Thanks to the reviewers for the first two chapters, nice to see you're intrigued. Just a couple of notes for this chapter on some French usage, not much though;
Garçon=Boy
Rassemblement=Gathering
Ororo snipped carefully at the old growth on the green and white spider plant that hung just inside the creamy canvas awning that overhung her balcony, unfurled earlier today to shade against the blistering heat. The long, thin leaves of the plant drooped over the sides of the white plastic pot limply, the dead brown ends dragging them down from their usual spiky buoyancy. Although Storm was tall, much over the height of the average woman, she still struggled to stretch up to get to the leaves, even with the extra reach of the steel clippers to aid her. Her tongue pocked at the inside of her cheek as she concentrated not only on trying to cut the ends of the spider plant but also trying to keep the peach and vanilla herbal tea she had, trembling precariously on its saucer in her right hand, from falling to the floor.
"Got it!" she whispered triumphantly to herself as with a neat, sharp snip, she took off the offending dead end; letting it float listlessly to the ground. Bending down, careful to keep the china cup and saucer on a level, she pushed the closed clippers into the palm of her hand and picked the leaf up; depositing it on the top of the dresser to her left. But as she put it down she heard a bang. She paused, not certain as to whether it was the noise of the heavy clippers hitting the dresser top or something else. She waited, not moving a muscle, her entire body tensed as if ready for action, a habit that had almost become instinctive. After a moment, the bang came again, this time three or four in succession. Ororo's head shot upwards in their direction; they were coming from the roof. Still with her eyes fixed on the high beamed ceiling of her attic room, she placed her hot tea slowly down next to the clippers on the dresser; the cup quietly tinking like a small bell against its saucer. Then she stopped dead again when the muffled bangs started for a third time. She followed the noise with her eyes as it progressed along the length of the roof only to stop at what seemed to be the end of her room. Easing off her cork bottomed slippers Ororo sidled over to the white-latticed doors of her balcony; her head still tilted upwards, her blue eyes still keen. Slowly, as she backed up, she felt behind her for the door handle. Instantly her hand came into contact with its cold angular then smooth curves as she took hold of it and pushed it down.
Taking great care to edge the door open with the minimum amount of noise, Ororo crept through the opening with her back pressed to the night cooled glass and wooden framing. She realised that she was probably being more than a little over cautious, it was most likely some of the kids messing around, probably Angel and Beak. They seemed to be the two students that were constantly up to something or other, but it was better to be safe than sorry. One never knew who could be sneaking around, itching to cause trouble. Ororo stepped over to the side edge of the iron railed balcony, just enough to see the roof from under the canvas awning but not so far as to reveal herself. She stopped, listening out for any more movement but she only caught an indistinct shuffle. Creeping right over to the edge, she looked up but could see no-one save for the blackness of the roof against a midnight blue sky. For a moment she considered summoning a wind to lift her up there but then thought the better part of discretion would be the best plan. There was a ladder fixed to the stone-cladding on the wall. It was one of the few spaces on the mansions outer shell that wasn't consumed by the ever growing ivy. But never-the-less as Ororo climbed over the rail and took hold of the ladder, the invasive greenery was still close enough to brush against her body as she made her way up.
Peeking her head above the guttering just enough to get a look at the two foot length of concrete flat that ran between the edge and the upward slope of the grey slate-tiled roof, Ororo looked to the right as she clung to the cold metal ladder. Sure enough there was a figure at the far end, sat in a crouched position, knees hitched up. But it didn't take the little pin- prick glow of a red light, the tip of a glowing cigarette, to let Storm know who it was.
"Remy, what are you doing up here?"
Gambit looked across as Ororo climbed up the rest of the ladder; quickly swinging her legs over the top of the guttering and making her way over to where he was sat. There was a slight warm breeze in the rapidly cooling air and it made Ororo's loose silk trousers ripple and rustle as she walked, making her look like something from the Turkish or Arabian myths of old. "Hey chére," he called; his voice low and subdued before bringing his cigarette to his lips and pulling in a long, full drag. It looked like a cloud as he exhaled it; light and free, drifting of into the subtle dark blue tones of the starless sky. As she sat down beside him, Remy lay back against the slates of the roof; his hands behind his head for a makeshift pillow whilst his cigarette nestled safely between his lips, at the corner of his mouth. He'd long since perfected the art of smoking hands free.
