Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
By
E. S. Young
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Party Crashers
Aww, I feel kinda bad for everyone. They were all having such a nice time and now everything's gonna change. :( I'm such an evil person.
Sands: Yes. Yes, you are. u.u
Sidney: XP Jerk . . .
Sands: (raises an eyebrow) That's it? That's the best you could come up with? Christ, you need a thesaurus . . .
Sidney: Well now you know what to get me for Christmas. u.u
Sands: 9.9
VVVStephan Damiano had broken into many houses over the history of his career as a hit man. Not once had he doubted his abilities to enter a home, find whomever it was he was assigned to, and get rid of them. Every time had been simple, quick, and easy no matter whom he was after.
This time, he wasn't so sure.
The CIA had not informed him who Poisson was going as that night. He knew what the man looked like from photos his employers had shown him, but if the man was wearing a costume. . . . he was shit outta luck, and that was all there was to it.
He would have rather not come to the party incognito, but if he didn't wish for his target's suspicions to be aroused, he had no choice.
Red Death, stalking abroad, he thought with amusement, glancing down that the robes of deep crimson and sparkling gold that swathed his form. How very fitting.
Pulling the ghastly skull mask over his face and checking his guns once more as an extra precaution, Stephan prepared to sneak out of the room. But suddenly, the brass doorknob, reflected by the chinks of moonlight that had managed to escape through the gap in the curtains, began to turn.
Ten seconds; that was his estimate. He had about ten seconds before that door opened. Ten seconds to dive out of sight, ten seconds to hide, ten seconds to save his life. . . . . or maybe . . . ten seconds to take a life.
No. What if it was not Poisson behind that door? It could be one of his sons, a nameless unimportant crony, or perhaps it was just a lost partygoer who had wandered astray on their way to the bathroom. Whatever the case, Stephan could not be sure that it was his victim behind that door.
Five seconds . . .
Stephan darted out of sight, jumping onto the monstrous desk behind him, rolling over, and ducking behind it.
Not a second too late, he murmured to himself. He didn't hear it open, but the distinct 'click' of a door shutting assured him that it had closed.
"Now, what is so important that it could not wait, mademoiselle?" It was a man with a deep voice and an even deeper French accent who spoke. But not to himself. There was someone – a woman – in the room with him.
"I have seen them." His female companion's voice was light, yet slightly indistinguishable due to what had to be Spanish heritage.
The man was surprised, Stephan observed. It showed in his voice above everything else when he demanded, "The agents?"
Stephan had his own mental picture of a woman nodding. "Si. Two of them. There may be others, but the pair I saw will provide the most use."
"They are the agents from the CIA, I suppose?"
Again, the woman responded, "Si, they were both wearing masks but I know it was them."
"You do . . ." the man murmured probingly.
"Yes," she hissed angrily. "You are acting as though you don't trust my judgement, Édouard."
At once the name set off an alarm in Stephan's brain, one that blared and rang so loudly he was certain it was giving him away. But the man and woman were continued their whispered conversation, completely ignorant of his presence.
Perfect.
Silently sliding his gun out of his coat pocket, Stephan leapt from his hiding place, firearms loaded and ready.
King Louis XIV and his spouse Queen Marie Antoinette stared back at him, their eyes magnified ten times their normal size, complete shock taking control of their bodies. Unfortunately for Stephan, their surprise was short-lived.
Poisson, looking like a limp wrist dandy decked out in lavish, lacy, foppish clothing of navy blue and gold, was the first to recover. Not even giving the assassin the chance to fire, the cream puff plunged a frilly-cuffed hand into the pocket of his beige vest, returned with a black revolver. But before the gun was even half way out of its hiding placed, Poisson's lady friend had unearthed a pistol of her own and launched a series of bullets directly into the chest of Stephan Damiano.
The hit man – just an unknown assassin to the room's living occupants – crumpled instantly. Blood leaking from his chest, he fell, spiraling, to the ground, and Édouard Poisson and Rosa Hernandez watched it happen.
