It was still early in the morning in Petropolis but the city hall was full of activity. Interns that were carrying papers from desk to desk were everywhere and all rooms were filled with the sound of stamps that were pressed brutally on documents. And even if the first break would be in a few hours, most employees already had their third cup of coffee.
Of course it wasn´t everywhere so noisy like in the offices of the lower management. In the
ante-room of the mayor´s office it was comparatively quiet. Just two people were sitting there. The one was Mandy, the mayor´s secretary. A young pretty bunny with a blonde put-up hairdo, red lips and the clichéd long fingernails which she permanently filed.
The other person was an irritated seeming monkey in a grey nondescript suit. He sat on a chair and brushed again and again the single strand of hair over his half-bald head and in the same move he stroked over the ridge of his small crooked nose.
"The mayor will welcome you in a few minutes Mr. White." Said Mandy recognizing the nervousness of the man.
"Whatever…" replied the man nervously and angrily. He looked hectically at his watch and then reached for inside his jacket. Cautiously he felt for the small black box and as his fingers touched the black plastic he shrank back in disgust.
This damn little thing. White hated it to carry it around with him, he didn´t even like to have it around. He had it since yesterday and he just wanted to throw it away. But he had to show it the mayor. The whole issue was just too important to ignore it.
How long would it take until the mayor let him into his office? He was waiting for almost an hour now and this secretary didn´t even offer him a cup of coffee.
"Arrogant cow." White thought and continued brushing through his almost nonexistent head hair.
Finally the wide double doors of the office were pushed open and mayor Willson, a wolf with a charismatic face and black hair, stepped with a big grin towards White. "Lawrence, my old friend. How can I help you?" he beamed with his arms wide open.
"Let´s discuss this inside." Fast pushed White the mayor back into office and closed the doors. After he locked them tightly then walked to the big desk in the middle of the antique furniture furnished office and put the black box on it.
"We´ve got a serious problem, Willson. Really really serious. And I don´t mean a little serious or a bit serious, I mean really heavy serious." White began to breathe faster and faster. "It´s this guy. The guy that brought Young behind prison bars. This Scratch guy!"
"Yeah… so?" replied Willson almost bored.
"So?! SO?! Do you even know who this is?!"
"Of course I know… Drug dealer from the east coast. He´s worth a few hundred millions. Nothing more."
"NOTHING MORE?!" gasped White shocked. "HE IS TRYING TO KILL US!"
But instead of receiving an adequate reaction from Willson, White just saw the mayor shrugging and repeating the already asked question "So?"
"Didn´t you listen?" asked White dumbfounded. "HE is trying to KILL US! We have to do something and we have to do it quick. At least we have to be quicker than he is."
"I don´t think that this will be necessary." Either the mayor had really no idea who they were dealing with or he underestimated their enemy.
White had to bring out the big guns to persuade him. With shivering hand White walked towards the desk and picked the box up again. "It is necessary, believe me." He opened the box with a fast movement of his thumb and uncovered its content.
And this wasn´t a ring or a pair of earrings, what would be usual for such a box, it was eyeball. A coldly into the distance starring eye that was removed from the skull with surgical precision.
"Ha!" giggled Willson amused and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a similar looking box. "I have one too. What do you think White, is that some kind of macabre jigsaw puzzle?"
"Wh.. What?!" stammered White staring at the second box in disbelieve.
"Yeah, maybe we can put him back together if we have enough parts." smirked Willson and threw the box in a casual way on his desk. He did this with White´s box too after snatching it out of his hand. "Now, calm down my friend. Everything is okay. Of course not for Richards but…"
"Wait… Richards?" interrupted the monkey averting his shocked gaze from the boxes, that now lay on the table, to Willson. "These are parts of Mathew?"
"I´m afraid it´s true. He disappeared a few days ago from prison. I think we received some parts of him."
"You know what that means, right?" asked White panting. "He knows it and he´s behind us. Right behind us! I could turn around and there would he be. Exactly there."
"Listen White…" sighed Willson as White began to look hectically behind him. "We…" Willson didn´t come further. He was cut short by loud noises from outside of his office.
I sounded like someone was screaming angrily through the hallways and this voice became louder and louder until suddenly a giant angry looking white rhinoceros in a black suit with black tie rushed into the office and forced the door open so hard that they crashed loud against the wall.
"DAMMIT WILLSON WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!" it screamed as it built itself up in front of the wolf.