Ororo gazed down at him and then looked out at the sweeping view of Westchester County; Salem Centre clustered deep in the heart of it, its streetlights twinkling like a small solar system of orange and white stars fallen to earth. "It is a beautiful night," she offered after a few moments of comfortable silence but all she received from her companion by way of reply was a muffled noise of half-hearted agreement.
He shifted against the hard, sleek slates that still held a small amount of heat from the hot day, snagging the back of his T-shirt in one or two places as he brought one hand from behind his head and plucked the Lucky Strike from his mouth. "It's quiet---an' dat's all Remy cares abou' right now chére."
Ororo laughed gently; a rich tone from somewhere deep in her throat. "So you are not taking so well to the increased membership of the Academy?" She smiled down at him and then laughed again at the sardonic expression on his face.
Lazily, he hitched himself up on his elbows, took the cigarette from his mouth after two quick last drags, balanced it sideways near the end of his forefinger and then flicked it nonchalantly off the edge of the roof. "Let's jus' say, kids ain't mah strong point."
"By the Goddess Remy," she chimed, "You are far, far too modest."
"What you mean chére?" he asked, turning to look up at her, somewhat perplexed.
Ororo smiled at him fondly and then said, "I remember, a long time ago now, a certain little girl that was more than lucky to receive your help." She laid her hand on his shoulder as she continued, her voice glowing with the warmth of reminiscing, "And I have never regretted meeting that 'cad' for...even a second."
It was a funny coincidence, Remy thought to himself as the warm breeze stirred through his hair, that Storm should mention the way they'd happened to meet years ago, although it felt like eons to them both. Only the other day he'd been thinking about it, those first few months when they'd been carefree, roaming the East Coast like a couple of latter-day pseudo-Robin Hoods. Whenever he thought about that time, it always brought a smile to his face. It was possibly one of the happiest times of an otherwise fairly fraught existence. He'd gained a friend for life from what, at the time, was a rare act of charity on his behalf. Sometimes he felt it was more than he deserved. "Come 'ere," he said, holding his arm out and gesturing his hand, beckoning her to his side.
"Why?"
"Jus' come 'ere!" he laughed lightly, waving his hand more insistently for her to move closer. Finally she did, sliding her way across the slates to make up the short distance between them as Remy pushed himself up with the palms of his hands and brought his feet up onto the slope. He stayed there, his feet finding grip on the regular horizontal ridges until Ororo was directly in front of him. Then he slid down, placing his lanky legs either side of her body. With ease and at total comfort Storm laid back against his chest as he enveloped his arms around her, linking his cold fingers in with hers, which were much warmer, and resting his chin at the top of her head. Her shorter hair tickled slightly at his neck and the underside of his chin as he said, "T'ings were dat much easier back den, non?
"I guess," she answered immediately because somewhere in her something still craved for that freedom she had felt being a child again. None of the responsibilities of her powers, of being an X-Man, or indeed a co-leader and all the joy of having someone there who just wanted to look after her. There would always be a part of her that wanted that life to come back, despite its dubious moral nature. Freedom was something Ororo tasted all too rarely, she was pained to admit. But then she was forced to way it up against everything else being with the X-Men gave her and suddenly that little bit of self-sacrifice was worth it. "But, whilst that life was free, would you, in all honesty, trade the certainties of being a part of this family, to go back to living hand-to-mouth, with no place you could call your home?" she asked without speculation; the answer seemed obvious.
"Home," he muttered the word, something in the way he said it sounded like he considered the concept to be a double-edged sword. Because, unawares to Ororo, whenever he thought of the word home, his mind invariably went back to the Bayou, the dark, winding streets of the old French Quarter, the damp, acrid heat of the swamps. Although he hadn't had the right to call it home for many a year now and even less so according to those who lived there and knew of him. Lots of water had passed under the bridge between the two Guilds and between those Guilds and Remy himself, but there were still those whose greatest pleasure would be to see 'Le Blanc Diable' dead. Certainly far too many for him to ever be truly comfortable there again. That would always leave a gaping hole in him somewhere; New Orleans ran through his veins, it was part of him. He held onto Ororo tighter, the reassuring warmth of her body against his lulling him into a kind of comfort zone, taking the edge off his indifferent mood. "Dis is mah home now petit, I know dat."
