So time for some fun without Ed or Roy...
Luckily everyone seems to enjoy Alice, Marks, and Collins... and I guess we'll see what you think about the latest person to join in the mess.
And the laptop is still on the fritz.
Chapter Thirty Four
Briarwood Estate- London
At present, Collins was parking his car about three hundred yards off or so from where Lady Alice's driver had parked their own car. After spending nearly two hours at one of London's most seedy nightclubs, in which he'd consumed quite a few margaritas that he'd been sure weren't so sweet they masked the flavor of the alcohol itself, Lady Alice had stopped her binge drinking and gyrating on the dance floor with random sauced sods who wouldn't remember their own name in the morning. And so he'd paid for his drinks, and had driven for almost half an hour out past the outskirts of London.
Now Lady Alice's car had parked beyond the gates of Briarwood Estate.
He had pulled his car off the side of the road into the cover of the trees. He cut the engine quickly, and sat waiting in his vehicle as he waited for something to happen. And truthfully he was very confused why she'd come here.
Briarwood wasn't exactly the type of place he'd expect someone like her to go. Especially after she'd just drunk and danced herself nearly unconscious. The estate belonged to a man who could only be described as legally insane. Mister Kedder hadn't always been, but after having been tortured in the war, any sanity was gone. The man he was now was an exact opposite from the one he'd been before the torture.
Or so the rumors went about the scientist whose intelligent mind had warped.
He watched, a frown growing on his brow, as Lady Alice could be seen exiting the car. She needed to take only a few steps towards the dark mansion before he was getting out of his own car. He shut the door softly, and checked to be sure his revolver and other gear was resting in place on his belt before he began to make his way around the far side of the mansion to keep an eye on her but remain unseen.
Alice didn't bother knocking, and went straight in through the front door. The doors of this place were never locked. No one ever came here. Well, it was rare. After all, she was here. But the man who lived here was a better barricade than the deadbolt of a door.
When one first thought of Briarwood, they expected cobwebs, spontaneous thunderstorms, and bent bald men lurking in the corners toting around goblets of blood. She'd been pleasantly, and slightly alarmingly surprised on her first visit here to see that such a thing was not the case. The mansion was quiet, and clean of both cobwebs and strange men. But in the absence of thunderstorms was a sensation of always being watched.
And Alice couldn't shake that feeling.
Rubbing one of her arms as shivers ran up her, she looked around, and then started towards the left hallway. Kedder was a firm exploiter of the fact that more people generally went right when they were lost… and she knew better than to go to the right.
She hadn't on her first trip here… she didn't plan to make that mistake again. The man had gotten far too delighted a laugh out of it. The creep.
But he was a useful creep right now, and so she'd bear it.
"Kedder!" She called out as she walked down the hallway on slightly unsteady legs. She was beginning to think that maybe she shouldn't have had that last shot of bourbon. It seemed to have been the slight weight needed to tip the scales of her equilibrium.
"Where are you, old man?" She called again, and ended up at the door that she now knew led to the man's workroom. She didn't bother knocking, and let herself in.
The hunched figure in a corner of the room snickered quietly to the beakers of bubbling viscous liquid of various colors on a long wooden table. "The little lady has returned, my pets." He whispered, brown eyes dancing with glee as they flicked from purple to orange mixtures and then over to Lady Alice. "What does she want, my pets?"
Alice wasn't sure she'd ever get used to this man. Though she hoped that this might actually be the last time she ever need visit him. She had thought the first time was the last, and that hadn't worked out at all. "Elric killed whatever you sent after him. Some wolf thing?"
"My pet? Dead?" Kedder keened, and gripped hard to the edge of the wooden table causing the beakers atop it to shudder violently and nearly tip. "My pet!"
Alice stopped a safe distance away, not trusting whatever was in those beakers. "You have plenty of pets, Kedder."
He turned his brown eyes on her, and they looked slightly crazed in the dim light coming only from the many flickering candles which he didn't consider a fire hazard. "Elric has killed a simple pet!" He informed her adamantly, as if she'd been arguing it with him.
Alice nodded. "Evidently. I don't think he even got a scratch. I-"
"The little lady underestimated him and cost me a simple pet, my pets." Kedder said as he stared back at the beakers.
"Not anymore, I don't care what it is you send after him this time. But it sure as hell better be the best you've ever created." Alice told him firmly. She wasn't about to let Fane try living up to his promise to drag her down with him if he fell. The bastard… he'd be lucky if she didn't have him done in as well after all this was over. She couldn't abide by the audacity he'd showed breaking into her room.
