II. Allegro con anima
segno

Nick Wolfe was asleep--and why not? he had asked himself when he ascended Sanctuary's stairs. He had almost two hours until he had to be at the airport, which left more than enough time for him to catch a few extra Zs.

He was having a strange enough dream, though--something about Pascal, down in his cellar apartment, plotting a scheme to get back at Bert for giving away Amanda's--the Boss'--bed for the next few nights. He dreamed of Bert down the hall, resting more comfortably than Nick would have expected on a chaise in the elaborate dressing room, posted outside the door of Amanda's--for now Claudia's--bedroom, and Nick dreamed of himself, struggling to create a sign to identify himself to this Chloe, wondering how to spell her name, wondering whether she would be young or old, or hard to charm as he had been instructed. With such dreams for company, his was a fitful nap at best.

A noise like a ripping explosion tore into his apartment. He sat straight up and grabbed for his gun, resting (as it always did when he wasn't wearing it) in his shoulder holster, hanging over the headboard of his bed.

There was no time for a response--shouting threats or firing shots, or even getting himself out from under the covers. In moments his apartment was compromised. Invaded.

Amanda was standing on the threshold of his bedroom, and no matter how many times and in how many different situations Nick had dreamed this, it was most certainly no dream now.

Her eyes flashed fire as they took in the entire contents of his room, and the sword she held with deadly familiarity did not waver.

"Amandaaaa--" He said it slowly, as though she were a tiger about to spring. "Are you--coming after me with a sword?"

"Shhh!" she commanded, and he noticed that she had not removed her coat upon having come inside, nor even having come upstairs from the club.

"You're not supposed to be back for a couple more days--" Nick began conversationally, his voice lowered, but hardly silent as she had instructed.

He saw Amanda's grip on her sword ease slightly. She had surveyed the room, and apparently decided that whatever was so dangerous as to require bladed weaponry was not present any longer.

Lifting his covers to look underneath and survey his state of dress, Nick was reminded of Bert's admonishment about propriety when encountering company, but chose to gloss over modesty in light of the fact that Amanda was headed toward a street-facing window, still with sword quite visibly in hand.

"Ho-ho-hold up there, won't you?" he stuttered, scooting across the room and pulling the blinds shut.

Oblivious to his presence, Amanda continued to prowl, sword lowered but still in her hand. "Someone's here," she intoned ominously. "I can feel them."

"Someone--" Nick asked. "Who?" And then it dawned. "Oh--Some One, as in there can be only…"

"Yes," she rolled her eyes, for a moment breaking her intense study. "Why else do you think I broke down your door? Huh? Think I'm that desperate for a glimpse of you in your skivvies?" She glimpsed him in his skivvies.

"You broke down my door?" What could she have been thinking? Nick went out for a look of his own. The door was indeed broken in. And not the sort of breaking-in he usually pegged Amanda, cat burglar, for. No, this was the kind of break-in that created the noise that startled him awake, the kind that left some of the wood, the doorknob, and deadbolt, still married to the doorframe. This was an urgent, adrenaline-fueled break-in.

"So you felt that something--" he couldn't remember just now what she called it. "And raced up here to rescue me?" He smiled, that cocky, self-satisfied near-smirk that had worked so well on girls at parties in college.

But Amanda was having none of it, she was still too busy recon-ing every nook and crevice in his apartment.

"Actually, I went for Pascal first, but he wasn't in his rooms or at the bar--" She recounted the details like a police deposition. She turned to make eye contact with him. "I'm pretty sure they've got him, Nick. Pascal never leaves this time of day. Something's up. I know it." She flicked her neck to the side, as though trying to get some left-over water out of her ears after swimming. "And I can't get this afterthought of a Buzz out of my head."

Nick's face adjusted slowly to the news that he hadn't been Amanda's first stop. His 'he shoots he scores' grin turned flat on him and with all gravity he reminded Amanda that Sanctuary was Holy Ground. Nothing was supposed to happen here.