"Thank you, ma chére. Now, then," Édouard began as he calmly tucked his own gun away, "you were saying?"
Unaffected by her would-be murderer's sudden death, Rosa returned to her conversation at once, not even glancing at the man whose blood was seeping out of his torso, staining the dark green carpeting beneath him.
Unfortunately, the shots from her gun had echoed, reverberating throughout the room, bouncing down the arched hallways to where they finally reached the ballroom and the cheerful party guests who heard everything.
VVV"Shit . . ." was the only word that came out of Lynné's lips as the undeniable sounds of a gun being fired rang throughout the ballroom. They were quiet, turned dull by distance, but she heard them none the less. And so, it seemed, did everyone else.
"I thought I told Damiano to use a silencer," she muttered furiously.
"That wasn't Damiano," Sands said quietly.
"What?"
"Did you hear how many shots went off? When I met the guy, I asked him how efficient he was. Said he only shoots a person three times: Chest once, head twice. The only time he does it more than that is when things have taken a turn for the worse."
"Seems like that's already happened," Zebbidy murmured as she too watched the carnage unfold before them.
Beside Lynné, Liam observed the once dancing and chatting guests through worried eyes as they now scrambled towards the front hall in their mad attempts to get outside and to safety.
"Someone's gonna get hurt," he insisted urgently. "What do we do??"
Lynné rolled her eyes, muttering, "CIA my ass . . ." before outlining her plan. "We do what we're supposed to. Someone, call the Company. I'd do it, but suddenly the concept of following anonymous gunshots is muuuuch more appealing than contacting my employers."
"I'll do it," Sands sighed, acting as though he was doing her a huge favor.
"Oh, really?" his sister asked, feigning disappointment. "Damn . . . cuz I would have done it. After all, it may've meant talking to Cat again, and we hardly ever do that anymore."
"That's why I volunteered," Sands returned, grinning.
"Fine," Lynné dismissed offhandedly. "You call the heads, and Zeb, you stay here with him. I'm off to see what's become of our hit man. Fusco," she said sharply, "get your gun."
"What?" Liam sputtered, confused and concerned for his own well being. "Why?"
Throwing him that aggravating and at the same time irresistible 'don't-be-such-a-dumbass' expression, his partner replied, "You're with me."
VVVStealth. Move quickly; move quietly. And pray that you don't get caught. You can't afford to make a sound. Cuz if you do, in a situation like this, you're as good as dead.
Fusco did not know this, apparently. He had been following Lynné along for some time now, his footsteps just as silent as hers, until his partner suddenly halted where she stood, and Liam, not noticing, came crashing into her.
"Damnit," she hissed as she stumbled forward. She shot a dangerous glare over her shoulder and Liam swallowed hard. Nervously, he eyed the small silver handgun in Lynné's hand, knowing that, sex or no sex, if irked enough, the woman would not hesitate to use it on him.
With a small nod of her head, Lynné indicated that she wanted Liam to follow her and disappeared through the open door that stood just a few inches to her right.
Taking a deep breath to assure himself that nothing bad would come of this, Liam cocked his gun and followed suit.
VVV"Where the fuck are they? They shouldn't take this long . . ."
Zebbidy cast a worried glance at the agent beside her. The sentence 'I'm sure they're fine' was on the tip of her tongue, just begging to be used, but she knew that saying it would only get a sharp retort out of Sands. The man was immune to solace. He simply would not allow himself to be comforted by anyone.
Why, though? she wondered sadly. Fuck, I don't know why I even asked that. It's not like I'm gonna get an answer. May as well ask why I can't read his thoughts.
That was one thing about Sands that she couldn't figure out: His thoughts were stopped, dammed, completely blocked save for a few that Zebbidy figured were only the most important things going on inside the agent's head. So she couldn't read his mind. Fine. Whatever. But then why, why did she keep having visions about him? And what were they of? His past, future, mere ideas that passed through his obviously unbalanced mind? She didn't know, and she sure as hell wasn't about to ask.