Kedder suddenly was striding towards her, still somewhat hunched over. "The best? Little lady asks for the best, my pets. Best of my pets… yes." He whispered as he hurried past her.
Alice turned to follow after him, staying a good distance away. She was still very much wary of the man. He was as unstable as they came, but his mind was still sharp. Just not in the ways that had made him great before his original self had been overthrown. "I haven't time to waste, Kedder. So you best not be jerking me around."
Kedder suddenly turned, and grabbed her by the wrist to jerk her down to his hunched level. "Jerk, jerk, jerk, little lady." He whispered silkily. "Little lady came to me because I hate Elric as much as she. My pets hate what I hate, my pets do. Little lady made the mistake, not Kedder. Behave, little lady, or I feed you to the gators who love little bits of royalty, yes they do."
Alice yanked away from him, horror and disgust clearly in her face. "Just do what I'm paying you for. Or the next time I come here I'll come armed."
Kedder turned and began to waddle away laughing in a high pitched tone. "Little lady shoot herself in the foot, my pets. Little lady is no Raymond Devaroe Muravyov, no she isn't. Little lady is only an inbred royal slut, yes she is."
Alice glared, but followed after him. "Only his close contacts ever mention his middle name. Why do you hate Elric if you liked Raymond?"
"Little lady asks too many questions about that which benefits her, my pets." Kedder spoke to the walls. "But I shant tell her, no."
"Freak." Alice muttered under her breath.
Kedder cackled in that high pitch, and only waddled faster down the hallways as he made his way towards his holding room. "Little lady will pay for more cyanide for Kedder, my pets."
"If only he used it on himself." She again muttered. It wasn't exactly something she felt he should hear when she still needed his help.
From around the corner that Lady Alice and Kedder had just passed by, Collins used his handheld mirror to peer around the corner to keep tabs on their movements. Only once they passed out of sight again did he hurry on silent feet after them. He wasn't worried about Alice spotting him. It was the scientist he was worried about.
Maybe they were only rumors… but he'd error on the side of being safe.
And he dared Marks to challenge him on it. So much for that ex-FBI bastard having the "harder" job. He doubted an embassy was as trap-riddled as Briarwood and its occupants were rumored to be.
As long as he didn't get shot in the ass, Marks owed him a drink.
He continued to creep after them, until they had stopped at one door which Kedder opened, and they went through before it closed again.
Alice held one hand over her nose and mouth against the smell of all the animals. All of which had begun making a racket at their entry.
Kedder waddled forward, "silence, my pets." He said in a voice that should have been too quiet for them to hear. Yet there was sudden collective silence.
Alice followed after him, still trying to block the stench. It wasn't the stench of an unsanitary room, for even with the hundreds of animals locked in their cages, it was as clean as a hospital. Just the smell of all the different animals mixing together was unsettling to her stomach. Especially considering she was sure the man had several maned wolves.
"Little lady wants a fierce pet to kill the Elric whelp." Kedder muttered as he headed for one of the farther cages. "Then a fierce pet must be unleashed."
Alice walked after him silently, sparing glances to all the cages she passed. There were animals in some of them that she didn't recognize. And animals she was sure had been obtained in quite illegal practices. But it was what Kedder did with the animals that she was sure was the most illegal. But as everyone avoided the man, no one knew. Even she hadn't before she'd come here the first time. She'd merely thought he'd give her some kind of a new scientific invention.
Not give her a timeframe in which he'd transport one of his pets to set loose.
Well, they were pets for him. But for anyone else? The minds of these animals were as warped as their master's. And whatever their master bade them to do, they did it without question. They'd been conditioned to act as living tools. As far as Alice could tell, there was no memory in their minds that they were even alive. They just existed to do whatever was ordered of them.
"This one, yes, my pets." Kedder said as he came to stand before a cage.
Alice came to stand beside him, and placed both her hands on her hips as she stared unimpressed into the cage. "What is it?"
Kedder was gleefully clapping his own hands as if he'd won a prize at a carnival. "Little lady asks what you are, my pet." He whispered in his customary way. "Little lady is inbred idiot."
Alice glared at him. "Hey! I'm right here you know!"
"This…" Kedder began eagerly, "is a dragon. Elric is no knight, he shall not slay a dragon, my pets."
Alice looked dubiously from the nine foot long lizard that was as big around the middle as an average sized man was, and then back to Kedder. "You're going to set a freakishly large lizard after Edward Elric? I doubt that will work. Even if it is as messed up in the mind as the rest of the things in this house."