"But..." She briefly turned her head up to face him, waiting for him to put the inevitable clappers on the statement.
But he didn't utter a word for a moment because he could feel her heart beat drumming with a gentle constancy, like the natural flow of a waterfall crashing into a pool below with a perfect regularity; her life rhythm reverberating through her torso and in turn pulsing against his chest. The sensation of it made him want to stop everything; stop the world even, just to contemplate it in complete peace, without threat of distraction. He began to rub his thumbs up and down the soft sides of her hands, slowly, methodically. "You know dis Cajun gets itchy if 'e stays anywhere fo' too long." He pleaded his case with a half-hearted cynicism, momentarily broken from the spell of her steady cadence before moving his head down and planting an affectionate kiss on her cheek. Just as his lips met her smooth skin the tepid breeze rose again, whistling through the Cedar trees and old Oaks; disturbing them from their contented calm. "I'm beginnin' to t'ink bein' a nomad is in mah blood---I jus' can't sit still, it don' feel...right."
Ororo shook her head briefly and drew his arms around her closer so that they both had them crossed over her midriff. She couldn't help but feel let down by the hazy despondency of his response because she knew different and was determined, as his closest friend, to tell him so "Well, I say your commitment to the X-Men tells a different story altogether. Would you not agree?"
"Hmph!" he exclaimed with a vague amusement, almost feeling humble for a second. But it didn't last long. "You t'ink too much o' dis swamp-rat at times girl." And there it was, in that one sentence; the ever-present guilt that shrouded the man, the darkness that hung in his heart every minute of every day. Ororo knew there was nothing in the least bit self-pitying about it, he wasn't that sort of person; Remy had atoned for his sins and then some, everybody knew that and had accepted it. Even Warren had come to terms with it; the man who had most to begrudge, save for Marrow. But there was a part of him that could never and would never let it go. He would feel that as great a betrayal to those Morlocks who died as his original transgression. And so he carried it with him everywhere but it only ever glimpsed the surface when he said things like that. Somehow, he still felt himself unworthy and it was apparent by now that nobody was going to convince him otherwise. But Ororo would never stop trying, ever.
"No Remy," she tilted her head back against his shoulder, holding his eyes earnestly, "it is you who thinks to little. Not I who thinks too much."
Remy leant down again but this time placed his rewarding kiss on her exquisitely perfect smiling lips; pecking them softly, with all the reverence of laying his mouth on the eternally fragile wings of a butterfly. "You too kind mah petit...Remy don' deserve an' angel like you." Ororo briefly took her right hand from his and cupped the side of his roughly stubbled face, stroking her slim hand down it affectionately.
After that they said no more for a while, settling back into their comfortable embrace, as the winds that were becoming quite frisky fell to gentle whispers once more. The sky gradually grew darker and the odd deep grey cloud drifted in front of the crescent moon that sat gracefully on its throne. It had been some time since they'd just taken five and simply sat together, quietly. Once upon a time it was a regular occurrence of their evenings. Somewhere down below they could hear a group of the older students laughing and joking. The rabble-esque hubbub sounded like it was coming from around the front entrance, which probably meant a group where going to venture into Salem Centre, perhaps to attend the local teen disco, but more likely heading off to get up to pursuits a sight more unsavoury. After all, they were like any other group of teenagers, save for a few choice coding sequences in their DNA of course. Then from behind them came calls and shouts from the floodlit basketball court. And that was that; so much for their peace and quiet. The soothing tranquillity of the pair's evening ruined at a stroke. But it didn't matter because it appeared that they now had a visitor of their own.
"Hello? Ororo?" It was Jean's voice that came sailing out of the open balcony doors. "Are you up here?"
Ororo desperately didn't won't to reply, but knew full well that she had to. "We are out here Jean," she called, "On the roof."
They listened as her heals clipped and clopped on the attics wooden floor; the sound becoming much more high pitched as she came out onto the balcony. Instead of using her telekinesis to lift her to the roof, she used the more conventional method as Ororo had, climbing up the steel ladder. However, she didn't come all the way over, coming up just enough to see over the top. "Oh, you're here too," she said addressing Remy, "I'd knocked at your door on the way up but there was no answer, obviously. Anyway," she started, getting back on topic, "Hank, Scott and I were heading down to Harry's, I was just wondering if you wanted to come?"
