xp_logs | Fianchetto: Endgame (part 2) (Reply)

While Amanda is checking the brothel in Madripoor, and X-Factor is checking Porter's New York hideout, Doug picks up Emma and Tabitha. After they get word that Katie is safe, they head to the Hellfire Club to turn the tables on Porter before he realizes he doesn't have his bargaining chip anymore.

Doug hung up his phone, and ran a hand over his face as he made a relieved noise. Vanessa and the rest of X-Factor had managed to find Katie, and she was none the worse for wear. He could have his nervous breakdown later, though. For now, though, the snake that had grabbed her needed to be dealt with. "Okay. He wants to be using Katie as a lever, and a way into the Hellfire Club. That means that's where he most likely is right now. We should get to him before he figures out he doesn't have his bargaining chip anymore."

Tabitha used every bit of will-power she possessed to force her anger back down into her chest. "I don't see why we can't just drop him off a bridge," she muttered. At any other time, her own viciousness may have shocked her, but even seeing straight was currently difficult.

"Other than the fact that it demonstrates a severe lack of imagination?" said Emma, arching an eyebrow at Tabitha. "There are far more interesting and unusual things that we can do to him, once we get there. Transport options, Doug?"

Doug tapped his lips. He'd picked up Tabitha, who had already been in the city, and gone straight to Emma's apartment while coordinating Amanda's jaunt to Madripoor and X-Factor's raid on Porter's safehouse in New York. "Well, if he doesn't know that we already recovered Katie, then my guess would be he's either at or on his way to the Club. Either looking for me in order to give me his demands, or looking for Shaw to tell him what he's got. Either way, we should head him off there, hopefully before he finds out the balance of power isn't what he thinks it is. My car is here. Do you have anything else available right now, Emma?"

"Nothing that would be more useful," replied Emma. "Take that and I can get us there quickly." Emma sent a quick mental message and map to one of her staff at the Hellfire Club. The assurance was quickly filtered back that traffic light patterns could be altered to suit her required journey. She routed that assurance straight into Doug's mind.

Doug's eyes hardened. "Let's go, then." His hand unconsciously snaked inside his jacket to touch the butt of the pistol he had in a shoulder holster. The slime had tried to use his sister as a bargaining chip. He'd pay for that.

Tabitha stayed silent, half-afraid they would remember she wasn't exactly part of the trench-coat brigade and make her stay behind. If she just kept her head down and followed like she belonged, maybe she could finally get her hands on Porter.

---

The serving staff at the Hellfire Club were the best money could buy. Part of being the best was discretion, the other part was being swift to pick up on the quickly-shifting currents of mood and impulse among the elite. The uncharacteristically grim look of the normally friendly and quick to remember names White Knight as he wordlessly tossed his car keys to the valet sent a wave of whispers scurrying ahead of them as he, Emma, and Tabitha entered the Club.

He beckoned one of the staff to him. "A Mr. Porter is here to see me," he said, the platitudes and white lies second nature at this point. "Do you know where I might find him?" The man pointed down a hallway to one of the receiving rooms. "He's been here for some time, and he's expecting Mr. Shaw to join you," he said. Doug's eyes narrowed as the servant made himself scarce.

"I know," murmured Emma. "I'll keep Sebastian out of the room." She smiled at Doug's concerned look. "We've known each other a long time, Doug, and I have my ways. Don't take too long with Porter, but you can safely assume you'll get at least a ten minute start with him." She touched Doug's arm and then strode off in the direction of the Black Court's offices.

---

The message Porter had sent had gone through those same people who had kept someone like him from meeting Sebastian Shaw. It had said, simply, that he had a white pawn that Shaw might be interested in taking.

The reply had arrived a day later with a meeting time and place, and a coded phrase to give when he arrived.

He wore the same suit as he had the previous times he had secured invitations to events. It was hand tailored, fit him perfectly, and in it, Porter looked as though he fit in. Unless one knew that it was the exact same suit, tie, shirt and vest. Unless someone was aware that the expensive watch had come from the wrist of a businessman who had gone too far with one of Porter's girls, and the body price had been the man's belongings - and his niece. And unless someone knew that he had arrived in a cab, not a car with a personal driver, and that he had missed countless social cues.

Even the way he sat, slouching, fingers drumming on the arm of a chair or brushing over his lapels or twitching towards a pack of cigarettes that were not present - everything about him said "I do not belong here." - except the suit. The suit was perfect, and wrong in it's perfection, on the body of a man who still could not resist stiffing the cab driver out of his tip.

