Ch. 22: Ominous Moaning

"Ye should cut a hole in th' cheek. Pull 'is tongue through."

"Don't be disgusting, Lois."

"Well I don' see wha's so bloody special 'bout 'is arm—"

"When you conduct your violent, urban rampage on the deserving targets of your choice, you can dismember whatever the fuck you want, however the fuck you want. 'Til then -"

I've rolled up the unconscious wizard's dirty sleeve and revealed a Dark Mark. The sight of it, while vindicating my attack of him, makes my skin prickle with anxiety. I resist the urge to scan our surroundings.

"Right-," I've unsheathed my longest goblin blade from its thigh holster, feeling inexplicably twitchier with each passing second, "-now is the time when you fuck off, my sweet."

Lois pouts, "I ain't lily-livered. When me mum and da use'd to take me n' the littles out t'th local butchery, we'd fight o'er the pieces til-"

I'm sawing through the gentleman's humerus (like warm butter, by the way) when my spidey-sense itches yet again. This time I pause and flit my gaze around the grime and refuse surrounding us. Nothing, not even a rat, stirs. I blame myself – my unnaturalness – and return to my captive's near-dismembered appendage.

"Yer jumpy fer an apex predator."

I sigh, reaching for a crumpled black trash bag shoved in my waistband, "Now Lou, I thought we agreed this was an excellent time for you to leave the nest." I flinch internally; my voice is barely muted by the mask.

"When was th'last time ye had yer bean tickled?"

My unholy globelike eyes bug out, and if I had the capacity to blush in this body my face would… be… melting… off. I nearly choke as I spin the plastic closed, "LOIS—"

"S'not a big secret what a dry spell'll do to one's humor, milady. If you've gone without a proper chuff in yer loins—"

"MY LOINS ARE FINE."

This assessment of my 'nethers is not strictly true. Since lighting the proverbial pilot light with Sirius weeks ago in that hallway, my mind has raced with all the possible ways I could ease the constant ache in my core. As if that weren't bad enough, it's as though my brain has been working overtime – thinking about him in the subconscious space between thoughts about trying not to think about him. Each day that passes feels like a taunt: of course, I'll not be hooking up with Sirius fucking Black. In what nonexistent universe is that even remotely a good idea.

But then I remember how his height and breadth and smells overwhelmed my brain and had my lady parts at attention to max capacity. I remember how I made him lose control just a teensy bit and….

Jesus, fuck, Lois is right. My loins are NOT fine.

In a moment of infuriating maturity, Lois does not respond to my outburst but picks her teeth at me knowingly.

"Fine," I concede, "You can Hannibal-Lecter his face a little-"

Unfortunately, beneath her gleeful cackles I catch the swish of aluminum – the opening of the secret death-eater door. I spin on the spot so that I'm facing down the long alley between our macabre scene and the dim street of dilapidated storefronts. I crouch and adjust my bloody blade in front of Lois and me, slickly fingering two short-handled knives from my boot.

To her credit, my sadistic little mouse uttered no sounds following this dramatic shift in my attention. It would appear our minor ruckus was not subdued in time, however, as a gruff, cold voice calls from the alley entrance, "Oi! Malfoy?"

I suck in an airless gasp and double-check the prostrate, bleeding gentleman splayed between my boots.

A Malfoy fallen from grace, perhaps? The vaguely foxlike features suggest possible relation… and what are the odds – right?

Another stroke of luck: I know exactly where to find a Malfoy chimney.

That appears to be where our luck ends as a great, lumbering man – easily the largest, thickest, ugliest fuck this side of the Atlantic – halts at the alley entrance. His massive silhouette casts a shadow over all of us, making it clear we have been discovered.

"Lois, GO–"

"I'LL JUS' BE OFF, THEN—"

"…Malfoy-?"

I don't want any other sounds coming out of his Shrek-like mouth. I step deliberately to my right – covering Lois' retreating form – and toss one of my blades underhanded at the blinking giant. To my dismay it embeds in his hip instead of his baby-maker. His breath catches in shock, his unintelligent eyes finally focusing on me (I don't think he even feels the knife – fack).

I use his confusion – it's not fear I can feel from him, he is a true brute – and rush forward. His face contorts with rage as I leap and use the slick, cobbled wall of the alley for momentum to let loose the second small knife. His shoulders bunch with a suppressed bellow, choking on it, unreleased in his lungs. My knife quavers in his thick throat.

I land feet from him, tense and ready to use my long remaining blade. But his terrifying face and immense girth leant no further advantages, and he falls to his meaty knees. He continues to choke – flat brown eyes beneath an oily unibrow communicating hatred and confusion. A ring of gold around each iris dulls as he gradually loses consciousness.

I glance around his slumped form- I don't see a wand.

After a beat I approach cautiously, trying not to break the tenuous quiet that's fallen. His chest jumps with a gurgling cough making me hiss and freeze. Glaring at his now-slack face, I use my long blade to poke the left arm to the side. My chest loosens as I spot the Mark, but this gentleman has another piece of ink on the outside of his left bicep. Through the layers of filth on his tan skin, I study his surprisingly elegant tattoo of – what appears to be – a complex star chart.