Ororo made an indecisive noise and then looked up at Remy, "What do you think?"
He shrugged, "Whatever chére---I'm easy."
Ororo looked back over to Jean, who was gripping the top sprung of the ladder as if her life depended on it. In spite of her telekinesis, rather perversely she still had a thing about heights, but only when stationary. "What about the pupils? It would only leave three members of staff here."
"Oh don't worry about that sweetie; we've appointed several of the older students as guardians. There's at least one on every floor in the new dorm block."
"Since when?"
"Since three weeks ago. Scott and I arranged it with the Professor," the red-head said as if Ororo should have been perfectly aware of this development. "With so few of us around at the moment we thought we had to do something to guard against the kids being left alone when we're on a mission."
"Right," was all Ororo said; the annoyance she put into that one coldly delivered word so thick Remy and Jean could nearly taste it. Why hadn't Charles informed her?
"Um, so...Harry's?" Jean asked sheepishly, suddenly feeling that she'd put her size sevens right in it.
"Yah, sure," Remy replied this time, "we' be down in a minute."
"Okay, we'll meet outside the rec room in say..." she rolled her vivid green eyes ponderously, "ten?" She was thankful for his timely and diplomatic intervention.
Remy gave a curt nod and with that Jean was back down those ladders faster than you could say boo to a goose; the awkward situation she'd just dropped herself in flushing her cheeks almost the same colour as her hair. Gambit didn't say anything until he'd heard the last of Jean's rapidly retreating footsteps fade away completely. He could feel Ororo, formally totally relaxed, now stiff as a post against his body. When she bottled up anger like this, every muscle became as tense as a highly strung bow string; tightened to breaking point. But he took comfort that she couldn't have been that mad, or half of Westchester would have received an unseasonable down poor just one minute ago. Her silence was a bad sign though. "Stor--- 'Roro, maybe Charlie jus'---I don' know---fo'got?" Still she said nothing so he continued; this wasn't encouraging at all, "Hey, de homme's had a lot on 'is mind lately, it is possible dat 'e did fo'get," he insisted.
"I find that very unlikely Remy." She ground out the words carefully and in a low voice, feeling her pulse that little bit more pronounced in her jugular in accordance with the subtle heat of her animosity.
Remy racked his brains for anything remotely encouraging or comforting to say, but all he came out with, rather lamely, was, "Ya know, if it make you feel any better, 'e didn' tell Remy 'bout dem needuh."
Ororo untangled her hands from his as he let his arms fall away from her body, allowing her to stand up. She brushed down her trousers, shaking off the small pieces of moss and roof debris from their loose folds. As she started to walk over to the ladder, the bits of gravel that scattered the concrete digging into the soles of her bare feet, she said, "No it does not Remy...not in the least."
Remy sat there for a moment longer as he watched the Windrider disappear over the edge and down the ladder. He could feel a storm brewing and he didn't find the pun all that funny. With a slickness of movement, the Cajun jumped to his feet, quickly scooping up his cigarettes and lighter from the floor and followed her down; tucking the lighter into the half empty box and then stuffing it into his back pocket. This could turn out to be a much more interesting night than he'd previously thought.
Natchez, Mississippi, other side of The River from Louisiana...
The humidity was as all-consuming and as vicious as it was on the Bayou right now; the heat of summer in the South becoming almost unbearable as August lazily dragged its feet, reluctant to leave, clinging on for dear life. The city of Natchez continued to bake, despite the setting of the sun over an hour ago. The darkness that had fallen only pressed the heat downwards like black clothing, and there was not a whisper of a breeze to move the thick air that hung in its place, as if frozen in time. Dogs barked into the torrid night, their frantic yaps catching on the barbed snares of the still air, compounding the unnatural silence that had spread over the streets. For in spite of the peculiar absence of noise, nothing could make even the slightest echo; each sound solidified in suspended animation.
Jean-Luc LeBeau wiped languidly at the thin film of sweat that clung to his upper lip, just beneath his thin dark brown moustache. As he cleared the liquid beads from his skin he could taste their salt in his mouth; one or two escaping his casual attentions. He'd been waiting in this bare room, fairly close to the waterfront, for close to two hours now. With only the company of two of his Thieves Guild bodyguards that had been allowed to accompany him and the four blue-bottle flies that buzzed incessantly around the bare bulb that hung from a frayed electrical wire; the insects attracted to it despite the fact that it had blown long ago and no longer worked, it was becoming laborious. The irritating and constant noise of the fat coltish flies proved more interesting than the two well-built guards that had been selected by the Guilds high council to make the trip over the boarder into Mississippi with their leader for they seemed to be completely mute; uttering hardly a sound the entire car journey from New Orleans. But then again, the two men had never been known as skilful conversationalists, hence the reason they were bodyguards.
