Disclaimer: Chances are if you missed the disclaimer in the first chapter, you're skimming this fic and probably missing more of the story than you think.
Chapter Six
Intro to Chaos
Harry sat dazed and numb at his desk at Privet Drive, summer storms washing the grime from his window. There was a package wrapped in white silk sitting before him. Any second now, he'd reach out and undo the ornate knot holding the affair together, but something told him that once he did, he'd never be able to go back.
Someone once told him, "…sometimes you're the bug, and sometimes you're the windshield." Harry had a sinking suspicion that his life was taking on more of the point of view of the bug than what he was comfortable with.
He pressed the heel of his hands into his eyes.
The throbbing in his head had upped the intensity to which Harry was sure that a tiny version of himself was valiantly assaulting the side of his skull with a Kalashnikov in a vain attempt to be let out. He was also sure that small version of himself was the one that did the panicked screaming whenever something pulled a wobbly. It was the part of him that had been gibbering incoherently for the past twenty-four hours. Harry sighed and laid his head against the cool wood of the desk. At this particular moment, he wanted nothing better than to crawl under a rock and sleep for a very long time. If he never woke up, it would be too soon.
The sense of being overwhelmed had drained the energy to protest from him and the long muscles of his legs started to shake in nervous, exhausted tension.
How was he going to achieve this task? How could one person ever try and bring back an ancient circle of magical families long thought dead and buried? It was absurd, not to mention impossible. He was a soldier – a mercenary at best – not a diplomat.
Harry let out a soft huff of laughter. "Coward." Pulling the knot apart, he unfolded the silk from around the package.
It was a book. An old book. A book bound in an odd brackish-green leather with a tarnished silver clasp and worn ivory pages where the gilt edging had worn away. There was no title and when Harry ran his fingers over the buttery-soft leather of the spine, the silver clasp popped open with a decisive click.
The pages were as thin as rice paper and the handwriting changed styles, ink, and even languages. He couldn't read most of it, but what little he did recognize seemed to be a history of the Sharr Family. In the back of the book was a family tree, the names and dates written in black and purple ink. A beautifully rendered sketch of the Sharr crest sat in the lower corner with the words "IN VITA EST NEX" written underneath.
"Life is violent," Harry remarked under his breath. "How fitting."
He dropped the book onto the desk and leaned back into his chair, idly running his knuckles over his lower lip. There were so many things wrong with his situation he didn't know where to begin. Harry lifted his wrist and studied the iridescent bindings Mab had placed on his skin. There were now identical bands of runes running around both wrists; after his little revelation of her plans, Mab had completed the second half of the deal by binding him to the agreement. Should he complete her fantastical task, she would release Harry from her service.
Yeah fucking right. He knew better. Mab would do everything in her power to make sure he never slipped her leash. Talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place.
Swearing violently under his breath, he shoved his chair back and stood up, accidentally knocking the forgotten Sharr book off the edge of the desk.
The book landed upright on the ends of its pages and a peculiar sense of déjà vu flittered along the edges of his mind. Harry bent over and picked it up. A crisp, white envelope fluttered from between the pages of the book onto the chair. He frowned and put the book aside. Inside the envelope was a plane ticket to Brazil from Miami. Its date indicated it had been recently bought, that day in fact.
Mab's rich, heavy perfume clung to the ticket.
Harry bared his teeth in a feral slash of a smile. "You are one twisted bitch," he said to the empty room, knowing in his gut that somewhere, Mab was laughing at him.
He knew what waited for him in Brazil.
Mab's bait on a fucking string.
La Muerte.
The necromancer.
Unfinished business.
Whoever said Brazil was a great place to vacation had neglected to mention a few things. Harry was under the distinct impression that a vacation should not include a flak jacket, side-arm, half a gallon of bug repellent and a portable air conditioning unit. If the drug cartels didn't get you, the mosquitoes would. The Amazon was wetter than a well-paid whore and for that matter, it was hot as hell. Night had descended a while ago bringing with it no respite from the muggy heat, only the sound of thousands of tiny, biting, stinging insects. How anybody could want to live here was beyond Harry.
Harry crouched silently in the dark mud by the jungle compound. One wrong move and he was likely to get his head blown off, be it by Muggle or magical methods. La Muerte, the necromancer, was paranoid enough to make the trigger-happy Italian hit wizards look like fairly pleasant people to be around.
Upon his arrival to Miami, Harry purchased new clothes and equipment. The wards around the compound were sensitive enough to pick up magic from ten miles away. Harry's clothes and weapons had been virtually saturated with magic simply by being around him day after day. He was lucky Julius Strome had come up with the anti-tracking device on such short notice; a tiny pewter charm shaped like a compass hung on a cord around his neck and it was probably the only thing that kept his magical signature from appearing like a bloody beacon. The magic he used, on the other hand, left a slight residue and there wasn't much he could do about that.
La Muerte was one of Voldemort's first allies. No one actually knew how old he was or even his real name. Speculation said that he was born almost five hundred years ago, the bastard son of a Spanish Noble wizard and a Portuguese servant girl.
