Title: Killer Instinct
Author: Skye Firebane
Rating: Still PG-13. *sigh* Probably will be forever.
Chapter Summary: A deal is done, an explanation is made, and nausea is overcome.
Comments: Due to the great (hah!) success of the last chapter, I have decided to soldier on and post the next one. Reviews would be most appreciated. Alas, this is not my best chapter, nor is it my favourite chapter. But I urge you to read it.
REVISED COMMENTS: There is what may seem like an out of character moment for Artemis. animefanatic07 was ever-observant and pointed it out to me, it is much appreciated however retching isn't always vomiting. In The Arctic Incident he cried for a minute, down on his knees. To have – or seemingly to have family and friends ripped out of your hands when you're too busy to be with them is a tragedy. Just thought I'd point that out, but I'm grateful you brought that to my knowledge.
Chapter Four: Of Deals and (Presumed) Deaths.
The final strains of Mozart's Sonata in F Major filtered through the heavy walnut doors of the Manor's drawing room. Ivan Gregorieva faltered as he reached toward the brass handle. He looked upward at Butler's broad face, what little confidence he had in him dwindling away. He had been called to an emergency meeting with Fowl the Second, his first ever meeting with the man. This was not good news.
The hinges creaked as he pushed the door open, and he walked quietly along the marble flooring, marvelling at the expensive décor. An open fire was crackling away in a generous black marble fireplace. Tapestries – family heirlooms, he supposed – depicting medieval hunts and banquets were hung on the crimson walls. The slight draft from the open French doors gently rocked the chandeliers, their gold light glancing off every well-polished object in the large room.
"Afternoon, Mister Gregorieva," came a cool, smooth voice from the corner. Presumably the tall figure seated at the black grand piano was Fowl. He hesitated.
"I saw your reflection in the finish of the piano," the figure explained without turning around or ceasing his performance. Gregorieva was quiet as Fowl finished off the volley of staccato cords. He turned around and watched Ivan with his piercing eyes before standing up and walking several paces to meet the smaller man.
"I was not aware you played piano, Mister Fowl," Gregorieva smiled as he shook his client's hand vigorously, clinging onto his briefcase with his other clammy hand.
"There are many things you are not aware of, Mister Gregorieva. However, I hope you appreciated my recital of sorts. I am not an accomplished player."
If Gregorieva hadn't been about to wet himself with anxiety, he would have laughed. Not accomplished? Fowl's 'recital of sorts' would have made the greats turn and blush.
"Absolutely," he nodded almost immediately, not sure of when to stop.
"Do you play piano, Mister Gregorieva?" Fowl asked, encouraging his stockbroker into small talk, probably doing more harm to the other man's courage than good.
"Used to, sir, used to. However my talents were not as… great as yours, and I'm afraid I gave it up. Although I seem to remember preferring Mussogorsky, Tchaikovsky, Borodin."
"You have a strange affinity for Russian musicians. Myself, I never… took to them," Fowl replied, his mind not focused on the conversation. Repulsive images of a severed leg, burns and gashes were playing through his mind. He snapped back to reality. Time to get down to business.
"Ivan – may I call you that? Have a seat, please." He sat on the edge of the chaise longue.
Gregorieva nodded mutely, his briefcase slipping out of his hand, the handle moist with sweat. His heart was beating so hard it felt as if it were about to jump out of his mouth and attack something. He collapsed in a lounge chair, completely forgetting his calm pretence. Sweat dribbled down his upper lip.
"Are you opposed to a spot of insider trading?" Fowl asked, impossibly nonchalant.
"N-no, not at all, Mister Fowl." His voice was now barely above a whisper, teeth chattering.
"Then take my advice. Do not ask questions. Convince every single one of your clients to sell their Diamantex shares, whilst the prices are soaring. Come this new fiscal year, their shares will be rock bottom."
Gregorieva gaped at his client. "But –,"
"Do you recall telling me excitedly that every other diamond mining company was folding, or not lasting an audit?" he asked, his tone cold, as if he disapproved of such emotions in a conversation. As an afterthought, he added, "No one likes to be associated with the mafia, Ivan."
"You mean…?" he trailed off, paling. He himself had several thousand. His shares in Diamantex were worth hundreds of thousands already – next financial year they'd be worth millions!
"Of course, Ivan, do not feel obligated to take my advice. However, I would like to sell all one hundred thousand Diamantex shares in my name. Shall I see you in your office on Monday to close the deal?" Fowl picked some non-existent grit from beneath his fingernails, and an uncomfortable silence descended on the pair. Gregorieva was past nervousness now, well and truly immersed in terror, though the reason was a mystery to him. His head was spinning with convoluted thoughts of the mafia and audits. He nodded slowly.
