Chapter Eighteen | Seeing Ghosts
Hermione was still spasming in Bill and Fleur's guestroom when Quinn stomped out the front door. The aftershocks of her torture were vicious, the blood long dried yet the lightning that still coursed through her veins was unerring, relentless. There was a reason the Cruciatus Curse was considered Unforgivable. Quinn could still remember the first few weeks spent away from Hogwarts after the Third Task, could still feel the phantom pain that lanced through her arms and legs like railroad spikes – tore her ribs to shreds from the seizures that would hit without warning nor reason.
It would be a month until Hermione could trust her own body to not give out without the aid of potions.
And it was all Quinn could think about. All she could focus on. Bellatrix had been vicious, but there was the strangest hint of approval when she'd been presented with the corpses of her hangers-on – those that hadn't survived their attack in the Forest of Dean. The glassy eyed stare of Macnair was of particular interest to her, and as Quinn was dragged to the dungeons, her face swollen beyond recognition, Bellatrix had met her eyes and grinned a grin of genuine interest.
Bellatrix thought her just as vicious, and maybe she was. Maybe taking a man's life at the age of eleven hadn't been a fluke and instead a harbinger of more to come. That harbinger made of ash and screams and ember torchlight reflected off a shattered mirror. Maybe her fragile hold on reality, finally snapping from the sleepless nights and serpentine whispers ebbing voiceless, unending from a locket colder than any wintry gale, was a foregone conclusion the moment Quinn had first drawn breath. Maybe tearing through Snatchers with a ferocity only seen in cornered animals had always been in the cards for her. Because that's what she was, wasn't she? A cornered animal.
A woman of stilted laughter and even more stilted sanity had tortured Hermione within an inch of her life and then kept her there, straddling the brink. It was only Dobby (Dead Dobby. Hole in his chest Dobby. Can't breathe, spitting blood and begging Dobby) that saw them through another day, and even that sacrifice was a hairsbreadth from ending in disaster.
There was already so much blood on Quinn's hands that she felt nothing at the idea of spilling more. So she left Shell Cottage and apparated immediately upon passing the ward line. It was on the outskirts of Marunweem that she reappeared, skirting into the trees and setting to work on fashioning a circle of yet more circles. Discs of stone laid out in a ring, each and every one of them etched with magic and her own blood and anger. It took an hour and a half to put it all together, covering the softly glowing runes with fallen leaves and mud, and once it had been hidden, checked over twice and thrice and made perfect. Once that was done Quinn had stood in the centre of the circle and spoken the name, "Voldemort."
There was a heartbeat, a single moment that hung in the air like a funeral pall, before snaps rang out and Snatchers appeared around her, their positions perfect, her trap artistic in its simplicity. They didn't recognize Quinn, her head hanging and the dim light of their wands only serving to muddy the gray of night that lay painted across her cheeks as if that sunburnt flesh were a canvas.
"Hands up, mudblood, and we won't be too hard on ya."
She blinked slowly, raising her chin. It took a second, just the barest of moments for one to recognize her, to realize that something was off and wasn't this all much too easy? What mad mage would dare to speak the Dark Lord's name aloud when the country had all been brought to heel already?
"Ignis."
A simple command, one carved into those discs that now glowed with the fiery swell of a furnace. Another half-second and pillars of flame, a purifying blue erupted all around and scorched the skies above. It lit up the hamlet and looked for all the world as if the sun come down to earth. And for Quinn it was, that glorious blue an emblem of her vengeance. Because how else could she be expected to deal with those who would torture children in pursuit of their glorious destiny? Those who looked at the eradication of thousands, of millions, as their ultimate goal and in that a virtue passed down to them by a pale serpent, their Divine?
She wanted the Death Eaters to have their fill. She wanted them to sup on it til their stomachs swelled and burst wide, drowning in their own excess. The image of Hermione, shaking uncontrollably with bloodshot eyes and her arm painted in startling red – that image was all Quinn could see as the trees were set ablaze and the stench of burnt meat permeated the air.
