There was a knock on the door of her trailer home.
Harmony looked up from her old tv-set and her reality-tv show, and at her securely shut door. She hadn't expected any visitors tonight. Yet, it wasn't entirely uncommon for people to stumble upon her business by accident, and decide to swing by.
When strangers asked Harmony what she did for work, she told them that she was a professional masseuse. And this wasn't entirely false, but she supposed, her massages were the type that always came with a happy ending.
Years ago, nay, decades ago, Harmony had been much more than a common roadside prostitute. She had lived in luxury, and she hadn't done the work herself; she'd had lots of girls do the work for her. All she had done was to manage the business - a skill that came quite naturally to her - and collect the money by the end of the day.
Yet, no matter how many clubs and girls Harmony had accumulated, her life hadn't felt any more fulfilling. And she had soon realised that living on the backs of other people's hard labour just wasn't her thing. She had craved the days of simplicity. The days of connecting with her clients, of watching the fruits of her labour unfold.
Thus, Harmony had taken a huge risk, and she had told her boss that she would no longer be working for him. He could keep the clubs, she had said, but she didn't enjoy them anymore.
To her surprise, her boss had let her go. Harmony never did find out why he had allowed her to move on, along with all of the key information she knew. But Harmony had always guessed that he had appreciated her gumpture.
And now here she was; alone in her trailer home, eating a microwaved tv-dinner of meatloaf and potatoes and broccoli, and waited for someone to knock on the door.
Nowadays, Harmony was quite at harmony with herself.
She stood up, set her food aside in the mini fridge, and walked to the door. After she had unlocked and opened it, Harmony paused a little.
To her mild surprise, a woman was standing there. Not only was Harmony's clientele largely dominated by the male race, as most things were in life; this woman was also quite attractive.
She was wearing a stylish skin-tight yellow skirt, and a low-cut red crop-top with a rounded neckline. The outfit excellently accentuated her curvy hips and decolette. Her hair was long and straight and naturally blonde, and her makeup was skillful but subdued.
Harmony wondered what had brought this stunning woman to the doorstep of her little establishment. This could only mean one of two things; the woman was here for a different type of business, or the woman had some very exotic preferences.
Harmony invitingly smiled at her and casually leaned against the doorframe by her hip. "Good evening, gorgeous. What brings you here tonight?"
The woman returned her smile like they were old friends. "Hi, babe. Just thought I'd swing by for a quick visit. You might be able to help me out with something."
Harmony felt, there was something familiar in her smile, but she couldn't exactly place it. Maybe, she had met her a long time ago, and had merely forgotten about it?
"I'd love to help you out," Harmony said and pushed off the doorframe, in order to lead her deeper into her home and place of business. "Please make yourself comfortable."
The woman took her up on the offer without hesitation. She walked in as though she was already quite familiar with the place, headed straight for the bed bunk that also doubled as a sofa. The woman plopped onto the bed, crossed her legs beneath herself, held on to her right ankle for comfort and stability, and expectantly looked at Harmony.
Harmony began to take her clothes off.
"You can keep those on." The woman said.
Her hands faltered. She shot her an equally curious and flirtatious look. "What did you have in mind?"
"Just a chat. And maybe, some of that amazing chai tea of yours?"
In the first instance, Harmony was extremely confused. But then, the woman's face... flickered.
And for just a second, she was replaced by a faceless man.
The man had a bold head and mere hints of a nose, lips, and ears. The rest of his face was... gone. It seemed to be covered by a layer of pale, smooth, undefined skin.
The layer was so smooth and all-encompassing, there weren't any gaps to see through, above his eyesockets. It didn't even leave a single hole for air, above his mouth and nostrils. To this day, it was a mystery to Harmony, how the faceless man could see, or hear, or eat, or breathe...
Simultaneously, the woman's distinctively feminine body briefly took on a distinctively masculine shape and abruptly grew by several inches. Her stylish outfit was replaced by a basic black button-up shirt, white dress pants, and black dress shoes.
The blink of an eye later, and the lustrous blonde woman had returned. Her smile hadn't budged, even a little bit, during the brief moment that her face had disappeared.
Harmony's shoulders dropped in disappointment.
"Oh," she said, "it's you."
Nobody beamed, "heyya!"
Harmony walked to the kitchen to make tea. "I'm assuming you'll be paying me for this chat?"
"Don't I always?"
Harmony sighed as she filled her tea kettle with water. The motion helped cover up the fact that her hands had begun to tremble a bit.
It hadn't been the brief glance at Nobody's real face, which was making her nervous. In fact, the face-changing secret agent had never been unkind to her. Despite their unsettling appearance, hidden beneath all those trippy illusions, Harmony didn't feel uncomfortable in their presence.
