if I could be a hustler Who: Mercy & Ryan Where: ... A bar. When: Night
Time was a girl could just walk into a tavern and bat her eyelashes at the right person and she’d learn what she wanted to know faster than any man ever could. Then again, time was, the stuff Mercy wanted to know was the kind of thing the folks of any given town would just up and tell her, ‘less they had a fear for their lives. When her own heart still beat without the help of the Cyri os si Vyri, vampire hunters were always outlaws in their own right. Not because because killing vampires was illegal, but because they usually stole cattle on top of killing fangers who most people didn’t realise were already a long time dead. They were just murdering vagabonds. Now they’d gone and made hunting illegal -- an interesting turn of events, if you asked her -- only it was real funny how these days it just happened to be a bitch to catch the fuckers. There was that Carter. If the boy had a last name she’d yet to hear it from anyone and not for want of trying. She knew she shouldn’t be taking her it out on her sources, but it had really burned her that he’d not only gotten away but slipped a knife between her ribs.
Son of a bitch.
So Mercy did what she did best, she found the nearest hole-in-the-wall bar (close enough to a tavern) where the owner wasn’t sufficiently freaked out by her, and batted her eyelashes at the bartender. It helped that she knew this guy. He let her pour a microwaved flask of O-positive down her throat in the back room before agreeing to let her ‘socialise’. Which to him probably meant talk to a bunch of people. To Mercy, it meant picking a game -- either pool or darts -- and hustling anyone dumb enough to try their hand at beating her. It really, really helped that she did a mean impression of being drunk and was dressed like… Well, she was wearing dukes and had already won the shirt off of some guy’s back by her third pool game. He seemed to think she was cold. So she’d thanked him with a smile that didn’t show enough of her teeth to reveal the points and actually put it on, rolling up the sleeves so she could play easier. From the back it looked like she was only wearing the shirt. And her boots. She wasn’t cold, she was dead, but she’d forgive that mistake. The Cyri ‘breath of life’ had her cheeks flushed, heart beating and she was definitely warmer to touch than a vampire should have been. That she died all tanned-like helped more than a little.
Taking a step back from wiping the floor with yet another guy, Mercy stopped to count her winnings so far. When she got to a hundred and fifty dollars and realised she still wasn’t done, she gave up. Was no way she was counting past that. Sometimes knowing she had ‘more than… whatever’ was a good enough answer. Bite her, she was dog-gone lazy with numbers. Looking up to see who was next, she arched an eyebrow at the shameless look she was getting from at least half the male patrons.
It was the bunches, wasn’t it? They were like magic or something. All she needed was a lollipop and they’d be at her feet. “Anyone feeling lucky?” she drawled, very deliberately leaning on the pool table so everyone had a great view of her ass. Through the shirt that she still hadn’t given back and probably never would.