Last time around, the necromancer made a name for himself by resurrecting the dead and employing them in the use against the resistance forces. He had also been the mastermind behind several sabotaged operations, including –
Fuck, had it really only been a few days ago?
"The truth is never bliss." The necromancer smiled, dark eyes still as cold as ice. "Easier to live in self-centred solipsism than to acknowledge the hard facts of our failures, isn't it?"
"You say such sweet things to me. I might get all a-flustered here," Harry had mockingly replied in a breathy falsetto. "You're surprisingly talkative today. I didn't know Tom paid you to be friendly."
"There's no shame in being sociable." The necromancer spread his hands apart, gesturing to the wreckage around them. "We are titans cut from the same cloth, trapped here together in a desolate Hell. The least we can do is be civil to one another lest we destroy this place any further."
Fury had coursed through his veins at the necromancer's casual dismissal of the destruction he had caused. "'Lest we destroy this place any further?' This place? You might as well consider this your finest masterpiece. This is your Hell."
The necromancer made a theatrical expression of surprise and affront that lacked any nuance of genuine emotion. "My Hell?" The amused note was back in his voice. "I like this new London. It's beautiful. It's like Christmas and Easter and birthday parties wrapped up into one grand package of pain and rage and hurt."
"Must suck, then," said Harry, almost vibrating with tension. "Having me come through and fuck with your sandbox."
White teeth flashed in a shark's smile. "Oh Mr. Potter, why would I ever want to kill you when you do a better job of torturing yourself than I ever will? You are a wonderful addition to my… sandbox as you've called it.
"But let's not quibble over semantics here. I actually enjoy your company. If I had to be trapped with anyone here, I would always, always want it to be you. There is no greater entertainment than watching someone as noble as you poison himself with hatred and destruction."
Hatred and destruction.
"As you sow, so shall you reap," Harry murmured to himself as he finished wiring the explosive in front of him.
Strategically disguised packs of C-4 littered the sides of the compound and Harry had also managed to bury several land mines in the surrounding jungle under the cover of darkness. The natives, he had found, were quite eager to be rid of the necromancer and would do just about anything to eradicate La Muerte from existence.
The crystals in the pouch tied to his belt jostled slightly as the small bag bounced against his hip. The noise sounded like the loud grinding of teeth and Harry winced at the sound. Those crystals were carved with runes that when activated, would pull up anti-apparation wards across the compound forcing the soldiers inside to run through the mine-laden jungle to escape. As it were, the crystals were just pretty rocks until infused with magic.
Harry crawled like a dark ghost through the underbrush, placing a crystal at each corner of the militarised complex. The fifth he kept, as that would be the one to activate the rest.
Harsh voices ahead of him jabbered to each other in Portuguese. Harry sucked in a breath and crawled behind a large gnarled tree with flat, glossy leaves. He crouched low and cautious; there was a mine positioned a little too close for comfort and Harry didn't think that Mab would be very happy if she had to bring him back again via hamburger style.
The voices came nearer, the deeper of the two saying he saw a bush move near Harry. The guard's footsteps crunched closer to him; he could see the faint moonlight flash off of the dull metal of the AK-47 in the guard's hands.
A jaguar appeared between the thick leaves of a jungle plant. The cat's eyes gleamed green and the great beast slinked forward noiselessly. The voices of the soldiers behind him ceased and Harry's overly sensitised hearing caught the sound of panicked breathing.
"Shoot it! Shoot it!" the man breathed in his native tongue. Harry saw his opportunity and darted out from behind the tree at the two soldiers, feet soundless in the dark earth of the jungle floor.
Harry twisted the first man's wrist while simultaneously ramming his left foot into the man's throat, causing the guard to choke and drop his gun. Pivoting, Harry's right foot surged forward and smashed into the other guard's left kidney. He bent over to protect his stomach and Harry pulled a long knife from a shoulder holster, jabbing it upwards under the man's jaw. The man went limp and Harry withdrew the blade, jerking it on the reverse to pierce the back of the first guard's skull.
Harry stepped back to let the large cat move forward.
The jaguar sniffed at the fallen bodies and for a second, Harry could have sworn that the beast had looked up and grinned a fanged smile at him. An animagus, then. Disgruntled villagers indeed.
Harry grabbed the guard's ID tag that had fallen in the black dirt. There was a military personnel entrance on the side of the building closest to the river. As far as strategy went, the entrance was actually pretty well placed. Anyone who wasn't supposed to be there and/or displeased the necromancer got a short swift plunge into the river to be eaten by piranhas and whatever else lived in those murky waters.
The light next to the door beeped and turned green when Harry swiped the card through the small grey box. Inside the compound walls was a wide courtyard of a strange red clay-like substance. There were also four-dozen well-armed soldiers.
The muted laughter inside the compound abruptly cut off as all heads turned to stare at Harry.
He really should have found a better backdoor.
The light was sharp and bright, and it crawled over the inside of his eyelids like a many-legged insect. Harry felt like he'd been run over by a speeding lorry.
