***

Reuben stirred as he felt the sheets around him move. Effie climbed out and padded bare foot along the wooden floor. He arched his back in a satisfying stretch, groaning as he realised Effie had departed the sanctum of the bed.

“Fuck, Eff, why’d you go?” he yawned out. The cool breeze swept through the open windows, causing the blinds to dance against the wall and allowing the sun to burst through. The morning heat was already building and the breeze was trying to take the edge off it. “Eff?”

She didn’t answer immediately, having probably gone to the kitchen. Reuben checked the time. Quarter past eight. Five hours of sleep. Shit, that’s rough, he thought to himself.

The night before had been a long one. The pair had been out all night having a disastrous time in a small town called Midland, following up on a few leads to the origins of a deadly drug flooding the towns and cities of Texas recently. They had only managed to bust a few dealers, but nothing that led to anything real substantial.

Effie came back into the room, pantless and hurriedly buttoning the buttons up on her shirt sleeve. She looked annoyed.

“What’s up? Why are we up before ten?” Reuben asked.

“We got word of shit gone down from one of the Hands.”

“About Web?”

“Maybe.”

“Why are we only hearing about it now? We were just out all night ourselves.”

“I know, but this has just come in this morning apparently. Get up and out will yer?” Effie demanded, pulling her jeans up. Reuben roared out a yawn, and rolled out of bed, picking his own jeans from the floor.

***

The Sheriff leaned against the wall, tightly chewing on the tooth pick and surveying the scene in front of him. The smell coming through his nose was bad enough. He didn’t want to taste it too.

He didn’t get much action in this part of the desert. Not to this extent. Drugs were the bread and butter issue around these parts. If it wasn’t actual drug offences, then it stemmed from drugs. Theft, assault, arson- all the result of drugs. And this was going to be no different.

But, there was one big difference in this particular scene. He supposed there was something ritualistic about the killings, but the abhorrent state of the corpses suggested something frenzied and manic.

There were five bodies in total, in about twenty different pieces, scattered and splattered around the room. Pre-death, the men were sat around a round, wooden table on wooden chairs, and it’s now that in death, their main chunks of remains remained.

Each ‘body’ consisted of now just a partial torso and was missing the head and the limbs. The blood had pumped from the torn bodies and sprayed all over the walls, painting something Jackson Pollock would have been proud of, and had pooled on the floor, now in a sticky, congealed puddle.

A deputy came through the door and interrupted his observations. “We got company, Ross.”

“Sure, thanks. I felt them coming.”

Ross had felt the rumbling under foot that signalled the arrival of Reuben and Effie, the Rodeos, also known as the biggest pains in his ass. He sighed and pushed off from where he was stood to greet them in the lot. He watched as the dust cloud following their charging beasts got bigger as they got nearer. He could see them coming into sight, the vibrations under foot getting stronger.

“What do we have, Ross?” asked Reuben as the pair dismounted from their intimidatingly large beasts.

Effie’s horse was bigger than any horse he had seen before, and despite the dust kick up from their travelling, was still in pristine condition. Reuben’s bull, again, was nothing he had seen before and still it impressed him every time he saw it. It snorted and huffed as his rider patted his side for a job well done.

“I have a crime scene. You have an annoying knack at turning up uninvited.”

“Is it this way?” Effie asked, ignoring the annoyed Ross.

He tutted, and gestured to go ahead, knowing full well he had no choice. They had a way of taking over.

He decided not to warn them to hold their breath on going in. Effie reacted slightly by putting a clenched fist to her mouth, but Reuben seemed unaffected. These bastards are probably used to this shit, Ross reckoned.

“Are there any leads?” Reuben asked.

“Leads? I’ve not had my breakfast yet, let alone worked this scene to gather any leads. We have the boys from the city on their way anyway. We’re just guarding the scene and they’re taking this over.”

“But what do you know?”

“Well, because we’re not completely incompetent, we do know these body parts are Russian. Part of the Morenov crime family. Judging by the heads on the table, they’re not quite the big players, but their loss will have a massive impact on the family’s operations.”

“That makes sense. We think the Morenov’s are involved in the production of Web,” explained Effie. “We’ve just never been able to prove it or find anything substantial. Possibly until now.”

“Ross, you’ve got five minutes for us to get what we need, right?” Reuben asked positively presumptively.

They both looked at Ross and he rolled his eyes resignedly. He could argue, but he wasn’t going to win. The first time he refused their help he was man handled out of the room and got a delayed half assed apology through from the head of The Enhanced Beings Collective. He just wasn’t keen on the crime scene being compromised. It reflected badly on him.

Reuben started to edge around the assembly of body parts, leaning in and examining the pieces where they lay.

“No bullet penetration in any of the bits,” he described. He turned to the raw edges of sliced flesh where the arms and head were once attached. “They came clean off.”

“What do you think was used?” Effie asked from her spot near to the wall, looking at the blood splat.

“Something razor sharp. They didn’t stand a chance.”

“So you’re saying someone came in and butchered these five armed Ruskis so quick that they couldn’t even move?” Ross asked.

Reuben poked at the layers of raw flesh around the neck of the nearest guy to him. “Yeah, I reckon.”

Ross flinched watching Reuben do what he was doing. “What the fuck are you doing?! You’re tampering with the evidence for Christ’s sake!”

“Just trying to get a gauge for what could have been used.”

“You already said it was something sharp.”

“Look, we know what we’re doing Ross,” responded Effie. “We’ll be in the wind soon enough.”

Reuben and Effie continued to look around, looking through drawers and through the door into the next room before Ross finally got anxious enough to ask them to stop.

