A/N: Hello! Sorry for the radio silence! I'm back though, on and off. I'd like to thank the readers who stuck with me! Here's the eighth chapter, and unfortunately, it is gory. I know I have it marked as an adult story, but there are graphic details, so be careful while you read.
As always, comments and criticism are welcomed, enjoyed, and read! Thank you again and enjoy!
Aquarian Wings
By A.R. Taloff
"I need your help to get up from my knees,
Cause I can't seem to see the forest for the trees,
And as I wait in my darkened misery,
All I'm asking is please."
Chapter Eight: Fear is Essential
Wu Fei led the procession, with the exception of Aramis and Aquarius, up to Lady Une's Mannheim office.
The office, which was really just one of the larger storage rooms hastily turned into a minor habitat for the workaholic, was surprisingly homey, smelling of potpourri and good coffee. Heero had decided, after his first visit to the office, to find her secretary and congratulate the woman. She must've taken house care classes. Lady had to be the biggest slob in the entire outfit.
The office consisted of three tables, two desks, one computer, one laptop, four phones, two coffee makers, a couch and two chairs, a fridge which probably, Heero thought, held the coffee, a microwave, and desk and supplies for her secretary.
It was particularly sad to see that every available space was covered with papers.
Abigail June was standing in front of the double doors to Lady's office with her jaw hanging open. At the ping of an elevator, she spun around, ready to berate her boss for the hurricane of papers. Lady walked out, saw Abby, and nearly about-faced to run back to the elevator.
There was something about Abby June that gave on-lookers the idea that she was cute and perky and small and very compliant. Perhaps it was her tiny, 4'9" frame, or her strawberry blonde hair that was always pulled back in a chic coif with little whispy things, or her baby powder perfume, or her little business suits with scarves and pins.
Unfortunately for Lady Une, Abby had a personality of steel and knew secretarial work inside and out. Lady had thought she hired a pretty little flower four years ago, yet now the pretty little flower description was laughable. Abby was intelligent but felt that Lady
needed a keeper and mother as well; she was always butting into personal matters and taking the reins over Lady's head. Nosey obnoxious nanny was the new description.
Heero found the entire scene of Abby biting Lady's head off hilarious, particularly the part where Abby locked Une out of the office and told her that the wreckage might harm one of the Agents. Until Abby was finished straightening everything out, Lady could take the meeting somewhere else. So now they were in the small area outside the office, waiting patiently for Abby to finish. Lady paced the floors, threatening the pert little blonde with firing squads and court-martialing and unemployment lines and the like, while Heero, Relena, Midii, Wu Fei, Quatre, Dorothy, Zechs, Trowa, and Noin watched.
Finally Abby opened the doors and threw out a garbage bag, then another, and then stepped out herself, smiling a thousand Watt-er. "You may go in now, Ms. Une. It's a pleasure to see you all this lovely morning. There is fresh coffee and Danish on the table."
Lady never ceased to be afraid and surprised by her secretary. Christ, the woman was a Schizo.
Heero took a seat on a chair and pulled Relena down on his lap, much to her delight and outward consternation.
Trowa looked around the now pristine office. "You know, I wouldn't want to get her really mad, Lady, she just might whip out a lemony fresh AK-47 or a gardenia-spritzed grenade and kill us all."
"Shut-up, Bloom, or I'll take the liberty myself."
Lady ran a hand through her hair and sighed softly. "The assassin isn't the perp."
Quatre frowned and slashed down with his arm and hand. "No way. Hilde killed him last night. We all heard."
Wu Fei flared up at that. "Lady's right, the perp wasn't the assassin. We all know that he works together with someone else. No way in hell could he have gotten from Pastorale to the parking lot in a matter of seconds. Besides-"
Midii stepped forward between the two, who continued the argument. "Hey, guys, calm-oof!" she grunted as Wu Fei came up behind and just ran right smack into her. She glared and elbowed the Chinese man back, then reached up and grabbed Winner's face, making the platinum blond's lips purse out like a fish. "HEY!" she shouted, a little louder than was probably necessary.
The two shut up and stared down. Midii felt like a midget at 5'1", quashed between Wu Fei, who was 5'8" and Quatre, who'd shot up like a nasty weed and leveled at 6'1". She remembered the good old days of them both being blonde squirts together, but now, well, she just wished some of Dorothy's Amazonian height would rub off.
Dorothy laughed at Quatre's disgusted and surprised fish face and Wu Fei apologized, rubbing his side.
