Rumrunner

Blood blossoms and anguished screams stemming from cracked throats. Earthy fertilizer created out of sheer terror, and hair ripped out like unwanted weeds. Blades tilling flesh.

God, he loved gardening.

That was his private name for what he did, day in and day out. Giulio had realized, after Argus had strolled up the stairs not a half hour after being left with Sonny with all the information requested that he had a natural on his hands. There hadn't even been a mark on the kid's body when all was said and done, other than the bullet hole that Treetop had inflicted and the bruises of Giulio's makings.

So, Giulio had given Argus another job, this one with someone known for being tough. Forty-three minutes after the man had been delivered, Argus had found out everything from his shoe size to when he lost his virginity. Oh, and a few times and places of meetings between a few of the bosses. They'd let that man go, and Argus' reputation had become more and more exaggerated since.

Aldo had been extremely impressed, and over the months since Argus had become somewhat of a specialist within the business. He was still called out every once and again to do a hit, but for the most part, his job entailed more delicate uses of his talents. His nickname was now undisputedly 'Manacle,' though he wasn't really sure how he felt about that yet.

True, he did enjoy working people, getting them to tell him things that they had sworn not to. He enjoyed the look of anger, defiance, fear in their eyes. He enjoyed feeling skin break beneath the blade of the newest toy that had found its way into his toolbox, a scalpel which he knew had dried blood mixed in with the dark rust that decorated its blade. He enjoyed seeing the same tricks work on men of every size, shape, and disposition. He enjoyed feeling the solid weight of the hammer as it flew through the air towards a victim.

He had learned to ignore the niggling doubts that came creeping from his conscious, telling him that getting paid to torture Muggles by other Muggles wasn't exactly the nicest thing that he could be doing with his life. He vehemently denied any thoughts about the wrongness of the actions from even forming, and pushed aside any moral dilemmas. This was the most enjoyable thing he had ever done. It couldn't be all bad. After all, it wasn't like he was conducting business with any innocents. Not a man came into his office that hadn't killed, maimed, or worse before.

His reputation was growing within the circles of power, and he knew that his name was beginning to become a synonym for pain.

Unfortunately, a reputation did not help him at all when it came to living arrangements. He had been kicked out of Aldo's home after a week, and he had been living in a cheap boarding house ever since. He hated the stale, grey room he stayed in with a passion, but knew that the anonymity that it offered was too precious to risk. No one asked any names here, and he returned at all hours of the day and night in all sorts of states, sometimes his long black coat the only thing hiding gore splattered shirts. He had invested a lot in his wardrobe of late, though mostly in quantity rather than quality.

Aldo had arrived at his cheerless room one day, and announced, "I got you an office."

Argus had been confused. "Why?"

"Because Giulio's sick of his basement smelling like shit," replied Aldo. "Come on. I'll show it to you."

And so Argus had followed Aldo. They arrived at a plain brick building just as the sun was setting. Argus couldn't see what the name on the front of the building was. He stepped out of the car, and noticed... something almost immediately. He wasn't quite sure what was off about the place, but there was something.

Aldo got out of the car, and started walking briskly towards the front entrance. Argus followed, unsure. There was something odd about the place...

They arrived at the front door, and Aldo opened it and stepped inside. Argus stepped in right after him, and nearly stepped right back out as the smell hit him. Sharp and coppery, thick and meaty and visceral...

He was inside a slaughterhouse.

Aldo was walking down a dark corridor just off the main lobby, and had not even noticed, or if he did, acknowledged Argus' hesitation. Argus glanced around, and noticed that there was nothing amiss in the lobby. It was just a lobby. He hurried after Aldo, and figured that maybe the office was upstairs, away from the killing floor.

He was wrong.

The corridor that Aldo led him down opened up onto the killing floor, which wasn't quite as full as he would have expected, though it was easily as bloody. He watched, somewhat appalled, as a boy his age reared back a hammer, and smashed it into a cow's skull. The cow's legs buckled, and it collapsed, dark fluid staining its white face, and leaking onto the concrete floor.

The floor had grates along it, presumably for the blood and other bodily excretion to wash down. The whole place stunk, and Argus really wasn't sure that he wanted to be there. It just all seemed so crude and cruel to him. Lining the cows up, killing them, hacking them apart. None of them stood a chance, and none of the workers seemed very affected by the slaughter going on. They were deadened to it all, just moving mechanically so they could get their pay and feed their families.

