Charlie spent the remainder of the day walking on a nightmare.
His mind raced with dark scattered thoughts, and the dread continued circling in his gut like an angry snake covered in barbed wire. Contrarily, he felt incredibly numb, and whenever Charlie tried to latch on to any particular train of thought, it seemed to slip away from him. He ultimately always found himself back in the same place; in his sister's trashed empty bedroom, with the dead bodies, and the new scary version of his brother.
Physically, Charlie had been removed from the scene. Someone had driven him to his laboratory in Galway and the tiny overnight apartment attached to it. Outside the door, several security guards discreetly watched over him. He had barely registered the journey here, or any of the people that took care of him. None of them were family, and nothing really seemed to matter.
Charlie couldn't exactly recall what he'd done after that. He had gotten cleaned up and he had stared into space; this much he remembered. At some point, someone else - or he, himself - must have taken him to bed.
When Charlie woke up the next day, things seemed less surreal. This didn't make the situation any better. Quite to the contrary, it only made the terrible barbed wire feeling all the worse. It also allowed for him to follow his racing thoughts, only to realize that each of them ended in a pointless indefinite loop.
Charlie tried to follow his regular morning routine, but it took him much longer than usual. Moving was hard and eating was virtually impossible, and the more he woke up the worse he felt.
Still, he managed to get himself ready and to his work station. And the moment he sat down, a sudden burst of motivational energy hit him. It wasn't the good kind of motivation that made everything seem brighter and more promising. It was the angry, petty kind that wouldn't accept another hour of being useless.
He needed to do something, Charlie had just decided. Something, anything, to stop being a burden. He needed to act like the adult he was in the process of becoming. He needed a plan of his own.
And so, Charlie got to work. He pulled out every document and skill and resource he could think of, and began putting together his first draft. Creating business plans such as this was normally something that took months - if not years - to put into action. He'd only been granted access to his funds a couple of days ago. Thus, the first hours of work were spent mostly scribbling on paper and throwing away page after page of bad ideas and even worse mathematics.
Despite all, Charlie was surprised by how quickly he found himself working on his first actual financial chart. Late in the afternoon, surrounded by a small ocean of crumpled-up paper, his sense of motivation had grown to feel much more positive.
This vague sense of positivity didn't last for long, however, as Charlie was compelled to abruptly pause his work.
He felt himself tensing up as a familiar sensation set in. It wasn't a feeling that usually bothered him; it could even be rather comforting sometimes. Today, though, it gave him the chills.
He knew that his brother was standing in the doorway behind him. He knew before Bax said anything or made the slightest of sounds. Charlie could always tell when his brother was there, even when his magic hid his every breath and motion.
When Bax did speak, his voice sounded unusually meager and uncertain. "Charlie?"
The dreadful barbed wire feeling set back in. Charlie swallowed and focused harder on his work.
Bax quietly sighed. "Would you look at me please?"
It took him some self-convincing to turn his desk chair around. A part of him was sincerely worried that he might find the ravenous animal, which had recently replaced his big brother.
Yet, when he did turn around, it was just Bax standing there. He was clean and groomed and well-dressed as usual. He looked like he always did; calm and strong, and always at least a bit concerned for his sibling's wellbeing. Though he looked tired, and strangely insecure, and his levels of concern seemed to be disproportionately high.
Bax regretfully shook his head at him. "I'm sorry you had to see that." When Charlie couldn't find the strength to respond, he added; "and I'm sorry I bumped into you like that, too. You've got to know that this had nothing to do with you."
Charlie shrugged away the tears that were threatening to build up in his eyes. "Why not? This is my fault."
"No no no," Bax immediately said and decisively walked towards him. "Don't you even start."
He pulled up his shoulders as he watched him approach. "You and Fire said, yourselves..."
"Forget about what we said."
As Bax arrived in front of him, he reached out for his face. The way he cupped his cheeks was affectionate, but the way he made him look up was stern and almost forceful. Once Charlie was essentially required to meet his intense gaze, he spoke on.
"For once, we aren't the problem here," Bax distinctly reminded him. "Who is the problem? Who is kidnapping people? Who is trying to take over the world with monster armies?"
Charlie uneasily sighed and tried his best to avoid looking directly at him. "The Mother..."
"Precisely. Yaaba B'awoo is the problem. You were right, Charlie. We tried to play nice with Queenie, and that came around to royally bite us in the ass. So, now, we're going to show her that she messed with the wrong family. Agreed?"
Albeit Bax didn't seem much less confrontational than earlier, his choice of words was slowly making it easier for Charlie to meet his eyes. "Yeah. Agreed."
"There is absolutely no point in dwelling on those thoughts, you hear me? There's one, and only one thought, I want to see going through your mind right now..."
The manner in which he paused incentivized Charlie to finish the sentence. "Getting Bell back."
He took his hands off his face, in order to intensely and agreeably point at him. "Getting Bell back. Whatever that clever head of yours can come up with; I gave you the resources to do it." He nodded to the developing stack of paperwork on his desk. "You have a plan?"
Charlie made a bit of a face. "Yeah, but... I don't think you're going to like it."
He shook his head at the notion. "That doesn't matter. All I need to know is; do you have a plan?"
At this, Charlie nodded convincedly. "Yes, I do."
"Good." Bax poked an index finger against his forehead, gently digging it in deeper and deeper as he continued intensely, "I want you to hold on to that plan as hard as you can, and worry about nothing else, including me. I want you to dreame it, and breathe it, and eat it. Can you do that for me?"
