Groundskeeping could be dangerous work. The hedge-clippers were a tad sharp, and one careless slip up with the pruning shears put practically anyone out of commission; a bit of risk was worth the fancy, manicured rose-bushes out front. Best-case scenario, you made it into your 40s without lopping off a few too-many digits, but once you did, you became distinguished. Someone with half a foot missing or a thumb cut off fit the fear of a liability, but to Bill, a man with scars was a man with grit. A man with grit was a man with use.

Bill lifted a hand to the glass of his office window, to which the gardener out front took notice, setting aside the crabgrass in his grip to cast a three-fingered wave back. The gardener wore a flat, triangular mask despite the labor, and a small, silver pin of an eyeball with bat wings, as all of the servants did (Disguises were a luxury of sorts; they kept outsiders from jotting down names, and made sure your face didn't burn an angry-red in the heat. At least that's what he said. People were a pain in the ass about gimmicks if you couldn't justify them).

Bill swirled the drink in his glass thoughtfully before taking a sip (God, scotch. What a boring flavor.) He swiveled around in his chair, facing away from the window to set his drink on the desk. Just as he did, there was a buzz on his intercom.

"They're here," came a woman on the other end. Bill sighed, using his drink as a paperweight atop the pile of Benjamins stacked neatly to his right. He smoothed the hairs falling before his face to the side, pressing down on the intercom's button.

"Let 'em in."

Not two seconds later, the door to his office swung open, held ajar by a woman sporting a bob of hot-pink hair. Thick, rubber gloves smudged motor oil across whatever they touched. Her expression came off hard around the eyebrows; cutting back on the cigarettes meant Pyronica's mouth had started chewing again, and she complained non-stop about how round it made her face.

Five men filed through the open door, the largest of whom looked to be out of uniform. Not the blood. The blood was normal. It was the suit jacket folded in his arms instead of over his shoulders that felt out of place. He walked up to Bill's desk in the usual big-man fashion, but his arms came together cautiously- almost tenderly- around the undersides of his folded jacket, unlike his counterparts, who crossed them dutifully behind their backs.

They stood at attention, their faces bare of obscurities, blotched in blood. Bill hated order, but he loved symmetry; there was something so appealing about the equal space between them that he tended to admire. Usually, he'd have a drink before breaking the silence. Today, he only leaned forward, resting his interlaced fingers just below the nose. Pyronica stepped out of the room, closing the door behind her.

"You get the job done?" Bill's lips, hidden behind his hands, quirked at the inquiry. He cast his gaze up at the five men before him, eyes blazing like hot bullets shooting through their skulls. Deadly, frozen eyes that turned almost black at the sickening tug of his brow. He could've killed a man. (He already had, but he enjoyed the prospect of killing more.)

Hector stepped forward in his ridiculous bowler hat and oversized coat; before Bill had found him, he'd been a petty thief. A pick-pocketer. He needed large, secret compartments, and various hidden spots, and a suit jacket that covered most of his shirt linen, instead of a half-inch (as it was supposed to), and he needed a ridiculous bowler hat, because no one dared accuse men in bowler hats of stealing. Only of having big, bushy mustaches (which he also happened to have).

Hector pulled his jacket open, rustling through a breast pocket sewn into the interior. Once he found what he had been searching for, he placed it on his desk, stepping away.

Bill lowered his hands, reaching out towards the item. A gentle touch- a slight breeze- could've punctured through its paper-thin surface. Even so, Bill had fantastic luck, and clever hands; he pinched it by the skin, letting it roll over his palm.

'Always look a man in the eye,' his father used to say. 'Even a dead man.'

He tended to take things a bit too literally- like then, in his office, his gaze boring deep into 8-Ball's muddled, murky eye, choked in dirty-white. Looking a man in the eye was about striking fear. Looking a dead man in the eye was about feeding; hating 8-Ball with all his might, wanting him to suffer. Burning holes into the back of his head for years, patiently pulling him apart limb by limb, until he was nothing but gums and nails.

Bill leaned back, a slight grin stretched across his lips. "Good," he hummed. The satisfaction was instantaneous, but it wasn't just right. Turning it around in his hand, he made out small dents and creases eating along the spongy-round entirety of 8-Ball's eye.

He pulled it in close, frowning. "What's with the holes?"

"Maggots," Xanthar replied.

"What about 'em?" He turned the eye around in his grip, holding it up against the light; string-like tunnels bit into each other.

Xanthar pulled his suit jacket against his chest, hesitating only a moment. He took a breath, averting his gaze. "They, uh. Ate him. He was dead long before we got there."