God, where are they, where are they, where are they . . . ? Sands wondered feverishly, repeating the same question over and over again until he became tired of it and started on a new one. What's taking so long, what's taking so long . . . ?
Desperately Zebbidy wanted to tell him that everything was fine, that the other agents were all right, but she couldn't. Because for some reason, some strange unknown reason that she had long since given up trying to figure out, she knew that if she did, she would be very, very wrong.
VVVThey were gone. Lynné and Liam had followed the sounds of the bullets but – assuming that they had been lead to the correct room – whoever had fired them was gone. Or so they appeared to be.
"Watch the door," Lynné instructed without looking at her partner. Slowly, she edged her way towards the back of the room where the gargantuan desk stood, flanked by two stiff-backed couches on either side. No one was sitting on them, and the room didn't provide many places to hide . . . . except . . .
Bingo, she thought in momentary triumph when she saw a hand. But before she could give any warnings not to move, her eyes trailed past the hand, lingering on the arm it was connected to, and finally landing a the head that was familiar. Too familiar for her liking.
Damiano. Shit.
"What is it?" Liam asked from his lookout. He had seen the grim expression on his partner's face, and he knew it could mean nothing good.
"Our hit man," she was about to begin but a rasping noise from the floor drew her attention away from Liam. Crouching down next to what she had believed to be a corps, Lynné strained to make sense of what it was saying. His words were short, breathless because they were being forced out through the burning pain in his chest. They were slightly garbled, barely audible, but Lynné understood them.
"Poisson . . ." the assassin gasped, eyes widening as the air caught in his lungs. Speaking was the last thing he should be doing. It would be wasting energy and adrenaline that he so sorely needed. But Stephan forced himself to go on. The assassin was dying and he knew it, but that didn't mean anyone else needed to go with him.
"Poisson . . ." he tried again in the same breathless croak. "Poisson . . . lui . . ."
He wasn't sure if Agent Sands understood Italian, but speaking in his native language was so much easier at the moment.
"Lui . . ." Lynné muttered, scraping through her mind to remember what that meant. "He," she remembered at last, "He shot you."
Stephan shook his head, cringing at once at the pain the movement brought on. "No," he continued desperately. "Lui . . . era qui . . . ma lui . . . lui non . . ." (He . . .was here . . . but he . . . he didn't . . .)
"Then who did?" the agent pressed.
"Non so," Damiano wheezed, slipping before her eyes. "Esso . . . era . . . era . . . una donna. (It. . . was . . . it was . . . a woman.)
"A woman," Lynné repeated, intrigued.
"Sì . . . e . . . stanno andando dopo voi . . ." (Yes . . . and . . . they are going after you . . .) came Stephan's weak response. His eyelids flickered, lashes beating rapidly, and then . . .
He's gone, Lynné realized, not noticing how dramatic the thought sounded.
Getting to her feet, she turned to face her partner.
Watch you're head, the voice advised carelessly
What? Lynné wondered, distracted.
But before she could take the voice's warning into consideration, something solid connected with the back of her head. Stars went off before her eyes, flying in every direction as blackness slowly ate away at her sight and Lynné tumbled to the ground.
VVVSands eyes burned from so much work, but he continued to search for the pair of missing agents, ignoring sharp stinging sensation both of his orbs were experiencing. Scanning the nearly bare dance floor he shook his head in disgust as the few stragglers ran screaming from the room. So far, an endless number of vampires (from Draculas to Lestats) and plenty of women in red gowns had entered his line of vision, but not one of them had resembled his sister or her partner remotely.
"Damnit," he cursed under his breath, "Do you see any . . . Zeb? Zebbidy??"
When his charge didn't answer, Sands spun around, eyes darting in every direction. But Zebbidy Samhain was no where to be found, a fact that only added to his irritation.
Damnit!! Why the fuck would she do that!?
I dunno, the voice answered. Just to piss you off.
Wouldn't surprise me.
Think she may have gone upstairs –
What!? Why the fuck didn't you say something!?!
