Bad Ideas Make the Best Stories
(AC:B fanfic ch10)
Ezio fell on his knees as he tried to get to the top of the stairs and out of the tunnels as fast as possible. He stood up quickly and swiped his forehead with the back of his hand; some kind of fluid kept pouring into his eyes and the wiping didn't really help his case.
Well, either I'm bleeding or I will need to see a doctor about my sweating problems, Ezio thought to himself dourly as he proceeded towards the exit. A hand grabbed his shoulder and he felt a tugging at his arm. Ezio blinked through the haze that covered his eyes to see the face of the other man.
"Volpe!" he cried out. Gilberto a.k.a. La Volpe just rolled his eyes at the shockingly accurate observation then wrapped an arm around the Mentor's shoulders to aid his movements. They stumbled out of the tunnels, blinded by the sudden brightness that overpowered their senses. There was not a single cloud on the sky to be seen, it was a sunny day and the marble stones of the ancient ruins bathed in the radianting sunshine.
The assassin and the thief staggered away from the entrance of that hellish tunnel, stopping for only a moment to catch their breath. Ezio leaned onto a broken pedestal, breathing heavily under the white hood. Thanks to some miracle, he only suffered minor injuries, the biggest of them being a cut above the left eye - the result of a brief encounter with a knife during the struggle. La Volpe also seemed a little torn up but his nimbleness helped him to remain unharmed.
"So. That wasn't too bad. What now?" Gilberto asked, rubbing the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.
"We should look for the others. Did you see anyone else get out of there with us?"
"Bruno and Octavio definitely got out ahead of us and I think we've dealt with most of the Borgia's men. However, I have no idea what had become of Lucia and the young man."
"Me neither. I've lost track of them in the darkness."
"Good thing, you didn't lost an eye there. We should get you to a doctor."
"I'm fine, it's just a scratch." Ezio whisked. "We should get moving though, before word gets around on what is going on here. I don't think I would be up for another wrestling match with the city guards..."
Before la Volpe could remark on that, they were abruptly interrupted.
"That's too bad, Auditore."
The man stepped out from behind a ruined wall; his clothes were torn and he had several cuts on him from which blood kept oozing slowly, tainting his shirt. La Volpe spun around, sword already in hand to face whoever their visitor was. Ezio stood up, straightened his back and wiped the blood from his face to retain at least some level of dignity. He immediately recognized the man from his voice who he identified as the leader of the Borgia delegation - if they could be called that, since Ezio was almost sure they were working without the knowledge of Cesare.
"You left the party rather hastily." the man continued, his voice mocking and full of hatred "I was kind of hoping for a rematch."
"That's not going to happen, my friend." Ezio replied "I got what I came for and I'm not interested in taking your life. Leave, while you can walk."
"You devilish monster! Filthy dogs!" the man howled, gesturing with his one uninjured hand wildly "My men are all dead or dying and all you have to say is that you're not interested? I'll make you feel interested, just you wait...!"
He didn't get the chance to fulfill his promise though: he was still talking, when the figure appeared behind him. It took only a quick smack to the head and the man collapsed like a puppet whose strings have been severed. Bruno looked at the unconscious body with a little annoyance, then flashed a jaunty smile at Ezio and Volpe.
"Sorry 'bout that but he was making too much noise." he said in his usual nonchalant manner. The assassin and the thief exchanged surprised looks but none of them felt like starting an argument.
"Good timing." Ezio spoke, which was the closest thing to 'thank you' that he managed to say at that moment. "Do you know anything about the others?"
"I'll tell you while we move on. We shouldn't linger, it looks like the people we encountered in the tunnels weren't the whole of the group."
"Awesome... How many more are there?" Ezio asked as they started walking. Bruno didn't look back and didn't answer.
A single narrow road coursed on the field between the Palatine Hill, on which the Baths of Traian were built and Capitoline Hill. Bruno led them towards the latter in a quick pace since they were completely exposed at the moment. Enemies could have spotted them from either way along the road as well as from both hills. Ezio's anxiousness further increased when he saw that the road wasn't exactly deserted: people were walking from and towards the Colosseum. He practically cringed, when a patrolling unit consisting of three guards appeared and took their position on one side of the road. They were engaged in a conversation, paying little attention to the passersby but that didn't ease the stress of the situation. All three of them felt a slight relief when they finally got out of sight. Ezio quickened his pace and caught up to Bruno, maneuvering himself next to the man.
