Chapter 14 - Checkmate
[] [] [] - Anna
Anna recoiled in shock as the investigator flew sideways out of view, dematerialising before her eyes through the narrow door frame. Immediately, two more bolts erupted, filling her narrow vision with light, that flew away down towards a street corner to the left of the court, slamming the side of the building and rocketing away to the street opposite, quickly popping out to cast a quick Expelliarmus, before hiding behind the door frame. She ran to the edge of the door, hitting the wall to grab cover, as the fight continued beyond her view. The pair of Aurors went back and forward with their attackers, the noise of curses only interrupted once by the sound of smashing glass on the other end of the street, followed by more fighting, then a dull cry of pain.
She peeked out into the wrecked street, seeing one Auror down and the other not going to last. She had to do something she realised, as the last man barely held off a three pronged attack. She had no idea how Faust had anticipated their attack, but she didn't think about that, instead taking a deep breath and sprinting out to cover. The evening had grown cold, but her heart was roaring and flaming into the inky black night lit only by the sparks and crackles of bolts of light stretching back and forth. She hunkered down behind a line of plants, using her small stature to creep round to her left, sneaking into the building in the west side of the courtyard, forcing the window open and slinking inside the velvet carpeted old building, and open a brief investigation she found the two men firing from the Aurors flank through a door. As she slowly crept round into the building, with the pair of attackers too preoccupied to notice her before she was able to shout "Petrificus Totalus!", and halt the first one, causing the second one to turn in shock, though too slow too avoid Anna getting the jump on the man, forcing him up against the wall.
"Who are you." she hissed, holding her wand in his face, but far enough to not grab out of her hand.
"A.. Arthur Meinhardt.." he shakily whispered, looking at his friend, who as she looked at the man lying on the floor whom she'd hit first looked quite similar, though she couldn't really tell in this light..
"Your brother?"
Arthur nodded, not moving. She briefly thought, before coming to a realisation.
"Join him then. Petrificus Totalus." she whispered, putting the pieces together in her head. Identical twins working under someone trying to kill Faust. She sighed as she exited through the north door, walking back to the right towards the courtyard, sneaking behind the man firing from behind the edge of the building, whose bulky frame and slow movement gave him away before she ever got close.
"Evening Hagee."
He froze, turning to face her, opening his mouth before she interrupted.
"Fancy seeing you again. I thought you were locked up."
Hagee paused, before grinning. "I could say the same for you."
"I came with the Aurors."
His face fell to a look of horror. "Aurors?"
"Yes, aurors, come to get Faust."
He looked shocked as he almost fell back.
"You messed up Hagee."
"It wasn't me…"
"Sure. You're the ringleader."
"No!"
"Shut up. C'mon, let's end this."
She prodded him with the wand, forcing him to walk out into the courtyard at wandpoint. His skittish response was confusing, and it was causing some concern in the back of her mind. And how had he got out? But he must be the ringleader she thought, and if he surrendered the rest would. The pair of them walked slowly out into the dark yard, in view of the Auror taking cover and the last attacker hiding somewhere in the building to their left. She kept an eye out just in case the hidden guy would try something.
She had no idea who it was.
Which meant, when he did try something, sending a Stupefy down towards her, she was able to fling herself to the deck, before rushing the building after downing Hagee temporarily, sprinting towards the building, leaping in through a broken window, where she was fired on again. The shot was taken in the dark and missed by a large margin, illuminating the hall briefly as it shot through, showing a fractured picture of his body, lighting up the room for a second, like a low quality photograph, as she used the new knowledge of her surroundings in the otherwise black room, grabbing cover and lighting the room with a Stupefy back at the man, missing, and sending the spell up at an angle, through another window and up and out into the night sky.
This repeated, the pair flailing around in the fight. Anna briefly took a moment to chuckle at how Lucas would kick all of their asses in this fight, as they felt their way around blindly, firing on instinct. She swore quietly, before getting a lucky shot to the centre mass of her attacker, casting a Lumos spell and examining the unconscious body.
No.
