CHINA DOLL VII—RHAPSODY
"We have to get out of here."
Sirius looked up from his hash immediately, the finality of Vix's tone surprising him. Taking a swig of Remus's coffee, he replied. "Why?"
"Orien's coming; for you and your friend," Vix was deathly white, the pallor of her fear clashing horribly with her starched uniform.
"Orien?" Sirius had never been one for names.
"The man in here yesterday! The man you held at gun point!" Vix yelled in frustration and alarm.
"So why are we running away?" Sirius said, still a little wary of the daughter of Su Naoto.
"Please trust me," Vix grabbed his arm, forcing him to meet her gaze. She had never seen eyes like his before, eyes black and empty; as bottomless as the night sky was vast. She could loose herself in the deep vacant void of his eyes.
Somehow, some way, Sirius caught a trace of her urgency and nodded, "Where do we go?"
"Your place," Vix cringed inwardly at the memory of Apartment 2A. "He'll find us otherwise."
"All right."
"What about your friend?" Vix said as Sirius made for the door.
"Remus can take care of himself," Sirius said, doubting inside his self-created confidence. He hoped that Moony had enough wits to realize something was terribly wrong.
----
Remus had enough of his own troubles at the moment, not to even mention worrying about Sirius's. Standing in Whimsy's office once again, staring awkwardly around at the surroundings, he felt his sense of optimism slide away into oblivion.
Whimsy sat down behind his desk, once again surveying the room with a territorial majesty. Ironically, Remus felt as if he was back at Hogwarts standing trial before Dumbledore and facing expulsion for the umpteenth time. But Whimsy was no Dumbledore and the game he now played had progressed far beyond the level of schoolboy pranks...
Waiting for Whimsy to break his carefully calculated silence, Remus's eyes drifted once again to the picture of Billie Holiday, serene and alive in her smoky night club majesty. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, which warranted an exasperated whine from the carpet.
Rolling his eyes, Whimsy began drumming his fingers on the impeccable white desk. "Mr. Foote."
"That's not my name," Remus answered defensively, trying to regain some smidgen of control.
"And frankly Mr. Foote, it matters nothing to me," Whimsy said patronizingly, leaning over the desk. "As long as Su Naoto ends up dead I don't care if you're Mick Jagger. I don't expect you to use a gun, they're too sloppy, too easily traced."
Remus, who had nothing to say, remained silent.
"Only one curse will leave no mark."
Glancing up in horrified comprehension, Remus gaped openly at Whimsy. "No," he said flatly. "No."
"You're not in any position to refuse, Mr. Foote." Whimsy sneered coldly from across an eternity of whiny carpet. Whimsy's thin lips curved up into the ghost of a smile as Remus locked his own face in resignation. "Just two little words, Mr. Foote. That's all it takes and you'll be free."
"Damn you," Remus said quietly, his eyes focused on Whimsy's cold blue ones.
Whimsy looked around his room and took a deep breath, "I believe I'm effectively damned already. You have a week."
----
The door of Apartment 2A opened and shut with a dry clank. Vix, still shaken, walked across the empty gray room and fixed her stare out the single window, which framed a portrait of a city as busy and inanimate as the cement crumbling around her. Gazing through the wispy curtain of rain she tried desperately to find the tiny brown spot that was the diner. In the immeasurable bustle, it was impossible. "If you never stare off into the distance, then your life is a shame," Vix muttered slowly to herself.
"Really?"
She turned around to see Padfoot giving her a cheeky grin. "Yeah. It's a song."
"I never got that philosophical about simple things," he walked towards her and sat down on the window ledge. "Like looking out a window."
"You don't get philosophical much," Vix guessed, turning her gaze to Padfoot.
"No," he mouth smiled, but his eyes remained cold and vacant. "No I don't. Not like Remus anyway."
"He's philosophical?" Vix said, sitting down on the sill.
"He's Remus, what can I say?" Padfoot retorted, brushing a wisp of hair out of his face.
A silence passed; a silence that's beats soon amounted to an eternity, though no real time passed at all. As Vix's eyes wandered around the room, her mind wandered through the jumble of the last two days, wandered right back to the leather bound encyclopedia, to the photograph that had so mesmerized her.
"Psyche," Vix murmured to herself, and Padfoot turned around at the sudden noise.
"Come again?" He raised an eyebrow.
Vix waved her hand dismissivly, "It was in one of those books I was reading yesterday. The psyche, its supposedly some sort of vampire soul-sucker."
"Ouch," Padfoot raised his other eyebrow, which had the effect of making him look completely ridiculous, even though his expression was quite serious. "Terrible, hmm?"
Vix glared at him, "Shut up, you're not remotely sympathetic."
Padfoot gave another wide grin, "I sympathize more than you think."