"Sure," he decidedly said, first. But then, he doubtfully frowned. "What about the actual plan?"
Bax sighed and took his finger down, but he seemed no less intense at his next important statement. "This is the plan, Charlie. I warned you that it wouldn't go down exactly as planned, and this is how we enter the endgame. This is the last hurrah. The very second that we get our hands on our sister, we are getting the hell out of here."
"Okay, but... Wouldn't that mean we're just abandoning the part about destroying Chris's organisation?"
He encouragingly shook his head at this. "I've got everything set up for the sanctuaries to clear them out. I've been holding things in place for them long enough, and I don't give a damn about the rest. I need you to have your bags ready to go at a moment's notice, alright?"
Charlie uneasily shifted at the heaviness of the situation, as well as his sadness at the underlying meaning of Bax's words. "What are you going to do?"
He shot him a slim yet reassuring smile. "In order to keep Yamabella safe, I have to do as B'awoo says. That doesn't mean I can't do other things as well, but I'll have to keep a very low profile. Unfortunately that also means, Fire and I won't be around for a while."
Charlie hated the sound of that, but he bravely nodded to the logic. "Okay. So, you have a new plan too?"
Suddenly, he looked surprisingly upbeat, as he chuckled at the irony of something. "I'm going to do something very stupid."
"Sounds about right," Charlie teased. "Is it something I would approve of?"
Bax's smirk widened. "You know what?" he said, almost cheerfully so, "I think it's something that even Bell would approve of."
His brows shot up with honest surprise. "Oh, wow. That must be a great plan then, if all three of us would approve."
"No no, I said; the two of you would approve. I, myself, am quite certain that it's my dumbest idea to date."
He snorted. "Can't wait to hear the tale."
Bax smiled and regarded him in that proud way that always made Charlie feel a bit awkward. Then, he pulled him into a firm hug. They both held on tight for a longer moment.
"I love you," Bax said, delivering it not as a tender affirmation, but like a reminder of crucial importance.
"Love you too..." Charlie mumbled into his shirt.
He let go and straightened up. With a final encouraging slap on the shoulder, he turned and began to walk away.
"Oh and, Bax? One more thing."
He paused by the door and glanced back at him. "Yes?"
"The Mother probably keeps tabs on your phone, right? Recording your calls, reading your messages, that sort of thing?"
Bax thought about it briefly before nodding, "probably. But you know how to reach me while I'm out in the field."
"I know, it's just..." Charlie said, briefly stalled in his delivery. "As part of my plan, I'm going to send you a text message."
He confusedly frowned, "okay, and what do you want me to do with it?"
"Nothing, don't even read it. I guess that's my point; it's not for you. So, when you get this message, I need you to just... Disregard it."
Bax looked both skeptical and curious about this request, but he apparently decided not to push for details. "Sure...?"
"Just reply with, I don't know..." He shrugged. "Farewell, or something."
He softly snorted and looked more curious by the second. "Got it."
Charlie smiled. "Be careful out there, okay?"
Bax smiled back, "you too, brother." He paused to take in the sight of him for one more second, then he turned and walked away.
Once he had disappeared down the hallway, Charlie sagged and sat motionlessly on his desk chair. He felt numb and alone again.
But then, Charlie remembered what they had just discussed. And so, he took a deep breath and straightened up in the process. He energetically turned his chair around to face the desk, then he got back to work.
"We should tell them."
"Yes, we should."
"You should tell them."
"No, you should tell them."
Gracious annoyedly sighed. As it was unfortunately typical for them, the Monster Hunters were stuck bickering inside a stuffy motel room. This one was a little nicer than their average dig, it came with a little sofa and a coffee table, but that didn't seem to help with the bickering.
"Why do I always have to be the bearer of bad news?" he complained. "It sucks, it's always sad, and I don't like being sad."
"I bear plenty of bad news," Donegan dryly argued.
"No, you don't. You are the stoic one who says things as they are. I'm the empathetic one that talks to people about feelings and stuff."
Donegan offendedly frowned. "What? What are you on about?"
"And that's a good thing!" Gracious quickly clarified, "that's what makes us great partners, you know, we balance each other out, like ying and yang! But..."
Donegan groaned and rolled his eyes, before he even got to make his point.
"But!" he insisted, trying to get his attention back, "my point remains. I don't want to always be the one to bear the bad news."
"Dude, why don't you just partner up with a bear."
"Just... I don't know what to say to them! I don't even know what the hell happened, exactly!"
"Neither do I!"
Gracious made a deliberately pitiful noise and gave him his best doe-eyed look. "Just this once...? Please? Pretty pretty please?"
"Ugh!" Donegan shoved him away by the chest, as if in disgust at his choice of tactic. "Fine!"
He paused and then hopefully smiled. "Really?"
"Yes, really, whatever, seriously, fuck off." Donegan pulled out his cell, in order to place the daunting phonecall.
Gracious victoriously pumped his fist. "Yisss."
"Shut up," Donegan said and started the call.
He switched on the speakerphone and placed his cell down on the coffee table by their knees. They anxiously waited out the dial tone, and then virtually flinched when the call was picked up.
"Hello?" Skulduggery's voice replied, and he sounded a little distracted by something. Judging by the humming echo of an engine in the background, Gracious guessed that he was currently driving the Bentley.
