Note to Readers: I am now the official Faction Leader during the duration of a Forever Knight Mailing List Faction War. This will be going on til likely late August, during which time I will be absolutely swamped.
I AM NOT ABANDONING THIS FIC! No way! (Wizardmon and Nick would kill me..) But I must leave it for awhile. Believe me, I wish I didn't, I have all kinds of stuff I want to write in it. Darn. Til then, here is Chapter 11. Hopefully, Chapter 12 will be out before August.
My apologies... I honestly didn't think the War would break out this soon.
Sincerely, Kyer
Wizardmon and Nicholas De Brabant nutcase
----------------------------------------------
Part Eleven: The Witness Did What?!
"Freeze, kid!" Detective Schanke warned as he trained his gun on the teen.
"Good job, Skanke, you got him!"
The homicide cop started when his blond partner appeared at the top of the wall, leaping over the edge to drop down behind the perp.
"Geez, Nick, how'd you get around there so fast?"
"With a lot of jogging. Some of us actually excercise," De Brabant quickly explained. "And there was a ladder on the other side."
"Okay." Don sighed, chalking it up to just another one of the stranger-than-thou things about his team mate. How could a guy who suffered allergies up the wazoo and lived on nothing but protein drinks and red wine still be so darn fit? Man, oh man! It wasn't fair. Pulling out some handcuffs, he forced the boy's wrists together, a bit of paper falling out of Patterson's hand as he did so. The teen was shivering, but Don put it down to having been caught in the act of a felony for the first time.
"This s***!"
"Yeah, some nights are just a bitch, aren't they?" Schanke grunted as the cuffs locked. "Well, Sam, you just added assault with a deadly weapon to your normally petty rap sheet. Congratulations on sinking even lower into the gutter."
"Hey, I didn't do nothing. And wait til my lawyer hears about how you jerks used excessive force!" the boy threatened them.
Reaching down to the dropped paper bill near the culprit's feet, Nick picked it up, an evidence bag at the ready. He indicated the denomination mark on one flap to his partner
"Exhibit A"
Both members of 81 Kilo smiled at each other. Patterson had been caught red-handed.
"Yeah, right, Sam---you didn't do a thing. Another page in the Patterson book of fiction," Schanke grunted.
Sam was ready with a suitable retort when his eye caught sight of the evidence bag. He stared at the crumbled bill with a look of horror.
"Keep that thing away from me!"
"What's the matter, Patterson?" Schanke smirked. "Allergic to proof of your crime?"
"It's haunted! Alive!" Sam cursed, eyes wild "The freakin' things were all alive!"
Don looked at the piece of money Nick held. It didn't so much as hiccup.
"Whoa, settle down!" Schanke warned him as Sam tried to twist out of his grasp.
"That little kid is going to be so dead when I get my hands on him!"
Deciding that Patterson must be in some kind of drug-induced delirium, Schanke handed the kid over to a uniform to take into custody, listening to another officer's report while Nick frowned at the fiver he had..
"Hey, Nick, listen to this!" Schanke called back. "Harry says the vendor was attacked by a pair. And that there was a third kid who intervened." He looked about the alleyway, empty except for battered cans and assorted trash. "You know.. Patterson grew up in this area. Why do you think he'd have run in here to a dead end knowing the police were on the way? No doors...or a convenient ladder on this side."
However, Nicholas was only half listening to his team mate jibe. His nose had already picked up another human scent that was not Harry's, Don's or Patterson's. The vampire assumed it was the teen's partner in crime whom he had been cursing about as he left--the accomplice who'd split the scene; yet something else was here. Some odor like... His nose led him to a crumbled money inside the open evidence bag in his hand. Pretending that he was scouting the rest of the ground for more evidence, De Brabant turned his back so Schanke could see as he removed the paper and smoothed it out
A five-dollar bill that smelled of storm clouds?
