The End of the Beginning (part v)

The man gulped hard, the knife pressed hard up against his throat, not quite drawing blood but tracing a faint little red line, and gingerly stammered, "This is it. Six twenty Kingsbury."

Mania looked up at the place. It didn't look like much. It was a two story townhouse nestled between a bunch of nearly identical residences. Unlike the adjacent homes, the lights were off, but the place looked well kept, and definitely appeared inhabited. She shrugged and shoved her tour guide with enough force to send him tumbling to the curb. Saying nothing, she gestured for him to run with her hand, and he happily obliged.

Her side ached and bled heavily ever since she plucked the knife from it, sending little trails of blood marching down her leg. Pain is silly. She looked up and down the block. Her former hostage was nearly out of sight, and otherwise, the street was wholly deserted. Streetlamps bathed the block in a hazy orange glow getting no help from the stars. The sky was empty beyond the smirking full moon. He grinned down at her and she grinned right back.

She tapped on the door and overheard whispers and shuffling feet on the inside. After a long wait, during which she spun and twirled impatiently, the door opened to frame a huge man in a suit, weapon already drawn, the gun pointed directly into her face. Mania tilted her neck to the side and looked up into the man's poorly illuminated face. He looked very serious. She smiled.

His index finger caressed the trigger, but he found himself unable to fire when in an instant his arm was skewered through his median nerve and pinned to the door frame. He screamed for a second, but only a second, quickly silenced with a savage slice to his throat. The nearly decapitated man buckled and sank to the floor while Mania tugged in frustration at the blade she left sunk in the door's wooden frame.

She cooed, "Knock knock."

The dark room was illuminated in a hurry with the flash of gunfire, and Mania taking quick note of the locations of the men ducked back outside to avoid the shots. She licked the blood of the first suit off her lips while slipping out of her heels and setting them carefully next to the welcome mat. The men inside were yelling at her, telling her to stop, to wait, to listen, but she wasn't terribly interested.

She spoke over them, "Little piggies, I want my recording." She showed herself around the door for a second and again was greeted with gunfire. There were many things that Mania didn't know or care about, but one thing she did know, was that gunfire meant cops. She didn't like cops. Angrily, she shouted into the door, "I'm going to huff and puff now."

"Belmont chair playing violin." She collected the throats of the five suits.

She didn't have a lot of time to look around, she knew. A few minutes tops. She should have been more subtle, should have been quieter, maybe killed them before they started firing. Stupid guns. So loud. If you were my recording, where would you be?

"Neat," she shot her head around to find the voice. A man, in a suit, but clearly different than the other suits, continued on, "It's not here. I've had it moved." He was young, teenage perhaps, clean cut, confident, and oddly calm. He studied her with curiosity while she did the same.

She didn't like this boy who took her recording. He grinned while she sized up the room. He wasn't more than fifteen feet away. She grinned back at the boy. She could have him dead before he could begin to draw a weapon.

She was wrong. The first bullet tore into her right calf, the second grazed her left forearm. She collapsed before completing a second step. He maintained his distance while he spoke and kept the gun trained upon her, "The recording, I want you to have it."

She heard the footsteps of more men approaching the house, at least three pairs of legs, and too soon for it to be the cops. More suits. She smiled innocently, "Okay. Are you Mr. Tiller?"

"No, I'm not, and I apologize. How rude of me. I know you, Mania. My name is Donovan Cross. Your Mr. Tiller has passed away unfortunately, but you needn't worry, he didn't leave without explaining to me exactly what he had in his possession."

She nodded as he spoke, not really paying attention to a word of it. "I killed your suit people," she pointed around the room at the carnage proudly.

Donovan shrugged. "I have more." Four suits entered the doorway behind Mania, weapons drawn, trained on her. "I expected you'd get here a lot sooner honestly. We really should hurry--"

"Blame Bootleg," she pouted.

"Who's Bootleg?"

***

If Bootleg heard talk of people not knowing who he was, he would have been furious. Bootleg, super thief, hero extraordinaire, arch nemesis of Mania, how could anyone not know of Bootleg? However, at the moment, no sort of talk would have been of any interest to Bootleg as he lay motionless, doped on a medical bed, blankly staring at the drip-drip of his IV. His medical staff had sewn up his hands and shoulder without much consternation -- they were used to his repeated injuries, and so was he.