"Should we be going this way? I'd hate to point it out but we're practically sitting ducks out here in the open."
"I know but it is also the best way to make sure nobody is quick to follow us." Bruno replied. When the Mentor gave him a questioning look, he continued. "Think of it this way. Our enemies are also working behind the Borgias' back, they are just as afraid to run into their henchmen as we are."
"So, we're running to one enemy to escape another enemy?" Volpe joined in on the conversation as they walked up on the side of Capitoline Hill. "Could this be an "enemy of my enemy" kind of situation?"
"It might just be." Ezio retorted as he understood what the other two hinted at. He grabbed Bruno by the elbow and forced him to stop and face him. The small group halted in the shadow of an old wall, which sheltered them from unwanted attention for the moment.
"I think it would be best, if we scattered here." Ezio said to both of them. Volpe nodded in agreement, as if reading his thoughts, while Bruno looked slightly confused.
"Why? What's on your mind?"
"My boy, you gave me an excellent idea just now. Well, a risky idea, but brilliant nonetheless." Ezio answered, patting the younger man on the shoulder. "If there is anything, we learned from this whole ordeal, it's that there is an entire group within the court of Cesare that has a separate agenda. They were the ones who sent sent spies to penetrate our quarters, with which they made a great risk and it didn't pay off very well: sure they managed to learn some pretty important information about us but at the same time, they were discovered. When we caught their spy, they were forced to contact us and thus, reveal their existence. That blabbering idiot they sent to lead the negotiations also managed to spill that their group isn't led by Cesare, it is certainly possible he doesn't even know of the secret faction working in his quarters. I think we can turn that to our advantage."
"How?"
"By revealing their schemes to the Borgias." Ezio replied "We're going to contact Cesare, present the traitors on a silver plate."
Volpe hummed silently, while Bruno folded his arms and raised his chin a little bit, looking askance at the both of them.
"Uhum. I still don't see how this would be a brilliant idea." he said, sniffing.
"It is enough to start on." Volpe interrupted. "But we need some sort of evidence to corroborate our theory. Cesare won't just believe that we of all people know about the existence of such a group. We also need a good reason to explain why we're willing to share such an information."
"We still have the letter in which they invited us to the canals. And we have a bunch of bodies to present."
"Still won't be enough, we need something more solid. Too bad, we let our little cuckoo escape..." Bruno remarked, scratching his head awkwardly. Ezio and Volpe exchanged looks.
"Gilberto, I need you to call in all the people you can round up in the next hour. I want you to have eyes at every corner of this damned city, find that rascal. Alert one of my agents, as soon as any clue turns up."
"You don't have say it twice, Mentor. But do me a favor and stop calling me like that outside of the Guild."
After la Volpe left, Ezio turned to Bruno.
"Is Octavio in a shape to talk after all that?" he asked.
"I should hope so. I left him in the caring hands of a handful of rather helpful courtesans."
"Per l'amor di Dio... Alright, go and fetch the guy before he gets too distracted and return to headquarters as fast as possible. And if you happen to see Lucia on the way, tell her to go there as well."
"What will you do until then?"
"I'll head right back to the base and see if Giordano still has anything useful to add to the story. After you returned, we'll dispatch a messenger to Cesare."
"He won't buy the story, not without at least one solid peace of evidence."
"I would still like to see his reaction to all of this. Let's just hope that we'll have something to show for once it comes to face-to-face negotiations."
"Boss," Bruno scratched his head again, embarrassed that he has to criticize the man in front of him "I understand that you want to escape these man by handing them over to Cesare. But is this really our goal? Doing that wouldn't be kind of the opposite of what we're trying to achieve? Why would we want to help the one person we're trying to take down?"
Ezio thought for a very long moment before answering that question and even then, he chose his words carefully, like someone who is about to tiptoe through a mine-field.
"Because... I think there is way more to this than what meets the eye right now. Call me a crazy old idiot but I'm sensing a trap in all of this. I've had this feeling in my gut ever since I got the news that we were attacked. What if the strings are not pulled by Cesare but someone other, with more influence...?"