No….
It couldn't be..
Her breath was forced out of her lungs as she nearly fainted, looking into the face of the assailant.
"TYLLLERRR!"
[] [] [] - Lucas
"I think that's TWO of your most valuable pieces right there."
What the hell were those two doing here?
He thought, trying to piece it together, before forcefully rejecting it, and focusing on his main plan. This was a wrench, but the Queen hadn't come into play yet.
"A winning strategy sometime requires sacrifice. Knight to E5. Mate next turn."
Thomas paused, somewhat annoyed by Lucas' self control, as he responded, somewhat guarded saying "Pawn takes E5 Pawn."
He smiled, and stared at the empty hole of black space where he knew Thomas was, allowing his smile to unsettle the Faust as he smugly concluded "Pawn to H5, Checkmate. You were so concerned by my Knights and Bishop and Queen you ignored the Pawn I left alone until my last turn. Typical you, you miss that which you consider below you. I do believe that is my end of the bet in the bag as well."
It was a hefty gamble, but Thomas had stayed in character to the end, missing what he knew he'd miss. Now, he knew Thomas was genuine in his persona, and had not lied to him. He was satisfied. The optics of the Checkmate were interesting as well, with the Queen, and the girl she represented, was looming in the middle background at H2, blocking off the entire H row and cutting out his legs from under him, and the Castle at F9 cutting off the F row. With a White Knight in front and a White Pawn behind him, the King was immobilised by his own pieces, and all it took was one Pawn to kill the King. Lucas took a momentary satisfaction of reaching onto the board, plucking the king right off the G4 with his narrow fingers, and fondling its delicate wooden shape, taking in the textures with the tips of his fingerprints, memorising the touch of victory.
"I'd trust you have a recorder on hand to confess?" he mocked, almost trying to get one last rise out of him, however all he got was silence from both his opponent and the observers, before he heard Thomas shuffle about, and reach across the board.
"That bloody Queen.." he said, filling Lucas in on the missing visual cue. "That was an interesting conversation." he said, referring to their silent back and forth through the movement of pieces. "You told me a lot. I daresay a bit more than you wanted to."
Lucas perked up confusedly, as Thomas asked "How long do we have until my niece arrives?"
The question threw Lucas for a couple, as he thought. While he'd learnt a lot about Thomas, he had given away a bit to. Not that it would matter too much at this late stage, given how, as he explained "She should arrive any minute."
Thomas grimaced audibly, leaning back as the two guards present took this in and scattered, one towards the door and the other down the stairs to the Floo Portal. Thomas himself stayed sitting in the candlelit heat of the altar area with Lucas. Neither one spoke for some time, just staring each other down, quietly, as Lucas finally placed the King down, though Thomas retained Lucas' Queen. They sat in silence for some time, before a loud bang was heard downstairs. Lucas turned his head towards the sound, before asking "Do you have the time?"
Thomas moved, before answering "10 past 11."
He smiled, before chuckling "Later than I expected."
Thomas frowned, obviously angry at how self assured Lucas was behaving, as footsteps echoed upwards, reverberating up to the pews, as the multiple people crossed over.
"Guten abend Onkel Thomas. Was haben Sie sich in jetzt bekommen Lucas?"
Lucas' German was pretty terrible, but he could understand that. He waved it off laughingly, replying "Es tut mir leid Laila.", as Thomas sat silent between the pair, before calling down to Laila "Pflege zu uns?"
Laila laughed up at him, swapping to English for Lucas' benefit. "Afraid not, in fact I really think you should come with us."
Thomas replied swiftly with "Why would I do that? You of all people should recognise your superior and acknowledge me as such."
"I'd ask the same of you!" she called, before pausing, and causing Thomas to chuckle as Lucas, confused, listened carefully.
"You think that gives you authority?" Thomas roared amusedly, stepping up from his seat. "You dare wield the heirloom that fell on your lap against me? That gives you nothing more than the foolhardy confidence that makes you stand and defy me!"