Bill froze. He blinked. "Dead," he echoed, letting 8-Ball's pupil 'plop' atop his desk. He sat up a bit in his chair, those eyes of his suddenly fizzing with life, the ends of his shoulders turning hard. His henchmen stood unflinching, but he saw perfectly the unease baking behind those expressions; how they straightened an inch.

Bill sucked in a breath, knuckles curling around nothing. Something rotten paletted his tongue. "How?" He asked.

Xanthar swallowed. "We're not sure."

Bill hissed between his teeth. "Son of a bitch. Don't tell me he stuck his nose in someone else's business, I hardly laid a scratch on him!" He cracked his fist across the desk, causing his henchmen to startle. Bill tried not to grind his teeth, barging out of his chair and snatching up the eyeball. "Goddamn moron, kicking the bucket before I had my fun. Couldn't even let me do the honors!" he griped, bearing his gums under a sneer.

Bill wasn't the type to take things personally, but he was the type to know when something belonged to him, and 8-Ball's life had been his. That stupid eye was in his hands, but someone else had gotten to the soul. That wouldn't do.

He turned towards his office window, grumbling spite under his breath. Hell, he couldn't be mad at his henchmen for missing out; they hardly moved an inch without his say-so. If anything, it was circumstantial. Inevitable. Scum like 8-Ball didn't last long, regardless of who got to him first. Someone always got to him. Still, the whole situation was unforgivable.

Bill put a hand on his hip, foot striking up a rhythm in thought. After a few breaths, he looked to his palm, and became almost irritated at 8-Ball's pasty-white pupil.

"This chump got any family?" He addressed the eye between his fingers while watching Mr. Eubank work away at the crabgrass in his garden. The lawn could use a little watering, too.

"I don't know," Xanthar replied honestly.

Bill sighed, turning himself back around. He slinked over to his chair, letting the eye roll from his fingertips. He threw a hand out, as though wafting the issue away. "Eh, doesn't matter. Pyronica'll run him through the system and find a few cousins or aunts to pay the rest; you know how she is with computers," Bill assured, crossing his arms.

The thought didn't ease him the way he hoped it would. Instead, he found himself toying with that goopy mess, rolling it like a ball under his index. He was already as upset as his men could bear, but true wrath hid behind a grin.

After a moment, he relented, wiping his dirty, smudged palm across the top bill stacked on his desk, leaving behind remnants of residue. "He'll make a decent paperweight once I get around to preserving him, at least. How'd his body look? Mangled? Squashed? Drowned? Come on, come on!" He snapped his fingers at them, sounding impatient.

Keyhole piped up. "Like an overripe tomato."

Nice save. Bill laughed. "That's what I like to hear!" He rose an inch before easing back, resting the smile on his face over a curled fist. He rolled his hand through the air. "And his partner, Teeth? Whatcha do to him? Or was he dead, too?" Bill joked with a snort, making himself at home in his seat.

He always got a real kick out of the details, and the different ways his henchmen liked to describe them. Bill could always tell when Hector was embellishing crap (he had this stiff, card-board stage-presence whenever he lied), and Amour could run on and on about dust particles, and how the air had smelled, and whatever sinking feeling he'd had in the pit of his stomach at the time, but whenever it got to the climax, he'd fizzle out, and with a bit of embarrassment, would always finish: 'And, well-. You get the picture.'

Bill was more than pleased to nurse his drink over the details, but when the scotch hit his tongue, and still his men held deathly silent- even looked a bit nervous- he lowered his glass, letting the taste sit in his mouth.

His enthusiasm died at the realization. His lips drew a hard line, brows unnaturally straight, the flat of his cup clicking across hardwood. There was a long pause.

He blinked- swallowed- before doubling over in a fit of laughter.

"Well, I'll be damned! Someone's been busy! What do you make of that?" He cawed, wiping a tear from his eye. His henchmen relaxed. One death was annoying, but two? Bill found it all too amusing; they had made a lot of noise over a couple of dead men. He went on.

"Sounds like a real doll, wiping that creep off the face of the Earth for us, huh? Saved you knuckleheads the trouble, at least. There's a mystery that'll keep you up at night." He took another swig of his glass.

Xanthar straightened, clearing his throat. "We know who killed him," he affirmed, only to falter at Bill's quick gaze. He didn't look mad, but Bill hardly ever looked anything short of good-natured before pulling out his pistol. Luckily (this time), he hadn't been; just happened to look up a bit too fast.

