From The Ashes Chapter 17: 17: Do You Believe in Fate?, a sakura wars fanfic

Author's Note: I'm creating another inconsistency. I'm taking a lot of scenes from the TV series, including the previous chapter's scene of Maria shooting Valentinov in the alley with a dead guy half in and half out of an open door. Since I cannot resolve Maria being able to hang around from late March to early June without serious bodily harm after having pissed off most of the New York Mafia, I'm going to speed things up a bit. Hence, if you recognize a piece from TV where the bottom of the screen said "June 1921" and I say it's still March, that's why.

Rating: PG-13/R – VERY strong language

"FROM THE ASHES" – Do You Believe In Fate?

Joseph Ignazio opened his apartment door.

"Jesus Christ!"

Valentinov was slumped back against the banister, gripping his right arm and profusely bleeding on Joseph's beautiful oriental hall rug. Joseph grabbed Valentinov's left shoulder and hauled him inside his apartment, slamming the door behind them.

"What the holy hell happened?"

"Maria…" Valentinov panted, "…found us… don't… know how…"

"And Patrick?"

"Dead."

"Holy shit… holy shit… this is bad…"

Valentinov collapsed onto Joseph's leather couch, and Joseph was too distressed to worry about blood on his furniture.

"Where's his body?"

Valentinov panted. "Joseph… my arm…! Had to leave him… can nyet move my arm…"

"We gotta get him," Joseph ignored Valentinov. "Come on."

"Bozhe moy, Joseph!" Valentinov yelped, disbelieving Joseph's priorities as the Italian man dragged him to his feet. "My arm!"

Joseph stared at him for a moment, as if only now just appreciating fully the poor state of Valentinov's health. "She shot you?"

Valentinov gaped. "YES!"

"Okay. Look. All right. We don't have time to get you taken care of first. It's seven o'clock. We gotta deal with a corpse. Then we gotta warn Lupo if we can catch him in time. Shit… holy shit… do you think she knows about the setup?"

"Da, that is why sh-- oh. Nyet. She knows about setup in Moscow. Not about restaurant."

Joseph exhaled a bit in relief. "Are you sure?"

"Da."

"All right. Here." Joseph went to his linen closet and pulled out a sheet. He flipped open a switchblade to start a tear in the fabric, then ripped off a long swath. "Get your coat off. Leave it here. There's too much blood. Jesus Christ, Valentinov, is any of this blood Patrick's?"

Valentinov shook his head, dazedly, as he shrugged out of his coat. Joseph hissed at the location of the bullet hole. That was either major artery, or bone, or both. Valentinov didn't have much chance of saving his gun arm. The Kazuar had effectively permanently disarmed him.

Quickly, Joseph wrapped the Russian's arm, cutting three more swaths of fabric before even staunching the bleeding. Then he twisted the last length of fabric and wrapped it around Valentinov's upper arm, above the wound.

Valentinov's eyes widened in fear. "What are you doing?"

"Keeping you from bleeding to death." Joseph grabbed his pipe from the coffee table and gave it a solid whack on the counter, breaking off the bowl end. He tied the shaft of the pipe into the knot of the bandaging and started to turn it.

As the tourniquet tightened, Valentinov squeezed his eyes closed and gritted his teeth, his steadying hand on Joseph's shoulder becoming powerful enough to cause pain.

Joseph tied it off on the tight side, and Valentinov was anxiously awaiting the part where numbness would stop the pain. Joseph went to get Valentinov another coat, and Valentinov took several long pulls from the flask he kept in his jacket, careful not to drink too much. With the amount of blood he'd lost, it would not take much alcohol to disorient him.

"All right," Joseph opened the door for Valentinov. "Show me."

Vincenzo Luna stopped in the alley and covered his mouth with his hand.

This had to be Maria's work, though he found himself not wanting to think that.

It was dark, but the back door of the Douglas-Stewart Building stood open, the dying embers of the incinerator throwing enough light to reveal a lot of blood in the alley. The snow had started to cover the tracks, but not enough. There were two distinct pools of blood, and two distinct pairs of footprints getting up and walking away.

For a moment, he feared that Maria had been wounded, but her boot tracks, a third set, the ones with the narrowed toe and slight heel, never stumbled, never fell, had no blood near them, and walked calmly out of the alley.

At least she hadn't killed anyone.

Vincenzo glanced warily down the alley and then decided to clean up for her, before anyone with more brass than Vincenzo could get here and try to make heads or tails of what had happened.

Inside the incinerator room was a utility sink and several fire buckets. Vincenzo filled one and went to the incinerator. From what had not burned, he recognized an empty picture frame, some women's clothing, a hairbrush missing its boar's hair bristles from the fire… These were Maria's things, he'd seen her wear that blue shirt…

Nothing was salvagable. They'd burned everything she owned. He threw a bucket of water into the incinerator and doused it.

Within five minutes, Vincenzo had the entire alley rinsed of blood, footprints and snow, and slowly re-freezing in the late March cold.

