by: Branw3n
Chapter Two
Fatigue gnawed at her bones and she interlaced her fingers before her and stretched out her overtaxed muscles, shaking her head from side to side trying to rid her neck of the ever-insistent cramps. She frowned as she cracked her knuckles, an old habit she had yet to purge from herself.
She covered a yawn with a hand, purple painted fingernails catching beams of light from the fluorescent tube above her which served its purpose well, giving off enough of the suitable amount of light she needed in her work environment.
She had refused to work in one of those stuffy inappropriate cubicles the Prophet provided for the writers under its employ. Preferring to toil in the comfort of her own flat, Arabella Figg had to endure the lack of consistent nagging from editors and notwithstanding her pristine reputation as one of the Prophet's best investigative journalist, she was rather irresponsible and though she meticulously researched her projects the moment she received her assignment, she usually put off writing the final draft until a day or so before deadline.
As one of the Prophet's highly-paid weekly recurring reporters, she had an adequate amount of spare time, whoever planned the lay-out of the daily paper had either thought that her topic; mostly politically based, gossip or fact, it didn't matter, would prove difficult to research or just had no room for her articles other than every Wednesday of the week when Lolita Greenberg, The Daily Prophet's correspondent in the Opinions section, decided to take a day off.
Arabella slipped her feet into cushioned bright pink bunny slippers and vacated the leather armchair in which she had occupied and half-closed her laptop, rubbing at the bridge of her nose with the fingers of one hand while the other reached up and removed the pins from her chocolate brown curls as she trotted into the kitchen area of the apartment she had occupied since she graduated from her school, Hogwarts.
She took out a carton of milk from the refrigerator and headed for the sink, intent on obtaining a glass but still unfazed as she found the dish dryer void of any kitchenware. She allowed her eyes to rest on the sink piled with dozens of unwashed dishware. She shrugged it off and she retreated to the bar area, seating herself on a swivel chair and taking a large gulp of milk from the carton in one swift movement.
Multitasking was her middle name.
She stared out at the urbanized expanse before her. The view represented more than half of her rent but it didn't matter to her. It was a small price to pay to be situated in the heart of the business center of Britain's Wizarding World.
Hundreds of ostentatiously dressed witches and wizards roamed the streets while others, though similarly attired but in more muted colors, rushed off to their respective places of employment.
She sighed resignedly, relieving herself from the stool, exited the kitchenette and into the living room. She draped herself across a white leather divan and flipped on the television with her wand, uninterestedly flipping channels, through music channels, over-dramatised soaps and finally settling on WNC, Wizarding News Corporation.
A slow grin spread over her classic features. Pictures of the Assistant Minister of Magic's death was splashed behind enchanted blonde, Anna Meier, half a dozen Aurors milling about in the picture, five of them young and rather good-looking while the other had his silvery-gray mane pulled back behind him while a charmed sapphire-colored eye rolled about crazily in its socket, deeply contrasting with the dull pink gash that surrounded it.
Moody's directing the investigation only confirmed the gravity of the situation. Good. Though the media attention was in no way needed, it served as a plausible distraction. Besides, it only served as some tragedy that would keep her political gossip column from complete extinction. The British Ministry of Magic was a tedious lot, all pomp and proper. Sheridan had been by far the most controversial of them.
Rising from the slums of England's pristine Wizarding Society, who turned their noses down beneath those of their station, he later earned a scholarship from a prestigious Wizarding school, earned his tuition money for Magical College by working as an errand boy for a Wizarding Law Firm and climbed up the political ladder in no less than five years.
He was their wonder boy, though he did well to hide his past until after he had been designated his position. But Arabella did know, from various unnamed sources and through her own decisive and resolute investigations, that he was dealing in some very illegal and irrefutably criminal commerce, both Muggle and Magically related.
She snorted as Meier enumerated all of Sheridan's qualities, which were all a truckload of shit. If they only knew what she had stored in those micro disks stacked under her work desk, in an enchanted safe.
Rolling her eyes as she viewed the insipid blonde dab at her eyes with a green silk handkerchief, she resumed her position before her console, fingers poised above the keyboard, her mind rapidly calculating the hours of sleep she would waste if she decided to scrap her current story; Ludo Bagman's gambling habits and how his wife was ready to leave him, for this current intrigue. The rumor mills would be spinning out of hand with this piece of news, the Wizarding World left staggering and if she did manage to reveal some piece of sordid information to it, her boss would surely reward her with a hefty sum wired to her bank account.
Decided, she highlighted the entire page, finger poised over the delete button, when her two-way rang. Grumbling to herself, she scooped up her wand and summoned the slim purple communicator, deftly snatching it out of the air with one hand, flipping it open when she realized that it wasn't on.