Doug, on the other hand, looked entirely like he belonged in the Club, despite the fact that he was in casual clothes and not his more formal suit that he wore to Court functions. He walked into the room, and it took everything he had not to lunge across to where Porter sat smugly. The only thing that kept him from it was the knowledge that he had the upper hand, and Porter didn't know that yet. "I was told you wanted to see me," he said stiffly, trusting that Porter wouldn't know the difference in the reason for the tension in his tone.

Porter's slight frown twisted to a sneer. "Underdressed for a business meeting, don't you think, Mister Ramsey? Enjoying the company of my little Tabby, hrm?" He patted his pockets, finally finding a pack of cigarettes and lighting one with a disposable lighter. "Cig? No, don't smoke, huh? You're just a fine upstanding young man with his hand in all the best pockets?"

Tabitha squeezed her eyes shut and breathed slowly. Her nails dug into her palms. "What do you want?" Any cutting remarks were beyond her at the moment.

Doug's lip curled at Porter's false bonhomie. "What scum like him always want," he answered Tabitha's question. "To try and 'elevate' himself to what he thinks is his rightful position, when what he's actually doing is trying to drag the rest of us down to his level." He chuckled darkly. "Sound about right, Porter? You want what you think you 'deserve'? If you really deserved it, you wouldn't have to blackmail me to get it."

Porter smirked. "I think, since I've got all the pieces in this little game of ours, that you don't have any right to tell me what I do or don't deserve." He took a Polaroid picture from the inside pocket of his suit jacket. "Tell me, Mister Ramsey, how much would you ... bid... for the safe return of your oh so sweet little sister?" He eyed the picture and then turned it to show Katie, tied to a chair, her mouth taped shot. "She's got fire, and the words that came out of that girls' mouth. Not unlike Tabby here, but I suppose you've had her declawed?"

She thought she showed admirable restraint by not killing him then and there. Instead she kept silent, moved subtly closer to Porter.

Doug's lip curled in anger at the sight of his sister. Up until that moment, he could almost keep himself removed from the reality of what was happening, but having photographic evidence right in front of his face...that was a different story. "You want money?" he asked, trying to inject the proper amount of nervousness into his voice as he pulled out a slim netbook from his jacket and tapped at the keys. "I can get money."

"I have money. And if I wanted more money, there's your sister's sweet little roommate, or that Chinese girl who lives in your building, or... " Porter shrugged dismissively. "So many women. Even boys. It's a much richer life than taking wallets from yuppies on the subway." He plucked at his sleeves and gave Tabitha a sick smile. "Isn't that right, Tabitha? Much better to live in a mansion than a cheap apartment you pay for with other people's money? I want my ticket, Mister Ramsey. For the safe return of your sister, you will pave my way into this place." Another shrug. "Or I sell your sister's virtue to whoever Mister Shaw thinks is the highest bidder."

Doug's open palm slapping against the table was like a sharp crack. This charade had gone on long enough. "How about a counter-offer," Doug said as he stood and leaned ominously over the table. "Run. And. Hide." He growled out the words. "One chance. And that's only because my sister's still in one piece. You get one chance to crawl under a rock and pray I never even smell a hint of your stink ever again."

Porter laughed, and despite the mocking tone, there was a touch of fear in it. This was playing it very close to dangerous, and Shaw still had not arrived for the meeting. This was not quite how he had planned for things to happen. "Oh, you -are- brave, aren't you? What do you think you can do to me? Erase my personality, turn me into a vegetable? I'm not stupid, Mister Ramsey. I have money. I paid people to tell me who you are and what you do. You don't think those waiters don't want an extra grand or two, to tell me that you talk women into doing whatever you want, that you know what people are going to say before they say it? If I even feel the slightest hint of you in my head, I'll be gone before you even blink."

Doug snorted, and grinned wolfishly. "You're barking up the wrong tree, Mister Porter. Allow me to rebut." What do you think you can do to me? You're about to find out. He watched Tabitha out of the corner of the eye, making sure that she was ready for her part in this little tableau. He turned his netbook around to face Porter, revealing what he had actually been working on.

"Point one," he said, ticking off on his index finger, and enjoying finally being able to turn the tables. "My sister is no longer in your possession, so whatever leverage you think you have over me is gone." His next point was very obviously and methodically presented with an extended middle finger. "Point two," he said, indicating the balance information of the bank accounts he had just emptied. "That means I own you. More or less literally, considering that all the money you had to your name is now gone." The very slowly dawning realization on Porter's face was the best part of this, he decided. "Point three. Mister Shaw is...otherwise engaged at the moment, and seems to have absolutely no interest in speaking with you."

