DISCLAIMER: I don't own Harry Potter. Don't sue. I also borrowed some of this plot from the TV show Alias.(Great show by the way, you should watch ) Kudos to J.K. Rowling and J.J. Abrams. Again, don't sue.
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Her lungs were about to burst, the icy water becoming redder and redder with every dowsing. Lily Evans was flung backward onto the concrete floor, her hair soaked and in her face, gasping for air. Her torturer yelled something in Chinese. Lily translated easily. She was grabbed by both arms, and flung into a metal chair, then slapped across the face. She felt the coldness of metal on both of her wrist as restraints were fastened around them. She sat up, breathing heavily and stared at the door, afraid of what might come through it.
BUENOS AIRES, ARGENTINA
Three months earlier
"Hicks and Reed, I want you on the east entrance, Parker and Anders on the west, Bowman and Mason on the south, and Evans, you're with me on the north. Wait for my signal to enter, and watch your backs, these bastards are hard-core; I wouldn't be surprised if they had sentries outside the perimeter. Alright, let's move out!" Team Commander Griffin called out.
The team of seven men and one woman moved out of their covered position of a small clump of trees, all heavily armed with wands, explosives, and all sorts of things to take down the enemy. In this case, a man suspected in aiding terrorists to launch biological weapons, who they believed to be holed up in this factory.
Lily and Commander Griffin ran around the backside of the factory to the north entrance and waited until Lily heard something in her ear.
"Team One in position."
"Team Two ready to fly."
"Team three all set."
"Sir, all teams are in position," Lily whispered to the commander. He switched on his com link.
"All teams move in."
As soon as the words were out of his mouth Lily blasted the lock off on the chain link fence that loomed in front of them, yanked open the gate, and nailed a guard in the jaw with a swift punch before the commander had hardly moved.
"Jeez, Evans, you should have my job," he muttered and they moved silently along, meeting no more guards until they came to the entrance to the factory itself, which the commander took care of with a well placed stunning spell.
They proceeded into the building, and began combing the sector of the building that had been assigned to them before the mission.
"Commander, I think I found him!" Lily yelled from the next room over. They were in the sub-basement, and had not met anyone. The commander ran into the room, where Lily was crouched over a trap door in the floor.
"They've bewitched it so Alohomora won't work, I can't get it open," she panted. They had sprinted through every room so far. Commander Griffin ripped open one of the many pockets on his tactical vest, and pulled out a knife. He inserted it into the crack between the door and the floor and ran it along all sides.
Once he had made one revolution, Lily grabbed the ring on the door and pulled, and the door came up easily.
"Stupefy!" she shouted as a jet of red light hit a badly shaven man and he fell back into the square room in the floor below. Lily held onto the edge of the floor and swung herself down into the pit, which was pitch black, and filled with a putrid odor.
"Lumos," she muttered, and the tip of her wand ignited. The light landed on bare earthen walls, a small table with a chair, and a bucket in the corner. "Ugh," she said putting a hand up to her nose to help muffle the smell. She knelt down over the man. He had a gaunt face with thin, lank hair surrounding his face. Lily patted him down, relieved him of his wand, and conjured thick ropes that wrapped themselves around the man's wrists and ankles.
"He's secure, sir," Lily called up to her commander, who was notifying the rest of the team as to their target's capture. Griffin jumped down into the underground room.
"Lars Rifkin," he said. "One down, five million to go," he said solemnly, kicking Lars's ankle. "Well, let's get the hell out of here. Good work, Evans," he said. "Mobilicorpus," he muttered, and the terrorist floated upwards out of the hole to the agents waiting above.
Lily smiled slightly to herself, and climbed up out of the hole.
LONDON, ENGLAND
"Hey," said a man sleepily from the couch when Lily walked into her flat three hours later.
"Hi," Lily said, nervously turning the brand-new diamond ring on her left hand.
"I'm sure you will be ecstatic to know that your father called, and seemed to want to know 'who the hell I was,'" Bryan, Lily's fiancé, said.
Lily groaned loudly. "This is the first time he's called in almost a year. Bastard," she muttered.
"How was Paris?" Bryan asked, feeling that a change of subject was probably a good idea; Lily seemed to get a bit touchy around the subject of her father.
"Boring," she lied, and casually fell over the back of the couch onto Bryan's lap, where she caught sight of the diamond on her left hand. She sat there for a few moments, just staring at it. "No. I can't do this anymore," she said and grabbed Bryan's hand and pulled him off the couch and into the bathroom where she locked the door, started the shower, and then sat down hard on the toilet.
Bryan, who looked thoroughly startled, spoke. "What was that all about?"
Lily, who was sitting on the toilet with her head in her hands, looked up. "I work for the Magical Security Agency," she told him.
Bryan looked at her and chuckled. "Right, and I'm the Minister of Magic."
"I work for the MSA," Lily said firmly and stood up, looking Bryan dead in his eye. After a few seconds of Lily's unwavering stare, Bryan's smile faltered.
"W-what?"
Lily took a deep breath. "I don't work for the bank. I'm a spy," she said slowly. "And I wasn't in Paris…I was in Buenos Aires taking down a suspected terrorist's bio weapons plant."
"You work for the MSA…"
"Well, not exactly. It's a black ops branch. Called LRT."