LeBeau sat on the only seat available in the otherwise vacant room, an unsafe, woodworm riddled stool that had one leg shorter than the other two and wobbled perilously every time he shifted even one iota. He moved now, leaning forwards a little, his long 'rats-tail' plait slipping off the edge of his shoulder and sure enough the chair rocked back and forth as if it were on high seas. So he stood up and paced the room a couple of times, but not with an impatient urgency, like the kind he felt swelling in his chest, moreover a relaxed stroll. Jean-Luc had never been one to let his inward feelings rise to the surface, especially when he was on Guild business. The leader of the Cajun chapter of the worldwide network of the Thieves Guilds cast his cold mocha brown eyes over the walls of the medium sized room that resonated with the suffocating stench of damp; the tell tale black and green patches of fungal mould blossoming through wherever the blue striped wall paper had given up the ghost and now hung limply from the plaster it had once clung to steadfastly. He was here in this rotting backstreet room under obligation and nothing more. Whenever another chapter of the Guild made a request, one was duty bound to answer it, no matter what your misgivings were. Also, when these entreaties where made it was customary to meet on neutral ground, hence the fact that he was caged in this dank space, miles north of his hunting grounds, awaiting the arranged meeting with Pedro Velasquez Lopez, the chief of the Guild over in San Diego, southern California. The nature of why the meeting was to take place had been thus far withheld from Jean-Luc but chapters rarely contacted or intervened with each others business unless it was of dire importance. They may have been bound together by the ancient rights that formed their clandestine organisation, but as the old saying goes, there is no honour amongst thieves. That was a fact that LeBeau was shrewdly aware of.
Suddenly another noise broke through the buzzing of the blue-bottles and the hollow sound of the three men's listless footsteps; up and down, up and down, up and down. Somebody was finally coming towards the room, apparently with an urgent pace but a light step. That faintness of footfall was explained as the slight girl came through the door. Her hair was dark and her features were Latino in nature; strong and defined. She may have been short, around five foot one, and roughly, from the look of her, only the weight of a fourteen year old, but her clothing betrayed that frail image as did her eyes that looked as if they were at least fifty, if not a day. There was something dangerous behind those black, set orbs, something that said they'd seen too much.
"Lopez will see you now LeBeau." Even her voice sounded much older than she looked, carrying with it a kind of dark wisdom in its thick Hispanic accent, despite the fact that she could have been no older than eighteen, nineteen at best. She was stood at the door way and shifted awkwardly to the side, to indicate that she wanted them to pass through and that she would follow. The stiffness of her thick black Guild uniform, with its steel-plated, armoured knee high boots and high starched collar impeded her movement, making her chin jut much higher than was natural; the garments being far to big and bulky for her needs.
The most brutish looking of the two bodyguards went through first, Pierre LeEnorme, with his strangely high forehead, made all the more higher because of his bristly shaved head, his boxer's compounded nose and permanently furrowing brow. He eyed the short girl with a barely concealed contempt as he went through the doorway and then Jean-Luc himself followed the six foot seven wall of muscle. Jean-Jacque Ruse went behind him, he was much more slim-lined than the guard that had proceeded him, with a hooked nose and razor sharp cheek bones, but no less deadly for that; his unmatched skill with a blade, no matter how small was legendary throughout Louisiana. For such a talent, his nimbleness often came in handy. At times he was so good, it was rumoured he was born an Assassin not a Thief at all.
Pierre walked confidently into the unknown; following the narrow corridor along its path as it turned like he'd strode this way a thousand times previous. The footsteps of all four, with their heavy steel boots were muffled against the shabby carpet that ran the length of the corridor that seemed to have no end, lost in darkness as it was, as the fluorescent strip lights that had been fixed intermittently to the ceiling above so far, started to come away from the flaking plaster or simply didn't work. As the group came closer to the gloom, their eyes began to adjust accordingly and Pierre could make out a small but almost entirely vertically inclined set of bare wooden steps that led down to a red painted door. The stout man stopped, and summarily so did the other three. He didn't like this; he didn't like this one bit. Meetings that took place in rooms below ground level were always to be looked upon with the deepest suspicion as it precluded most possibilities of a speedy exit should anything go awry.
