Chapter 6

Shots

As I exited the building, I stumbled into Sergeant Haren and Officer Azel.

"Captain – glad you're okay! We wanted to ask the Major to take back your suspension and as we arrived, we saw flames coming out of the window of his office. The fire fighter brigade should be here any minute, now." Azel informed me and then studied me sceptically:

"Why do you have half a handcuff on, Captain? Have you been drinking again?"

"I could ask about your arm, as well," I replied dryly, pointing at his bandaged arm in the sling. "You should be in the hospital."

"The kid was worried about that Serina woman. And about you, Captain. There was nothin' I could do to stop him, although I would have given 'im a beating if he wasn't already hurt…" Haren grumbled.

"He was right to be worried …" In the distance, I heard police sirens and wondered if they had already found Roxy's body. "Hugo shot a member of the Yason with my weapon. I guess I'm wanted for murder now."

It took my companions some seconds to digest what I had told them. "The Major did what?" Azel finally asked.

"He was collaborating with Yason all this time and is just about to kill another person who could accuse him of it. I have to save Serina."

"Get in the car, Captain. I'll help." Haren snarled.

"You believe me?"

Haren grunted. "Captain, in this city there's about two things I do trust. The first is my fist and the second is you." His answer surprised me – I had always thought that he held a grudge against my decisions.

"Thanks, but I cannot allow you to accompany me. If something goes wrong, I don't want to have your lives on my conscience. If you can take care of things here, it's more than enough help for me."

"I agree that Azel can stay here, but I'll hear nothin' about staying behind." Haren insisted. "Let's kick some Yason butt! I'll drive. Where to?"

"The Venus Fly Club for one last time."

"I'll try to get some backup for you!" Azel saluted as best as he could with his hurt arm before me.

"Yeah, of course…" Haren and I exchanged a knowing glance – the young officer still did not understand how Notia worked and that something like a "backup" did not exist.

xxx

Like I had expected, The Venus Fly Trap was closed – it seemed that Hugo and Carian needed the building for themselves this day. Although Haren protested at first, I finally could convince him that it was better if he was waiting in the car in case I had to make a quick escape.

"Don't get yourself killed in there, Captain."

I grinned. "Certainly not."

At least not before I had gotten my hands on Agreian.

I crept around the building until I had reached the back entrance. It was no real surprise to me that the door was only secured with a simple lock – no one would be mad enough to enter a Yason hideout anyway.

No one except for me.

It had started to rain heavily again and for once the watery drops were my friends, since they drained the noise I made as I destroyed the lock with some well positioned hits of my gun handle, enabling me to slip into the building unnoticed.

The dark corridors were unnaturally quiet. I followed them for some time, until I heard voices out of the direction of one of the great saloons.

"Who else knows about my identity?" It was clearly Hugo's voice. "Not even the late Ice Queen knew…"

"It was just me, Orha and Roxy. And now Mano…" I could hear Serina's sobbing. "What did you do to him?"

"The same we did to Orha and will do to you if you don't speak, you stupid cow!" It was Carian's voice. Serina's sobbing got louder – I wondered if she was crying for Orha, for herself, or for me…

I heard dimly two other male voices – that meant that all in all at least four Yason were in the room. I checked the ammunition in Orha's gun, cursing myself that I hadn't done it sooner and cursing even more as I found out that there were only four bullets left. It seemed that I just had to hope then that my calculation about the amount of Yason in the room had been correct.

I was about to leave my hiding spot and storm into the room when I saw something metallic glittering in the air next to me.

My body rolled sideways just in time before the blade hit me – and stared right into the twisted features of Azhadi, his eyes white and hideous in the dark corridor… For a moment I considered taking him on without my weapon, but the two knives he wielded were in certain advantage against my fists… Using the gun would drag the attention of the other Yason to me, though – if I hadn't gotten it already, anyway.

Azhadi was so nice to take the choice from me by lunging at me with a hiss.

I fired my gun once at him, but like a slippery fish he rolled to the side and the bullet only scraped him.

I shot again, this time hitting him in the shoulder, but still he was on all fours again only seconds later, crawling towards me like a wild animal. I heard shouting from the saloon – and knew that I had to end this if I wanted to have the chance to face Hugo.

I pulled the trigger a third time, this time hitting the ugly Yason right in the upper body. He fell back with a mangled cry, his eyes rolling backwards – even death could not take the distortion out of his mad features.

I knew that I had no time to lose if I still wanted to have the advantage of a surprise attack and stormed into the saloon, cursing that I spent three bullets on Azhadi. Then, I realized that even these would have not helped – the room contained next to Hugo and Carian not two, but at least six Turibo. It seemed that Carian had brought her whole bodyguard brigade with her.

"Mano…" Serina and Agreian exclaimed nearly at the same time – she was the only one who sounded pleasantly surprised, though.

"Sorry to interrupt your little party!" Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that some of the Turibo had already reached for their weapons – the situation I was in was nowhere near "good".

In fact it was also nowhere near "bad", but just plain hopeless.

Hugo seemed to know that, as well, since he didn't bother to grab for his weapon but was studying me calmly. "Well, Mano – what a surprise. Or not. We were in such a hurry in the department – were there any last words you wanted to tell me?"