Bryan was reeling. He stared at the floor, and then a hard look came up on his face. "How long?"
"What?" Lily asked, tears forming in her brilliantly green eyes.
"How long have you worked as a spy?"
"Five years," Lily sighed, not able to meet Bryan's eye. Lily's look hardened slightly. "You cannot tell anybody about this," she said staring at him again. "Bryan, I'm not kidding."
"You haven't told me this…I can't even begin to wonder what other things you haven't told me," he said, yanked open the bathroom door, and left Lily, tears pouring silently down her face.
The steel door burst open and a short Asian man stepped through. He said something to the guards and they both grabbed on one of Lily's arms, and she started to struggle. They pinned her down; meanwhile, her torturer was filling a large glass syringe with some amber liquid. Lily struggled even harder against the guard, but he came at her and stuck the syringe in the crook of her elbow. The guards let go. Lily looked at the man, her panting beginning to slow. Soon her gaze was becoming harder to keep still, and finally, Lily's head fell limp on her shoulder.
The next morning Lily was dressed in her usual muggle business attire, and entered the large black building. The sign on the glass doors said Amacore Bank, but to the general magical public, it was the Gringotts international branch. To Lily, it was LRT headquarters.
She entered through the glass doors and entered the executive lift. Once the opaque black doors closed in front of her, Lily entered her code on the pad of numbers that were the floors, and pressed her thumb to the metal plate at the base of the pad, that looked completely flush with the rest of the panel. Lily immediately felt herself sink, and came to a halt at sub-basement six.
The black doors opened and Lily stepped out into a completely white room, with nothing in it except a black circle painted on the floor. Lily stepped to the center of the circle, straightened herself, and stared straight ahead. A red light flashed, and a heavy security door on the opposite side of the room opened, and she stepped through.
The air of this part of the building couldn't be more different than the lobby upstairs. The lobby was expensively furnished, with marble floors and lots of glass. But the headquarters of LRT had cement block walls, naked pipes and cords running along the ceiling, metal desks, and a concrete floor.
Lily ended up at her desk; hardly realizing how she had gotten there, her head was still on her confession to Bryan the night before.
Lily's partner, Darian Mason, turned to face her. "That was some raid last night, eh? Awesome how you found Rifkin like that, holed up in some godforsaken bunker, cowering in the corners…anyway that was brilliant."
Lily only gave him and half a smile.
"What's wrong?" Mason asked, obviously seeing something was bugging her.
"It's nothing," she lied. "Bryan and I had a major fight last night, that's all."
Mason nodded and seemed to accept this as a logical answer. "Well, hopefully it works out okay," he said. "We're supposed to meet Loque in the conference room in ten minutes."
"Did he say what it was about?"
"No, I'm assuming its something about Rifkin, but you know Loque…once one thing is solved, we get pushed right into another."
"Yeah, no kidding," Lily said dropping into her desk chair. "I mean we try to save the world…but sometimes I wish it would just stay saved," she sighed.
"You sure you're okay?" Mason asked, giving her a searchful look. "You're never this depressed after a fight, and especially not with a huge mission success on your résumé."
"Yeah, thanks," she said giving him a wan smile. "We should go."
"First of all I want to congratulate you two for your successes last night," Loque stated. He was a rather short man; with close cut gray hair, and a scruffy beard. "But we're not out of the woods just yet. We know that Rifkin managed to get one of his toxin distributing weapons into production, and we know where it is," he continued, and flicked his wand at the opposite wall. A picture of a rather ornate building came up. "The magical embassy in Hong Kong."
Lily looked somewhat taken aback at this news. "What the hell is he doing with it there? It may be a magical embassy but it's still a muggle run building."
"There is an underground lab in the building that we believe Rifkin to be using to do his research."
"So what's our move? Steal the bomb?" Mason asked.
"No," Loque replied.
Both Lily and Mason gave him questioning looks.
"Why not?" Lily asked.
"We don't believe that it is finished," Loque said. "And Rifkin's technicians are not aware of his capture, so they will carry on as usual. This is what the prototype looks like at the moment, pictures courtesy of an inside agent, Hans Walters," he said as another picture came up on the wall.
"And how exactly would that help us?" Lily asked.
"We believe that Rifkin had a different endgame than just trying to kill thousands of people," Loque said. "We think that if we let the technicians carry on as usual, it may help us to find out what it is, and stop it."
"So what are we doing?"
"Just simple recon. Memorize the layouts of the building, take photographs, the normal drill," he said. "You are going in as representatives of a broomstick company, looking for manufacturing rights in China. Desmond will show you your tech."
Desmond Ginch was a short and stocky man, with a rather large head. He was a technical genius, but was slightly socially inept. He had a tendency to ramble, and became very nervous.
Desmond jumped from his chair as if he had sat on a tack.
"Right," he said, rummaging in the pockets of his jacket. "Ladies first. For you Miss Evans I have this cool little lipstick camera," he said, taking a silver tube of lipstick from his inside pocket. "All you do is twist the bottom off, like this," he said, unscrewing the bottom of the tube with his tongue between his teeth, " and push down on the cap, and BOOM! Pictures," he said. "It can also analyze the pictures to make centimeter accurate blue prints of any building, and for good measure I threw in a grid analyzer." He stood there smiling and nodding at Lily, who became a bit creeped out.