"What's got you holding out on me, then? You give 'em a medal? A bullet? If you really wanted to please me, you'd give 'em a job application. I'm a sucker for killers," he joked, kicking his feet up. Xanthar didn't find it quite as amusing. He huffed. Bill rolled his eyes, finishing off his glass before leaning over to peel open the hidden drawer in his desk; he pulled out a crystal bottle of scotch, twisting around awkwardly in his seat to get ahold of the neck. "Alright, alright! I'll bite. Who killed 'em?"

Bill poured a slow drink at Xanthar's approach. 'Big guy,' he thought. Sometimes, he forgot how big. Xan always looked a tad bulky in his suit jacket, with a bit of the round in his gut pouching whenever he sat. Not that he was fat. 'Show-muscle' got a few nice looks, a couple of compliments, maybe even a girlfriend, but it didn't mean a damn thing to look the part. True strength hid behind a layer of fat, like any other farmer's son. When Xanthar approached the side of his desk, Bill didn't doubt for a second, he could've killed any one of them with his bare hands.

And yet, the boy swaddled away in his suit jacket was held so gently. So soft; like touching him chanced ruining the delicate alignment of his skin.

Bill's legs made a startled kick, sliding off of his desk. He sat up quickly, double-taking the literal child hidden between his henchman's arms.

The pale, sickly complexion. The blood-stained lips. Wild, pitiful eyes framed in lashes that would've been entrancing, if they weren't stuck in a ten mile stare. After a long look, he leaned away, allowing his henchman to do the same.

"What's that, a vampire?" he joked, managing to look confused despite feeling far more dread; his gut could feel the shit-show about to rain over him.

"We found him in the cellar. He, um-. Bit Teeth." Xanthar coughed into his curled fist, averting his gaze. Bill had the right idea about what that meant.

He'd met Teeth. They'd all met Teeth. It wasn't a question of where he'd been bitten, or how he'd been bitten, or why that kid's mouth was covered in blood. Sickly, rotten men. Bill almost felt bad, in that he couldn't bring himself to care more than he already did.

He drummed his fingers, easing a hand up the underside of his jaw.

"Did'ja have to bring him all this way for a punchline? I'm flattered, but it's funnier without the props."

"He's yours," Xanthar replied.

Bill's gaze hardened. "You've got a foot in your mouth, Xan."

"For you, I mean. At your orders."

"My orders?" Bill guffawed, pressing a hand across his collarbone. He couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity. "Ya got a screw loose up there, Xanthar? When in the hell did I order this?"

His henchman's features were curling a nasty distaste under that indifferent expression. "Six months ago," he replied, but Bill didn't look all that convinced.

He examined his nails. "Yeah, yeah, sure. You got a real heart o' gold in that tank of yours, alright? It's 'admirable,' or whatever," he sneered with a nasty laugh, pinning the man with his eyes. "I'll give you a pass this time, since that car ride probably screwed with your better judgment, but you can't just bring home every poor sucker you feel sorry for. It'll attract other-." He paused, gritting his teeth. "Pests. Ya' got it?"

Bill waited for confirmation- perhaps an apology for trying to pull a fast one over him. Xanthar could really let a man stew when he had something important to say; anyone else would've called him slow, but Bill knew better. He was a calculated fool, through and through, and he was damn-smart if he knew not to open his mouth in front of a Cipher without simulating every possible consequence.

Xanthar pulled in his lips. He opened his mouth, gaping silence, before shutting it with a 'clack.' He started again, rearranging the boy in his arms. "I've never disobeyed orders."

But he had. Right then, he'd challenged him. Bill's expression went dangerously flat, and with eyes like ice, and a cold, clipped voice, said: "There's a first for everything."

Bill held his gaze in retaliation, looking the man over with shadowed contempt as he fiddled with the family ring on his left hand, waiting in the silent work of Xanthar's mind.

The man pulled his lips in again, but jumped at the sharp 'clink' of Bill's ring tapping into his glass.

"I wouldn't lie about this," he rushed out.

Bill wet his tongue with the drink in his hand. A crooked smile cracked the smooth exterior of his skin. "Oh? Then, I must be wrong," he said simply.

The room fell silent. Xanthar faltered at those sharp, fatal eyes, suddenly at odds with his own mouth. The lines of his face hadn't contorted with fear in so long; the expression was subtle and smooth. He knew, even a little back-and-forth was disrespectful- it didn't mean a damn thing whether he'd meant to question Bill's judgment, or if he'd bowed at his feet while saying it.