"Which brings me to my final point," Doug said, subtly brushing back his jacket to give himself unimpeded access to the holster that was still hidden in the shadow of his armpit. "I'll tell you one more time. Run and hide. Because there is absolutely nothing keeping me from cutting you down without ever laying a finger on you." In one confused blink from Porter, Doug's gun cleared its holster and was pointed straight at the space between the other man's eyes.

Ramsey's finger was not squeezing the trigger. It was hovering over it, not even touching the metal. Porter'd been on the wrong side of a gun enough times to watch the trigger finger. He stared Doug down, eyes hard and flat, and then blinked once.

He was gone before Doug's finger had time to even reach the trigger, and didn't even feel the tug on the shoulder of his jacket as he disappeared.

Doug looked around the empty office and grinned tightly. Good. Porter had reacted to the theatrics of the gun in his face just as expected, and Tabitha had timed her part perfectly. He reholstered the gun, and walked out to find Emma.

She was light and silent in her school-teacher shoes. Her skirt swished around her calves as she walked toward Porter. It looked like he was packing, searching for something.

There was pure joyful malice in her smile. If it was money, it was long gone. Along with all the girls that used to be here.

"You're not going to find it, Telly," she taunted. "Didn't you feel me on your coattails when you came?"

Porter startled, dropping the duffel bag at his feet, and he spun. "Surprised I didn't, with how fat you've gotten, Tabby Cat. Those rich people feeding you up right nice, and you forgot to turn down second desserts?" He sneered at her, although his voice wavered with panic. "I should have known if you fell in with those people that you would sleep your way to a rich, pretty boy. Does he know what you did for me, when you were mine?"

Tabitha only smiled. "You're getting soft, Telly. Was a day you would have left all this behind. Y'know, baggage weighin' y'down." She took a step closer, forming a small bomb in her hand. If she could keep him talking, she'd ram it down his throat. "If you want to talk about who's getting fat," she eyed his waistline, "someone has been getting comfortable."

"You've turned into such a bitch." Porter spat. "So what are you going to try to do to me? Make one of your little bombs and wait for me to just stay here with my thumbs up my ass while you count down from ten?" He looked around the room. "You were so much smarter when you were mine."

The wet crunch of Porter's nose breaking was immediately followed by a cascade of explosions. Tabitha followed the punch with a knee to the midsection. "Wrong!" She shouted as she dragged him back upright by the lapels.

The blood that flooded Porter's mouth made him gag, and he stumbled to hands and knees, vomiting out the blood and spittle and bile and the last of his overpriced dinner and even more overpriced cognac onto the floor. "Fuck you. Going to kill you and then fuck your whore corpse and then kill you again." He muttered.

Pieces of the poorly constructed whorehouse started to fall, some bits in flames. Tabitha brought an elbow down to the back of his head. "I'm almost tempted to let you try," she hissed. "You enjoying the fruits of your scheming, Telly?"

Porter spat one last wet, bloody, gob on the floor and then shuddered, collapsing. He lay still, not moving, not breathing, and then rippled and was gone, leaving only his blood behind.

Tabitha yelled in frustration. She kicked at some of the burning debris around her. The building creaked ominously around her. Another piece of the building fell dangerously close, singing hair.

That's when she realized it really might be time to run.

She made it out two minutes before the building collapsed. Plenty of time, she told herself.

---

Doug still has to deal with the fallout of his choices. And make an even worse choice in the process...

Doug should have listened more closely, paid more attention, done -something- different. He sat in a chair in Emma's office at the Hellfire Club, staring at his hands. The assassination attempt on him had been rough, but that had been a direct consequence aimed directly at him. That his sister had been used as a tool to get to him...he shook his head, his thoughts chasing themselves around his head in circles.

Emma looked upon her Knight with a certain fond exasperation, as his thoughts ran circles through her consciousness, a Gordian knot of guilt and fear. "What could I have done to save them?" she said softly and smiled as Doug looked up at her. "Can you imagine how many times I've asked myself that question? But in the end I didn't. You didn't save your sister from Porter's machinations. Don't beat yourself over the head with it. Use it to learn. Use it to be better than them, next time. Because there will always be a next time."