"Hardly," Vix laughed. "I think Psyche's are awful, or the idea of Psyches. They can't actually exist. The book called them a cross between a vampire and a dementor... or something like that."
Vix felt Padfoot stiffen next to her and tilting her head a little she looked at him, "You ok?"
"I'm fine," he replied, averting her eyes.
"You're lying," she said flatly, trying in vain to meet those empty dead eyes.
Padfoot opened his mouth as if to say something, closed it, and then opened it again, his jaunty manner returned. "Soul suckers? Not the most pleasant way to die."
Vix sighed softly to herself; "You're awful!"
"No, just aversive," He said, turning his face towards the window and through it, the brewing thunderstorm.
"How so?" Vix leaned closer to him, the distance between them condensing into mere centimeters.
"What?" He abruptly jerked away.
"How are you aversive?" She repeated, more calmly than her beating heart allowed.
Padfoot gave a wistful smile, "You wouldn't believe me."
"Probably not," Vix grinned, "but you can try."
His eyes wandered back to the window. "Its juvenile... my greatest fear in all the world is loosing my soul, by... some... means. Turning into a vegetable without any awareness, but not... dead." He shrugged, trying to dismiss the confession.
Vix tried a crack, "Lucky for you that vampires, psyches and dementors aren't real."
Padfoot gave a forced laugh, "Yeah... lucky."
Vix stared out the window again, and feeling his discomfort beside her decided to match the admission with one of her own, for not reason other than pity. She pointed out the window, gesturing to a tiny speck of green in the city of gray cement. "That's Victoria Park. There is a little fountain near the center, just around a bend from the main road. Next to the fountain are about ten flowerbeds and a white painted bench. We used to go there every Sunday: Orien, my father, my mother, and me. One Sunday when I was about three and Orien six, a man came around the bend selling balloons. Being three, I wanted one, and my father went up to pay for it. When he was getting his wallet, the balloon man pulled a gun on him. He misfired and hit my mother instead... she died. The man that shot her was a nephew of Jonathan Whimsy's. We never went to the fountain after that." There was a long pause, the silence deeper than the shadows growing around them.
"I'm sorry," Padfoot said awkwardly, laying his hand on her arm.
"Don't be," Vix lied. "I was three, I barely remember her."
"I had a friend once," Padfoot began. "My best friend in all the world; still is after twelve years sadly enough. It was Halloween, 1981. I was over at his house, just talking, blabbering on about nothing for hours. He'd just gotten married, had a little baby. I left just before midnight, and riding home something didn't feel right. So I checked on another friend and rode back to James's. He was dead. Dead when half an hour ago I had been talking to him about Quiddich matches..."
Vix didn't know what Quiddich was. She didn't care. She gripped Padfoot's hand, grimy and filthy as it was, and held on tight. The turning of a rusty handle alerted them to a new presence, but neither moved-- hand in hand, sprit in sprit, staring out into the incoming storm.
----
"They're not here."
Nsia took a step into the mangy diner, eyes trying to penetrate the darkness of dusk. Orien knelt down, sniffing the air like a feral beast, sitting down on the cold tile, he growled, the animal sound coming from deep within his chest. "She betrayed me, Nsia. After all Whimsy's done to us, she betrayed me."
Nsia knelt down beside him, throwing off all vestiges of the petty fake reporter like a much-loathed suit. Silently, slowly, she ran a hand through his spiky hair. Despite his walls, despite his fortress, she could see-- as only Nsia could-- the hurt in Orien's face, feel the pain beneath his carefully constructed facade. "She loves you, Orien," Nsia breathed, touching her face to his. "She loves you."
"No," he replied, entwining his fingers with hers. "No one loves me… 'cept maybe you." Nsia made no reply except to draw him closer, close enough to hear his heartbeats pound in a perfectly melded rhapsody with her own. "You love me, Nsia," he whispered as he laid his head down on her breast, seeking solace there like a small child. "You love me."
----
"There's a no pets sign on the front door," Sirius turned around to see Remus smiling weakly with a seven foot cardboard box in tow.
Suddenly embarrassed, he let go of Vix, who turned away from the window with a look of longing on her face. "Good thing Hagrid isn't here," he plastered a smile to his face. The last thing Moony needed to see was a sentimental Sirius.
Sirius walked over towards the box, which was still shaking. With an apprehensive glance at Vix, Remus dropped his voice to a whisper. "Whimsy was at the station. He wants me to kill him, Avada Kedrava..."
"When?" Sirius dipped his head, pretending to be absorbed in the intricacies of the cardboard.
"I have a week--"
Tilting his head meaningfully towards Vix, Sirius stood up, "We have a house guest, Moony."
Remus raised an eyebrow as Vix jumped off the window ledge. "I'm going to abuse your hospitality for a day or two until everything calms down," she said hastily. "Orien's trying to kill you."