"Yeah, thanks Desmond," Lily said, and took the lipstick from him.
After a few seconds Desmond realized that everyone was staring at him, and jerked slightly.
"Oh, and now for Mr. Mason," he said, rummaging in his pockets again. He brought out something that looked like a silver cigarette lighter. "Now you're going to be breaking into a heavily secured building, so you can bet that they're going to have every surveillance countermeasure, pointed at every person, in every place, at every time, doing every thing. There are both muggle and wizard security teams, but the majority of them are muggles, so watch out for those goons they carry around—"
"Guns," Lily said quietly.
"Yeah, those," he said and continued his explanation. "Now this brilliant little device will short out every magical, muggle, alien, you name it surveillance technique. It can be secrecy spells, CCTV cameras, x-ray beams, lasers, whatever," he said. "But, you just flick this back—" he flicked the top off of the lighter, "And click this—" he clicked the button, and you're practically invisible."
"You leave tonight. Good luck," Loque finished.
Lily was pacing back and forth on the hill overlooking Regent's Park. Finally, she heard a loud crack! And Bryan appeared a little ways away from where she was standing. He stood there and looked at her with a hard expression as she walked towards him.
"Bryan…I'm glad you came," she said quietly, and avoided his harsh gaze.
"I almost didn't," he said shortly.
"I know…" Lily said, her eyes filling with tears. "I just need a chance to explain myself properly. Bryan, you have to know that you are my anchor…you're the only thing that keeps me grounded," she said.
"I'm sure," he said sarcastically.
"Bryan, you have to listen to me. Since my mother died, I've been looking for someone to give my life meaning…that person is you. I just met the agency first."
Bryan looked at her for a second then sharply nodded. "Talk," he said.
"It was the first week I was out of Hogwarts. I had no money, besides what my father would give me, and I had no plans, and there was no way I was going back home. So, for the short time, I stayed with Carrie at her house until she moved to London. That week, we decided to go shopping, and we stopped for lunch at a small muggle café. While Carrie was in the bathroom, a man came up to me, and gave me a business card with a telephone number on it. He said he worked for Ministry of Magic intelligence, and they would like to interview me…about a job. He told me to call the number on the card if I was interested, and that I would not be contacted again.
"The truth is…I had no plans, and it was actually the last thing I was interested in, working for the Ministry. But I needed the money anyway, so I called them."
"The MSA."
"Yes. They had me come to the Amacore bank building downtown, where they gave me a battery of tests, and I started training that day. Self-defense, disguise and tracking, weapons, infiltration, everything. I've been working for them ever since."
"This is insane," Bryan said, running a hand frustratedly through his hair, making it stand on end. "Do either Carrie of Ian know about this?" he asked.
"No," Lily said. "You're the only one."
"Well, that makes me feel a bit better," he said running his hand through his hair again. "I-I need to walk, I'll talk to you tonight," he said, starting to walk down the path.
"I've got my trip," Lily called after him.
"Glasgow."
"I'll see you when I get back."
HONG KONG, CHINA
"Mason?"
"Yeah?"
"How long have you and Sara been married?" Lily asked. She and Mason were in a hotel room in Hong Kong, preparing for their mission.
"Seven, no eight years." He gave her an inquiring look. "Why?"
"And you never said anything to her?"
"About what?" he replied, but he knew exactly what Lily was talking about.
"About what we do," Lily said.
Mason looked her in the eye and said firmly, "If there is one rule you don't break, that's the rule you don't break."
Lily nodded slightly, and pointed her wand at her dark red hair and flicked it, and her normally straight hair became a mop of glossy curls. "I suppose it just gets easier after a while," she said, standing up, and going into the adjoining room.
Ten minutes later, she came out wearing a black sparkly dress, and her hair was now piled on top of her head.
"Ready?"
"Ready." Mason answered, and they left the room, and went down to their waiting car.
"It was so nice talking to you Ambassador," Lily said to the Chinese ambassador as Mason walked up behind her. Lily shook the man's hand, said good-bye again, and then walked away with Mason to one of the many round tables.
"You ready?" Mason muttered quietly.
"As ready as I'll ever be," Lily replied.
"Let's go."
Lily and Mason separated, and Mason quickly and easily melded himself into a conversation between two French diplomats, meanwhile Lily just mingled, took a glass of champagne from a wandering waiter, and waited.
Suddenly, there was a loud bang and a chair was knocked over, and Lily saw Mason lying on the floor twitching about. She saw that as her cue.
While everyone else was fussing over Mason, no one noticed Lily slipping into the lobby and through a door that said "Restricted Access."
Once she was inside, Lily's instincts took over. She kicked off her shoes, and dragged the desk chair over to a ventilation shaft. She pulled her wand from the inside of her dress and the screws holding the vent in place dropped out and the plate easily fell into her hands. Lily jumped up and grabbed onto the side of the shaft, and hoisted herself into the space.
"Mason, I'm in position."
At Lily's cue, Mason, who was now graciously accepting a glass of water from someone, put his hand into his pants pocket and clicked Desmond's lighter back. He then cleared his throat loudly signaling to Lily that he heard her.
