Metal Fangs on Satin Glass

A/N: Consider me somewhat uninitiated in the world of Petshop of Horrors. I've seen the four-OVA series (...in French..._) and read the first three mangas released by Tokyopop, but as I have no command of Japanese, I haven't read any of the others yet. But seriously, I'm a huge fan. I even dressed up as Count D for Halloween. Yes, I'm a dork. Sue me.















"And that will be all?" drawled Count D in his unctuous voice, delicately handing the covered cage to his clientele. The contents were unknown to Leon, but as he hid behind the velvet curtains of D's sales-room and watched the transaction of business, he was going to change that. As the gaunt woman and her husband began to leave the shop, Leon stepped out from behind the curtains, gun at hip, and demanded of Count D: "What did you sell them?"

"Officer...It's merely a parrot."

Leon gave him a weird look, then approached the couple and flung the cover off of the cage. Beneath it was a brilliantly hued parrot, its crest a noble shade of gold, and its feathers a scintillating mix of colors that Leon had never even dreamed of. It was almost dazzling. Lost in its brilliant down, he did not notice that both the couple and D were staring at him in a rather confused fashion, but he snapped out of his trance in a rather indignant fashion.

"All right, go on..." he grumbled underneath his breath. "...I'll catch you eventually, D...grr..."

"Officer, you've ambushed the last six customers I've sold something to as - goodbye Mr. and Mrs. Romero! Remember the rules of the contract! - anyway, as they were walking out of the store, and I'm beginning to wonder why I even let you stay here," D fussed as he re-centered a small portrait of a lizard on the wall. Leon snorted.

"I'm an officer of the law. You have no jurisdiction over where I stay and where I don't."

"Leon, Leon, Leon...won't you ever learn that there are simply some things that you - " he turned to face the tenacious detective and his voice dropped to a deadly tone: "don't interfere in?" Leon simply snorted again. No skinny Chinese man was going to tell him what he could and couldn't mess with, no sir.

"Given all the unfortunate accidents your customers seem to happen to find themselves in, I'm only trying to do them a service! I'm PROTECTING them, D!"

"You are disrupting their peace. People buy my pets to become happy. Would you, as an upstanding officer of the law, deny them that happiness? And furthermore, is it so much to ask that they follow a few simple rules in order to better secure that happiness?"

Leon had backed himself into a corner. He opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again, but could not bring himself to say anything.

"Silence is a most fitting tone for your voice, Officer Orcot. Even the wildest of beasts knows when to quiet themselves."







Leon walked back to his apartment, most irritated by this verbal slap to the face delivered by none other than Count D, and just as he reached the door received a call on his cell phone from the police chief

"'lo?"

"Leon! Get down to 21st Street right away! What looks like a mountain lion is attacking people in that area and we need backup! Get down there!" No sooner had the boss's mandate had started did it end, and Leon found himself running quickly to the site of the incident. Fortunately, he'd still had his gun with him from his little stakeout at D's, and 21st was very close to his apartment complex.

The day was an unforgiving one. Last night had been horrible weather, with cloudy, rainy skies and thunder that shook the loose plaster off of Leon's apartment ceiling; today was little better, but fortunately the loud peals of lightning had ceased for the time being. Leon couldn't stand rainy weather at all, for it only served to dampen his spirits - and his prized t-shirts. As he ran through the light rain, he wished that he was allowed to drive in a police vehicle, but his less than intelligent driving skills had earned him a license suspension and nearly his job. It wasn't his fault, though; as he told his supervisor: "The kid SAW the car, Chief, and he STILL ran in front of it!"

This was no time to dwell on the near-death of small children, however, as he had reached his destination: a small residential branch of Main Street called 21st. The traffic had been cordoned off by several police blockades, and Leon saw that smack in the middle there was what appeared to be a mountain lion, growling and slowly treading in circles. Its fur was matted with the dirty city rain that fell from the sky, rivers running down every hair on its body, and racked with the bitter cold, it shivered.