"How does midday sound?" he ventured, and Fowl beamed a bright smile that seemed a little too forced.
"Perfect. Butler shall see you out, as I have some pressing business to attend to."
Gregorieva nodded and picked up his briefcase, his composure gathering itself back up again. By the time he reached the door he was feeling rather optimistic. And once he was well and truly out of the Manor, he was thinking to himself, that wasn't too bad, after all, was it?
Artemis stood and watched the retreating back of the stockbroker. And then he smiled, a cold, grim smile filled with satisfaction and irritation at the same time. Gregorieva – though he was an excellent broker – was a born spectator when it came to mind games. Artemis' banter, his cold stare, his unnerving calm – it was all designed to terrify and confuse the victim. Not to mention squander away the dreary Sunday afternoon torpor Artemis subjected himself to as a stress-reliever.
Hearing the heavy footsteps of his bodyguard return to the drawing room door, he picked up several leather-bound classics and filed them away in the small bookcase by the piano. The door opened with a soft click, and Butler's stern visage peeped through the gap.
"Artemis – Mister Fowl," he corrected himself. Whilst calling his charge by his first name was all very well and good after business hours, he had to stick to formalities whilst working. "May I ask you a question?"
"Certainly Butler. Walk with me to my office, and we shall have a chat along the way."
Artemis turned and strode across the room to meet his bodyguard, and then set off down the expansive corridor at a brisk pace. Butler followed him silently like a phantom presence. Artemis observed him with his peripheral vision before sighing exasperatedly. "Are you, or are you not going to ask me a question?" He stopped at the fork of two of the corridors, and pressed lightly on one of the sandstones in the wall. There was a click and the sound of rusted gears grating against each other as a small hole, barely large enough for Butler to crawl through, opened several metres down the hallway. That was the beauty of having a Manor several hundred years old. Security came in the form of hidden passages and booby-traps. Artemis had only discovered the doorway five years earlier, when the rising damp became particularly bad in the northwest wing. It conveniently opened into a cold maze of tunnels, which would become the command centre of his cartel in later years.
The dark labyrinth of corridors was alive with chatter, from pointless small talk to important business deals. Muscled-up thugs almost as large as Butler dominated the halls, pushing whoever they saw fit to push over.
Artemis began his brisk walk again as he descended deeper into the darkness. Gaining more speed as he half-jogged down a metal walkway, knocking over more than one employee, Butler finally decided to talk. "With all due respect, what the hell was that about?" he asked as he watched one particularly large projectile tumble in front of his charge.
"Hmm?" asked Artemis absent-mindedly. "Momentum."
Butler opened his mouth to utter a confused 'Huh?' before he realised that Artemis had been referring to the thug, now lying crumpled at the bottom of the walkway.
"No," he snapped, adding a little more authority to his voice than usual, "The… interrogation."
An amused sort of smirk played upon Artemis' features. "You want to know why I even went to bother interrogating a nameless, low-ranking henchman of the Mob."
The bodyguard nodded.
"Did you not notice some certain anomalies about the man?" there was more amusement injected into his charge's voice. Butler frowned, then shook his head.
"Since when did a) henchmen wear silk suits, b) have a personal weapons store worth over 4000 pounds, c) wear genuine gold Rolexes stamped with their personal initials, and d) know about the internal affairs of their organisation?" he asked patronisingly, his smirk both wider and more smug than before.
"What do you mean?" Butler asked, though he was catching on, albeit a little slowly.
"Succinctly put, that henchman was not a henchman. To be more precise and to the point, that was Attilio Innocenzo, a high-ranking member – perhaps not unlike a CEO of a company. You must give me some credit, my friend. I would not take it upon myself to kill a nobody."
He stopped at a reinforced steel door and pressed the side of his hand against a scanner. Like fingerprints, the side of your hand was unique. Any infiltrator thinking that making latex doubles of his fingerprints and using them on the scanner would work would regret his hunch once a silent alarm was activated and heavily armed guards would apprehend the intruder.
The doors whirred and opened out into a lavishly furnished room. Artemis turned to his bodyguard and said, "Does that answer your question?"
Butler nodded and smiled slightly, turning to leave. Artemis waited until his friend had left, and when the doors had closed behind him, he turned to the en suite. Pulling the message that had been delivered to him earlier that morning out of his pocket; he leaned over the marble sink and shuddered with nausea. He read once more the solid black printing on the creased paper, and felt his stomach shudder and heave.
Artemis retched once, twice, and when he felt he was over the nauseating shock that he had been holding in since 10 in the morning, he tossed the paper nonchalantly in the bin. No need to get worried, at least, until 5 in the evening. If his father didn't call, he'd fly to Tuscany and help comb through the wreckage of their villa, looking for their corpses.
***