You didn't talk back unless you thought you knew better, and you only thought you knew better if you wanted a shot at the King's spot. Insurrections started by seeding doubt towards its ruler. Doubt spread through the system like a ramped cancer, branched-out fingertips strangling the heart of its own body until it pumped nothing but illness- poison didn't kill you; it called for death, and it called as long as you allowed it to.

That alone was more than enough reason to kill him over. Bill could've. He had every right, and every resource within reach, at his command. No one would've stopped him. Still, his skin didn't care for the ghosting feel of steel in his hand anymore than he cared for Xanthar's lifeless body on the floor; Xan wasn't the type to want what other people already had, and he had enough use in him to couple poorly with a bullet through the skull. No point in throwing the guy away over a few thoughtless words. He'd just been stupid this one time, Bill reasoned.

He let the starving drool of bloodlust linger in a glint of his teeth, before pulling back entirely. Bill sighed, flapping a hand at Xanthar. "No one said you were lying, Xan; get that look off of your face. All I'm saying is- in a hypothetical world- if anyone was gonna rescue a sad, wet, pathetic kitten off the side of the road, it'd be you."

Xanthar's features drew indignant lines across his face, upper-lip firm at the prune of his chin. This time, he said nothing, but that was even worse by Bill's standards. After a moment of pause, he groaned.

"Oh, pack up the sad-clown act before I puke! Yeesh!" Bill whipped around at the other henchmen, snapping his fingers. He pointed into the group. "Amour, you write everything down in that diary of yours, don'tcha? Gimme a refresher of September."

Amour, who'd merely been listening along helplessly, jumped at the sudden hand pointed his way. He stammered, taking a step back.

"It's not a-," he began. Bill cocked his head to the side, his finger outstretched before him- not a flinch to his expression, but his left eye twitching ever so slightly; behind the slow curl his smile was impatience, and that was all the warning anyone ever got. Amour cleared his throat, bowing his head.

It wasn't a diary. It was a notebook. A small one, so he'd be able to take it on the go- it helped him keep track of things. (He also happened to like how words looked in his handwriting, and how it made him look, jotting things down. It felt introspective.)

He reached into his left pants pocket, taking a second longer than he needed to fish it out; his ears went a ting red. Amour pulled the notebook out, making quick work of each page until September came into date. He grimaced at the tattered corners of paper pressed under his thumb, feeling stupid for having to read over his own handwriting.

After a moment of muttering, he cleared his throat, holding the notebook up to his face. "The deal was an extension of six months to gather the money. In exchange, 8-Ball would hand over half of the 30k-," he started, only to stop. His lips hardened, tugging down in wrinkles of distress. His eyes drew from the page at this part. "-and his boys." He coughed nervously, and with a crippled, nervous smile, laughed, "Sorry, Boss."

Bill sat silent for a moment, no more movement than the slight glide of his index over the space just below his mouth. He shot his hand out, palm face-up. "Hand it over."

Amour relinquished his notebook, fingers singing with the sting of Bill's grip slicing the book out from his hands, feeling just the slightest bit mortified at his boss reading over every word.

Bill sat back, then sat up.

"Shit," he cursed, looking up. Surprise was written across his face in all kinds of fonts, but the ticking irritation in his chest quickly overtook it. He smiled suddenly, all-teeth at Amourphous.

"Well, aren't you Little Miss Secretary? Alright, jot this down," Bill flung the notebook back at Amour, who caught it with fumbling fingers. Bill stood from his seat, grabbing his glass of scotch with all five fingers by the rim. He moved towards the side of his desk, where a small waste bin sat.

"As of today, no more day drinking." Bill lifted his drink just above the container, making like he meant to drop it in. A moment's hesitation proved the contrary, as Bill only hovered over it, rolled his eyes, and pulled the drink back from the edge. "Aw, who am I kidding?" He sat back down in his chair, taking a bitter swig of his drink. Once the scotch was gone, he made a flippant gesture at the boy in Xanthar's arms. "Get rid o' the kid."

The man only pulled him in closer. "You want us to kill him?"

"What are you, Mother Teresa?" Bill scoffed, then groaned at the bear frowns on his henchmens' faces; they'd do it if they had to, but considering the lengths they'd gone to get him, throwing him out now was only more work. They were tired and didn't feel like dealing with death or moral grays. They wanted warm baths to ease their muscles. New suits if the blood didn't wash out of their clothes. It had been a long ride home.

And maybe- just maybe- they pitied the kid enough to feel hesitation.