"He will need more than a bullet to the heart to stop this pet." Kedder began to heave with repressed laughter. "Much more… and by then it will be too late."
"Just make sure Elric is dead by tomorrow, or I'm hiring someone with sniper experience." She informed him. "I haven't time to waste, I must get Roy."
Kedder reached past the bars to stroke the broad head of the komodo. "Little lady is much talk and little result from her own devices. Such an embarrassment it must be for her to feel the need to blame others when she was the first to fail and keep the rest failing because she is stupid and underestimates Elric."
Alice was glaring at him again. As creepy as Kedder was, she believed she disliked him with just as much passion. His way of talking to himself or his pets whether inanimate or not like he did. But she supposed that broken men had broken manners. She needed him for right now… but she'd be only too glad to break ties with the man who was as close to a mad scientist as she'd ever experienced.
Kedder was now unlocking the gate of the cage, and both he and Alice stepped back as the creature inside slunk out, forked tongue slipping out from between jaws lined with serrated teeth.
"I hope this thing knows what it's doing." She muttered under her breath.
Kedder giggled, and watched as his pet began to run off around the large holding room. "Pet must stretch his legs if pet will be off to kill."
"He better kill." Alice whispered as she watched the beast vanish between steel cages.
"Kill." Kedder's voice was eager. "Pet must kill."
He'd only gotten close enough to hear what they were saying, as he hunkered down behind one of the larger cages that contained several wolverines. He was sure they were the same pair that an article in the newspaper two months ago had proclaimed them as missing from the London Zoo. But their cage made a good place to lurk behind and listen.
And what he heard, he didn't like.
Lady Alice was plotting with that madman to have Edward killed? And that beast, he'd never seen such a monstrous reptile before that was not an alligator. It looked more like it belonged in the age of dinosaurs than here in civilized London. Did Edward suspect this? Was this the reason he was supposed to tail Lady Alice? But if Lady Alice was planning to murder Edward to get to Roy for whatever reason, than what the hell was Fane Banciu up to?
"What the hell did you get yourself mixed up in this time." Collins murmured under his breath, and looked away so he could begin to back his way out of the room. He suspected they'd be leaving here soon, and he wanted to be in a better position to keep following his target.
He was almost to the door.
He didn't hear the rapid click of claws until it was too late to escape.
Collins bit down a scream as serrated teeth drove deep into one calf. And he fought against being tugged down by that large reptile that was refusing to release him. White hot pain seared through him, and panic flickered to life as he realized the reptile wasn't letting go, and he was beginning to lose feeling in his leg.
Quickly, he grabbed the long bladed knife from his belt, and slashed down at the beast's mouth. The curved steel caught the corner of the jaw and tore a fair sized gap.
It worked.
The creature, whatever it was, shrieked in rage and pain, and as a result his leg was freed.
Collins hurried for the door, hearing rapid footsteps coming his way, but no one yet in sight. And he half ran, half drug himself to the door which he closed behind him before hobbling away as fast as he could.
Kedder immediately went to his injured pet, whispering what must have been soothing words in between angry mutters about who had done this to his pet.
"Fane." Alice whispered angrily as she watched the door bounce repeatedly in the frame from the force of which it was closed.
"Fane Banciu?" Kedder asked up at her from where he knelt tending to the non-severe slash.
Alice nodded grimly. "He must have followed me here, that bastard. Shame your little overgrown lizard didn't kill him."
Kedder shook fitfully, "he harmed my pet. Poor pet. But pet must have bitten him."
"Is that a good thing?" Alice asked over at him.
"Very good." Kedder whispered in agreement, and then burst out into his high laughter. "Pet may have killed him yet." He gloated through the laughs.
Alice crossed her arms, "and mother said politics are boring."
Collins fell out of the window that he'd shoved open, and tumbled to the snow covered grass in a heap. His calf had swollen to nearly twice its size, and the blood seeping from it wasn't clotting. He could feel numbness creeping up his leg accompanied by the inability to now move most of it, and he was starting to wonder what the hell he'd been bitten by.
Pulling himself up, he began what seemed like an everlasting journey back to the car. He knew he shouldn't run on what was little more than a stump of a leg right now, as it would only push whatever venom had been injected into him faster through his system, but he had no time to waste.
By the time he managed to reach the car, he was visibly shaking. His blood pressure had dropped, making him feel as if he were about to faint. And he'd never felt so cold before in his life. It wasn't from the snow, which he barely noticed was now falling again.