Because I didn't see her leave, shithead, I was merely suggesting it.
Well, gee, thanks for clearin' that up for me –
BANG!!!
Sands eyes widened in surprise as a sudden hail of gunfire burst through the pair of double doors behind him. No sooner had the doors been reduced to splinters when a trio of thugs came bursting through their remains, each one holding two firearms that was twice as long as their gorilla-like arms.
Through their menacing, beady eyes the goons searched the room over for their rogue prey, but he was nowhere in sight. As soon as the shots had begun, Sands had wasted no time in flipping one of the buffet tables over – sending it's contents flying everywhere in the process; hey, it wasn't his house, so what if he made a mess, what did he care? — and diving behind it. Unfortunately, the mobsters, stupid as they were, quickly zeroed in on his hideout and sent a series of bullets his way.
Now using his rinky-dink shelter as a shield, Sands whipped out a pistol of his own and returned the favor. Without looking, he fired several shots over the top of the long table. He thought he hit one of Poisson's cronies, but he couldn't tell over the hammering sound of the bullets hitting the back of his refuge.
Shit. This thing isn't gonna last forever.
No sooner had the thought entered his mind when a bullet – and a cluster of wood – entered his left shoulder. Biting down hard on his lip to contain his cry of pain, Sands twisted around, shipping ten bullets in the Mafia goons' direction.
Silence.
That it? He didn't dare begin to think so.
Yeah, the voice agreed, they could be playing possum for all you know.
Too right, they could.
However, he could not just sit around on his ass waiting for the idiot brigade (he wasn't sure if he meant the thugs or Liam, Lynné, and Zebbidy) to find him. It was time to come out of hiding.
Pistols still smoking, Sands leapt to his feet prepared for a fight that never came. All three of the men were dead. But more may come, he reminded himself, so he kept his guns ready. Giving the bloodied cadavers one last revolted look, Sands stalked out of the ruined ballroom, his feet crunching on the remains of the party food on the way out.
VVVZebbidy had indeed gone upstairs, seeking homage in her bedroom. Well, maybe not homage exactly. Could walls, no matter how thick, protect her if a stream of bullets were suddenly hurled her way? She didn't think so.
Damnit, where the hell did I put that gun?? she thought worriedly as she pulled drawer after drawer from her vanity and dumped each of their contents on the floor. Fruitless and disgruntled, she moved on to her closet, irritated that Poisson had made it a walk-in model.
Where is it . . . ? Where is it!? she wondered, never pausing in her hurried search.
After shoving aside a pair of gray dress slacks, Zebbidy was treated to the small, yet very familiar barrel of a handgun. She flung the rest of the clothing aside, making a wild grab for the weapon. It was loaded. She sighed, past the point of hoping that she would find no use for it.
The sudden sound of gunfire reached her ears and Zebbidy had to work to keep calm. They had come from the ballroom, and she knew it. By the sound of it, either a whole fleet of Poissons men had opened fire on the dance floor or one person had gotten a little trigger-happy with a machinegun. No matter which it was, neither could be any good for the ballroom. The ballroom where she had left Sands . . . . . Oh gods!
Snatching the gun up and slinging her large purse over her shoulder, Zebbidy barreled out of her closet. Everything seemed blurred, as if someone had taken an eraser and rubbed out everything around her. Through the blank, white world Zebbidy ran, hurrying past the many hangers full of beautiful clothes, past her bed and her vanity and her towering chest of drawers, through the doors of her bedroom and down the hallway where she nearly tripped on the spiked heels of her shoes. She didn't stop until she reached the ballroom, and until she did, she prayed that she wasn't too late.
Her breath caught in her throat as she reached the overlook. Behind her was the ballroom where she had originally thought the shots had been fired. Observing the punctured double doors, hole-filled walls, and battered buffet table that now resembled the Swiss cheese that had once been placed upon it in a silver platter, Zebbidy saw that her suspicions had been correct. However, aside from a trio of carcasses lying in the middle of the once spotless dance floor, there was no one in sight.