Grumbling to herself, she quickly saved the data she had just recently keyed in and digitally owled it to her editor, leaving the Sheridan issue for next time. It would have been the chance of a lifetime but duty called. After tomorrow, the news would have been overpublicized and her story might have been stale by then but she had no doubt that her nuggets of data were unknown to any reporter save herself.
And if her editor refused her story, then she'd just take it to the paper's editor-in-chief and plead her case, well, not exactly beg. She had dated him a couple of times and if he did decided to decline, then all she would have to do in exchange for that byline would be a few sexual favors she was more than willing to give.
She had an old score to settle with J. Elliot Sheridan. She had once been an investigative reporter at the peak of the media circus he had created and he happened to offer her a private meeting, after the press conference his press officer had arranged.
She wasn't gullible, neither was she then but she knew that it was a too immense opportunity to pass up and if he did try anything on her, she could defend herself.
And he did.
He cornered her in his office and tried to rape her. She left him with a slap to his face, a knee to his groin and scarred his shoulder with her nails as she removed a can of Mace, a Muggle product but useful nonetheless, and sprayed it over his face, managing to distract him as she walked away with a stack of important looking files from his private safe.
She walked to her bedroom, picked up her sleek silver mobile and answered it.
There was no room for niceties while this mobile was utilized. There was barely room for her to get a word in edgewise. It was a secure line yet one can never be too cautious around Magical beings.
"Six-thirty," the caller rasped in a strong, dark, accented voice.
She clicked off, not wanting to be the one who was to be left hanging. Her red lips quirked up into a tiny smile. Irish. Seems he was getting more in touch with his roots.
Grabbing a dark red cloak from her closet and setting a purple-knit cap on her head, she Apparated out of the room, sure to check her watch before she did so.
It was six-twenty-five.
* * * * *
He stared at the clock apprehensively, dabbing at his forehead with a silk handkerchief, cursing under his breath for the hundredth time. Just his luck. The air conditioning decided to break down at the exact moment that he decided to operate it.
Damn them, if he didn't love them all so much and if he weren't indebted to their father he would've left long before this entire debacle started.
He'd swear that that boy was his father reincarnated if he hadn't been brought into the world while his father still throve in it. He didn't share his father's looks but their fierce determination, cool demeanor and enviable imperturbability was utterly analogous that it scared him yet reassured him.
But he wasn't a boy any longer. He was a man now, had been for quite some time but it was hard to accept but not entirely difficult to believe. The young boy he used to bounce on his lap, amaze with parlor tricks and present various Quidditch paraphernalia to had grown rapidly since his father's untimely death.
He had to learn responsibility at a young age as well, caring for two girls no younger than himself. He shook his head as the tall young man proceeded to light a cigarette and inhale deeply.
"Those'll probably kill you, Rom," he admonished, though lightly. One can never be too cautious around him.
Golden-brown eyes glittered back from the shadows that hid his face. "That's what's so great 'bout our kind, Pete. I smoke a pack o'these a day an' my lungs'll never know the difference."
Peter frowned, running a hand through his already thinning hair. He was years past his prime but that boy always made him wonder. He was a constant enigma from the day Richie Evans brought him home, declaring the boy as his child and Peter as his Godfather. Richie had always wanted a son, an heir to continue the vast empire which he had created.
But Peter knew what the man had truly sought. Immortality. A child to carry his name, a son he could teach the ways of his business, someone he could trust entirely.
Someone he could be proud of, one he could shape in his own image.
And Rom was just that, as far as Peter knew. The same outwardly cocky attitude that hid the calculating mind locked behind a roguish bearing. But he was near certain that there was more to Rom than being Richie Evans' clone.
"Careful. One day you might just let that brogue of yours slip and you'll be in a real mess."
He smirked malevolently as he took another long drag.
"What time are they supposed to be here, boy?"
Rom's feral eyes narrowed at the slight insult before replying. "Six-thirty. They've a minute."
Pete nodded before reaching under his desk of polished redwood and retrieving a bottle of whiskey. Unscrewing the cap, he didn't bother with a glass, though he did keep some in store. He took a long swig before setting the glass container down with a thud.
"Is there anything new our current client requires us to do?"
The boy was now ridiculing him. Pete was indisputably positive that he wouldn't let the 'boy' remark go without a comment. His brogue had now disappeared to be replaced with a thick aristocratic Cockney accent.
"Don't play with me, Rom."
"I asked you a question." Implacable calmness.
"You know as much as I do that I cannot disclose such information without the others present."
He smiled. Pete would've sworn he saw fangs. That boy constantly reminded him of a fierce beast. Another one of his mind tricks.
A soft pop was discernable from behind the thick steel doors that served as protection. Unseen fingers tapped out a series of consecutive numbers on a digital pad as they heard the security system undergo its regular check-up. No one could enter the confines of the building without previous knowledge of its true existence. Various charms and wards had been set-up to conceal this place.