His smell hits me, then. He smells like literal shit.

I wrinkle my sensitive demonic nosey and resolve to retrieve the nasty thing with as few swings as possible.

With the kind of classic karma that you only come across after murdering people, nothing this evening is destined to come easy. Despite my well-stanced blows, the goblin blade struggles to hack through the ligaments and bones of this guy's Andre-the-Giant-esque shoulder blade. I don't normally need the whole arm, but this guy's extensive tattoo has me intrigued. I wonder if he is some species other than wizard or human. He gurgles with what I assume is pain.

Taking considerably longer than I'd have liked, I finally heft Godzilla's hairy, mammoth arm into the bag alongside Mr. Maybe-A-Malfoy's. Both of my subjects have since passed out from their injuries, and I want to check on Lois and eat a fucking gyro.

The crinkling of the plastic bag over my shoulder irritates me; to my sensitive senses it may as well be a phone alarm in a silent theater. It occurs to me that I really shouldn't leave their bodies here, alive or dead. I want us to be able to come back to this villain hidey-hole and make more use of it. They might have had friends inside, or they'll maybe be missed by others, but if they're put someplace near the Leaky Cauldron or the like, it could buy time…

My thoughts are chugging along as such that, even in my heightened state, it takes a millisecond too long for me to process what is in front of me as I turn the corner Lois used to flee. It remains a familiar alley, dank and dark, but even more so as it rides behind the dilapidated properties of the adjacent block. Lois' shadowed form is limp, collapsed in a brick alcove that was once someone's back entrance. She rests, splayed unnaturally, only 100 meters from where I stand, frozen – my mind caught between two thoughts.

"Stupefy!"

I leap to my right – clear to the opposite wall. I whip every one of my senses in the direction of the spell, clinging to the filmy wall with superhuman strength and balance. The spell's caster crouches above me on a crumbling fire escape, already whipping his wand around again.

"Stupefy! – Stupefy, stupefy!"

I've pushed off the wall with disarming speed, my blood thrumming a war drum behind my ears. One of his spells hits me square in the chest like Donkey Kong's fist.

I hiss as I'm thrown sideways. I sense the near-imperceptible snaps of small threads of magic - my clothing's protective spells. With Olympic agility, I catch a rusted-through rail of the fire escape one level below my target. Swinging with a calm I do not feel, I land immediately beneath the soon-to-be-dead wizard.

But he surprises me again. Stashing the slight, fragile weapon that is his wand inside his sleeveless cloak, he leaps. I tighten my hold on my long goblin blade, prepared to follow and end him, but as he lands on the dilapidated floor of the fire escape, he busts through and tries to fall right on top of me.

I side-step, easily avoiding him. Despite his sudden close proximity, I slash at him backhanded – off balance. I don't like this wizard. Wizards don't usually get physical. Wizards use magic instead of boots and fists.

As if reading my mind, he stops my blade mid-swing with the palm of one gloved hand. Aimed at his gut – so should he choose to remain a ghost, ensuring he will live in two-pieced indignity – the momentum of my blade should have gone through his dumbshit hand. He shifts our combined weight so that he now guards his body against evisceration with BOTH shaking hands. Compounding my fury, they're gloved with fingerless scraps of hide and show no sign of damage as he groans with the impact of my attack.

Seconds tick by. The only sound outside our harsh breathing is an ominous moaning of the metal death trap we stand on. Our bodies shake with effort to hold our ground.

Most men cannot meet my unnatural strength, let alone against a blade with their hands, so I'm unnerved to say the least. My only solace is that his angry brown irises are surrounded on all sides by white, meaning he's also afraid. I huff a small laugh, my face twitching with a demented partial smile, and watch as his widen even more, pupils dilating. His chapped lips open with a sneer.

"Do whatever you want, monster. The Order of the Phoenix is on its way. Kill me and see what happens to your cocksure arse."

Um. Excuse me.

I stay my hand from slicing into him.

My blacked-out eyes narrow, "What the fuck did you just say?"

His tan, freckled face looks older with the transparency of his loathing, "YOU HEARD ME! YOU BLOODY WANG-STAINED—"

In zero seconds, I've unholstered the handgun at my waist and bashed it across his lying, asshole face. "Don't make bullshit threats to me, fuckwit," I hiss.

He's now on his hands and knees, but the hoarse wizard chuckles through bloodstained teeth. Our rusty surroundings creak threateningly, adding to my unease. He still hasn't retrieved his wand. I raise the barrel of my gun to point at his laughing jawline and pause.

I scan him – noting mottled skin beneath the neck of his vest/cloak garment. The extensive scarring stretches all the way onto his scalp, past his buzzed, pale orange hairline.

My eyes widen with understanding that hasn't quite reached my frontal lobe yet.