Doug looked up, a bitter resolve on his face. "I may not have been able to save her from being used as leverage, and there may be a next time, but it won't be with her." His brain was moving in a purposeful direction now, instead of in circles. It was a hard direction, but it was the best of a number of very awful options. He looked up as there was a rap at the door, seeing one of the staff guiding his sister by the elbow. He stood as the door opened, sorrow and pain still obvious on his face.

Katie seemed to be being led along like a child, but it had more to do with her clinging to Vanessa with an unwillingness to let go of the woman who promised she wouldn't let anyone else touch her. Given she'd just seen dead bodies for the first time and someone's neck snapped she thought she was entitled to a bit of shock and being led around while she tried to process. Besides, the woman who was escorting her - supposedly to wherever her brother was - was nice enough. She seemed to soften up whenever she spoke to Katie, at least . The girl was shaken up nonetheless, a little guarded and more obviously wary of those she passed than normal. Katie hadn't exactly been dumb before, but she'd been pretty trusting and fairly confident that she could walk down the street and get where she was going without incident. Not so much anymore. A look akin to relief lighted on her face when she spotted Doug. Her big brother wasn't exactly the sort that oozed protector, but he was still her brother and she still felt safe with him even if he wasn't a bad ass. There were bruises on her arms and her knuckles, her hair was tousled and she had the all around look of someone who hadn't slept or showered much in the past few days. But Katie was okay, at least on the outside. "Where are we," she asked when she was close enough to Doug to be heard without having to speak very loudly. Her throat was dry and it sort of hurt to talk after how much yelling at those guys she'd done while she'd been held. The slaps across the face telling her to shut up already hadn't left marks and the guy who'd smacked her had gotten in trouble for 'damaging the goods.' The duct tape had left a mark, but it had been ripped off her mouth recently so that would probably fade as well. The ropes, however, had cut into her wrists and ankles.

Doug grimaced at the sight of every small injury on his sister, and the ones he knew might be hidden, especially inside her head. He could see the difference, the subtle fear in the way she held herself. His hands flexed with the need to hurt someone, anyone, for what had happened. But that wouldn't help Katie. "The Hellfire Club. It's a...social club, I guess you might say." He nodded towards Emma, to indicate that she was the one who had gotten him an entre to the club. "Are you..." He shook his head. Of course she wasn't okay, and he berated himself for even starting to ask.

"I'm fine," Katie answered, the words more reflex than truth. She looked back toward the woman who had brought her there but she was already gone. It was probably for the best, but she sort of wanted to thank her and her friends for rescuing her again. With that possibility gone her attention went back to her brother. "I want to go home. She said she had to take me to you. I'm here so can I go home now?" She said "home" in a way that made it clear she didn't mean the dorms.

Doug caught her meaning very easily, and winced. He wondered if his sister would permanently bear the scars of his hubris. He looked from Katie to Emma and back, clearly torn. He knew what the best solution would likely be, but now that Katie was here, he seemed unable to go through with it.

"That's...what we need to talk about," he said finally. "I've...hidden a lot of things from you, and given what happened, I think you...deserve the truth." He grimaced. "The man who kidnapped you did it in an attempt to blackmail me," he said quietly.

She tried to process that little revelation, but Katie was left mostly staring at the elder Ramsey. "They kidnapped me," she repeated back to him slowly, "to get back at...you? Why would they do that? What did you do?" She couldn't think of what Doug could have possibly done to get those sorts of people that mad at him. He, what, hacked into their accounts? He stole their identities? And then her entire thought process derailed as it sank in. Not only was her brother obviously not who she thought he was but, "It's your fault." That realization hit her hard. Katie repeated quietly, "It's all your fault. This happened to me and it's because of you."

That hurt. And it hurt because it was true. Doug's anguish was clear on his face. "Yes," he said wearily. "I thought...I thought I could keep you safe if you didn't know the things I did, if I kept that part of my life separate. But I was wrong. And I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

"You're sorry? I was kidnapped! I was tied to a chair. I was locked in a room with a guard. I had no idea what was going on and you're fucking sorry?" Katie had advanced on him as she spoke until that last word was punctuated with a slap across Doug's face. "You thought and you were wrong. If you told me whatever it is that you get up to that's so bad it could get me kidnapped at least I could have watched out. I could have made sure I wasn't alone. I could have done something to keep me out of that room! But no. No, Doug thought and he was wrong but it's okay because he thought it was the right thing to do. You put me in danger and you think it's going to be okay?" Her hands, balled into fists, were landing on his shoulders and chest while tears streamed down her face. "It's all your fucking fault that this happened to me and you think 'sorry' is going to make it better?"