Lily then made her way along the ducts, and slid down a large pipe into the floor below. She continued horizontally for a moment, then stopped above another air vent.
She pressed her ear against the pipe, and hearing no sounds, she deduced that the corridor below was empty. She sat up and brought her foot down on top of the vent, sending it to the floor. Then Lily lowered herself into the stark white corridor, lined with doors.
"I'm in the basement," she whispered, and the sound of a throat being cleared sounded in her ear.
Next, from the bodice of her dress, Lily brought out Desmond's lipstick camera, and ran along the corridors, snapping random pictures in hopes that Desmond would be able to enhance something later.
Finally, she came to a stop in front of the R&D lab. She drew her wand, pointed it at the heavy black door and quietly mumbled something. The door opened with a hiss, and Lily slid inside.
The room was enormous, large metal supports rising from the floor, and a long row of worktables in the middle of the room. Lily snapped a bunch of photos, and turned to leave, when something caught her eye. She whipped around and jogged to the end of the long row of tables, where she saw the exact device that Loque had shown then during the briefing. Lily quickly snapped a photo, and ran out of the lab.
LONDON
"Hey, I'm back—" Lily called as she returned her keys to her purse as she walked into her flat. She looked up, and immediately dropped everything she was holding.
The apartment looked like it had been ripped apart at the seams. Furniture was turned upside-down, papers were everywhere, the legs had been broken off the coffee table, and the floor was littered with glass. "Oh my god," she whispered.
Lily strode to the first doorway in the hallway and pushed it open. "Oh," she breathed, and covered her mouth in a silent scream.
Bryan was lying in the bathtub, the white porcelain spattered with blood. Lily knelt at the tub, and quickly reached for his neck and felt for a pulse. Nothing.
"AHHHHHHH!" she took in a shaky breath. "AHHHH!"
Lily flew along the street in her car (an anti-Disapparation jinx had been placed on the house), things magically moving out of her way. She cranked a hard left and flew into the parking garage adjacent to the Amacore Bank building. She squealed to a stop, jumped out of her car, and ran into the elevator and immediately began punching in the button for sublevel six.
Lily looked a mess. Her hair was tangled and messy, the makeup had run from her eyes, and her shirt was covered in blood. When she finally got into the office she strode purposefully to Loque's office, trying, and failing, to keep her composure as the other agents were staring at her.
She strode right through the glass doors that surrounded Loque's office without even knocking. She stopped dead as Loque raised his head to look at her.
"W-what did you do?" she asked tearfully.
"I might ask you the same question," he said. He raised his wand and flicked it and the doors behind Lily automatically closed. He was clearly not happy with her. "Apparently Mr. Cooper called your muggle telephone line and left you a message. From what he said, Security Section deduced that you had told him about LRT and performed their function." Mr. Loque looked up at her; there was not an ounce of sympathy in his eyes. "Any unauthorized information about this agency must be treated like a virus. There is only one response to that. Containment. There was a risk. Now it is no longer a problem."
Lily dropped into a chair and sobbed into her hands. "Bryan wasn't a r-risk...he was j-just a man…"
"We here at LRT have our protocols. And even though I detest that countermeasure—"
Lily snapped. She leapt from her chair, grabbed Loque around his neck and pinned him to his desk. "Stop saying we. Stop talking about the agency. You killed the man I love."
"No, Agent Evans. You did."
Lily was shaking uncontrollably she was so angry and sad. She took an unsteady breath, pushed Loque into his desk and then let him go. She walked over to the door and pulled on the handle. No give.
"Let me out," she said.
Loque just looked at her and straightened his tie as though nothing had happened.
"Let…me…out," she said more forcefully.
This time Loque obliged, and pointed his wand at the doors and Lily rushed out.
"Wow, wow, wow," Lily said. She had just woken up. "I don't know what you put in that stuff. Wow."
The short pudgy man was sitting in a chair in front of her. Lily gave him a cold stare.
"I'd rather no make this too painful," he said.
"Me too. Glad we're on the same level. It's good." The man leaned in so his face was an inch from Lily's. "Whoa…"
"Who are you working for?" he asked her. Lily said nothing.
"I'll not ask you again," he said.
Lily paused for a few seconds considering. "Okay," she said. "Get a pen. Write this down—" Lily said and gave the man a few letters that did not reveal much. "Got that?"
"Yes," Pudgy answered.
"Now, reverse it."
The man reversed the letters on the notepad, spelling out an extremely rude expression.
Lily began to laugh hysterically.
"I've got bad news for you man. I'm your worst enemy. I've got nothing to lose."
The man snapped his fingers, and a guard handed him a black leather case. He unzipped it, revealing an assortment of pliers and other shiny, lethal looking tools.
"That's not exactly true," he said. "You have teeth."
Lily was sitting in a white chair in the cemetery, Ian on her left, and Carrie on her right. She was dressed in all black, and she was wearing her mother's pearl earrings. Tears were pouring silently down her face, Ian was looking at the ground, and Carrie reached across and squeezed Lily's hand, which was resting in her lap, along with a single white rose. The preacher finished his speech, and Lily rose from her seat and placed the rose on Bryan's casket before it was lowered into the ground.