"Hey, it's Donegan, Gracious is here too," he announced, and the uncertainty was already creeping into his voice.
"Hi, guys!" Valkyrie's voice replied.
"Hey, Valkyrie. We'll be on our way to you soon. We just thought we should call, because... Well..."
Gracious, noticing that his friends was seriously struggling, decided to keep it simple. "We sort of... Ran into Bax Hench...?"
"What?" Valkyrie worriedly exclaimed.
"Well, to be specific, we first ran into his little brother..." Donegan hesitantly added.
"What?!" Valkyrie asked again, this time in bewilderment.
"Alright, hold on. Start from top," Skulduggery asked.
Donegan glanced at Gracious for more help, who merely responded with a smile of encouragement. He sighed, but then succinctly summarized; "we were at a monster battleground in Galway, administering First Aid to the injured. And there comes this young kid, fifteen years old maybe, East-Asian-looking, though he spoke native English."
"Definitely Irish," Gracious clarified with an agreeable nod.
"Right, so the kid helps us heal a guy, does a decent job at it... Everything seems normal and then, suddenly, something invisible starts dragging him away from us. We thought he might be in danger and started to attack, but..."
"Turns out, nope. It's Bax Hench, and he's just collecting his runaway brother."
There was a moment of meaningful silence on the other end of the line.
"Did anyone get hurt?" Valkyrie asked.
"No, uh, he ultimately took the kid and pulled a Houdini," Donegan concluded.
"Interesting," Skulduggery murmured, "seems as though this younger brother of his just hit the bloom of the rebellious teenager phase..."
Gracious felt his insides pull together in apprehension as he addressed the most important point. "Skulduggery, there's just... One other thing..."
"Ah, here it comes..." Skulduggery grumbled, sounding frustrated before they even told him the most disconcerting part.
He kicked Donegan. Donegan first glowered and then pulled an apologetic grimace at the phone. "Before Hench left, he seemed kind of out of it...? And he accused us of, umm... Stealing his siblings?"
Another second of tense silence.
"Siblings," Skulduggery wearily echoed, "he said, siblings, plural?"
Donegan's shoulders rose ever higher with each tentitave word. "Yeah... So, umm. Could there be any chance, whatsoever, that... one of your friends might be... Related to Bax Hench?"
The silence that followed on the other end of the line this time was much longer and incredibly daunting.
Suddenly, there was a screeching noise, like tires sliding over asphalt. Gracious invisioned Skulduggery forcefully stopping the Bentley by the side of the road. This was momentarily followed by nothing but the faint clicking sounds of the Bentley's blinking emergency lights.
"No," Skulduggery then said. Although he didn't seem to be giving them an answer, he seemed to be lamenting the real answer. "Oh, please no..."
"Skul...?" Valkyrie worriedly asked. "Please tell me that means; 'no, none of our friends are related to Bax Hench'?"
Suddenly, Skulduggery sounded angry. "Why did you tell me this?" he scolded, apparently the Monster Hunters. Before Donegan could confusedly ask for more context on this criticism, Skulduggery was already rambling on. "Why on Earth would you tell me this?! Now, I have to be the one to tell her! And I don't want to be the one to tell her! I understand that I might be the best person, besides the actual person, to tell her? But that doesn't mean I want to tell her, alright?!"
"Skul, what the hell are you..." Valkyrie confusedly began to say. But then, she abruptly went silent.
"Bax Hench is Caucasian, and his brother is of Asian descent. They likely aren't biologically related," Skulduggery pointed out to her. "Christopherus Gian adopted all of his children, each from different parts of the world. And the mystery sibling likely has a direct connection to Diamond."
Valkyrie gasped, and when she spoke again, she sounded just as utterly horrified as him. "Oh, please no..."
The Monster Hunters exchanged exceedingly concerned glances. They had an obvious question burning on their tongues, but neither of them dared to interrupt and ask it. They returned their full attention to the frantically conversing voices from the speakerphone and waited for their minds to catch up with a clearly terrible reality.
"But she's so nice!" Valkyrie argued with no one in particular, "she's a bundle of joy and sunshine, all of the time! How? Just, how?!"
"She works at the filing department..." Skulduggery murmured to himself. "Hench must have gotten her that job..."
"So, she's spying on us, and Diamond, and the British Sanctuary?!"
"Maybe not anymore..." Skulduggery's voice replied. He sounded torn between still being stunned, being deep in thought, and feeling exceedingly gloomy about the entire situation. "It's well known in her friend circle that she cut contact with her adoptive family years ago, and in quite the dramatic fashion. She spends Christmas with us... Speaking of; remember how shaken she was when she saw the pink diamond Hench left for Diamond at Christmas?"
"Umm, no, I wasn't there for that," Valkyrie reminded him, but went on to add, "I do remember how she reacted when we found Ninja and Nora. She was horrified, in shock even, and that didn't seem like an act..."
Gracious heard them both sigh in dismay.
"So, umm, I really hate to ask this, but..." he chimed in, both meaningfully and apologetically. "If you really are friends with Bax Hench's sister, and he thinks that you stole her from him..." He deeply cringed as he concluded; "wouldn't that, technically speaking, on the smaller scale of this conflict, make you guys... the instigators?"
Yet another moment of meaningful silence followed at this.
Valkyrie sounded even more horrified at her next question. "Are we the bad guys?"