Argus stared at the dead cow, seeing the glossy blankness of the eyes that had become familiar to him recently, and shuddered. It's completely different, he told himself. The people I work on are all criminals- thieves, rapists, murderers. I'm not just lining up innocents to be ploughed down by my hand. I'm just doing a job, one that I'm good at.

Another cow was killed.

And there's nothing wrong with my job.

Blood dripped down the drain.

And at least I'm not considered a cripple.

A worker laid his bloodstained hammer down as he announced he was going on break.

Even if I am cruel sometimes...

A blood covered worker laughed as an equally bloodstained man told a raunchy joke.

It's better than rotting away at home.

"Argus?" Aldo, who had been making his way to another tiny hallway just off the main floor of the slaughterhouse, stopped and looked back at the transfixed man.

"I-I'm coming."

Argus followed him, and found himself in a tiny, windowless room. Its floor was also grated, and several new hooks were installed along the far wall. Argus immediately recognized them as the kind that he hung his manacles from.

"This is your new office," said Aldo needlessly.

Argus shook off the last of the lingering doubts, and glanced around the room, noticing a big problem right off. "But- how are the clients meant to be delivered? We can't exactly have all the employees watching Treetop drag them in here!"

"Really, Manacle, do you have that little faith in me?" Aldo said, looking indignant.

"Yes," Argus replied truthfully. As much as he appreciated all Aldo had done for him, he still didn't quite trust the man who had hired him by putting a gun up to his head. He knew enough about how things worked now to know that any of his new friends would kill him in a New York minute if the circumstances demanded it. Maybe even if the circumstances didn't demand it, depending on how drunk they were at the time.

There was, he reflected, something exhilarating about knowing that you were walking on thin ice every time you left your bed. Knowing that your friends couldn't be trusted, strangers couldn't be trusted, and that most importantly, you couldn't be trusted, even by yourself. He revelled in the fear and paranoia that his world now languished in, and he wondered how he could have ever been that simple country boy who spent his days doing chores for his mother and occasionally going out to make trouble with the locals he called friends.

"There's a back entrance," Aldo said. "Back around that way." He made a motion in the opposite direction from where they had arrived.

"Then why didn't we come in that way?" Argus asked, mentally flinching at the recollection of the dying cows that reminded him all too much of what he was going to be doing in this tiny room.

"Because then I wouldn't have gotten to see you squirm."

Of course. Why else would Aldo have led him through that horrible place, if not for a cheap laugh? Argus inspected the room again. It would work very well for his job, and he supposed that Giulio would be happy to not have to deal with dragging people out of his basement without anything getting noticed by the neighbours.

At least there weren't as many bodies to be disposed of as it sometimes felt. Not everyone who got questioned was killed. In fact, the majority weren't. Often times, Argus didn't even have to break the skin before getting the information that he needed. His reputation preceded him, and the client just spilled out whatever he wanted to know without him even having to take out his ever-growing collection of toys.

Argus had taken to finding out extra tidbits, things that he could use against the people. He wrote them all down in a notebook that he carried, though he used Trollish rather than English, lest the notebook fall into the wrong hands.

To think, he had thought his mother had gone daft when she had insisted that he learn a virtual menagerie's worth of languages as a child and young man. Even after he had been officially recognized as a Squib, his mother had still made him continue his study of magical history, creatures, and languages. She had insisted that he needed to know things to get anywhere in the world, and he knew that she was probably right.

He hadn't written to his mother since his arrival in Detroit. He had reasons, of course. He was busy with work. He hadn't really accomplished anything that he could write home about. And, the most important reason, he had no clue where the magical community was. Not the faintest idea. He hadn't bothered to really find out beforehand because, well, he hadn't planned on staying very long. And, if there had been a Squib specialist here, they would have been able to direct him to a local owlery. However, there had been no specialist, and he had remained here, without an owl, which in turn meant that he was incapable of actually sending any letter that he might write.

And he couldn't exactly send a letter by Muggle post, being as the Filch ancestral home had Muggle-repelling charms all over it, and no registered address to boot.

He wondered if his mother was concerned about his welfare, but doubted it. After all, there was nothing stopping her from writing him a letter, now was there? She was probably happy that the family embarrassment was out of sight, and therefore out of mind.

He realized that over these past few months, he had not dwelled on his condition very much at all. In fact, he had hardly given his Squib condition any thought at all. Being surrounded by Muggles, he didn't have to be faced with reactions to his deficiency day in and day out. In fact, he could go entire days with only the barest thoughts of magic and the world he had been born into.

