The 10th Kingdom - Investigation

[x-sanfuaiyaa.livejournal.com]

Remy, Amanda, and Marie get a step closer to understanding the situation.


"Did you really really pick a bad choice of targets, homme. I mean, targeting tourists makes lots of sense. Going after de young girls for fodder, also a good idea. But did you not take time to wonder for a half second why dey hanging out wit' a completely disreputable man like me if one of us isn't in de game?" Remy scowled at the upside down man. He had scrabbled in his coat for a second when Marie had first picked him up by an ankle, but Amanda had kicked him soundly in the face first and the knife had slipped from his fingers.

"He doesn't look the brightest, you have to admit," Amanda observed, tilting her head a little. She was watching the man's feeble struggles with interest, arms crossed over her chest, the leather of her motorcycle jacket creaking a little. "I mean, come on. An ambush in an alley? You want to be any more cliched?"

Marie shook the man slightly and he stopped his struggle, not bothering to hide the fear on his face anymore. "So what do we do with him now," the Southern girl drawled. "Shake him and see what comes out?"

"Remy think dat we ask a couple of questions and our friend here tells us what we want to know. Otherwise," Remy reached into his pocket and pulled out the flask of lighter fluid that he'd picked up at the store right beside the bar. With a completely serious expression, he began to spray the man with the fluid. "I'm going to set you on fire and ask de questions again. De woman holding your leg doesn't burn. You will."

"See, I'd tell him what he wants to know," Amanda added almost conversationally. "He's really not a nice man at all, and he's had a cunt of a day. And seriously? Who the fuck would miss a bottom feeder like you?" There was a groan as one of the man's two companions stirred, and she glanced down, drawing back her foot and giving him a kick in the back of the head with the steel capped Docs.

"Ah'm gettin' bored," Marie said. Dropping the man on the floor, she set her foot on his back as he struggled to rise, the man letting out a groan as she pushed the air out of his lungs. "Maybe he'll get more talkative if we start breaking things."

"You hear dat my two delicate flowers have weighed in, and de opinion is dat you are keeping dem from dere drinks." Remy squatted down and looked the man straight in the eyes, his red and black eyes strange and frightening in the weak light. "So, what do you think? De matches or some questions."

"It is a matter of honor."

"No honor in dead men, homme."

The man considered it with a quick look between Amanda and up at Marie before nodding. Remy smiled. "'manda, you first. What's de list."

The witch pulled a battered notebook from the pocket, stepping forward. Without her apparently noticing, her boot landed on the man's outstretched fingers. Ignoring the small gasp, she leaned her weight on that foot as she flipped through the book a little theatrically. "Well, we could start with the burning question of the hour," she drawled, looking down at the man. "Just what the hell makes you lot work with the Chinese Triads, huh?"

"They do not--" He gasped as Remy flicked a match near his head. "There is something not right. My brothers would not betray the clan willingly."

"So how could they unwillingly?"

"I do not know! That has been the concern of the leaders. We can't understand what is happening." He swung slightly. "None of it makes any sense to us."

"Now Ah don't think that's nearly all you know about this," Marie said, taking her foot off the man's back and bending down to run her gloved fingers through the man's hair, twisting the locks to lift his head off the ground. "Something you should know sugah is that Ah'm the sweet one of the group. So you wanna stay on my good side."

"They have been defaced." The statement was delivered with a lot more weight than the words seemed to merit.

"Defaced? You mean de Irezumi?"

"Hai."

"How so?"

"Their souls have been burned away."

"Wait a sec..." Amanda lifted her foot off the man's fingers, and squatted down beside Remy, looking at the man intently. The man's words, the tone... she'd been brought up on that kind of thing. "This 'defacing'... have you seen something? Something literal? A symbol, or some kind of wound?"

Marie watched the man shudder and exchanged a glance with Amanda. She'd obviously stumbled onto the answer - now they just needed to find out what exactly the symbol was so they could figure out how it was impacting things. "Good," she said, gently releasing her hold and the man's head and patting it soothingly. "A little more and you can scurry off to your life and try and remember this as a bad dream."

