Free Darkness Returns by Rob Cornell

to break his fall. He landed face first in a rain puddle with a moist slap.
    The last of the flabs and the wiry one stopped hitting Lockman and spun around, looking for what happened to their companions. Their eyes went one way, then the other, then came to rest on the small, black-clad figure that seemed to have come out of nowhere.
    Jessie grinned in a way that showed off her fangs.
    “It’s one of those fuckin things,” the last flabby fella said. “I told you, Renee. I fucking told you.”
    “It’s just a little girl, you stupid pig,” Renee replied and moved to take a swing at her.
    Jessie caught his fist in her hand. “You want this one, Dad?”
    Lockman spit out a gob of blood and ran his tongue over his teeth to make sure they were all there. “Yeah.”
    Flabby had frozen. Jessie threw a side kick into his round gut and knocked him across the alley, into the wall. He bounced off like a deflated basketball and flopped to the ground where he stayed put.
    Renee tried to strike with his free hand. Jessie caught that one, too. The wiry Cajun grunted as he struggled to pull free, but there was no chance of that.
    “My dad has some questions for you,” Jessie said. She tilted her head to look around him at Lockman. “Take it things didn’t go so well inside?”
    Lockman pressed at a tender spot on his side. Didn’t feel like he’d broken any ribs, thankfully. “They were a little reticent.”
    “Nice word.” She turned her attention back to Renee. “Easy way or hard way.”
    Renee gave one last hard yank to try and get free, then went limp, the fight drained out of him. “What the hell are you?”
    “What do I look like?”
    “But it ain’t possible.”
    Lockman crossed the ally and clapped a hand on the Cajun’s shoulder. “You have no idea what’s possible.” Then he jabbed Renee in the kidney.
    Renee dropped to his knees, coughing. Jessie kept her grip on his hands, making the two of them look like they were in the middle of an awkward marriage proposal.
    Lockman leaned down so he could talk directly into Renee’s ear. “What’s with the matching tats?”
    “Me and some guys,” Renee said, still wincing from the shot to his kidney. “We like to keep the Quarter tidy. Cops can only do so much, you know.”
    Jessie wrinkled her face. “You’re vigilantes? A bunch of fat, biker Batmen?”
    Renee’s lip curled. He looked like he wanted to say something nasty. Wisely, he kept it to himself.
    “What happened at the mansion?” Lockman asked.
    “Are you cops or something?”
    “Or something. Answer the question.”
    He looked down at his knees. “Don’t know anything about a mansion.”
    Lockman slapped Renee on the back of the head. “Give me a break. Someone hired you to hit that place. A blonde woman, right?”
    “This lady came around, yeah. Sexy. Tough, too. She wanted to pay me and my amis to do what we already do. Only, she wanted to pick the targets. She had info about a lot of bad men. Scary.” He looked up at Jessie. “Like you.”
    Instead of the glib comeback Lockman expected from her, Jessie stared silently, eyes smoldering.
    The trash stink turned Lockman’s tender stomach. Time to move this along and get out of there. “Eyes on me, Renee.”
    Renee looked relieved to turn his attention away from Jessie. “I wasn’t at the mansion, okay? All I know is what I heard. Some big time drug lord. If you’re here for him, I didn’t have nothing to do with what happened.”
    “I don’t care about any of that. I want the woman who hired you. Where is she?”
    “I haven’t heard from her in a while. I figured she got killed with the rest of them at the mansion.”
    “Listen, Renee, she got some of your boys killed. She took them up against something none of your guys were ready for. You don’t need to protect her.”
    “I told you, I haven’t seen her.”
    Some guys got so caught up in covering their asses, they told lies out of habit. Renee needed to kick that habit