Allegro for Crisis

Chapter I

Necromancy In D minor

First Movement

            The Kiaba corps research facility looked like a war zone. Most of the windows had been knocked out of the buildings and many of the doors had been ripped out of their proper places. The heavy bittersweet smell of rot penetrated every surface and corpses lay out in the noonday Louisiana sun to be attacked by swarms of flies. Decay accelerated in the June heat that suppressed everything else. The air was stagnant; no sound moved the molasses like atmosphere. At the edge of the compound a beat up jeep pulled up and the engine was killed. A tall young man in a blue duster got out of the jeep and glared condescendingly at the driver, "Well?"

            The driver sighed and ran a hand threw her short cropped platinum blond hair,  "Gas masks first off, if the smell is already this strong out here it'll boarder on toxic towards the center."

             Seto Kiaba tapped his foot impatiently as the blond tossed him a gas mask she pulled out of the back of the jeep,  "The operations building is in the center of the compound."

            This job is paying your tuition to Oxford Latiaran, if the Boy-Billionaire extraordinaire wants to get himself ruffed up by a necromancer and its minions that's his problem as long as he cuts the check, The blond thought to herself as she glared out the windshield. Taking a deep breath she tried to override the command, "Ya know, we're two fugitives short of the A-Team to be taking the front door approach."

            "I should have hired MacGyver then," Kiaba quipped as he pulled the gas mask on.  Latairan blinked but shook it off as she got out of the jeep. Reaching behind the driver's seat the blond pulled out another gas mask and a holster holding a Glock and a pair of knives. She pulled the gas mask on and buckled the holster around her waist as she followed Kiaba.

            They were half way to the central operations building when the crisp sounds of Mozart's Third Piano concerto slipped through the air. Latiaran's eyes narrowed and she pulled the Glock out of the holster and clicked the safety off as she mumbled to herself, "Necromancer in light puts up a fight. Necromancer in dark and you won't miss your mark."

            "What?" Kiaba snapped over his shoulder. Latiaran wondered if the billionaire was capable of speaking in a civil tone.

            "It's an old rhyme I learned a long time ago." Latiaran supplied. Kiaba snorted and continued on. Gritting her teeth Latiaran followed covering their backsides.

            In the central operations building the necromancer laughed as she watched the pair in a full-length mirror. She reached over and picked up a wine glass that sat on a baby grand that played of its own accord. She sipped the red wine slowly savoring the taste. On inside of the Necromancer's forearm, just below the elbow, angry red lines were rising to the surface of her porcelain skin. The Necromancer dipped her index finger in the wine and then rubbed the wine on the rising lines.  The alcohol snapped and sizzled as the lines jumped to the surface and turned black. The twisting lines formed a skull with a serpent slithering out of the gaping jaw.

            The Necromancer sat down at the baby grand and the keys stopped moving. Setting the wine glass down she put her thin, agile fingers to the ebony and ivory and began to play a darker tune. Beneath the demanding chords whispered to someone not there, "Soon my Lord, soon."  

Seto Kiaba glared at the sliding doors that had once been the entrance to the operations building of this particular complex. The glass was threaded with spider web cracks, and the doors no longer sat in their tracks properly. Standing behind his right shoulder Latiaran cleared her throat when she spoke her voice echoed out of the gas mask, "You still sure you want to go with the front door approach?"

"They'd already know we're here wouldn't they?" Kiaba didn't turn his head to deliver the condescending remark.

Latiaran chocked a frustrated sigh before it could leave her lips. She stepped forward so that she was shoulder to shoulder with the billionaire, "That doesn't mean that they've got other entrances covered."

Seto Kiaba replied to the argument by walking into the dead building. Latiaran watched him dumbly for a moment before her left hand reached up and pulled a sliver chain out from under her blue t-shirt. Her hand found the pendent of interlocking runes and clucked it briefly. Taking so comfort in the consistent coolness of the metal, Latiaran stepped in after Kiaba.