These six would be an appetizer. She prayed for the opportunity to make Bellatrix the main course.
-::-
Her sword and pistol drawn, Quinn crept through the brush with her ears perked and her eyes scanning the foliage with a wild fervor. It felt like war, seeing the sabotage and subterfuge at play when – in the presence of a kindly giant – she'd imagined herself to be safe for just a moment. It was that whiplash and Luffy's orders that sent her skittering into the jungle, Vivi and Karoo on her tail.
Pressing a finger to her lips, Quinn put a hand out to stop the two following her when she heard a rustling ahead. It took a moment for another tiger the size of a cab to appear, nostrils flared as it searched for its prey. Praying for her next 'spell' to work, Quinn whipped her rapier down in a sharp arc, willing the winds to draw tight into an invisible blade. It worked, just barely, and were it not expertly placed she knew the tiger would have torn her head off in an instant. Instead it growled, choking on its own blood due to the heavy line carved into its throat. The tiger's head whipped around, growling as it searched for them, and it was only once it made eye contact with Quinn did it falter, stumble, and slump into the mud now soaked through with coppery red.
"That was close," she whispered, turning around to beckon Vivi closer. "We should- Vivi? Vivi!?"
It couldn't have been more than twenty seconds but Vivi had disappeared alongside Karoo. "Vivi? Vivi where the hell are you?" A thousand awful thoughts flitted through her like and Quinn's heart thumped painfully in her chest, teeth gritted close to what felt the point of breaking, and she cursed herself for not paying closer attention. She should have noticed, but even then, how the hell had someone snuck up on the three of them?
She crept towards the muddy inlay of boot heels and birds feet, stooping down and caring little for the muck that clung to her palms and instead focused on getting a closer look at the bright flecks scattered across the earth and fronds. It was hard to make out in the shade, but it almost looked like droplets of paint coloured a bright yellow-green, the strange neon making it appear like sick spots on the much darker leaves.
Quinn brushed a finger across the paint and the instant she did something tried to take hold of her mind. It swept through her like a calm, that same gentle warmth of the imperius washing across her mind in slow rolling waves. Her eyelids dipped, a soft serenity rippling from her finger and over her entire body, and instinct drilled into her over a year on the run and five more spent hunting the remains of a war barely won suddenly took over.
Snarling, she punched the earth and with it wiped the paint from her skin. Quinn's breaths came heavy, and the reminders of war echoed all the louder. It had been a long, long time since someone tried to cast the imperius on her, seeing as most Death Eaters had learned the hard way that it did all but nothing to her. But this wasn't the imperius, it couldn't be. This was… paint. Paint that held the faintest tinge of magic, subtle but no less dangerous, and most likely the product of a devil fruit.
She was going to kill every Baroque Works agent on the island, starting with whoever was responsible for this paint.
It had nudged her… northbound? She couldn't tell exactly, but whatever magic clung to that paint had been urging her deeper into the jungle, so she decided to follow it to its source. But not before letting Luffy's treasured hat hang across her back, held in place by a string that had no right to be as reliable as it was. She then lowered her hands to the earth and scooped up mud, patting it into her hair, across her face and neck and every other bit of flesh open to the air. Her shirt, a pale green, was already stained with dirt and dust, brown trousers blending with the deep bark of the palm trees.
Deeper into the jungle Quinn went, almost indistinguishable from her surroundings. She crept along with already soft steps made noiseless by her magic, every so often spotting the mark of Vivi's boots in the earth and the softer steps of Karoo right beside them. Behind her, to her right, the volcano that signaled the giants' bouts erupted for a second time that day. Quinn held her breath, eyes widening when the white curl of the mountain near Dorrys camp – scratch that – what she thought was a mountain was visibly raised.
It was a skull. The immense, clean-picked skull of a dinosaur.
Then it was dropped, and her heart thumped once in her chest, in sync with the boom that echoed across the entire island. Soon after she crossed her fingers and hoped with everything she had that the distant steps of Dorry and Brogy meant Luffy wasn't hurt but had somehow stopped the giant's rampage, or convinced him of their innocence.