He fairly collapsed into the seat and shut the door, locking himself in before he reached for the CB radio with shaking hands.
Romanian Embassy - London
The clocks inside the embassy were tolling one in the morning when Marks finally left. He had changed into his regular clothes. The uniform he'd stuffed in the trash bin and covered with trash he created himself. It had been soiled by blood. Not his own, or that of someone who'd stood in his way. But of a wolf that he'd found trussed up in a back room. He was unsure of why there was a dead wolf in that room, but he had found the bullet hole that was still draining of blood.
And unfortunately he'd gotten some on the clothes. Not so unfortunate was the fact they were not his own clothes.
Now he was finishing his unseen hop over the wall. It was fortunate that the snow falling right now was thick enough to help hide him as well. And he sauntered across the street back over to where he could see the dark shape of his car through the snowfall. If only embassies knew just how easy they were to break into…
But it worked out lovely for him. Not that he planned to make his entire career into something related to breaking and entering internationally protected facilities. He was quite happy with his illegal gambling operation.
Being ex-FBi, he knew how to remain undetected. Though it still puzzled him how Edward knew about it… yet he owed the man for keeping it a secret. Among other reasons.
He got into his car, and before he started it grabbed a pad of paper and pen from the glove box. And he began to write his report for Edward, keeping it short and to the point. Really there hadn't been anything suspicious going on tonight. But if he wasn't mistaken, something had been, and Fane himself was looking distracted.
After he was done he capped the pen, tore off his report and flung the pad of paper aside. Folding the report up he set it on the seat beside him. He'd drop it off before he drove back here to catch some sleep and then spend an entire day tailing the ambassador.
His car revved to life, and he was pulling out from the curb when the radio crackled to life.
"Marks…"
He looked over at it with some surprise, and picked it up. "Collins, don't tell me I finished before you."
"Lizard… attacked me…"
Marks allowed himself one laugh that he kept from being overheard. "They can be vicious those lizards. Are you sure it wasn't a newt?"
"Shut up and come find me… Briarwood… in the woods."
Marks frowned as the radio went dead with a hiss, and he slowly placed his down to kill the signal. There was a good chance this was a prank of some sort. But then again…
"It's not as if I can't shoot him in the ass if he is messing with me. Probably. How stupid does he think I am? A lizard attacked him?" Marks snickered as he began to head his car in the direction of Briarwood. "And I'm a fairy."
Well, he had to give the man props for choosing a good location for some lame ass attempt at a horror story. Though lizards in winter? He'd have been more convinced were it aliens.
The drive took him about a half an hour, and he cut his lights as he drove slowly along the road towards the mansion. Why the hell would Collins even come out here? It was in the exact opposite direction from where Alice lived, and well out of the way of any nightclubs. And seriously, there were plenty of graveyards along the way that could have been just as ideal locations.
He had nearly reached the mansion when he spotted the other car. It was nearly covered in snow, off the road and parked among the trees. He wouldn't have seen it at all had he not been looking for it. And so he eased his own car off the road and up towards Collins's.
He left the engine running as he got out of the car and made his way over to the other. As he approached, he saw Collins was indeed in there, but the man was slumped over sideways onto the opposite seat. "Shit."
Something wasn't right.
Tugging on the door, he realized the idiot had locked it. So he tugged off his jacket and wrapped his fist in it before punching the window in. Now he could tug the door open, and he instantly saw something wasn't right. Collins was far too pale, and the smell of blood was strong. "What the hell kind of lizard did you say attacked you?!"
But he didn't wait for an answer from the comatose looking man. It would have been faster to just take Collins's car, but he was wary about moving the man. So he grabbed him out, mentally swearing that something in this man's diet needed to be cut out. And he carried him back to his own car where with some difficult he managed to get him into the backseat.
"Just because you didn't get hurt in the ass this time doesn't mean I owe you a drink." Marks grunted as he deposited his load, glancing over the wound seeping blood still into the already soaked pant leg that was stretched taught over the swollen calf. Grabbing his knife, he sliced it up to relieve pressure. "And you are so cleaning my car." Ripping off a section of the now ruined pant leg he tied the length of fabric up around the top base of the wound to try and put some needed pressure on it.
"And if someone saw you before you got away from whatever lizard bit you, Edward is going to finish the job himself. Or I will." Marks slammed the car door shut, and went around to the driver side where he got in.
He immediately pulled the car back up to the road and began to head for the hospital. He had no other choice, as he really had no clue what was going on so he couldn't treat it himself.
"Only you would manage something like this. How sweet of you to leave me to explain it to Edward."