After the funeral, everyone went back to Carrie's for tea. Everyone was sitting in the living room, consoling Bryan's parents, or just talking quietly. But Lily was sitting on the floor in the hallway, by herself.
"Lily?"
Lily looked up at the sound of her name, to see a woman with shoulder length tomato red hair standing above her.
"Amy," Lily breathed, hastening to stand up. Once she was on her feet, they embraced each other. "How's Ian?" Lily asked. She was worried that one of her best friends was almost as heart broken as she was.
"Bryan was his best friend," Amy, who was Ian's sister, said. "I think he'll eventually be okay, but it might take him a few days. The question is how are you?"
"Oh, Amy," Lily said, her eyes filling with tears for what seemed like the millionth time. "I don't know," she said, completely breaking down.
"You will be. Just give it some time."
"I know, it's just, I have no one—family wise—to talk to about this. I mean, Ian has you, and Carrie has her dad…I've got no one."
"Lily Evans, you know that is not true. I know we're not related by blood, and I know I'm not a witch, but you are family. You can talk to me or Ian, or Carrie whenever you need to. Don't forget that."
"Thank you," Lily said, trying to give a strained smile.
"You're welcome," Amy said, hugging her again.
Lily was sitting in a café, sipping a cup of coffee and reading a book. Suddenly a loud beeping noise emitted from her purse. She reached over and pulled a small black box out of her purse. It was a magical beeper, modified to look like a muggle one so it wouldn't attract unwanted attention when Lily was in the muggle world. She looked at the tiny screen and saw that it read: LOQUE-ASAP. Lily sighed and rolled her eyes, slammed her book closed and got up from the table.
She was about to cross the street when she heard her name being called.
"Lily!"
She turned around to see Darian Mason walking towards her.
"How've you been?" she asked, hugging him and smiling.
"How are you? That's more important," he replied, the familiar twinkle in his eye.
"Fine. Better," she said. "Thank you for the flowers by the way, that was sweet."
Mason put on his business face. "Look, Loque's getting impatient. They gave you a month off, it's been almost three."
"I've talked to Loque…"
"Yeah, apparently not to his satisfaction." Mason sighed. "They got word. Rifkin's team is finished building the device. Loque wants it."
"They don't need me for that op," Lily began.
"They say they do," Mason said.
"Tell them to call Walters."
"Walters is dead. We got confirmation Tuesday. Lil, they need you active. If they can't put faith in someone in as deep as you are…they'll fix that problem."
Lily sighed. "I know they sent you here to bring me back. But I'm sorry, I just can't yet," she said, then turned and started down the street.
"Lily!" Mason called, but Lily didn't turn around.
Lily walked two blocks to the parking garage where she had parked her car. She rode the elevator up to the level her car was on, walked out and got in her car. Just as she was about to put on her seat belt, she noticed a tiny red dot snaking up the inside of the car. She glanced to the right where there was a man with his window rolled down, pointing his wand straight at her. Her training took over at this point. She slammed her head onto the passenger seat, a millisecond before the window exploded over her head. She crouched forward, staying below the windows, turned on the ignition, put the vehicle into reverse, and stamped on the gas. She flew backwards out of her parking space but the other vehicle was too fast. It hit the back of her car, pinning her in the space. She launched herself across the passenger seat and opened the door, falling out onto the garage floor on her stomach. She could still her the men blasting spells at her car. She picked up her purse and started running as fast as she could toward the lift. She got there and slammed into the door and began prodding the button as fast as possible, but those agents weren't stupid. The must have put the lift into lockdown.
Lily heard the squealing of tires on the concrete floor and began to run again. She ducked behind a car, unsure of what to do. After all, she wasn't armed, she hardly ever carried her wand when she was out in muggle London; and she was trapped.
Behind the car she heard heavy footfalls. Lily had an idea. The agent was about to turn away from her. She moved from behind the car and hid on the other side. The agent turned away and was about to walk in the opposite direction. That's when Lily struck.
She slid across the hood of the car and delivered a swift kick to the man's torso; he doubled over for a few seconds then reared back up pointing his wand at her. Lily grabbed his arm and brought it down over her shoulder and twisted, forcing the man to release his wand. It clattered to the floor a few feet away.
The man now directed a fierce blow to Lily's cheek, which connected with a heavy force. But Lily turned and elbowed the man in the ribs, but he grabbed her from behind and twisted her arm behind her back and forced her down on the hood of the car. Lily managed to get her left foot up to the man's chest, and used it to push him off of her, and he fell against the door of the next car. She brought her leg up and sharply kicked the man, his head breaking the window and knocking him unconscious. Lily heard more squealing tires, coming up from the level below. She twisted around, grabbed the man's wand from the floor, and turned towards the noise and a black car screeched to a halt in front of her.
"Get in!"
Lily sharply released air. "Daddy?"
The aim of the wand had landed upon Jack Evan's forehead. On the other side of the garage, the sound of a car speeding toward them was heard.
"Now!" he said flinging the door open towards Lily. She grabbed her purse from the floor and got in.
By now the enemy car had found them and was flinging spells at Jack's car. He drove to the end of the row, then cut sharply so the vehicle was facing the opposite direction. He put the car in reverse and hit the gas.
"Hang on!" he yelled.