“Guys, time’s up. That’s it now.”

“Sure I think we’re done, right Rube?”

“Yup, we’ll go now. Let us know if you get anything Ross.”

“No no, you let me know if you get anything. I’m law enforcement round here, you seem to forget.”

But Reuben and Effie were already moving out through the door, not paying any attention to the Sheriff’s reminder.

Once the pair were back at the stables of The Ranch, they started to debrief about the scene. It was impossible to talk to each other whilst riding their steeds, with all the dust and noise from the trampling.

“So we’re both thinking along the same lines then?” Reuben asked.

“That the Morenov family were killed by Outlaw’s gang over their production of Web?”

Outlaw was the king pin of the southern states, with fingers in a lot of illegal pies. They were a feared but unseen presence that even The Rodeos had personally yet to come across. They got close on a few occasions, but only as far as high ranking members.

“Aye. There won’t be many Morenovs left by now, surely? They took out the main players in the family business. We should be fuckin’ thanking them.”

“No, we should be moppin’ up the rest of them and shutting down the factories. We don’t want Outlaw using the Russian factories for their own production of Lace.”

“Sure. I’ll get the Hands out there looking for them,” Reuben said. Effie smiled, and slid the saddle off her horse.

Lace was the big drug of the moment, and the Russians had been ripping it off with their version called Web. Web was bad for business and was causing paralysis, frightening visions and even killing people, and Outlaw’s gang were determined to eliminate the bad competition.

The Rodeos’ mission was to get all drugs off the market. Lace and Web.

***

Four days later, The Rodeos got their first lead. One of their Hands had tracked down one of the Russian Mafia’s factories and met Reuben and Effie nearby.

“What do you know, Wade?” Effie asked.

“We’ve learnt that this unit receives regular deliveries of one of the main ingredients needed for Web and despite the deaths of most of those Morenov fuckers, there was a delivery earlier today.”

“Good work. Has there been any activity?” Reuben asked.

“Yeah. We’ve spotted The Liberty Diablos going in an’ out.”

“Shit,” Effie cursed. “The Outlaws have already taken it over.”

The Liberty Diablos were one of the motorcycle gangs based in the South. They were a large, ruthless group that were proven to be working for Outlaw’s causes. Case and point here.

“They’re nothing, Eff. Just a bunch of right wing, anti-everything-that-ain’t-them degen Puries who get drunk and ride around.”

“Yeah, I know. I just hate those bastards.”

“You an’ I both. That’s why I’ll take great pleasure in taking ‘em out.”

“Do you want me to call in more Hands for back up?” Wade asked.

“How many do you think are in there?” asked Effie.

“No clue. Maybe a dozen?”

“Easy,” Reuben said. “Eff and I will go in and take out the assholes and you set light to the place.”

The three of them prowled down the hill side over looking the workshop unit that they were about to attack. It was night and they had a lot of cover in this desert location.

Reuben unholstered his guns from his belt and readied them, while Effie readied her lasso. They neared the door and got ready to breach it. Wade hung back, looking for gas to ignite.

“Now!” Effie mouthed, and she turned, kicking the door wide open.

Startled voices from inside shouted out but Reuben was already firing as he stormed into the room, taking out a few surprised bikers instantly.

Effie leapt further into the room, swinging out with her lasso and restraining a large biker. She pulled tight and the lasso cut through the bloke, slicing him in half. The top half doubled over, the insides sloshing out. The bottom half dropped to the floor.

She pulled the rope back, and was already lashing out towards another man with her lasso in one hand whilst simultaneously shooting at another guy with the gun in her other hand.

From a door at the far end of the workshop they were fighting in, five more leather clad bikers charged through, ready to defend against the intruders.

Reuben holstered his guns and leap frogged a workbench, flying out feet first towards the new attackers. He made contact with the first two that came through the door, taking them down. Reuben crouched on landing, swinging his leg out to take out the others, sending them falling like skittles. He got up quickly and shot each of the men to ensure they didn’t get back up again.

Knowing they were down and out, Reuben took the chance to assess his surroundings before he breached into the other room.

He sniffed and could smell gas and smoke lingering in the air, signifying that Wade had succeeded in starting a fire.

Effie ran up to Reuben’s side and joined him, ready to breach through the next door. Reuben took the lead on this one, and they entered a staircase going down.

Taking two at a time, they soon arrived at the bottom and continued down the corridor to another set of doors. Not stopping, they broke through and stopped short when they realised what they were seeing.

“Wade, the lab’s down in the basement,” Effie said through her communicator.

“Right, up top is clear. I’ll come down with some gas.”

“Smart set up they have here,” Effie admired as she walked between the worktops that were filled with equipment for weighing, cooking and preparing Outlaw’s Lace.

“It’s fucking disgusting, Eff. Let’s burn it down. Wade, the honours.”

“I’m on it,” he said, sloshing the gas from the jerry can all over the surfaces. “C’mon, get out of here.

They turned out of the room, ran along the corridor and back up the stairs. Wade was right behind them, a warm glow following him from the fire he had started.

At the top of the stairs they were also met by an orange glow, this one more intensely hot. The air was clogged with smoke but by keeping low, they were able to dart through and out into the open.

“Well… That was easy,” Reuben mumbled as they watched the workshop burn down.

“Too easy,” Effie agreed.

“The intel was good though. The Morenov business has died with most of its high ranking members,” Wade stated, seeing the positives.

“Now means we can focus our war on Outlaw’s Lace production,” Effie said.

“Something tells me that war will come sooner than we think now. And I look forward to it.”