Midii released the blond's face and smiled. "Sorry, you guys need to shut up and cool down."
Quatre rubbed his jaw and looked sheepish. "It's I who should apologize, Wu Fei,Midii, I'm sorry. We're all a little disoriented and I just forgot it, that's all."
Trowa grinned as Midii nodded and gave him a hug. That seemed to neutralize all tension.
Lady continued after they situated themselves on the various chairs and couches. "The perp, as I said, isn't the man who was killed last night, but for whatever reason, Wu Fei magically knew that." She shot the agent a questioning look. "Care to share who your inside source is, Chang?"
Wu Fei closed his eyes, seeing blood and tears all over again. "Duo Maxwell."
Everyone zeroed in on Wu Fei.
He sighed and shook his head. "I'm not crazy, I haven't been talking to God. Duo regained consciousness before finally passing away. He told me to watch over you all and mentioned Relena and Heero, as well as Aramis. His last words, besides saying that Sylvia was calling for him, were that I should kill the 'Stone Eyes.'"
Lady gave Wu Fei a quizzical look. "Chang, I've read those reports, no one . . ."
"Read them again Lady, my report includes Duo waking up and speaking to me. I didn't write down what he said, but I think you can understand how I wouldn't forget the last thing someone spoke to me."
Lady's cheeks burned red. "But-"
Heero leaned forward in the chair. "Why didn't you tell anyone, man?"
Wu Fei looked up. "Because, I didn't know what to tell you all. We were all upset, and I knew that telling you what Duo looked like as he died wasn't a happier thought. It never really occurred to me that you should know. I knew that you'd believe me when we caught the perp, but we haven't."
Dorothy shook her head softly and crossed her arms across her chest. "But you've seen that the perp doesn't do things himself, at least not jobs that could get him killed."
"The perp wasn't the perp until he murdered Duo," Relena said quietly, and everyone nodded slowly in agreement. "He probably didn't go to Mars himself, no, because it would be too much fun to see if we made an appearance. He knows we're hiding in Mannheim."
"He knew damn well that missing us would be a bigger travesty than missing Hilde. What's better, the errant goose or your pick of the flock . . ." noted Trowa with a touch of anger in his voice.
"He wants my blood," was Relena's whispered response.
Heero's lips tightened. "Lady, what happened that led you to think that he wasn't the assassin?"
Une picked up an unmarked letter. "He left us a little note this morning. A young man, Thomas Herzmeier, was the unlucky one to find the letter. He was dealt a deadly wound in the head for picking it up."
Lady picked up her cup of coffee and leaned against the desk. "Why don't you all look at it." She tossed the piece of paper on the coffee table, which was now devoid of the stacks of books and files and coffee cups with variant levels of black liquid in them.
Quatre took a Kleenex and grabbed the letter. It wasn't very long or detailed.
Just a score card really.
Under the title 'Me' were ten little tally marks. Under 'You' was one lonely tally.
"Fucker!" shouted Quatre. "Who the fuck keeps a score of the dead!" He sent it to the table again, where everyone took a glance at the macabre letter.
Dorothy grabbed him and gently held him in her arms.
Midii held it up and counted off the names. "Duo, Sylvia, Relena's housekeeper, baby Winner . . ."
Quatre growled and turned on Midii. "Just fuckin' wave it around some more, why don't you!"
Trowa slipped in front of Midii, who hadn't cowered at the violence that sprung up in Quatre. He placed a hand on his brother's shoulder. "Quatre, she doesn't mean it badly. Calm down, your nerves are twitching."
Quatre looked very tired and strained, and everyone knew that he'd been wandering the halls at night. He turned and looked at Dorothy, who nodded. He sighed in concession."Dorothy, take me to our room. I need some sleep." Quatre, the most austere and brilliant businessmen of his time walked out the door, looking as though he had nothing.
When it clicked behind the Winner millionaire's exit, Trowa looked at Dorothy. "Put some sleeping meds in his tea. He's unstable and tired, and he'll do anything."
Dorothy looked down at the ground.
Zechs glared at her. "Do it, or you'll lose him for good."
Her head whipped up and she looked at him for a long minute, nodded, and left.
Lady looked at the ceiling. "We're soft. You're soft. It's pathetic. This creep knows how to hit us in the right spots. I just wish he'd get to the end of this game, before we all go stark raving mad. Quatre's about ready to commit suicide, Aquarius is becoming Schizophrenic, I'm becoming the world class, gold medal bitch, Dorothy is stressed out and becoming an insomniac, Zechs is getting ulcers, and Wu Fei is going to go vigilante on our asses."
