James could feel his heart racing under his chest. The grip on his bottle slackened, and it fell to the soft earth with a thud. His hands began to shake as the armed intruder eyed him over.
"Nigel James?" the raccoon asked after a moment. James didn't know what to do. This guy knows me. Why is he here? Was he sent to kill me?
"W-who wants to know?" It was Sly's turn to be caught off-guard. He wasn't expecting that answer.
"Well, I do, for starters." James swallowed hard, to push down a lump of fear that had developed in his throat. He'd become a brave man since he first left home and entered the rough world of frontier archaeology, and wasn't one to let another completely control a situation.
"Where I come from, it would be the initiator that introduces himself first." The yellow tabby slowly lowered his hands and balled them into fists in a sign of defiance. "So, if you're not going to tell me who you are, you'd better just shoot me and get it over with."
Sly looked down to his weapon and smirked. He spun the weapon around by its trigger guard on his finger and pulled it back to his chest, pointing it to the side. James let out a slow sigh, a mixture of relief and a result from a rush of adrenaline.
"It isn't even loaded," Cooper scoffed. He pulled back the slide and let the next dart load, then slid the weapon into its red holster on his thigh. He rubbed his bruised shoulder and moved across the room, to where a dull green cane lay on the floor. "All the guards here trained in Judo?" he asked casually, even though its full purpose was much more utilitarian than just starting a conversation. He picked up the cane and leaned on it, facing James. The Englishman was still in the stance he was before, glaring at Cooper over the tops of his John Lennon-style reading glasses that always adorned his face.
"Sly Cooper." The ringtail made a bowing gesture with his head and one arm. "International thief." He continued on with a slight smile. "You're Nigel James, right?"
James relaxed his hands and nodded. He picked the bottle back up off the floor and dusted it off before taking a long swig.
"Bentley didn't tell me when you'd be here, or what you'd look like, for that matter." Cooper shrugged slightly.
"He knows better than to risk something like this on a simple mistake."
"Did you have to wave the gun in my face?" James scolded. "You scared me half to death. I thought you were an assassin."
"Well, I'm not." Cooper let the air clear for a moment before asking the question again. "Are the guards here all trained in Judo?"
"Most," James spat out. He looked at the floor, dejectedly. "They like to pick on the smart guys. It's like a repeat of high school." The guard on the floor began to stir. Sly whacked him over the top of the head with the business end of his cane, sending the sentry back into whatever dreamland he was in. It brought a smile to James's face to see one of his antagonists in pain.
"Do you have the key to the warehouse cage?" Sly asked, wanting to get out of there as fast as possible.
"Ah!" James said, turning to his bed. He lifted the mattress and exposed a neatly separated set of keys, all with accompanying paper label in meticulous handwriting underneath. "Guardhouse, machine shop, here we are, 'warehouse'." He picked up and tossed a copper key into Cooper's waiting paw, where it was quickly stashed in his backpack.
"You stay here, and try to act normal," Sly commanded. "I'll retrieve that statue." He was about to lift the side of the tent and exit when James called after him.
"Hey, wait!"
"What?"
"Do you even know where the warehouse is?"
"On the other side of the site, right?" Cooper asked, pointing to the north.
"No, that's just the service elevator building. The lift goes down into an ancient palace eighty feet below the surface. It's all heavily guarded. You can't get down unless you're one of the senior staff of the dig." Sly puffed his chest and grinned.
"There isn't a security system in the world that can keep me out!"
"This one can. Automated guns, motion detectors, hired mercenaries and Sam."
"Who?" Cooper asked, his lip rising.
"Sam. Chief of the guards. Wields a pretty mean Katana."
"Like a Samurai Sword?"
"You could call it that. Sam's a highly skilled ninja who has been brought in specifically to guard the warehouse."
"Well, I'll just have to go pay him a visit, huh?"
"You'll have to get down there, first."
"You got a second entry? I'd take a back way over the front door anytime." James rested his chin on his fist and his elbow on his other hand. He thought for a moment.