Lily's mind was reeling. She had been attacked and it was her father that had come to her rescue. But what really threw her was that from the breast pocket of his suit, he brought out a wand.
"Dad, what are you doing?" Lily yelled.
But he put his arm out the window, aimed the wand, and with a hard recoil action, orange sparks bored through the windshield of the enemy car. Finally, the driver was hit, and Jack was at the end of the row. He cut hard and flew out of the way as the other car smashed into the wall.
Jack didn't waste any time. Barely a minute later they were merging onto the busy London streets. Finally, he spoke.
"You have to realize there are going to be a lot of things you won't understand tonight. The first thing you must accept is that the agency doesn't trust you anymore and they're going to kill you unless you do as I say. I work for LRT, just like you. Undercover at Gateway Aerospace."
"You're a wizard?" Lily asked in disbelief, her eyes wide.
"Yes. I've booked you on a muggle plane leaving for France, its safer to use muggle transport, they won't be expecting that. But you'll be red flagged at customs, so I've given you new papers," he said handing Lily a folder with a new passport and a plane ticket inside.
Jack had driven to an empty parking lot on the outskirts of London.
"That car is going to take you to the airport. I have to get back if they're not going to know."
"Who are you?' Lily said coldly.
"Lily, get in that car. They're only waiting three minutes, then they leave, with you or not." Lily grabbed his face and pinched around as though she were checking for a mask. "There is no time for you not to trust me. You don't know who you're dealing with."
"What does that mean?" Lily asked quickly. "Who the hell am I dealing with?"
Jack sighed. "About eleven years ago a pool of agents went freelance. Russian, Chinese, British, American—"
"The Alliance."
"What do you know about them?"
"They're mercenaries, they're a major threat to the magical community, they're dangerous."
"I'm one of them," Jack said, his green eyes boring into Lily's similar ones. "LRT is not a black-ops division of the MSA. LRT is a branch of the Alliance. You've been working for the very enemy you thought you were fighting."
Lily's eyes widened. "That's impossible," Lily breathed.
"Then tell me why you've never been to the main headquarters. You've been lied to. All lower level agents have been lied to. I am trying to help you here."
"So…you're saying that I'm working for the enemy. That you are the enemy."
The car that was to take Lily to the airport revved its engine, getting ready to leave.
"Lily, this is your last chance. You have to go," Jack said as he watched the car begin to drive away.
Lily scowled at him. "Who are you to come to me and act like a father? You want to help me? Stay away from me." And with that Lily jumped out of her father's car and ran down the alley.
"Okay. Let's try one more time. Who do you work for?" Pudgy had Lily's mouth opened wide, and a pair of yankers at the ready.
"Hahughshugh," Lily said. Or at least tried to. The guard who was holding her mouth open removed the device. "I just wanted to say…start with the teeth in the back if you don't mind," Lily said. Her mouth was clamped open again, and soon screams filled the air.
"So then what happened?" Ian Wallace was talking to an old man in the fire with absolutely no hair, but the most absurd mustache he had ever seen. "He dropped a flowerpot on your cat?" Ian repeated, making a note of this on his parchment. Ian was a young staff reporter for the Daily Prophet. He had scruffy blonde hair, and glasses, and was wearing the red plaid shirt Lily always said made him look like a lumberjack. He turned back to the man that he was interviewing. "Did he ever make any threats? To you or your cat." Suddenly, the man burst into tears, effectively putting out the fire and disconnecting himself from Ian.
As Ian turned back to his desk, chuckling, an owl swooped in through an open window and dropped an envelope on Ian's desk. He broke the wax seal, and read a very short note.
Meet me on the roof.
L.
"Meet me on the roof? That was perfect though, you should have seen this bloke I was talking to. So I got like an hour, you want to get some lunch? What happened to your face?" Ian reached up to touch the bruise forming on Lily's cheek. She leaned away from him.
"I can't explain it right now so don't even ask, you just have to trust me," Lily said, looking up at him.
Ian blinked a few times. "Of course."
"I need to borrow one of your sister's credit cards with at least a 3,000 pound limit; I'll pay her back, can you get it?"
"Lil, what is this? You owe someone some money?" Ian asked, now becoming even more concerned.
"There's something else. Do you know where Amy keeps her passport?"
Two hours later Lily emerged from a public restroom, completely unrecognizable. To start off, her hair was a bright tomato red. She wore a black camisole with a black fishnet shirt over top. She had on a red plaid kilt, fishnet tights, and combat boots that reached up to her knees, complete with shiny silver buckles. She also had on a large array of studded bracelets and a dog collar choker, and heavy black makeup around her eyes, and blood red lips. In essence, she looked exactly like Amy.
She was walking through the main terminal at Heathrow. She strutted up to the woman at the desk, and set down her bag. Forcefully.
"One way ticket to Hong Kong, leaving as soon as possible."
The woman set to type on her computer, her long nails clacking away. Muggles were so inefficient.
"We have a flight leaving for Hong Kong in thirty minutes, with a few available seats," she said.
"Good. That will do."
"May I see your passport, please?"
Lily handed over the passport, which the woman opened, looked at the picture, above which read the name Amy L. Wallace. The woman seemed satisfied with the likeness of Lily and the picture, typed the number into her computer, and handed the booklet back to Lily.