Bill glowered. He threw his hands up.

"Oh, quit your snifflin'! Children are worse dead than they are alive; the local news'll run sob-stories for weeks if they find him lying in a ditch someplace, especially if he's the doe-eyed kind. I'll have Pyro figure out where he lives and transport him back home, so you clowns can have your beauty sleep."

He swiveled around in his chair, weaving his arms into a braid. His men startled, but didn't move; how irritating. Bill huffed, poking his head around at them.

"Meaning you can go now," he clarified, shooing them off aggressively. They rearranged themselves, scuttling for the door in a hurry- that boy was still nuzzled in close against Xanthar's chest, watching the walls march across his vision in unwavering silence.

The office door swung open, but before it could swing shut, Pyronica slipped through the cracks. She pulled the knob close, locking herself in.

"Something wrong?" She drawled. Bill turned back around, eyes rolling. He hadn't called for her. She was awful about those kinds of things.

"Yeah," he started, waving a hand behind her. "There's an outline of your ear pressed into the skin of my office door. Be a doll and wipe it up."

Pyronica's face flashed surprise, those big, round ears of hers flexing like startled bird feathers. She looked over her shoulder at the supposed mark she'd left after pressing her cheek across the waxed oak, except there was none.

Ah, he'd only been fooling. She smiled, knowing he knew she'd been spying on them. Again. "Nothing gets past you, boss."

Bill huffed. "Oh, cram it." He stood from his seat, keeping a hand on the back of his chair at all times; tan skin on black leather had a sort of power to it- in a lot of ways- but today, it was just that he was exhausted, and had enough in his system for that light, wiggly sensation in his brain to tilt the room. This time, he did push his glass into the waste-bin, but it had already been emptied. "Your boyfriend was just swell today, by the way. Brought me a wonderful present I don't remember asking for!"

"I heard," Pyronica smirked with that too-wide mouth of hers, waggling her ears.

Bill rolled his head along the path leading one shoulder to the other, until a sharp 'pop' satisfied the journey. "'Course you did. Ever considered ear-reduction?"

"And lose out on my ease-dropping abilities? No, thanks."

"Come now, Pyro. The Russians have enough people spying on them," he tsked, shaking his head. It took a minute for her to realize what he meant. Her playful, too-wide grin eased into a pair of pursed lips.

"My ears are average size."

Bill clutched the space over his heart, doubling over. "Oh, don't say that! You're making me insecure; my partners think I'm very impressive!"

Pyronica's eyes narrowed. Hell, she did have some comically large ears, and lips that were a quarter-inch longer than they needed to be, like how a python's mouth was built to swallow the whole of a hippo, even if it spent its life eating nothing but palm-sized lizards. She had a funny-looking face, but not a bad one. Her teeth were crooked and stained-yellow, sure, but she had eyes like a child's, and a nice, round face. It made her look younger than she was, and less devious, too. It made her look cute, almost helpless; any man would've wanted to protect her and those big ears of hers. Anyone but Bill, that is.

"I've got a job for you," he said. He didn't offer an explanation. She didn't play dumb. Pyronica was too-good a listener; Bill needed someone who was good with computers, and databases, and missing persons reports, and he needed that someone to be quick about finding addresses to places he'd never been. Easy enough.

Pyronica sighed tiredly, picking her nails. "I'll need a name."

"He doesn't have a name."

"You mean you don't know his name," she laughed. Bill whirled on her; he hated not knowing things.

"Only because he didn't introduce himself. It's not that I don't know, it's that the kid's got no manners! See what I'm dealing with?"

"Sure do." She nodded her head, walking up to his desk. This was around the time she would've smoked a cigarette, if Mr. Big-And-Bad hadn't made her 'quit.' She liked smoking in his office- made her feel important, being one of the few people Bill was lax about lounging around, flaking ash over the carpet, on his desk.

Once, he'd made a fuss about how cigarettes made her teeth all rotten and yellow; it grossed him out, but Pyronica knew that wasn't why he'd made her 'quit.' Mr. Big-And-Bad didn't like how a tracheostomy looked on Paci-fire, and he liked the mental image even less on her.

He wasn't the only guy looking after some poor chump's health, though.

She picked the glass cup out from his waste-bin. "Is scotch all you've had today?"

"You're doing great, baby. Absolutely stellar! You're the best in the business, and don't ever let 'em tell you otherwise." Bill gave two thumbs up.