Taking advantage of the near deafening noise, she used the cacophony of their duel as a distraction, moving swiftly beneath the shade of broad leaves and skittish birds that squawked in reflex at the earth shattering crack of clashing steel. What would in the hands of a human sound like the clang of a dull bell instead fractured the air with all the ferocity of a skyscraper collapsing, and the pained roar of Dorry that rang out in its wake as, through the trees, she could see blood flying through the sky, Quinn knew the duel had finally been lost.
Brogy's victory was quickly announced by the man himself, though his voice held no pride nor accomplishment, stricken with tears. Mocking laughter rose up beneath it, and she knew Baroque Works was near.
Pushing greenery aside, Quinn could finally make out the occasional word or two of Brogy cursing. She approached the site of the duel, and the struggling cries of a man who would make a dragon look like a child's toy grew louder with every step, the ground beneath her feet shaking as Brogy – unseen but very much heard and felt – crashed to the ground. And that mocking laugh that had run beneath the bittersweet cheer of victory had now turned to jeers, taunts, and her teeth clamped tight together when she finally got herself a good and proper look at one of the bastards who'd ambushed them.
He was a sunkissed man who wore a striped shirt and plain trousers, but it was the large three atop his head fashioned from his own tightly coiled hair that made her pause. There was even a flame dancing along the peak of his ridiculous topknot, a strange imitation of a candle like the ones dotting the structure behind Brogy's prone form. Another madman in this strange and wild sea, but a dangerous one judging by the ostentatious candelabra he'd built and the massive swords of the same off-white plunged into Brogy's hands and feet, pinning him to the ground.
And the candelabra was massive, sitting atop a house sized wedding cake, and even from a distance Quinn could smell the overbearing scent of candle wax in the air. Another devil fruit, even more odd than the last, and her eyes narrowed at a familiar shock of short dreadlocks.
Mister Five, and his psychopath blonde friend.
All of them stood with their backs to her, conversing amongst themselves as they got a good look at their wax masterpiece, bound to which were Zoro, Nami, Vivi, and Karoo.
"You see that?" Mister Three, because he had to be Mister Three, crowed, pointing at the four with wax wrapped around their ankles. "They're going to be my masterpiece! Once the wax has set, inside and out, I'll have four lovely statues to frame you and your friend. After we take your heads, of course. We can't go and pass up two hundred million berry now, can we?"
"You have… no honour," Brogy hissed through gritted teeth.
"Honour? You mean like your friend over there? Honour didn't put a bomb in that ale you gave him. No, that was my associate."
"A bomb?" The heartbreak in Brogy's voice was sharp, cutting through the air alongside his grim realization. "My friend is dead because of trickery?"
Quinn tuned out the continued taunts, the jeers, the mocking laughter that spilled as easily as wine from a drunkard's cup. She only had eyes for Mister Five, his back to her as he watched the ongoing torture of Brogy with mild interest. Casual, as if the man wasn't pinned to the earth by ten foot tall swords made of wax. As if the dirt beneath him didn't drink up the river of blood that poured from his massive body with greedy delight.
Nobody noticed her creep forward with her sword drawn. None of the agents, at least. Zoro caught her eye over Mister Five's shoulder and froze, drawing his arm back from where he'd been about to saw one of his legs off to escape his waxy prison.
Moron.
She didn't speak, didn't threaten or taunt or even grunt with exertion as she rose up and drove her rapier into Mister Five's back.
He made a small, breathless noise, like the wind had gotten knocked out of him, the sound of it barely louder than the quiet snap of leather as her blade broke through his jacket and skewered his heart. Quinn impaled him on the rapier, and Mister Three and Miss Valentine turned around in confusion, not registering for that first second upon seeing her that their friend was already dead.
"You really shouldn't have followed us," she stated, pushing Mister Five off her blade and leveling her pistol at Miss Valentine's horrified face. She had only a moment to react, a small 'oh' falling from her lips as the hammer struck true.
