Chapter Thirteen (Part 2)

So this is the second half of the Chapter that Wouldn't Die. In which there is Much Cursing, House-breaking, and Murder. And Fire. And a Club. You have been warned.

In other news, it's raining out and I'm cold. Bah. *wanders off to get a sweatshirt*


"I'm never letting you choose the place again!" Stranger shouted over the pounding beat of some unidentified techno song.

"Come on, this place is cool," Malcolm said, sliding back into the seat next to him with two drinks in hand. "I got you the beer you wanted. Maxine didn't believe me when I told her just a beer for you."

"Is it that difficult to believe?" Stranger asked, grabbing the beer. "It's not like I look like a clubber, with these sideburns."

"Yeah, where did those come from?" Malcolm asked. "No way did your stars grow out that quickly."

"You would not believe the story," Stranger said, popping the top and taking a swig. "Never in a million years."

"Come on, I'm your bartender. I listen to everyone's stories. Yours can't be that weird," Malcolm said. "And it's not like anyone else can hear it in here."

"You have no idea how stranger my life has gotten," Stranger told him, and started from the beginning, talking about the inheritance, the spies showing up and disguising him, the bus chase, the crash, his new car, the motel, the plan, Clark Sr., Alice, the relocation road trip, the confit, the second relocation, and then ran out of beer.

Malcolm looked at him. "You're right, I honestly didn't believe a word of that, but it was a good story," he said. "Now I understand why you're a writer."

"Well, that's the only one you're getting," Stranger told him. "Believe or don't."

"When I see proof other than your admittedly prodigious sideburns, I will believe," Malcolm told him, raising a drink that seemed to glow in the near-dark of the club.

"On another topic," Stranger said. "I thought you were a hippie. What's with the whole cybergoth scene club?"

"A person can get tired of being serene," Malcolm said. "And my soul harbors a place of affection for anyone who's willing to throw aside public oppinion enough to wear that." He pointed to a woman wearing eight inch platforms, a neon green miniskirt, a mesh top, and a glowing pink bra beneath it. Stranger looked at her, then looked at Malcolm. "And I am completely willing to admit I don't mind the scenery," he admitted.

Stranger was about to come up with a witty comment about scenery and scene kids when a scene kid walked up to him. "Hey there, Stranger," she purred. Stranger looked up at her, and resisted the urge to swallow hard. She was wearing a neon green corset with black lacings, a black miniskirt, and a pair of knee high leather platform boots, and as far as he could tell, that was about it. Her hair was done up in ponytails high on either side of her head, with green ribbons laced through, and her makeup was dramatic. And underneath it all, he recognized Persephone.

"Hello?" he said, trying to keep his voice from cracking as it desperately wanted to do.

"It's time to get back," she said, placing a hand lightly on his shoulder. "I hope your friend doesn't mind you leaving early."

Stranger glanced at Malcolm, whose bushy eyebrows were almost at his hairline. Go, he mouthed. Stranger nodded. "He'll be fine," Stranger said. "Just give us a second?"

"Sure," she said, trailing her hand down his arm as she walked away. His eyes followed her legs as she went, before he tore them away and looked at Malcolm again.

"I have completely changed my mind," Malcolm told him, earnestly. "You've fallen in with super-spies. Can you get me one like her?"

"Just buy one of the chicks here a Three Mile Island," Stranger said. "And I should probably follow her."

"TO the ends of the Earth!" Malcolm said, toasting her back, sloshing glowing drink onto his hand. "And you'll have a nice view, too."

"I don't think I've ever seen you tipsy," Stranger said. "I think I'll avoid it in the future." And then he went to go follow Persephone to the ends of the Earth, while enjoying the view.

-----

"Since when are you in Boston?" Stranger asked her, after they left the club for the deafening silence of the city street.

"Since it was decided you needed a minder," Persephone said, "About an hour or so after they realized you and George had taken a detour."

"And you got here this quickly?" he asked. "And in full attire? And tracked me down?"

"I'm versatile," she said. "And I already had the stuff, it was just a matter of bringing it with me."

Stranger looked at her back - she was still walking ahead of him. "You are a woman of many faces."

"Yep."

Stranger was herded into a limo, and she slid in beside him. "Just back to where I came from, please," she told the driver, slid back the privacy glass, and turned back to Stranger. "Do you have any clue what time it is?"

"Not quite one?" he said.

"Exactly. And you have no idea what's going on. You don't know what the plan is, you don't know what you're supposed to do, you don't even know if it's still the same, because you left instead of paying attention," she told him.

