Justice

Jacob stepped out of the pool of sickly crimson, the sticky liquid clinging accusingly at his boots, slurp-plop, his boots free and the body before him, he slouched against the coolness of the hard wall behind him. Justice. What a strange sound it makes as life force slips from your boots.

"Who is she"? Ashe whispered, her tiny eyes alternating swiftly between her partner and the mess he had created.

"Ashe, you have the honour of meeting the famed Black Window extraordinaire"! Jacob announced proudly sweeping his arms in a mock show of praise in his announcement.

"What happe…" she gagged, tasting the odder omitting from the sight in front of her, "what happened to her". The answer was blaring but still, she had to ask. She owed Jacob that at least.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you dearest Ashe" he said, a ghost of a smile touching his lips as he let slip the butchers knife from his grasp.

The metallic clang off the object screeched at her throughout the room. It dug into her temples, rung in her ears and even the taste of the cold blade with its spoiled surface felt as familiar to her tongue as her own saliva whilst feeling ever-more still alien and surreal.

With his confident stride Jacob was at Ashes side within a few heart beats and through his grasp he lowered his head to her ear "She deserved it Ashe, she deserved every last bit of it". Each syllable seemed to be said in some foreign tongue that was not Jacobs’. Not her Jacob.

Burning liquid clouded her sight, It felt like her heart had let lose a torrent of her deepest emotions and her body had simply over heated in response to the grand horror that she had been forced to realise.

She scrambled back a few steps until she could feel the torrent of frozen winter that was pelting the cabin in full force. It was the coldest thing she had ever remembered and yet her mind told her it was warmer still then the situation in front of her now.

"You don't understand do you Ashe"? He said sadly, legitimate grieving twisting midst his foul foreign dialect. She understood every word but the structure of it was wrong, somehow not Jacob. Something else.

"I understand that you just killed a woman and I'm just going to say once…why"? With that she raised her firearm, square in the chest of her friend, her mentor, her everything. One squeeze of a metallic trigger and it would be over. One tiny piece of shaped metal and she would end everything Jacob Tailors had ever been. Was there justice in that?

"Well Ashe you see, Ms Popeit was rather ingenious at her craft" he began, perplexed by the addition of Ashe's show of deadly potential force.

"She only found old, rich, troubled men in her line of work. Who would doubt one of them marrying one last time before they leave this plane? Each had any number of vices and potential enemies and so it never seemed a strange thing for any of them to wake up in a pool of their own juices or over dosed on some kind of drug. No one could ever link the murders Ashe, but I knew. She left no evidence, only a special kind of viciousness. Something you'd see in a rabid animal or a natural disaster in its rawest, most primal force" Jacob examined the sight before him and then the coating of crimson that ran the length of his arms and torso, "I suppose you could say I belong to that category now".

Ashe's head was swimming; Popeit, murder, old, rich, troubled, she mentally placed each in the correct sequence to reconstruct the idea before her. Jacob was never one to do something rashly, he cool and collected...he was...he was…'was'.

The past tense of the word hit her harder than any blow she had ever received in her life. The very basis of her life was shaken. That wasn't Jacob, now anymore.

"Why did you kill her then Jacob, what happened to a trial"?

Jacob seemed bemused by the concept, as if he hadn't given twenty years of his life to serving in the police force. "No evidence Ashe" he repeated absently.

When he saw Ashe's inability to speak he took a small step forward which prompted her deadly weapon to be cocked into firing position.

"Don't make me do it Jacob. Not you, not now" she screamed.

"You were not meant to see any of this Ashe" Jacob said firmly but with a tone of deep sadness as he began to approach once again.

Bang! The sound was a silent thunderclap and the effect was undeniable but Ashe didn't see anything until the smoke rose from her weapon. Careful shots, 'if you can't see your weapons steam than your shooting too fast Cadet' Jacobs memory stated firmly.

Jacob, wide-eyed and staring in absolute disbelief slowly sunk to his knee, the bullet had lowered by Ashes deliberate intention but the effect it made was the most horrid sight she had ever witnessed. His right knee was a crater of bone and gnarled flesh, his skin raw by the sharp kiss of the bullet. He gurgled for a few breaths, as if the blood gathering in the corners of his mouth weren't believable until he could see it expelled from his ruined frame.

"Where's the justice in this Ashe"? He spat, venom clouding his every coherent letter. What could I have done she would have screamed if not for the iron blockage she could feel building in his throat. He's alright, people have lived through worse, a small voice reasoned within her absently as if the roaring horror of her actions could be soothed by the deluded thought that it was going to be ok. It wasn't going to be ok.

A few silent moments passed before she began "Jacob, your double my weight, four times my expertise and many times over my physical strength, the odds of me being able to hold you off where…"

"Unlikely" he finished in unison as they had often done so many times before-'before' the word was bitter as he is she realised but the soft grin on his face was an indicator that some part of him understood, however deep down.

"Do you think death cares how the guilty are punished" Jacob muttered, distributing his weight by leaning hard against the wall, next to his felled victim.

"I know the living care that justice is dealt".

"Ha! Stand in the dust of a million dead souls and tell me how much justice ultimately matters sweet, foolish Ashe". Jacob was reminded of his injury by the rack of laughter that followed and almost as if he noticed his grand wound for the first time, looked sadly at Ashe.

"Is this the only way it could have happened Jacob"? Ashe said, her tears dried and her eyes replaced by anger as she raised her weapon once again.

The flash wasn't silent this time; rather it was a roaring explosion. Combustion of chemicals but a whirlwind of emotional torment, he was over. It was not so much a feeling of an achievement, she didn't get that reassuring blur of ‘right’ that she usually did when she had made the world a better place. It was a sinking feeling. It felt like justice.