"Who is your suspect?"
"Right now? I'd be afraid to guess. At the moment, we can't know anything for sure but make insane theories. That is why I want to contact Cesare, to see what his reaction will be. You know, pull on the strings to see how big is the fish at the other end. "
"Alright. Let's just hope that whatever it is, it won't pull us into the water."
The young man collapsed against the wall and slid down into a sitting position, clutching his injured left arm. The sleeve of the white robe was torn at the upper arm part and tainted with blood that still kept oozing out from the wound. The blade that caused it went deep and although the injury wasn't fatal, Fabio already started to feel the dizzy and nauseous due to the amount of blood he had lost. Ineffectively, he tried to pull the pieces of his torn sleeve together and push them onto the wound. He was perspiring heavily, and as if the pain wasn't horrible enough, the sweat started to pour into his wound causing it to tingle.
Fabio managed to elude getting caught by the assassins again but not before the emerald-eyed demon wounded his arm. He felt a surge of panic rush through him, which actually doubled his strength and in that one moment it enabled him to break free from his ties. He swung his uninjured arm around blindly and managed to actually hit someone. His attacker seemingly retreated after that and the focus of the fight moved farther into the tunnel. He used this as an opportunity to make his escape and ran to the opposite direction. He had no idea where he was going and at that time, he didn't care; his only goal was to get as far away from the ruckus as possible. He fumbled his way through the darkness - almost falling a couple of times when he slipped on the mucous brick floor - until he started to see the light coming from the world above. He climbed the stairs and stumbled out onto the sunny pavement of the ancient ruins. He only stopped for a moment to let his eyes get used to the sunlight. Soon, the panic had faded and he had to realize that he was quite positively bleeding out.
Glancing around, the ruins seemed oddly abandoned, whereas usually there were a couple of people roaming around the broken pillars. The wrecks of the Roman buildings served as temporary shelter for outsiders, wanderers and the homeless and they almost never left their little nest unattended for anyone to ransack.. Fabio wondered, whether it was the ongoing fight in the sewers that drove people away from the place but didn't stay around to investigate further.
He started running but his legs didn't carry him very far - the pain in his arm, his head-injury from earlier and the hunger he felt (When was the last time I even ate?) began to take their toll on him. It was pathetic really, now that he managed to survive and escape, he actually couldn't because of his injured arm. He would probably pass out before he could reach safety but even if he succeeded, he would have to look for a doctor to patch him up, which could take hours in this beehive of a city.
He hunched forward, panting a little as his vision began to blur and the image of the brick paving started to wave under his boots...
"If you've quite finished feeling sorry for yourself-" said someone in a raspy voice, that was obviously altered "-I have a job for you that you might find interesting, lad. It involves taking down the assassins as well as the Borgias. What do you say?"
Fabio first saw the shadow of the broad-shouldered figure cast upon the pavement until he raised his weary eyes to take in the sight of the stranger that approached him so aggressively. Unfortunately, he was already on the verge of blacking out so the most that he could make out of the figure was that he looked big and dark and annoying.
"Go fuck yourself..." he spat then fell forward in a prosaic manner, happily welcoming the embrace of nothingness. Little did he know by then that the man standing in front of him, wasn't at all fazed by his response. He sighed then stepped afore to scrape the pieces of the young man together. When finished, he threw him on his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and left the scene in a moment's notice.
Lucia gritted her teeth and jumped behind a wall. She was so close to catch up to the young man, she could almost feel her fingers wrapping around the little rat's throat. It was almost perfect: he was injured and was going to pass out and there was no one around to witness the horrific events that were about to go down.
Too perfect to be real.
When the man appeared, Lucia had to make a choice quickly: either wrestle with the gorilla or wait and see what he was going to do. She backed down reluctantly and resorted to just observing the situation. Luckily, she wasn't that far away, so she could at least hear everything clearly.
"Well, signore. I'm interested in your offer too." she muttered to herself and despite the fact that her prey was just stolen from her, a wolfish smile spread across her features. When the man disappeared from sight, she also left her hiding spot and set out to follow the stranger to wherever he planned to take the young man to.