"I'm going to be completely honest here," he said. "I wouldn't have had a clue even if they'd explained it to me in small words. I can do Machiavellian and Baroque plots when I'm writing, but listening to someone try to explain a practical spy operation is like so much gibberish."

"In very small words, then," Persephone said, "You are going to follow Caroline and me into the building. What she and I do, you do. If we don't do the same thing, follow her lead. Avoid anything that will get you killed - that includes not doing exactly what we do, talking, and irritating us. Once we get to the center of the compound, you are going to revert to just being Stranger, a smart alec guy who evidently irritates Sir Dick no end, and irritate him as much as humanly possible, preferably without getting shot. Capische?"

"Got it," Stranger said.

"Good." The limo glided to a halt in front of the penthouse. "You've got twenty minutes to get back down here, dressed in black and ready to invade. Your stuff is in the old guest room. Go."

Stranger went.

--------

Twenty minutes later, he was back downstairs, dressed in a comfortable black t-shirt, black jeans, black tennis shoes with a good grip, black fingerless gloves and - mercy of mercies - sans the fauxburns. He'd found a razor in the bathroom, and he'd shaved all his facial hair off. It had been a bit of a wrench, getting rid of the stars, but they would grow back, and he no longer had to worry about the fact that the fauxburns seemed to be rusting. His face felt a bit naked, but hopefully that would abate soon.

George had met him as he left the bathroom, his eyes growing wide. "Your face," he'd said.

"I know," Stranger had said. "They'll grow back."

"Good for you," George had said. "No more falsie-fury."

"You're a bastard."

"Yeah."

They'd headed down together, to find that they were the last people ready, of course. The general reaction to Stranger was silent shock, but then Havisham nodded. "They would have set off metal detectors," he said.

"Let's go," Caroline said.

They left in three different cars; Stranger, Persephone and Caroline in one, Jean and George in a second, and Havisham, MacAlleister and Alice in a third. These were their teams and each had a job to do. Stranger's group, unfortunately enough for him, was the group sent to actually take out Sir Dick. Jean and George would be working on making sure not a single of his security systems worked and that his people knew they wouldn't be getting paid. Havisham, MacAlleister, and Alice would be their back-up and the muscle, distracting any unforunately loyal guards from any noises they might hear.

Stranger felt the car ride was over far too quickly. It was one forty five AM, though, and the compound was only twelve blocks away, but still. It should have been longer, to give more time for dramatic brooding. Ten minutes didn't give him enough time to brood properly. He needed a good run-up for a proper brood. Persephone and Caroline had no time for his dark thoughts, however, and he proceeded to do what they did as exactly as possible: get out of the car, find a dark shadow, and stand in it.

This time he had a little bit longer to work up a proper brood. He was going to die. He would die sideburnless and alone, a criminal in the eyes of the world, trying to take out a man whome most thought of as perhaps a bit of a jerk and slightly eccentric, but harmless, and said jerk would promptly take over the world as soon as he figured out which apartment George had sent the dragon to. That just was unfair. He'd lived a blameless life, getting shot down trying to make the world a better place was not, in his opinion, fitting recompense. He glared at the sky, which had the appropriate 'dark and stormy' aspect - a thunderstorm had been rolling in since just after the sun had gone down, and was due to hit soon. He appreciated the weather's sense of style.

Then he went back to following directions, and followed the women as they moved from their shadows and towards a door - one of many doors in the brick wall of the building against which Stranger was leaning. When Caroline tried the door, it was open. She slowly turned the handle, then turned to Stranger and put a pointed finger to her lips. He wasn't to make a single noise. Then she drew said finger across her neck. Or he would bite it. He nodded. Message received.

The room into which they entered was an empty, white-plastered, bare-floored mess of a place, falling apart one chunk of plaster at a time. A single light bulb hung from the ceiling, its wiring showing. Stranger could just make it out in the slim light offered by the high, lonely window. Caroline led them out the only other door in the room, and into a hallway that was exactly like the room they'd just exited, only longer, with more light bulbs, and darker. Persephone, who'd brought the flashlight, held it up and turned it on low, so they could just make out each other and the floor where they stepped. Stranger watched as the women picked their way around plaster rubble and broken tile, and, not sure how far 'do exactly what we do' went, tried to follow their footsteps as exactly as he could. It worked rather well, he thought.