"Right." She set the cup back on his desk, looking him up and down. After a moment, she sniffed, folding her arms over her chest. "Your drinking is my smoking, you know? How'd you feel if you were trying to quit, and I lit a pack of Marlboros right in front of you?"

"Fair enough," he nodded, but he didn't really agree. He had a funny sense of humor. "I'll stop drinking and start smoking, and once I'm hooked on the stuff, I'll quit cold-turkey, and you can drink a whole pint of Jack Daniel's in front of me to prove your point. Sounds good?"

That made her laugh. She huffed. "Don't smoke. You smile too much; cigarettes only stain your teeth."

"A stain here and there's not gonna hurt things! Not if I've got a good dentist."

"Dentists don't check for cancer."

Bill snorted. "Do you have cancer?"

"I could," she warned.

Bill said nothing of it. Instead, he turned from her, giving the garden outside his window a critical look. He folded his hands behind his back, smiling hard. "Think you can get me an address by tonight?"

Pyronica guffawed. "With nothing to go off of?" She shook her head. Only, she gave the thought a few more turn-arounds. Her lips started to purse up. There was a pause. She nodded her head slowly. "Yeah. Probably."

[...]

The grandfather clock in Bill's office needed a few twists, as it always did. Back in the day, when he'd been only the son of a mob boss, a fancy, golden pocket-watch used to tick like a heartbeat in the hollow of his father's breast pocket. He'd pull it out whenever he needed to set the time of that incessant longcase-clock, and didn't see the irony in using one clock to upkeep another.

Growing up around heirlooms was like growing up around stolen artifacts; only there to look at and admire and never touch, unless it was to drag a clean cloth over, or flick off a speck of dust. You were supposed to think about it- about the people who owned it first- but, what was an artifact outside of its context? What was a grandfather clock next to a Smartwatch, or even a pocket-watch, for that matter?

Bill should have thrown it out, but-. Damn it all, it was almost funny how much he hated that clock, and how fond that hatred made him of it. He couldn't stop looking at it and those frosted-glass roses etched into its casing, and how the brim was carved with tiny Eyes of Providence. It had smooth, old-looking skin- almost wet when the light hit it- and gave off an oaky smell if you damped out the end of your cigarette on its rightmost side.

It hadn't ticked in over four years. He liked that detail the most.

A knock at the door startled him out of his thoughts. Pyronica slid in without invitation, holding an impressive stack of files between her arms. Bill couldn't imagine why they needed more than a slip of paper with a mailing address on it, or why she looked like beaten-hell, but in that moment, he only smiled.

"You got a present for me?" he asked, leaning back in his chair. Pyronica's slow gaze drew up at him. The bags under her eyes made tiny weights, sopping her expression like a drenched tiger in arctic waters. Bill cocked his head to the side, his smile suddenly tinged in suspicion. "What's with the look? Night-shift gotcha down?"

"I need a cigarette." Pyronica dropped the files onto his desk. She took a seat at the other end of him. A hand rode down the side of her cheek, scraping dried drool from her mouth and a little crust out of the corner of her eye. Bill looked behind him, at the massive window stretched floor-to-ceiling. Ah. The stars were out. It was later than he'd thought.

When he turned back around, his nose pinched up. He scowled. "Oh, you dirty cheat; I can smell the nicotine on you!"

She grinned tiredly. "I did say I needed it."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever," he sneered, throwing a hand at her and the irritable way she gnawed the callus on her lip. He flopped back in his chair. "Alright, what's the damage? Russia? Europe? Australia? We'll slap the little sucker on a private jet; doesn't bother me. Just get 'em the hell outta here before he makes himself at home."

Pyronica suppressed a grimace at that. Instead of saying anything, she leaned ahead at the folders on his desk, pulling a single sheet from the mass and handed it over to him, face-down.

"He's from California. Piedmont, but I get the feeling that's not where they picked him up from."

Bill took the sheet, skimming over the first two lines in disinterest, then at the corner-photo of a much brighter, softer-looking boy. He had a bit more color to him. Cow-eyes, big and wet and full; not nearly as vacant as he'd first seen them. He could've just as easily made people nervous as he did entice them, like he saw the single point hidden behind their skulls and actively poked it with the finger of his gaze. A timidness in most parts of him, but behind that, ferocity. Sharp talons. Not that the people who'd taken advantage of him would've known, or feared him if they had known. He was easy on the eyes; that was all that really mattered.

Bill handed the sheet back. Pyronica took a breath, her eyes wrinkling under the tight press of her lids, looking pained. The paper fell into her lap.

"You don't wanna send him home," she affirmed quietly.