"No. No, I don't," Doug said sadly, not fighting back against Katie's attacks, but simply taking them on places on his arms and chest where they would cause no lasting damage. His eyes flicked to Emma, and he bowed his head at the thought of the unpleasant solution he'd not even articulated, as to how to protect Katie going forward. "I can make it so you never remember what happened," he said dully.

Katie was utterly still at the suggestion. Her hands remained fisted but hung at her sides. "No." The word was ice. "No. You don't get to take it away so it can happen all over again. You don't get to take the easy way out so you never have to earn my forgiveness. You don't get to do that. You make me forget and then I don't know that I need to be careful. I don't know that you're so bad that people might come after me to get even. You want me to think you're the good guy then be the good guy. You don't get to just make it so I don't remember that you're not. That you're not anything I thought you were, not even in the good things."

Doug shook his head. "I'm not a good guy. I just do the things that have to be done. Like this. This is the only way I can protect you, is if you're somewhere far away from here, and you and Jenny and mom and dad think it was your idea." He turned to look at Emma. "And I never come home, and never give anyone a reason to think that I'm close enough to my family to have them used against me ever again."

The younger Ramsey was shaking with anger. "I don't want to be anywhere near you. I won't come back and that is my idea. But no one gets to make me forget." Katie punctuated that reiteration by slapping her brother across the face again and then taking several steps away from him, as if somehow that would keep her memories in her mind intact.

"Doug can't "get me" to "make you" forget," said Emma, icily, contempt lacing through her reiteration of Katie's words. "What he can do is convince me that letting you remember is dangerous. To me. To him." She caught Katie's gaze as the girl turned back to look at her. Katie looked as if she wanted to scream at Emma, but Emma's force of will kept her mouth shut. "He told me you were clever and I believed him. It seems that belief was erroneous. You should judge a man by the standard of his enemies. You saw the least of his and it turned you to water. You can't begin to imagine what the worst of them could do to you. What they would do to people like us," Emma's nod encompassed Doug and herself, pointedly did not include Katie, "any day, any time, simply for how we were born. And be thankful for the paucity of your imagination, Katie, because the worst of what they could do would leave someone like you waking in screaming nightmares every day of your life." Emma stood up and walked around her desk to stand next to Doug. "I am proud of who our enemies are, Katie. I am sorry you were caught in our fight but I won't let you be a weakness to be exploited." Emma looked at Doug. "I can't take all of it away, Doug. She'll come back. I have to leave enough that she's afraid to be near you. It'll be easier if she hates you. Are you willing to pay that price?"

An involuntary mental image of Katie shambling through the New York Stock Exchange as one of Mastermold's 'meat spores' sprang into Doug's head at the mention of the worst of their enemies. He looked at his seething sister, then to Emma, and weighed those nightmares against the potentially steep price of protecting his family. "Do it," he said with a sorrowful, apologetic glance at Katie. "Send her wherever she wants to go," because between his skills and Emma's resources, they could easily make an emergency college transfer look legitimate. "Just so long as it's far away from here."

"Of course," said Emma. She turned back to Katie and her mind lashed out like a snake, transfixing the girl before she could respond. Or run. "I'm sorry, Doug," murmured Emma and then efficiently stripped out every part of Katie's experiences with Porter, with the Hellfire Club, with her brother in New York. With a few neat twists, she turned emotions inside it, twisted them around each other in a knot of unspecified hatred that would keep Katie as far away from Doug as she could manage. With a final hammer blow, Emma took away Katie's consciousness, reaching out and catching her easily as Katie slipped downwards towards the floor. Emma turned back to Doug, supporting his unconscious sister. "What would you like me to do with her?"

Doug turned his head away, unable to look at his unconscious sister. "Get her on a plane home. Pick out someplace for her to transfer to. Out on the West Coast or something. Make it so she and my family think it was her idea." His head bowed under the price he was having to pay for everything. "I..." His voice cracked for a moment, then he clenched a hand into a fist. "I don't need to know where."

"I'm sorry," said Emma, gently, sending out the slightest tendril of warmth to her Knight, touching his mind with her sorrow and compassion and then withdrawing it before it became painful. "Perhaps she'll be safe now. Sometimes that's the only thing we can offer our families. The safety of distance." For an instant, Emma thought of Adrienne, fled into hiding to save herself from the Black Court and then she let it go. With a surprisingly easy heft, Emma lifted Katie into her arms and left the room, leaving her Knight alone.