"No," Skulduggery immediately replied and, this time around, he seemed to really mean it. "Bax Hench is definitely still the bad guy. But Gracious does have a point. This might indeed be the reason why he's been targeting Diamond. In which case, we have been looking at this from the entirely wrong angle, this entire time..."
"This isn't about some grand crime empire..." Valkyrie concluded his point, sounding equally thoughtful and in awe at everything. "This is about family."
They sighed again, as the truth seemed to heavily sink in for both of them. Gracious and Donegan looked at each other with an uncomfortable mixture of relief and guilt. They were glad to get this off their chest and hand it over to someone who knew what on earth was going on. At the same time, the fallout was about as messy and chilling as they had feared.
"I usually try not to shoot the messenger," Skulduggery eventually grumbled, "but I really hate you both right now."
They helplessly cringed at each other. "Sorry, buddy," they said in canon.
"Alright, thank you for the information," he then announced in an overly official tone. "Now, I need to take a moment to think of how, exactly, I will tell my girlfriend that her best friend is the secret sister of her arch nemesis. If I'm still in one piece after that, I suppose that we'll see you later."
They uncomfortably and pointlessly wished him, "good luck..."
Diamond was sitting upright in her bed, resting her back against the headboard and reading a paperback novel to curb her boredom. She interestedly looked up, when she heard the front door open downstairs.
She heard Skulduggery's and Valkyrie's voices tensely converse in front of the door, but she couldn't understand what they were saying. Something was keeping them from entering the house.
Not long after, the door was shut again. By the sound of their voices cutting off, Diamond could tell that they had changed their minds and were headed back out. Silence settled over her home once again, and she halfway focused on continuing to read her book.
Diamond did feel like this behavior was somewhat odd. Though, it wasn't exactly uncommon for the dynamic duo to change their minds on a whim and decide to follow a more important lead. And yet, she wondered what had caused them to abort their previous mission, and what had brought them here in the first place.
"Good morning, Lady Die," a familiar voice said cheekily, only steps away from her.
Every fiber of Diamond's being curled into itself, her heart bounded in shock, and her breathing abruptly stopped.
Very slowly, Diamond looked up from her novel. Then, she went back to being frozen stiff as she stared at the newcomer before her.
Standing by the end of her bed, in the middle of her bedroom, was Bax Hench.
Hench smirked at the visible shock on her face. "Don't you faint now, Irie, I need you wide awake."
As the initial horror somewhat subsided, Diamond noticed that he wasn't attacking her. In fact, it seemed like Hench was giving her time to come to terms with this strange new reality.
Now that she had a second to take a closer look, she also noticed that something was... off about him. Hench's smirk seemed much less confident than she remembered it. Surprisingly so, her vulnerable position in bed didn't appear to cause any glee in him. He even looked a bit uncomfortable about being here.
Next, Diamond noticed that he looked tired. Very tired. There were dark rings under his eyes, and he was a little pale like he'd been running on adrenaline for a while.
"You look like shit, Hench," Diamond sneered.
He seemed amused by this. "Right back at you, Irie."
"Oh, this?" she facetiously asked and showed him the scars on her arms. "Yeah, I don't know, some crazy bloke abducted me. Who knows what's on the minds of the clinically insane, am I right?"
Diamond was definitely enjoying coming up with clever insults, for the mob boss that had just randomly popped up in her bedroom like an unsettling but charming hallucination. Mostly, however, she was trying to evoke a reaction. She wanted to see how far she could go before he would reveal his true intentions to her.
Curiously enough, Hench chuckled in response. "Would you look at that, she's got spunk! You really shouldn't hide that, Lady Die, it makes you more attractive."
Diamond shot him her most false smile. "It's good then, that the idea of being attractive to you is the most repulsive thought I could come up with."
Hench grinned in an almost flirtatious manner. "Some might consider that passion, Irie."
She just about kept herself from sticking her tongue out to him like a feisty teenager. "Go to hell."
He opened his mouth to say something else sly. Suddenly, an unexpected sound cut through the tension. Both of them flinched in surprise and looked at Diamond's bedside table.
On it, her cellphone was ringing. The call screen showed Skulduggery's name.
Diamond warily glanced at Hench. Hench looked similarly uncertain. If she picked up the call, she could tip off Skulduggery. If she didn't pick up, her lack of response might tip him off just as well.
"I know where every single one of your little friends are," Hench threateningly informed her. "One wrong word, and someone dies."
Diamond took a shaky breath and - without taking her eyes off him - carefully reached for her phone. She tried to collect herself somewhat before picking up the call.
"Hey love," she said.
When Skulduggery replied on the other end of the line, his voice sounded hectical, and there was lots of noise in the background. She discerned the worrisome sounds of battle and the unnatural screeching of monsters.
"Diamond, are you alright?!" Skulduggery called over the noise, "there's yet another monster-attack happening close to your house!"
She critically scanned Hench. By the developing smirk on his face, she could tell that he was at fault for this. This meant that he was working with the Queen Mother, and any wrong move could indeed lead to someone dying.
"I'm fine," Diamond lied as convincingly as she could. "Are you okay? Should I come help?"
"No, stay right where you are!" Skulduggery's voice replied, and she could tell that he was simultaneously warding off an entire pack of monsters. "We'll try to keep them from getting any closer to you, but I might have to come fly you out, so be ready!"
"Okay," she said, "I'll be ready."
She could hear a couple more sounds of battle in the background, then Skulduggery hung up.