He figured Mania had probably gotten to where she was going by now and he lazily wondered if little miss "I hate necks" found that recording she'd been looking for. Why did she think that the other words would do anything anyways? It didn't matter to him if they did. Next time, he'd tie the headphones to his head. With fancy knots too. Mania hated knots. His recent "draw" with Mania left him disappointed but not terribly disparaged. He stared up at the florescent-ly lit ceiling, if he cheated and used dumb weapons too, beating her would have been easy.

***

Mania yawned. Donovan had been talking for a while now, especially for a man in a hurry. His men still kept their guns trained upon her, the blood splattered room served as a good motivator to not their attention slip. He talked and talked and talked, clearly in love with the sound of his own voice.

She tuned in for a moment, "-- is why you're coming with us." She gave Donovan a skeptical look. His face read nothing.

The knives were still in her hands. He had made no point of disarming her, perhaps because he felt she wasn't a threat. She was wounded severely. The gunshot to her leg bled freely, but the real danger was the triangular hole in her side, the rest would heal, but she needed to stop the bleeding in her side and get somewhere to lie down. Stupid Bootleg. She pointed at the puddle of blood beneath her.

Sirens blared in the distance. "We can treat those there too. It's close."

Donovan didn't realize the mistake until the knife tore into his hamstring, dropping his weapon in shock. The gun tumbled down the stairs, all eyes on it, and as it skidded to a stop, Mania sprung up putting herself between the men at the door and the young suit. The men held their weapons on her, but didn't fire, she knew they wouldn't, "Belmont chair playing violin."

Two of the blind suits tumbled out the door while the other two remained fixed to their spots, trembling, sure they were going to die, correct. Donovan, blinded, abandoned any hope of getting to his gun and fled up the staircase, but Mania didn't pursue. She turned and walked slowly to the two men frozen at the door, humming all the way.

"Darling, you are all I long for, all I worship, and adore." An eviscerating slash on one of the men soaked his comrade in his friend's warm insides. The man shuddered for a second before Mania's blade crushed through the side of his skull ending his fears in an instant.

The unfortunate consequence of which was leaving her knife stuck into the man's head. She abandoned pulling it out and, empty handed, chased the two runners out into the street.

She immediately spotted one of the men stumbling down the stairs out front. She tiptoed out behind the man with exaggerated and cartoonish movements.

"Boo," as she shook his shoulders delicately.

The man spun around and fired hopelessly towards the house. Thoroughly amused, she danced around his futile efforts, laughing. Finally, some fun. After a few of the shots were a little too close to home, she effortlessly lifted up the man by his head and, pressing his body into one side of the metal railing descending the staircase, bent his neck around the other, severing it horrifically.

She hopped up onto the slanted railing hoping to spot the other man, but he was nowhere to be seen, and quickly bored, Mania retreated back into the house to retrieve her daggers before the police arrived.

To her relief, the knife she threw at Donovan was left on the railing, and affixed to a letter. Ignoring the note, she picked up the knife and headed upstairs. Cross was however nowhere to be found. She eyed the open window out to the fire escape, shrugged, and headed back downstairs. Her recording was close. She just had to get that remaining suit to take her there. Now where was he?

She ducked out the front of the house unseen and made it a few houses down as the police rolled up. There were still three cars parked out front -- she figured they probably belonged to the suits. The man had not driven away. He probably could at this point she knew. It had been more than a few minutes, so she knew he could probably see. She squinted, surveying the area for her lost man. Luck was on her side, or perhaps it was simply the recession of night into morning that aided her search, as she spotted him creeping along across the street six or seven houses down.

As she headed over to the man, she saw him hop out into the street and attempt to hijack a passerby car by waving and threatening with his gun. This would have likely been more effective if there weren't two police cars stopped with their lights blasting down the block. The driver swerved around the man and sped down to the cops. The suit ran. Mania shrugged and followed.

If the man had seen her, he probably would have broke into a full run, but his acting concern was avoiding the detection of the police down the street. Still, Mania was not at her fastest. She left a trail of blood through the street as she skipped, ran, and limped after the man, singing all the way hoping to get in earshot of the suit.

After a block of chasing, she succeeded, with the proof being the man's half-run transforming into a full tumble to the pavement. She was on top of him quickly and about ready to bash his head into oblivion on the sidewalk before suddenly remembering she needed him to escort her to Mr. Cross. Her hesitation bought the man precious time and, while the shots he fired out failed to meet their target, Mania was forced to jump back for cover.

