assignments perfectly.”

The rest of the boys heaved quiet sighs of relief as they watched Jakie with pity when he marched slowly out of the room. Noting that, Cerdic smiled to himself. The boys were a good team, made better by the fact that they really did care about each other. He was quite certain they’d be relieved when Jakie returned to tell them he’d only gotten a reprimand and nothing more.

“So,” Cerdic said sternly as he walked into the office to find Jakie standing at attention in the center of the room, “exactly what happened?”

“I was good, I got what you wanted. The chump didn’t even know. But there was this dude,” Jakie looked down at the carpet. “I shoulda been paying more attention.”

“Indeed you should have. I’m very disappointed in you. Did this man see your face?”

Jakie shook his head hard. “No, Mr. Wyndham. Least I don’t think so. He shouted and I took off. The cop, well he was at the hotdog cart on the corner so I’m real sure he didn’t either.”

Crossing to his desk, Cerdic picked up the wallet that Jakie had lifted along with a set of keys. Flipping the wallet open, Cerdic rifled through it, smiling when he saw it contained what he’d thought it would. Then he turned back to Jakie.

“You will spend two hours in the gym with Gebhard. I’ll let him know that he’s to work you until you drop. After he’s finished with you, you’ll do your homework. Understood?”

Jakie nodded. “Yes sir, Mr. Wyndham.”

“Very good. Now go eat supper before there’s nothing left.” Cerdic ruffled his hair. “You screwed up, but you did well despite that.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Cerdic watched Jakie leave, congratulating himself on having handled the boy perfectly. Jakie had expected much worse. Now he would be even more cautious on the job, and feel an even deeper need to keep doing his best to please the man who held his fate in his hands.

There was a time, in the not too distant past, when Jakie’s screw-up would have earned him a beating. But in these modern times Cerdic had learned to temper the impulse to administer a severe thrashing when a boy blew a job, or came close to it. The authorities in this day and age took a dim view of corporal punishment unless they were the ones administering it. And, since he had civilians working with Jakie and the others, to wit Mr. Shadrick, their tutor, he couldn’t take the chance that one of them would decide to report any suspicious bruising to some agency such as Child Services.

He’d often thought that was part of the reason it was so easy these days to corrupt the populace in general. They needed outlets for their innate viciousness and depravity. Outlets that were being kept from them by governments and religious organizations who felt it was their duty to legislate morality.

At least he, and others like him, were doing their parts to bring down those entities and thus, in the end, humanity itself. His only regret was that it was taking so long, thousands upon thousands of years. If it weren’t for the do-gooder Caomhnóir who were trying to redeem themselves by working for the very superiors they should despise—He shook his head. That mystified him and always would. But, he figured, that was the way of the world.

For now, he had to do something interesting with the information he’d gotten from the wallet Jakie had lifted and that in the folder Manny had so conveniently found in a foreign dignitary’s hotel room.  Crossing to his rack of music, he thumbed through the CDs, finally settling on Iced Earth’s ‘The Crucible of Man’. That should put him in the proper mood.

Smiling, he set to work.