Diamond swallowed at her thick throat as she stared at her dark phone screen for a second. In a way, she hoped that Skulduggery had picked up on the strange tone in her voice, and was indeed on his way to pick her up. In another way, she hoped he had been too distracted and would stay far away from here.
She set her cell down on the side table. Right next to her hand was a leathern pouch. Inside of that pouch; her brand new magical whip. If she could pull it out in time, maybe she could incapacitate Hench long enough to run.
As fast as she could, Diamond reached for the pouch. Hench immediately saw it and darted forward. He grabbed her wrist by the spot where he had previously drilled into it, and Diamond howled in pain.
Yet, she tried to shove him off and pull out the whip with her other hand. She managed to get a hold of the handle, but Hench was faster and stronger. He ripped the weapon from her grip and the useless handle clattered to the ground.
Diamond gave a battle cry and crunched her forehead into his nose. Hench grunted and let go of her, in order to reach up to his sore face. She used the window of opportunity to pull her legs out from underneath the covers and harshly bury a crystal foot in his gut.
Hench curled up and stumbled backwards at the impact, but just a second later, he disappeared.
Diamond sat up straight and frantically looked around, tried to listen to her intuition in the hopes of spotting Hench through his illusions. Yet, he remained invisible to her, just until he had an arm wrapped around her neck.
She instinctually whimpered in fear, a sound which was soon cut off by the force of his arm, as it squeezed down on her windpipe. Diamond desperately reached for Hench's arm and tried to use her magic to pry it away. Her movements were now fumbling and ineffective, driven purely by her survival instincts.
In response, Hench roughly squeezed her throat tighter. If he pushed any harder, he'd be getting close to breaking her spine.
"Make one more move..." Hench threateningly murmured into her ear, although he sounded somewhat nasal from when she had just bruised his nose.
Diamond gave up and stopped struggling against him. She raised her empty hands up for him to clearly see.
"I will let you go now," he quietly announced. "Are you going to be a good girl and behave?"
Bile flooded her mouth at the wording, but Diamond was beginning to run out of air. Her head was throbbing from the amount of blood that was stuck in it. She managed to nod in confirmation.
Hench let go of her throat and stepped back. Diamond gulped in a couple of deep breaths and went through a brief coughing fit. The moment she had regained her bearings, she sprang to her feet and got into a defensive fighting stance.
Meanwhile, Hench waited and didn't attack again. All he did was to check whether his nose was bleeding. It wasn't, but Diamond was happy to see that he was still hurting from the blow.
"What do you want?" she hissed.
"I just want to talk," Hench slowly and calmly replied.
Diamond sourly scoffed, "sure you do! And let me guess; half of your guards are hiding somewhere down the hallway."
He shook his head. "It's just me."
Diamond laughed at him in disbelief. Meanwhile, she carefully began to walk backwards towards her bedroom door. "You must really think I'm stupid."
"Well, no... Stupid isn't exactly the word I'd choose..." Hench casually disagreed. He didn't keep her from advancing towards the exit, but he slowly followed along so the distance between them remained the same.
Diamond slowly made her way down the corridor. She half expected to walk into an invisible person lurking behind her, or to spot Fire somewhere. Yet, so far it seemed, Hench wasn't lying and he was on his own. That served her just right.
"You wanna talk?" she spat, "happily! I can't express how long I've been waiting for an opportunity to tell you, how much of a piece of vermin you are! I've never had more disdain for anyone than for you! Do you even realize the damage you do every day? Does it get you off? Do you go bathe in your swimming pools of money to relax before going to bed, or does it help you freshen up in the morning?!"
The longer her rant went on, the more Hench seemed amused and borderline impressed by it. "Damn, Irie, keep them coming! I didn't know you had it in ya."
She suppressed the urge to spit on the floor by his feet. After all, she would be the one to clean it up later. Instead, Diamond focused on blindly opening the door to the staircase behind herself. She walked down it, still advancing backwards, more careful than ever not to trip and fall in the process.
Hench kept pace with her, maintaining the distance, but he still didn't seem to have any intentions of attacking her. He seemed to be stalling, but she wasn't sure; for what?
"You're disgusting," she spat. "I hope your dead scum of a father is proud of you."
Hench bemusedly snorted. "Chris? Proud? Careful now, you're about to make me laugh!"
She had made it about halfway down the stairs. Almost there, she told herself. On the other hand, Diamond wasn't especially in a rush to finish this conversation. In fact, she was faintly surprised by how much she enjoyed spewing insults at Bax Hench. However dangerous this situation might have been, the biggest part of her wanted to drag it out while she still had the chance.
"What's your plan, huh?" Hench asked as he continued following her down the stairs at matching speed. "Do you think I'll just let you walk out the door? You're dragging out the inevitable."
"What's the inevitable?" Diamond shot back, "you threaten me? You torture me? You try to kill me? Been there, done that, Hench. Come up with something new, I'm getting bored over here."
Hench exasperatedly rolled his eyes. "Could we just skip the clever banter and get to the point? I really don't have time for this."
They reached the bottom of the stairs and inched into the entrance area of the house.
"Actually, I had a different idea," Diamond said. And despite the dire situation, she found herself smiling.
She had spotted something behind Hench; something she'd been waiting for. As her gaze wandered past his shoulder, Hench noticed it too. He turned around and froze.
Dexter had sneaked up from the closest door and had appeared right behind him. His hand was glowing brightly, ready to unleash a searing energy beam, hovering only centimeters away from his target's nose.