He continued to fire until expending the bulk of his clip. She peeked around the car she had ducked behind, singing quickly before she did, and spotted two things. The man didn't seem especially mobile. He crawled along the sidewalk, but had no obvious wounds. Second, thirty meters down the block, a young boy, likely on his way to the bus stop, lay sprawled out on the sidewalk, a victim of the suit's wild gunplay.

Ignoring the blind suit, she tiptoed over to the kid. A bullet had ripped through his leg just below the knee, and the child moaned and shrieked as he bled profusely onto the pavement.

"Hi, " she spoke gently and the boy rolled over and turned around to acknlowedge her. Out of earshot of the singing, he could see her. Despite turning to address her, all the boy could do was shriek and cry in her face. Mania didn't like this one bit, but simply offered up, "You're hurt."

The boy nodded, his sobbing subsiding slightly, now equally fascinated by Mania's ghoulish appearance as by the pain in his leg. He choked down his sobs into silence and stared blankly at her, utterly beguiled.

Mania continued, "You're going to bleed to death if you lie here. I'll take you to get help." The boy, confused by the pain in his leg and by the fact that this monster sung as she spoke, continued to stare cluelessly. "Wait here."

She pranced over to the blind suit, disarmed him of his gun quite literally, and dragged the man recklessly across the pavement over to the wounded boy. She dropped the blind, wounded, terrified man in front of him proudly, frowning at her failure to elicit praise or even a response from the kid.

Confused and disappointed by the lack of aggression from the child, Mania chimed "He hurt your leg." The boy stared silently, but made no move. She realized the problem, handing the child one of her two daggers and gesturing with her hand, "Cut him back." The blind man squirmed, but she restrained him without much difficulty, and motioned for the child to slash the man.

The kid shook his head violently, protesting, but didn't drop the dagger. She saw that he needed help. She took his hand with her own, and together, they drove the dagger forcefully through the gap beneath the man's knee. The boy said nothing, didn't cry out, just watched as the man bled and screamed. Mania was proud. She let go of the boy's hand, and with her free hand stroked the wound on the man's leg, covering her fingers in his blood.

"Hold still," she purred. With the man's blood, she traced, in giant letters, "No Mercy" diagonally across the boy's face. The boy felt the blood run down his cheeks, his nose, his lips. He smiled while Mania beamed. She took the boy's hand again, totally forgetting her desire to keep the man alive, and together, this time the boy exerting more of his own force, drove the knife through the man's windpipe putting a succinct end to the suit's whimpering.

She carressed the boy maternally, "Now don't you feel better?"

He nodded, and gave a throat cracked, "Yes."

"Let's walk. Those cops will help you fix your leg." She sprung to her feet despite her wounds, but the boy struggled to right himself, falling many times before he made it to his feet, and even then, it was a precarious balancing act that streamed blood copiously onto the concrete. Unphased, Mania took an exaggerated step as if to show him how, "Now walk."

The boy took a similarly giant step with his good leg without a problem, but on his second step onto his damaged leg, pain shot through his body, shaking him, and sending him twisted to the ground. He looked up at her, crying, "It hurts."

Mania pointed to the wound in her leg, "Me too." The boy looked, but didn't seem to care much. She looked at her wound and at the boy's. He was right, his was worse. She savagely slashed her already wounded leg with one of her daggers opening a long gash down the front of her shin. She rolled her neck, savoring the pain, laughing lightly, "You're right, but we're even now. Let's go."

The boy, either in fear of what would happen if he didn't or in bravery, got back up and tried walking on his damaged leg a second time. The pain was still too much, but he could drag the leg and shuffle forwards slowly. The two continued at this pace for a few steps, but Mania looked at the child, concerned. She knew this pace would take way too long. "Walk normally," she barked.

Frustrated, angry, and terrified all at once, the boy spat back, "I can't."

"I'll show you," she pointed the tip of a dagger to the boy's throat. "Every time you land with that leg, laugh. Laugh as hard as you can."

The boy, in a near crazed state of mixed emotions, complied. His leg hit the ground and the pain shot up his spine, but instead of wincing, he chuckled, and to his shock, he felt better. She walked alongside him. He tried again. Again, the pain was there, but as he laughed while he walked, it wasn't so bad. She laughed with him. The pair continued at a steady pace down towards the police cars laughing hysterically as they travelled, but unfortunately nobody was around to enjoy the spectacle.

She explained to the boy matter of factly, "See, pain is a joke. As long as you laugh, it's okay."

