The Innocent (A 'Finder' Fanfiction)

Shadow of Pluto - 40 - Maxim

He ran out of tricks quickly – not that he had expected anything else. His chances to ever get any good at this game of "hide-and-seek and shoot dead with your own hand" had expired many, many years ago. Thenceforth, he had been a secretary to the devil at best. He had ordered other people's misery and had decreed for them to die but had never put a bullet into anybody himself.

His work had been pure theory without any drop of blood ever soiling his hands with color, even though the guilt was his of course, nonetheless.

When he had pulled open the door to what had once been his brother's childhood chamber, he had looked at the guard outside in fake surprise. "Aren't you guarding the wrong room?", he had asked, raising his eyebrows even higher.

The spell had worked for a mere second, in which the other's gaze had wandered down the corridor, wondering if indeed he stood one door too far up the hallway. Then, realization had beset him, making him understand that in fact Maxim had just stepped outside a room in which he had no right to be.

That second, however, had been all that had been needed. A tiny tint of surprise and Maxim had aimed, had pulled the lever, had killed.

When the man slid down in the door frame, momentarily he had not lowered the gun, which had suddenly felt so cold it seemed to burn into his flesh. Then Ryuichi had put a hand onto his shoulder.

Maxim had shrugged, had noticed a pained smiled to cross his face, then had thrown his doubts off. They had to go!

In front of the bedroom in which Akihito had been locked in for days, his luck had run out, as it had been anticipated. The boy had no reason to trust him – or anybody else for that matter. Maxim did not even manage to feel a pang of anger about it. It had not been the boy who had failed him, it had not been the fault of whatever men had suddenly appeared down the corridor – two it had seemed to him, and they appeared not to belong together. Overall, the search for the real culprit led back months, even years: his father.

At some point, all the routes of disaster ran back to him. And they had to end it, to finally be free.

All of them!

Maybe there were still some advantages on his side: He knew the mansion blindly, better than any of his men or of his father; very likely even better than his old man himself or his brother. Furthermore, he had always been very quiet. Even as he hurried down one corridor and up another, listening intently, he hardly ever had to exhale loudly because he was used to measuring his breathing to soothe the pain in his body. Whenever there was a step somewhere near, or an even fainter noise, he hid inside one room, slid along the walls and exited through another once he was absolutely sure there was no one outside.

At some point he came across a moaning man, lying face down, his arms twisted oddly behind his back. Maxim raised the gun, but let it sink right away. This one seemed hardly conscious, and even if he were, his arms would be no use of him. Furthermore, he had not wanted to kill anybody in front of his cats, who had sat on an armchair, watching the hurt man, as if his fate nothing but amused them.

When he left the room, they jumped down from the seat and followed him. In the door frame, he voiced to them nearly inaudibly to go back inside, but they did not listen. And there were steps somewhere further up the hall again. So, he had closed the door and had sneaked away.

The cats, though, had overtaken him soon, three white, graceful shapes that slid through the darkness in front of him without any noise but the hardly audible tingling of the bells around their necks. Now and then their eyes gleamed back at him as if to check that he was still there.

Whenever there was a corner, they paused, took a look at each of their options, then all together choose one. Maxim found himself following them. It was as good a route to select as any, it seemed at this point ...