Hench's eyes widened in shock. Dexter smirked and prepared to fire.
"Dex, don't!" Diamond shouted.
Dexter's eyes flickered over to her, and it seemed to take him a significant amount of willpower not to disintegrate Hench's head right there and then. Yet, he listened and didn't take the shot quite yet.
Meanwhile, Hench surprisedly mustered Diamond and slowly showed his hands in capitulation.
"Why give him any more chances to play his games, Dye? This is the best opportunity we're going to get," Dexter growled, eyes pinned to the threat right in front of him.
Diamond doubtfully shook her head at the notion. She watched Hench with a mixture of skepticism and curiosity. "But that's just it, isn't it...? This is far too easy. Why would he waltz right in here and expose himself?" she thoughtfully hypothesized, like Hench couldn't hear the conversation. "Look at him, Dex. Look at the bags under his eyes."
Dexter skeptically analyzed Hench, who was uneasily glancing back-and-forth between them. He didn't look especially happy about Diamond's evaluations, but he didn't argue with her either.
She didn't take her prodding gaze off him for a second, but she kept talking to Dexter. "This isn't a calculated move. He's desperate. He wants something from us."
Dexter didn't lower his hand and didn't look any more agreeable than before, but he seemed to be following her logic.
When neither men had anything clever to say in response, Diamond nodded directly to Hench with a question. "Did you get yourself involved with the Queen Mother?"
Hench was still watching her like he was unsure of what to think, but he nodded with partial agreement. "I didn't seek her out; she came to us."
Diamond mirrored his nods with growing comprehension. "Is she blackmailing you?"
Dexter snorted in disbelief at her developing line of questions. "Why, exactly, are you concerned for him, Diamond?"
She shook her head at him again. "I'm not. I'm concerned about the power of the entire crime syndicate beneath him, and what it might be used for."
Dexter begrudgingly paused again to let her continue.
When Diamond refocused her attention on Hench, he frustratedly sighed. "Yes," he replied, "she kidnapped my sister."
They both mustered him with growing interest. "What does the Mother want from you?" Diamond asked.
He shrugged, "to do whatever she asks, whenever she asks it."
"And why are you coming to us?" The snark returned to her voice as she pressed on, "do you want to make a deal? What, your intel for our help? You really think that's going to cut it?"
"Actually," Hench casually said and, for some reason, a self-assured smirk was developing on his lips. "I thought you might want to help me save Yamabella, out of the goodness of your pure golden heart."
Both Dexter and Diamond abstrusely snorted. "Why?" he challenged, "why would she give a single damn about your sister?"
"Well, I certainly hope she does," Hench smugly retorted. "Otherwise, these past few years truly would've been one massive waste of energy for all of us."
Suddenly, Diamond felt sick to her stomach. There was something about the look in his eye. That smugness, like he knew something she didn't. She wearily eyed him for a moment before daring to ask anything else.
"What's that supposed to mean?" she eventually managed to murmur.
"Oh, sorry." Hench pretended to be apologetic about his pretend slip-up. "Yamabella is the name that I know her by. You know her by this silly new name she came up with... It's French, isn't it? Means 'kiss the hand', or something? Not that she's even remotely French, but who cares about honoring your actual heritage, right? Now, what was it again...? Oh, yeah! Betty Baisemain."
Diamond had been listening with a vague sense of rising dread the entire time. But as soon as Hench dropped the name, she instantly froze solid. She stared at him in utter disbelief.
The smirk widened further and further on Hench's face, as he watched Diamond try to process what he had just said. In the meantime, Dexter stared at her with comparable amounts of shock, the remnants of his own distaste for Hench, as well as an abundance of concern for her.
When Diamond finally managed to speak, her voice sounded breathless and entirely blank. "Prove it."
Hench rolled his eyes in annoyance, but he kept one hand up in capitulation and slowly reached his other hand for his inner jacket pocket. Visibly aware of Dexter's threatening presence close-by, he carefully pulled out a black leather wallet. From this wallet, he fished out a pocket photograph.
He held the little photo out to Diamond. As the dread and horror churned in her chest harder and harder, she slowly bridged the remaining distance to him, crossed the final meter by cautiously leaning over it, and slowly accepted the photo.
As Diamond straightened and looked down at it, her stomach dropped and her throat slammed shut at once.
It was a picture of Bax Hench and Fire, goofing around with a teenage girl. Fire was posing for the camera while kissing Hench on the cheek, Hench was playfully kissing the girl on the cheek, and the girl was grinning brightly like this was the best day of her life.
She was clearly younger, and her scalp was adorned with long clean braids, instead of the manicured afro curls that now stood off her head in the most stylish way. Despite all these details, the big antelope eyes and the bright smile were unmistakable. And it was clear that this young girl would eventually grow up to become Betty Baisemain.
Diamond thought to hear herself gasp in horror, but her perception of the world seemed to fail for a moment. She was suddenly trapped inside her body, as every organ inside her seemed to twist and sink down into the ground, pulling her along downwards.
Diamond's brain raced through all the situations, all the information and little hints that Betty had shared with her over the years. How many times they had talked about her family. How guilty she had seemed recently, whenever the topic had come up. How visceral her reactions had been, to seeing what Hench was doing to the girls. It all made perfect sense now.
And yet, it felt as though reality had ceased progressing. It felt like everything Diamond had ever known was a lie. The hurt and the betrayal she felt were nothing, compared to how it felt to watch her valued friendship shatter into a million crystals.