He understood that magic was required to get along in the magical world. He knew this, just like he knew the sun would always rise and that it would always set. It was the way that things worked. To be born lacking the very substance that held his world together was a catastrophe. Magic, in his eyes, was a tangible, living thing. He was only half a man because he didn't have this living thing, magic, inside him. He was lesser than his peers, his elders, and even the halfbloods and Mudbloods that his mother had for so long criticized.

It was only when he had shamed the family by being born without magic that she had stopped insulting the so-called lesser forms of wizards and witches. At least, to his face. He personally now understood why Mudbloods were so looked down upon, as he realized that these people, who hadn't even known magic existed, who most likely not ever given magic a second thought in their pitiful lives, were accepted to wizarding schools because they had magic. They had something he should have been born with. They were gifted, while he was left behind.

Muggles, at least, didn't care about whether or not he had magical ability. They were concerned with other things, like his skill with guns and blades, and his ability to keep things quiet, and his talents as a part of them. Despite their own prejudices, they accepted him, not knowing or caring that he had been an outcast in his own society.

And for that, he had a grudging respect for the whole lot of them.

**

"Come on, Argus! It'll be fun, I promise!" Gisella's voice was pleading, and Argus knew that there was no way he would be able to turn down those blue eyes. He had come by to tell Aldo that his new office was working out very nicely, and had found himself chatting with Gisella in the foyer after she had informed him that Aldo was out on business.

"Fine," he sighed.

"Oh, you're going to love it! There's nothing more exciting than going to see a picture!" Gisella exclaimed, then she lowered her eyes and said, "Well, almost nothing," in a tone that sent shivers up Argus' spine.

"Don't make me regret this," he said warningly, even though he knew perfectly well that he would kill to spend more time with Gisella.

"Oh, you won't! We're going to have a fantastic time! It's only too bad the others won't be able to come," she said, trailing a finger up his arm.

"No one else is coming?" Argus asked.

"No one," Gisella confirmed. "It'll just be you and me." She laughed, a low sound that made Argus want to do more than just stand there and look at her.

"Just us?" Argus said, feeling dumber by the second. He knew that Gisella was acting flirtatious towards him. He knew that she'd also told him many times that she was engaged. He knew that he very much wanted to be very alone with her. However, he also knew that he couldn't go to the picture with her alone. He very much treasured all his bits, and Icepick very much had a sadistic streak.

"You're too much," Gisella said. "I'm going to go get my coat. I'll be back lickety-split!"

Argus watched as she ran up the stairs. She had complete enthusiasm for everything that she did, which was something that he envied about her. Despite the fact that there was barely more than a year's difference in their ages, Gisella constantly made him feel like an old man, like he was jaded beyond his years. Her bright cheeriness and light flirtations and carefree attitude to everything that came her way were traits he would never possess, and traits he treasured in her.

She appeared again at the top of the steps, and skipped down, tripping lightly on the last step. He stepped forward and half caught her in his arms. They stayed that way, with Gisella in Argus' embrace, for several long seconds, neither wanting to move. Argus had just worked up the nerve to lean down to kiss her when the phone trilled in the parlour.

"I'll go answer that," Gisella said, straightening herself and touching her hair in a surprisingly self-conscious manner. "You can just wait here."

Argus nodded, and stood there as she walked into the other room. He heard the light click as Gisella picked up the phone, then her airy voice saying, "Hello?"

A pause.

"Are you okay?" Gisella sounded concerned. Argus leaned against the wall next to the entrance to the parlour, and tried to look casual as he listened in on what Gisella was saying.

"Stop crying, it's okay, I can't understand you," Gisella said in a soothing manner, but Argus could tell she was worried. Had Aldo been hurt? Giulio? "No, no, sweetie, it's okay to cry. Just- no! Don't do anything rash!"

A long pause. Argus could hear Gisella's dress rustling as she moved around the room. "I'm coming over. I'll bring Loretta, she'll know what to do. No, don't do anything! We'll be there within the hour!"

Argus moved away from the parlour door as he heard Gisella hang up the phone after a hurried 'good-bye' to whoever she had been speaking to.

"Argus, I'm going to have to postpone," she announced as she dug in her small handbag, finally producing a set of keys that Argus knew went to the roadster she often sped around town in. "Bye!"

And then she was out the door.