Bill wasn't the type you read- not the way most people did, and not any way that could've saved you. His face seldom ventured outside of a smile, or a frown, or that toothy sneer that showed the upper-half of his pink gums. If it twitched, it meant you were dead. If his eyes flashed red, you were still dead, but perhaps dead-er than the rest. Extra-dead. The kind that never found the body.

His face didn't shift, but he shifted. Up, and high, and curious in his seat. He wasn't angry as far as she could tell, but he was set in a way that could've just as easily toppled in that direction. Bill leaned forward.

"I don't? Could've fooled me! Last thing I want is some brat wandering around the place," he laughed.

Pyronica kept her gaze to the right of her, ringing the end of her shirt nervously; the document in her lap was heavy with highlight, a small, clipped photograph clinging to its lower-left. She clamped her too-wide mouth shut, shielding the way her throat bobbed by scratching her neck.

The motions annoyed him. Bill threw his head back, bearing his teeth.

"God, just start from the beginning, wouldja'? You're makin' me crazy," he groaned.

Pyronica worried the callus on her lower lip some more, peeling back the skin with her top-front teeth. It was a nasty, spoiled color. Underneath was sensitive flesh ringing the ghost of a burn. Her tongue drew over the wound, then she spoke. "He's not missing."

Bill thrust his right ear forward. "Come again?"

"He's not missing," she repeated. "I couldn't get a name out of him for obvious reasons, so I plugged a half-way decent photo of him into some facial recognition software and had it filter through all missing-persons reported within the last two decades. It ran through millions of cases. He's not in the system."

"Funny," Bill said simply.

Pyronica nodded her head. "Hilarious. I finally found him through a handful of yearbook photos on his old school's webpage." She pulled out another paper from the stack of files. It was a highschool transcript. "Fifteen-year-old 'Dipper' M. Pines from Piedmont, California. Emphasis on the quotations, hint-hint."

She gave him a prompting look. Bill took the page in-hand, flipping it on its back, then its front. He wasn't all that interested in the kid's GPA, though.

"It's a nickname," he mumbled, skimming over a few lines.

Pyronica propped her elbows on his desk, swiping the transcript from his hands to look him in the face. "It's an alias. You wanna take a wild guess at what his real name is?" She leaned in on him, eyes explosive. Bill raised a brow, but she didn't back away. Alright, he was intrigued. When she lowered her head, he followed, letting the fascination buried in her voice ghost over his features.

"Mason," she whispered.

Bill's ears perked up.

"Mason," he repeated. She nodded her head. Bill froze, then made like he meant to stand, only to lean out of her space. He said nothing, keeping his mouth hidden behind a twitch in his finger; he was making an expression he couldn't let her see. When his hand finally dropped, his face was composed. "Uh-huh. Yup! Starting to see the issue here."

Pyronica laughed humorlessly. "Oh, you haven't seen shit, because I cracked open a few of his family records, and it turns out he's from a whole line of Free-Masoners." Instead of grabbing a single page, she grabbed a folder- the largest of the stack- and handed it over. "I figured I'd read up on the Cipher legacy to cross-examine, and, surprise-surprise, 'Pines' pops up a lot if you happen to be looking for it. Seems like they have a pretty extensive history with us."

'Extensive' was an understatement. When he peeled open the beaten flap of the folder, he was immediately assaulted by familiar faces. Distant relatives long-dead, shaking hands with people he'd glanced over in old family albums, but never cared to know the names of. They were tattered, amber photographs, taken in the dead of night; perhaps against the back-drop of a bonfire, or under the emblem of The All-Seeing Eye, blurred in such a way that one robe could lead into the next and make the two look conjoined. They weren't related, but their body-language made them out like brothers and sisters, mothers and sons.

The two families looked inseparable on paper, but he'd never met a Pines. He didn't care to. They'd probably fallen out of their family history a few generations back; Ciphers had an inescapable past with the Free-Masoners, but the average person didn't know they had connections to a secret society unless someone else happened to tell them, and most families chose not to.

A person could go their whole life without knowing where grandma snuck off to when she thought you'd fallen asleep on the couch, or why father kept the tiny door behind his dresser locked, or what the latin phrase etched into the interior of mother's ring translated to. Or, in this case, why you'd been cursed with as unfortunate, unusual a name as 'Mason' of all things. The kid probably didn't know, but someone did.

Bill steadied his reaction, voice prickling goose-flesh across Pyronica's skin. "What's his business with us? With the Mob?" He set the folder aside, twining his fingers like nimble spider-legs.