Letting out a sigh to vent off her frustration, Zebbidy turned around to see if there was any life on the other side of the balcony. When her eyes landed on the two figures below her, she stopped, her body just as stiff as the corpses behind her.
VVVSands had to agree with his sister; in situations like these, there was only one word a person could utter that would fit the setting perfectly: Shit.
All hell had broken loose no more than ten minutes ago, Lynné and Liam's fates were unknown, and he had yet to find Zebbidy, although he had run into a very nice man toting a gun when he had darted out into the front hall.
Don't just stand there, genius, the voice chastised. Shoot the fucker! . . . Now, damnit!
Fine, fiiine . . . Sands sighed, taking aim, and firing half a round of bullets into the goon before the man even had a chance to get his hand to the trigger of his own weapon.
That was easy, Sands thought reasonably.
Don't be so sure, the voice warned. Here come some more targets. Apparently, those thugs you just killed had friends.
Raising his gun, Sands narrowed his eyes at the new pair of mobsters and fired. A sudden yelp of pain from the shorter of the two brought a satisfied smirk to the agent's face, but he wasn't out of the woods yet. Training his gun on the remaining thug, he prepared to fire . . .
. . . and stopped dead. He couldn't fire, he couldn't move his fingers . . . he couldn't . . .
He couldn't . . .
He couldn't; he was rooted to the ground. It wasn't because he had realized that killing people was wrong. He knew that, he'd known it for years, he just hadn't cared. He didn't now, come to think of it, so he knew that what his suddenly frozen posture was not brought on by guilt. Regret was not sinking in. If it hadn't when he was a kid, it wouldn't now.
Something had moved. It wasn't the Mafia member taking aim, it wasn't a bullet from his gun, though Sands knew it wouldn't be long before one would fly. Something behind the thug had moved and at once Sands' attention honed in on that.
It all seemed to happen in slow motion. Everything seemed to stop save for one thing. One of the double doors that led into the grand hallway inched open, revealing half of a tall, slender figure. A woman, one dressed in a pale blue gown that had been decorated with elegant, berry-colored bows here and there, emerged from behind the door. A perfectly manicured hand attached to a wrist that was edged in lace laid lightly on the shining doorknob. Slowly, a face came into view. The towering silver curls had been discarded, allowing black tresses to cascade down the woman's back and spill over her shoulders. Chilling blue eyes glared at him from the crack in the door. They were so cold, cold enough to freeze the blood in his veins, cold enough to make him stay where he was instead of ducking for cover. Her mask was missing, and, though Sands knew had never seen her before, he knew who the woman was.
Rosa . . .
He tried to shoot, run, scream, anything, but he couldn't. Seeing that face behind those doors had turned his body to stone. Like petrified wood, Sands stayed rooted to his spot on the polished marble floor. Bullets flew by and through him but he made no move to stop them. He merely stood there, stock-still, unable to move a single limb. And slowly, biding its time, darkness unfolded, overtaking everything in its path, suffocating him as it conquered the light.
VVVFinally! I've had that ending planned out in my head for so long! Longer than anything else. This wasn't even how I originally planned for it to happen, to tell ya the truth. Originally, Zebbidy was supposed to be in Rosa Hernandez's position, but then things got turned around a bit. Zeb was never intended to be evil, but the original scene is hard to explain without leaking out a few clues to the rest of the story. So I'll just shut up and get to thanking my reviewers. Mwaha . . . evil cliff-hangers have returned at last!
