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Vizsla123
Max swallows. Holds his breath.
“Actually… You might be right about that.” The cat stops seconds before firing and loops one arm around Max’s shoulders, “C’mere, son. Let it be a lesson for you, too.”
Virt’s gun is placed in the rabbit’s fluffy paws. Black thin-skinned fingers wrap tightly around them, helping the lagomorph keep a firm grip on the handle.
“Aim at the heart… here,” Max hears his mentor’s voice right in his left ear as the cat guides his tiny white paws to point the barrel square at his unfortunate mark’s chest, “Or at the forehead. Instant death, his brain will shut down before he gets the chance to feel any pain. That’s for those you want to let off easy…” in the next move, Virt guides Max’s paws higher, barrel staring at the spot between the man’s brows.
“I- I can’t…” Max whimpers, “Father, please…”
“Don’t think too much into it, son,” Virt reassures him, voice warm like butter on toast, “All the thinking has already been done. You just need to enforce the conclusion.”
The man at gunpoint begins to weep.
“No…” he pleads, “Little bunny, don’t do it. I know you’re good. I know you’re better than whatever he says you are.”
“Concentrate on your target. Steady now…” the lagomorph shudders with terror and anxiety as Father Virt’s voice breaks through his conflicted thoughts as a gust of blizzard breaks into a warm home through an open window, “Choose the spot… And…”
Gently, one clawed forefinger covers Max’s, slotting it against the trigger. The rabbit’s eyes water, but he can’t fight his mentor’s grip even if he tries. Slowly in tandem, their fingers pull. A shot is fired. Red gushes from the side of the burglar’s neck, and his pleas finally devolve into ear-scorching gurgling of a man drowning in his own blood.
“God-fucking-dammit,” Father Virt spits, roughly taking his gun from Max’s paws. The bunny watches the man hopelessly convulse, his carotid ripped open like the back of a courtesan's dress, before the feline finishes the job and puts a bullet in the guy’s head. The pastor looks Max up and down: the bunny is shaking like a branch in the wind, arms wrapped around himself, unblinking eyes fixed on the executed drifter.
“Not bad for the first time. Gotta work on that paw tremor; otherwise — you’re showing good promise, son.”
Virt holsters his revolver and squats near the corpse, fishing a pair of gloves from his inner pocket.
“The lesson is not over, though,” he announces while putting the gloves on, “When you’re out on the road, resources are modest, to say the least. You have to use all means available to you. Sometimes, it means re-using the means that were available to others before the Almighty claimed their souls…”
Transfixed, Max follows his mentor’s movements as the latter pats the freshly deceased man down, diving into every pocket he can locate along the way.
“The Almighty didn’t claim his soul, Father,” Max murmurs, blinking the tears away so he can take a better look at what the cat was doing and not believe his eyes even more, “And I’m pretty sure the scripture doesn’t teach us to rob the dead while their bodies are still warm…”
“The scripture doesn’t teach us to fornicate with our fellow monks, either. Didn’t stop you.”
Max falls silent instantly. Virt stops dead in his corpse-looting routine and looks at him. His wrinkly face, rarely capable of any emotion save for passive disdain, showcases something strangely close to regret.
“Sorry. That was rather tasteless of me,” he says and takes one of the gloves off to rub the claw marks, keeping his right eye permanently shut. By this point, Max has already learned that, whenever those messy wounds itched, the cat was genuine in his penance. That was the only physical tell he ever afforded himself — the only sign of nervousness. The only manifestation of vulnerability. The moment doesn’t last long – none of them ever do – as the glove gets put back on and Max is beckoned toward the body.
“Always start with the inner pockets and boots: if someone’s on your tail, first, check the places where the valuables are most likely to be; then, if you have time, go for the outer pockets and the weapons, if they've got any on them. And here’s the part you’re gonna like: many of those lowlives stash things down in their underwear.”
Max’s invisible brows rise as he crouches near the cadaver, trying his best to face away from his decimated neck and the blood-soaked collar below it.
“Ya think just ‘cuz I got two dozen lashes for lettin’ a fella finger me, I’mma go gaga for stickin’ my fuzzy lil’ paws into every stiff’s pants so long as they got a dangle?”
The feline snorts with honest laughter. Max, despite himself, snickers, too. After a short debate, he does indeed stick his fuzzy little paws under the fabric of the dead man’s undergarments and rummages until he feels an opening to a secret pocket in the front. Perplexed, the bunny fishes out the contents — a heart-shaped locket on a chain. When he opens it, there are two matching portraits inside — one of a human male, young and dark-haired; another of a human maiden, chestnut hair curled into symmetrical snake-like buns on either side of her head. Max’s confusion kicks into overdrive.
“D’you suppose it belonged to this fella here?”
The locket is handed to Father Virt for inspection.
“Yeah, right. Roughnecks like him just love keeping portraits of other folks close to their nads. Think again, son: it’s definitely a steal. He probably pilfered it from either this young lady or this young gent, or maybe from someone related to one or both. I’d bet on the lady, personally — the design of this knick-knack is too girly.” The feline turns the small gilded heart around in his paws and holds the chain against the sunlight for a beat: “To boot, it’s not even real gold. Some cheap, gold-plated imitation. Won’t impress a jeweler, but I’m sure it’s priceless as a keepsake to whoever owned it.”
The cat pauses, pondering. He then throws the pendant back to Max, who catches it effortlessly.
“Take it. Maybe we’ll squeeze a small reward out of the owner if we find them.”
Max complies with a quiet “Alrighty,” pocketing the locket.
***
Riding out into the small clearance, the pony seems anxious. The cat and the bunny notice, but can’t seem to locate the cause of the unease until Max hears a vague buzz behind a fallen tree. Flies. A swarm of carrion pickers is hanging above something in a black, pulsating cloud.
“Father, over there…”
Max points at the mossy trunk in the distance. The cat turns to look, and Max can only guess that a frown contorts his expression by the way his right whiskerless brow ridge sinks lower, hooding his mangled, sealed eye. Father Virt halts the horse and steps down. Cautiously, like a cougar on a prowl (ironically or fittingly?), he goes to check behind the fallen tree. Max waits in the buggy. Virt stands on the side of a trunk for a long time, evidently studying the object of flies’ interest below, until, finally, he calls:
“Maximin! The pendant, please.”
Max approaches him hesitantly, sensing the worst. He silently places the pendant into his mentor’s open palm. He doesn’t dare take a look behind the trunk, simply eyeing the feline as he jumps down and crouches next to whatever foul-smelling display got those carcass-loving insects so excited. Max’s ears pick up a short metallic click, then a softly murmured rite for the untimely departed. When Virt crawls over the trunk to Max’s side again, empty-pawed and gloomier than before, the bunny notices he’s wearing gloves again. One finger at a time, the cat peels them off, heading for the wagon with Max wordlessly following behind.
“The owner has been found alright.” The feline breaks the silence first as he climbs into the rider’s seat and pulls Max next to him: “Seems our hapless highwayman with a busted neck will have a lot more to answer for before the Lord. Gotta notify the authorities in the next town we hit.”
“...who was it, sir?” Max asks meekly, his face somehow miraculously seeming even paler under the white fur.
“The girl from the locket. Gnarly sight. The dress all up in the uproar, the front porch out in the open, bloomers torn and bloody… If that guy in the other picture was her betrothed, I sure as hell hope he doesn’t get to see her before the law’s done handling this mess.”
A mortifying chill coils like a snake at the pit of Max's stomach when he throws one last look at the swarm behind the moss-patched wood.
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