"It is down there," he heard the girl call from behind his two companions; her voice suddenly sounding small and far off and perhaps just a little too...eager. A sound started somewhere in his chest, clawing its way to his larynx; something between a grumbling and a chary growl. The more he hesitated the more he didn't like this whole situation.
"Pierre," Jean-Luc said, with a subtle sternness in his deep, sluggish drawl, "jus' go down de steps, garçon." He stood in a close proximity to Monsieur LeEnorme's broad back. There was something deeply imposing in that, even though he was a foot shorter than his comrade. It was all he needed to do to make it clear that it was his bidding that would be followed and nobody else's, no matter how unsure he felt about this whole set up.
Pierre sniffed back, the sullenness in the gesture clear for all to hear. But never-the-less he carried on, plodding heavily down the wooden steps as he brought the back of his hand to his large forehead and swept away with one impatient move all the beads that had gathered there, collecting in the furrowed lines of his swarthy skin. Jean-Luc stared at his guard foully as he watched him reach the bottom of the steps; it was only when he had reached the red door with the peeling gloss paint that he followed after him; taking his time to navigate the exceedingly steep stairs in the dark. His left arm was out stretched as his gloved hand reached over and pressed against the wall, a wall that was now bare concrete and startlingly cold, even through the thick maroon leather that made a barrier between it and his bare palm. Once he'd guided himself down, the others following suite behind, it was only now that he was stood in the dim oblong of space between the last step and the door that he noticed that the temperature in the small enclave had dropped dramatically even from that of the corridor mere yards away. There was just enough room for the four of them to fit, trapped between the two points. In the small amount of light that had made it this far down, the quartets breath could be seen hanging in the air.
"Go through," the girl ordered with a little more of the gravitas that she had held when she'd first appeared to collect them. Pierre duly complied, pushing open the light timber door, only to be confronted not with a room as expected but just two feet away, another door. But this time it was a steel bulk, with criss-crossing brackets, chunky bolts holding them to the doors surface. It looked like a maximum security wing door one would expect to see at the entrance of a ward for dangerous mental patients or prisoners waiting on death row. It even had a small window set near the top of it, inlayed with glass that seemed to be about five inches thick. They all noticed the frost collecting at its corners in a poor parody of snow on the windowsill at Christmas.
The girl suddenly shouted something in Spanish and all three Cajun thieves briefly glanced back over their shoulders at her, their suspicion reticent but obvious. After a moment there was a reply from the other side of the door, which sounded as if the person behind it were talking through several layers of wool. That was in Spanish also; it was the husky, tar soaked vocal of a man. Suddenly there was a loud clang and then it was quickly followed by another; both noises echoing in the room behind that big steel barricade, indicating that it was a large space. With a horrendous and equally reverberating creek, the door was pulled back. Immediately, two things hit them; a blast of cold air that flooded over them like a pale of iced water had just been thrown at them; the frost being visible like a cloud and secondly, the abrupt intrusion of harsh almost white light. All three of the men pinched their eyes to nothing more than squints in order to ward it off.
With no apprehension apparent in their body language, they stepped into the huge room, which it turned out, was a meat hanger. Whole sides of beef, bison and pork hung from thick chains, suspended on steel brackets fixed in one giant brace, extending over the entire room, or as much of it as they could see from where they stood. It was like a particularly macabre forest; dead, stripped bare carcasses as far as the eye could see. But there was no smell, not even the merest whiff; the freezing temperature holding any lingering scent close to the flanks of the meat. Jean-Luc stepped forwards, Pierre and Jean-Jacque lingering close behind, his dark eyes roaming around the large steel oblong of a room. There were no windows; by that he estimated that they were at least one whole level below street level. He turned, intending to search for the girl but she had gone. Both she and the husky voiced man had slipped away like shadows at night, without so much as a sound. A fact which seemed strange to him, because as he started to walk toward the hanging carcasses, all gouged with vicious looking hooks, he noted that the metal of his boots made a distinct, neat clicking noise against the concrete floor and it echoed up to the rafters too. He stopped. "Stay close," he warned solemnly, his eyes as sharp as eagle's, constantly watching. "We don' separate---no' even fo' a second. You hear?"