What worried her was the information she was about to divulge. No matter what about; sharing things about her crime-ridden past was always a risk. Harmony had learned her lesson, when it came to the true value of money. And so, she always found herself wondering, if any of this collaboration was worth her time, and her life.
She glanced over her shoulder, at Nobody. The fake face of the blonde woman didn't look concerned or bothered by the hesitation. Harmony guessed, Nobody probably experienced this with most of their informants.
"Fine," Harmony hesitantly gave in and turned around to her. "What do you want to know about?"
"Bax Hench."
All of the blood seemed to drain from her head at once. "Excuse me?"
The blonde woman nodded in confirmation. "I want you to give me everything you have on Bax Hench."
Harmony's face was frozen in shock for a moment. Then, it slowly contorted to a disbelieving grin. She barked a hysterical laugh, "have you lost your mind?!"
"Well... Sort of?" Nobody shrugged, "but I still want to know about Hench."
"Do you have any idea what would happen to me, if anyone found out that we've mentioned his name in a conversation?!"
"They ain't gonna find out from me. You?"
Harmony craned her neck with a frustrated sigh. She covered her face with both hands for a moment and took a deep breath. "We're doing this at your risk. If anyone tracks this back to me, you're responsible for my safety."
"Naturally."
"And if I get arrested for this, I want blanket immunity."
Nobody hesitated. "I'll do my best," she then promised.
Harmony sharply exhaled and let her hands drop to her sides. She turned around to the counter and began to collect a tea pot and ingredients for chai.
"How do you know about him anyway?" Harmony was curious to find out.
"That's none of your concern."
She sighed again and thought about it. If Nobody had come here out of their own volition, there was a chance that she could refuse to divulge anything. If the Sanctuary had sent them, she was already in a world of trouble. In this case, the spy on her sofa-bed might've been the only person, willing to shield her from the consequences of her crimes long-passed.
The screeching of the tea kettle snapped Harmony from her thoughts. She switched off her portable electric stovetop, and pulled the kettle onto the tiny kitchen counter. Then, she turned around to Nobody and leaned backwards against the counter.
"Well... I should probably start by addressing the obvious rumor..." Harmony began to tell. "Bax Hench is neither a woman-hater, nor a pedophile."
Nobody contentedly leaned against the large pillows in her back and comfortably folded her hands in her lap. "So, what is he?"
"First and foremost, he is a business man. A very powerful, cunning, ruthless business man. But oddly enough, and as contradictory as that might sound... He doesn't seem to be in it for the money."
"Power, then?"
Harmony cluelessly shrugged. "Maybe. That is probably the biggest riddle about the man..."
"What's his game?" Nobody phrased the riddle aloud.
"What's his game...?" She confirmed and shrugged again. "No one truly knows. That's why everyone is so terrified of him. Without knowing someone's true intentions, it's pretty hard to protect yourself from the consequences of their actions."
"So, wouldn't have a guess as to why he'd be doing something like... Leaving clues and bodies for sanctuary officers like a serial killer?"
She abstrusely snorted. "Nope, no clue. That doesn't sound much like him, he is usually extremely careful about his true identity. So he must be planning something, but I couldn't tell you what."
"How disappointing."
Harmony turned and focused on making the tea. "So, back to my original point. Bax doesn't enjoy abusing young women any more than old men. I would even go so far as to say, all of his most trusted advisors are women."
Nobody nodded at the familiar intel. "I hear, he has a female bodyguard?"
Her brows shot up at the mention. "Yes, Fire. Stay away from her."
"Fire is a friend of yours?"
She snorted again. "An acquaintance at the very most. All I can tell you is; do not let the hair-dye and the silent background persona confuse you. She has earned a right to carry that name."
Nobody smirked. "Cause of her firey personality?"
Harmony turned around, in order to meaningfully point at her. "Mark my words: Fire is almost as cunning as Hench, and much more ruthless. She is an extremely skilled Energy Thrower. Urban legend says, the colour of her energy beam is blood-red, and it's twice as powerful as the regular stuff."
Nobody nodded along in understanding, "so I shouldn't underestimate her."
"Never underestimate her. And never forget that she is always in the same room as Bax; watching your every move."
"I'm assuming that she's watching me, even when I can't see her?"
"Especially, when you can't see her."
Nobody looked especially pleased with that piece of intel. "Good to know."
Harmony poured the tea into two cups and walked them over to the sofa. She sat down, crossed over a leg, and handed Nobody her tea cup. She cautiously accepted the hot cup with an appreciative nod and cradled it between her hands.
"What else do you want to know?"
"How about his alias?" Nobody asked, "Christopherus Gian? I've been told, the original Gian died years ago. Was he Hench's father?"