Laila laughed, before approaching slowly and asking back "Then why don't you take it? This wand denotes the head of the family, so why don't you grab it from my hand and take your rightful place? Or else who is the one here with foolhardy confidence?"
Lucas began to piece things together. It was the wand, the wand he'd never been able to work out, they were arguing over. He leaned forward to listen closely, unfortunately getting the attention of Thomas, who grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and held his wand to his temple, forcing the end into his head like a knife.
"Ricard." Thomas sighed. "What are you doing with her?"
Ricard, however didn't bite, as Thomas goaded "Careful.". Lucas could barely scoff as he was manhandled down the steps of the church, his movements foreign and puppet like as his clothes ruffled under Thomas' iron grip. He staggered down to the bottom, his neck beginning to bleed as the wand was held with such force that it began to pierce his skin.
"Don't…" Thomas began "I planned too much.. I can't lose here.. I won't… I'm not done yet."
"Let him go first."
The man paused, before whispering in Lucas' ear "Walk forward." as he released the wand. Lucas could guess why, to cause some separation and allow Laila to back off.
"Sectumsempra."
He didn't recognise the curse as it struck his back as his body went cold. The world suddenly muted, as he felt the dull impact of his knees hitting the ground. He could hear Laila scream as his natural compass went flying, before his cheekbone struck the edge of a step and his body slid slowly down towards the pews. He heard a scream again, less distinct, as his ear filled up with blood. As his mental functions began to slow, he could barely whisper "Coward…", before he reached forward, and his world went quiet.
[] [] [] - Laila
"You bastard!" she roared, as a misty cloud of blood erupted behind Lucas' back. Time seemed to freeze as Lucas' legs buckled under him, and he fell. The candles glare took all the colour out of the two men, their shadows moving about among a bright orange background of a mass of light. The candles, arranged in a semicircular ring of fire around the table. As she had first walked towards the scene, moving between the rows of wooden seats, looking at the organic flickering fire around the two men against the table, draped in a lightless black veil of darkness. Lucas had been silent and expectant in his movement, his shadow staying still in contrast to the blaze behind him, whereas Thomas had been comparably animated, furious at her defiance. She'd drawn her wand on him to attempt to get him to submit, and called his bluff when he tried to talk her down, and he'd called hers as he cut Lucas' puppet strings, sending his limp, bloodied body down to the steps, stretched down along the ridges like clothes, stained red being left out to dry, the colour finally showing through as the contrasting light seemed to focus on her uncle, his body pitch black with a fire roaring behind him as he stood above Lucas' still body. Time was still moving at a hard stop, as the blood dripped down along the tiled steps towards her feet resting on the wooden floor. His back now exposed, she saw in the bottom corner of her eye his mangled back, clothes ripped apart to expose the hulk of raw meat that the spell had rendered.
"Do you like that trick?" Thomas asked her from the top of the stairs "Borrowed it from a colleague, it works a trick for a slow death. It's a shame, he was most delightful company."
"You will pay for this…" she hissed "I WILL MAKE YOU PAY THE CONSEQUENCES!"
He laughed, before retorting "Oh really? Then who will save his life? You certainly can't!"
She paused before responding. His response betrayed a few things. She knew the curse, it was developed by a half blooded friend of the family, and knew what it did. It drew cuts and stabs into an opponent, drawing blood the old fashioned way. If he could cure it, it wasn't a case of some manner of counter curse, just regular medical magic. Still, he'd lost a lot of blood, but she could afford to bluff a little longer. If she projected having more power, she would take the upper hand.
"I don't care about him." she lied. "You used a backhanded tactic, and have let the family's honour down, and that will not stand. I will take you down, on behalf of all of the Fausts, not the mere life of one you villain!"
In reality, she cared deeply, but not only did she see it more as a duty to eliminate her uncle from power, but it was imperative to show not only to him but to her followers that she was not affected on an emotional level, and still displayed the clear headed thinking of a leader. The very fact she was making this rational decision showed to herself that she held the upper hand, as Thomas was not making himself out to be the figure of clarity.