"Symbols. Characters burned on their chests." He dropped his eyes, mortally ashamed of his omission. Remy nodded at Marie, and she stepped back. He slowly got to his feet. Remy gave him a grim smile.

"Dere's a fire extinguisher sitting outside of de bar." He said, and flicked the match into the man's chest. Fire blossomed up his chest, and he ran screaming, beating at the flames as he ran to the bar. Remy ignored him, turning back to the pair of women. " Dere's a couple of members in de morgue right now. 'manda, get yourself in dere. Find out what dis scarring is. Marie, dig up Shiro and start looking at dat specifically. Something stinks, other den dat bastard's burning hair, and I think dose symbols are de key to it."

Marie's expression turned to one of horror as she watches flames flicker around the man. She knew better than most what it was like to be set on fire - except she had the advantage that only her pride and her hair had been injured. She glared at Remy wondering if his action had truly been necessary. They'd gotten the answer they needed - he hadn't needed to do anything. Turning to Amanda, she expected to see a similar expression on the blonde witch's face.

Instead, Amanda was busy stuffing her notebook back in her pocket, mind already intent on the next step. How to infiltrate the morgue, hmm... Feeling Marie's gaze, her eyes flicked up and she shrugged a little. "Lighter fluid. Burns fast - he'll have not much more than a sunburn," she said, matter-of-factly. "Right. Let's get to it, shall we?"

~*~

Marie meets up with Shiro for lunch, and they finally catch a break. With their luck, you can guess how good a break it is.


Shiro felt vaguely uncomfortable sitting at a table in the small Chinese restaurant. They undoubtedly had Triad connections, and he was obviously Japanese, so this could be asking for trouble. But he and Marie needed to talk, and of all the places filled with Chinese-Americans, this seemed the safest. Plus, maybe they could pick up something here. He accepted a mug of tea from the waitress and took a small sip. At least it was good tea.

"Try and relax," Marie told Shiro, though she knew it was futile. She took a sip of her own tea, gloved hands wrapped around the small mug. "Ah know, easier said then done."

"It would be bad enough if we were here simply for vacation." A waiter passed by them, and Shiro could have sworn he'd given him the evil eye. Shiro sighed. Marie was right, and he was overreacting and possibly looking for trouble. But just because he was looking for it didn't mean it wasn't out there. "I wish I were precognitive. Then at least I could divine what will happen next."

"Yes, but then you'd be crazy. Ah think it's a secondary mutation that goes along with precog," Marie said, trying to lighten the mood a bit and failing. "Yeah, this could be simpler though," she said with a sigh. "Maybe the others are having more luck figuring this out. It still makes no sense to me."

"I do not think that it is possible for them to have less luck than we do," Shiro countered sourly. "Every Chinese person we have seen has either ignored us or looked at me like I am going to flip out and kill them. And I have not found anyone of Japanese ancestry." He stared down into the mug of tea, watching as the ground leaves settled to the bottom. There was probably a drowning metaphor in there somewhere.

"Maybe someone hit Remy? Of course, that might just be wishful thinking on my part." Marie frowned slightly. "How strange is that you haven't really found anyone who's Japanese? Can that be completely chalked up to luck?" She forced a smile on her face as the waitress set their dishes in front of them.

"That would be luck on your part." But the comment elicited a small grin. He nodded politely at the waitress and thanked her, who just glared at him and walked away after depositing Marie's. "I cannot tell if she does not like me because I am not Chinese or because I speak awful Mandarin . . . and they speak Cantonese here." He shook his head and poked at his lo mein with his chopsticks. "No, I don't know why we are not seeing anything. Maybe I am not as good at identifying gangs as I thought I was."

"Hey, you have a better chance than Ah do," Marie said, picking up her chopsticks and glancing down at her sesame chicken. "We'll eat, go check out those last few neighborhoods and then met up with SV folk again." Eyeing Shiro's lo mein, Marie grinned. "At least we get to eat well on this trip. No MREs or campfire cookin'."

"I wonder if the Professor will reimburse us for this," Shiro mused. He scooped some noodles into his mouth and grimaced as he swallowed them. "Eww, this is awful." He put his chopsticks down and pushed his plate away before taking a big gulp of water. "You jinxed it."