Midii's lips quirked up and she started to laugh.
Relena and Heero started to giggle, and soon the entire room was laughing.
When they sobered, Midii looked at her fingers and the letter. "I still only have seven. "
Noin looked at her and did the math in her head. "She's right. Duo, Sylvia, Relena's housekeeper, baby Winner, Hilde, Howard, and Gavin."
Lady nodded, the realization breaking through. "He probably added the person who would pick the letter up."
They nodded.
"Only eight though."
Heero nearly jumped out of his seat. "He's killed again."
Deaths 1 and 2
Duo's body was splayed out on the concrete, one pinpoint shot in his forehead, three in his chest. Blood and some brain matter covered his once pristine white shirt and black tux. His tie, still not made, was in his hand. Sylvia had been shot first, which accounted for the cerebral material on his shirt. The blood was mostly his though.
Sylvia's head was tilted, facing him. The entirety of the back of her head was gone, in fact, only a tiny bit of her hair was still left. Her face was like the mask that you wear to a party; it was all that was left of her skull. She had been shot five times, twice in the head and three times in the chest, blowing out most of her internal organs. The perp had used two weapons, a very nice pinpoint Beretta and a very old and decrepit revolver.
The nice, pinpoint Beretta had only used two bullets, while the revolver had used eight. He had had to reload.
Their white cheerful door, with its flowered wreath, was covered with their blood and brain matter. The wooden floor was dyed with blood, as was the welcome mat and some of the foyer mirror.
Blood stained the sidewalk and grass.
Death 3
Mrs. Johnson lay on the wooden floor of Relena's Europa mansion dining room.
Her brain matter covered the walls along with blood and what was left of a thousand dollar collection of ancient Andrew Wyeth prints. Her face, or what was left of it, still had the horror and pain of becoming a victim engraved in it. The body was covered in glass shards, which caused some minor injury, but by the time she hit the floor, she was dead.
Her clean white apron and pastel dress were completely drenched in her blood. The floor was also stained.
Death 4
Baby Winner had been crushed in his mother's womb when the car hit her head on. His entire body was flattened. Dorothy Victoria Marie Catalonia-Raberba Winner's uterine walls needed healing time; the blood was only that which had recently built up to perform the normal protection of the baby while it remained in her womb. Fertility and ability to bear children in the future are not a worry.
Deaths 5, 6, and 7
Gavin and the cat, Cheshire obviously not counted by tallies had first been both shot in the stomach with one bullet. The cat had been then shot in the head, and then Gavin was also given that solace. The assassin had waited though, to put Gavin out of misery.
Then both had been hit with two other shots.
Howard had been shot in the back of the head, leaving no trace of his face at all. Brain matter and blood covered his current book, Utopia, and most of his desk in the library, particularly a picture of himself and his wife, Sandra.
Hilde had been shot only once, in the forehead. Her brain matter and blood covered the monitor of her computer and desk.
The assassin's blood covered the ground and Aubusson carpet. He had been hit in the jugular with Hilde's letter opener. He had lived for a few minutes and then died as it went through his spinal cord upon hitting the floor.
Death 8
Thomas Herzmeier's body was splayed about the steps of the Preventers Mannheim Headquarters. One bullet went neatly through the back of his head and another through his heart.
Wu Fei read the reports to Relena, Heero, Noin, Zechs, and Trowa. Midii had been called to Quatre and Dorothy's room and then to check up on Aramis and Aquarius, who were in Aquarius's room.
Lady Une was checking her sources for the last two deaths, as Wu Fei and the others went through the perp files and tried to find out if there was a method.
So far, Relena had only begun to realize how hardened Trowa, Wu Fei, Quatre, Zechs, and Heero had become. How solid Dorothy, Lady, and Noin must be, and how difficult it must have been for Hilde to give up. It was a painful realization, she found, at how easily they all could detach themselves from the dead.
Heero had pulled her away before he and she had entered the private and high security room.
"Relena, you're going to be seeing and hearing a lot of classified information." He sighed and looked away at her quirked eyebrow and look, which said, "Duh".
"What I mean is that you're going to be seeing multiple, not just one or two, pictures of the deaths of everyone who has been killed." He looked at the linoleum and took a deep breath. "You'll see Duo and Sylvia and your nanny and everyone. It's still not that easy for us, mercenaries and the like, to look at these pictures. The best way is to pretend that you haven't ever seen these people. That there are no memories of anything.If you need to leave, it'll be all right."