But Holy Ground did little to appease her. She started off down the hallway toward the bathroom and her own flat. "So where's Pascal?" she asked over her shoulder as Nick increased his pace to keep up.

He lied, not wanting to be the one to break the news about Claudia and her rooms, nor to explain Pascal's rather--he searched for a word--impassioned response to the situation. "Who knows, maybe he got lucky last night." He threw up his hands up to further convey his 'search me' stance. "He'll turn up."

But he could see she was having none of it, and there would have been more protests to squelch had Amanda not swung the door to her flat open and Myers not burst out, weapon characteristically in hand.

"Nick," Myers asked, realizing who was with her, his tone too casual for someone holding a gun in a shoot-to-kill manner. "What's your girlfriend doing with a sword?"

"Dunno, Myers." Nick stepped toward his friend, tried to let his hand rest on the top of Myers' automatic and lower it, but Myers jerked his head in a manner that said touching his sidearm right now wasn't the brightest of ideas.

Nick retracted his extended hand and retreated behind sarcasm. "Maybe she's practicing for a Ren Fest--her home, her property, she can do what she wants, right?"

"Damn American," Bert swore, having heard that little personal freedom speech a few too many times for it to either stir or warm the cockles of his Iron Curtain-born heart.

"What are you doing here, Myers," Amanda asked, taking a step closer to him--and to the gun.

"Now, Amanda," Nick cautioned, knowing neither of these two was in a position to be pushed by the other. One of the few reasons Amanda and Bert ever got through days spent together was that their weapons were stowed when they were in each others' company.

"Button up, Wolfe," Myers observed the gaping fly of Nick's boxers with disgust.

How Bert was able to both size Nick up and never let his eyes stray from Amanda and her sword, Nick would never know.

"Lower the gun, Myers," Amanda ordered. "I'd tell you to drop it but we don't want it going off accidentally, now do we? Might chip my molding."

"The sword, Amanda. Quit pointing it at me. I got this thing about dames with knives."

"C'mon," Amanda purred, "you can tell me who you've got here--I always knew you'd be the one to set me up," she paused, "troll. If there's one thing in the world a girl can't trust," she waited. "It's a business partner."

Myers' jaw tightened. He did not like to be called untrustworthy.

"Myers," Nick tried again to interpose himself between the two and get them to step apart.

The sound of a window being broken through in the room beyond--the master bedroom--effectively did the job for him.

Myers and Amanda took one last look at each other and in unison high-tailed it toward the noise, Myers in front--just as, Nick did not doubt, Amanda wanted him.

In the other room, Amanda watched from barely inside the door as Bert climbed through broken glass out onto the back of the building's fire escape. A moment later he helped a very frightened Claudia back through, the heavy gilt phone she had used to break the glass pane in his other hand.

Nick assumed that now was the time for the tension to diffuse and the introductions and explanations to begin.

He was wrong.

Amanda lunged toward the broken window and the pair standing by it. "What the fuh---" she shouted, her sword menacingly at the ready. "She's wearing my clothes!"

And with the sight of Amanda, immortal, angry as hell, and brandishing a weapon, Claudia Jardine dropped dead into a faint.

-

She was still on the floor by the time Nick had also crossed the room.

"Who the hell is that," Amanda asked Myers, who was trying to decide if he could risk the strength needed to get the unconscious Claudia into bed, and if he had the nerve to try and do so while the bed's rightful owner was still there.

"That," Nick tried as succinctly as possible to sum up, "is internationally renown concert pianist Claudia Jardine. Bert," Nick narc-ed, "was letting her stay in your flat."

"Funny," said Amanda, the hot rage dropping out of her voice, into a cooler version of itself as she bent down and grabbed Claudia's chin, turning the still-unconscious woman's face from side to side for a better look. "I thought she was younger."

dal segno

...to be continued...