Then he continued on his earlier errand – catching his mother alone and without customers for five minutes.

"Right here," Joseph told the taxi driver and opened the door even before the steam-powered automobile had rolled fully to a stop.

He and Valentinov stepped out in front of the Douglas-Stewart Building. Joseph paid the driver for his time and silence, then looked to Valentinov as the taxi trundled away.

"In back," Valentinov hissed through pain-clenched teeth, cradling his wounded arm. He lead Joseph around the building to an alley that turned a corner along the back. Two steps into the back alley, Valentinov paused and said, "Careful—"

…just as Joseph slipped, flailed, and regained his balance on wet, slushy ice.

Valentinov's jaw fell open. "Gone…"

"Gone?" Joseph tread more carefully into the alley, toward the back door of the incinerator room. "Whaddaya mean 'gone?'"

"I mean," Valentinov vollowed Joseph across the ice with considerable ease, "Is everything gone." Valentinov stopped to turn the knob on the door. It was locked. "He was here. Right here."

"So where did he go? You said he was dead."

"Was. Am certain of it." Valentinov looked at the ice that coated the alley. "Someone cleaned whole area. Someone take body, and…" he gestured away with both hands, "wash out street."

"Alley," Joseph corrected. "Someone cleaned up the crime scene? Who, the girl?"

Valentinov shrugged. "Do nyet think so. She walk out, leave us both there. Too angry to think of consequence. But here…" he pointed at the ground, "was lot of blood. Snow…"

He blinked and knelt down, picking up a small metal object. "Bullets."

Valentinov dropped the item into Joseph's open palm. This was not a bullet shell. Only two rounds were fired, and the Kazuar did not empty her cartridge here. This was a fired bullet. And it had struck something – or, by the traces on it, someone. Joseph looked at Valentinov's arm. There was no chance of the bullet having come out of his arm. This must have been the one that hit Patrick. Wherever he was.

Joseph regarded the bullet in his palm blankly. Slowly he was losing the ability to contain his rage. His fingers tremblingly closed into a fist around the bullet. With a growl of fury, his fist connected with the solid oak door to the incinerator room.

"DAMN HER!"

"Well, well, this is very interesting news," Brent Furlong sat at his desk in his penthouse home uptown. "Thank you for coming out so late, Mr. Hayes."

Brent's secretary waved it off. "No trouble at all, Mr. Furlong. I'm just glad we found out so soon. I think I know the restaurant, sir."

"Oh, do you? Hm… then we've still a chance. Those buffoons I call my investors would do away with her, wouldn't they?"

"That's what my contact says the plan is, same as the other Russian guy."

"Tch. How wasteful. We can count our blessings that the economy is not run by the New York Mafia."

"Yes, sir."

"What time is doomsday for our little protégé, Mr. Hayes?"

"She's scheduled to meet Vinnie Lupo for dinner at 9:00. Her orders are to negotiate a temporary cease-fire, even if it's a hostile one, with his gang. She doesn't know about the contracts with Douglas-Stewart."

"Good. And Mr. Lupo intends to shoot her under the table? How barbaric…"

"Oh, no. If he did that, there'd be witnesses. It'd be hard to look innocent. Lupo's reserved a table on the balcony overlooking the harbour. He's got a sniper in the old tenement hall next door. Nine-thirty is his time."

"Ah. Shows some forethought at least. Well, Mr. Hayes," Brent took out his pocketwatch and flipped it open. "She has two hours to live. Unless you get yourself to that restaurant so that we can save two very talented souls today."

"You got it, boss. Here's the hotel, by the way," he dropped a business card on Furlong's desk, and headed for the door.

"Oh, and Mr. Hayes?"

He turned back, his hand still on the doorknob.

"How is our good friend Patrick enjoying my gift of… assistance… to him?"

"He was real surprised, Mr. Furlong. But he's improving in his studies now."

"Excellent."

"I'm very sorry to inform you of this, Mr. Valentinov," the doctor closed the door gently behind him. The room they were in was dim and sterile, like every hospital Valentinov had ever been in. Valentinov was sitting o the bed, still cradling his immoble right arm. The nurses had bandaged it better, but there was only so much they could do.

The doctor shook his head, "The bullet shattered the bone and tore a major artery. Mr. Valentinov, there is simply nothing we can do. We cannot save the arm. Even if it had never been wrapped with a tourniquet, we could not have salvaged it."

Something about the cold, steel, emotionless look in the Russian officer's eyes was very unsettling. The silence became too uncomfortable for the doctor. "I-Isn't there anything you can tell me about your shooter, Mr. Valentinov, before we bring you into surgery? Anything we can tell to the police? At least we can bring the criminal to justice…"

"Nyet."

"Yes. Well. Again, I am sorry. A nurse will be with you shortly, to bring you a medical robe and bring you into surgery. …are you sure you don't want to speak to the police?"

"I will take care of it," Valentinov's voice was measured, fiercely restrained. The doctor nodded and softly closed the doors behind him as he left.