He paused, surprised by that response despite himself. "Damn! Even Lucas, in all his sociopathic glory never stooped that low!"
"Your little sideshow ends here, mongrel." she snarled. "You were a failure from the start. Join him, bleeding out into the floor if you're such a big fan of his ilk. EN GARDE!"
She made the first strike, firing dead ahead with the blasting curse Confringo, sending a beam of explosive energy forward to wipe him out and end it quickly, but he had no intention of coming quietly, as he raised the topmost step towards the altar up like agate, flush with the step below it and floor above it to form a clean wall dividing them, flinging Lucas upwards and away like a catapult, his body not resisting as it landed in the pews. The explosion shattered the wall, forming a relic like u shaped hole stretching from the top of the wall on either side, valleying out at the centre, as if it had been bombed.
Which it had been. Luckily Lucas had been far enough away to be spared of the blast, but she and her crowd had been given a fair belting by the shock. Thomas snarled as he walked through the rubble, attempting to go on the offensive, but Laila shut that down by slamming some of the loose rubble from either side of the remaining wall into him in chunks, the projectiles slamming into him. He backed away towards the centre of the altar, rearing up against the table as he shot out "AVADA KEDAVRA", holding nothing back, however Laila pulled no punches either, deflecting the killing curse with a shield, rebounding it back towards him at a slight angle, smacking the edge of the wall with a vengeance. Now the wall blocked the candlelight, forming a reddy orange halo around the shadowed Faust as he attempted to tear the edges of the hole down towards them as she had, but she easily dissolved them to dust before they got anywhere near.
"Give up, fool." Laila cawed, stepping up through the gap, as she saw Thomas in full colour, smiling back towards her as he took a noble stance drawing his wand from behind and to his left and swung it in line with her, as the light of the candles disappeared with the swing of his arm. She barely caught onto what he was doing in time as the flame kept moving as it swung round the last candle, not stopping as the blaze followed Thomas' arm through the air towards Laila in an arc. She lifted the floor to the left of her, using the brick to block the flames, 90 degrees to the oncoming blaze, as the flames ate away at her defense. She reimbursed the damage with more brick from the ground, drawing more and more as the flames continued to double back and get back at the wall.
But she had far less magical stamina than her adult opponent, and her assistants were trying to save Lucas from bleeding out. How could she continue to block it?
The answer came in a moment of memory, as she began to slowly adjust the wall, angling it further and further anticlockwise, the leading edge going outwards and the trailing edge coming back towards her, flaring the fire off to the left hand side of the building and saving the wall from utter was now another problem however, as the flames had flown into the wooden superstructure and began to eat at the pillaring and furniture, spreading like napalm. At least it appeared like Thomas had lost his control of the finite amount of fire, and he tried to attack her with another killing curse as she returned her attention to him as she released the hold on the wall, blocking the spell just in time. She backed up into the wall Thomas had made to avoid her explosive spell at the beginning, as she briefly panicked internally as Thomas grinned "You're still holding back. You think you can beat me?"
He was right. He had already escalated to the killing curse, and she had to show her superiority to this worm. She looked back at the group, the fire blocking most noise, but they seemed preoccupied. She turned back to Thomas and roared "Avada kedavra!"
He blocked it at the last moment, grinning as he fired back. They sparred, as she began to feel a physical strain on her arm. She fired off one more, before the wand finally gave, shattering in her hand.
"GAAH!"
She couldn't understand what was happening as she fell to her back. She saw the shards fly away from her as the hair inside caught fire and turned to ashes. What was happening? The wand accepted her, or else it would have killed her.
"I don't understand…"
That was all she could say as she was wracked with pain through her entire body, as she felt a wave of spiking pain, tearing her apart cell by cell.
What was happening to her?
[] [] [] - Lucas
"The bleedings stopped, we-"
"Is that a fire?"
"Fuck!"
"We've got to go, leave him, he won't make it!"
"But Lai-"
"Screw her, she can burn with the Tom bastard, we've got to go!"