"You know, Irie, if it wasn't for my big brother," Betty had once said to her with a teasing chuckle, "I'd say you're the most stubborn person I've ever met." Diamond felt the memory hit like a punch to the ribs. That bright smile. That chiming laugh. And now this.
Hench chuckled with vicious delight and sagged like he was incredibly relieved. "Oh, for how long have I been wanting to see that look on your face..." he blissfully sighed. "All these years and all that work, it was worth it just so I could witness this very moment."
"Shut it, shithead," Dexter hissed.
Not wanting to be boiled alive by the gleaming hand that continued to point at his head, Hench didn't say anything else to gloat. Though he still very much managed to gloat with his eyes.
Dexter slowly set himself into motion and, without taking his eyes off Hench, walked closer to Diamond. As he put a comforting hand on her shoulder, she suddenly felt the distress come up. She had to squeeze her eyes shut tight, in order not to break down right then and there.
Diamond handed Dexter the photograph without daring to look at it again. He glanced at it, paused for a moment, and then grew visibly angry.
"Did you set this up?" Dexter sharply demanded to know. "This whole friendship, was that all just for show?"
Hench snorted and looked much less pleased at his next response. "I wish. No no, you managed to suck her into your delusional world views just fine on your own."
Diamond couldn't believe what she was hearing. Her mind was rapidly switching between sheer exasperation, the need to curl up and cry, and the need to scream at Hench at the top of her lungs. It took her a lot of self-control to pick exasperation.
"So, this is it? That's what all this is about?" she scoffed in disbelief, "you're mad at me, because I'm friends with your sister?!"
"Friends?" He facetiously laughed, "oh, no, Irie. You're more than just a friend, you must know that. According to my sister, you're the new replacement family. You've made sure of that, with your goodie-two-shoes brainwashing tactics. As far as I can tell, you consider yourself some type of mother figure of hers."
"You consider being motherly a brainwashing tactic?!" Diamond echoed, as her bewilderment breached unseen levels.
Hench continued mocking her with his facetious cheerfulness. "Well, being her friend wasn't good enough, was it? You had to be a 'good influence'. It's ironic really! I've spent most of my life keeping Bell safe from the deepest darkest pits of humanity. You, on the other hand, have dragged her into the world of the Dead Men, where someone drops dead or goes ballistic every other week. Hell, you're dating the most notorious killer of the twenty-first, twentieth, and nineteenth century! And I'M the bad influence?!"
Although the shock and hurt continued to churn in her, Diamond found her anger and hatred reinvigorate with passion. "At least, I don't make her cry every other week!" she snapped back.
This response made Hench falter visibly in his enthusiasm.
Glad to have struck a cord, Diamond continued on with rising conviction. "I didn't tell Betty to cut contact to her family, because of some criminal past. I told her to cut you out, because you're an insufferable arsehole stalker! Who do you think she came to for advice, whenever you've upset her again, huh? Who do you think held her while she cried, after you two had yet another stupid argument?!"
She felt invigorated to see that her words seemed to have the intended effect. Not only didn't Hench say anything to defend himself, he even looked a little guilty.
"Not so snappy now, are you!" Diamond triumphantly barked.
His demeanor suddenly darkened significantly. "You know nothing about my family, Irie, or about my relationship with my sister."
"And you apparently know nothing about my relationship with your sister!" she sharply snapped back, "otherwise, you would have shown your face around here two decades ago!"
Hench looked ready to follow this up with another snide comment, but something seemed to waver his enthusiasm to continue. Instead, he tiredly sighed and soothingly rubbed his forehead with the ball of his hand.
"I knew this was a mistake..." he muttered to himself.
Diamond and Dexter exchanged another meaningful glance.
"Look, I really couldn't care less about what any of you people think," Hench eventually said as he dropped his hand to his side, voice lame but sharp. "The only reason I'm here is because my sister lives under the delusion that you, specifically, are someone who's willing to have a civil conversation, Irie."
This particular statement made Diamond falter. She supposed, she considered herself as much. She didn't know if this rule applied to Bax Hench. But maybe, just maybe, it applied to Betty's brother.
She was still mad at Betty, even more so; she was livid. She already had a whole speech prepared in her head. And at the same time, Diamond was incredibly concerned. Hench wasn't the type of man to turn to his enemy on a whim. If he was at the end of his rope, it meant that Betty was in big, big trouble.
"Believe me, I don't want to do this any more than you do," Hench continued at her silence, "in fact, it's the opposite of what I want to do right about now. But as long as the Mother is holding Bell hostage, my hands are essentially tied. So, are you going to help me get your bestie back? Or is your care for her just as much an act as your nice girl persona?"
This question mostly made Diamond feel more defensive. She wanted to continue this argument, she wanted to escalate it even, and she absolutely wanted to win it. Quite alike Dexter, a part of her was just waiting for an excuse to take all of her rage out on Hench, while she had him pinned down. She needed to know the whole truth, and she wanted to punish him for taking Betty away from her, as he had taken so many things.
Yet, she took a deep breath and tried to collect herself. Diamond had just discovered - as part of life's beautiful irony - that she and Bax Hench now hated each other for the same reason. And at this point, she mostly felt like laughing hysterically about the absurdity of it all.
The emotional rollercoaster and the frayed state of her body were making her feel woozy and - Diamond had to admit - maybe just a tad delirious.