Author's Thanks and Review Responses:
Lynx Ryder: I've never had the chance to go to a costume ball either, though I've always wanted to. :( (wistful sigh) Ah well, someday along the road, hopefully. It's so cool that you read the scene and listened to that song! I've wanted to stick 'La Complainte de la Butte' in this story for the longest time, I just didn't know where it would fit. Yay! I thought that seemed like a Sands thing to say, too. Thanks for telling me. :D I was really skeptical about having anyone do any kind of dancing because there's always the chance it'll turn out sappy and cliché. Then the thought of Lyn using it to her advantage came to mind, so that's how the dance scene came to be. :)
Dawnie-7: I was really debating on Sands costume for a while. It was a competition between the three masked heroes: Zorro, Don Juan, and the Lone Ranger. I didn't wanna go with Don Juan, actually, because I thought it would seem a little too blatant, even though I did think that Johnny Depp was at his cutest when he played Don Juan. And Lyn may be rubbing off on you, but Tom Cruise is beginning to edge his way into my brain. (grips head) Nooo! It just seems like everywhere anymore. I can't go anywhere without hearing about him. 9.6;;
Sands: Just admit that you like Tom Cruise and get it over with.
Sidney: -.9 I don't. He comes off as a creep to me.
Sands: 9.9 You don't know that he's a creep.
Sidney: I never said that he was, just that he comes off as one. XP
The Gilatas Monster: Yeah, too many references in that chapter. Though I don't think there can ever be enough. :) And of course I brought Stephan back! I couldn't really introduce him and then just let him disappear, could I? You should know that I delve too deeply into characters to lead them to nowhere by now, Steph D. u.u
And now's when I leave a few notes that I always forget to make . . . . Y'know, I should really just make an extra chapter once all of this is said and done. That way, I can say what I thought about each chapter and add in any relations to movies, books, plays, or TV shows at the same time. But, anyway . . .
References Made in the Last Chapter: 'Like a Virgin' by Madonna, but if anybody's seen the movie 'Moulin Rouge' then it's the same song Zeidler sings to the Duke whenever he tricks him into not leaving by telling him that Satine is confessing. Marilyn Monroe is in there, of course. Still don't know how she manages to slip her way into my OUaTiM stories, but she does. Moving along, Bram Stoker's Dracula is mentioned, as is the inspiration for the story Count Vlad Dracula (surprise, surprise, Sands wasn't lying; the man really existed). You could say that there's a partial reference to the movie 'Ed Wood' in there as well whenever Liam says he's going as Bela Lugosi. Zorro and the Lone Ranger are mentioned, of course. Also, one may find the Zorro-ref funny because Antonio Banderas stared in the most recent Zorro movie. Lynné blatantly brings up Tom Cruise and his movie 'Interview with a Vampire,' then we have her associate, Moreau, going as the ever-amazing Phantom of the Opera – if you haven't read the book, watched the (original, silent film version of) the movie, or seen the musical, then do it! You won't regret it! All of the Poissons went as famous figures in French history and/or well known figures in American history, in case no one noticed. Vincent Poisson went as privateer extrodinare Jean Lafayette cuz he was a rebel in a way and so is Vincent. Then I felt that Alphonse fit Napoleon Bonaparte cuz they both come off as rather weak when in reality they can both turn very nasty very quick. And, finally, Édouard' Poisson's costume had to be Louis XIV. They were both tyrants, they both favored lavish and expensive furniture, homes, and clothes. I could go on, but then I'd be shadowing Rosa's costume. I felt she should go as Marie Antoinette, not because they're anything alike, as you'll soon find out, but because she needed to fit in. Really, I'm sure she would have rather gone as Queen Isabella of Spain (only famous female from the Latino area I know of, sorry o.o;) but that would kinda stand out a bit. Plus I have this picture of Queen Marie in my head that needed to be let out. So, is there anything else I missed? I got the reference to the song 'La Complainte de la Butte' in the last chapter, so that's covered. Ah well. If I forget anything, let me know! :) Now . . .
References Made in THIS Chapter: Really, the only thing I found was the other Phantom of the Opera reference: Red Death. During the masquerade ball in the book/musical/movie, the Phantom interrupts the festivites by showing up in these solid crimson robes with gold trim and a skull mask (and a really great hat, too. Many feathers . . . .). I couldn't have a costume party and leave that out, I just couldn't. But I think that's it. Sorry if this was a pain or anything, I'm just tired of forgetting to mention little things like this at the end of each chapter. Hopefully this bit will help me remember in the future. :) Thanks for your reviews, guys!
o