The law enforcer in him hated to tamper with evidence, but the vampire was motivated by the need to keep up the Code lest another brand of 'policemen' decided to intervene. He hastily stuffed the bill into his jacket while replacing it with one of his own, silently crushing it to a state state similar to the original before sealing the bag. Letting his beast surface, all senses on the alert, the only Undead cop in existence felt himself drawn skyward, instinct telling him that the answer to his question was somewhere above, watching them.
Someone on the roof? Another vampire? Was it Lacroix snooping on him?
"Schanke? Do you think you can handle this yourself? I gotta go check something out."
Don made a face. "Has this 'something' of yours brown hair and a mean streak whenever she gets her hands on both a needle and my finger?" Schanke hurried over to the vampire. "C'mon, Nick, Natalie can wait for the welcome home committee---we gotta talk to the victim." He leaned in closer to add in a low voice, "Did you notice Patterson's eyes back there? That kid was seriously freaked and Harry says Hot Dog Charlie has a mutilated knife to show us."
Frowning, De Brabant stopped scanning the buildings and let himself be led away. There were times it would be so much easier to just admit to his partner that he wasn't human and could sense things the others couldn't! Well...whatever was up there would just have to wait a little longer before he could check it out.
-----------------------
Nicholas listened with rising dismay as the vendor recounted what had transpired and his gave his description of both Sam Patterson's accomplice and the mysterious kid who'd led them away.
He had just described Wizardmon to a 't'.
The vendor shook his head in bewilderment. "I don't know which one had more guts---the youngster for taking those two hoodlums on, or them for chasing after him!"
"Wait a minute," Schanke stifled an uneasy laugh, "you mean to tell us that some Halloween-dressed kid who was less than three and a half feet high went mano o' mano against mid and high school drop outs? And you were worried for the teens?"
Charlie snatched up the seriously bent-out-of-shape knife and placed it in the skeptic's hand. "Yeah..after the 'Witch Kid' did this."
Holding the circular piece of metal up to the street light, Schanke gaped at 'Exhibit B'. 'B' as in bewitched! He swallowed. "No way."
"You gonna tell me what my two eyes saw, detective? Witch Kid pointed at the knife and... Flammo!"
Schanke lifted an amused eyebrow. "Flammo?"
Crossing his arms, Charlie sourly elaborated, "Zap! Zing! Presto Chango. Whatever."
Stuffing the mutilated knife into an evidence bag, Schanke put it in his pocket along with his notepad. "Right. Just one more thing..." he licked his lips, mouth salivating as he eyed the vendor's wares "those chili dogs still hot?"
---------------------------------
One Charlie's Chili Dog apprehended and awaiting incarceration, Schanke pulled his partner aside.
Nick looked at him askance as his Don bent back the napkin to take a bite of the food, nose wrinkling in disgust at the strong, spicy smell.
"What?" Schanke asked, then looked down at the chili dog. "It's to help settle my stomach. You know these cases that feature mumbo jumbo creep me out. Besides, what Myra doesn't know won't hurt me."
Nicholas just shook his head, snickering quietly at his friend's rationalization. Schanke was definitely living in the moment. Myra was going to kill her husband next time she corraled him unto a scale.
"Well?" Don mumbled around the big bite of hot dog in his mouth after Nick and he had taken a few steps back in the directoin of the alley in silence.
"Well, what?"
"Well, what, he asks" Schanke asked the heavens in a plainitive voice, rolling his eyes. "Hello, anybody at home under that mop of hair? Charlie boy and Patterson's claim! C'mon, Nick, get your mind off Natalie and back on the program! If both the perp and the victim's stories fleshed together any more tightly they'd be Siamese Twins."
Nick thrust both of his hands deep into his duster jacket's pockets and sighed. "I know."
"'And it doesn't peak your interest?" Schanke snorted in disgust. "You know, this 'We're only friends' fairy tale that you two are trying to foist on the rest of--"
"Schanke!" his partner groaned, then decided to surrender to the inevitable. As he'd reassured Lacroix, he'd think of something. He just hadn't thought he'd have to think of it so soon! "Nat has nothing to do with it. I... just think I know the person they saw."