"How do we know that this isn't all part of your game?" Dexter challenged. His hand was still up and pointed at Hench's face, but it wasn't glowing as much, and he didn't look quite as on edge as just a moment earlier. "You can't expect us to simply take your word for it. So far, everything you've done has been some sort of double play."
Hench seemed to think about it for a moment. "I have information," he then decided. "Does that qualify as a token of trust?"
"That depends on whether your information qualifies as crucial," Dexter sharply responded.
He snorted. "Does the Mother's true identity qualify as crucial? Or how about what exactly she plans on doing next?"
They looked at each other in surprise.
"Hmm?" Hench alluringly hummed, "interested?"
Diamond glanced at Dexter for help. He helplessly shrugged in response. "You're the one that's been dealing with this pathetic waste of space, Dye. It's your call."
"What if it were up to you?" she meakly challenged.
Dexter sourly sniffed and distastefully looked Hench up-and-down. "If it were up to me, I'd say; write your friend Betty a card. 'Condolences; your prick of a brother is now a piece of toast'."
Diamond defeatedly sighed. "Yeah, I don't think the Mother forwards her prisoners their daily mail..." She also eyed Hench critically, but with less animosity. "Do you have a plan to get Betty out?"
"First, I'll have to find her," Hench curtly summarized. "I have the contacts, but I can't be spotted anywhere, so it's just Fire and I on a rogue mission."
"The second you find her, you'll let me know? We have a better chance of getting her out without compromising her safety."
He agreed reluctantly but promptly, "I guess that's the plan now, isn't it."
Diamond heavily sighed. "Fine. Tell us the information you've got."
Hench expectantly held out his hand first. "In my line of business, we shake on deals."
She rolled her eyes but stepped closer and accepted the hand. A part of her was repulsed, and another was relieved to set aside the bile for something much more important. Thankfully, the handshake was short and firm and carried no underlying demanding or aggressive notions.
Dexter warily watched the interaction unfold, but he didn't interrupt. He even took his hand down, as a sign that he'd respect the agreement despite his own reservations.
"Queen Mother Yaaba B'awoo. She's an extremist Vodun High Priestess from East Ghana," Hench listed off the intel, once the formalities had commenced. "She believes that the African people, magical and mortal, are owed world leadership after the historic oppression they've experienced at the hands of the Western World. She'll be attacking the sanctuaries very soon, with her monster armies."
They uneasily glanced at each other, increasingly worried about this particular string of information.
"Which sanctuaries?" Dexter asked.
"Ireland, England, the USA, the Ghanaian sanctuary itself, and Ghana's historically prevalent colonizer; France."
"How many monsters does she have?" Diamond asked next.
Hench meaningfully shrugged. "You have better access to those numbers. It's the same amount of people that have gone missing in the past three months, across all four Western countries."
Dexter faithlessly groaned, and Diamond covered up her face with both hands in despair.
"My guess is, that's a couple thousand of them?" Hench suggested at their reaction.
"Maybe more," Dexter said and pressed, "when?"
"In about..." Hench checked the time on his expensive wrist watch. "One hour from now."
Diamond ripped her hands down, in order to stare at him in shock once again. "What?!"
Hench clearly repeated, like she was slow or hard of hearing, "Yaaba B'awoo will attack the sanctuaries in less than one hour time."
"You've got to be kidding," Dexter snapped at him, "you don't think you could have led with that?!"
"Come on, I can't very well give up my best hand in the first move," Hench casually deflected. As he talked, he slowly made his way towards the front door. "Besides, I already have a patchwork family and a crime empire to manage. The sanctuaries are your problem."
When neither of them stopped him, Hench opened the door. He seemed like he was about to turn and leave, but then he hesitated. And for the first time since Diamond had laid eyes on him, Bax Hench looked just a tiny bit awkward.
"Oh, and... Could I have that back?" he asked and vaguely gestured at Dexter.
He and Diamond both frowned and looked down at his hand. They noticed that he was still holding the pocket photograph of Hench, Fire, and teen Betty.
"Oh," Dexter said and nonchalantly shrugged, "sure!"
His hand that held the picture began to glow, as he charged magic into it. Eventually, the sheer energy that reverberated off his fingertips was sufficient to catch the photo on fire.
Hench's face dropped. He angrily narrowed his eyes at Dexter. Dexter smiled like he didn't have a worry in the world. He dropped the burning picture to the ground, where it pitifully turned to ashes.
Diamond didn't exactly feel sorry for Hench, but she did feel a bit sad as she watched Betty's smiling baby-face go up in flames.
Hench looked like he had loads to say, but he simply opted for; "real mature, Vex."
"Oh, you mean, about as mature as the little girls you traffic for a living?" Dexter shot back.
He sharply exhaled. "Whatever. I'll be in touch."
A second later, Hench vanished. They looked around, tried to catch a glimpse of him, but he had bought himself more than enough time to escape through the open door.
Diamond sagged with a deep sigh of defeat and went back to covering up her face in despair. Dexter reassuringly rubbed her back.
"Tell me this isn't real..." she meakly muttered.
Dexter happily obliged. "This isn't real. It's all just a bad dream."
She whimpered for self-pity. "What do I do now, Dex?"
"Now, we call Skulduggery and Valkyrie."
"Whatever will we tell them?"
Dexter sighed. "Oh, Dye..." he woefully said. "We tell them... We're at war."