The woman's head disappeared the same instant the crack of her pistol rang out, and Mister Three howled in shock as his face was painted red. That second corpse had already crashed to the ground as Quinn squeezed the trigger again, her shot flying past Mister Three's head and into the jungle as someone shouted and bowled into her from behind.
Breath forced from her lungs, Quinn smashed into the ground and rolled to her feet, about to fire off another shot when she realized she was pointing her gun at Luffy. "Shit-" she aimed at the ground, head turning on a swivel while she searched for Mister Three, only catching a flicker of white as he disappeared into the jungle. Quinn almost let off another shot before deciding better of it, holstering her pistol and pausing at the sight of a young girl sitting on a picnic blanket next to the candelabra, her face ashen and a tea cup spilled at her knees.
But it was the flecks of paint on the girl's cheeks, the stains on her fingers that stood out. This was the person responsible for trying to break her mind, and she was…
"Just a kid?"
God, she couldn't have been older than fourteen. Smaller than even Quinn was at that age and just as slight, the girl was visibly trembling, unable to tear her eyes away from the mud caked witch that stood over the corpses of her two… friends?
Off to the side she heard someone retching, and Quinn looked over to see Usopp holding a hand to his mouth, gaze locked on the headless Miss Valentine.
"Enough standing around and a little help!?" Zoro shouted.
-::-
"We're going to die here," Nami found herself whispering, bound in wax and watching helplessly while Mister Three taunted Brogy without a care in the world.
He and his friends had slipped out of the jungle the moment the other one… what was his name? Whatever, it didn't really matter now because he was dead, and Brogy was now wrapped in wax just like they were, getting spat on by a man the size of his thumb.
And was this really it? Two islands into the Grand Line and they'd already found their grave?
She looked to her left and her right, glowering at Zoro who stood next to her, posing with one arm raised and his sword pointed towards the sky. Because the idiot had insisted 'if I'm gonna become a statue, I might as well go out with a good pose.'
Brainless. Witless. All he had in that stupid green head of his were swords, sake, and more swords.
Vivi and Karoo, on the other hand, looked almost resigned to their fate. They'd somehow been separated from Quinn in the jungle because of the girl sitting not fifteen feet away from them, sipping tea as if she hadn't a care in the world. It was her paints sitting next to her that left Nami on edge, even if she was trapped and could feel with every breath as her lungs filled with wax – because those paints, according to Vivi, had stolen her will and made her the girl's puppet, a pig led eagerly to the slaughterhouse.
Life had been hard for her. More than hard. Brutal, even, though she was too stubborn to admit that out loud (Not when mum had died, shot dead in front of her and Nojiko like a dog in the streets). But there was one thing Nami always had, what kept her alive through thick and thin.
Her mind.
"Ow."
"What? What the hell are you- what the hell are you doing to yourself!?"
Blood dripped from cuts that ran along Zoro's legs, ones he'd made himself, and he shrugged at her, unapologetic. "Think I can fight them if I cut my legs off?"
"Do I think you can-?" Blinking rapidly, Nami then put her head in her hands and hissed into them quietly.
Breathe.
"That has to be the stupidest thing I have ever heard."
"...So no?"
"Go ahead. See if I care. You'll bleed out before you can even get to them and he-" she shot, jabbing her thumb towards the bomb man from Whisky Peak who watched them with distant curiosity. "-would obviously turn you to ash before you could crawl over to him. What were you planning on doing? Biting his ankles?"
"Stabbing him."
"Stabbing him," she repeated, now too frustrated to care if she was about to die.
"Yeah. Oh. Huh. That's where she was." Zoro slowly drew his sword away from his leg and instead propped it up on the wax, point buried in the off-white at his feet. "Don't look now, but I think the Witch is here to save us."
Nami slowly glanced over, doing her best not to raise any suspicion, and she had half a second to work out that the mound of dirt and leaves right behind the bomb man was actually Quinn before a sword was driven through his chest and – even behind his sunglasses – she could tell his eyes had been thrown wide in surprise.