The abandoned building's immediate interior, rundown, empty, like an immediately vacated warehouse with various types of vermin running about, was an illusion. Undetectable by even the most knowledgeable and experienced of their kind.
When entered, the safety mechanism would instantly start recording the trespasser's actions and would immediately require a blood sample to be cross-referenced with what was stocked in its memory bank.
Great piece of Muggle technology improved magically to have the intruder subdued immediately with magical nets if the forthcoming sample did not match and cast either two of the three Unforgivable Curses if defiance was evident.
Soft whirring sounds signaled the releasing of charm enhanced iron as the steel door slid open.
Peter smiled as the statuesque blonde woman entered, her dignified posture immediately drawing both of the current occupants' attentions. She sat herself on a leather backed mahogany chair as the doors began to snap shut and immediately halted, sliding open once more.
A beautiful, if not harried looking brunette entered, her high-heeled sandals muffled by the carpeting as she grumbled to herself, taking a seat beside Rom, glaring at him to remove his booted feet from the couch.
"I'm glad that we've decided to come," Pete began, clasping his hands together, setting them on the desk before him. "Even late, your presence is still greatly appreciated."
Arabella felt his gaze rest on her shoulders and she transfixed her fierce gaze on him. "It was a few seconds, alright?"
"Those trivial moments could be the greatest essentiality in the face of nearly unconquerable jeopardy."
She sneered at Rom, who still lay sprawled beside her, arms nearly hanging off the couch, one foot propped up on the coffee table before him, the other bent on the couch, near her legs.
"Fuck off, you lucky bastard. Not as if all your bleedin' mornings're all wasted to put on charms on your face that take fucking hours to cast."
"Shut up, Cass," he snarled, his orbs turning an alarming shade of burnished gold.
She matched him, glare for murderous glare, her lips curling up into her own version of a scowl.
Peter sighed, sparing the blonde woman a glance. She was no older than a teenager, really, but her serenity was probably the only thing that had kept him same all these years. She gave him a quick quirk of her lips.
"Children, please. Let's leave the squabbling for later, shall we?"
The menacing sparkle in Rom's eyes gradually faded as they regarded the blonde woman while Cass folded her arms across her chest and sank into the settee.
"How're you doing, Lil'?" he asked, his clear fondness for her surfacing.
"I'm doing fine. A few writers are being quite a bother but Moira's alright."
He smiled at her.
"I don't understand why she's the blonde. Why couldn't it be me?" Cass grumbled as she took the cigarette from Rom's fingers and took a long whiff of it.
Peter groaned. "Then what would be the reason of such pretense in the first place if you were to retain something of your true appearance?"
She made a face, rather childish of her, as she finished off the cigarette.
"Now, to business."
Peter trained his gaze on all three of them, waiting for further protests and was quite relieved when none came. "Congratulations on your successful mission."
There were grunts and nods from both Rom and Cass while Lil's placid countenance stayed the same.
"Whoever hired us wants us to wipe out another one, right?"
"Correct, Cassie."
"Mind if I take a stab at guessing?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Another politician."
"Not quite but close enough."
"Politically connected or a relation?" Cass queried, smirking as she summoned the bottle of alcohol from Peter's desk and into her hand.
"The latter."
"Oooh, the plot thickens," she muttered, taking a large swig of whiskey.
* * * * *
Author's Note: Thank you to all my reviewers! You guys've really kept me going, albeit at a sluggish pace, but that's not your doing, it's mine. I'm too tired, I've got this pounding headache the size've a water melon.
Anyway, yes, Lily is that blonde girl up there involved in the conversation with Peter, Cass/Bella and the guy Rom. I really enjoyed writing the latter's character, he's gonna be pretty interesting later when I reveal to the world (yeah, right, like that much people're reading this) his alter ego.
I guess I've answered most of the questions in this chapter, the next one's gonna be more Marauders-based. I know most people don't like OCs and I'm sorry if that's turned you off from my story but you've gotta have 'em in these murder-mysteries/action-adventure tales.
Oh, and to whoever's asked, (sorry, forgot who *sheepish smile* for my brain's conked out, I'm writing this at 3 in the morning) the title's formatted the same way as the movie and I was looking to watch it for inspiration but I haven't really gotten around to seeing it and I won't be bothered to rent it because it's been said to be a pretty bad movie. So, the trailer inspired me to do this but instead of having James and Lily be two rival assassins, I made it this way, as a lot of other fics have been, that star-crossed lovers theme and good vs. evil sort.
I've only a vague idea about the movie's plot. Don't even know why I bothered to put that thing up but as you can see, I'm pretty long-winded, so...yeah...
Hope you've enjoyed, this, my cherished readers and don't forget to review!!!!!!