Relena knew that he was worried she'd get mad for him saying this. It was very obvious between the look on his face and the words from his lips. She slid her fingers under his jaw and tilted his face up to look at her. "I know."
So here she sat, staring at slide after slide of their final photos. It was hard not to break down into tears, particularly when baby Winner had been shown. It was heinous, she thought, for them to put the scans of the baby up there for everyone to see. She knew that these files would be kept away from Quatre and Dorothy because of the effect that they would have on the couple.
It was harder to see poor Thomas Herzmeier, who was someone's son, husband, father.
Someone who was innocent and unknowing.
All through it, Heero's hand had held hers, offering what little comfort it could.
Relena's heart sank when Duo and Sylvia had been shown.
She'd never seen them, even at the funeral; their coffins had been sealed. It was no wonder why. Aramis could only have been hurt by seeing them, Hilde only destroyed.
And it was all revenge.
Against her. Someone wanted her dead, very quickly. How she ended up that way didn't matter.
Quatre and Dorothy had talked and held on to one another. Quatre had listened to Dorothy talk about her pain and fear, how worried she was for him, and realized he'd been selfish to think only of his own pain. He'd held her tight and fallen into deep slumber, no longer worried that he was the only one who hurt, or the only one who had to worry.
Dorothy fell into her own dreamless sleep when Quatre's eyes drifted closed and his breath became even and shallow. Her own worries about losing him drifted far away and the post-partum depression ebbed, at least a little.
Aramis and Aquarius blew bubbles and listened to the recording of Christmas carols, talking in quiet voices about their pasts and what they wanted in the future. They talked about memories of Hilde and Gavin and Howard. How they liked their eggs and
what they wanted their houses to look like.
Aramis noticed that Aquarius loved Relena and she knew she was loved, and Aquarius realized that Aramis loved both of his fathers.
They knew that they'd be friends forever, no matter what.
Wu Fei told Kai Ling, who was still recovering from surgery to her thigh, aboutthe day, and she whispered comforting words to him. He realized that he loved her very much then. More than he loved his job, more than he loved martial arts. He didn't know what to do about it, except be there for her.
Lady Une twirled the golden ring on her finger. Most people thought she had put it there to ward off males. Others said it was because she was married to her job.
Noin and Zechs knew it was from Treize.
She had loved him, and he, her. Perhaps, had he lived, they would've had their wedding, but he hadn't.
They had discussed the wedding without Lady even knowing about it. He hadasked her what she wanted in her future wedding. She had told him that such a thing would never occur, but somehow, in the way the he always did, Treize had finally gotten it out of her. She wanted roses, white ones, with tiny veins of pink. Beautiful roses and awhite satin gown. The old fashioned kinds with high lace necks and cameos.
Treize never laughed at her, only listened with serious eyes that never left her face.
During the wait, before any of the fighting had happened, Treize had contacted her through virtual screen. She remembered his face then, serious and sad. A little bit of happiness was in his smile, though.
"Lady, I know you wanted a beautiful wedding, but I might not make it through this. You are one of the only people who understands me, the only one I've had eyes for since Leia's death. I know very well that this may come as a shock, but I hope you'll honor me."
Lady had never felt that before - an inability to speak or even form a coherent thought.
Treize laughed, and she smiled.
He leaned as close as the cock-pit would allow. "I do. With all my heart and love."
Lady and smiled, wiping the only tears she had cried since childhood, nodded, and said, "I do, with all my heart as well."
Treize had dispatched his army and died.
Lady spun the ring a bit more. Treize, I wish you were here, my love. So much is changing.
She looked at his picture, the only picture she kept on her desk because ofconfidential reasons. It was a picture of him when they walked in the rose garden for the last time. He had brought the camera, taken many pictures of her, and asked that she take some of them together and him alone.
He smiled at her, with an unadulterated, unknowing happiness.
My love . . .
Death 9
Abdul, one of Quatre Rabaerba Winner's private guards went out to get the mail and died as a bullet ripped through his lungs and left an exit hole about the size of a medium pizza. He died two seconds after impact. Lung matter and blood decorated the statue of Venus, the Goddess of Love.
Death 10
Marian, Heero's nanny and Household Chief, was killed while gardening. A bullet through the back of the head left her face, blood, and brain tissue splattered on the squash and yams.