Indeed I had one last thing to pass on to him:

"Why don't you greet Reith together with me?" I raised Orha's gun. "In hell!" Hugo's eyes widened with surprise as I pulled the trigger. The bullet hit him in the forehead, throwing him backwards. He was dead, immediately.

"That was your last move."Carian pointed a little golden pistol at me – she was a whore, but she surely had style. I shrugged with my shoulders – I had gotten the boss and did not care much for the rest. I regretted, though, that I hadn't been able to save Serina. Despite her betrayal she had not deserved death – she had just been a puppet in a grander scheme of things. I looked at her, one last time. She was standing in a corner of the room, her face tear-stained, looking at me full of worry, and I gave her a nearly apologizing smile.

"Don't worry – she will follow you soon." Carian's eyes narrowed as she aimed at my head. "You will pay now for killing Agreian. Someone get Azhadi! I'm sure he wants to see this–"

"The clown is dead. Dead like you if you don't let that damn weapon drop, woman!"

"What?" Both my and Carian's head shot in the direction of the voice.

"Drop the weapon – and ya others don't move!" Haren repeated the order. "We 'ave the building surrounded…" Behind him, several armed cops stormed the room – some Turibo tried to fire their gun or to flee, but were too outnumbered to act.

Carian's nostrils flared and her outstretched arm was shaking – obviously she did not know what to do. I helped her in her decision by taking the weapon from her.

"Captain – thank god you and Miss Serina are alright!" I turned around to face Officer Azel, who had entered the saloon, his face a bit pale, but otherwise in good spirits.

"How–" I did not have to finish the question – my look seemed to say everything.

"You are not the only one willing to fight the Yason, Captain." Azel exclaimed with pride. "I informed some colleagues from the academy that you were in trouble – you have more admirers than you think. I lied, though, and told them that the whole responsibility for the mission was lying on Major Agreian's shoulders." He smiled sheepishly, although his smile vanished as he became aware of the dead man on the floor.

"In fact, the Major was responsible for the whole mission – only in another way than he should have been…" I took one last glance at my once best friend and to my surprise felt not disgust, but only pity upon looking at him. I strongly believed that in the beginning, Hugo had truly fought for justice and peace, but in the end he had succumbed to the one thing he had been fighting against: corruption. His dead, fixed stare still had a look of surprise– he probably hadn't believed until the end that I would shoot him.

Hugo Agreian had died like he had lived.

Sadly.

"Captain, what should we do about Mrs Lora and the others?" Azel's voice reminded me that now, I was the highest ranking cop in the room.

"Take them away. As for Miss Serina – I see nothing we can accuse her of, but I'm sure that she will be an invaluable asset in clearing the circumstances of Roxy's death and the involvement of Major Agreian in the Yason's crimes." I did not look at her while speaking.

"You'll let the sister of the late Ice Queen get away? She is her successor!" Carian spat.

"I doubt that she will take that place – and even if she did, I'm sure that she would fulfil Reith's wish and take up further negotiations with the government, again. Negotiations you, Azhadi and Hugo tried to stop by killing Mr. Astal. I'm sure that many members of the Yason will be quite interested in the fact that you three assassinated the last Ice Queen and tried to take over the power…"

With satisfaction, I saw that Carian's arrogant expression crumbled with my words – she looked weary and old all of a sudden and she let herself get led away without protest. I guess she had understood that the only place she would ever again be safe was a prison cell...

"Well, I guess our work is done here. I'll leave things to you, Sergeant Haren and Officer Azel." My head and my body felt empty and tired and I had the strong urge to fill up this emptiness with a stiff drink.

Serina would not let me go so easily, though.

As I approached the exit, she loosened herself out of her rigidity and ran after me, flinging her arms across my waist, her head slumping against my back.

"Mano… Please forgive me. I love you." I knew that her words were meant honestly and I turned around to face her, looking deeply into her big, begging eyes – eyes that truly loved me.

"Serina… I trusted you, and yet you lied to me." I told her in a low voice. "Reith did the same, but I've forgiven her."

She hung at my lips, a hopeful smile on her face, her whole body trembling as she waited for my next words.

Just for a second I felt sorry that I had to break her heart.

"You are not Reith, though, and I never make the same mistake twice." The second was gone.

"Goodbye, Serina."

And then I went, not looking back once to her sobbing figure.

xxx

To my relief, Lester department was still standing: the fire brigade had been able to extinguish the flames in Hugo's office before they had been able to spread over other parts of the buildings. I ignored the barrier blocks before the entrance and made my way through the smoky smelling hallway until I had reached my office, where I sat down at my desk and finally was able to pour myself a whiskey.

The first gulp went down easily, burning pleasantly in my throat. Then, my eyes fell on Reith's picture… After a long, last look, I put it in my desk drawer, where her memory could finally take on the dust it should have.

I took another gulp of my drink – it did not go down as easily as the first one, though, due to the lump in my throat:

I had not only lost my best friend on that day, but had also buried Reith for the second time and this time, it had been for real. As the first salty drop fell into my glass, I knew that for once, the rain would not have to take on my duty of crying.

Maybe now, I could learn to like the rain.

The end

Author's notes: As always I'd also like to thank my dear friend Doc aka C.R. Carter for beta-reading! Check out her excellent FF7 fics "No Hero Am I" and "Lariat", which also contain Film Noir elements. :)