As they drew near the police, the boy, proud of himself, and in awe of Mania, stopped to ask her something, but she was distracted by the realization that she was supposed to keep that suit alive. She would have to go retrieve that dumb note now, but knew the house would be crawling with cops.

The boy continued, "-- are you?"

Not having a clue as to what the boy asked, she casually replied, "I'm Mania." She held the boy's hand and walked with him, still laughing, down to one of the parked police cars noticing the men had all headed inside the house. "Wait here." The boy considered protesting, but thought better of it, and watched her slink off towards the house.

It wasn't long before he heard screams and the sound of gunfire and his heart worried, for a moment, for the safety of his new friend. He knew he didn't have to worry too much though and what little doubt he had was erased with her quick emergence from the house, an envelope in one hand, a police officer with severed arms being dragged by his throat in the other. He couldn't hear what she was saying to the man, but the boy saw that the man was, to Mania's frustration, in no condition to respond, and watched as she angrily squashed what was left of him into the stone of the staircase before delicately retrieving her heels from next to the doorway.

She limped over to the kid, the heels not aiding her walking, "More are coming. They'll help you."

He understood, "You're leaving?"

"Yes." She pointed at the bodies, "I have to." She saw the sadness in his eyes and continued, "I want you to get better for me. Get strong for me. I'll find you, okay?"

The boy shook his head in acknowledgment, but, before he could find words for her, came the blaze of police sirens, and he silently watched her whisk herself away into the remaining shadows of the dawn's half light.

***

Donovan grimaced as the girl stitched up his leg. There were no painkillers on the helicopter. He thought about the events of the evening to steer his attention from his leg. Mania had been more than he expected. The old man told him to be careful with her, but replaying what he saw in the past hour, that seemed like the grossest of understatements.

Still, this seemed like the sort of mission from which he wasn't expected to return. He was instructed to bring her back alive, but he had little interest in bringing her to his father. "Careful," he thought. She was a monster. He should have used a sniper, or a toxin -- some means less physical. Next time. She was too dangerous in proximity.

The helicopter landed and he and his remaining entourage descended the stairs to the upper elevators. New suits, his suits, greeted him on his arrival. He turned to his men, serious and calm, "April Showers." They understood.

I have the recording. She'll come for me.

He wished he had read the letter sooner, how stupid to have left it sealed for so long. What would have I done differently? He didn't think she'd listen to him, believe him, or even care. He had no proof. Maybe it was fake. Maybe the old man knew he'd read it. He punched floor 42 in the elevator.

The elevator slid to a stop, the doors opening into the atrium of his boss' study. He stepped out alone, his men continued downwards, they had other tasks.

The old man was relaxed in a recliner gazing at his wall sized television. He had clearly heard Donovan's entrance, but made no effort to recognize it. On the monitor, reporters and policemen flocked about the house Mania had so recently visited.

"This is going to be a problem," croaked the old man, rotating his chair around to face Donovan, angry and frustrated. He stared at Donovan with disgust and revulsion, his son's mere presence was cause for nausea.

Donovan checked his watch. Five. Four. Three.

Explosions ripped through the building, he felt the floor buckle and shake, but it held. That was a little early, but whatever. The old man lept from his chair, panicked, terrified, and stumbled about trying to get to his desk to assess the situation. Donovan stood quietly, calmly.

He had this contingency plan lying in wait for two years now. He knew it might eventually come to this. The letter confirmed it.

As Donovan pulled out the gun, the old man understood the situation, the betrayal, but had no words to offer. Donovan, however, had, as he often did, a few things to say. "You didn't plan for me to come back from this one, did you, dad?"

The father looked at his son, still with the same disgust, "I was indifferent."

"Tell me everything about Mania."

"No."

Donovan shrugged, "I'll find out myself then." He put a bullet into each of his father's eyes and one through his neck. His father hissed and garbled as his life trickled away, but Donovan wasn't around to watch, already on his way out after the third squeeze of the trigger. He checked his watch again. Not much time until the last round of explosives, he had better be leaving.

Tonight was unexpected, but perhaps the start of a good thing. He thought back on the letter:

My dearest Charisma, it's been a very long time, you don't know how I've missed you. You were but a small child when last I held you, and when last I heard your beautiful voice. I know what you've been seeking and I've found it for you. All I ask is that you sing it for me. Please come find me at 450 N Columbus. Ask for a Mr. Cross. I'll always love you no matter what. Your father.