"How many bags will you be checking through to Hong Kong?"
"Just this one."
"Window or aisle?"
HONG KONG, CHINA
When Lily arrived in Hong Kong many hours later, she went to the airport bathroom, and changed into black jeans, and a black turtleneck. She left the airport, and walked a few blocks away to a busy restaurant. She went around the back into an alley where a service van was parked. The rest of the alley was empty, so it would have to do.
Because LRT was obviously searching for her, she had to keep her modes of transportation to the inefficient muggle ways, as LRT would least suspect her of using it, and she was less likely to draw attention to herself.
As she didn't have her wand because she wasn't foolish enough to go back to her flat before she left, she pulled a locksmith's set from her pocket and proceeded to pick the lock. Everything could be bought for a price.
Suddenly, a black Jaguar rolled to a stop behind the van Lily was trying to break into. A tall Asian man smoking a cigarette got out and walked past Lily, blowing smoke into her face. Lily scowled.
Lily was driving down the street in the Jaguar, and pulled up in front of a familiar looking building. She scanned the area for guards, and quickly pulled around to the side of the building. She grabbed the things that she needed and jammed a black hat on her head to try and cover the brightness of her hair. She got out of the car and locked it securely.
She ran down the sidewalk a little ways, and took out a large gun. She aimed and pulled the trigger, and a large three-pronged hood exploded out of the end and embedded itself in the wall of the ministry building. She pulled the rope taut and began to climb over the wall. Once she was at the top she dropped silently to the other side. She moved silently and quickly along the dark rows of shrubbery concealing her. She eased out on one side to assess the situation. There were guards patrolling around the one side with no way to the door. Instead she carefully began to scale the outside walls of the building, and made it to the roof.
She took a screwdriver and proceeded to unscrew the top covering of a ventilation shaft. She easily lowered herself into the small shaft, and inched her way down as far as she could go. When she reached the bottom she kicked open the door and climbed out of the shaft.
A lot quicker than she had planned on she made her way to the door in which she broke through to take photographs. She brought out her locksmith's set again and set to work on the lock. Just as she was about to get through, one of the pieces broke and she was stuck outside the door.
"Damn it," she swore. Then everything went black.
Lily groaned. A thick stream of blood was flowing freely from the back of her mouth. She lifted her head and Pudgy was standing in front of her both of his hands behind his back. Lily groaned again.
"The medication I gave you helps the pain. It only lasts for three hours. And it's been three hours almost. Now, I will ask you again, and if you cooperate, you get more. Resist, and we go the other way." He held out both of his hands. In his left hand were the pliers. In the right was a small black bottle.
Lily paused for a moment. "The agency—" she said in a very quiet and hoarse voice.
"Louder," Pudgy commanded.
"I can't," she rasped, near tears.
The torturer leaned in so his face was an inch from Lily's. "Who do you work for, you pretty little girl?"
Lily brought her head back and then forward as hard as she could, head-butting her captor, knocking him backwards. Then, she leaned back as far as she could in the chair and flipped it over on top of the man. She easily slide her hand down into the man's pockets and grabbed his keys, and uncuffed herself from the chair, set it upright, and cuffed Pudgy to it. She picked up his yankers, and brandished them in his face.
"No, nonononono," he sobbed.
Lily stared at him, one side of her face was swollen and there was stream of blood at the corner of her mouth. She jammed the pliers into his stomach and he screamed, causing the guards to come in from the other room.
She pulled a bamboo pole from a pile and snapped it in half against her leg. In less than thirty seconds the two guards lay unconscious on the floor.
As Desmond said, the security teams in the building were muggle, even if it was a magical building. Lily stole their guns, as she didn't have a wand, and headed out the door.
She flew down the stairs not taking any care to be stealthy. She blasted a few shots at the door on her way down the stairway and when she got to the bottom, she crashed it open with a forceful kick.
She made her way into the lab to where the device was the last time she had seen it, though unfinished. It was in a glass case. She grabbed a lab coat and tried to open the lock on the door to the case. No give. She grabbed a fire extinguisher from the wall next to it, and gave the lock a long burst of carbon dioxide, then brought the canister crashing down, breaking off the frozen lock. She opened the door and reached in, but carefully considered what she was about to do. Instead of the two black circles in the pictures Loque showed them, the circles were now stacked on top of each other, with a large green ball rolling freely between them. Lily carefully disconnected the wire that was holding the ball in space. But instead of falling to the ground like a normal ball, it exploded in a splash of colored water. Lily grabbed the device and wrapped it in a lab coat hanging on a hook.
She heard more guards come in and ducked behind the desk. She grabbed her guns from the table and waited. Abruptly, Lily popped up and fired off a few rounds. The guards fired back She popped up again and pulled the triggers only to hear clicking sounds. The guards fired again just as Lily ducked. She was trapped.
Looking around her for something she could use against the guards, Lily spotted a thin metal rod on the edge of the table, and a gas line to a solder torch. She grabbed the rod, wedged it under the pipe and forced it up letting the gas escape into the room. She hunched down behind the desk and crawled out around the other side towards the door. The guards were moving back towards her previous hiding place.