They hadn't even made it a third of the way into the room before stench began to leak threw the filters of their gas masks. Kiaba's shoulders steeled and his jaw clenched, but he kept walking, "Do all Necromancers live in this kind of filth?"

Latiaran swallowed the bile rising in her throat and blinked away the stinging tears that were trying to cleanse her eyes of the fumes, "How bad it smells depends on how many dead the necromancer has control over. If we can smell it through the masks…"

Kiaba stepped around a corpse of what had once been (to Latiaran's best guess) a scientist. His movements became quick and sharp when his quick eyes noticed the marks of teeth on one of the exposed bones. Kiaba's lips pulled in a snarl as he picked up his pace, "Where is this monster going to be?"

"To the northwest," A ringing voice said from above them. Kiaba and Latiaran spun on their heels and looked up to a veranda on the second floor. A woman stood there, sunlight from the skylight falling on her pale skin and black hair, She wore a flowing gray dress and in her left hand was a wine glass that held a red liquid to thick to be wine, her right hand was a slender wand of Elder wood. She pointed it at the two on the floor, "Welcome Seto Kiaba."

"What do you want?" Kiaba snapped as his feet slid into position for a fighting stance.

"I want many things but will have to suffice with few… for the time being." The Necromancer laughed before she sipped the liquid in her wine glass. The red fluid coated her lips contrasting with the rest of her face, the necromancer took her time in licking the thick liquid off of her lips.

"Blood," Latiaran snarled under her breath to Kiaba before raising her voice, "You got a name Necromancer?"

"Thalia," The Necromancer bowed. When she straightened her back she pointed her wand at Latiaran, "And you my dear witch have been missing your Birch wood wand for quite some time, haven't you? Tell me did it break in Egypt or India, you absolutely reek of old magic. As do you Seto Kiaba, but it is bound to your blood."

"What have you done with my employees?" Kiaba brought the flow of morbid conversation back to where he wanted it abruptly. Latiaran stepped back to give herself a clearer shot at the Necromancer.

"It all depends on how long they'd have lasted. The weak ones fall quickly." Thalia said foppishly as she sipped the blood in her wine glass again. She swallowed and then continued, "If you want to see the one's who still live all you have to do is go down to the second sub-basement in the elevator over there."

Kiaba glanced at the elevator out of the corner of his eye as the door slid open invitingly, the interior of the car was insanely pristine. Latiaran shook her head slight and then inclined it towards Thalia's position on the veranda. She spoke softly, "She's enhanced her senses somehow, go to her territory and you're dead or worse. If you want to finish this keep it up here, in the sunlight where her dead toys can't come play."

Latin words fell from the Necromancer's lips. Latiaran drug air into her lungs as she squeezed the trigger of her Glock right before she was thrown to the floor. Latiaran's gas mask flew off and the stench of death and rot sent her head reeling. She rolled over and got to her hands and knees as acrid bile filled her mouth and tears streamed down her face. Beneath her the tile cracked and then shattered, and Latiaran fell through the floor.

Kiaba heard the wine glass shatter as the Necromancer lost her grip on it when the bullet ripped through her left shoulder. He lunged towards Latiaran's fallen form but his finger's only brushed the material of her t-shirt as the floor gave out beneath her. Kiaba reversed his momentum to turn back to the Necromancer. Blood both from the broken glass and the Necromancer's bullet wound dripped over the side of the veranda.

"Your little workers are two levels down from here. If you attempt anything other than stepping into that elevator I will kill you and then I will use your reanimated corpse to rip your brother's throat out." Thalia hissed as she pointed her wand at Kiaba's chest.

"Don't touch Mokuba." The implied threat made the Necromancer back up a few steps. Thalia stopped her disobedient feet and stepped back to the edge of the veranda. For several long moments the two glared at each other. Then Kiaba turned heel and walked into the waiting elevator.

After the doors slid shut, Thalia collapsed. Her breath came shallowly but she smiled sadistically, "I hope you like my remodeling Kiaba."