Leon strode to the officer in charge at the scene. "What the hell is going on here, Epstein?" he barked.

"This creature has been prowling the neighborhood for an hour. It's already killed two people, a dog and injured six others." Leon snapped his head in the opposite direction and saw several wounded people being tended to by a police medic.

"Then what's the fucking holdup?! Shoot the goddamn thing!"

"We can't. This guy over here claims it's an endangered species, and under the Police Natural Preservation Act, we're not allowed to. We're just waiting for Animal Control to get to the scene." Epstein pointed to his right, but he didn't need to; Count D grabbed Leon on the shoulder, a smirk lining his pale face.

"Fancy seeing you here, Leon."

"D?! What the - "

"And after all I taught you about the beauty of silence, you still talk," D interjected forcefully, cutting off Leon's tirade. Fuming, Leon turned to the officer again. "If we need Animal Control, why was I called here?!"

"He wanted to talk to you." D grinned and took Leon by the arm, and with surprising strength dragged him off out of the general crowd's earshot.

"Listen, Leon. This is a rare type of leopard called a coatlicue that I sold to some foolish family three days ago. It's descended from an Aztec goddess." Leon, taken aback by such a fanciful tale, narrowed his eyes at the Count.

"YOU listen, you son of a bitch. You've put this goddamn carrot in front of me long enough and I'm gonna take it. D, you've crossed the line with this one. I'll give you rare birds and mermaids, but a cat-goddess-thing? Absolutely not. I'm shooting it down before it kills someone else." He took the gun out of his holster, but D, a look of desperation on his face, stepped in front of him.

"Leon, don't! Look at this reasonably! So few of these creatures exist and you're going to blow holes into one of them? That's not rational!" Leon snorted his obstinate snort once again and pushed D aside into an azalea bush. However, D was back on his feet before Leon could even take another step, and he was stopped once again.

"I tried to be diplomatic with you, Orcot, but I do not suppose that is going to work. I have warned you before and I am warning you now that I am not to be trifled with." In one swift, liquid motion that caught Leon totally off-guard, Count D jumped backwards whipped a small knife out of his kimono and threw it at Leon. It whistled through the air before slicing clean through Leon's gun and just barely stopping at his hand. Leon gasped in surprise and dropped the gun, which was rendered useless.

"I never miss my mark, Officer. One learns to defend oneself in Chinatown." Leon shook his head, looked at the ruined gun, and then at Count D, whose face was that of a man firmly resolved.

"All...all right." Before Leon could speak again, the cat let out a ferocious growl, but stood its ground. Leon turned back to D. "What do you want ME to do about this?"

"You are to offer tribute to the coatlicue." Leon was reviled; his face twisted into an expression of horror and confused disgust. "The goddess that this cat represents was one who could create and destroy at a whim, and as such her children inherited such a nature. Bring the coatlicue a living dog and let her kill it, and from there I will be able to subdue her."

Leon snapped back into hard-ass detective mode. "That's insane! We're going to kill an innocent dog just to appease this supposed cat-goddess? I don't buy that at all."

"She is not getting any happier, Leon. Time is running out for your police crew - for all of these people. She's only holding back. This creature is capable of killing every single one of these people without any of them so much as knowing what hit them. Hm...I'd say there's about forty people watching this spectacle right now. Wouldn't you say that life for life is a fair tradeoff in these circumstances?"

"I..."

"Death is a necessary aspect of all of our lives, Officer. If I had my way, no one would be hurt - not the dog, not the coatlicue, not any of these people - but the cycle of life always reaches this point for everyone. Will you do this for these forty people, Leon?"

Leon braced himself.









Closing notes: This is just a simple two-part fanfic. =P It'll be wrapped up in the second chapter. Heh. I did this at 1:30 in the morning and finished it in about an hour, so it's probably kinda mediocre, but I rather like it myself. -_-;

Oh yes, and the title will make sense eventually.