"Hey, guys," she said loudly. The guards saw her and fired, but their bullets hit the wall of invisible gas, causing a huge explosion. But by that time Lily was already out of the building. She had set off an alarm and so in her haste kicked the window of the waiting car and drove off down the street.
LONDON, ENGLAND
"Sir, Agent Evans just arrived," a woman's voice sounded throughout Loque's office at LRT headquarters.
Loque started. "Send her in. NOW!"
Lily was walking through the offices of LRT, and she was getting a lot of stares. She still had blood at the corner of her mouth, she was dressed in black jeans and a black sweater, but most of all, her hair was still a bright, tomato red. She strode confidently to Mr. Loque's office, not looking at anyone. Mason rose out of his chair and stared after her in disbelief.
Lily strode right into Loque's office, setting a bundle on his desk. He looked down and uncovered it, seeing the Rifkin device.
"I'm back," was all Lily said. Her voice was still very hoarse.
"Okay," was all Loque said.
"I'm taking the week off," Lily said. "I'm moving into my new flat."
"That's fine," Loque replied.
Lily was walking down a busy street, looking very out of place in her strange outfit amongst all the muggles in business suits. She entered a towering black building, that no muggles seemed to notice.
She walked up to the front desk, where a woman with a headset was writing something. She finished whatever it was, and tapped it with her wand. It folded itself into a paper airplane and zoomed off down the lobby.
"Can I help you?" she said, eyeing Lily's hair.
"I need to speak to your director, Mr. Kendall," she said quietly.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Kendall isn't available, may I leave a message?" she said officially.
"Tell him…Tell him he has a walk-in," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
The receptionist obviously understood her. She said into her headset, "Rosie, we have a walk-in for Mr. Kendall," she paused and came around the front of the desk. "Come with me, please."
Lily followed her across the large entryway. On the floor there was a huge seal. There was a silver owl on it with a gold shield. On the shield there was a wand and a scroll crossed. Arching over the top were the words MAGICAL SECURITY AGENCY.
A tall, thin man with jet black hair that stood up at all ends was walking though a busy office, a cup of coffee and a sandwich in his hands.
"Hey, Potter, you have that recon debrief—"
"Oh, I know, I'll get to it I swear," he said apologetically, and kept walking.
He opened the door to a large conference room where Lily, still with her crazy red hair was sitting and writing furiously.
"Um, here's some coffee and something to eat, uh, just let Agent Black know if you need anything."
"More ink, this one's empty," she said, dipping her quill then sliding the jar across the table, where it joined three more empty ones. Potter looked at Agent Black, who left in search of more ink.
About an hour later, Lily was sitting in an office, slouched low in the chair. She was staring at a picture of the man who might become her new handler with a pretty blonde woman. Both were smiling and hugging each other close.
Potter walked in and went around the front of his desk, turned the picture frame around as he went.
"Well, this could be very interesting," he said.
"Does that mean I'm in?" Lily said.
"No. Not yet, they're reviewing your statement." He paused. "You wrote a lot."
"I know."
"But I have an instinct, and I know we could use another double agent inside LRT." Lily was shaking her head. "Why are you shaking your head?" he asked.
"Because you said another. And if you really had another, you most likely wouldn't tell me until I was authenticated. My bet is you don't have another double."
"We might—"
"But you want me to believe that you do, so in the off chance that I'm actually looking to be a triple agent, I'll report back that there's an existing mole to upset the balance of my agency."
Potter raised an eyebrow. "I'm not trying to trick you."
"Yeah, we'll see," Lily said scowling. She casually put her hand on her cheek forgetting for a second that it was tender. She flinched.
Potter noticed this. "You need to get that looked at by a Healer," he said concernedly. "If you want I can have you checked out before you leave."
"I'm alright."
"I'm going to get you a ride out of here to keep you concealed. I'll be right back." He got up and left.
Lily was back in the cemetery, a bunch of flowers in her hand. Her hair was now back to its normal dark redness, her face was makeupless, and she was wearing jeans and a t-shirt. She walked up to Bryan's gravestone and crouched down, placing the flowers on top. She stared at it for a few moments and sighed. Then she heard something behind her. She turned around to see her father walking towards her.
"I wanted to say I was sorry," he said.
"You don't have to. I'm back at work, I guess you know that."
"I meant sorry about Bryan. There was nothing I could do," he said, and it sounded as though he really was sorry, but the man hid the truth about himself from Lily her entire life, and she wasn't exactly about to go ahead and believe him.
"I'd like to be alone if you don't mind," she said bluntly.
"I know what its like to lose someone—"
Lily turned towards him with a hard expression on her face. "Look, I don't know what you expect. Just because we're working together. Just because I know the truth about you now…it doesn't change a thing between us. I accept what I'm doing now because I have no other choice. It doesn't mean I have to accept you."
Jack sighed and came forward. "I asked Kendall if I could come and tell you myself. They verified your statement. You're in." Lily stared at him.
"You're MSA," Lily said in half awe, half disbelief.
"You don't know how dangerous this is, Lily. Doing what I do. I almost wish you had taken me up on France."
"How do I know what you're telling me is the truth?" Lily asked, her eyes hardening.
"I guess we'll just have to learn to trust each other," he said and he walked away, got in his car, and drove off.