"Yah," the two men replied in unison, scanning the environment also.
"Come on," Jean-Luc ordered as he started towards the dense 'growth', weaving a cautious path through the grisly spectacle, occasionally pushing them to the side if there was no way around. The three men left a trail of swinging flesh as they made their way through; the chains scrapping and screeching as they rocked back and forth on the steel supports. Although LeBeau felt slightly ill at ease with this whole situation, the fact that the meeting was taking place in a meat locker didn't really faze him. After all, he'd attended gatherings in far worse places; the tomb where all members of the Thieves Guild were buried, near the swamps came to mind right now. But that only left him with a slight chill because it was the place where he'd attended his own first inter-guild gathering. He'd only been about eight years old at the time, no older. It was just that this seemed, to him at any rate, to be an extremely odd place to convene. He continued on, edging sideways past them, moving them carelessly to the side, all the time looking and listening with all the keenness of the master thief that he was. Then he stopped, pulling up sharply. The other two almost clattered into each other, just about managing to stop in time. Jean-Jacque took an impromptu stumble to the side as a leg of bison he'd pushed out of his path swung back down and hit him in the side.
"Shush!" Jean-Luc admonished, holding his hand up stiffly, bidding the thin thief to be quiet as his boots made an ungainly scuffling noise across the rough concrete in his bid to stop from falling. He only just about managed to keep his balance. LeBeau could hear faint voices, nothing more than vague whispers coming from up ahead. He strained his ears to listen, unconsciously slowing his breath so that it barely made a sound as it issued through his pensively parted lips. Then they came again, like random gusts of wind, a flurry of hushed whispers but he caught them clearer this time. Even though they were of the same insubstantial volume as before, his ears were forcibly attuned to their faint frequency. Without a word, he started forwards again, quickening his pace to a more assured step. As he forged on, cutting a great swathe through the meat, the mass of them began to thin out and just as he came to a huge side of beef, the hollow cavity of its ribs facing him, the voices became louder. There were far too many he realised, way too many for the entourage of just one Guild Chief. Pushing the beef to the side revelled to Jean-Luc an open space, a circle rimmed with death. But it was what was in that circle that bothered Monsieur LeBeau.
"We're so glad you could make it Senor LeBeau," Pedro Velasquez Lopez offered with a cold smile; the emphasis on 'we'. For there was not just the tall, dark and gristle featured Lopez and his three Guild advisors, sat at a temporary table, set up in the middle of the fairly large circle, which still had chains with hooks on their ends hanging down, but no meat to burden them, but several others there also. All of which Jean-Luc recognised immediately.
"What is dis homme?" he questioned evenly, not betraying his sudden anger one jot. "I t'ought dis was business between de San Diego an' de New Orleans Guilds?" When he said New Orleans it drawled out, sounding more like 'Nawlins'.
Lopez quirked his lip and spread his hands out to indicate the other people present. "I never promised anything of the sort Senor." He stood up from his chair and made his way around the table. He scratched absently at his slightly bearded chin as he went over to his 'guest'; digging his finger through the black wiry curls to get to the pock marked skin beneath. His left eye was a patterned swirl of pearly grey, white and pale blue. It looked just like a marble placed there in his sunken socket; the old, browned knife scar that dragged vertically down over it, cutting through his thick eyebrow and then beneath the socket, stopping half-way down his cheek indicating the cause of his blindness. He struck an opposing figure on the strength of that alone. Coming to a rest just before Jean-Luc, he clapped a 'friendly' hand on his shoulder. His mouth scrunched up into something resembling a smile as he inclined his head to one side and regarded his Guild equal for a moment. Then, is if he were breaking from a spell, he turned his head back to the table as he harshly drew in a frozen breath before saying, "I need hardly introduce you---I'm sure you are more than familiar with them all."