Pyronica pulled her lip out from between her teeth, giving a pained expression. "I'm not sure, but-. Well, he's not the reason we should be worried." Bill groaned at her out-stretched hands; she was looking for a more specific file this time, but couldn't find it in the scatter she'd made. "There aren't a lot of direct connections between the two families- it's mainly just donations and banquets- but a Pines did work here for a time. He made a good big-man, so they put him on the front lines." Her hands plucked a polaroid out from what looked to be a police report. She passed it over. "Does this man look familiar to you?"

Bill gave the picture a long, exhausted look. What were the odds, he wondered, of the man in the photograph looking familiar to him? More than that, what were the odds of the photograph being taken right outside of the Cipher manor, albeit decades before he'd taken control? It wasn't even the first time he'd seen the photo. His father used to keep it on his desk; if he started feeling sentimental, he'd pick the photograph up and tell Bill about one of the big men in the image. They'd served their purpose long before Bill had been born, but his father never seemed to run out of stories.

A bit of marker circled out one of the men in the picture, but it wasn't necessary; Bill's eyes drew onto that ridiculous red hat before even realizing his father stood only two men over.

Bill tapped it with his finger, forcing himself to sound light. "Who? Ol' Fez? Sure. Never met the guy personally, but it's hard forgetting a fashion-sense like that when he pops up in your family album."

"That," said Pyronica. "Is Stanley Pines, Mason's great-uncle. Wanna know how I know?" Bill merely blinked. He swore he'd strap her printer to a rocket after this. "I couldn't find any of the kid's socials, if he even has any, but I managed to wring a little info out of his sister's online profile. She documented practically everything up until late august of last year."

A new picture flicked between her fingers. She set it in front of Bill, who rolled his eyes before snatching the photograph with a grit to his teeth.

He mistook it for a barn when he saw the pig, but the home itself looked more like a log-cabin. The background flourished trees and wide-open skies even though the lawn was sparse; hardly any grass. The heat of the image was palpable, but no one seemed to mind it much, even in the process of turning their skin lobster-red. He recognized the boy first, awkward smiles and gangly limbs, the tips of his fingers rosy pink; Bill couldn't tell if Mason's hair was wet with water or sweat, just that his t-shirt stuck to his body, and the ghosting sensation alone had him picking at his own skin.

There was a girl by his side wearing a sweater of all things, and looking just-about ready to drop dead from the heat. She smiled like hell though, and couldn't squeeze the boy at her side close enough; it was like she needed their skin to turn to bubbles, for the surface tension to break, for their persons to conjoin into a single entity. Behind them, an old man. This was when Bill sat up.

Stanley Pines had aged well.

"Huh," he said.

Pyronica tapped the photograph. "He's supposed to be-."

"Dead. Yeah, I know. I heard the stories. Vehicle fire took him out in his early-thirties; they never found the body, but my old man threw the guy a fancy funeral anyway." Bill looked hard at the image, pulling it in for a well-earned squint, but the face never changed. Stanley Pines had some good genes if he'd held up the way he had over the years. He tossed the picture into his waste bin, clapping his hands together. "So! He thought he could get outta the mob by faking a little accident and lying low, and now we've got his nephew in our custody. Ya think he'd feel so smart if he knew?"

Pyronica's features drew serious. "What should we do about him?"

Bill flapped a hand at her. "Eh, he was my old man's problem. I don't give a hoot about some dirty rat pulling a fast one, not unless he intends on pulling something fast over me."

"No, I mean-. What should we do about him?"

The thought gave Bill some turn. He pursed his lips, rubbing his chin. The plan had been to drop the kid off, but-. Well, a few too many things had come to light. He tilted his head one way, then the other, giving the ceiling a thoughtful look.

He shrugged finally. They could spare the space.

"Loose lips sink ships, Pyro. Who knows what he knows, and who knows what he doesn't know? All I know is there's a traitor out there who's supposed to be six feet under, and we've got his kin sleeping in our guest-room like a bed-and-breakfast." A pause. He smiled. "You gotta admit, feels kinda lucky, having the next generation just plop into our laps like that. Kinda like we're supposed to have him."

Pyronica's frown turned hard, easing away from his desk. She leveled him with apprehension. "For what?" she asked. Bill only sighed.

"Who knows? Maybe there's a little muscle under that skin of his. A brain would be nice, but-." He stopped himself, settling peacefully into his seat. That smile of his turned mischievous. "Well, we'll cross that bridge when we get there."