"Me too. I've already sent out word to pick up Joey Martinez." He bit down into the last of his snack.
"I'm not talking about Martinez."
Both of Schanke's eyebrows went up at the hesitant admission; he hurriedly swallowing the remains of the weiner bun in his mouth, choking a bit. Nicholas gave him a solid thump on the back.
"Keep eating too fast like that and your diet really will be the death of you."
Don waved him off as he cleared his throat. "You've pegged the Witch Kid's i.d.?!" he asked incredulously. Well why not, he told himself. Weird partner, has weirder listening tastes what with his obsession with that NightCrawler guy on the radio. Big surprise he'd know about any other weirdos in the city. Heck, Knight was probably a walking Weirdo Directory!
"So what's the kid's name? Is he with a local gang or a loner?"
"He's not a kid. He's... a midget. From another country," Nick answered, the not-quite lie rolling off his tongue. "Guy habitually goes about in his performing personae because that's what he did for a living back in Europe: street performing. Never gives out anything but his stage name of 'Wizardmon'.
Don chuckled. "Wizardmon, huh? Cute. So we put out another APB on this street performing character, get his statement, and I can ask him to come to Jenny's party," he joked, then reconsidered. "Actually, that might not be a bad idea..."
"Uh..Schanke? Trust me, it is not a good idea."
"Why?" Don frowned. "He's not one of those adult type--"
"No!" Nicholas shook his head, trying to stem his rising irritation. It wasn't Schanke's fault he had a bone to pick with a certain digimon who hadn't had the sense to stay put! "But he's really kind of shy and not used to speaking English yet."
"Shy? A performer whose shy?"
"You'd be surprised at how many performers are as uncomfortable with direct contact with people as they are at ease 'walking the boards.' When you're on stage, its like another world." Quite literally in Wizardmon's case now that the cat was out of the bag and he'd have to 'perform' as a human being for however long he was stuck here, Nicholas thought. He'd have to find the little alien fast and clue him in on his 'life story' before any of his coworker's found him beforehand. But first he'd have to ditch his partner.
Don didn't bother to question 'Knight' on his knowledge of the stage's denizens as much as he'd have loved to start his partner on the third degree. He'd learned fast that the younger man (as far as the Polish man knew) was normally clam-mouthed about his past and personal life. "Okay, so he's shy," the senior detective shrugged, "I'll tell the kids not to mob him."
Scowling, De Brabant decided he'd better stop this train before it gathered any more steam in his partner's mind and caused a wreck he'd have to clean up.
"Schanke, would you just forget it? His character is a bit too... unorthodox for kids."
"As in?"
"You heard Patterson and Charlie. His character is a tad on the scary side."
Schanke slowly blew out his breath. "Man, oh, man---it's obvious you haven't been around children much, pard. Or perused a toy store lately. Kids love fantasy--the weirder the better. Monster get-up? No problemo. Now, being trapped with fifteen to twenty bored tykes and an unamused spouse? That is scary!" He glanced up and down the street. " So.. where does this Wizardmon hang out when he's not out performing or protecting Charlie's Chili Dog Stand?"
"I tell you what," Nicholas said, glancing around as if hunting for something, "You take care of things on this end, and I'll bring him in."
"Okay, I'll...ho, no--just a dang minute--Nick, you are not sticking me with the paperwork!" Schanke turned around to find that he was standing alone. "Nick? Man o' man--he's done it to me again! How does he do that?" Schanke groused. "Damn. Cohen is going to blow a gasket if he doesn't show up." He sighed fatalistically. "Maybe I should just hire Knight to do disappearing tricks."
Still mumbling about his so-called 'partner', he headed over to where the uniforms were gathered discussing the merits of ketchup over mustard on weiners. Taking a deep, satisfying wiff of the air, Donald asked aloud, "You guys want to talk weiners with an expert?..."
Shaking his head in amusement as he listened to his friend pontificate about hot dogs, Nicholas retreated to an even more isolated spot and effortlessly lifted up into the night sky, a predator in flight.