LeBeau trailed his mocha eyes over the three other men and one woman sat at the white topped fold out table, but paid no attention to the advisors and guards that congregated behind them, appearing for all the world like a hive of drones. Yes, Jean-Luc recognised every man present at that table. At the furthest end away from him sat Tyrone Macintyre, head of the New York Guild and to his right was Rubens Parcheesi, recently appointed chief of the Orlando chapter. The chair that Lopez had just vacated separated Parcheesi from the Phoenix head honcho, Carla Erdington. And lastly, on the end closest to him was the leader of the Minneapolis tribe, Carter Barenboim. This was far worse than he ever could have expected. Guilds never joined in groups like these; it was simply unheard of and could only spell trouble.
He turned to Lopez, who still had his hand pressed firmly on his shoulder, a little too firmly one could say. "Make yaw point mon ami, an' make it quick." He jerked his shoulder back so that the hand fell away from it.
"Sit," Lopez commanded as he walked back around to take his chair with the other Guild heads; the arrangement suggesting that he was leading this little shin-dig.
Jean-Luc made no fuss about it and took the orange plastic seat that had been waiting for him, set across the table from the Guild heads, interrogation-style. Clasping his hands loosely and letting them rest between his parted legs, he stared resolutely at Pedro Velasquez Lopez. "So what is dis," he waved his hand distractedly in their direction, "'rassemblement' abou'?" then placed it back in the grasp of his other one near his legs; keeping his body-language lackadaisical as possible. He could feel the presence of his two guards close behind him; their heat resonating in the cooled air. Swiftly, he glanced at the table that the group were sat at; there was something, resembling an old piece of paper at Lopez's left hand, next to a glass tumbler that was half-full with a dark liquid. It was brown as if stained with spilt coffee and strong sunlight and moth eaten at its edges. Across the top of it, he could just about make out the words 'Brazilian' and 'Amazon', written with all the old authenticity of the quill. A brief sentence that was much smaller in construction and ran beneath the larger words appeared to be written in Spanish.
Lopez fingered at the one sharp corner left on the browned scrap as he looked Jean-Luc directly in the eye. "This?" he said quizzically, "This is about the New Orleans Guild and their loyalty, Senor."
"We always been loyal to de rules o' de Guild, mon ami," he insisted indignantly, but didn't for a moment raise that slow, deep voice of his. "You question our honour?" He leant forwards, returning his accuser's stare with equal rancour.
Then, for the first time, one of the other heads at the table spoke up. It was Carter Barenboim, of the Minneapolis Guild. He'd been resting his chin patiently on his balled knuckles, his arm bent at the elbow, leaning on the table. Suddenly taking his hand from under his chin and pushing his rotund frame against the back of his chair, he asked, evenly, "So does your supposed loyalty to the Guild come before your loyalty to that bastard 'son' o' yours," he waited, expecting a reaction; his tongue teetering at the fleshy inside of his bottom lips in anticipation, "or after?" His finish was just as self-satisfied.
"If you mean Remy," Jean-Luc began, "'e 'as been excommunicated from de Guild fo' years---dat exile still stands. Nuhddin's changed." He tried hard to ignore it but he could feel Pierre flinching minutely behind him, perfectly aware of what was going on in his head.
"An' what about the Assassin's, Monsieur LeBeau?" Rubens Parcheesi explosively piped up, drumming his fingers on the table before him. "We've heard rumours of truces---some have gone so far to say...alliances."
Jean-Luc remained mute, imperceptibly grinding his teeth as he bore their vitriolic gaze and that of the advisors and guards behind them. It was true, Remy had caused him untold amounts of strife and he was indeed still exiled from the New Orleans Guild. People like Pierre and his ilk would see to it that that would remain a permanent situation, no matter what the cost. But he was still his son, in spite of everything. It didn't matter how antagonistic their relationship had become. Though he realised, as a head of his people, his Thieves, loyalty to them came before everything else. Family or no family. He swallowed down hard, audibly; fighting to contain his frustration. The fiasco with the Assassin's was still a raw wound even though years had passed and although it served his means, he was as ill at ease with the truce as the other heads were. But alliance? He wouldn't stand to be accused of something so traitorous to the name and reputation of his clan.
"Dere is no alliance. I assure you o' dat."
Lopez smiled cruelly, nodding his head as if to profess his belief and trust in that statement, his blind eye flickering in its socket. "Then are you prepared to prove your commitment and unquestioned allegiance?" He picked up the 'paper' and the harsh light shone through it, revealing it to be a map. Scanning his eyes over the musty piece of what was in fact parchment and not paper, he asked, "At any cost, Senor?"
-TBC-