Harmony made an exasperated face. "On paper, yeah."
"Christopherus wasn't the nurturing type?"
She sourly snorted and took a careful sip of chai before replying. "No, not even in the slightest..."
Nobody nodded and followed her example. "I guess that's not surprising..."
"Bax was thrusted into this life, when he was barely a pre-teen. He was never anything more to his father than an heir. Bax became his right hand man, but the older and sicker Chris got, the colder he became. So really, Chris didn't raise Bax; Bax raised himself. And we tried to help out where we could."
Nobody frowned in surprise, "we?"
"Us workers. Chris's staff, the nanny, us madams... We all huddled around him, taking shifts to keep him safe..." She sighed. "Or at least, we tried..."
Nobody mustered her. "I had no idea you were close."
She chuckled, "oh no, honey. I know Bax. I'd never claim to be close to him."
"You don't seem to mind him, though."
Harmony nonchalantly shrugged. "I guess, some of us feel that there needs to be someone to do the job. Someone needs to keep the system running. As long as sex work gets criminalized, and the government doesn't monitor it, the crime syndicates will happily take care of business for them."
Nobody raised a skeptical brow at her. "So you think that trafficking underaged girls is just an unavoidable evil?"
"I can't speak for the girls," Harmony decisively said, "I can only speak for myself. I was a grown woman when I began to work in the sex industry. And once I put my roots down; one thing was proven to me very quickly."
"What's that?"
"Sex work has existed for longer than the human race has had a word, for the thing called 'work'. And the Sanctuaries haven't done themselves any favors, cleaning their hands off the dirt and looking the other way. The men that want to fuck a woman will find a woman to fuck. And the men that want to fuck a girl, are seriously messed up in the head. I'm not gonna be the one to fix'em. That's a job for a healer, not a whore."
Nobody continued nodding along to her statements. They looked to be following her logic, but also didn't say anything to agree or disagree.
"Anyway..." Harmony said and took a calming sip of tea before speaking on. "I personally can't think of anyone better suited for the role. Being raised as the heir to the Magical Godfather might have made him a cunning bastard, but Bax is the closest thing to a rational mind you can find, in this type of business."
"So, I don't presume you'd want to help us take him down?"
"Take him down?!" Harmony laughed. Then she paused. Then she laughed again. She leaned forward, mockingly inching her face closer to the blonde woman's. "You and, who, exactly?"
"Skulduggery Pleasant and Valkyrie Cain."
Her grin disappeared in an instant and was replaced by a look of utter shock. "What?"
Nobody hesitated. "Is... that a bad thing?"
"A bad thing?!" Harmony set up to mock her again, but she suddenly changed her mind and grew very serious. "That's terrible news! If Bax allowed for those two to find out his name, something big is going down! Something huge!"
"He has plans, then," Nobody bitterly guessed.
"Oh, yes. And you better think he's using Pleasant and Cain for something. Anyone that knows his name works for him, and that now includes them, and you. My advice; stay as far away as you possibly can."
The blonde woman's fake face contorted to an apologetic expression. "I actually didn't come here for advice...? I wanted to turn in that favor, you mentioned to me once."
Harmony groaned in dismay. "Of course you're in the middle of it all... Please tell me, you have a good reason to be involved."
"Personal reasons," Nobody nodded.
"The worst kind..." She shook her head but asked her, "what do you need?"
"Carry's club," Nobody said and leaned forward, herself. "It's going to the dogs. Hench took her keys away."
"I've heard. I'd love to say, I feel sorry for Carry, but..." Harmony left it at that.
"I want that briefcase. I need a meeting with Hench."
Her eyes widened again. "To steal it?"
"To bargain."
Harmony shook her head. "I don't know which is worse." She set her cup aside on the mounted side table. "Where are you getting the cash from?"
"I have my sources."
She stood up and slowly backed away. "I don't like the sound of any of this. I left the Gian Family decades ago, and I was lucky to go unscathed. I won't get involved in this, nuh-uh."
"You're not getting involved," Nobody patiently replied, "just give me a name or a number, and I'll take care of the rest."
She kept shaking her head and making tiny slow steps backwards. She had almost reached the kitchen by now. "Nuh-uh, no way."
Nobody sighed. "I really hate to do this but... Remember what you said to me, the very first time we met?"
Harmony grimaced with desperation, but she quoted herself; "I owe you everything... If you ever need anything... Anything, anywhere, I'll make it happen."
"Sounds good to me." The blonde woman smiled, if sadly so.
She stopped backing up, and her face slowly drooped to a grim expression of concede. "And afterwards, you'll get out of my life? Forever?"
Nobody's smile saddened further. "If that's what you want."
Harmony decisively nodded. "It is."