OOM - Africa - The eye of the storm
Jul. 26th, 2014 04:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
runningredHe knew where they would be taking the girls. He’d done all the research before he’d come to Africa on Ra’s business. But back then it had been academic; he was there to do a job and get out. Only it hadn’t worked out that way.
And now he rode back there, to the place that had ended another phase of his life. The Bobi Villa where he had maimed the contact he’d been sent to make a deal with. But that was before; before Milliways, before leaving the League, before Talia cut him loose.
The villa had been empty since, its owner too crippled to retake it. The raiders would have moved in so Red Hood was returning. This time he meant to burn it to the ground.
Leave your enemy no cover to run to.
The bike moved like a shadow. Which was fine with Red Hood. He wasn’t planning to be quiet about this but he’d rather start with a bang once he was up close and personal.
Showmanship. Batman had taught him that. Theatricality could throw an enemy so far off balance that you held the upper hand as long as you kept him that way. The front doors of the villa exploded. Loudly, neatly and perfectly on cue as he stood framed in the doorway against the night’s sky. Against Ali’s stars.
No, this wasn’t a time to think of Ali. Not now. Not of Rae’s shared strength or William’s open acceptance or Ichabod’s understanding. He wasn’t Jay now. He was Red Hood.
A knife in each hand, he worked his way through the men as they came at him. No rage, no red mist; his heart beat slow and even. The ice cold calculation of a killer drove him forward, every step adding to the piles of bodies. He didn’t slow, not even as the staccato rattle of gunfire left craters in the marble flooring of the once sumptuous villa.
These men kidnapped baby girls, took them from the arms of their mothers to sell on. Because rich men would buy them. Because someone, somewhere had told them that sex with a virgin would cure them of AIDS, the younger the better. Half the girls were already infected, born with Africa’s plague. Most of them wouldn’t survive to reach adulthood, if they survived past being sold on.
These men had to die.
And die they did, their blood making Red Hood’s suit darker still.
Añuli lifted her eyes as she heard footsteps in the darkness beyond the cage. She was only four but she had old eyes, her grandfather’s eyes. She was born to be a shaman. She cradled baby Obi against her chest and whispered that it was going to be okay. The Blood Ghost was coming for them.
They sat together on the crest of a hill, overlooking the villa as the Red Cross arrived. An anonymous tip led them to the place and the twenty or so young girls all huddled in one of plusher guest rooms, swaddled against the cool night air. It wasn’t till the last of them was gone, taking the girls to aid and safely that Jay pulled the trigger from his pocket and with layers of carefully laid explosives, levelled the villa with a sound no louder than a sigh.
Obi sleeping inside his jacket and Añuli’s hands wrapped tight around his belt, Jay turned the bike towards the village and the rising sun.
And now he rode back there, to the place that had ended another phase of his life. The Bobi Villa where he had maimed the contact he’d been sent to make a deal with. But that was before; before Milliways, before leaving the League, before Talia cut him loose.
The villa had been empty since, its owner too crippled to retake it. The raiders would have moved in so Red Hood was returning. This time he meant to burn it to the ground.
Leave your enemy no cover to run to.
The bike moved like a shadow. Which was fine with Red Hood. He wasn’t planning to be quiet about this but he’d rather start with a bang once he was up close and personal.
Showmanship. Batman had taught him that. Theatricality could throw an enemy so far off balance that you held the upper hand as long as you kept him that way. The front doors of the villa exploded. Loudly, neatly and perfectly on cue as he stood framed in the doorway against the night’s sky. Against Ali’s stars.
No, this wasn’t a time to think of Ali. Not now. Not of Rae’s shared strength or William’s open acceptance or Ichabod’s understanding. He wasn’t Jay now. He was Red Hood.
A knife in each hand, he worked his way through the men as they came at him. No rage, no red mist; his heart beat slow and even. The ice cold calculation of a killer drove him forward, every step adding to the piles of bodies. He didn’t slow, not even as the staccato rattle of gunfire left craters in the marble flooring of the once sumptuous villa.
These men kidnapped baby girls, took them from the arms of their mothers to sell on. Because rich men would buy them. Because someone, somewhere had told them that sex with a virgin would cure them of AIDS, the younger the better. Half the girls were already infected, born with Africa’s plague. Most of them wouldn’t survive to reach adulthood, if they survived past being sold on.
These men had to die.
And die they did, their blood making Red Hood’s suit darker still.
Añuli lifted her eyes as she heard footsteps in the darkness beyond the cage. She was only four but she had old eyes, her grandfather’s eyes. She was born to be a shaman. She cradled baby Obi against her chest and whispered that it was going to be okay. The Blood Ghost was coming for them.
They sat together on the crest of a hill, overlooking the villa as the Red Cross arrived. An anonymous tip led them to the place and the twenty or so young girls all huddled in one of plusher guest rooms, swaddled against the cool night air. It wasn’t till the last of them was gone, taking the girls to aid and safely that Jay pulled the trigger from his pocket and with layers of carefully laid explosives, levelled the villa with a sound no louder than a sigh.
Obi sleeping inside his jacket and Añuli’s hands wrapped tight around his belt, Jay turned the bike towards the village and the rising sun.