He had a digimon to hunt down.
_________________________
I AM NOT ABANDONING THIS FIC! No way! (Wizardmon and Nick would kill me..) But I must leave it for awhile. Believe me, I wish I didn't, I have all kinds of stuff I want to write in it. Darn. Til then, here is Chapter 11. Hopefully, Chapter 12 will be out before August.
My apologies... I honestly didn't think the War would break out this soon.
Sincerely, Kyer
Wizardmon and Nicholas De Brabant nutcase
----------------------------------------------
Part Eleven: The Witness Did What?!
"Freeze, kid!" Detective Schanke warned as he trained his gun on the teen.
"Good job, Skanke, you got him!"
The homicide cop started when his blond partner appeared at the top of the wall, leaping over the edge to drop down behind the perp.
"Geez, Nick, how'd you get around there so fast?"
"With a lot of jogging. Some of us actually excercise," De Brabant quickly explained. "And there was a ladder on the other side."
"Okay." Don sighed, chalking it up to just another one of the stranger-than-thou things about his team mate. How could a guy who suffered allergies up the wazoo and lived on nothing but protein drinks and red wine still be so darn fit? Man, oh man! It wasn't fair. Pulling out some handcuffs, he forced the boy's wrists together, a bit of paper falling out of Patterson's hand as he did so. The teen was shivering, but Don put it down to having been caught in the act of a felony for the first time.
"This s***!"
"Yeah, some nights are just a bitch, aren't they?" Schanke grunted as the cuffs locked. "Well, Sam, you just added assault with a deadly weapon to your normally petty rap sheet. Congratulations on sinking even lower into the gutter."
"Hey, I didn't do nothing. And wait til my lawyer hears about how you jerks used excessive force!" the boy threatened them.
Reaching down to the dropped paper bill near the culprit's feet, Nick picked it up, an evidence bag at the ready. He indicated the denomination mark on one flap to his partner
"Exhibit A"
Both members of 81 Kilo smiled at each other. Patterson had been caught red-handed.
"Yeah, right, Sam---you didn't do a thing. Another page in the Patterson book of fiction," Schanke grunted.
Sam was ready with a suitable retort when his eye caught sight of the evidence bag. He stared at the crumbled bill with a look of horror.
"Keep that thing away from me!"
"What's the matter, Patterson?" Schanke smirked. "Allergic to proof of your crime?"
"It's haunted! Alive!" Sam cursed, eyes wild "The freakin' things were all alive!"
Don looked at the piece of money Nick held. It didn't so much as hiccup.
"Whoa, settle down!" Schanke warned him as Sam tried to twist out of his grasp.
"That little kid is going to be so dead when I get my hands on him!"
Deciding that Patterson must be in some kind of drug-induced delirium, Schanke handed the kid over to a uniform to take into custody, listening to another officer's report while Nick frowned at the fiver he had..
"Hey, Nick, listen to this!" Schanke called back. "Harry says the vendor was attacked by a pair. And that there was a third kid who intervened." He looked about the alleyway, empty except for battered cans and assorted trash. "You know.. Patterson grew up in this area. Why do you think he'd have run in here to a dead end knowing the police were on the way? No doors...or a convenient ladder on this side."
However, Nicholas was only half listening to his team mate jibe. His nose had already picked up another human scent that was not Harry's, Don's or Patterson's. The vampire assumed it was the teen's partner in crime whom he had been cursing about as he left--the accomplice who'd split the scene; yet something else was here. Some odor like... His nose led him to a crumbled money inside the open evidence bag in his hand. Pretending that he was scouting the rest of the ground for more evidence, De Brabant turned his back so Schanke could see as he removed the paper and smoothed it out
A five-dollar bill that smelled of storm clouds?
The law enforcer in him hated to tamper with evidence, but the vampire was motivated by the need to keep up the Code lest another brand of 'policemen' decided to intervene. He hastily stuffed the bill into his jacket while replacing it with one of his own, silently crushing it to a state state similar to the original before sealing the bag. Letting his beast surface, all senses on the alert, the only Undead cop in existence felt himself drawn skyward, instinct telling him that the answer to his question was somewhere above, watching them.