"Oye, Gaitito, you've come back to us, no?" The sound of sniggering laughter echoed through his ears. Harry pried his one good eye open. The small, dim room was made out of the same red clay of the courtyard and it was crowded with people. Strange men with distorted features stood in the shadows; only the gleam of metal and the bright whites of their eyes and teeth let Harry know they were there. La Muerte himself sat on his haunches in front of Harry's chair, fingers crossed thoughtfully under his chin, elbows resting on his knees. The necromancer's dark eyes held a strange reddish light, the colour of dried blood.
Something inside Harry started screaming. Murder, murder, murder, pounded his heart, and Harry wanted nothing more than to sink his teeth into La Muerte's neck and tear his throat out, hot blood dripping down his face. He could almost taste it, all salt and iron and cold satisfaction.
"I don't think this is going to work out between us, John" Harry rasped, licking at the split skin on his lips. "I mean, I've just got so much going on in my life right now and you've got this whole kink thing going on with the ropes, not to mention the age difference and all."
The necromancer smiled. On any other person, it might have been comforting. But on the necromancer it was a cool expression. Tigers with full stomachs wore smiles like La Muerte while watching baby animals play. "Colourful boy. You killed twenty-seven of my men. Forgive me if I'm not in the mood to dither with you," the man said, raising an eyebrow.
"Aw, that's too bad. You seem like a smashing conversationalist."
La Muerte looked Harry over. Harry resisted the urge to shudder as the sensation of dead fingers crawled over his skin. 'How would you feel, Johnny-boy?' he thought to himself. 'If I cut off your fingers and stuffed them into your eye sockets?'
"Who are you?" The necromancer's voice was calm, unaffected, almost bored in it's lack of emotional inflection.
"George Zimmer," Harry drawled, lip curling in a mockery of a grin. "The fashion police are after you."
"Why are you here?"
"My credit card is maxed out and this is the cheapest place I could go for my vacation."
Harry met the necromancer's gaze. A subtle power struggle strained the silence in the small room. Something lay between them, each pushing against it. This was familiar – too familiar.
Green light flashed past Harry's ear.
Harry whirled around to face the darkened corner of the warehouse, dropping to one knee and drawing his wand, a spell already illuminating the end. Yellow light arced over his head from Jones' return fire. Another jet of light answered from the corner, green spell splashing off the floor and Harry released his curse. A masked and cloaked Death Eater dropped to the ground from the shadows, blood pooling out of the gash in his throat. The whole thing couldn't have taken more than four seconds.
"Where did he come from?" Harry muttered, frantically casting his senses out around him. The sleet and snow cut so far down on his senses he might as well be blind. He'd never even sensed the Death Eater, let alone his hexes.
"Harry…" There was a strange note in Jones's voice.
Harry turned around and found Harper's limp form crumpled on the dusty floor again, eyes wide and glazed, mouth halfway open like he was just about to say something.
Jones blinked back at him, startled, the beginnings of fear flitting across his face.
It took Harry a moment to realize that Harper wasn't breathing, that the wounded keening and the soft spatter of someone's insides dripping from their gut was coming from Francis, and that the popping noise in his ears wasn't firecrackers or the sound his knuckles made when he clenched his fists, but the sounds of multiple Death Eaters Apparating into the warehouse around him.
And then there was a flare of light behind them.
And Jonesy's head came off at his shoulders.
Dizziness and something like nausea washed over him. It crawled around in the back of his throat and it yearned to emerge in the form of a scream. The room swirled before his eyes, a nightmarish whirl-a-twirl of too wide, too sharp grins to be human. Black shapes crept around the edges of his vision and a false adrenaline high pushed his stomach up into his throat.
He couldn't do this. He had failed. He hadn't escaped death last time around. Why did he even bother to try? The wizarding world would destroy itself anyway, a series of catastrophic events one right after another.
It didn't matter how hard he tried.
It didn't matter what he did.
It was a sensation that had plagued him since the deaths of most of his friends and now, Harry couldn't bring himself to care anymore.
It was easy let go of the pain that anchored him to the physical world. It was easier than he thought.
The necromancer smiled.
And the world around him abruptly righted itself. Harry sliced the smoky fingers of the necromancer's legilmency attack off before they could sink any deeper into his Occulomency shields.
The urge to laugh bubbled in his throat and slid out as a deep chuckle. "Nice trick, you nearly had me there. Did they teach you that one in the school for Evil Overlords or is it just something you picked up along the way?"
A murderous flicker of irritation lit in the necromancer's eyes.
Harry leaned closer to the necromancer, a heady mixture of adrenaline and dark magic singing in his veins.
"I have one word for you," he whispered, inches away from the necromancer's face. The others in the room didn't matter; they were just canon fodder, things to be used and discarded. His hands itched to run something hard and sharp through the farce of a man in front of him.
There was a wary note in the necromancer's manner that had not been there before. "Please, do share," he said, a false smile of indulgence stretched across his face.
Harry nearly purred. "Boom," he breathed. The lights in the room flickered off and then there was chaos.