"Sir you can´t just go in there. You don´t have an appointment!" Called Mandy after him.
"DON´T YOU DARE TELLING ME WHAT TO DO!"
"Ah, hello Mr. Johnson." Smiled Willson for a second and then called towards Mandy. "It´s okay Ms. Bennett. Please, close the doors when you leave the office."
As Mandy closed the doors with a nod he turned towards the heavily breathing rhino and asked it calmly but with angry undertone. "What is going on Ryan?"
"WHAT IS GOING ON? This is going!" yelled Johnson again and held a small black box towards him.
"Oh another one… It´s not an eye isn´t it? I mean he definitely had not more than two eyes." Willson opened the box almost with the excitement of a kid that unwraps its Birthday presents.
His excitement wasn´t disappointed, in the box he found a blood covered ear what looked, in a contrary to the eye, like it was ripped brutally off the skull.
"ANOTHER ONE?! YOU HAVE MORE OF THEM?! WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!" screamed Johnson shocked.
"Would you be so kindly to keep your voice down?" hissed White nervously from behind. "Not everyone has to hear about that."
"I GIVE YOU THE SAME PIECE OF ADVICE THAT I GAVE THE GIRL. DON`T DARE TELLING ME WHAT TO DO!"
"Let me ask you something Johnson. ARE YOU A COMPLETE IDIOT?" shouted White back into the tall rhino´s angry face. "WHAT DO YOU THINK IS GOING ON? WHAT DO YOU THINK WHY WE ALL GOT THESE BOXES? WHY DO YOU THINK YOU, ME, WILLSON AND PROBABLY ALSO ROBSON RECEIVED THESE BOXES?! I BET IF DUMBROVSKI WOULD BE STILL ALIVE… "
"Gentleman, please…" Intervened Willson before the White would scream out more sensitive details. "There is really no need to act up."
"No need to act up?" asked White a lot quieter but with anger in his voice. He couldn´t understand how Willson could always say that everything was alright. "You still didn´t get it Willson, did you? Someone who know our sins is right behind us and will kill us if we don´t do something!"
"Oh White." sighed the mayor grinning. "I know exactly what´s going on here. But no need to panic. I´m already two steps further. I talked to our mutual friend directly after I received the little box. He got a plan. So we got a plan. And that means, no need to worry. The only thing we should really worry about is this annoying ex city council Peterson… Did you hear that he´s trying to become the governor now? I mean…"
"And what is the plan?" asked the rhino skeptically interrupting Willson´s scorn about the man that tried to become the mayor a month ago but failed against him. And that even if the church massacre was stopped by Scratch and Katswell.
"It would be a pleasure to tell that to you but let´s eat something first. Come on, I invite you. You two look like you haven´t eaten anything yet." Without waiting for an answer Willson strolled to the doors and pushed them lively open.
A bit later on that day, but still in the morning, Jessica entered her office. She needed a bit more time than usually for that but just because the doctor who treated her broken finger put a really big bandage around her hand.
The bandage was so huge that you could believe that she broke every single bone in her hand. Anyway, because of the incompetence of the doctor she had to do everything with her left hand for the next weeks. Annoying of course but what else should she do.
Tired sat Jessica down behind her desk and started to read through a few papers. That was actually just pretext to kill some time. She was still waiting for an explanation of Keswick.
"In a contrary to me or Kitty he won´t hesitate to kill you if you get into his way again" she mumbled the words he said to her. What did that mean? How were Kitty and Scratch connected? Did she cooperated with him? And what was going on here in general?
She hoped that all these questions would get answered. At least if Keswick would show up at work today. The last two days he wasn´t here and Jessica slowly had the feeling that Keswick was absent because he tried to avoid her. If he didn´t show up today she would pay him a visit at home. She wanted these answers.
But it seemed in this moment that she didn´t has to do a domiciliary visit because Keswick entered the office without knocking at the door with a package under his arm. It seemed that Keswick visited the same doctor as Jessica because he wore a big bandage around his nose. Quietly moved Keswick to the chair on the other side of the table and sat down on it.
"So you finally made it here?"
"I´m sorry." meant Keswick honestly and put the package on the desk. "But the last days I were really knocked over by these painkillers that the doctor gave me. But I don´t think that you want to hear about that, right?"
"Right." Confirmed Jessica and folded her arms in front of her chest. "And what´s in that box?"