The voices faded in and then out again almost as quickly, replaced by the crackling and burning sound and smell of wood dying. His legs felt as if they had been passed through a mincer, as they pulsed with white hot agony, but his throat was too choked with blood to cry, only gargling his cry for help. His sonic reference was just monotonous fire, as his mental map had already been replaced with the mental claxon of encroaching death.
"GAAH!"
His ears pricked up as he heard Laila's cry over the fire, as his heart rate finally spiked beyond that of an asthmatic turtle. He had to do something. It almost surprised him as he rolled over from his back onto his belly. He couldn't imagine going out of his way to help anyone, but sod it, he thought, as he experimented with his limbs. His legs refused to move, but his right arm moved from the elbow up and his left had its full motion, even if every movement caused a spike of agonising torture. He reached to his left, and hauled his body by the pew, almost like doing one armed chin ups along the short length of the hall up to the steps. Wincing and crying as the blood came back up from his throat, spilling onto the floor as he raised an elbow, lifting his body of one rung of the steps after another, agonisingly slowly. What was happening up there?
After what seemed like years climbing the steps, he laid his hand down on the tiled altar area, receiving a shock as he laid his hand down to rest on the brick, his whole mind shaking with the shock, his mind's eye pulsing. What was going on?
He raised his hand away, and it disappeared. Confused, almost distracted from the task at hand, he placed his hand down more slowly, gripping a shard of wood about the length of a finger before receiving the hallucinations again. He saw vertical and horizontal lines drawn in the black, and a voice.
"You are worthy, but this is all I can do."
He didn't know what it meant, but as he felt his body drag along the edge of the last step, he realised that this was an outline of vision.
"Thank you, he whispered into the wooden shard, before holding it in his right hand, using his left to drag himself into a gap in what looked like a wall that wasn't there before.
"THOMAS!" he choked out at the tall figure in the centre of his vision. The figures outline turned to him before recoiling.
"How are you still alive?"
He ignored this as he saw Laila lying on the floor, as he began to crawl towards her. Thomas looked down at them, not acting on Lucas' new lease on life as he didn't think the teen would live very long.
"Laila?"
Laila appeared to turn to him, and seemed to shake. "I…"
He shivered, as for what could be the first time in the life he felt fury. He had been cheated and lied to.
"AND THAT WILL NOT DO!" he roared, turning and aiming his wand at Thomas, using his wooden shard of vision to aim square on at Thomas, crying "Expelliarmius!" and sending the shocked politician flying back over the chess table and further into the background. Unfortunately, the movement of the waist had ripped open the rudimentary stitches, sending blood flowing from his waist down onto Laila, as he flopped onto his back.
His hands grew weak, as he lost the grip on the wood, his vision dying.
"Take my spare wand.." he weakly whispered.
"Sorry.." he coughed as he lost feeling in his chest.
"That's it from me."
[] [] [] - Laila
"No!"
She cried, as she hauled herself to her knees, and began punching his chest, trying to get him back up. "Get up you lazy bastard! Don't clock out now! Please!"
Lucas didn't respond, only releasing his ebony wand into her hand, allowing her to take it from him. It was a little small, which seemed weird, but that was not her concern as she stood up and stared down the fiery alley down to Thomas, who had stood back up and was ready to go. Every movement was crippling, as she trotted over to him. She was filled with wrath, as, not waiting for an opening, cried "Crucio!"
Immediately, Thomas cringed, holding himself upright. She didn't care about how he felt, he simply had to submit. She was superior. He fell to one knee, and held his arms out on the floor. He refused to speak, as she continued to hold the curse.
"It's like I said you pathetic embarrassment." she hissed "You betrayed your honour, and for that, you will pay dearly."
It took a moment for him to finally, give in, as he gritted his teeth and held out a little longer, having an admirable constitution, before he finally caved "Alright alright! Fine!"
Laila gave way, as Thomas collapsed to the ground, followed shortly after by Laila, her pain catching up with her as she heard several other people finally break through the door. She heard a Polish voice call out in the dark.
"Laila!"
~Eth0