"Why?" Remus raised an eyebrow, his voice a hoarse tambour.
"Because he thinks you're working for Jonathan Whimsy. He thinks you bombed the diner. And now he wants to kill me because I'm helping you."
Remus gave the briefest of smiles, "Thank you."
"Vix," Sirius addressed their guest, who was standing near the window ledge, somewhat nervously. "I want you to meet Buckbeak."
Remus muttered something like "You don't want to meet Buckbeak," but a quick glance from Sirius shut him up.
"Buckbeak?" Vix took a tentative step forward. "That's the box from the news."
"Bravo," Sirius smiled madly. "Its a rare breed of bird, found only in the mountains of Wales. You know how odd those Welshmen are..." Remus gave a slight snort, remembering his childhood days near Mount Snowdon. "Anyway," Sirius continued with his ridiculous monologue, "Meet Buckbeak." He pulled off the packing tape in one big flourish, and gave a slight bow to his less than enthralled audience of two. With a great moan Buckbeak ripped through the thin cardboard facade, and pounded out onto the dirty cement floor.
Vix stood paralyzed with shock as the half-bird, half-horse, half-something crossed the few feet of flooring and stared her in the eyes. "Bow to it," Remus said, remembering an old dusty fact from Care of Magical Creatures.
"Or else it will savage you," Sirius added helpfully.
Vix was still rather queasy about the whole thing, but she didn't have anything else to go on, so with a tentative look at the both of them she gave a slight, but distinct bow. Almost instantly, Buckbeak did the same, and then fell to his knees, worn out with the exhaustion of being shipped from Madrid to Hong Kong on overnight delivery. "I think its asleep..." she whispered quietly.
"Good," Remus grinned in a friendly sort of way. "I've had enough of that bird to last me a lifetime."
"Without it, I'd have no lifetime left," Sirius said grinning. "So treat it with some respect."
Vix looked to the sleeping monster in amazement. "This bird saved your life?"
"Pity isn't it," Remus grinned at her.
Ignoring him, Sirius shrugged. "Its a long involved story involving escaped convicts, pompous bureaucrats, and soul-sucking fiends. You wouldn't be remotely interested."
Vix, of course, had no idea he was being serious. "I'm starved. I know a place around the corner, and I'll treat."
"Pay back for letting you stay here," Sirius replied.
"No," Vix said calmly. "I don't want to brave your cooking."
----
They were in the Prowler when Orien's cell phone rang. With a quick glance to Nsia, he picked it up. "Hello?"
"Orien," his father only needed to speak one word for the power on his voice to be tangible.
"Yes?" Orien replied, slowly reaching into his pocket, where he concealed his gun.
The old man paused a second before replying. "Sho Seiji is dead."
"How?" Orien said intently.
"He was found in his office, lying on the floor. There were no signs of a struggle, but it looked like foul play." Su Naoto let out his breath in a long hiss.
Orien, as always, was a man of action, "What do you want me to do?"
He could feel Naoto's manipulative smile through the phone line. "Find the murderer that cheated me out of 10 billion dollars. Find him and kill him."
----
The restaurant around the corner could have been identical to Vix's own. The grungy menu of omelets, hash, and coffee only served to fortify the idea in Sirius's mind that the Americans would conquer them all. Not with their armies, but with their breakfast food. The swell 50s tunes were drowned out by the eleven o'clock news, where a talking head babbled on and on about bombings in Mozambique. "Breakfast at night?" Remus broke their menu-induced silence. "Don't tell the house elves."
"The what?" Vix looked up from her menu, raising an eyebrow.
"Don't listen to him, he's delirious," Sirius sighed.
Vix smirked, "No that would be you."
"Thank you, Vix," Remus smiled.
"You're welcome, Remus," she said with a vehement glance at Sirius.
"Fine," he smirked. "I know when I'm not loved."
"Pah," Vix snorted. "Not that that would stop you."
"She learns quickly," Remus said, smiling at Sirius.
He rolled his eyes, "Easily corrupted is my take on it, poor dear."
"Shut up," Vix replied, her eyes on the menu.
"Yes do--" Sirius began, but a glance from Moony shut him up.
"Look," Remus said, pointing at the television screen, where the reporter was still babbling.
"One of Hong Kong's most prominent businessmen, Sho Seiji was found dead tonight in his high-rise office complex." The camera zoomed in on a tall cement building. "Seiji had been dead for over an hour when he was discovered by the janitor. Though there were no signs of a struggle, the evidence suggests fowl play." The picture of the office building was replaced with a woman's face. "The leading suspect in the murder is Seiji's fiancé, Su Vix. She is still at large and possibly armed, if you have seen this woman please dial 496-800-7-CRIME. That's 496-800-7-CRIME."
No one in the diner had even turned around, but Vix's face was a deathly white as her menu fell to the floor with a thud.