Somewhere far away, there was a scream. Stranger took this as a sign that MacAlleister and Havisham were doing their jobs. They kept going, ignoring the chaotic sounds that followed that initial herald. Stranger had no clue where they were going, obviously, but he was noticing a definite upward and inward trend. Whenever they came to a set of stairs, they took it, sometimes skipping steps for no obvious reason, sometimes using the railing and sometimes not. They'd go away from natural light any time they saw it, and further into the building whenever the opportunity arose. Stranger was beginning to wonder if there really was anything to this 'do exactly as we do' business - getting tired of adjusting his stride to make sure he didn't step on a specific tile - when he heard a piece of plaster fall behind him. He turned, out of habit, and saw it land on one of the tiles the women had avoided. A spurt of flame leaped from a crack in the wall to incinerate everything within ten feet of the tile. He turned back, wide-eyed, and looked at the women. They simply shrugged and kept going, and Stranger hurried after them.

The halls did increase in quality as they went, although all was still dark and the sounds of chaos now below them grew ever louder. There was no more plaster on the floor, and the tiles looked well kept-up. There was ever the occasional plant in the corner withering for want of water. There were signs of recent habitation, the occasional cigarette butt hastily put out and still smoldering on the floor, a coffee sitting growing cold around a strategic corner. All the guards were elsewhere.

When they finally did come to the room they were looking for, it was a surprise to Stranger. He had fallen into a pattern of watching Persephone's steps, and then watching his own to make sure they exactly matched up. He'd also though it would have taken more than the ten or fifteen minutes it had. Surely it couldn't have been that simple?

Then he remembered the gout of flame and decided maybe it hadn't been.

It was the last door in yet another long hallway, a thick door that looked like it could withstand an awful lot of damage. There was no way they were breaking through it with the tools they had - i.e., a flashlight and Caroline's crowbar. Stranger saw that immediately, and therefore was only a little shocked when they pulled out identical phasers and started going at the walls. In less than ten seconds, there was a hole in the wall the size of the door and a billow of smoke rolling down the hallway. Almost before Stranger had recovered from seeing something literally vaporized, Caroline was through the door and Persephone was following her. He stepped lively, before stopping short once again on the other side of the door. It was rather like that hotel room he and George had been lodged in, what felt like ages ago, the posh one with the big minibar. There was certainly the same aesthetic here as there had been there. Only there, only people who were posh or could pretend to be got in, while here Sir Dick looked like he'd had a brush with a Mack truck and then sat up nights worrying about it. He was glaring at them, sleepless red eyes twitching a little.

"Are you here to finish me off?" he snarled. "Then do it, end this stupid charade of yours. I'm broke, I'm helpless, and I'm not going to be of any trouble to you since all my guards are either dead or on their way to the Bahamas."

Stranger sensed this was when he was supposed to be doing his job. "Hello, Dick," he said cheerfully. "You look a little less than well-kept right now. Been having some issues?"

"You bloody fucking bastard," Dick said, wheeling to face him. "It was your damned friend that ruined me, and I can't even figure out how."

"He's good with money like that," Stranger said, nodding knowingly. "He probably just used a favor from a friend and told them to move infinitesimal amounts of money from one place to another, and you ended up broke due to natural movements of the markets."

"Natural movements my arse," he said, stepping menacingly closer. "If you'd just given me the damned inheritance -"

"I really don't recall you ever asking for it," Stranger interrupted helpfully.

" - Then none of this would have ever - "

"Or even offering to pay for it. You just kidnapped us and shot my friends," he continued.

"HAPPENED," Dick shouted, and launched himself at Stranger. There was an electric sound, sheet metal tearing, and Stranger was knocked down by one hundred and seventy pounds of dead weight. When he shoved it off and got his breath back, he noticed that the emphasis in this case would be on the 'dead' bit. Feeling the encroaching, familiar sensation of immanent unconsciousness, he looked at Caroline. She and Persephone were still wielding their phasers, and Stranger would have sworn that there was a wisp of smoke rising from the tip of Caroline's.

"That's what you get, bastard," she said, calmly.

There was a sound of stomping boots down the hallway and a shout of "Police!" Stranger acted without thinking, something he really needed to stop doing. In a split second he was up, he'd taken the phasers from the women, and was pointing on at them and one at the body on the floor when the police came in. All guns were immediately trained on him. "Drop your weapons, sir," came the commanding voice of whoever was in charge. Stranger did, after flicking on the safety, careful to drop them so they wouldn't break. Persephone and Caroline were staring at him, shock in their eyes. While he turned and raised his hands towards the sky, he could only think, I hope I haven't fucked this up.