Someone on the roof? Another vampire? Was it Lacroix snooping on him?
"Schanke? Do you think you can handle this yourself? I gotta go check something out."
Don made a face. "Has this 'something' of yours brown hair and a mean streak whenever she gets her hands on both a needle and my finger?" Schanke hurried over to the vampire. "C'mon, Nick, Natalie can wait for the welcome home committee---we gotta talk to the victim." He leaned in closer to add in a low voice, "Did you notice Patterson's eyes back there? That kid was seriously freaked and Harry says Hot Dog Charlie has a mutilated knife to show us."
Frowning, De Brabant stopped scanning the buildings and let himself be led away. There were times it would be so much easier to just admit to his partner that he wasn't human and could sense things the others couldn't! Well...whatever was up there would just have to wait a little longer before he could check it out.
-----------------------
Nicholas listened with rising dismay as the vendor recounted what had transpired and his gave his description of both Sam Patterson's accomplice and the mysterious kid who'd led them away.
He had just described Wizardmon to a 't'.
The vendor shook his head in bewilderment. "I don't know which one had more guts---the youngster for taking those two hoodlums on, or them for chasing after him!"
"Wait a minute," Schanke stifled an uneasy laugh, "you mean to tell us that some Halloween-dressed kid who was less than three and a half feet high went mano o' mano against mid and high school drop outs? And you were worried for the teens?"
Charlie snatched up the seriously bent-out-of-shape knife and placed it in the skeptic's hand. "Yeah..after the 'Witch Kid' did this."
Holding the circular piece of metal up to the street light, Schanke gaped at 'Exhibit B'. 'B' as in bewitched! He swallowed. "No way."
"You gonna tell me what my two eyes saw, detective? Witch Kid pointed at the knife and... Flammo!"
Schanke lifted an amused eyebrow. "Flammo?"
Crossing his arms, Charlie sourly elaborated, "Zap! Zing! Presto Chango. Whatever."
Stuffing the mutilated knife into an evidence bag, Schanke put it in his pocket along with his notepad. "Right. Just one more thing..." he licked his lips, mouth salivating as he eyed the vendor's wares "those chili dogs still hot?"
---------------------------------
One Charlie's Chili Dog apprehended and awaiting incarceration, Schanke pulled his partner aside.
Nick looked at him askance as his Don bent back the napkin to take a bite of the food, nose wrinkling in disgust at the strong, spicy smell.
"What?" Schanke asked, then looked down at the chili dog. "It's to help settle my stomach. You know these cases that feature mumbo jumbo creep me out. Besides, what Myra doesn't know won't hurt me."
Nicholas just shook his head, snickering quietly at his friend's rationalization. Schanke was definitely living in the moment. Myra was going to kill her husband next time she corraled him unto a scale.
"Well?" Don mumbled around the big bite of hot dog in his mouth after Nick and he had taken a few steps back in the directoin of the alley in silence.
"Well, what?"
"Well, what, he asks" Schanke asked the heavens in a plainitive voice, rolling his eyes. "Hello, anybody at home under that mop of hair? Charlie boy and Patterson's claim! C'mon, Nick, get your mind off Natalie and back on the program! If both the perp and the victim's stories fleshed together any more tightly they'd be Siamese Twins."
Nick thrust both of his hands deep into his duster jacket's pockets and sighed. "I know."
"'And it doesn't peak your interest?" Schanke snorted in disgust. "You know, this 'We're only friends' fairy tale that you two are trying to foist on the rest of--"
"Schanke!" his partner groaned, then decided to surrender to the inevitable. As he'd reassured Lacroix, he'd think of something. He just hadn't thought he'd have to think of it so soon! "Nat has nothing to do with it. I... just think I know the person they saw."
"Me too. I've already sent out word to pick up Joey Martinez." He bit down into the last of his snack.