Cutting his chuckle painfully short, the wizard spins with ethereal speed – arms stretched like claws. I feel the tightening of my trigger finger by instinct. Despite 2 plus 2 not yet equaling 4, I drop my arm to point to the ground – my heart and stomach falling with it – with just enough time to misfire past his shin and into the dusty brick beyond.

My opponent does not appear to take any note of my admirable act of restraint. As unlikely and unbelievable as it is, one moment I was flinching with the discharge of my weapon, the next I was being blasted with sheer hellfire off the condemned fire escape. Literal hellfire – shot like a cannon blast from his claw'd fingers – propels me away from him with such velocity that I smash unforgivingly against the alley's opposite wall, three stories high in the air.

Thank god for whatever protective spells were shoved into whatever places on my person, because I felt – physically felt – each one of them break like stretched rubber bands. It wasn't until I had landed, ungraceful and bitter upon heaps of old couch cushions and boxes of expired batteries, that I felt the burn of my skin.

I can hear him racing down what's left of the escape's steps, so I stand and throw my now-melted gun amidst the batteries. I crack my neck.

Ow.

Before he can round the final steps, however, the alley resonates with twin CRACKS of apparation. I rapidly roll my eyes to the back of my head, so hard it's as though I'm trying to pass out, and I feel my strength bleed out of me. It starts at the top of my scalp, slave to gravity, and floods out my feet – taking every last drop with it. When I reopen my eyes I'm gasping for breath, frantically pushing my mask up into my magical hoodie.

With trembling fingers, I secure the damning evidence inside its cozy magical container, my heart pounding with exertion. I can smell my skin burning around my forearms, but fortunately I can't feel any of my injuries yet.

"PUT YER WAND DOWN, BOY." Mad-Eye's rumble is soft, but furious. I look up and see my opponent staring at me incredulously, blood in the corners of his agape mouth. His wand is shaking in his fist and pointed squarely at my face.

Mad-Eye becomes impatient and clumps over until he's standing between us. "Wash yer ears out, son," he growls and swats the wand away from me with a mighty paw. "She's one of us."

Bill Weasley steps forward with an uneasy smile and palms raised. "Charlie, mate, I don't know what misunderstanding-"

Charlie Weasley's face reddens to an unflattering puce, and if possible, his mouth falls open farther.

"There's no fucking way…." His hoarse speech is laced with disbelief and rage, "…that thing is in the Order of the fucking Phoenix."

I sniff, crossing my arms, "Takes all sorts."

His eye twitches. "A-are you…-?" He looks to his brother in disgust, "Is that devil-thing a girl?"

I've had just enough of that shit, thank you. "I could be a goddamn hermaphrodite for all it should matter you blundering, UNGRATEFUL, little--"

"Wha's with the mask, you psychopath?!"

The silver-awarded Weasley offspring catches me off-guard with the sheer spite in his voice. He sounds younger than he looks and seems immature in a way that makes me immediately hate him. Unfortunately for us both, no one would ever call me mature.

"If we could focus on the issue at hand, comrade," I sway and have to close my eyes against a dizzy spell, "That being that YOUR boss felt the need to call in reinforcements while you were – what? – conveniently jacking-off dragons? You FUCKING—"

"THA'S ENOUGH," Moody bellows, knocking us both backward with a bear-fist to the chest. I'm going to be lucky if I get home and still have the same bra size after tonight.

Bill looks completely flummoxed, but glares at his brother. The air has grown thicker, as though the atmosphere is charged with static. Moody's magical eye rolls madly in his head, and the hair on my neck rises with awareness.

"We need to leave," Moody growls, "NOW." I glance helplessly at where my bag-o-limbs landed, way far away towards the alley junction, and I catch a glimpse of Lois' grime-smeared pant leg. "Is she dead?" I manage not to spit at the second-eldest Weasley child.

He doesn't turn his head but sniffs with disgust, "Unlike some people—"

My heart leaps and I interrupt him to snag a death grip on Moody's lapel. "You have to help her," I inform him.

He's obviously less than enthused with this idea, "Lass, we don' have th'time." He's only just barely keeping his cool and not vanishing on the spot. His frown has deepened to a true scowl.

"Don't you dare make me ditch you to keep her safe, you old, miserable fuck."

Bill has clasped Charlie's shoulder, preparing to disapparate, but Charlie's hateful stare is still fixed on me – disbelief twisting his freckled features.

Grumbling and looking at me none too fondly himself, Moody bites to Bill, "Grab her, too. Get to Grimmauld Place." Distant shouts, dim now to my unevolved ears, ring from the nearest adjoining alley.

I watch as the hard-as-nails auror hastily stumps to where my unconscious friend lies, vulnerable to the numerous footsteps coming closer.

Bill has stretched an arm to snag my wrist. I try not to tense for the oncoming breathlessness, and am distracted by a quick, intense heat at my thumb.

I glance down just in time to see my ring's stone layer turn to brilliant sapphire – Sirius is coming home. This time, I'm not sure it's the vortex of time and space which squeezes my heart and stomach to the breaking point or… you know. Sexy jitters.

Sirius is coming home – might already be home.

Fuck.