Marie finished chewing the piece of chicken she'd popped in her mouth, then reached over to pull Shiro's plate towards her, scooping some noodles into her own mouth. "Tastes fine to me," she said with a shrug, pushing her plate over to Shiro and bringing his the rest of the way towards her. "Easy fix."

It sounded like something was trying to gnaw its way out of Shiro's gut. He rubbed his belly and looked down at the food warily. "It's not agreeing with me. Maybe I have made myself too nervous to even eat." Talk about crimes of the highest caliber.

"At least take a bite or two," Marie said, all but devouring the plate in front of her. "Gotta keep up your strength for the search and you know what they say about the mutant metabolism." She hadn't had a chance to grab breakfast before they'd started in the morning and the lo mein was hitting the spot.

"I have the sun. Too much energy and I will be Mister Summers under his ultraviolet light bulbs." A frightening thought. But Marie was right on this score, too, so he chopsticked a piece of chicken and ate it. "Palatable," he said, unwilling to give Marie the total satisfaction of knowing that she was correct.

Marie's plate was soon cleared of all the lo mein, though Shiro continued to only pick at her food. Pushing the empty plate to the side, Marie leaned back just as the little old lady serving as their waitress reappeared with a pot of tea for the table. The waitress picked up the empty plate, then glanced at Shiro, suddenly smiling. "Young man finish all lo mein and still hungry? Second lo mein, on the house."

Shiro shrugged and smirked at Marie. "Why not? Happy early birthday, Marie." At least they could get something out of all this. He sipped his tea again and pondered. "I hate to suggest it, but maybe we ought to look further into illegality. Many gangs here are primarily drug dealers, and . . . I know some things about that culture." Not much, he was almost proud to admit, but enough to fake it.

Marie frowned, shaking her head. "That's a last resort. And Ah bet we could still send some of the other contingent for that. They break the law all the time anyways. We bend it." She didn't want to admit that she'd be worried if Shiro got anywhere near drugs again - she knew what it felt like to crave Kick and she didn't want anything bringing that to the surface of Shiro's mind again. Smiling politely as another plate of lo mein was set on the table, she took a bite once the waitress walked away. She'd been taught not to waste food, but she was going to move at a slower pace through this one.

Shiro's stomach made another noise, this one louder and angrier than the last. "Excuse me," he said as he stood up, "my stomach seems to have the exact opposite reaction to this place's food than yours." Oh, Chinatown. Come for the culture and gang warfare, stay for the indigestion.

"Stomach o' steel," Marie said, stifling a yawn. She took another bite as Shiro walked away, wondering if they shouldn't get him some soup or something to eat elsewhere. She'd known the trip would stress him out, but he was taking it worse than she had expected. Another bite of noodles and Marie found herself sleepily blinking her eyes. Odd... was her last thought before she slipped into unconsciousness, head lolling back.

The little old Chinese lady walked over to the table at that point, a scowl on her face. They'd been after the Japanese boy but perhaps the girl would serve as well. The other patrons dutifully ignored the large man who walked into the restaurant and slung Marie over his shoulder. As the man exited the restaurant, a van pulled up, back door opening quickly.

It was a few minutes before Shiro returned, rubbing his belly gingerly. He'd be feeling the effects of that for a while. He returned to the empty table and frowned. "Marie?" She was nowhere to be found. She couldn't have gone to the rest room, since this hole in the wall only had one. Paranoia sense tingling, he dashed outside but saw nothing but tread marks from a large vehicle that had obviously been in a hurry. They hadn't been there when they arrived. He uttered a rather loud and obscene curse and ran back inside, his fists exploding in golden flame. "Where is she?" he demanded.

"Sorry. No speak English," the woman said, smiling sweetly and disappearing into the kitchen. The other patrons continued to dutifully ignore the scene, though some had initially gasped at the sight of Shiro's flaming fists.

The legs of table where Shiro and Marie had been sitting exploded, sending the table and its contents crashing to the floor. Shiro angrily stalked outside. The tread marks led only a few feet before they disappeared, and in a city this size, there was no way for him to follow it. With an angry sigh, he took out his cell phone and dialed a number. "Sefton? We have a problem. We need to meet now."