"I'm not talking about Martinez."
Both of Schanke's eyebrows went up at the hesitant admission; he hurriedly swallowing the remains of the weiner bun in his mouth, choking a bit. Nicholas gave him a solid thump on the back.
"Keep eating too fast like that and your diet really will be the death of you."
Don waved him off as he cleared his throat. "You've pegged the Witch Kid's i.d.?!" he asked incredulously. Well why not, he told himself. Weird partner, has weirder listening tastes what with his obsession with that NightCrawler guy on the radio. Big surprise he'd know about any other weirdos in the city. Heck, Knight was probably a walking Weirdo Directory!
"So what's the kid's name? Is he with a local gang or a loner?"
"He's not a kid. He's... a midget. From another country," Nick answered, the not-quite lie rolling off his tongue. "Guy habitually goes about in his performing personae because that's what he did for a living back in Europe: street performing. Never gives out anything but his stage name of 'Wizardmon'.
Don chuckled. "Wizardmon, huh? Cute. So we put out another APB on this street performing character, get his statement, and I can ask him to come to Jenny's party," he joked, then reconsidered. "Actually, that might not be a bad idea..."
"Uh..Schanke? Trust me, it is not a good idea."
"Why?" Don frowned. "He's not one of those adult type--"
"No!" Nicholas shook his head, trying to stem his rising irritation. It wasn't Schanke's fault he had a bone to pick with a certain digimon who hadn't had the sense to stay put! "But he's really kind of shy and not used to speaking English yet."
"Shy? A performer whose shy?"
"You'd be surprised at how many performers are as uncomfortable with direct contact with people as they are at ease 'walking the boards.' When you're on stage, its like another world." Quite literally in Wizardmon's case now that the cat was out of the bag and he'd have to 'perform' as a human being for however long he was stuck here, Nicholas thought. He'd have to find the little alien fast and clue him in on his 'life story' before any of his coworker's found him beforehand. But first he'd have to ditch his partner.
Don didn't bother to question 'Knight' on his knowledge of the stage's denizens as much as he'd have loved to start his partner on the third degree. He'd learned fast that the younger man (as far as the Polish man knew) was normally clam-mouthed about his past and personal life. "Okay, so he's shy," the senior detective shrugged, "I'll tell the kids not to mob him."
Scowling, De Brabant decided he'd better stop this train before it gathered any more steam in his partner's mind and caused a wreck he'd have to clean up.
"Schanke, would you just forget it? His character is a bit too... unorthodox for kids."
"As in?"
"You heard Patterson and Charlie. His character is a tad on the scary side."
Schanke slowly blew out his breath. "Man, oh, man---it's obvious you haven't been around children much, pard. Or perused a toy store lately. Kids love fantasy--the weirder the better. Monster get-up? No problemo. Now, being trapped with fifteen to twenty bored tykes and an unamused spouse? That is scary!" He glanced up and down the street. " So.. where does this Wizardmon hang out when he's not out performing or protecting Charlie's Chili Dog Stand?"
"I tell you what," Nicholas said, glancing around as if hunting for something, "You take care of things on this end, and I'll bring him in."
"Okay, I'll...ho, no--just a dang minute--Nick, you are not sticking me with the paperwork!" Schanke turned around to find that he was standing alone. "Nick? Man o' man--he's done it to me again! How does he do that?" Schanke groused. "Damn. Cohen is going to blow a gasket if he doesn't show up." He sighed fatalistically. "Maybe I should just hire Knight to do disappearing tricks."
Still mumbling about his so-called 'partner', he headed over to where the uniforms were gathered discussing the merits of ketchup over mustard on weiners. Taking a deep, satisfying wiff of the air, Donald asked aloud, "You guys want to talk weiners with an expert?..."
Shaking his head in amusement as he listened to his friend pontificate about hot dogs, Nicholas retreated to an even more isolated spot and effortlessly lifted up into the night sky, a predator in flight.
He had a digimon to hunt down.
_________________________