"Well, Edwards and I had thought there might be a second way into the palace from the 'chamber'." Sly raised a brow.
"The 'chamber'?"
The rain seemed fitting for a day like that one. Matkovich Fedorov stood with his hands clasped in front of him, his head bowed slightly forward, dark sunglasses covering his slightly reddened eyes. The blue-haired wolf was dressed in as much black as he could, which was everything except his collared shirt. His brother stood beside him, in the Army's brown and red dress uniform, with his wife bawling on her knees over the casket. There were other people there, all in various stages of mourning. Matkovich didn't recognize any of them outside of his family. He hadn't been in St. Petersburg in almost a decade. Most of them were police, and there were a handful of Georgii's friends. Then, there was that one girl. It appeared she was very attached to Georgii. Someone had said Georgii was going to marry someone. It must have been her.
The coffin was lowered, a few ceremonial handfuls of dirt thrown in, and soon everyone departed. Matkovich went with his brother to their home, intent on getting as drunk as he could. There was then nobody to carry on the Fedorov name. Matkovich wasn't married, and he didn't plan on it. His line of work didn't allow for a wife, or even time to get her pregnant. All the other children of Aronoff Fedorov were girls. Three lovely daughters, but no more sons.
Two of those daughters, Petra and Olga, were in the kitchen with their mother as Matkovich and Aronoff were upstairs in the study. Aronoff was leaning against the window, drink in one hand, the other pressed to the glass. Matkovich sat in one of the large leather chairs, staring into a fire that had been built by the maid. Beethoven played over an ancient record player on the large mahogany desk.
"Matkovich…" Aronoff said slowly, his tone not fitting a question or a statement. Matkovich didn't look away from the orange flames.
"Yes, brother?"
"You lost a partner once, yes?" Aronoff alluded to Georgii Rossi, a sturdy hound who took a bullet to the heart for Matkovich, to whose honor young Fedorov was named.
"Yes. Three, actually." The statement was quickly followed by a drink from his glass, trying to dull the pain that had been churned up.
"You're no stranger to grief." Matkovich remained silent. Aronoff pushed off the window, walked slowly in a wide arc around his desk, sliding into his chair, staring at the fire as his brother did. "How did you deal with it? Losing someone as close as you?" Matkovich inhaled slowly through his nose, thinking.
"It is all part of the job, Aronoff." Matkovich swirled the ice in his glass, watching the brown liquid spin around. "Just as you have lost men under your command." He took a sip and rested the glass on the armrest. "You expect it to happen sooner or later, and when it does, you simply accept it and move on."
"But, this wasn't a soldier in battle or a field agent on a mission. This was my son, damn it!"
"That changes nothing, brother. He was a policeman, a fine one at that, and his death was a result of the dangers we all face." Matkovich turned to look at Aronoff, who did the same in return. "It is what we chose for ourselves. A life of protecting others by placing ourselves in danger. The fact that he was your son, and my nephew, changes nothing. We are all men. We all bleed." He turned back to the fire. "We all die." He looked down at the floor between his chair and the mantle. "We should be so lucky to die this way. In service of the common good." Aronoff became angry at the sentiment, and balled his paws into fists.
"But this was murder! Not an honorable death at all! Not fitting of a Fedorov!" Matkovich glared back at his brother, his face contorted into an angry snarl.
"What do you want me to do, then?" He knew what his brother wanted, but he wanted to hear him say it. "What is it you want of me?" Aronoff slammed his fist on the desk.
"I want to avenge my son! I want those responsible to burn!"
"And what am I supposed to do? Wave my magic wand and wish them to death? I am not a killer-for-hire, Aronoff!"
"Yes you are, Matkovich!" Matkovich looked to his brother for a moment, then eased back into his chair, slowly stroking the fur under his chin.
A/N: OMFGLOL!1! I'm not dead! Wooo! After a long repose, I'm back. Gonna be working on this semi-regular now. Gots the ideas flowing again.
Hi, Noalyn. How's it going?
