A/N: Yeah, fifty (shades of grey) chapters! Which means, I don't know, about 6 more to go? Which will hopefully be written soon, despite the extreme fun that are college essays. Ah, well...
Hope you enjoy, and I'll try to update soon!
They arrived. They got out. Stood there for a while, surveyed 404 Petersborough.
Matt pulls out a cigarette.
"Well," he says, reaching for a lighter, "looks like Google maps got something right."
"Shut up," Mello says, absentmindedly shoving a gun at Matt as he scowled at the building before him. A warehouse, yes, he'd known it'd been a warehouse and not a hotel, though Beyond had died in a hotel and that would have been good, that would have been fitting –
– but actually that was okay, that was good. Hotel or not, it could work; hotel or not, it could fit. And if not a hotel, then that meant –
Aha.
"Well?" Matt asks quietly, eyes fixed on Mello's face. "No fourth floor here. What do we do now, Mels?"
"We don't do anything –"
"Mels," Matt cut in, raising a hand, "save it. You're here, and I'm here, and if you're right, then so is Zodiac. It's a little late for heroics. We are going in there, and we are finding whoever the hell Zodiac is, and then we are going to go back before Hannah gets worried and skins me alive – so the sooner we get this over with, the better."
Mello hesitates, one short second more, but Matt's eyes are steady and stubborn.
"There'll be a basement," Mello says, "a basement or some kind of underground tunnel system. This used to be a warehouse, so it won't be hard to find, but it'll be deep – four floors, at least. There might be rooms, and if that's so, we'll look for 404, but there might not be. Either way, Zodiac'll be there."
"And then?"
"And then we find him," Mello says, "and then we capture him."
"Alright," Matt said.
And that was it. And that was all.
The warehouse is empty when they enter, the light dim and the only equipment still left broken and rusting – "looks like our serial killer isn't much into redecorating," Matt remarks, running a finger over a table and coming up with a thick layer of dust on his gloves.
Mello doesn't say anything, eyes too busy surveying the landscape before them. Broken crates, old, mildewed wood: not a very fitting place for the leader of a serial killer ring – rather clichéd, really, lacking in originality. Conspicuous, especially considering B's choice of disguise –
"Mels," Matt said, and Mello turns at it; Matt is a little over, crouched down over a patch of mildewed wood. When he sees Mello looking at him, he nods, slowly places one boot over the broken wood – and it gives, as simply and easily as though that was its purpose.
(Ah-ha, Mello thinks, so that was it –)
Matt clears away the splintered wood, and underneath – like something from a novel, a scene from a movie – is a trapdoor.
Slowly, Mello walks over, gently crouches down next to it. Stares at it a moment, then lifts it gingerly, dust floating up and spiders skittering away as he looks down.
The trapdoor was dark, the dim light penetrating a few feet before he could see nothing more – presumably a fairly deep basement, then. Four floors was more than plausible.
But –
"You know," Matt says slowly, the same thought that Mello had had slowly dawning on him, "there were stairs."
"Yeah," Mello replies, brushing the boards back onto the trapdoor as he slowly stood up, "he could have. But," he adds, heading for the staircase they'd seen upon entering, "guess that wouldn't be dramatic enough."
One flight, two flight, four flights – and all the while holding the monolight they had taken from the photography department out as though it were a crucifix, a wrought-iron ikon to ward away the darkness.
Fourth floor, and still darkness; fourth floor, and no sounds, no lights, no sign that anyone was living or had ever lived here. No numbers on the doors either, no landmarks or signs of where Zodiac would be.
"Do you think," Matt whispers, glancing at Mello as they slowly advanced toward the corner, monolight still held ahead, "that maybe he isn't –"
And then the world burst into light and blinding whiteness.
Staggering back, Mello's first instinct is to reach for his gun, and – shielding his eyes with one hand, he raises it, shots it into the air: one, two bullets, directed towards the source of the light. Glass shatters; lights shut off; shards of glass fall to the ground, tiny drops of cutting rain.
In the reduced lighting, Mello lowers the gun, slowly aims it forward.
For a moment, nothing. For a moment, the only sound that of Matt's shallow breaths, the crunching glass of as Mello shifted position, stars still dancing in his eyes as he searches the darkness –
And then – slowly, softly at first – the sound of laughter.
In the quiet, Mello can hear Matt's breathing speed up, and he tightens his grip on his gun automatically, grits his teeth as he stares into the darkness.
No one in sight. No one there, only the sound of high, maniacal laughter –
– but no bullets either, no sudden rush of pain and blood. No gunshots.
Mello steps forward slowly – "Mels," Matt hisses, but he ignores him, continues walking forward – seconds suspended in time as he gently lowered his gun –
– but still nothing.
A deliberate move, something keeping with the megalomania and the drama? Or something more?
Interesting.
Mello stands there for several minutes more, gun hung purposely loose at his side, and let the laughter continue.
"Well?" he asks, when the laughing had finally died down. "Is that all? I expected gloating," Mello continues, eyes raking over the walls. "You left all those notes, all those hints – and now, what? Kill us without a word? Let all that brilliance go to waste?"
Silence.
"When it's over, they won't even know," he continues, "won't remember a thing – all your anger and all his brilliance, they'll be all gone. No one will ever know, no one will ever care. Just like no one does with Beyond –"
"But you will remember."
"And that's what matters?"
(voice slightly rough, almost scratchy – a tone high enough to be treble, but also androgynous enough to hover at bass clef –)
"Of course it is," Zodiac replies from somewhere in the shadows, and there it was again, that slight tinge of maniac bubbling glee, "it's the only thing that does, isn't it? Because you'll know – oh, you'll know, you'll know, you'll know – and then you'll die, and then everything will be the way it was supposed to have been."
(definitely more tenor than soprano, slightly high as it still was and cracked with what was no doubt thirst and overwork – so that was who it was, all of Mello's suspicions confirmed in one tone of left only one more thing to do–)
"Oh?" he asks, no longer caring about the answer, only interested in the words. "And that'd be good? That'd be revenge? What, let us die without a little fear? A little trembling –"
"I could kill you right now."
("Mels," Matt hisses, "are you a fucking idiot–")
"Oh?" Lowered gun, deliberately relaxed stance.
"It would be so easy," Zodiac says, and his voice is gentle, soft as a mother's words and almost sad, "so easy. So many ways to do it – and all at a flick of a hand, a word from me –"
(a little left – no, not there, perhaps a little more to the right – no, no, but not quite –)
He could almost tell. Almost, but not quite – but perhaps if he, yes if indeed he did –
Slowly, Mello closes his eyes.
And there he was.
" – isn't that so, Mihael Keehl?"
Mello's eyes flew open –
And a bullet rent open the night.
