Enemy Sighted.
The thick black smoke and glowing red fires lit the hellish scene.
Decapitated bodies cinder crisp tripped and tore at their legs. The stumbling pair
wound their way blindly through the maze of rooms and chambers, always hearing voices
yet never seeing anything alive.
"This place is mad!" cried Draco.
"Let's get out then, idiot!" shouted Ginny. Draco was happy to
hear Ginny's anger again, for earlier it looked like she had gone insane. He
was not feeling much better himself and his stomach felt wretched, occasionally
he had privately paused in the shadows to gag and be slightly sick. However,
his spirits were good and he felt happy that Ginny was trusting him more and
more.
A cloaked figure with blazing red eyes was stalking their progress
with interest. Once or twice it had had a clear shot at killing Ginny, but
Draco had gotten in the way.
Cornelius Fudge was finally ready to get out. All other ministers
had left.
"Okay sergeant. Withdraw your men and unleash D-Mob." Sergeant
Wilkins snapped a salute and barked the orders to his men. The pair left the
building, flanked by SMS soldiers.
Rexil watched Cornelius Fudge and his SMS men reach their vehicles
and waited until he was sure no friendlies were in the building. Nodding his
head to Sergeant Wilkins, he turned to D-Mob. A joke name for an unfunny bunch.
Rexil silently surveyed his squad of eight Dementors, naked beneath their
painted robes, painted head to toe in glowing wards and protective sigils.
Rexil was scarred and painted likewise. He retained his clothing and had a
powerful silver encrusted staff.
As D-Mob bounded like wild animals into the Ministry building,
Rexil found himself begin to change. Being so close to these beasts would
always affect those in the role in the long term. Rexil had once been a happy
and strong SMS officer. Now he was a gaunt, ghoul-like creature whose dreams
were always nightmares and whose memories of personal life had eroded away,
leaving only pain.
The squad fanned out and split into three equal teams. In his
head, the chittering language of the Dementors flowed, filling his senses and
flooding his adrenaline levels until he was as fast and as strong as any
Dementor. The Dementors fed on emotion, but recognised tactics and valued respect.
Rexil had proved himself to them and they had reciprocated by treating him as
equal. They fed on souls and, in a little known ceremony, could transfer parts
of souls into each other for regenerative and progressive purposes. When Rexil
ran with D-Mob, he had sacrificed so much personally, but had now the knowledge
of a hundred souls, the stamina of wild animals, the ruthlessness of convicted
killers, the wisdom of long dead wizards.
Their eyes saw through the fog. They swooped without mercy on the terrorists
and tore them limb from limb. They covered an entire floor in mere minutes and
they never took hostages. D-Mob entered the building and would not leave until
everyone inside was killed to protect the Ministry.
Cornelius Fudge watched them go with a heavy heart as his
chauffeur drove him away. Not since the riots of '72 had the Ministry needed to
call in D-Mob. Well, not in England anyway. There was blood on everyone's hands
today. An investigation had begun to see who had opened up the defences to
allow the terrorists into the Ministry. Two key figures, Lord Ames and Lord
Gordon, had disappeared shortly before the attempted coup. Both were been
desperately sought after. Cornelius prayed they were not still in the building:
D-Mob did not take prisoners and it would be useful to have a survivor to
interrogate.
Ginny spotted the window first. She yelped with happiness and
raced off ahead up yet another flight of stairs.
"Hang on Ginny!" gasped Draco, trying to keep up. Draco had now
been sick a couple of times, partly due to exhaustion, partly due to the things
he had seen. Ginny was secretly happy about this deep down, for she knew Draco
would not pester her anymore about wetting herself.
"Come on smelly breath!" she laughed as a wave of relief flooded
through her.
Making it to the window, she realised that they were both quite
high up now, but could see people down below. The window was actually a pair of
glazed doors opening onto a balcony, but it was locked.
"Damn! No! Draco! I need help with this!" squealed Ginny, suddenly
feeling claustrophobic. She rattled the handle but it was hopeless. So she
grabbed a nearby chair and smashed it into the window, but a faint blue magical
aura appeared and the chair bounced back and the force took it from her hand.
The chair smashed into the wall opposite with an almighty crash.
Ginny suddenly realised that everything was terrifyingly quiet.
"Draco?" she whispered.
The silence began to cause voices in her head. The shadows began
to crawl, as if alive. The smoke began to take on the shape of monsters and
every footstep she took seemed deafening. Tears warmed her cheeks as slowly she
edged her way across the landing to the top of the stairs.
"Draco?" The pit of stench and blackness that was the stairwell
below seemed fathomless.
"D-Draco?" Ginny neared the top step and clung tightly to the
handrail. There was movement. A dim silhouette lumbered through the smoke
below.
Ginny began to back away. 'Was Draco messing around?' she thought.
Then two glowing red eyes opened up, fixing Ginny with a deathly
stare. Ginny felt her legs become numb. The creature below raised a hand
through the thick black smoke and suddenly a ball of raging fire appeared in
its raised hand. Ginny ducked as a ball of spitting fire shot over her head and
smashed through the window, sending glass and wood splintering everywhere.
Ginny shook her head as she sat up, having been thrown by the
blast. It felt like her head was underwater and her ears were blocked. Pain
throbbed through her body as she noticed a shard of glass about three inches
long protruding from her right thigh and two large wooden splinters had stuck
into her exposed right forearm. The glass fragment had not gone deep though,
thanks to her robe, so she plucked it out with ease. Then she delicately
plucked out the wooden splinters and stood up woozily. Everything was like a
dream. Her hearing had gone all funny, and she stuck a finger in her right ear
to loosen the wax. As she pulled out her finger, she realised it had blood on
it. Her left ear was fine though. As she stood up, her health check completed,
only then did she remember those eyes.
Heart-pounding and head-spinning, she ambled through the broken glass
and stepped out onto the balcony, half of which had disappeared in the blast.
She could see into the balcony below, which was full of rubble. Ginny realised
that she was about four floors up, with thick black smoke billowing out of the
lower floors. As she was wondering how this was possible, she realised someone
was moving behind her. Without looking back, she lowered herself over the
broken balcony and dropped painfully onto the balcony below. As she lay there
in the rubble, she hear footsteps above, snapping the glass shards and
showering brick-dust into her eyes. She winced as the bruises on her complained
of the fall, but Ginny remained motionless and blinked her eyes clear.
A second set of footsteps joined those above before they departed
in silence. Ginny then passed out through sheer nervous exhaustion.
To be continued...
Disclaimer:
The characters and setting are all thanks to J.
K. Rowling. I claim no ownership of these characters, though the events I put them
through are all mine. Mwah hah ha.