Mister Three's taunting trailed off, the bizarre looking man turning around at the quiet, barely even there gasp that his companion had made. Miss Whatever did too, blinking in confusion at the mud-caked Quinn and the two feet of steel jutting out of her partner's chest.
"You really shouldn't have followed us."
Quinn's voice was cold, painfully so, and Nami almost flinched at how emotionless it was. There was nothing there except for the faintest hint of an anger more frigid than a mountain peak. And while Quinn spoke, Nami could see the dull glint of metal rising upward, halting right in front of the blonde's open mouth.
And then her head exploded and Quinn didn't even blink, already adjusting her aim only for Luffy to come crashing out of the trees and smash into her, the bullet whizzing past a screaming Mister Three and taking out an unlucky palm tree behind him. He immediately made for the jungle and Quinn very nearly took off Luffy's head, judging by the empty look in her eyes, only faltering when she visibly recognized him, the light returning and her posture straightening while her weapon was lowered.
All Nami could think was – well, for a moment? Nothing. She'd just seen Quinn kill two people, Baroque Works agents besides, in cold blood. But the look on her crewmate- no, her friend's face was one she hadn't seen in a very, very long time.
Her heart was tugged this way and that when Zoro called for help and Quinn, staring in abject shock at the girl with the paints, looked away with a jerk and immediately marched over to them. Because Nami got a closer look at her, and Quinn's eyes told the entire story in an instant.
Thin. Distant. Cut off from the world in the same way that her mother's would if she heard the crack of gunfire as one of the villagers hunted near the grove.
Bellemere would freeze at the noise, and were she holding Nami or Nojiko's hand they'd flinch at how tight her grip became. Her eyes, normally half lidded and hidden behind a perpetual cloud of smoke that ebbed from a cigarette that always hung from her lips, would instead hold pupils as thin and sharp as a needle. And somehow it looked as though the relaxed, lazy poise of her eyelids would be drawn back taut like a bow string, making Bellemere's eyes bug out of her skull as they danced this way and that, searching for danger.
People in Cocoyashi had stopped hunting boar with rifles after Genzo had been witness to one of those 'attacks.' Not that it mattered for much when Arlong rolled into town a few years later.
Whatever Quinn had been, done, had seen back in her world, it wasn't only a place of wonder and magic. One that had been bogged down by a prejudice with roots so deep that even now, a literal world away, the thought of it visibly pulled at her heartstrings.
Quinn had seen battle. She'd seen war.
Because that look, that haunted pall that clouded her eyes like a widow's veil, was the same damn look that Nami and Nojiko had spotted only a handful of times but had stuck with them to this day.
And Bellemere? Bellemere had seen war. A Marine veteran with a handful of commendations and a dozen year's service under her belt – the only reason she hadn't stuck around was because of Nami and her sister. That rifle that hung over the door bore scratches and stains that, though not explained to them as kids, Nami now knew were the result of scratching fingers and spilled blood.
Nami's heart hung heavy as Quinn absentmindedly melted the wax holding the four of them captive, limbs moving with a mechanical jitter that spoke more of muscle memory than any conscious thought. She looked away, glancing towards Zoro who, idiot he may be, looked like he'd spotted the same thing she had. He nodded at her, only turning away when Mister Three came bursting out of the jungle with a shout.
"You'll pay for what you've done!" he roared, piloting what looked like a gigantic robot made of wax, one Luffy immediately jumped into fighting.
But Quinn – Quinn, with shadows beneath her eyes and a shudder to her every move – Quinn barely noticed the brawl opening up behind her, only giving it a curious glance before returning to her rescue effort. Nami, for her part, looked back to Zoro, already assured that Luffy had the situation well in hand. He gave her another nod, mouthed 'Talk later,' and turned his attention back to the fight, his arms crossed with lazy confidence and a noticeable amount of disappointment.
Of course he's mad about not getting to fight.