"The mailman brought it. It´s for you I think… Oh and I got this too." Keswick pulled a letter out of his labcoat and laid it on the box. "That was with the box… Anyway, it´s time for a little bit history now. A few months ago we caught a man red handed stabbing an old man´s chest."
Keswick took the broken picture frame Jessica had destroyed in her fit of rage almost a week ago, which just stood there because Jessica was unsure if she should throw it away, from the desk. With his finger pointed Keswick on the part of the photo where Dudley was. "This man."
"Wait... this agent Puppy guy? You told me that he was dead."
"Well, it wasn´t exactly this man… But let´s start with the beginning." Keswick took a deep breath, not knowing if it was right or wrong what he did now, and told Jessica the whole story. About the psychopathic murdering traitor Young, who was wearing the face of a dead man. About Nefarius, the priest and criminal that lost his life. About the conspiracy that Scratch is trying to uncover. And about Scratch self, the creature that rose from the ash that wasn´t pretty enough to call it a phoenix.
As Keswick ended with the words "And now we are here." Jessica leaned forward in her armchair. In silence she him eyed critically not knowing if she just heard some kind of weird fiction. The whole story just sounded too impossible to be true. Keswick had to lie.
"Keswick, I thought you want to tell me the truth." She began calmly. "But now you come up with these fairy tales."
"That is the truth." Protested Keswick. "Every single word."
"You really try to tell me that a former agent, driven by hate and vengeance, was following the murderer of his mother around the world while building up a drug empire to help him with that and manages meanwhile to figure out that this was part of a big conspiracy? Keswick, I´m not sitting here on this chair because I´m naïve."
"You wanted to hear the story. If you believe it is up to you. You won´t hear anything more from me except a few words of warning." Keswick stood up from the chair and raised his index finger up high. "Scratch isn´t Agent Puppy anymore. Every single bit of the man we knew died. He´s just a mentally unstable violent monster with a bit rest memory of the life he once had. You should better avoid him."
He spun on his heels in a theatric way and left the office. Lost in thoughts looked Jessica after him and watched how the door fell shut. The story was crazy, that was out of question, but it would explain a few things. For example what was the connection between Scratch and Kitty.
"No…" she said whispered shaking her head as doubts about her doubts began to rise. "… he must have lied to me. I think I have to talk to him again… later." Of course she wanted concrete answers but right in this moment she was oddly satisfied with this story.
Maybe there was really a small part inside her that believed it. Small but powerful enough to keep the rest of her calm. Or at least divert her curiosity from Keswick´s story to the package on her desk. She first put the letter on top of the box aside and began with a letter opener, which she often sharpened when she got bored, to cut carefully through the tape that held the package together.
Softly gave the paper of the package in as all the tapes were cut through. As she opened the package she had expected much but not the decapitated head that glared at her out of its empty eye sockets. With its lips formed to a mischievous grin the head radiated a more unpleasant feeling than a head in a box would do anyway.
Shocked backed Jessica away from the package and fought for air. She has seen many bizarre and weird things in her time as an agent but a head in a box was even new for her.
"What the heck?!" she gasped trying to control her breath.
It took her a few seconds before her mind was again the commander of her limps. Now with more disgust then fear she approached to her desk and looked at the head.
A terrible view was offered to her.
Besides the missing eyes she recognized that the ears on this head were missing.
On the spots were they should be there just hang blood covered flaps of skin. Also the nose was somehow cut off. She didn´t see that as she opened the package.
But after all it was especially the grin what was sent cold shivers down her spine. Combined with the missing eyes it felt like the head was grinned in a way saying 'You´re next.'
"What kind of sick joke is that?!" wondered Jessica shaking her head.
On their search for answers her eyes fell on the letter that belonged to the package. Hasty she caught the envelope and ripped it apart. There was just a little handwritten note inside.
Dear Ms. Spotrunner,
This is my very last warning for you. Keep your nose out of things that doesn´t concern you.
Otherwise I feel forced to use heavy violence against you.
Yours sincerely,
Scratch
Jessica just stared unbelieving at the five lines. The question if Scratch was really a psychopath was definitely answered now. And it seemed like that he wanted to have her out of his way. But what Scratch didn´t know was that Jessica had the obstinacy of a rock. Already as a child she didn´t give in so easy and now she wouldn´t even move a millimeter to make it easier for him.
"Does this guy really believe that he can threat me?" she mumbled looming while crumpling the letter into a ball. "You messing with the wrong cheetah Scratch, do you hear that?! You´re the one who should be afraid."